Community Campaign

[padi 28]

Hi community, the first post after being registrated for 5 years.

Why? I was a silent reader for years and forgot that I was registrated 😉

 

But now to my topic on hand.

 

For the whole history of the Arma Franchise there is only one really great singleplayer campaign, Cold War Crisis. Remnants of War is also fantastic with a great storytelling (maybe even better than Cold War Crisis), but really short.

All the other Campaigns were okay to solid, but none was as fantastic as Cold War Crisis and Remnants of War.

My idea is that we combine the knowledge of everyone willing to contribute into one team to create a fantastic, long and immersive campaign of which the whole Arma-Community could be proud.

Why should one modder do every job in campaign creation when it isn´t only much more efficient to do only what you´re good at, but also to shorten development time and increase the quality of the finished product?

 

I have seen some really good community made missions, so the talent is clearly there.

Sadly I have also seen over the years, that popular topics (Operation Neptune Spear, Operation Gothic Serpent, Operation Overlord) are done many times and there is little to no difference between the versions, that is collectively viewed just wasted time, in which a different scenario could have been created.

 

In my imagination everybody could help.

You have no idea of the editor but could write a great story or a believeable and deep biography of a character? Great, that is needed!

You speak two or more languages? Great, a localizer is found.

You´re an editor nerd who didn´t have a good story in mind? Great, also needed!

You can´t help in editing but you would give your voice for a character? Great, also needed!

You have features or scenarios in mind that you want to see in the Campaign? Great, ideas are welcome as well.

You could help solving editing problems? Also needed!

You want to help test the finished campaign and iron out bugs? Also needed.

Maybe we could also create needed mods if there is something missing.

 

Yes I know that it is very broad and nothing specific, but I wanted to write this to you all to read if there is interest on such a community campaign.

 

Also I imagine of the establishment of easy and fast help with your own problems in editing in a way that is both convenient and efficient, but by now I have no idea how that could be done.

Maybe there is a pool of experts for every problem area which you could send your missions and they fix the problem for you in exchange for your expertise on their problems.

 

If you have questions or an opinion on the topic feel free to communicate that, I would be happy if I could read your opinions.

 

Greetings

[JohnKalo 657]

Just to point out that when making a campaign we do not create everything from zero. That would take ages. We take content from addons, scripts from scripters, features from either addon makers or scripters, audio effects and music from mostly youtube guys and piece all of them together to create a campaign. Gladly many generous people are out there that place no copyright rights on their products so we can use them. We tend to anyways credit them but many guys don't even ask for that. And for bugs and glitches we use the forums and such. Expert scripters give us the opportunity to add amazing effects and such without having to spend years for training. So the method you mentioned is already happening for most if not all big campaigns. And you must be talking about a specific style campaign and not just a good one. Because good can be very different. Other people like the world war eras, other the current, other aliens. Different opinions different campaigns.

[padi 28]

2 hours ago, JohnKalo said:

Just to point out that when making a campaign we do not create everything from zero. That would take ages. We take content from addons, scripts from scripters, features from either addon makers or scripters, audio effects and music from mostly youtube guys and piece all of them together to create a campaign. Gladly many generous people are out there that place no copyright rights on their products so we can use them. We tend to anyways credit them but many guys don't even ask for that. And for bugs and glitches we use the forums and such. Expert scripters give us the opportunity to add amazing effects and such without having to spend years for training. So the method you mentioned is already happening for most if not all big campaigns. And you must be talking about a specific style campaign and not just a good one. Because good can be very different. Other people like the world war eras, other the current, other aliens. Different opinions different campaigns.

Yes that we could use all this things from others is logical, if allowed. My point on that is that such a team (if it came to life) should have a member who could create missing things like a specific mission relevant vehicle, an environment object or something crucial to tell the story or simply a needed script or function so that it didn‘t lead to lots of try and error from guys who didn‘t know that much about this but more about the editor.

 

Regarding the campaign I‘m open to what the majority of the team wants (if it‘s somewhat realistic).

I imagine something in 80s-today timeframe with a strong story, great immersion and characters that have a reason to do what they do, mostly realistic (no one team liberates the whole country) and at about the length of Cold War Crisis, if not longer.

 

Like Remnants of War level storytelling with the immersion and more than one playable character of Cold War Crisis.

