#oldnoth

[shield-of-wesnoth]

Wishing that the changelogs of Wesnoth’s development between versions were really complete... a lot of development/unstable versions’ specific update features aren’t on the official changelogs that are currently online.  It doesn’t sound like a big problem, but it really adds up in terms of digital media history preservation!  It really gets to me since I was there when the changelogs were truly comprehensive-- I remember reading them as a kid-- it just so happened that nobody bothered to archive those pages before the website hosting them at that time went down.  Makes me sad!

[shield-of-wesnoth]

Really wish I could get old-- as in really old-- version of Wesnoth to run on my PC.

I have a Windows 10 computer that’s almost a decade old now, and though it runs Wesnoth 0.1 (the very first one), in terms of other ancient Wesnoth versions, I can’t get anything older than 0.9.7 to run.  I used to have a Windows 7 laptop, and it could run Wesnoth 0.8.4!  I don’t know what happened between Windows updates, but when I try to open 0.8.4 on my PC, it just doesn’t work at all. The only thread I have to go on is that maybe Windows 10 comes with different .dlls, and stopped including certain older ones that older Wesnoth needs..?  Because I got a popup about a missing one when I tried opening 0.8.4′s map editor, and when I installed that .dll there-- though it still didn’t work-- it suddenly was able to make the screen black for a second before giving up, which was more than before.  But having gotten no more error messages since then, and having no luck with running it in compatibility mode, I’ve been stuck ever since.

A lot of my 1.2 and earlier Wesnoths experience bugs that they don’t on older hardware, too... can’t think of a single one that doesn’t crash if I try and change the screen resolution.  Many also experience awful graphical errors if I switch between windowed and fullscreen mode that don’t go away until I restart the program.  There’s also some annoying flickering effects with the monochrome cursor set (my favorite one...) that are only lessened-- not fully gone-- if I use the color cursor.  And in one of the most mysterious and sad glitches of all, in pre-1.2, Delfador’s sprites are prone to inexplicably not appearing in the game where he’s present!  All of this simply did not happen on even slightly older hardware. Some older Wesnoths I’ve been unable to try at all, since they’re based in Linux, and you have to “build” and “compile” them rather than simply double-clicking an executable... and sadly, I am not that much of a nerd yet to do such things easily.  But even then, Wesnoth 0.3 has an executable, but it merely brings up a command prompt window, turns the screen black, then closes before I can read anything clearly... and running compatibility mode has only made that one worse.

This isn’t even all limited to just ancient Wesnoth, either!  Right now, and even on my Windows 7, I’ve experienced a terrible issue with versions of Wesnoth 1.8 where they simply do not register manually installed add-ons.  This is kind of a huge deal, since the manual way is now the only way to install its fanmade content, since its server no longer connects in the program!!  This is perhaps due to the fact that holding add-ons outside the “campaigns” folder was a new feature at the time, and it had some unforeseen issues (even when it still could connect, for some reason, I never found out where they’re stored?).  This is an absolute travesty, since 1.8 was one of the highest points for UMC creativity and output, and now all of that can’t really be played on its intended software. In 1.12, sometimes the names and descriptions of most of my installed add-ons, and all of the text inside them, simply will not display.  I spent hours trying to pin this down to one add-on by removing and replacing them, to no avail.  Because it impacts multiple campaigns at once, and sometimes seemed to impact different ones, I couldn’t figure it out.  I have several dozen add-ons for 1.12, and I have no idea if it’s one add-on in particular causing the issue, or the fact that I have a ton of them by itself.  1.12 isn’t even that old!  It’s a relatively new one, already showing wear and tear for mysterious unknown reasons!!  The only comfort is that it doesn’t always happen, but I don’t know how much longer that may be the case.

Responses on the forum to modestly bringing up these issues seem to usually be “just play the latest version instead”, but I don’t always want to do that!  I shouldn’t have to do that!  The older versions still have their charms, and their unique style, lots of minor differences that build up, and sometimes I don’t want to have to wait for some kind soul with plenty of time to port it for me.  I don’t know how to use wmllint to port them myself (why can’t anyone explain it concisely?!), and even if I did, a lot of old UMC is buggy even on its intended version, and wmllint apparently struggles with things like custom terrains.

I guess I just wish there was more maintenance and advice out there for running older versions of this game in the modern era... advice that’s accessible and so on... I’m unsure if anyone else still cares about older versions of Wesnoth, but I certainly do.  Wesnoth's older versions were a big part of my childhood!  And even the versions that were so old that I never tried them as a child still fascinate and charm me.  I just wish I was skilled enough to support them myself.

[shield-of-wesnoth]

I think I’ve finally pinned down the introduction of the new Mage line baseframes to 1.2.2!

The original announcement thread mentions introducing several new graphics, and one comment under the 1.2.1 announcement laments several new graphics not yet being implemented-- meaning it’s likeliest 1.2.2 when the updated graphics for the Magi, Footpads, and Elvish Fighter were added!  I wish I could find the changelogs for the full 1.2.x branch so I could get a true confirmation, but this is better than nothing!  Have added it to the feature timeline on my PC, will update the webpage here accordingly eventually.

[shield-of-wesnoth]

New Page Added!

My personal Wesnoth feature timeline now is readable online!  It still exists as a .txt on my PC for easy viewing/editing, but now you too can peruse it for whatever reasons you like!  It’s always a WIP, so it’ll gradually be added onto as I find missing/more-accurate info and prioritize different versions and features.

[shield-of-wesnoth]

Sand Trolls are from IftU

Posting this as a reminder to myself because it’s absurdly hard to find this info online for some reason, and I keep forgetting!  You can find the units’ info is there in the units list for 1.6 in google search, but for some reason it won’t let you find what campaign they’re native to.  I had to see a raw data Turkish translation progress page from wescamp on github listing the units to find out where they’re from.

It’s Invasion from the Unknown.

They also seem to be in 1.4!  Not sure if they’re present in 1.8 or later right now, but mystery solved.  Now I can just look at this post instead of going off on more wild goose chases.  Yay for the sand trolls!