ARMA Mission Making Standards

[ShotgunSheamuS 1]

So I have come across some issues when looking for missions to play, and now considering doing my own missions, I have made some sample stuff while experimenting, but nothing substantially playable yet. However as I am soon to get down to creating my own mission for public release one day, there is something I am curious about, and this pretty much also relates to looking/searching for missions as an end user.

Are there any standards set as to guide one creator how to make a mission and also present a mission to end user based on a standard?

For example I am looking for a mission to play, say I want a one man army mission, something I can play by myself without the retarded AI, but of course, it needs to be designed as a solo play mission, not a 4 man fire team, and I disable the AI. That is just pointless. Or say I am looking for something to play with my mates, say 3 other guys, then like wise I want to easily be able to find a 4man fire team mission, and it needs to be exactly that by design. What I hate most is having something like that 4 guys, and we have no idea what the mission is about, and we get default loadouts, and none of the roles are AT or AA, and then there's a friggin attack heli or armoured vehicle in the mission and nobody has the gear to take out the attack heli. Also just as bad is, everyone (most people) will of course arm themselves with sniper rifles and RPG's (if loadout is changable via virtual ammo box) and then screw the roles, which kills the experience.

But this shouldn't only be limited to amount of players and their roles, what about mission type? Maybe I'm looking for a stealth mission, or an assault mission, or a defend mission, convoy, sniping, rescue hostage etc. In most cases, most mission description seems to lead to something pretty average and "something goes wrong"... Kind of a spoiler alert, but also, gets tiring. Maybe I just want a quick mission, less than an hours play, maybe I want something longer. Maybe I want more action, maybe I want no contact. In the end, it always becomes a huge headache looking for something to play, especially depending on mood and time.

So now, my question is. For mission creating, is there a kind of ARMA universal standard in place as to the various types of missions that we can catagorize and define, and create missions by these "standards" as guidelines for mission makers with some standards that need to be met to ensure a good decent experience, as well as matching description for players looking for missions?

I cant really find anything on the subject, mostly mission naming standards, which isn't relevent for me just yet... But if there is no such standards that anyone can direct me towards, perhaps we the community should discuss these and make these standards for ourselves? Would make future searches for missions on ARMAholic and steam workshop a lot easier, as well as being able to create particularly specific wanted types of missions.

[dale0404 5]

Mate, you really need to search in future: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?159890-Missions-File-Name-Insufficient-to-help-user-finding-what-he-wants

[kylania 568]

There are standards for actually presenting missions to players but there are no rules, and there shouldn't be any rules, for how to design a mission.

If you want a solo stealth mission where you get AT weapons to shoot down helicopters, make one if you can't find one. That's the power of the editor.

[ShotgunSheamuS 1]

Mate, you really need to search in future: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?159890-Missions-File-Name-Insufficient-to-help-user-finding-what-he-wants

Ahhh, but thats mission naming, not exactly mission making/description standards, so I ignored that as I understood it only for the MP missions for TVT/PvP. I am also more referring to co-op and solo missions, where file names are generally just operation_whateversoundscool. Does not tell me exactly what kind of mission it is always (stealth, attack, defend etc) neither does it always tell me wether it is solo play, 2player, 4player, 8player etc. though sometimes it does and also usually states "you and a squad", not saying how big of a squad. and then time frame, I wanna know if it is a quick game, or not, etc. I wanna play different missions depending on time I have avasilable and mood I am in.

But thanks anyways.

---------- Post added at 19:01 ---------- Previous post was at 18:58 ----------

There are standards for actually presenting missions to players but there are no rules, and there shouldn't be any rules, for how to design a mission.

If you want a solo stealth mission where you get AT weapons to shoot down helicopters, make one if you can't find one. That's the power of the editor.

Understandable, but I think I am not saying rules, I am saying guide lines. IF you are going to include an attack heli, a guideline will be to mention in the briefing there is that probablilty and also provide your team with the right equipment. I am not saying there should be strict rules, just guidelines to help make the mission a better experience for the end user.