Also choices impacting the campaign like in the Guerilla Campaign for OPF.

 

If you have further questions or something is unclear feel free to ask.

[froggyluv 2136]

Sounds like your still in a pre-concept type phase. You'll wanna bring more to the table to attract people who will want to hop onoards -so for instance if your a really good storyteller and can showoff your grand idea here - thereby explaining "I need a scripts guy for this part of story and an effects guy for that..." etc...better chance of it actually happening

[padi 28]

29 minutes ago, froggyluv said:

Sounds like your still in a pre-concept type phase. You'll wanna bring more to the table to attract people who will want to hop onoards -so for instance if your a really good storyteller and can showoff your grand idea here - thereby explaining "I need a scripts guy for this part of story and an effects guy for that..." etc...better chance of it actually happening

The storytelling is the biggest problem, I´m sadly not that good on that.

My strength lies in the Editor and in my ideas that could be brought to light with a good storyteller.
 

That´s exactly why I first thought about a joint effort to create a community campaign.

Also I think that if I preset a scenario some would step back as that would be something they didn´t like.

 

It is intended to not be my favourite setting and plot, but what´s most liked in the community as such a long and immersive campaign is impossible to create alone, or if done alone would take ages to complete.

[JohnKalo 657]

Well when starting a campaign or a mission creation, on my end at least, writing the plot in short in paper is needed. After that you check what Arma 3 can do and what resources you have and then you alter your story. For example I would really like to see hundreds of units battling in the field but that would end in hundreds of toasted computers. You want a campaign that will battle such obstacles, when able, via a group effort but you don't say any sort of details. So saying lets make something great with no basis cannot bring people together. Besides people making campaigns and missions want to make them as great as possible so the motivation lets make something great is not helpful either. That is why we kinda torture ourselves at times to make one simple thing and continue our mission creation. Just resaying what @froggyluv said in more detail. And a group saving a whole country well those guys have to have some sort of motivation to do it and the story is not just about the campaign introduction. Players should be able to criticize their characters choices and when able even decide themselves. But in many cases the players just want to fight in cool environments so they don't always read the story. For instance if I start a campaign with a 5 minute introduction most players will quit before even starting the mission. And optimization is really important. You have to create amazing environments while knowing that many people do not have super computers. Especially useful when you don't have one either so you know how hard it is not to be able to play a mission due to optimization. Lets say you played all 9 missions and the last one is so cool full of units but it lags so the whole experience is ruined. 

[pierremgi 4890]

You should post here. Why?

A SP campaign is immersive with videos, voices, animated characters ... All these things which takes a lot of time. You need a Machinima maker.

Imho, the scripting is easier, especially in SP. There are already some good interface for choosing the missions in campaign.

Too much possibilities, or not enough, kill the campaign. BI created "Old Man"... Well...  Not a real success. Did you play it? Many tools, many repeatable actions, many teleportations... but a flat scenario. The big miss, imho, is the fact you can't play with AIs as player's group. That's the very first point: enlist/dismiss AIs in your group. Put the stress on specialists (medic, engineer). Make the map more "Interactive" (The I of BI 😂)...

For your scenario, open a list for specific tasks like : Kill (a boss), repair, find evidence, destroy something, infiltrate, interrogate, search by night, attack, defend, support... Then elaborate.
For example, A CSAR (combat search and rescue for an ejected pilot) can be simple as: go to the position, pick the guy. Or... wait for the night, support by air asset, infiltrate enemy positions, scout for a beacon, sweep the local area, ask for helo, interrogate the target, secure, pick up, exfil. That is to say, a simple task can be immersive, or straight as an arcade shoot them all.

[padi 28]

1 hour ago, JohnKalo said:

Well when starting a campaign or a mission creation, on my end at least, writing the plot in short in paper is needed. After that you check what Arma 3 can do and what resources you have and then you alter your story. For example I would really like to see hundreds of units battling in the field but that would end in hundreds of toasted computers. You want a campaign that will battle such obstacles, when able, via a group effort but you don't say any sort of details. So saying lets make something great with no basis cannot bring people together. Besides people making campaigns and missions want to make them as great as possible so the motivation lets make something great is not helpful either. That is why we kinda torture ourselves at times to make one simple thing and continue our mission creation. Just resaying what @froggyluv said in more detail. And a group saving a whole country well those guys have to have some sort of motivation to do it and the story is not just about the campaign introduction. Players should be able to criticize their characters choices and when able even decide themselves. But in many cases the players just want to fight in cool environments so they don't always read the story. For instance if I start a campaign with a 5 minute introduction most players will quit before even starting the mission. And optimization is really important. You have to create amazing environments while knowing that many people do not have super computers. Especially useful when you don't have one either so you know how hard it is not to be able to play a mission due to optimization. Lets say you played all 9 missions and the last one is so cool full of units but it lags so the whole experience is ruined. 

As said writing a good and gripping plot is my problem as I´m very bad in it. The mission I create for example didn´t have that great of a story, but a few optional objectives that could help with completing the main objective and with doing those you could help the civilians.

Also I try to make it immersive and realistic, what isn´t that easy as I sadly wasn´t able to serve my country and therefore have no first hand knowledge about life in the military.

 

Okay maybe making something great were the wrong words.

What I mean is a campaign that is interesting, immerses and entertains the player.

Also it has plottwists (like a suprising attack that ruins your own attack).

I want the player to identify himself with the character and understands his motivation and feelings behind his actions.

It would be also great to use some more recently introduced features like the Laws of War in the campaign to, in the best case, educates the player about the IHL in an interesting way.

 

What I had planned for and then scrapped as I couldn´t write an interesting story was the following.

 

Spoiler

The main protagonist is a General that is sick and will die in a short time.

He calls his family to him because he wants to tell them about one action that he did in war that haunts him to this day.

He then tells them about his life in the military (the player could play out his memories).

He starts as an ordinary soldier and after basic training he is a part of multiple operations before being proposed for the selection process at the KSK special forces due to his gallantry and great performance.

He succeeds the selection process, goes through training and is transfered to one of the operational units.

There he takes part in multiple foreign assignments for many years.

In one of this, to which I was inspired by Operation Anaconda, the team of the player is protecting the flank of the american force.

At night there is an attack of insurgents where the player is separated from his unit and ultimately taken prisoner by the insurgents.

He could flee but he has no gadgets to orient himself and need to get back to allied units only through the star image.

During this mission the player gets a weapon and is attacked by multiple insurgents which he killed.

When he searched them for intel or a map he looks into their faces and they are kids. They could have been his kids and this image is what haunts his until today and lets him sleep bad.

That´s what he meant at the beginning of the story.

After his active duty time he gets promoted to Commander and is sending units into battle, which the player could also play.

He regrets the death of one of his men and shortly after that incident he quits the service as he isn´t able to send men into battle anymore after the casualty.

He withdrew himself from public and lives a lonely life until during a routine checkup he gets diagnosed with cancer that isn´t operable anymore.

He then calls his family and we are back at the beginning.

What do you think about it, does this very raw story has the potential of being worthy to produce and could it make fun?

And I still hope that a better storyteller than me could work out a good plot that then could be realized.

[padi 28]

33 minutes ago, pierremgi said:

You should post here. Why?

A SP campaign is immersive with videos, voices, animated characters ... All these things which takes a lot of time. You need a Machinima maker.

Imho, the scripting is easier, especially in SP. There are already some good interface for choosing the missions in campaign.

Too much possibilities, or not enough, kill the campaign. BI created "Old Man"... Well...  Not a real success. Did you play it? Many tools, many repeatable actions, many teleportations... but a flat scenario. The big miss, imho, is the fact you can't play with AIs as player's group. That's the very first point: enlist/dismiss AIs in your group. Put the stress on specialists (medic, engineer). Make the map more "Interactive" (The I of BI 😂)...

For your scenario, open a list for specific tasks like : Kill (a boss), repair, find evidence, destroy something, infiltrate, interrogate, search by night, attack, defend, support... Then elaborate.
For example, A CSAR (combat search and rescue for an ejected pilot) can be simple as: go to the position, pick the guy. Or... wait for the night, support by air asset, infiltrate enemy positions, scout for a beacon, sweep the local area, ask for helo, interrogate the target, secure, pick up, exfil. That is to say, a simple task can be immersive, or straight as an arcade shoot them all.

Yes, I played Old Man for a short time, then I wasn´t immersed and enjoyed anymore and quit it.

