Narrative Campaign General Discussion?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

We can have "Game Tutorials" and "Practice Matches." 

The Game Tutorials teach you things via guided learning. They are grouped by difficulty or advancement. You can play them sequentially or you can jump between Basic, Advanced, and Elite levels. These tutorials largely teach you mechanics, but in the Elite group of matches you learn strategies too. 

 

Practice Matches are grouped into groups based on type, such as Economic, Combat, Booming, etc. They are more freeform and unguided, but the only way to win is by completing the main Objective(s) of the match. In these matches, you are pushed and harried by AI opponents, who keep pressure on you while to try to complete the Objective(s). You can set the difficulty of these matches like you would any singleplayer Skirmish, and you are rewarded (somehow) by completing the Matches at higher difficulties. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

7 minutes ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

i also had some narrative choices I kind of wanted to implement nothing hard fast or anything though, I’m willing to work on writing / design for campaigns but I can’t do map stuff or scripting or anything like that.

I can design scenarios but not script them.

I can write a script and some dialogue. I'm very good at creating stories.

[Lion.Kanzen]

18 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

We can have "Game Tutorials" and "Practice Matches." 

The Game Tutorials teach you things via guided learning. They are grouped by difficulty or advancement. You can play them sequentially or you can jump between Basic, Advanced, and Elite levels. These tutorials largely teach you mechanics and macro. 

 

Practice Matches are grouped into groups based on type, such as Economic, Combat, Booming, etc. They are more freeform and unguided, but the only way to win is by completing the main Objective(s) of the match. In these matches, you are pushed and harried by AI opponents, who keep pressure on you while to try to complete the Objective(s). You can set the difficulty of these matches like you would any singleplayer Skirmish, and you are rewarded (somehow) by completing the Matches at higher difficulties. 

The challenges...

The Art of War is a campaign in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. It is a series of short scenarios that serve as challenges to test the player's skills in using more advanced strategies such as booming, rushing, and turtling, while also expanding on game mechanics such as unit counters and battle formations.

https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/The_Art_of_War_(Age_of_Empires_II)

This type of scenario is definitely desired. 

It gives more variety to the single player.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

16 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

The challenges...

The Art of War is a campaign in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. It is a series of short scenarios that serve as challenges to test the player's skills in using more advanced strategies such as booming, rushing, and turtling, while also expanding on game mechanics such as unit counters and battle formations.

https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/The_Art_of_War_(Age_of_Empires_II)

This type of scenario is definitely desired. 

It gives more variety to the single player.

Yep, this is what we should do, in concert with a more traditional guided tutorial campaign/series of scenarios based on skill level. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Yep, this is what we should do, in concert with a more traditional guided tutorial campaign/series of scenarios based on skill level. 

I never played one of those.

I've only tried the micro-based Starcraft ones.

 

 

[Vantha]

10 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

I’m willing to work on writing / design for campaigns but I can’t do map stuff or scripting or anything like that.

9 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

I can design scenarios but not script them.

I can script them.

 

10 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

at least in my mind we had the rough idea of starting working on that after the encyclopedia, I’m not sure if @Vantha was on the complete same page, however.

Yes, I had something similiar in mind too.

I want to completely honest, even though it hurts: Progress of writing the encyclopedia has been stalling lately, I'm afraid "after the encyclopedia" won't be anytime soon. I don't think it's a bad time to lay that aside for a bit, help with some tutorial campaigns, and after some time pick it up again. For a fresh new start. Maybe even with some personnel reinforcements. The eventual merge of the GUI page will also provide a good boost in motivation.

 

As much as I support all the ideas in this thread, I believe we should settle for something smaller (but not worse) for now. We need to define a clear starting point and set a realistic goal. I hope it works out and I would love to get the stone rolling now.

[ShadowOfHassen]

1 hour ago, Vantha said:

I want to completely honest, even though it hurts: Progress of writing the encyclopedia has been stalling lately, I'm afraid "after the encyclopedia" won't be anytime soon. I don't think it's a bad time to lay that aside for a bit, help with some tutorial campaigns, and after some time pick it up again. For a fresh new start. Maybe even with some personnel reinforcements. The eventual merge of the GUI page will also provide a good boost in motivation.

