Operation Flashpoint: Mission Editing Competition.

[Placebo 28]

Thanks to Cervo19, Ran, David M., Daan U., SpeedyDonkey & Dusand we have the rules translated into French, German, Dutch, Swedish & Slovakian.

[Nemesis6 0]

Well, I can translate it to Danish if needed.

[xezon 0]

Hello,

I have questions about the scoring system

At this moment these are the scroring points:

Quote[/b] ]-Briefing/Overview: (i.e. well thought out, interesting, informative)

-Playability: (i.e. no bugs or glitches)

-Original mission structure (i.e. is it just another Desert Ambush clone?)

-Unique content (i.e. creative use of scripts, addons etc.)

-Atmosphere/Realism: (good use of cutscenes, well thought out structure/plot, balanced combat)

I think the scoring is not very intelligent, because you can not mark missions at only 5 Points. From mission to mission the scoring must be changeable, because every mission have other structures. An example: There's a mission which don't need a briefing, otherwise it wouldn't be so excitingly, cause the mission plan is build while playing! But the scoring says a briefing is needed. So what to do? Make a big briefing at the beginning? The result for this mission is a useless beginning, because you now the briefing and don't need to play to learn the briefing. It is from mission to mission different. I would say the Briefing is a hot theme. A Briefing is not direct OFP, it is HTML. I have no problem with HTML, but maybe someone else. What I want to say is, you can not score a briefing, which cost maybe 3 hours, like 'Original mission structure'. 'Original mission structure' is one of the most important points there. This point makes a mission, not a briefing. You take a look at a briefing, maybe 5 minutes and then play the mission for about 30-60 minutes. And then you want to say the briefing is sooo important, that you give 10 of 50 points for it?

Hope you understand my english, because it's very bad   .

So long, xezon  

[raedor 8]

for those who can't html: there's an example briefing somewhere around (www.flashpoint195.com?). and every mission needs a briefing. but sure, 10 of 50 points are a bit too much for a briefing!

[Placebo 28]

Well, I can translate it to Danish if needed.

That would be splendid thank you

[Silver Falcon 0]

Quote[/b] ]"With regards to submitting old missions, well firstly as someone said missions must be anonymous, and submitting an old, previously public mission would mean it's not anonymous. However a previous mission/style/idea/concept can always be used as a basis or inspiration for a new mission."

In rules, the paragraf was pretty different -

Quote[/b] ]"The mission itself must not contain the name/Email address of the mission creator; this is due to the missions being judged anonymously. The readme.txt must be the only place where the mission maker is identified."

I just posted the exact phrase, to let you know, no one was aware of this as it is not part of written rules. At least in objective meaning of identification.

But if you won´t change your mind, than I need to discuss your answer about that -

the updated misson (some changes) seems pretty as a new one.

I must know exactly what changes it must aquire. We are making remake of older mission with much new stuff and now have not time to make a new one.

Does it have to be a new name of mission and hoe much (name + remake - can be done by anyone, or no same words can be used?) Must the main objective be changed? Names of soldiers? I don´t want to be disqualified just because someone say ... hmm I have seen something similar before...

There must be exact rule which can be folowed and fair for anyone.

I just planned to enhance the mission (some new/remade addons, anims, original music - mean having the right to use and not violation copyright, a few new events) and change logos and credits a for example "Anonymous creators presents" as by the exact phrase in RULES.

I think this is a bit weird... when the mission is bad, nobody knows or remembers it. But I guess, any mission done in this style by us can by identified (i can´t say the probability) by some people who played it as it is not one of common stuff.

There is one more thing. I plan to write to overview, that this version of mission is made only for competition purposes, as I usualy use credits and logos ingame aso. I dont mind, if BIS use the competition version, but i´d prefere to send nonanonymous version if it will be found as good enough to be published by BIS. By the way, I hope, BIS won´t use the situation and sell anonymous mission without any sign of author

[Placebo 28]

Updated mission question: I answered a similar one here, hopefully that should provide a bit more clarification?

With regards to anonymity & judging, it's only necessary for the closed judging session, I've answered this question before unfortunately I can't find where I answered it, possibly in an Email from work, basically I have no issues with a mission editing wanting the public version to have ingame credits. I will contact the 10 finalists to let them know they're finalists and will again mention then they're welcome to have a version with ingame credits released.

[Silver Falcon 0]

Ad 1)

Sorry, i found only one I quoted and I think it is not clear.

To make it clear i must know, what exactly must be changed aside of some of addons, events, music... (name of mission?, name of characters?, picture logo of mission?, ...can anything be exactly same as original like way of guards, some of cutscenes...?).

But to improve my argumants about remakes... year ago I ´ve read review on my old mission done in 2002, and the reviewer wrote, that he also found remake in english with same objectives location and events (original was made in czech only, Krasnaja Zvezda (Red Star in russian), one of winners of czech mission competition on ofp.info.cz (now ofp.gamezone.cz)).

