Adding storylines to scenarios and campaigns

[Vantha]

3 hours ago, Stan` said:

 

I came across this a while ago, I have yet to try it out, but it looks fantastic. It's one of the things that I'd like to pick up or help with, if only I had more time.

[ShadowOfHassen]

On 15/05/2025 at 10:14 AM, Vantha said:

If there's no clear tendency then I suggest to provide both options and leave it too up to campaign makers how and when to use them.

Offhand, do both.

[Vantha]

On 17/05/2025 at 1:28 PM, ShadowOfHassen said:

Offhand, do both.

Alright, that's what I'll do, likely starting with the parchment overlay. There's some other stuff I have to finish first, but I will get to this soon.

[Vantha]

I need some help with naming. How should one instance of the story parchment overlay, text and image together, be called in the game? E.g. for the button tooltip: "Switch to the next/previous ______". Something like a "chapter", but shorter than that.

[Gurken Khan]

"page" or "paragraph"?

[Grautvornix]

17 hours ago, Vantha said:

I need some help with naming. How should one instance of the story parchment overlay, text and image together, be called in the game? E.g. for the button tooltip: "Switch to the next/previous ______". Something like a "chapter", but shorter than that.

Some further possible names:

• Story
• Topic
• Page
• Subject
• Point
• Item
• Line
• Aspect
• Article
• Episode
• Saga
• Poem
• Epic (my favourite at the moment)
• Book (too large, but nice and short)

An if you build it like the Iliad or an old Saga: 

• Verse
• Line
• Saw that might be in ancient Greek στίχος (stichos)

 

[Grautvornix]

An issue may be to match the character and style of the text to that naming convention. If it was a "page", "item" or "point" then it would refer to more sober academic style, while naming it "epic","verse" or the like it would require a bit more stylish language. And that might need to be adapted to the respective subject and region, e.g. are we talking about something in ancient Greece or Rome, or in a Britannic, Indian, Persian or East Asian environment. 

[Vantha]

I will keep it general and go for just "page". It's not the 100% fitting term, but it's simple, and players will understand what it refers to.

[Vantha]

Good news, folks!

https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/8318

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

[guerringuerrin]

This is really nice work, @Vantha. Thanks!

[Grautvornix]

@VanthaVery well done! Thank you very much!

[Vantha]

I want to implement a system for unit speech/dialogue in cutscenes next, inspired by that mockup. 

Should I add a "next" button (to the bottom right probably) for the player to click through the dialogue themselves? Or always switch to the next line after a set amount of time, like a predefined cutscene? How do other games do it?

It would of course be possible to provide both options and leave the choice up to campaign makers. Could that be worth it? Or would one option of those two be always be preferred anyway?

[Grautvornix]

My preference would a "next" button - just in case you are a bit distracted or it takes a bit longer to read, then you might miss that page. Also, if you introduce a preset timeout, there will be arguments both to reduce it and to increase it depending on whom you ask.  Making that "next" a user decision avoids these discussions.

[Vantha]

Ok, I'll add a next button then.

It might make sense to support maximum durations that each line is shown nonetheless; mainly for dialogue in time-critical points of scenarios, to prevent players from gaining an advantage by artificially stalling the game by just not closing the dialogue. At least I imagine it could help in some cases to better enforce a certain pace, in maps like Survival of the Fittest.

[Classic-Burger]

14 minutes ago, Vantha said:

Ok, I'll add a next button then.

It might make sense to support maximum durations that each line is shown nonetheless; mainly for dialogue in time-critical points of scenarios, to prevent players from gaining an advantage by artificially stalling the game by just not closing the dialogue. At least I imagine it could help in some cases to better enforce a certain pace, in maps like Survival of the Fittest.

I saw that Wraitii wrote you something about the events of Paradox games.

I think it's fair to a trigger that gives a decision dialogue.

This happened in Rome II especially in Divide Empire dlc.

Events occur throughout the course of play of Imperator: Rome. There are a whole range of events in the game, which can result in positive, negative and mixed outcomes for a player's country. They can either take the form of a pop-up notification on the player's screen or may optionally appear in the Event Queue, and they might present a player with a choice between various options or simply inform the player that something has happened and let them understand the context and consequences. Events can be fired randomly as the result of a regular on action pulse or be triggered by an action, decision, mission, or as a followup to another event, possibly with time delays or from another country's actions.

 

https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Events

 

[Vantha]

22 hours ago, Classic-Burger said:

I think it's fair to a trigger that gives a decision dialogue.

This happened in Rome II especially in Divide Empire dlc.

Events occur throughout the course of play of Imperator: Rome. There are a whole range of events in the game, which can result in positive, negative and mixed outcomes for a player's country. They can either take the form of a pop-up notification on the player's screen or may optionally appear in the Event Queue, and they might present a player with a choice between various options or simply inform the player that something has happened and let them understand the context and consequences. Events can be fired randomly as the result of a regular on action pulse or be triggered by an action, decision, mission, or as a followup to another event, possibly with time delays or from another country's actions.

 

https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Events

 

I see. This might be surprising to hear, but the essence of this is technically already possible in 0ad. It is possible in scenario scripts to push basic decision dialogs to the player and then wait and react differently depending on what the player chose. Now, the system isn't optimised for showing a lot of dialogs in a single game, as the code can get quite cumbersome, but it is surprisingly versatile and works. The reason it's so unknown is because it isn't actually used in any playable scenarios right now, there's only a small demonstration of it in the "Triggers Demo" map (the yes-no dialog).

Sooner or later, I'd like to write a full guide about embedding storylines in scenarios and campaigns, to show that features like this exist and how to use them.

[Vantha]

Back to the unit dialogue overlay, do you think player inputs (hovering, selecting, giving commands, ...) should be ignored while the dialogue is shown? As it is done in full "cinema path" cutscenes (that's how it's called in the code) like the one shown in the "Cinema Demo" map?

[Classic-Burger]

That depends on the context in which it occurs.

[Classic-Burger]

https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Events

Those are definitely Paradox Game events. I think Wraitii is thinking about using these events for the strategic campaign mode.