Lack of missions in Operation Flashpoint

[Commando84 0]

My biggest thing when it comes to missions is that some people bitch when there are addons involved  

and second is that when working on something for a long time you get bored and start up something new and put the old stuff on hold for some time before going back if you  ever do that..    And then there is lots of stuff that i  have to do in real life such as school and stuff so i can make money when i get a job and stuff like that so i can buy Ofp 2  

oh and yeah its a turn off not to use addons when making missions, a friend of mine can't understand why i still play ofp and i said to him that there is always new mods, and addons and missions and fun ideas and beatiful screenshots that gets published every day    so ofp is always changing kind of unlike other games that got the same boring weapons day after day , year after year. The whole concept of ofp is freedom and creativity, then there is the great feeling when you play a coop mission you made yourself with some friends and get some good and sometimes bad feedback and sugestions to the mission. And the campaign and sp missions are great also. im thinking about making a campaign once but all the stuff i wanted to include and the missions a´nd custom music would have taken like 10 years or so to accomplish so just stick to coop mission making

[ozanzac 0]

In my case, it's simple.

I can't package, what I call a good mission, into a finished product.

No matter what I read on, scripting, HTML, & triggers, I just can't seem to get it. Sure, I could copy and paste scripts from other missions (God knows I tried!), but what good is that if I can't crack what unit/object/name the script relates too. It's frustrating because I can throw together a great mission, where the options could be endless, but I can't polish it for shit, and if it's not polished, in my opinion, it's not fit for release upon the community.

I'll try to read up more, and give releasing a mission one last red hot go, but if I can't crack it by the start of next year, I'll be quite happy just to play with my half completed missions, and use friends as my guinea pigs, getting praise, and constructive criticism, rather than be open abuse.

[andersson 285]

I dont have the patience to work on a mission so it will be accepted by the "official community". Intros, outros and so on. My friend and I like to play my missions so they are not bad considering gameplay.

I would like someone to make a homepage where "trash"-missions can be uploaded. "Trash-missions" = not completed but good anyway... I prefer completed missions with good intros and so on but I dont mind playing a good "half completed" mission at all as long as the "gameplay" is good!

[Homefry 0]

I find the hardest thing, other than completing a mission, is motivation to finish it. There just isn't much of a driving force behind it, and I normally do it just to fill a few hours...

That is my problem anyway.

[BoweryBaker 0]

We know the problem but do we really have to start a thread on the solution?  When you're onto something stick at it.  Stick to it.  There's always that one thing that makes you get up and completely forget about your project and search for another idea.  That means you're idea sux.  I for once have finally found, in all my years of ofp, have finally found a perfect idea to base missions around.  THE GENEVA CONVENTION.  The series is called power and once its done I recommend you all get it because you need power, you want power, bowery sounds like power, and war is fought over power.  BAM! Hit you in the head with the answer.

[redface 1]

Quote[/b] ]We know the problem but do we really have to start a thread on the solution? 

says the person who has started quite some threads in the last few days, no?

Quote[/b] ]Stick to it.  There's always that one thing that makes you get up and completely forget about your project and search for another idea.  That means you're idea sux.

 

I don't think this kind of answer is fair. A majority of people have voted for this problem, so there must be something to the nature of ofp that let's your thoughts wander off, that lets you experiment new possibilities rather than stick to a clear-cut "project". For me at least, the mission editor has become the game itself.

Quote[/b] ]I for once have finally found, in all my years of ofp, have finally found a perfect idea to base missions around.

yes, by now I have been able to glimpse traces from that in almost any forum subsection on these forums.

Quote[/b] ]BAM!  Hit you in the head with the answer.

I keep wondering what makes some people earn an "advanced member" status here ...

[Ares1978 0]

Never even noticed there was a lack of missions.

I usually don't bother with SP missions, if it's not a campaign with a plot, it's just too uninteresting. I find it more rewarding just to play around with the editor and try different scenarios, than to make a "serious" mission with scripts and cutscenes and tons of crap nobody will ever notice.

[andersson 285]

Quote[/b] ]We know the problem but do we really have to start a thread on the solution?  When you're onto something stick at it.  Stick to it.  There's always that one thing that makes you get up and completely forget about your project and search for another idea.  That means you're idea sux.  I for once have finally found, in all my years of ofp, have finally found a perfect idea to base missions around.  THE GENEVA CONVENTION.  The series is called power and once its done I recommend you all get it because you need power, you want power, bowery sounds like power, and war is fought over power.  BAM!  Hit you in the head with the answer.

I believe that most people have good ideas, or atleast the ideas are not the problem. The problem many of us have is to complete those ideas. Yes, "stick to it" makes the mission completed sooner or later.

But..

In my case its about how to find the inspiration to stick to it when you know that you have alot of "finishing up" of mostly eyecandy and BETATESTING to find all errors...

Therefore I only make missions without advanced, if at all, intros/cutscenes/outros. And mostly bigger, more random, scenarios where you and the AI are as free as possible. To "tame" the ofp-ai are frustrating for me....

[ELiTe 0]

Perhaps, the answer lies in this - "Open Ended Missions".

For example, say a basic "Assault the base" kind of mission. You don't necessarily make a "linear path" in which the player must go through. You put specific objectives and let the player decide how to accomplish them.

Some games utilising this kinda technique are: Dues Ex, Thief, Neverwinter Nights, Independance War 2 - Edge of Chaos.

Each "Problem" has multiple solutions. The player is free to decide how to solve the problem.

So in the basic "Assault the base" all you need to do is think like a soldier occupying a base in an enemy territory - what would YOU do? How would YOU place your men around the place to "look after it?". That is how you place the "enemy forces".

Then you start the player and his squad/platoon somewhere and tell him - "This is the base, you gotta capture it. Good luck, see you!".

Well just my thoughts.

[gunfighter-6 0]

My main problem is that i'm loosing interest to proceed in mission-making. I've got many good ideas, then i start working in the editor, but after i while i simply get bored of testing and proceeding... so there are many missions with a good start, but without a proper ending or a briefing...

[BoweryBaker 0]

All the "problems" that you guys mention are only temporary.  You been in the community as long as I have and you know it just gets better.  we're about to get tortured captives, just when you thought we had it all, generic opfor just came out the other day, what's next?  We still haven't done mecha, or even a futuristic city island.  Theres lots of ideas just find out what you like or what attracts you and do the same thing, jump on the bandwagon.  Too original can be a bad thing.  Another thing, do your research.  Find out why a war must be fought, come with a good story and make more than one mission.  That last sentence will help you the most.  I think its beautiful that you're all struggling to make good missions.  

[russin 0]

learning scripting is the most difficult to make top knoch Missions

my feelings are FCM Fashpoint Combat Missions make wicked Coop maps large addon pak needed

[ebns72 0]

I voted i lose interest in the mission editor, because it is such a tedious and long process. However, I think being a n00b mission maker it also has to do with the complexity of scripting, where you wish you knew how to do something but it never turns out quite like you'd like.

[monty67t 0]

Quote[/b] ]I think its beautiful that you're all struggling to make good missions.

Has anyone seen any missions from Bowery? I haven't, but when I do, they better be the shit. You are doing a lot of talking here, I hope you got the skills to back it up. It's people like you that ruin a decent conversation. This is a good discussion, please don't reply unless you have something constructive to say.

Now, back to business. Someone above said something about "open-ended" missions. I think this is a great idea. I think it would be cool if it was done on an island like AEC. Just give the players some intel and let them figure it all out. They would have to do their own recon, mission planning, etc. These types of missions would probably time consuming to build, but I think it would be worth it in the end. If we could get a ton of these missions, I believe it would boost the community interest.

Monty

[sanctuary 19]

One feature that is important is the replayability factor.

Creating a mission , with awesome cutscenes is great yes, but if after the player succeeded to beat the mission , he just try the mission again but everything is at the same place and the events will always appear in the same place at the same time, it will not really appeal the player enough to play it again.

Thinking about how creating some replayability to a mission, can be very appreciated.

It can be some squads appearing in different places each time you launch the missions , it can be some units or vehicle having a chance to appear in the mission but a chance to not appear.

It can be some additional objectives that appear randomly, not at each time you launch the mission.

Several little touches here and there that can enhance the replayability factor.

[General Barron 0]

I totally agree with Artak. I usually start missions, work on them, and then, having learned more stuff, I put them aside and start a new mission. It also doesn't help that I always have to polish everything as much as I can, because I can't stand little imperfections here and there. As a result, I have a hardrive full of started missions and scripts, but only a few "finished" pieces of work.

Quote[/b] ]How can we make missions more fun to build?

Personally, I don't see how missions are any less "fun to make" than addons are. It's all a matter of taste. I enjoy mission editing, and scripting even more. But to spend hours and hours moving polygons around to make a person or a tank shape? That doesn't sound like any fun to me. Obviously, many people do find that entertaining, and hence the abundance of addons out there.

Basically, the majority of this forum's community seems to be interested mainly in addons; both making them, and playing with them in the editor. Just look at the forum thread counts. Obviously, people here just aren't interested in missions. Those that are more interested in missions are found elsewhere, like at OFPEC, or certain MP servers, or other sites. Go look at the news at mapfact.net. The majority of it is about upcoming missions. Go look at the number of missions at OFPEC: it is well in the hundreds (600 or so) just in SP alone. OFPEC's addons depot, on the other hand, doesn't have many of the "big time" addons that are out there.

It would help though, if more people followed mapfact's approach to "ofp news". Basically, mission makers should start "hyping" their missions just like addon makers do. Websites should start treating missions in the same light as addons, in regards to news.

Quote[/b] ]I suggest that someone like OFPEC possibly create a web page, where people interested in mission making can go and download pre-made templates of good missions.

Ugh... I don't want to see 9,999,999 carbon copies of the same mission, with just a few things changed. That's like saying, "what if someone made a generic addon template, and gave instructions on exactly how to change a few things around, so that you could release a new US Ranger with a different chinstrap."