Also some team is working remake of official campaign of Resistance with new addons and bit more cutscenes, so I guess, that similarity with already published mission is not objective way of identification of authors. I think that those who work tirelessly on enhancing older mission these 2 months should have the right to participate when folowing a few basic, clear rules about name a.s.o. ,see above)

Ad 2): Thanks, that is clear, I am satisfied. This was also becouse of potential renaming of the characters and mission name a.s.o. (due to anonimity rules)... original preqel of other mission, so these changes would distrupt the continuity, so that is the main reason for public

[Placebo 28]

It's very hard, if not virtually impossible to define exactly what must be changed, does it have to be 100% different? No, 75%? No, 50%? Probably closer, how do you define what's 50% or 25% different? Adding music to it? Well even knowing nothing about editing as I do I know that adding music into a mission is a very minor job, sure if you want to do it properly you have to get your fade in/out tweaked well, but still it's not going to take weeks of effort, same with adding addons, that again doesn't take a huge amount of effort, if it didn't I wouldn't be able to unpbo missions so that I can try out new addons

Recording voices and putting them into the mission instead of simply text, that's getting somewhere towards "changed".

Expanding the briefing and overview to include more details, pictures, strategy, tactics, that's adding more.

Adding cutscenes where before there were none, that's adding more, improving intro/outro both in length and cinematic quality, that's adding more.

Adding new objectives to the mission, creating random elements, branching objectives, things like that, that's adding more

<span id='ME'><center>placebo looks at his English in his last couple of posts and walks back to WE7 in shame</center></span>

[Silver Falcon 0]

Well, i didn´t want to go to details, but for example, changing half of motions (anims, moves - realy hardwork!) - not only for cutscenes but even for gameplay, improving configs, retexturing units to be better looking in their enviroment (security instead of soldiers), adding one more event to one of ways where the mission is branching...

By the way ... does it improve the meaning of judges/ the one judging the quantity of improvements (by the way will it be the one who first finds out that he played something similar before?, or by will he find for another judges who played it?, will he find original version to compare...?), that many of addons are done, reworked or updated by creators theirself just exactly for mission needs?

When the mission is theoreticly infiltration and you base it on same area, and you have the older mission after year of development setting the guards paths to make the way of infiltration as long as possible in such a small area, it is nearly impossible to change it in radical meaning unless it is simply worse and you need one more month just for betatesting, if there are no gapes in security...

So, some features are very hard to change, the same about most of cinematics, because the music is wrote just on their rythm, lenght and atmosphere, sometimes at halfs of seconds, so main changes will be about the motions and minor changes in camera.

Of course, there will be some minor improvements, such as more massive use of unconventional (for common editing) features, minor changes in tracks of guards, but the base must be simply same.

By the way, thera are so many dialogs, that dabing will be at least 10MB (in low quality, which is twice more, than limit for whole mission). There probably will be such a dabbed version, but after the competition if we get enough talented english voice actors (lets say most of dabing in unofficial OFP preojects is just funny, only 10% - 15% improves atmosphere).

But that is not the main, just to make you sure we doesn´t catch Zzzs this time, but don´t expect I will write about any details.

In my opinion, the main issue is if you can just improve / add new features (enough that is obvious, there was hard work behind and it is slightly improved version with much of addition (not much to story and concepts, but in technical way), not only same mission with one or two new addons), or you must realy change some (more than minor) parts of older concept aside of additions. The main issue about anonimity may be a name too.

For example, if old mission is called Wilcats Revenge and main character have nick Wildcat - you must rename to:

option1: Wildcats Payback

option2: rename character to Ghostdog and mission to Ghostdogs Revenge

option3: Ghostdogs Payback and change the picture of wild cat on picture used in original to picture of a dog

option 4 rename all characters and name of fictional secret force the ghostdog works in...

option5: Wilcats Revenge Millenium Remake ( )

(names are fictional and will have nothing to do with these in my/ ours mission)

You know - some percentage is nothing clear or objective. If you answer exactly to the last paragraf questions, it should be more clear.

I am sorry for asking nearly the same questions, but i think there was a little bit of misunderstanding or unclear questions on my side, I am sorry one more.

By the way, there are cutscenes at every step (not only after every objective), at least 5mins intro, long outro, in the most quality we can ... half of year of work on cinematics is half of year of work..., exactly made concept and level design - even the island was done exactly to met all the requirements - its heavily tied together. I am worried that radical changs in concept will seem artificial, not tied to rest.

It is very compact in design and so on... I am not scared of how judges will judge the quality of every part of mission... i just need to know who will say if it is redone enought FOR THE ANONIMITY RULE SAKE

You know, for one year developed missions, most of improvements in time of 2 months can be easily called minor (well, for example the motions are not just eye candy, but adding more features in gameplay a.s.o., but word minor is not exactly defined) even if it is obvious that authors had full hands of work.

I know, some of questions are not easy to say, at least in short time without asking others, but any actions to find it out are very welcome. If some cant be answered, we will just take the lottery, but any suggestions to changes that improves our chances not touching the basics of concept are welcome too.

