Operation Dead Fox

[Cyper 18]

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First off, I don't know exactly how many people that actually still play arma.

However,I am currently working on my second campaign, called Operation Dead Fox.

One of the biggest things I wanted to change since my first, huge, but not campaign, was the way it was built. The first campaign was mainly focused on leading a slightly big squad, over a massive terrain, backed up by a lot of other squads, and the fights were pretty impressive with a lot of AIs involved. Fairly spectacular really. It was also focused on all kinds of combats; infantry combat, tank combat, sea combat, air combat and so on, over a huge area land.

In this campaign I do quite the opposite from the last one.

You've got a team consisting of five soldiers, including yourself. If you're leading 8 or ten soldiers it felt like loosing a few didn't really affect the gameplay, but this time it does, since you've only got four to your disposal.

So this is more about teamwork and working as a small team, mainly focused on infantry combat. So you simply have to plan your approaches pretty carefull in order to keep your men safe.

You won't be flying helicopters, planes and such in the campaign but obviously, they will exist in battle as transportation and such.

However, the campaign does include driving jeeps and tanks, even if It's not the core focus. The focus is really infantry combat, with more teamwork-like gameplay, rather than the spectacular type of gameplay, over smaller areas, often close combat around the desert and the city of Avgani and Afgani itself.

The campaign won't unfortunately feature any voice acting or cutscenes, but it will certainly contain a lot of dialog anyway, in order to tell the player what's really happening out on the field, what your team is thinking, how approaches are planned and so on.

It will also contain some help text on each mission, along with a briefing giving you vital details about your currect task.

What i've really focused on this time is the soundtrack. I've spent pretty much time to research and try to find the ultimate music to my camaign, not just adding music thoughless and randomly to each mission, but really trying to figure out where each and every track is most suitable.

So I tend to play each mission various times with diffrent tracks in order to see wich one is most suitible. The soundtrack is rather blasting and powerfull, with composers such as Michael Giacchino, Philip Glass and even Ludwig van Beethoven, and of course some of the gold found in Operation arrowhead.

What's really a huge diffrence from the last campaign is that you actually will see the aftermath and the diffrence between every mission. If you attack a village and then go back there the next day, the corpses from the dead will be there.

If you successfully take control over a area, US soldiers will be present there whenever you go back, and as you progress in the game checkpoint along the roads and such will pop up.

However, cities such as Avgani, won't be crawling with people, due to performance issues but the goal is to make it live a little.

Both insurgents and PLA forces will gaurd and patrol certain areas, aswell as civilians will drive and walk around. So everything around you isn't just empty. Both enemies and civilians exist out of your operation area and the more you play the more control the US will gain over the area. Meaning, if you go hiking, you'll certainly encounter enemies.

I am currently working with the last mission in Afgani, and after that, I'm about too add music tracks, refine dialogs and other things, creating briefings, placing clutter, civilians, and so on. And when that's done I'll start working with the second part of the campaign.

I might also add that the second part of the campaign will place you in Blackwaters Team Saber. The idea is to make it slightly opposite from the USMC missions in order to see the campaign from another view. When you play as Team Saber, the missions will be slightly diffrent and designed in another way. It's those people that shoot first and ask later.

You will experience more about the invasions aftermath and you won't follow any strict ''military lexikon'', and the briefings will be totally diffrent aswell. The tasks will include things like search and resque US POWs, protecting civilians, assasinating warlords, searching and destroying weapon hideouts etc.

I am going to upload some screenshots later on about it, plus more information about the conflict and the campaign itself.

CURRENTLY: Working with mission 18. Unfortunately, It seems like I might have to cancell this one, or simplfy it. I've get serious problem to use 'move to'. Been struggling for roughly three hours to try to get a car where I want it. Really frustating that I cannot get such a simple action to work properly. It's probably due to the fact that Avgani is just a beta version. The car simply don't move where I want to, and I'll have to replace triggers, try, replace, try replace.. sometimes half of the route works, something the car just stands still. Very very frustating.

Civilians lurking around in some buildings in that fell victim to the US Artillery in central Afgani.