Well, this might be better on the encyclopedia forum, but from my point of view the biggest thing that is holding it up is merging the UI. I really don't want to push any more articles until the UI is exactly the way we want it, mostly because we already are going to have to go back and spruce up the old articles with images and everything and I don't want to have to redo a ton of work.

Also because we're kind of moving from articles linked to every unit to in depth articles about things in civilization, you and I @Vantha might want to have a talk about what we want to cover in the articles and what should be in shorter descriptions/history bits in the units. For example, we do not need the history bits I wrote for the treasures to be in an encyclopedia page because that would be kind of boring and kind of pointless. I think it would be perfect to see it in game, so players can learn about it, but it doesn't need to be in the encyclopedia. Just as the 4-paragraph articles we've written on siege engines probably doesn't need to be the first thing somebody sees in game about the battering ram.

Going forward though, after all that the encyclopedia will sadly be really slow, other than the Romans and maybe the Celtic tribes we're getting to the more niche civilizations and to make sure we're not spreading misinformation we'll need to do a lot of research. It also doesn't help that search is showing up more bad websites for me.

Anyway that's a long way of saying, yeah the encyclopedia is going to be some time and we're going to have to work some things through, and starting on a campaign might be fun.

 

I do have an idea of an introductory story campaign  (maybe not a tutorial, but a campaign) about Athens setting up a colony on the cost of Turkey (I think that's where it is?) I think that might be a good place to start. It'd be like 1-4 scenarios, and need dialog and some kind of cinematic overviews, and some scripting. I can elaborate if anybody wants.

[Lion.Kanzen]

4 hours ago, Vantha said:

As much as I support all the ideas in this thread, I believe we should settle for something smaller (but not worse) for now. We need to define a clear starting point and set a realistic goal. I hope it works out and I would love to get the stone rolling now

It always starts with a small idea and develops little by little making it a little more complex.

First screen - campaign selection -

What is sought is to have a fairly graphical interface, with a map and the different factions on it.

Obviously we'll start simple with a list and a drawing of the map.

Second screen. -Scenario selection -

On the second map there will be a list of scenarios, difficulty selection, back and play buttons.

On the left side three buttons: instructions, hints and history.

Below is an illustrative map.

And above the name of the campaign.

On the right side is a list of scenarios that should be unlocked.

[Vantha]

Why don't we start with the scenarios themselves? Shouldn't the content itself be of first priority? I mean, we already have a campaign menu - albeit a very basic one.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Just now, Vantha said:

Why don't we start with the scenarios themselves? Shouldn't the content itself be of first priority? I mean, we already have a campaign menu - albeit a very basic one.

Because you have to select campaigns and I think that's how it already works.

[Vantha]

Sorry, but I don't get what you mean. The current menu can do everything we need for now.

I'm not denying the fact that we need a new campaign overview menu - we totally do. And I like the design you proposed, but implementing it should come last in my opinion. Creating the UI page is a lot easier when we already concrete, tangible content for it.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

It's true that we don't need fancy new UI code to start on the scenarios. But, it must be decided first what form these tutorials will take.

[Lion.Kanzen]

29 minutes ago, Vantha said:

Sorry, but I don't get what you mean. The current menu can do everything we need for now.

I'm not denying the fact that we need a new campaign overview menu - we totally do. And I like the design you proposed, but implementing it should come last in my opinion. Creating the UI page is a lot easier when we already concrete, tangible content for it.

That's going to take time.

We do not agree on how to implement the learning campaign.

We do not know which factions will comprise it.

If we compare the current tutorial, it doesn't have a story, it's just a bunch of instructions.

It has no immersion.

Even youtubers use it to show game content, it's not very entertaining.

It's not that it's bad, it just lacks personality, a kind of sharing.

It's good to practice.

 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

8 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

It's true that we don't need fancy new UI code to start on the scenarios. But, it must be decided first what form these tutorials will take.

Let's think about the first scenario, it's the longest for someone who has never played.

I found a couple of videos, they can teach us what a player needs in the first few minutes.

 

 

 

Let's not forget the basic controls.

 

 

[Grautvornix]

21 hours ago, Grautvornix said:

I am loving it! Could there be a way to carry over resources from one game to the next in row?

Just to complete this argumentation here is the link to a short thread about this subject discussing various pros and cons: 

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 minute ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Let's think about the first scenario, it's the longest for someone who has never played.

