"FlashNews" Launched.

[raedor 8]

Me neither, it's possible I chose that thread as the closest I could find to a relevant thread He has his own forum thread on another forum for discussion if that's what you need

http://www.digitalgrenade.com/

ok, thx.

[Placebo 29]

FlashNews No. 35

Middle East Rebels

Su22 & Su25

Wanzer

Tiger

And more...

[Placebo 29]

FlashNews No. 36

MEC Public Vote Closed

Civil War Mod update

Bundeswehr Mod

Y2K3 7.0

Winter Maldevic

MaaM 1.3

And many, many more...

[Placebo 29]

FlashNews No. 37

Iraqi Infantry

Dak Seang Highlands

BW's Fennek & The Wolf

Fluffy Clouds

And many more...

[x Flashpoint x 0]

FlashNews No. 33

MEC Poll Closes Feb 14th

Wilco's Retextures

Iceland Island

Aussie Bridge

German Units

And many, many more...

FlashNews next week will be on Thursday (I'm visiting England).

I'll roll out the red carpet for you Placebo

[Placebo 29]

Too late but thanks for the sentiment

[Placebo 29]

FlashNews No. 38

70s & 80's French

ORCS MG Pack

Sanctuary's Anims (again!)

Mig-29

And many more...

[sanctuary 19]

FlashNews No. 38

70s & 80's French

ORCS MG Pack

Sanctuary's Anims (again!)

Mig-29

And many more...

I think a certain "Super Manager" will certainly hate me soon

[Placebo 29]

Hehehe naah I thought it was funny

[Placebo 29]

FlashNews No. 39

Updated Cat's Afghanistan

FlashFX Replacement Units 3.0

Updated Afghani Rebels

WWII Higgins & Chaffee

And many more....

Not to forget an update of Sanctuary's final, final custom animation addon

[Placebo 29]

FlashNews No. 40

Updated Mi-26 and Crew

Updated Antonov

Ocean Island and objects

Midship's Island

Recent User missions

And many more....

Sadly no update to the final, final animation addon

[redface 1]

go go Placebo

just add that one missing picture and the MEC winner's name before I have to leave ... :-)

[Placebo 29]

FlashNews No. 41

Mission Editing Competition Winners announced (Congratulations!)

Operation Gulf War Crisis

FlashFX Replacement Units 3.5

Strike Island

Polish Airforce Addon

Chechen Insurgent Addon

And many, many more....

[moricky 211]

Did you publish all MEC missions?

[Placebo 29]

Not yet no

[Placebo 29]

BTW I should mention that due to the Easter break and such this week's FlashNews will be posted tomorrow

[Placebo 29]

FlashNews No. 42

Vilas' Polska & Tet Islands

Freya Island

Sovremennyy class destroyer addon

Ocean Island addon

Spetsnaz GRU addon

And many more....

[Placebo 29]

FlashNews No. 43

Hell's Circus WWII Islands

Vit's Mi24 Pacl

Phil Commando's Japanese Naval destroyer

Hardrock's Mini-Eurofighter

Berlin 1945's 20mm flak gun

And many more....

[Placebo 29]

FlashNews No. 44

Taiwan Mod 3.0

Conflicto de Malvinas Beta3

M1A2

New Desert Island

Mammoth Tank

And many more....

[Placebo 29]

FlashNews No. 45

Updated Afghanistan Final

Farmland Pack Alpha 1.0

Updated Ocean Island

Lean & Roll implementation

Updated Pirates

And more....

[General Barron 0]

Hey, just a quick question here. Forgive me if it has already been answered but...

How does the "news" get into the "flashnews"? Do you ask people to send it to you, or do you find things on the forums (or other sites?) and then add them to the news?

I haven't really read flashnews much, because it seems to me like it is just news about addons. There are tons of great missions that get released every day, yet there doesn't seem to be much, if any, mention of them here. I suppose the user missions board on this site isn't as active as on OFPEC for example, so that might explain it, but it still seems like there is less missions news than (new) missions posts on this forum.

Mission editing & scripting news is even less common though. I haven't seen ANY mention of new scripts or tutorials being released, except for one: Sinews of War v2. I know there are even less scripts being released on these forums than missions, but they do exist none the less.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that there is more to OFP than just addons, and it would be nice if Flashnews reflected that fact.

[Placebo 29]

Sometimes people send news in but items only get into Flashnews when it's something "physical" that can actually be put into the game there and then. Usually I gather the news by reading fansites and browsing these forums.

