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IndeedPete

[SP/Coop 04] Contention Zone

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Video set to private.......for me anyway.....

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Hello.
Prompt how to treat the effects of the anomaly "Zombies" ? There is every time you scan. And the red color more and more. Soon it will be impossible to see the map )
Or is it a bug?


thumb.png

thumb.png

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Hello.

Prompt how to treat the effects of the anomaly "Zombies" ? There is every time you scan. And the red color more and more. Soon it will be impossible to see the map )

Or is it a bug?

thumb.png

thumb.png

 

Hm, that should not be happening. Looks like a bug, thanks!

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oldtree51266jrr.png

 

 

Fellow Zoners! 

 

IndeedPete and I would like to open the discussion on how to proceed with the overall scenario. Not meaning where the story mission should take you next but rather what's happening once all story-missions are done. In my opinion what we have here is too much fun to discard it after playing through the story.

 

So here's my vision, please let me know what you think about it:

 

If technically feasible the mission should evolve into an MP playground with unlimited players, having the storymission still inside but only as an introduction for singleplayers. Players should start at the Scrapyard and maybe at one or two further camps owned by Freezoners and Greenwar. This would discard the starting level inside the bunker, which is fun in a way but also buggy, clunky and unapproachable. Experienced players that finished the storymissions in earlier games should get the chance to ready up for the Zone by using a hidden stash or password at Abd's store or similar. Depending on what's possible with the generic mission generator, MP activities might circle more around self-organized tours into the Zone. Freezoners and Greenwar are neutral with each other while both oppose CONTENTION. Placing premium loot like vehicles with CONTENTION should leave a lot of room to create your own playing experience.

 

Please share your opinion on the above, especially on discarding the starting level at the bunker!

 

Thanks,

Surfer
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I realy like the idea of playing CZ in a small squad. Random tasks to do after the end would be totally fine, I think you enjoy the story most if you play alone. It is important that you are going to add missions for different amounts of players. A group of 4 players won't have much fun if they get a mission which is created for 2 people. Compared to the campaign-missions the new, random generated ones defintly need more enemies for a bigger playergroup.

 

My experience in mission-making is very limited, but is it a good idea to start the MP-part when you have beaten the main storyline? As far as I know, the more scripts and spawns you activated and the more stuff happend, the lower the perofmance will get. I'm not done with my playthrough yet, but I could imagine this will be the case for CT aswell. A way to "skip" the story would be necessary.

 

If people don't like the solution with the spawn in the bunker (which I like), another solution for additional players could be a random spawn somewhere at the coastline, near of a friendly camp. And does the game have a revive system so far? Would be very important to have for MP.

 

Edit: Some low-budget-impressions by myself, contains minor spoilers:

 

 

The hideout of Pete & Surfer?

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Landscape

B0663FF4B2C98BF66A54D407EA651D79262030A4

 

6296ED4628544386BDE855D690814AF5FB8B8CA0

 

You guys are insane building such stuff:

 

321A4BE3789741AF7CBA41A33365A8D5121FCF59

 

Me, with my best friend in the zone, my trusted 1911.

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And finally, ARE THOSE THE SO-CALLED ZONEWOLF WHICH SURFER IS SERVING AND WHICH I ATE YESTERDAY?!

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C62084C0694487A54B512E8AF4CDF809105F97F9

 

F9F123AC119F3DDE3A174D08A3A2E910FFEC5AE3

 

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As  you said earlier..the bunker is certainly an "add" to the mission..but (also certainly) i will not miss it if suddenly it's gone :)

You see most (if not all) the times..trying to create an "atmospheric" scene in ArmA (every ArmA so far) ..it just isn't going to work

 

Focus on the core features man...just my thought ;)

 

Solid mission system,atmosphere,dialogs,surprises,performance (and MP performance and synchronization in case you go for MP) etc...

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I could think of separate mission files. One for the main storyline, SP and small-scale COOP, and another one with random MP action for (a) larger group(s), with all that randomisation stuff. Less complexity, less work, better performance.

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It's actually quite a brilliant idea... keep the main sp storyline but tie in a mp side story or even stories...

 

Kind of like how Walking Dead has fear of the Walking dead :)

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Yes, as I said before, I could imgagine several missions in the Zone, different gameplay ensured. That way, trigger-happy people would get some action as well. I could also think of releasing the framework stand-alone.

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Have you thought about a random mission generator-triggered by random NPC's?

 

Alive mission offer for x time (after that mission cease to exist from same person "aka someone else eventually took the job")+same person wont give another mission for a minimum y of time

 

Random difficulty levels with *proper rewards for it.

Extreme distances may involved.

;)

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There's a random mission generator already. Pretty rough but a place to start.

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Nice man.I m lookin' forward to see this mission become "viral" for people here :D

Keep up!!

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Maybe these could be our starting points, getting the random mission generator work in MP and spawning from the Scrapyard. This way we can hang on to the singleplayer missions but get rid of the long starting-procedure via the bunker. 

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I love that you guys are thinking long term on this. There's some really special talent putting out great missions right now and I just adore how you're all full steam ahead.

I know you're polling the community on what they'd like to see regarding MP and the end-game right now, but what's the short term vision with SP? I know IndeedPete just told me that the story isn't completed in its current state, by the way. I assume that's coming? Is that what ICE in the OP is referring to? Or are you waiting for more feedback before finishing off the storyline?

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Well, from my perspective, we need this discussion and your feedback to stay on track. I'm soaked in Arma and real life work, so I need to make priorities and cut corners. Inviting the user into development processes is a logical step. That said, I don't expect to get any major things done soon.

 

The story is incomplete because there is no real story yet. I have a few ideas but that's it. There's no script or anything, just ideas which need to get ordered in some way so that it all makes sense.

