Project Phoenix The successor to Domination for ARMA2/3

[Tankbuster 1744]

Xeno, the author has said he doesn't want to see the excellent Domination ported to ARMA 3. He's also said he's doing no more work on Domination for A2/OA.

Now, with all due respect to the guv'nor of MP code and creator of BY FAR the most installed mission in the game, many of us have heard this before only too see bigger and better versions come out. Nevertheless, I think it would be a crime if we didn't have something like this wonderful mission for the next iteration of our favourite game.

So I think it wise for us to think how and indeed if we should be considering a community project to make a similar mission. Anyone who has looked inside the mission code will know that it's a considerable undertaking, way beyond my capabilities. So we'll need a development posse.

I don't know the best way to start here - I'm not sure if we should knock up the basics in A2/OA with a view to porting it to the new game in the new year hoping the engine and coding stuff will be similar? Or should we wait until we get our hands on A3? I'm moved to go for the former option. Given the similarities between A1 and A2, I'd hope there'd be enough similarities between A2 and A3 to make it worth laying down at least the keel now.

Personally, I'd like to keep the overall mechanic the same. One or more player teams attack dynamically created AI controlled towns with a suite of secondary missions. I'd like more varied secondary missions. I think the way that the admin can turn features (revive/ranked etc) on and off at mission start is a great feature and would like to include that. I have no experience with ACE but obviously we'd need a version using it. Also a TvT version.

I have access to SVN and Redmine so we have many of the collaborative tools available. All we need is the ideas, the brains and the toil. Oh, and a name, or at least, a working title. :)

Edited May 15, 2012 by Tankbuster

[bigshotking 11]

Well since A3 is going to be supporting Java as well as the standard .SQF format that we've come to know and love it shouldn't be that difficult to port. My belief is that A3 will have A2 commands plus many new ones. Some class name changes in the reward area, heli lift system, HQ, etc.

Now that is just the best case scenario, in the end we might be creating a whole new Domi mission, in any way shape or form, I want in for this project.

[celery 8]

If the new mission's name ends with -ion, I'll give generous infractions to everyone involved. :)

[PELHAM 10]

Was just leafing through the thesaurus for possible names and one or two funnies:

abomination

archipelago

agression

amorphism

ballista

bandolier

capitulation

colossus

cyclone

delimitation

demetrios

denomination

dependency

depletion

depilation

devastation

devolution

frontier

hegemony

hyperion

incarceration

iconoclasm

infiltration

ingratiation

labyrinth

malediction

onslaught

overlord

oceanus

pandemonium

penetration

perfection

poseidon

prometheus

repression

supremacy

sedition

submission

titan

tormentum

zenith

Edited May 15, 2012 by PELHAM

[Hillsbills 1]

Stratisfear

Although that might be better suited for a Day Z port.

Hasn't Xeno QQ'd in the past though, only to come back? We all burn out.

[HazJ 1289]

I think he will eventually port Domination to ARMA III, Hillsbills is right when he said he was stopping but after a while he presented us with a brand new and improved version of Domination. I would say just wait and see because thats all we can do for now, if there is no port for ARMA III after a while then I am sure someone will make another popular mission or you can play Evolution .

HAZ out...

[mikie boy 18]

how about noitanimod :)

Edited May 15, 2012 by Mikie boy

[avibird 1 154]

If the new mission's name ends with -ion, I'll give generous infractions to everyone involved. :)

Hey celery now that you are a part of the A team what is the official view on domination from bohemia?

1. Did domination kill the old coop missions from the OFP days on public servers?

2. Did it help and save coop play for the arma series?

3. Why has Bohemia not made it's own Domination mission (out of the box) due to it's popularity on open public servers?

4. Why has Bohemia not giving credit to Xeno for his work?

5. Why has Bohemia not ask Xeno to be part of the A team and continue to work on domination for this community for ARMA3?

6. What is your personal view on what xeno has said about no ports of domination to ARMA3?

Xeno, the author has said he doesn't want to see the excellent Domination ported to ARMA 3. He's also said he's doing no more work on Domination for A2/OA.

Now, with all due respect to the guv'nor of MP code and creator of BY FAR the most installed mission in the game, many of us have heard this before only too see bigger and better versions come out. Nevertheless, I think it would be a crime if we didn't have something like this wonderful mission for the next iteration of our favourite game.