EDIT : I would be very happy if judges do it in some kind of way: Well, I just played excelent mission (hypotheticly), but well i played something very very similar some time ago. There is much addition, but well, the original must took much more work and i don´t feel it is fair if someone just used someone others originals and only improved it to win the competition. So if the remake is done by authors of original, whole mission will get 47 points. But if it was someone parasiting on others work and done just the improvements, he cant be judged for parts he didn´t do, so he will lose some points for the parts he didn´t do at his own let say he gets 32 points. Than the judge pass his points and requirement to check authors originality to someone independent of judging the mission to look into the readme to ensure who did the remake and choose one of options (point sets) from the judge.

I think it is pretty fair because it take off the adventage of the ones who planed to publish their longly developed mission just after the news about competition and than changed mind and improve it bit more to improve it bit more and having long time of development adventage to those who just published it and it sill follows the anonimity requirements of competition. Can this be suggested to competition overseers?

Will it help anything if there is suggestion at end of overview that it is based on published mission so we cant say for anonimity sake if we re the authoers of original or not and suggesting the way above and crediting only 3rd party content and dividing credits for original part and remake (as for example Island: Originals Author designer, Motions: Remake designer - see in readme who is author of original an who is author of ramake?

By the way, I think this problem should be published wider - for example in Q&A, i was just lucky to take a look here. So I think, many people have no idea about this thread, especialy this explanation of rule.

[Placebo 28]

Unofortunately I feel that I really cannot add more than I have previously on this point, I've tried to define as much as possible the issues regarding change. Beyond that the best I can do is instruct judges to as much as possible judge each mission on its own merits

[Silver Falcon 0]

Yeah, I guess its not easy to make rules perfect for anyone.

I just hope, judges would take this rule bit easy, unless they feel they cannot judge it objectively. You know ... someone can take this pretty seriously and throw out all missions he ever played something similar

Will the judeges be informed to make older published mission out of game or they will judge it as it is allready written in rules (in official rules version)?

That is the last question.

Thanks for the patience reading all the long posts, I know it must have take some time

Perhaps I wrote it as if you´re the one who makes the rules

[Placebo 28]

Well I will receive the missions and then distribute them to the judges, it will be mostly my responsibility to decide if a missions meets the rules or breaks them, unless I see a mission that appears to be a 100% mirror image of an old mission I'm really sure everyone will be ok

[m21man 0]

Can I include different addons versions in the RAR? Say, a No Addons version, a Popular Addons version, and an FDF Optimized version? There would be nothing different between the versions except the units and weapons used. Assuming that the size of the RAR is below 5MB, and that the readme includes instructions for how to use each version, could I submit something like this? And if so, can I submit it under SP No Addons if I include an addon-free version?

[Placebo 28]

No you can't.

Please read the rules and Q&A

[macguba 0]

Interview with placebo about the MEC over at OFPEC.

[Nemesis6 0]

I guess it's too late to translate anything now...

So, are the winner mission(s) gonna be published? I haven't really understood this thing... so... yeah

[Placebo 28]

The 10 finalists will definitely be made public as there will be a seperate small prize for a public vote winner, depending on quality/quantity of missions that don't quite make it into the top 10 we may release some kind of runner up pack

[Silver Falcon 0]

By the way, would BIS publish the results of each round? Or the scores of missions which didnt make it to another round... ?

One more thing, in interview you said, that you check the incoming mission continualy and return the rules-violating for fix. Will you work on that during weekend?

[Placebo 28]

By the way, would BIS publish the results of each round? Or the scores of missions which didnt make it to another round... ?

No there will be no results published, obviously the 10 finalists will be clear, as will the public vote winner and the overall winner, other than that no further results will be given out. If we release an "also ran" mission pack it will be obvious that the missions contained were 11th placed and below, but that would be the only indicator.

One more thing, in interview you said, that you check the incoming mission continualy and return the rules-violating for fix. Will you work on that during weekend?

Once resources such as the Q&A and this thread were available and word about them was spread I stopped doing that, I look to see if any new missions have been submitted but don't look at the missions themselves, as long as I know the form is still working that's it.

I'm taking a vacation day tomorrow so won't be in the office until Monday, obviously I'll be accessing the forums over the next 3 days (wireless internet willing) and I can access my work Email at home, so if anyone has any problems then Email me Placebo@bistudio.com

[Placebo 28]

BTW with regards to the 9am CET submission deadline, I appreciate people are in different timezones, so I'm not going to be overly pedantic about it, just try to get it in as close to 9am CET as possible

[cozza 24]

yo Placebo.

Whats this crap

CNN something

I dont understand it.

Also. I wont be entering. My comp got wiped and I los the mission....and my Chenowith

[Placebo 28]

They're just having a bit of fun with some "faux news"

Sorry to hear about your HD, maybe next time

[BBSmith 0]

Hey, i was just wondering, are you going to publish the losers missions as well? I mean, many of them might be good, but not good enough you know? Where are you planning on releasing the missions, as in website?

[Placebo 28]

Previous page........

Quote[/b] ]The 10 finalists will definitely be made public as there will be a seperate small prize for a public vote winner, depending on quality/quantity of missions that don't quite make it into the top 10 we may release some kind of runner up pack