From b8e33d05fe87165b054a56f97558ab042a79e8f2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: "Eric S. Raymond"
The 1.4 version brings you no fewer than seven new mainline campaigns, a -redesigned user interface, an amazing variety of high-quality new game -music, and a refresh of the game artwork including improved portrait -images for many unit types.
+For players, the 1.4 version brings you no fewer than seven new +mainline campaigns, a redesigned user interface, an amazing variety of +high-quality new game music, and a refresh of the game artwork +including improved portrait images for many unit types. For designers, +the map editor and WML have been enhanced to significantly increase +your creative options in writing scenarios.
Just as importantly, it is probably our most solid release yet. We retired over 300 individual bugs during the 1.3 development period, @@ -62,7 +64,7 @@ by sanity-checking Wesnoth's data files before they ship to you.
Here are some of 1.4's new features:
+Here are 1.4's new features in more detail:
The Footpad and Thug units can advance all the way to level 3. Many units have been tuned and rebalanced, including @@ -165,54 +167,74 @@ White Mage, Wraith, and all the Saurians and Bats.
Maps can now be opened directly from a scenario file and saved -back to it. Starting positions no longer need to be on keeps. The -terrain palette is divided into groups of like terrains, so you'll -scroll it less often. And there are many new terrains; farmland, -Elvish castle, and windmill have been added to the basic set, and -there are bridges for crossing swamp, deep water, or chasms.
Many unit and hero portraits have been improved or added. We +have a particularly beautiful set of new portraits in a uniform style for +the Elvish units.
Many more units have full combat animation. Some units and items now have standing animations; bats flap their wings and -campfires flicker. Units can now have special death animations -- -some Drakes burst into flame when killed.
Undead axe, undead crossbow, pickaxe, glaive, elven staff, -chainmace.
You can set a list of user nicks to be ignored (you won't see +chat from them). You can also set a list of friends for whom you'll +get presence notifications when you are in game.
Effects for morning star, arcane magic, hatchet, slowdown. Five -new symphonic music tracks.
You can now select a female leader in multiplayer. The in-game +help has been revised, reorganized and expanded. There are new +weapons and weapon types: undead axe, undead crossbow, pickaxe, +glaive, elven staff, chainmace. "Holy" damage has become "arcane" and +is a general anti-magic attack applying to more than just +undead. There are five new all-original symphonic music tracks, +and new sound effects for morningstar, arcane magic, hatchet, and +slowdown. Savegames are automatically compressed to save you disk +space.
And for campaign developers...
+ +Maps can now be opened directly from a scenario file and saved +back to it. Starting positions no longer need to be on keeps. The +terrain palette is divided into groups of like terrains, so you'll +scroll it less often. And there are many new terrains; farmland, +Elvish castle, and windmill have been added to the basic set, and +there are bridges for crossing swamp, deep water, or chasms. Treatment +of map edges has been changed to eliminate some terrain distortions at +map edges and make small maps look better on a large display (and +these changes apply to the game display too).
Animation WML has been completely redesigned in a much more +flexible and general way. Complex variable substitution is now used +in all action WML. There is safe random-number generation in +multiplayer. A [set_menu_item] tag allows scenario designers +to create custom right-click context menu items which perform +arbitrary WML actions. The Standard Unit Filter and Standard Location +Filter elements have new capabilities (including completed boolean +expressions) that make them much more powerful and can replace most of +what used to be done with special-purpose filters.
The game engine will now support multiplayer campaigns, though +we don't ship any yet. This is an opportunity for designers to explore +a new frontier in Wesnoth play.