::A Geek in Korea::

I had played Battle for Wesnoth way back when I first installed Linux. It was a passable game, with a lot of interesting ideas. The combat elements seemed simplistic in the first campaign I played. I thought there might be more to it, but the fantasy setting kind of got on my nerves. Truth be told, I find Elves BORING. Anything that has the same rehashed fantasy elements is going to have to work extra hard to keep my attention. At the time, I had also gotten heavily into portable gaming again. Having to sit around to play a single player strategy game wasn’t something I was into at that time. I’ve decided to give it another shot though.

Being a Linux user that likes the occasional online game to play is tough. There are plenty of times where I would like to play a game with some people, but the process of getting it running in Linux, or at all, is too much to be bothered. This is why I own a Wii, as well as a DS. Console gaming is much easier, but occasionally I like to try things not available for those systems. I was delighted when I ran into a few people mentioning they wanted to play Battle for Wesnoth online.  A few people that had never played the game before mentioned that they’d be willing to give it a shot online with people they knew. If I was going to start playing the game online, there would be no better time than when everyone else sucked as badly as I did, and I could get some pointers from people other than “U suck! Lern to PLAY Newb!”

While the campaigns are a way to build on the depth of the game and explain how to play, the online mode is throwing everything at you at once. Instead of some lame Elves, there are other factions with a total of over 200 units. There are tons of different play styles and strategies to use. There are different modes to try out, maps, features, etc. It turns out the game’s online features were much more robust than I expected. It’s also overwhelming, because there are so many things to consider while playing.

I had my first online game today. It went well enough. We started a two on two team game. The map was too big, and some of the people didn’t know when their turn had started. However, there were as many people watching the game as playing, and everyone was having a good time. People on Macs, Windows, and Linux machines all playing a free game together. Awesome.

One of the best features of the online game is being able to rename units and add labels to items in the game world. Fighting over a church for resources might be dull, but rename the church “THUNDERDOME” and it suddenly becomes epic. An observer would “adopt” a unit, and would it would be renamed. Everyone was rooting for their particular units to kill the other team. There were a lot of in jokes and funny things that people added to the map that made it a lot more fun.

I’ll give it a try in the future if I can find more time to play the game and learn more of the basics. I’ve gone farther through the Elf campaign just to try to learn more of the game mechanics. Once the game “clicks” for me and I know what to do in a given situation, it will be a lot more fun. Right now I’m often at a loss as to what move is my best option.

Tags: turnbased strategy, wesnoth, online, battle, PA, epic, linux