Narrative Campaign General Discussion?

[alre]

I think it's a mistake to take campaigns like those from starcraft or aom as a model for a historical game like ours. it can be quite awkward to attribute to historical characters narrative roles, including personal drives, flings and fights, character arcs and plot twists.

The main selling point for historical RTS is to give players the chance to reenact big historical moments. Impervim GBOR understood that and introduced their scripted scenarios with effective short videos:

https://youtu.be/9KNsYGoogxY?si=Cn6NvHu8nIb3aOOr

Inside the scenarios, there are dialogues, but they are relevant for the game mostly, not for the story or for narration.

[Lion.Kanzen]

10 minutes ago, alre said:

I think it's a mistake to take campaigns like those from starcraft or aom as a model for a historical game like ours. it can be quite awkward to attribute to historical characters narrative roles, including personal drives, flings and fights, character arcs and plot twists

There are parts that might make sense like the Punic Wars or Caesar's campaign.

I actually aim for many scenarios like those in AoE I.

Simple start, few buildings, few units.

Very different from many AoM scenarios.

 

Edited 20 hours ago by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

22 minutes ago, alre said:

Inside the scenarios, there are dialogues, but they are relevant for the game mostly, not for the story or for narration.

I don't intend to spin a story from the dialogues in the scenes.

The context would be explained in the "brief".

Scenario instructions and history .

Then in some scenarios there will be small dialogues at the beginning, see the first minutes of the Roman civil war scenario in the empire earth campaign.

To be honest I don't want script abuse, I want few interruptions, not many like in Age of Empires II.

Edited 20 hours ago by Lion.Kanzen

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 19/12/2024 at 1:14 PM, Vantha said:

I'm aware of the tool, but I'm afraid it alone won't cut it in many places. While great-looking, the new textures can't really be matched 1:1  to all the old ones.

 

On 19/12/2024 at 7:00 PM, Lion.Kanzen said:

@wowgetoffyourcellphone

You probably need to add a yellowish tone and it would be a Spanish variant.

 

Okay, I get it now, guys. 

Please use the Aegean_Anatolian textures for now and after A27 is released I'll make an "Iberian" set of terrains for you to use. I'll base it 1:1 on the Aegean_Anatolian set, but adjust the colors and a few other things to match these references. Basically a bit browner/yellower version of Aegean_Anatolian. Then you can easily use the Replace tool in Atlas. 

Sound like a plan?

[Lion.Kanzen]

27 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Iberian

Iberian Levantine/ Baetica

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Just for fun:

[Lion.Kanzen]

39 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Just for fun:

Perfect I like.

Btw ...Are you going to put exclamations like in Titan Quest or an RPG?

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

50 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Just for fun:

Another idea, I like that of giving the objectives in a narrative way at the beginning of the scenario.

As in the screenshots.

[Lion.Kanzen]

8 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Another idea, I like that of giving the objectives in a narrative way at the beginning of the scenario.

As in the screenshots.

Basically, narrative is immersion in the story, context, and objectives of the mission.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

17 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Perfect I like.

Btw ...Are you going to put exclamations like in Titan Quest or an RPG?

 

Right, some kind of bouncing or glowing icon over the speaking unit in-world would be good. 

 

9 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Another idea, I like that of giving the objectives in a narrative way at the beginning of the scenario.

As in the screenshots.

Right. I can envision the black bars disappearing, the camera pulling back to gameplay zoom distance, and then the Objectives pop up in a checkbox list.

"Gather your supplies with your Citizens and find a good spot to build your Civic Center!"

 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

20 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Right. I can envision the black bars disappearing, the camera pulling back to gameplay zoom distance, and then the Objectives pop up in a checkbox list.

 Those bars are like a panoramic cinema composition 

Epic film style.

 

 

Edited 13 hours ago by Lion.Kanzen

[Vantha]

14 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Please use the Aegean_Anatolian textures for now and after A27 is released I'll make an "Iberian" set of terrains for you to use. I'll base it 1:1 on the Aegean_Anatolian set, but adjust the colors and a few other things to match these references. Basically a bit browner/yellower version of Aegean_Anatolian. Then you can easily use the Replace tool in Atlas. 

Sound like a plan?

Oh, actually, I already did quite a bit of painting with the new textures, using a palette of Aegean-Anatolian grass and dirt and some sand and cliff textures from the desert biome (mostly the Persian variants). I think it works well enough: