[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Related to the arcane discussion I would like to ask the following: > > * What is the base of Wesnoths setting? > > I thought it was medieval Western European folklore, but it doesn't seem > like we really have any clear vision on it. Several including me argue > that the Arcane change is not internally consistent with this folklore. > Furthermore we have several other aspects like the drakes which doesn't > fit at all either. > > Quite clearly a lot of the content in Wesnoth is more or less thrown > together at random as they got made. I guess this is fine if we are to > keep the setting as a vague: if it can be vaguely related to medieval > folklore, LOTR, various DnD settings it's all dandy. However, I would like > to have a more fleshed out and consistent setting. Having a good setting > makes for a more interesting game and it makes it easier to make content > for because we agree on what is the guidelines for making it internally > consistent.
First of all, this is what I think is the purpose of having a defined setting in Wesnoth (and which everyone seems to agree with): To work as a rough guide for content makers on how to make their work consistent with the existing content and to give them other good ideas. Also just as background information to make things make more sense to people who are interested in knowing the background for races, factions or whatever (if you like any game, you usually like to read more about the setting of its world, characters and such; or at least that's the case for me). I don't myself see much value choosing to in adhere to an "external" base setting (medieval folklore, LotR, DnD or whatever it is), but rather I'd want Wesnoth to have its setting be separate from those from which it was originally derived from. This doesn't mean that we couldn't use elements from the base setting(s), just that we wouldn't put much value on doing things like they are in the base setting just to be consistent with the base setting. Sure, Wesnoth has stereotypical elves, orcs and dwarves and whatnot, but I don't see why anyone, even and especially a player, would want or expect us to adhere to the LotR/DnD/etc stereotypes elsewhere just because we did so in some places. For example elves were derived from other settings, but that doesn't mean that every attribute of our elves needs to adhere to the elves of those other settings, or needs to not be inconsistent with them. To me, the setting mostly explains the current content in a consistent way, leaving some hooks for ideas here and there. The setting doesn't exist without the game and we can't change the game to fit in with the setting (beyond relatively minor things anyway), so in my mind we must make the setting fit the game. I don't see medieval european folklore or any other clearly defined and consistent setting as really fitting the game (due to the mish-mash of random elements added to the game over time) that well, although I wouldn't mind being proven wrong (see the end of this mail). > So, are people content with just having a mish-mash of random elements of > fantasy, or do we want to try to make a more internally consistent and > interesting setting? > > And furthermore what should it be based on? I firmly believe that as of > now we have no one competent to make a complete and interesting setting > from scratch. Yes, I want a more internally consistent setting. I myself want it to be based on what we have in the game as much as possible, as we 1) can't change many major things about the game and 2) it's not very interesting if big parts of the setting don't have much to do with the things you actually encounter in the game. Which is why for example while writing racial descriptions I focus on describing societies, physical features and how proponents of the race tend to think and react to different situations; these are the things you encounter in the game (campaigns). For example the argument against arcane not fitting in seems to me to be based on arcane not fitting in with the very attributes of (for example) elves and undead which are irrelevant in Wesnoth, not with any that are. I'm not saying everything which doesn't have anything to do with the game itself directly is bad (as I said, having extra background info is nice to have), just that retaining it has very little value in itself. Of course, my idea of what these base settings Wesnoth is/was based on were like is a bit sketchy. If I don't know what the base setting is, I don't know what the Wesnoth setting is, and neither is described in detail anywhere. In theory, I'm fine with any setting that fits the game and which I don't dislike, unique or not. I have just never come across one, which is why above I say I'd rather have a formally unique setting based more or less on what we have now, because the alternatives are unknown to me. -- Lari Nieminen [EMAIL PROTECTED] +358443758373 _______________________________________________ Wesnoth-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/wesnoth-dev