You are also correct that your points are great for creating the immersive environment in the mission.

 

But as said my main problem isn´t in the editor, it is the Storytelling because I´m really bad at that and can´t get my ideas compiled into one campaign script which I then could work into the editor...

[JohnKalo 657]

Well your story seems just fine and should be able to make a campaign. As an anti war message if I have understood correctly. To be honest I would personally not like the story so much but if the missions were cool I should have played it. I would not like the story because such a death is no happy occurrence. I would prefer him going to end his life in battle fighting for his country no matter his condition. And why did it haunt him? Such things you think about before going into battle. That is how war is like in real life. No respawn and such. That fact I even stress in the air gun shooting range. Real war is no Cod and saying hey lets go to battle is never good when being on the offensive. Even on the defensive the only thing keeping you is that not many people have the chance to offer their life for their country. That is a great honor and the best way to end your life. Still in war lives get lost and many people end up being in a lot of pain. If that is what you are trying to stress yeah I get it. Although the exact ending I cannot guess. 

[pierremgi 4890]

4 minutes ago, JohnKalo said:

 Even on the defensive the only thing keeping you is that not many people have the chance to offer their life for their country. That is a great honor and the best way to end your life.

 

As Patton said: No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

[padi 28]

19 minutes ago, JohnKalo said:

Well your story seems just fine and should be able to make a campaign. As an anti war message if I have understood correctly. To be honest I would personally not like the story so much but if the missions were cool I should have played it. I would not like the story because such a death is no happy occurrence. I would prefer him going to end his life in battle fighting for his country no matter his condition. And why did it haunt him? Such things you think about before going into battle. That is how war is like in real life. No respawn and such. That fact I even stress in the air gun shooting range. Real war is no Cod and saying hey lets go to battle is never good when being on the offensive. Even on the defensive the only thing keeping you is that not many people have the chance to offer their life for their country. That is a great honor and the best way to end your life. Still in war lives get lost and many people end up being in a lot of pain. If that is what you are trying to stress yeah I get it. Although the exact ending I cannot guess. 

Not all should be anti-war.

My idea is that as a young man during basic training the player character is excited to go to war and serve his country, also he is a career soldier that dreams of being a general sometimes and have a safe job.

With seeing bad things in combat and the lacking psychological help from the armed forces his opinion on war changes over time.

I didn‘t like the death of cancer end either but that was what came to mind when thinking about death for a general. Maybe with some time between the end of his military career and the final end he could die a natural death.

Regarding why it haunts him that was just an idea why he left the military to go to a remote and lonely island, maybe we could find a better reason.

In movies generals are often depicted as if they didn‘t care how many casualties they have as long as the objective is accomplished.

I want to turn the attention on a more human side of war away from movie heroics to the consequences of a decision like joining the military. Kind of like Remnants of War.

First everything goes well, the player character is a war hero and gets to the KSK, but then the negative sides kick in and it goes downhill.

[wogz187 1086]

So many words but only one of them is "fun"!

Think about it like this: You can't tell the player a story because you aren't there. The player MUST tell themselves a story. You can coax the player; you can imply, you can motivate through design decisions and compel, but the narrative must serve the gameplay.

"I want the character to be a general..." == wrong
"This gameplay mechanic demands the character to be a general..." == correct

Have fun!

[JohnKalo 657]

Quote

As Patton said: No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

Yeah but still people die from both sides. Saying I am going to go there and slaughter all is Rambo and Hollywood. You understand that high chances are you will sacrifice in the end so as for others to continue with their lives and your country to be free. I am not saying let us all go die. Naturally you are going to war to take down your enemy but many soldiers die while trying. Those guys are not losers and deep down they gave much more than the ones who stayed alive did. Or if you are talking about their skills in battle the person taking down 100 hostiles can get killed in the end while the one having shot 1 or 2 hostiles can make it out alive. That is why each year we honor the ones who have made the ultimate sacrifice so as for us to be free here today. It is the least we can do and our worth wont be shown unless we have the chance to defend our country and do the same thing. Go to war without letting fear of death drive us out. 

 

Quote

First everything goes well, the player character is a war hero and gets to the KSK, but then the negative sides kick in and it goes downhill.

 

A nice idea showing that people being so fond of going to war maybe don't understand what war is actually like. Yeah the movies, the games, the funerals with the flags look so good but they hide a huge amount of sadness and destruction. And wars go by while the pain does not. Somethings not even time can heal. Yeah that could be a nice campaign but some people might go against the story. 

[padi 28]

1 hour ago, JohnKalo said:

A nice idea showing that people being so fond of going to war maybe don't understand what war is actually like. Yeah the movies, the games, the funerals with the flags look so good but they hide a huge amount of sadness and destruction. And wars go by while the pain does not. Somethings not even time can heal. Yeah that could be a nice campaign but some people might go against the story. 

 

 

I‘m not wanting the campaign to be anti military as the military is already too much critizised (here in germany) whatever they do, even if it is right.

I want to shift the focus to what war does to a soldier, what the long term effects of war are and how soldiers struggle after life in the military.

I‘m happy that you like the story!

 

If anybody go against the story I‘m willing to listen to what they don‘t like, maybe that could be changed.

Also if somebody could help with the story or simply has a wish what should be included, I‘m willing to listen as well.

[A. Ares 16]

Hey there @padi, and the rest of the guys! I would say, as an ArmA 3 player, that you can start to work on your campaing and see how it goes! Trial and Error some times is the best way! Your story is not bad (although I believe that in the process of making the whole campaing, you will have to put in there a tone of details) and although I do not really like this kind of stories, I would definitely give a try to your campaing!

I strongly believe that if YOU like your story, then you can make it happen!

Some people talked about optimization and they are 110% right! As a campaing maker (so in an extend a mission maker) you should consider all the technical and gameplay issues that you may encounter in all your campaing missions! About technical issues like scripting, mods etc. as somebody said, the community is (thankfully) FULL of people that (generously) share their hard labor without any copyrights or even asking for credits! You can use all these but do NOT forget to thank all these guys that make ArmA 3 community so GREAT!

What I would recommend at least as a start is to make the campaing (and your missions) the way you would LOVE them to be and the way you would LOVE to play a mission! And after that, consider what problems and issues other players may encounter or if you give enough info and choices to somebody that have no idea about the story you have in your mind as a whole! And of course do NOT forget that PLAYERS want to PLAY, so... give them some missions that they will remember for months!

I am Greek, I have served as a Cadet officer and 2nd Lt. in Greek infantry and have been through BASIC SF training and served as a Platoon Commander in a Greek Rangers Company. I would love to provide any help you may need, be it voice acting, mission making ideas or editor help, tactical advices or military stories, translations for localizations and what else you can imagine!
 

[pierremgi 4890]

My two cents:

- I don't like the "nowadays" "fragility" of the soldier, back to home after one or two campaign and disconnected from life... Or more exactly, the stress on traumas the media would highlight for their candy world. I'd rather mind as veterans of WW2, able to explain their war, even if they traveled hell. I could expand on that (my mil career) but it's not the place.

 

- as game, Arma must stay a milsim, not a candy story. That's doesn't mean you can't add some human sequences like retreat, evac, survival (food,drink,health)... but, imho, the long story telling about the bad side of war, like in "laws of war", is boring. "Laws of war" was a good demonstrator for Arma editing tools, not a great tremendous story. The BI / ICRC partnership can explain that. And that offered a new gameplay. So, it's up to you scripting for a cool dude story (not the simplest!) or something more... military (and that's the Arma spirit, I hope).

[JohnKalo 657]

@padi Anti military and anti war messages are not the same. Every country should have a military while some much more than others. If Greece had no military for example our most friendly neighbors would have torn us apart real good. While thanks to our most kind eastern neighbors they would have erased us from the face of the earth. Well Germany and the military are sure to have heavy criticism due to all the events surrounding WWII. Cannot really have an opinion since I do not know many Germans but your are the grandsons of the people who slaughtered millions of people. Many relatives of ours died because of your not so far away ancestors. So that is why all the criticism takes place. And it is not about who you were in war with. With the Italians we have been in war too but we are nowadays friendly. Since we did not slaughter them and they did not slaughter us. But yes a story showing the affects of battle and not like the, in my opinion, boring Laws of War campaign which I chose not to suffer would be really nice. 

 

@A. Ares Nicely said. Too early to say but due to my studies most likely I will be in an artillery or engineering department.

