Millions of great addons and almost no missions

[barcode6 0]

I'm still learning to make missions. I've been at it for 4 months now, and have spent 25 hours in one weekend working on stuff and learning new things. I almost always use an addon or two, but I just haven't got to the point where my missions are good enough for public consumption.

One thing I do is to depbo a mission I like, and incorporate a suitable addon in place of the authors choice of units. While these would be a pain to release as you have to seek permission, it helps me get past the fact there aren't many missions being released with the addons coming out.

[ebud 18]

I really think that a way to incorporate addons into the game as replacements should be considered for OFP2 or whatever it will be. With GR, you can DL and use any mod as default.

I think it would be great to change the default units in an addon setting. That way you could mix and match to make an infinate number of combinations. You could essentially replay any and all campaigns (if they were built using default units) using new addons.

I too open up missions and re-edit them to use addons I like. I also used to edit the main config to use new addons in-place of the BIS units to replay missions or the campaign.

Worked pretty well, but a system such as that in GR would be a good idea possibly.

[Garritos 0]

I havent released a mission to the public since my first mission almost a year ago. I am a bit of prefectionist with my mission atmosphere and tend to use many, many add-ons. I get sick of listening to ppl whine about having to download so many add-ons, so i simply never polish them off for public release. These days it takes alot of work to release a top-quality mission so I think ppl like myself are just not releasing them. I have atleast 30-40 missions on my hard-drive featuring the armys of many nations also spaning different eras. I dont share Avon's conclusion that great add-ons are being wasted, they give me hours of fun and everytime another country is introduced into OFP, it opens another realm of hypothetical or historic engagements for me to create. The great thing about OFP is that it can be anything you want it to be.

If we want more missions i would suggest ppl band together in teams. Now that we have a good array of add-ons it would be the fastest way to crank out quality campaigns and mission. This would bring different editors strengths and weakness' together.

[theavonlady 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Garritos @ Mar. 03 2003,09:20)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I dont share Avon's conclusion that great add-ons are being wasted, they give me hours of fun and everytime another country is introduced into OFP, it opens another realm of hypothetical or historic engagements for me to create.<span id='postcolor'>

How do you define this "fun"?

Do you create missions just for yourself with these addons? OK, I can understand that. Of course, many of out are missing out on that.

Or do you just fiddle around with addons for hours, rather than the 20 minutes I gave as an example in the poll?

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The great thing about OFP is that it can be anything you want it to be.<span id='postcolor'>

The potential is indeed there.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">If we want more missions i would suggest ppl band together in teams.<span id='postcolor'>

Well, I fully agree. While I didn't state that clear enough, I did say that would sure like to see a good percentage of addon makers or addon teams devote a much larger percentage of their time to mission making.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Now that we have a good array of add-ons it would be the fastest way to crank out quality campaigns and mission. This would bring different editors strengths and weakness' together.<span id='postcolor'>

Put your money where your mouth is. Start organizing a mission studio (instead of an addon studio)! Select people with top experience. Decide on a handful of missions. Take your time to perfect each one. Don't hesitate to release them for beta once they're relatively stable (search The FAQ for "beta testing").

[Tex -USMC- 0]

I wish there were more missions also. I do know where one great mission-maker went. Any of you guys remember Phaeden, and all the great missions he made for the demo and OFP in its earlier days, not to mention his island? Well, he's in Alaska right now, believe it or not, freezing his ass off and wishing he were back down here. He ought to be back in the contiguous 48 sometime this summer, so look for him to get back into the swing of things sort of soon.

[Garritos 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Do you create missions just for yourself with these addons? OK, I can understand that. Of course, many of out are missing out on that.<span id='postcolor'>

I create senarios. most of these are unreleasable b/c they are non-polished, very CPU intensive and highly realistic. only serious military nuts with supercomps would find them enjoayable.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Put your money where your mouth is. Start organizing a mission studio (instead of an addon studio)! Select people with top experience.<span id='postcolor'>

unfortunately I lack the time and energy to spearhead such a team(my job as lead mission designer for the Falklands mod takes up alot of my ofp time). I would love to offer my services to anyone whom has some webspace and alot of free time to write mile long description files for me

the fact is that i really hope this thread does turn into a top-notch mission studio, there are many talented mission guys out there that i would love to work with.