So I think it wise for us to think how and indeed if we should be considering a community project to make a similar mission. Anyone who has looked inside the mission code will know that it's a considerable undertaking, way beyond my capabilities. So we'll need a development posse.

I don't know the best way to start here - I'm not sure if we should knock up the basics in A2/OA with a view to porting it to the new game in the new year hoping the engine and coding stuff will be similar? Or should we wait until we get our hands on A3? I'm moved to go for the former option. Given the similarities between A1 and A2, I'd hope there'd be enough similarities between A2 and A3 to make it worth laying down at least the keel now.

Personally, I'd like to keep the overall mechanic the same. One or more player teams attack dynamically created AI controlled towns with a suite of secondary missions. I'd like more varied secondary missions. I think the way that the admin can turn features (revive/ranked etc) on and off at mission start is a great feature and would like to include that. I have no experience with ACE but obviously we'd need a version using it. Also a TvT version.

I have access to SVN and Redmine so we have many of the collaborative tools available. All we need is the ideas, the brains and the toil. Oh, and a name, or at least, a working title. :)

I can name 10 missions off the top of my head that are very similar to domination right now. Some have elements that are somewhat better and or somewhat different but they are all based on Domination framework. ie starting base,teamwork, JIP, respawns, ect. Yes someone will make a mission like domination for ARMA3 and maybe call it domination reloaded or something like that or maybe someone with the knowledge just might port it over for ARMA3. Xeno or this forum can not stop someone from doing that. Yes sites like armaholic and this forum may not put up infomation about the mission out of respect for xeno but don't fool yourself if someone ports it over people will get it and people will play it that is the bottom line. Like I have stated before I have respect for xeno for his ability to write code, his dedication with domination and that of a mission designer. I can't for the life of me understand his attitude towards this issue and why he is taking it so personal that most players are killing zombies these days.

1.War in Takistan: Operation Iron rains (WIT)

2.Evolution

3.Insurgency

4.Multi-Session Operations

5.Patrol Operations 2

6.COOP 20 Takistan Force (OA)

7.ZKs BattleZone

8.Kremator presents ... BattleZone, MSO, PatrolOps2 & ATCRabbit

9. WAR on 3 front/War on 4 front

10.Mercenaries

[mondkalb 1087]

Hey celery now that you are a part of the A team what is the official view on domination from bohemia?

I doubt he is entitled to give an official statement on this, as much as he is entitled to give out infractions. (:P) That's the job of the beloved moderators.

Regarding the joint community mission effort:

I'd really like to see something non-standard in terms of mission making. An Open-Source like approach to making MP missions.

Create a set of modular mission features that can be taken and turned into a mission by anyone and everyone. For example a module that creates random enemy patrols. A module that keeps your gear on respawn. A module that adds in multiple MHQs as respawn points. A Module that adds in vehicle respawn. A module that garrisons units in towns. All the parts that make up a mission can be taken individually and crafted into a new mission with certain features. And everyone will be able to do so with just very basic scripting knowledge.

(This way we prevent that a mission is released all the time by just a single person who can add "malicious" code that prevents the mission from being played by a certain group of people with certain UIDs - Something that has already happened with your beloved Domination missions a while ago).

Then just release this framework, and people can take the parts they like and leave out the parts they don't.

[katipo66 94]

I'd really like to see something non-standard in terms of mission making. An Open-Source like approach to making MP missions.

Create a set of modular mission features that can be taken and turned into a mission by anyone and everyone. For example a module that creates random enemy patrols. A module that keeps your gear on respawn. A module that adds in multiple MHQs as respawn points. A Module that adds in vehicle respawn. A module that garrisons units in towns. All the parts that make up a mission can be taken individually and crafted into a new mission with certain features. And everyone will be able to do so with just very basic scripting knowledge.

(This way we prevent that a mission is released all the time by just a single person who can add "malicious" code that prevents the mission from being played by a certain group of people with certain UIDs - Something that has already happened with your beloved Domination missions a while ago).

Then just release this framework, and people can take the parts they like and leave out the parts they don't.

I think you just become my favorite dev! (as if i had one :P)

Please make it happen bro!!!

[-)rStrangelove 0]

I like Mondkalb's idea, but this framework can only be done by somebody capable of developing a MP mission like Domi or Evo or Insurgency on his own.