 

@pierremgi Truth be told it was much more harsh back in the day. WWI and II battles were really intense and had thousands of people dying in minutes if not seconds. Nowadays its more like small groups of combatants, air, tanks and drones. Many soldiers never actually are on the battlefield. They just take people out while kilometers away. And yes Laws of War was boring. Although still wars are no good due to the huge amount of loses. 

[padi 28]

7 hours ago, A. Ares said:

Hey there @padi, and the rest of the guys! I would say, as an ArmA 3 player, that you can start to work on your campaing and see how it goes! Trial and Error some times is the best way! Your story is not bad (although I believe that in the process of making the whole campaing, you will have to put in there a tone of details) and although I do not really like this kind of stories, I would definitely give a try to your campaing!

I strongly believe that if YOU like your story, then you can make it happen!

Some people talked about optimization and they are 110% right! As a campaing maker (so in an extend a mission maker) you should consider all the technical and gameplay issues that you may encounter in all your campaing missions! About technical issues like scripting, mods etc. as somebody said, the community is (thankfully) FULL of people that (generously) share their hard labor without any copyrights or even asking for credits! You can use all these but do NOT forget to thank all these guys that make ArmA 3 community so GREAT!

What I would recommend at least as a start is to make the campaing (and your missions) the way you would LOVE them to be and the way you would LOVE to play a mission! And after that, consider what problems and issues other players may encounter or if you give enough info and choices to somebody that have no idea about the story you have in your mind as a whole! And of course do NOT forget that PLAYERS want to PLAY, so... give them some missions that they will remember for months!

Thank you for that points, it is so helpful to get these hints and tips from this incredible community!

If I made the campaign so that it is enjoyful for me it would include some missions where you´re on an Afghanistan style map, patrol to a village, talk to the Mayor and then walk back without much combat.

I really like these "boring" mission in which nothing happens for an hour, then a few insurgents fire on you and hell breaks out.

In summary really realistic missions...

But as I know that likely not many people would like them I attempt to hold such missions to a minimum.

As one of the missions that the players hopefully remember for months I have invisioned the escape at night without any tools.

7 hours ago, A. Ares said:

I am Greek, I have served as a Cadet officer and 2nd Lt. in Greek infantry and have been through BASIC SF training and served as a Platoon Commander in a Greek Rangers Company. I would love to provide any help you may need, be it voice acting, mission making ideas or editor help, tactical advices or military stories, translations for localizations and what else you can imagine!
 

I didn´t know what to say besides a very big thank you for that offer, I will definately come back to that!

I already think about how I could include the greek military into the story to honor your contribution visually ingame.

 

I think that in the coming days I will attempt to include more details into my campaign script, so that with every new writing there will be even more details in it.

Also I think that I attempt to write resumes for the main protagonists of the story.

 

Again thank you very much for that!

[froggyluv 2136]

53 minutes ago, JohnKalo said:

Truth be told it was much more harsh back in the day. WWI and II battles were really intense and had thousands of people dying in minutes if not seconds. Nowadays its more like small groups of combatants, air, tanks and drones. Many soldiers never actually are on the battlefield. They just take people out while kilometers away. And yes Laws of War was boring. Although still wars are no good due to the huge amount of loses. 

 

 I think he is refferring more to the tone of War and the military back in the day as compared to today. WW2 was heralded as "Glorious" as those men were seen as hyper-masculine tough heroes to be respected and surrounded with triumphant re-storytelling filled with trumpets and grandspeech of "Our fighting forces!". 

 

Nowadays it has a much more melancholy emotional element to it -seen as something sad and traumatic with no where near the amount of pomp and circumstance around it. Sure Spec Ops guys are still seen as super-human and glorified but even they come back writing tell all books and getting therapy. 

[padi 28]

6 hours ago, pierremgi said:

My two cents:

- I don't like the "nowadays" "fragility" of the soldier, back to home after one or two campaign and disconnected from life... Or more exactly, the stress on traumas the media would highlight for their candy world. I'd rather mind as veterans of WW2, able to explain their war, even if they traveled hell. I could expand on that (my mil career) but it's not the place.