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Soldiers holding a US checkpoint at the mainroad leading out from Afgani.

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USMC soldiers operating in Afgani.

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Edited June 20, 2011 by Cyper

[marcomio 0]

Nice! ARMA Campaigns are rare stuff (in comparison to OFP and ARMA 2), so good Luck for this project.

[Cyper 18]

Nice! ARMA Campaigns are rare stuff (in comparison to OFP and ARMA 2), so good Luck for this project.

Yes, I guess so. I'm going to try progress slowly and not rush to much. I'm pretty new to the arma series, but do you have any idea on how many people that actually plays the game nowdays?

I personally have arma2 but in order to play I'll have to play it on pretty low settings, and I can't stand that.

[law-giver 189]

Yeah bring it on Cyper. I have ArmA2 and all the addon packs but still lovingly play ArmA. There's just so much out there for ArmA, and the servers still seem to have people playing ArmA. Not everyone has the horsepower to play ArmA2. Luckily i have but i'm still fond of ArmA.

Take your time mate. ;)

[Cyper 18]

Glad that there’s still people that play Arma!

I’d just like to say that the project isn’t abandoned. I just had a few weeks where I felt no joy at all of creating missions and I didn’t really knew how to get back on track but it seems like I’ve got the energy and intrest back agian. I am currently soon done with mission 13. Each mission seems to take 30 to 80 minutes to complete - but then I only play them in the editor mode with unlimited saves and obviously the knowledge exactly how the mission in built but I think it hopefully will take quite a time to complete the whole campaign. I believe the campaign will feature at least 17-18 mission but the goal is to reach 20. I’ve noticed it takes pretty much time to create each mission.

However, what really is dissapointing is the lack of action/movements scripts in Arma compared to arma 2.. and the most intresting ones is for queens gambit only. I dont know if theres more, but the only list I know for the moment is this one:

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Moves

Is it possible to use the CWC moves in arma?

Edited June 3, 2011 by Cyper

[joske 10]

Great to see some Arma missions in development, even when its a bit outdated Arma certainly with the huge amount of mods added to it is in its core still a great game. I just find it dissapointing that relatively few solid missions exist that actually give you the opportunity to play it.

Also what mods do you plan to use, and will the campaign need queens gambit?

[Cyper 18]

Great to see some Arma missions in development, even when its a bit outdated Arma certainly with the huge amount of mods added to it is in its core still a great game. I just find it dissapointing that relatively few solid missions exist that actually give you the opportunity to play it.

Also what mods do you plan to use, and will the campaign need queens gambit?

No, queens Gambit isn't required in order to play the campaign. I have tried to keep the amount of mods as low as possible. It's mostly smaller mods that you'll need in order to play it. The campaign will, obviously, require the Afgani/Avgani mod, aswell as a desert PLA mod, merceneries mod, armed civilians mod, scar mod, and a few more. I will add all the required mods in a folder so no one will have to find and download them separately.

Hopefully, the campaign will be pretty solid. I might add that It's the first real campaign I've worked with. I have learned fairly much about scripting since I started to work with it and the map editor itself but most of all, I've learned not to stress through the project. I have done about 20 missions for the moments so the campaign should be done pretty soon. However, there's still much to do, since I tend to add smaller details (cars, various clutter, civilians, sounds etc) in the end. Then I also have to play through it myself so everything get like I want.

The only issues I've had is the map itself. It's not very big for a whole campaign so the design of the mission is kinda diffrent. Another problem is that the Iraq_Afghan mod is just a beta version. So I've had problems with vehicles and units following waypoints when driving on roads. But it works pretty well, but far from perfect.

Edited June 23, 2011 by Cyper

[Cyper 18]

Unfortunately, it seems like I have to cancel this campaign.

It seems like this last bit simply was the one I couldn't pass; I cannot get the campaign to work properly. If it isn't any type of error message, my game automatically shut down when I run it. Therefore, I've taken the decision to cancel the campaign. Hopefully I will release some of the 22 missions as singlemissions later.

Edited October 7, 2011 by Cyper