list.txt

Some comments from szopen; edited to remove personal things:

A lot of time and thought went into the creation of the plot. At the time of
creation of this campaign, I felt there was lack of "grown up" campaign, so I
decided to create one of my own. Most of the sentences in this storyline have some
purpose. This campaign is GPLed, but if someone wants to substantially change the
storyline (like changing the relations between main characters, or psyche of some
characters, or SAVING KAREN!!!!), it would really be better to change the name of
campaign as well. In other words, if there would be any major change to the
storyline, please do not use the "A New Order" name. I really loved my storyline,
I really lived with it, and I really hate the idea that someone would change it.
I do not mean of course removing grammar errors, or cutting bits and there here,
changing the speech register and like, I mean only substantial changes to
character, psyche, plot etc. 

However, there are some things which can be changed with my full blessing. I want
to write about several things I wanted to do, so future developers can have a
better picture of the campaign.

In fact, ANO is about 2/3 of the length intended for it at the beginning. But I
got too tired in the end, and resigned from a few subplots:

1) Mithrandil and the whole idea of an elvish conspiracy to kill off Haldric's
descendants. I decided that it would not add much, that it was too unbelievable,
and thus removed it. However, there are still two(?) remains: 
 a) It makes no sense for Mithrandil to have wrinkles. (He does?)
 b) The following line can be (and has been) removed:
in ano-29, line 67:
"The elves believed, that with his death the curse of Haldric which was put
long ago upon the Wesnoth and descendants of Haldric was finally relieved.
Mithrandil, the only elf ever with wrinkles, finally could die, gleefully"
It has no sense now. I forgot about that.
 c) There is an unused map (maps/RaedwoodEast.map) that has some elvish villages
that seems like it might have been used for a scenario for this subplot?

2) Initially I intended player to have chance to find out about Lorin. At the
beginning, I wanted the player to find out that Lorin had an older sister, who
was poisoned; later I decided that it's better to have it unsolved, partially
because it was too much work to add subplots. This only remains in scenario 13,
with the ano_lorin_knows_about_roe variable <- the intended use was that if
Lorin knows that Rob Roe told Gawen about poison, she would kill him sooner or
later. Of course, the hero would only hear that Rob Roe got suddenly very sick
and died, and only there would only be gossip that this could be poison. Otherwise,
the player would have a chance to find out that it was Lorin who poisoned Gawen's
mother. Later I changed it to be ambiguous and edited storyline accordingly.

3) Again, at the very beginning Ruvio was supposed to have 3 daughters; one would
be dead at Freetown, and a third was supposed to be treacherous. I wanted her to
betray Freetown; I played with several reasons for why she did that:
 a) that she was jealous about Gawen
 b) that she wasn't really Ruvio's daughter (in other words that Ruvio's was
betrayed by his wife) etc. Finally I decided that it was too unbelievable from
psychological point of view, and it would be better to have this issue unsolved.
Right now there is no sense in Ruvio having more daughters. There is still some
dialogue that seems to imply he does, though, e.g. Bor Cryne's dialogue at Orannon,
Karen's unit description, Ruvio's initial introduction of Karen in S07, and
various other strings.

4) "It left Grekulak's capital in ruins, and Akladians escaped to the west, chased
by Grekulak's allies, drowning in swamps, fighting with lizards and all kinds of
most nightmarish creatures. This was really an epic journey survived by less than
a quarter of all people who left Grekulak's lands" <- This line is a mistake,
as others have explained. There are no swamps in Wesnoth's east. There should be
a desert, and maybe fighting with shapeshifters. There were too many emotional ties
to the image of Akladians fighting their way through the forests and drowning in
swamps to change it.

5) In the first scenario, a militia unit is introduced, solely so the author
could play with creating units etc. (I (egallager) actually noticed how it was
only used there and went and used it in another scenario because of that, instead
of removing it)

6) "I know your questions, Lorin from Gallorae, clan which had more gold in hair
of their daughters than in their treasures. First answer is yes, you are. Second
is yes, he will be. Third is no, you will never be." Lorin's questions that
provoked these answers were: "Am I pregnant? Will this be a son and future king of
Vakladia? Will I live happily with Gawen?"

Lorin is a favourite of characters created for this campaign. 

PS: As for balancing issues, hours and hours and hours of writing, balancing, and
editing savegames went into the creation of this campaign (I found out that
Wesnoth has debug features only at the very end of my work). But balance was
probably destroyed by changes in Wesnoth etc.