[Major Fubar 0]

I've got a big LAN co-op session coming this Friday, so I'm going to have a crack at modifying some of my favourite missions to use addons, something my group of LAN players haven't tried out before.

I want to put BAS Deltas and some HK Pack units (Mercenaries and Terrorists) into a few missions especially.

[Gourka 0]

My vote is: I stopped downloading...

I have a small list of good addons/map and I download missions for this addons/map and not the opposite like 36 obscure addons for one mission.

My list is:

- Nogojev 1.1 + keg russianPack

- SebNamPack 2

- Bas addons

- Jungle and desert island

- DKM Comanche

IMHO with this addons/pack/map listed here the missions maker can do very good missions.

I am a bit   when I download 10 addons for a mission and when I start I can see a  "missing addons blabla".

The result is: delete the mission, delete the addons. And this append 80% of the time  

I am not a big MP addict so I would like to see more mission pack or campaign like:

- Quanah Parker Mission Pack. Thank's Avon  

- 1969 Vietnam Campaign. Thank's Avon and Spanky-G  

- BAS Delta and Ranger Demo Missions. Thank's BAS  

I would like to see more of this kind of mission/campaign in the future.

The other problem I see is the balance in term of fire power beetwen the addons. How to deal with standard russian tank against some non-official overpowered US tank addons ?

Bye

[Guest]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Gourka @ Mar. 03 2003,12:24)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The other problem I see is the balance in term of fire power beetwen the addons. How to deal with standard russian tank against some non-official overpowered US tank addons ?<span id='postcolor'>

Yes I agree this can be a problem, but a good mission maker will balance these things...there are many ways to do it.

[miles teg 1]

Hey Avon Lady, I wanted to let you know that the Black Hawk Down conversion to the new Mogadishu map and BAS units is going really well.   I have the main mission itself transfered and working beautifully.  I'm just working now on getting the intro working as well as the ending.  The intro is the trickier part as I have to get everything timed just right and not setting off triggers at the wrong time.  However I put a great new first part showing the capture of one of Mohamad Adid's top men with the blackhawk's flying low along side his car before shooting out the tires...all this happening to the soundtrack from the BHD movie.   I'm also going to try and get that SP respawn script to work with it in order to get better frame rates and to have alot more continuous action from beginning to end.   So far however the frame rates are definitely better then the old version running in Resistance because with the new Mogadishu map I don't have to add any building objects in the mission editor. So once I get the respawn script working, I think their will be an even bigger improvement in frame rates.

By the way, if you liked my first BHD mission, you'll LOVE this one as it definitely feels and looks more like scenes from the movie.  For example I have somalies hiding in the buildings who take potshots at you and your men as you walk by the windows.     It's really scary cuz sometimes they fire from different directions and you have no idea where the fire is coming from.  

I just wish BAS would finish up their MH60 soon and that the person working on that Somali gunman addon finishes it soon because I really need some of those guys with Kegetys's RPG7.... but also guys who are more inaccurate with it... sorta like that high dispersion AK model that BAS included with their Ranger/Delta pack.  

The only downside to doing re-doing this mission is that few people will probably ever play it due to all the addons needed. So far it's just the BAS Delta/Ranger addon and the BAS Little Bird addon but I was thinking off adding some buildings from the Middle East building pack like the gun market and the minarets.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[joltan 0]

Well, my squad has a well defined addons pack (now about to go into its 4th revision) that is required to play on our server. While we (myself and our other mission makers like December & Junker) do non-addons mission, too, most of the missions we make since we started the pack are using addons.

These missions are played reguarly on our (public) server and we share them with other servers that use either our addons pack or have the required addons in their own collection. As we provide the users with an installer for our pack that enables them to install/uninstall them in a seperate mod-folder without any fuzz, the addons are well received and we never had a lack of players interested in playing there.