Missions do get put into Flashnews, although like their release, their inclusion is sporadic. That said it's definitely time for a user misison summary as their last inclusion was Flashnews 40 (13th March). I don't immediately include missions into Flashnews for a couple of reasons, the main one is that often a mission gets released on the forum in an quite incomplete state, I won't include it in Flashnews until I have judged by the replies to the forum thread that if I include it the person reading Flashnews can download the mission, find the required addons and get it working without too much hassle

I should also add that due to E3 preparations, this week's Flashnews will be tomorrow not today, hopefully normal service will resume until the actual E3 week

[General Barron 0]

Quote[/b] ]items only get into Flashnews when it's something "physical" that can actually be put into the game there and then.

Okay, that would explain why tutorials don't get put in, but what about scripts? Many scripts can be "dropped" into any existing mission, just like most addons can. For example: AI scripts, effect scripts (explosions, blood, etc), weapon scripts (bouncing grenades, RPG deviation, etc), squad control scripts (urban movement, hand signals, flanking, covering fire, aircraft control, etc), and much more.

These types of scripts can be placed into ANY existing mission, without having to change the mission at all (aside from setting up the script). Also, nearly all scripts include a demo mission, so you can instantly see what it does. The same cannot be said for most addons.

Quote[/b] ]I don't immediately include missions into Flashnews for a couple of reasons, the main one is that often a mission gets released on the forum in an quite incomplete state

Good point, however:

Quote[/b] ]Usually I gather the news by reading fansites and browsing these forums.

Check out OFPEC.com's missions depot, and you will find dozens of working missions being released weekly. All you would have to do is look in the reviewed missions section, and then include missions that were given a score of 5/10 or more, as these missions are always functional. If you don't want to include many missions, you could set the cutoff higher (6 or 7/10). Also check out ofpflash.org, as they do a great job of reviewing missions as well.

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I don't want to turn this into the perpetual addons vs missions debate, but my main point is that by not considering missions, mission editing or scripting as 'newsworthy', you are encouraging the idea that the only thing OFP is good for is plopping units down in the editor and looking at them.

It is fun to do that, but it can also be just as fun to download a great script and play around with it in the editor. Niether one takes any more editing skill than the other. Addons are supposed to be TOOLS used to create missions anyways, just like scripts, so why are the two treated differently?

And missions, of course, take no editing skill at all to play, and should be the staple of the OFP experience. There are tons of great missions being released every week (on other sites), so why not bring some attention to that fact?

I thought that the purpose of the MEC was to encourage people to create and play missions. If that is truly a goal, then why doesn't FlashNews reflect that?

[General Barron 0]

Just to illustrate my point, here are some missions reviewed in the last 2 weeks at OFPEC. All are 5/10 or above, and therefore functional and of good quality:

Operation Redknight by Bazzer

Outlaws by Nik & Kublai

Search & Rescue by Pred

Hostage by Pred

Darkshadow by Blacknite

Mission Solheimar v2.0 by White Angel

D-Day (Omaha Beach) by Blacknite

Scripts aren't generally released on these forums, but perhaps they should be, especially if they are "plopable" (easy to put into a mission) like many addons are. Here are a few released on these forums:

Universal Dynamic Grass Script

Flashpoint template maker (Not a script, but a mission editing tool)

Aircraft holding pattern script (okay, it's by me, but that doesn't make it invalid)

AI indirect fire script (also by me, but it pushes the boundries of the game engine)

There are also TONS of great scripts released at OFPEC, and, again, many of them suit the criteria of being usable in any mission without adjustment. Just check out the Scripting: Beta Testing board, the Editor's Depot pending list, or the Latest submissions page. Here are a couple examples:

Dynamic Chopper Control

Timebomb script (well, the mission would have to have a timebomb in it, but it is a fun script)

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Most of these examples are from the last few weeks. Multiply them by the number of months FlashNews has been running, and you will see that there is just an $%#$-load of activity going on in the community that is being completely overlooked.

[Placebo 29]

It's highly doubtful that individual scripts will ever see their way into Flashnews, despite your strong objection Perhaps if someone wrote an application for applying certain scripts or aiding mission editing in a similar way then I'm sure it would be included (as has been the case in the past).

Regarding missions, if the authors made threads on these forums for them then they'd have received more attention and would have been included in Flashnews, I include missions that are posted into these User missions forum because then there is a link I can post to the topic where they can be discussed & troubleshooted if necessary. If you can start to create forum threads on the Ofpec forum for reviewed missions then that would certainly aid their inclusion into Flashnews.