[Wesnoth-dev] Aiming for 1.0

[Nils Kneuper]

Hi everyone!
In my last mail I wrote some stuff that seems rather important to me,
so I do not want to have it lost in a "dead-thread". Some of the
points also justify a thread for their own. This one will be quite
long, so sorry for this.
I Think we should really head for 1.0. The game looks very complete to
me, though there are some points I want to menition in this mail, that
could need some work:

1) CAMPAIGNS:
Some of the campaigns do not fit into mainline at the moment.
Either we should work on them, or we should kick them out. I am
speaking of SotBE and TdH. These are incomplete and do not really fit
to the rest.
We should also consider getting them completely out of the game and
maybe getting one or two good and complete user campaigns into it
instead.
Also it would be nice if at least one campaign was designed for
beginners that do not have much experience in playing TBS games. They
maybe only played the tutorial and find httt very hard afterwards. At
least one campaign should be winnable by an unexpierienced user even
on medium.

2) UNITS:
Is it really needed to get in more units? The units in 0.9.1 were
looking quite complete. Should we really add more units to the game?
There are already very many units. This makes it hard for beginners
and even harder to balance.
We should leave the units (and their attacks) like they were. We
should only change it, when balancing (next point) needs it.
I really like the idea of having more drakes personally, but I do not
think it is good for the game. This will make our progress into the
direction of 1.0 by far harder. I do think they should stay like they
are now.
I also do strongly speak against adding the high elves. This will
destroy several stuff again. Changing Kalenz to have a "cold" attack,
makes httt somehow imba, because you have to fight undead in some
missions in which Kalenz already joind you. And cold is really not
good against undead. Maybe httt has completele be revised now. Because
of this I speak for reverting the changes to Kalenz.
The high-elves may be added as "unofficial-unit-pack". I do not think
we do really need them for mainline, though they are a nice idea after
all. But not for mainline ATM.

3) BALANCING:
This one is the hardest points. All the unit additions and changes of
the last days, like changing the saurian, are not best for the game I
think. The drakes were playable because of this unit that easyly died
if you are not carefull enough. Witout a magic attack, they will only
be like the rest. The drakes will be weak and not really usable at
all.
I think we should have the units features like in 0.9.1. Some changes
for balancing are needed, yes. But I think multiplayermode in 0.9.1
was not too bad. Some tweaking to resistances and defnces or costs,
yes. But NO big changes like complete new skills to some units (cf
Tribalist and Sky Drake).
For these balancing issues we should listen to the experienced
MP-Players a lot more. If we get MP really balanced, single player
will be rather balanced, too. The last balancing on singleplayer can
be done by (very little) adjustments at the design of some maps. We
got some good players, who know the best tactics, that are even willing
to help us, why not listen to them?

4) MORE EXTRA FEATURES:
Are there more extra features for 1.0 needed? The game looks somehow
feature complete to me. There may be stuff that could be adjusted and
improved (modularisation) but these things could also break a lot. I
do speak in favour of letting the game like it is now, concentrate
(mainly) on fixing bugs and get it really stable so that 1.0 can be
realsed. If you know any knew features that really do need to make it
in, feel free to mail.

5) TRANSLATIONS:
That one is the point that concerns me most personally. We do have to
make a decission when we should add a translation to 1.0. Should there
only be complete translations, or also the ones just started? I would
like it, if we included the complete ones, and make it optional to
install others when they are completed. It could work with a check for
the existance of the dir of the corresponding language.
I do not think it would be good to have a translation in the game
where only 10% are translated. What do you think of this?

6) LEADING THE GAME TO 1.0:
I do really think we do need someone that leads the game to 1.0 it has
to be done with a rather hard hand. The person doing it should be
familiar with the complete game and the code. So I am not able to do
this (puhhhh). I would really like it if Dave could continue until 1.0
is out and hand it over afterwards?
I think we could really complete Wesnoth to be in the state of
releasing 1.0 very soon. It should be possible to do this in the term
of this year. Sometime between autumn and christmas it could be done,
so please Dave, stay this long and lead us.

So these are the main points I wanted to write about. As I already
said, it was quite much, but I think it had to be written. Please
comment on this and help to release 1.0 soon.
Cheers,
Nils Kneuper aka Ivanovic