[Guest jacobaby]

What has happened, apart from players moving away from OFP, is that decent addon making, also requires decent scripting, which is generally learnt in mission making. So the time then gets transferred over to scripting rather than missions.

Really good missions take a lot of time to make.

Perhaps what would help to balance the situation a little is to have good quality missions, with a wide variety of settings and circumstances.

It is very easy to create random scenarios, random numbers of enemy, random skill of enemy, random placement etc.

This will make one good mission replayable a lot longer.

You can also set options via the parameters in the desc.ext to choose at start of game.

Try Operation Lojack by toadlife for instance.

I think a few such decent missions, with well known/used addons WOULD be better and of more use to the community as it stands.

There are tons of dust gatherers out there that took many hours to complete. Shame but true. Addon makers, consider, IS IT REALLY WORTH IT???

On the points about portable addons etc. If you read the interview with Ondrej, you will have noticed that porting addons with missions is their plan.

If you read the forum you may have noticed that Suma also mentioned in one post... (and I find this exciting)

"If you want your addon to be compatible with future products, script it such and such a way....."

So hopefully, that means that current addons, made according to BIS instructions, WILL be compatible with OFP2 in whatever format it takes. Hopefully.

Avon, I made a mission for you when you smiled sweetly at me, (Compromised, see Avon's MOMoment), perhaps you should smile sweetly at some other mission makers......

TJ

[Placebo 29]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Eviscerator @ Mar. 03 2003,02:20)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The 2S19 was made by a guy called hawk i think ( <a href="" target="_blank">ftp://www.gamezone.cz/ofpd/unofaddons/2s19.zip</a> ), and the STTM16MK is Selectthis' (obviously) Masterkey addon ( http://www.ofpec.com/publicfiles/addfileaddon//STTMasterKey1_10.zip )<span id='postcolor'>

Much appreciated thank you, re-checked the readme and there is no mention of those two being needed

Edit: This is getting rediculous, thanks to the the links the intro plays, once that ends I get the following........

No wonder I haven't bothered in the past with missions that needed piles of addons *sniff*

[Eviscerator 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (placebo @ Mar. 03 2003,23:47)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Eviscerator @ Mar. 03 2003,02:20)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The 2S19 was made by a guy called hawk i think ( <a href="" target="_blank">ftp://www.gamezone.cz/ofpd/unofaddons/2s19.zip</a> ), and the STTM16MK is Selectthis' (obviously) Masterkey addon ( http://www.ofpec.com/publicfiles/addfileaddon//STTMasterKey1_10.zip )<span id='postcolor'>

Much appreciated thank you, re-checked the readme and there is no mention of those two being needed

Edit: This is getting rediculous, thanks to the the links the intro plays, once that ends I get the following........

No wonder I haven't bothered in the past with missions that needed piles of addons *sniff* <span id='postcolor'>

ah, not too sure what they are, only thing that springs to mind is the bunker pack, and i have no idea where you'd find that, the site where it was based is gone now...

[Guest]

My guess is that any mission maker who is so bad at documenting what addons you need probably won't make a very good mission. Give it up Placebo.......

[blackdog~ 0]

www.fortressofp.com for the bunker. Not sure if its the same one though.

I am guessing that 'desert' is this addon:

http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=2545

[Placebo 29]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Leone @ Mar. 04 2003,02:54)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">My guess is that any mission maker who is so bad at documenting what addons you need probably won't make a very good mission.    Give it up Placebo.......<span id='postcolor'>

LOL I think you're right, I just wanted to play more desert missions as I don't have all that many.

Thanks everyone for the help anyways

[theavonlady 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (placebo @ Mar. 04 2003,14:46)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I just wanted to play more desert missions as I don't have all that many.<span id='postcolor'>

Patience.

When FileFront fixes their broken FTP logins, you'll have another one.

[Placebo 29]

Hmmkay I'll look into it when I get home, lunch is almost over and I need a cigar