 

Project Ice is the major reason why my Arma time for Contention Zone is so limited. Ice will be the direct successor of the M.E.R.C.S. SP-Campaign, scheduled for Q1/2016. It will be around the same scale as M.E.R.C.S., 28 missions (cutscenes and hubs included) are playable by now. As it stands, I'm slowly approaching the finale in terms of mission design. Still, even if I can finish the mission design this year there's still voice acting, PR, refining, bug hunting, testing, etc. Then there are smaller, secondary projects such as my re-texturing efforts (mainly for Ice), frameworks (conv system, shop system, hazard system), and a framework for Kydoimos' Arma 3 Medals. As you can see, I'm running at full capacity with (of course voluntary and interesting) projects and I have around 20 hours a week of spare time for my hobby. Keep in mind that I'm currently writing a Master's thesis and work part-time at the university. So, if I want to have a proper life left (with sleep, and social contacts and such), I need to cut corners where I can. :D

 

tl;dr Much work, keep your expectations at a minimum. ;)

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We just discussed internally that we will keep most of the scenario as it is with SP missions as the core element. Storywise we will probably find some kind of an end of chapter, where your player is no rookie anymore and the scope of what CONTENTION did on the island is clear. 

I would like the bunker scene removed and have a regular spawn and respawn at the scrapyard to make it more approachable for new players and replayers and to be more easy to edit for me. Hope this answers your question.

 

I will focus on further scenery, atmosphere, sounds & music and also some more anomalies we didn't implement yet. I'm aiming to replace all the music we borrowed from public domain with our own pieces. There are also lots of vocal samples which we didn't even use yet and I fear that we used some samples of you guys we didn't give credit yet. So if you hear your own voice in the Zone it's either toxic delirium or we used your sample. Please let us know, so we can add your credit! 

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Thanks for the replies guys! Yes, it's very clear now. I appreciate it. I haven't played M.E.R.C.S yet but it's on my to-do list. And I mean that literally. I have a master list on my phone of must play user scenarios. M.E.R.C.S is near the very top as I've heard nothing but good things.

Regarding CONTENTION, seeing as SP was discussed amongst the two of you as being the priority right now, what kind of feedback are you guys looking for while playing the current build? I definitely don't mind giving you my perspective. I can probably get a few hours in later if you want (not that I'd need the nudge. What's here is already brilliant. And yes, that includes the bunker scene. :) A lot of "survival" mods tend to just plop the player on the map without rhyme or reason. I really like how when I wake up in CONTENTION, I feel like there's a story and atmosphere "surrounding" me and now my first task it to figure out my escape. From a roleplaying perspective it's a pretty cool feeling).

Anyway, keep up the good work guys. Thanks for taking the time to reply to me.

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Ah, since there is not much SP content yet, this release was aimed to test the framework itself but also the idea of unarmed combat, which is quite diffcult to realise in Arma 3 as its armed combat at its core. But you're free to give us insights about the mission's pace (too slow/fast), and gameplay in general. Bug reports are also appreciated.

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I know, it's not pretty yet, but there's still a lot of space for additional start parameters. Make some suggestions! What do you want to see configurable?

 

untitleddpuau.jpg

 

Other than that, I'm still searching for efficient loot frameworks. The ones I had a look at are pretty much work (manual whitelisting of loot :/). I might have to end up writing my own framework. Or does anyone have good, script-based suggestions? Please let me know. ;)

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This is so cool!!! Top work, mate!

 

Does "loot chance" include "CONTENTION" and "EXCLUDING CONTENTION" ?

And how about putting in Vanilla settings so people get the idea how we planned it to be played before they set cash to max and flamethrower =1  ;)

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Hello.
I went through the main story of your mission a couple of times and did a little video. I liked everything in your mission. :)
Apart from a few bugs. Critical bugs in "single player" I have not found. Under spoiler information for developers.

1.Low FPS 20-40

My specs:
Intel(R Core i5-2550K CPU @3.40Hz 3.80 GHz
8GB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970

2.Here are the two guys I was not able to "download". But the job is counted.


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3.
Zombies and wolves a little dangerous, poorly guided. Wolves attacked me only if I approach them at close range ..

4.
I filmed the video, as there is a bug "red map". https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/175097-spcoop-04-contention-zone/?p=2928306
It occurs only on a random assignments.
https://youtu.be/kUnleFno3Ps



I really liked the mission. Probably the best I've played in recent times. I'm a fan of the game "STALKER", so there I like a fish in water, can even more complicate...  I like that you want to develop their mission. I wish you success.
A short video of me)



P.S. Sorry, I write through Google translator ...
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@Surfer: I'm not sure what you mean. Settings will have defaults which can be altered.

 

@rell: Thanks for your bug reports, and also for that video. Greatly appreciated!

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Just added the "automated indexing" feature to the shop. That will allow players to set a start param to auto-index all weapons from CfgWeapons which are not explicitly whitelisted in the shop configs. In reality that means I don't have to manually maintain shop configs anymore as mod packs are listed automatically when they're run by the player / server. These weapons and their respective magazines will be assigned a base price based on their category. Unfortunately, Arma 3's native categorisation of weapons (Carbine vs. Rifle, Marksman Rifle vs. Sniper Rifle, etc.) is not as accurate as the shop categories, hence automatically indexed weapons might be put in the wrong categories. Not to mention that mod authors sometimes misconfigure things. (For example, the CUP MP5s were put into "Rifles" and not "SMGs" due to a wrong attribute in their configs.) I haven't looked into items and uniforms yet. It might be more complicated to get these indexed automatically. Nontheless it should be possible and once again allows for seamless and optional integration of your favourite mod content. ;)

 

untitledtgogh.jpg

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