With such a huge undertaking i'd say there is hardly any dev who would be willing to give his sparetime and knowledge to this community project. Right out of my head i see 2 possible reasons:

- devs want to be famous for getting their mission to work, not a framework used for countless MP missions.

- devs hate to see countless variants of 'their' mission on various servers. Ppl fiddle around with stuff, get crashes and complain about the framework being not optimized failing to realize it could be any combination of addons / server settings / someone trying to hack a mission just for the fun of it

Still, it would be VERY interesting to do this framework :)

[mondkalb 1087]

Exactly!

It is this petty community idiocy that an open source framework would avoid or even break up.

I have a dozen of projects that I could take the code from and modularize it already, it would at least mean that all these unreleased things wouldn't remain wasted time after all.

And I have absolutely no issues giving it away under any Creative Commons License. So if we can get a few people together to get this modular thing going and, most importantly, properly tested so it is actually easy and straightforward to use, count me in!

Just PM me if you're interested, we'll rock up a small skype chat group and see where we can go with this. But please be aware that any contribution you will make will become open source.

[Tankbuster 1744]

I'd really like to see something non-standard in terms of mission making. An Open-Source like approach to making MP missions.

Create a set of modular mission features that can be taken and turned into a mission by anyone and everyone. For example a module that creates random enemy patrols. A module that keeps your gear on respawn. A module that adds in multiple MHQs as respawn points. A Module that adds in vehicle respawn. A module that garrisons units in towns. All the parts that make up a mission can be taken individually and crafted into a new mission with certain features. And everyone will be able to do so with just very basic scripting knowledge.

I'm interested but don't fully understand what you're proposing. By definition, it'll be modular as I expect we'll have different parts of the mission developed by different people. Presumably they'd all be in the release version and activated by admin parameters?

I think it's important that server admins can simply drop a PBO into the MPM dir and fire it up, don't want to give them any more work than that, at a minimum.

[bigshotking 11]

Well, Domination can be accomplished with a lot less files than what it has now. We can accomplish this with function files containing many Domi based functions such as mission calling, vehicle respawn, artillery, side missions, ammo boxes, etc.

Just like in Insugency with define files containing info on what can be used and what to put where. If it can be done this way, it would make it a lot easier to make and the time it takes to make the mission can be almost cut in half in my opinion.

[katipo66 94]

So if we can get a few people together to get this modular thing going and, most importantly, properly tested so it is actually easy and straightforward to use, count me in!

Are you referring specifically to this thread and domination or maybe something broader (also)? Would that idea deserve it's own thread? Just to get it to a wider audience with specific title.

[Craig_VG 20]

So if we can get a few people together to get this modular thing going and, most importantly, properly tested so it is actually easy and straightforward to use, count me in!

I'm totally up for it, this would be a great contribution to the mission making community. Plenty of people have no clue on how to add such features to their missions, a modular solution would be excellent.

I would gladly help.

[Tankbuster 1744]

Can someone explain how we'd go about modular mission design?

[Tankbuster 1744]

So, in lieu of an answer to my question, do we have enough contributors to think we can actually make a go of this?

[Craig_VG 20]

Can someone explain how we'd go about modular mission design?

I'm not sure if he is talking about easily interchangeable chunks of code or actual, physical, in-editor modules.

[Tankbuster 1744]

I'm not sure if he is talking about easily interchangeable chunks of code or actual, physical, in-editor modules.

Nor me. Until we get clarification, this is nothing more than blithely slinging around buzzwords.

[bigshotking 11]

Well i have agreed to contribute to this so count me in as one of the people.

[Tankbuster 1744]

Good, thanks BSK. Let's get some more interest.

As it's my idea, I hereby give this the working title of "Project Phoenix". I'll request a thread rename right away.

Mondkalb, are you going knock up a skype chat?

[kremator 1065]

Although I cannot code, I am more than willing to help test anything for Phoenix! I have a dedi server ready for action.

[Tankbuster 1744]

I definitely want you on board, Krem. You have a similar vision to me, I think. I do have a dedi game server with SVN and bug/issue tracker systems, but more is always welcome.

I'm wondering if I should just go ahead and create the project on my systems. I was hoping to have more chaps in this thread by now, but perhaps we should just make a start and see who else joins?

[kremator 1065]

To quote the great Kevin Costner .... if you build it, they will come!

Go ahead and start it mate.

Glad to be aboard! The Phoenix is alive!