 

- as game, Arma must stay a milsim, not a candy story. That's doesn't mean you can't add some human sequences like retreat, evac, survival (food,drink,health)... but, imho, the long story telling about the bad side of war, like in "laws of war", is boring. "Laws of war" was a good demonstrator for Arma editing tools, not a great tremendous story. The BI / ICRC partnership can explain that. And that offered a new gameplay. So, it's up to you scripting for a cool dude story (not the simplest!) or something more... military (and that's the Arma spirit, I hope).

In WW2 there were also traumas from fighting but the soldiers were left alone to either commit suicide or get help outside of the military.

I´m very happy that the armed forces help their soldiers to adjust to civilian life after their service and help them with psychological help during service.

But that´s only my opinion.

 

Do you really experienced Remnants of War as boring?

Interesting, I have never before thought about it that way or read about someone thinking that way.

 

To your third point.

There are so many campaigns out that all have a superhero that is fighting against superior enemies and wins.

Apart from that not being very realistic I have never played a single campaign apart from ROW that focuses on the consequences of war on men and countries which I think is sad and missing.

I don´t want to do something that already exists but to do something new that is worthy of play.

 

Greetings

[padi 28]

1 hour ago, JohnKalo said:

@padi Anti military and anti war messages are not the same. Every country should have a military while some much more than others. If Greece had no military for example our most friendly neighbors would have torn us apart real good. While thanks to our most kind eastern neighbors they would have erased us from the face of the earth. Well Germany and the military are sure to have heavy criticism due to all the events surrounding WWII. Cannot really have an opinion since I do not know many Germans but your are the grandsons of the people who slaughtered millions of people. Many relatives of ours died because of your not so far away ancestors. So that is why all the criticism takes place. And it is not about who you were in war with. With the Italians we have been in war too but we are nowadays friendly. Since we did not slaughter them and they did not slaughter us. But yes a story showing the affects of battle and not like the, in my opinion, boring Laws of War campaign which I chose not to suffer would be really nice.  

Thanks for your reply.

The problem in germany is that the leftys in the politics want to abolish the german military and want to form a EU-army.

Also they work against proper equipment and training for our forces which leads to widespread unhappyness in the army when they need to go to battle with sub-par equipment or need to request american CSAR-helicopters because the german army does have CSAR-personnel, but no suited helicopters...

Another example, the KSK special forces didn´t have the best available NVGs so their operations are severely more difficult than the need to be.

 

There are every week interviews with soldiers from every kind of branch from regulars to SF soldiers that are not happy.

 

I didn´t experience any hate or being unwelcome everywhere in europe and didn´t ever read something that german armed forces aren´t welcome somewhere in europe.

The only criticism I read in the past years from outside germany was from Trump who wanted more military spending.

[A. Ares 16]

18 hours ago, padi said:

If I made the campaign so that it is enjoyful for me it would include some missions where you´re on an Afghanistan style map, patrol to a village, talk to the Mayor and then walk back without much combat.

I really like these "boring" mission in which nothing happens for an hour, then a few insurgents fire on you and hell breaks out.

In summary really realistic missions...

But as I know that likely not many people would like them I attempt to hold such missions to a minimum.

@padi mate, I do like these kind of missions but at the same time I totally understand why some (not to say many or even the majority of the) players won't like it! I believe though that these kind of missions have a really nice place in campaigns! They tell the part of the story that cannot be told otherwise. They let players and people see a part of the story that most of the time is realistic (since no story is ONLY war, except maybe the 41st millenia... FOR THE EMPEROR! 😛 ) and at the same time are more casual and a good break. There is always a catch though! They may get boring! So, my recommendation for these (something that I am thinking to do with my paranormal/post-apoc campaing) is to keep them short, really short...

something like:

maximum 10 minutes of patrolling before you reach the village elder and speak with him,
speak with him for about 2-5 minutes with info and details that players will be able to remember and follow (or it would be good to give all the details from the conversations into a "intel log" on the map),
RTB and on the way back let the ambush take place but again do not overdo it!
Keep in mind thought that the whole patrol route must have a lot of details (things like civilians with animation, civilians moving around moving them with triggers (maybe), possible distance fight sounds, small events, checking on civilians etc) that need a lot of time and effort to make (although I believe that they deserve all the effort and time)
and do NOT forget the saves (I would quit the whole campaing if I had to play again the patrol from the beginning cause I died from the 2nd bullet on the ambush).