 

I meant, do we want one long narrative campaign, or do we want to go with the newer ideas presented in that video of lessons that are self-guided.  

[Lion.Kanzen]

35 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I meant, do we want one long narrative campaign, or do we want to go with the newer ideas presented in that video of lessons that are self-guided.  

That's the main question, either way, it would be the first campaign and it would be easy, but not boring.

We can do it like this:

Learning scenario and then 3 different scenarios to practice the first one. And then another and again more scenarios to practice.

[Vantha]

20 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Learning scenario and then 3 different scenarios to practice the first one. And then another and again more scenarios to practice.

That is a good plan in my opinion. I don't think players who've never played an RTS before can learn the essential mechanics only through the self-guided setting. For the practice games, I'd would put hardly any guide rails in place. It should very well be possible to fail at the first attempt. Players should feel challenged, that is part of the fun. What we can do to help those completely off-track, is add some sort of "coach" that notifies the player after some time when too many units are idle, too few houses build to train more, etc. - as it has already been suggested earlier in thread.

[Lion.Kanzen]

10 minutes ago, Vantha said:

That is a good plan in my opinion. I don't think players who've never played an RTS before can learn the essential mechanics only through the self-guided setting. For the practice games, I'd would put hardly any guide rails in place. It should very well be possible to fail at the first attempt. Players should feel challenged, that is part of the fun. What we can do to help those completely off-track, is add some sort of "coach" that notifies the player after some time when too many units are idle, too few houses build to train more, etc. - as it has already been suggested earlier in thread.

Yes, that's basically what the video says about how to make a good tutorial.

 

 

[Vantha]

1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Yes, that's basically what the video says about how to make a good tutorial.

I know, I just wanted to reiterate to ensure we're all on the same page.

 

Also, what should we choose thematically?

@ShadowOfHassen what's with the idea for an outline that you mentioned?

[Lion.Kanzen]

16 minutes ago, Vantha said:

2 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Yes, that's basically what the video says about how to make a good tutorial.

I know, I just wanted to reiterate to ensure we're all on the same page

I'm still not sure, we should do a survey(poll) before making any scenario.

In fact we should make a story with characters and a historical background.

That needs to be decided too.

 

I can think of a group of Greek colonists founding colonies and helping their neighbors against a common enemy.

Edited October 15 by Lion.Kanzen

[ShadowOfHassen]

31 minutes ago, Vantha said:

@ShadowOfHassen what's with the idea for an outline that you mentioned?

Long story short, it's about a group of Athenians who want to create a colony in Thrace (the aeaa between modern day Greece and Turkey)  The brief Outline is:

The year would be around 600 BC ish, I've seen records of colonies created there around then like this one ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolis_(Thrace))

I think a made up hero should be created for the campaigns as a sort of POV character for the people to focus on.

Scenario 1: A scouting party is trying to look for a good place for a settlement, they fight some wild animals on their way to find a good place. In my mind this scenario would cover basic movement, attacks, treasures and some other tricks. It's sounds simple enough, but we kind of need the tutorial to help the people who've never played an RTS before or it's been a long time since they did. In the end, they find a place for a settlement.

In scenario 2 the fledgling colony expands, building farms, working mines and even meeting with the local people (Some kind of Persia/Macidonian civilization that is very basic and doesn't have anything that dates it past the time ) The player would learn resource gathering, resource drop places, building, advancing to the town phase, and finally allies and trading.

A few times bandits/ raiders (some civilization I don't know which) would try to attack either the player or their ally at the end there's a big force of men spotted and the player has 5 minutes to prepare and a (fairly) small army comes, they defeat it but decide to go after the bandits

 

Scenario 3 would teach the ins and out of combat with you setting up to attack a bandit camp and building siege engines etc.

The campaign would have to be supplemented by more complex tutorials for things, but I think a simple campaign that eases you into the history (You don't have to know a lot, they're just building a colony) and the mechanics will help newcomers to both ancient history and 0 A.D. (and the RTS genre too.)

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

29 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

 

The battles between Persians and Greeks are a highlight. I would reserve it for the first campaign trilogy.

I would build the story of how the Greeks became problematic for the Persians.

 

[Vantha]

On 16/10/2024 at 12:03 AM, Lion.Kanzen said:

I'm still not sure, we should do a survey(poll) before making any scenario.

Not sure about what exactly? The tutorial's general structure?