My preference is to have many small missions (my campaing will have small encounters with a squad sized enemy force every time or something like that, especially since players will have to play with AI on their team instead of other players, with an objective or things like search this for that and the seach process actually will be something that players will have to do.) with an objective (somebody mention something about making an objective arcady or extremely realistic (I prefer to get closer to the latter)) and small encounters that do not take ages to get resolved! Give players chances to win but do not make it really easy! (except if the story is your only goal on your campaing but as I said, "PLAYERS want to PLAY...")

"Hub missions" are a good example of non-fighting missions that players get to do things, "take a break" from combat and even decide things which actually brings me to my last recommendation about this kind of missions!

These missions can give you a really good situation to make decisions that players have to make. For example, if they reported an IED or helped civilians on their patrol, did they provide medical assistance on an injured civilian that they found when they were on patrol towards the mayor? If yes next mission will be mission 5 if not next mission will be mission 6 or the conversation will change (your imagination is the limit), hub missions can have a similar thing, players will have to choose 1 out of 3 missions and depending on which one they chose, the rest of the campaing will continue accordingly!

Keep in mind that making all these options and possibilites needs a huge amount of effort and time (having small and intense missions (like some of the first missions of the official ArmA 3 campaign) can help out with the effort and time though) but I believe that the outcome will be really nice! Think about the 2 or 3 first APEX protocol missions, not too big, with combat in mind but some dialogues every now and then!

Also, do not forget that you can make new versions of your campaing, add new missions, evolve it, change things, update them and continue the story as you see fit by updating the steam workshop campaing!

And again, IF you can think of any way I may help you, just please let me know!

Take care and ArmA as much as you can!

[pierremgi 4890]

Hard work on prospect but for sure, Ares is right. First of all, write a tree view of your campaign.

[JohnKalo 657]

Quote

 

The problem in germany is that the leftys in the politics want to abolish the german military and want to form a EU-army.

Also they work against proper equipment and training for our forces which leads to widespread unhappyness in the army when they need to go to battle with sub-par equipment or need to request american CSAR-helicopters because the german army does have CSAR-personnel, but no suited helicopters...

 

 

Don't think an EU army will ever be created. Not even the NATO one does its job. Our borders are being breached sometimes every day by fighter jets and NATO does nothing. Cyprus is still not free too after all those years. Well apart from  the WWII events Germany and Turkey politically tend to be friendly. That way no consequences for Turkey were implemented after them sending armies of illegal immigrants at our borders. You must have heard of that. Germany I believe sent help too. 20 police officers at Ebro if I am not mistaken. Wow... So an EU army would never really do anything. Not even in small matters do they react. Especially now that UK is gone from the EU. The UK fleet that were not allowing refuges to board their ships at the Smyrni disaster. Also I was not talking about seeing a German and cursing him or anything but no working with a German and such would not be good. Although it is true that many people from Greece have gone to Germany to work. Judging nations according to what their politicians do is totally wrong in general by the way but when the people are the ones hurting you that cannot be forgotten. Whole villages were executed just like that. We will not forget that no matter what happens. Oh and we bought some submarines from Germany too. They could not float. After years of repairs they were finally operational. But then our awesome politicians had forgotten to buy the needed torpedoes. Such acts are common from the politicians around here. We could even buy SU fighter jets from Russia and in return we would be pay in food but yet they said no. Gladly the Americans send us everything they do not need any more but as for us to buy spare parts afterwards. And the news are like what a generous act from our allies. Lol not even our borders are safe and we say yeah to the head of NATO. And our Russian bought army equipment cannot be repairs due to the embargo forced by NATO. Crazy times.

 

In any case that is not what the thread is about. Yes too much speaking and such does make it boring for the majority of players and I would seriously not play such a mission. If I wanted such a thing I would watch a movie. Also a tree view of the campaign is indeed essential. It tends to change while the campaign is created but still a basis is needed. And as for making the campaign making it into one file makes it hard to update it maybe. For example if I want to change a mission I would have to upload the whole campaign. And there might be issues when testing. That is why I make a collection when on a campaign. But yes only if its one file will you be able to make in-game player choices that will affect the story and not the finale alone. 

 

Last but not least you can start writing the story and post it here with a spoiler warning if that is what is keeping you. So as for suggestions and such.