Quote[/b] ]Maybey we need more things like the FDF mission repository?

Like a BAS mission repoistory, RHS, ToW, Unsung, The WWII mods, etc.

Now THAT is a good idea. But I would argue that is the responsibility of the mods involved. If I had a mod, that is exactly what I would do: host a website full of other people's missions made with my mod. That is one of the reasons why I don't like downloading big addons: it is hard to find missions for them.

For example, I don't understand why BAS released this huge, great Tonal mod, yet didn't set up a missions host for it. Well, bandwidth of course, but they could at least have put up links to some missions on other sites. The result? Not many missions on Tonal, from what I can tell. If they are out there, they are hard to find.

An alternative would be for more setting specific sites to open up. For example, the OFPnam site is a great place to get nam addons/missions, but unfortunately I don't think it is too well known, so there isn't too much content.

Sorta along those same lines, what I would love to see at OFPEC is some more organization of the missions depot. It would be nice if the author would choose a catagory that his mission falls into, aside from SP or MP. Then, you could search for missions in that catagory. Basically, like the Ed Depot is structured now. I'm not sure the best way to structure things, but perhaps something like infantry, air missions, etc.

[General Barron 0]

On replayability:

Yeah, replayability is a good thing to add into a mission. When done well, it can make a mission 10 times better. However, it can also be incredibly hard to do just that. The more randomness you add into the mission, the more unknowns you have to anticipate and correct for.

There is also such a thing as going over-board. If you are striving for realism, you can't just plop down a enemy base and say "take that". Not if the player is supposed to be anything less than a company commander. I love missions that involve more than just the player and his squad (other squads, arty support, air/tank support, etc). I love missions where the briefing is specific and detailed, and has stuff like "charlie squad will approach from the west, while bravo will approach from the north", etc. True, it is "linear" and "scripted" that way, but something tells me real life operations are also planned out in detail.

But even good missions with no pre-programmed randomness are still fun to play at least once or twice. God knows an addon never changes, yet people seem to love downloading an addon (with no demo mission), plopping it down in the editor and playing with it, and then lauding the addon maker for his work. How much time does that stay fun? For me, maybe 10 mins, max. But a mission maker creates an exciting, dynamic mission that takes 30-90 minutes to complete, and it isn't worth downloading unless it has "replay value"?

[The Real Armstrong 0]

All the "problems" that you guys mention are only temporary.  You been in the community as long as I have and you know it just gets better.

How long have you been in the community? I've been for about 2-3 years now, still haven't released a mission. Temporary eh?

[Commando84 0]

i kind of never do sp missions because people expect them to have super detailed briefings and a super ultra beatiful scripted cutscene,

i love the editor but im no to much into hardcore programming

So i just stick to making coop missions that usually gets beta status, but im kind of getting better for each month when it comes to mission design and getting missions to be more polished.. i remmeber the days when i started mission making and just threw in some enemies tat where playables and some west , east civilian and res troops that also where playable and a blackhawk a tank or som cars and ammo boxes , these days people demand more and i myself demand more from myself.

Got plenty of missions that are half complete 20% complete ect.. because i stoped working on them because they wheren't good enough and stuff like that. i think there is plenty of Sp missions but a bit lacking on campaigns and mp missions , well especially those that need some nice addons well sadly real life stuff is always interfering everyday if i had tons of money and didnt need to go to school and work i would create some superb missions i believe for some seconds but on the other hand i get really good ideas and creativity on some of the more boring lesssons in school and start to write down notes and draw pics in the back of my writing block so that i got something to start doing when i feel to make a new mission so if i was rich then maybe i wouldn't get bored and tired and start getting creative ofp ideas?

[Rune 0]

There are tons of missions, even tons of good missions - that never become available for download anywhere.

The editor helps people to get missions to a playable state in no time. The big hurdles come after that point, because the editor does not help much anymore.

To release a mission you need to make a briefing and coordinate objectives getting checked and end-conditions to be met, many people hate that part. You do not need either cutscenes or custom sound, but everyone knows the mission will 'look' better with them, so they plan to put those in there - often they never get around to it.

If a mission makes it that far, then the very complicated instructions to submit the mission to various sites becomes a problem. I personnally went through this process of writing and making screenshots and zipping the whole thing up to fit one site's requirements only to never hear from them...After that I never bothered with it again. Now, I am such an arrogant bastard that I cannot take any of the blame for that, but others might see it as an indication that their mission sucked and that they should basically stop bothering the poor reviewers, this in turn makes them want even more to have a perfect mission if ever they try to release one again.

I believe one way to get more missions out would be to make a forum for releasing unfinished missions to the public, not the same as a beta tester forum. It should be a place where the maker can 'dump' the mission to get rid of it if he wants...then someone else might be able to round it off and post it back in a better state than it was in and at some point it might be ready for normal channels.

...by the way if any of you have some old MP-missions that were never released and would fit in with Sinews of War, please drop by and tell us about them, maybe we can finish them for you if you can't be bothered

[SpecOp9 0]

All the "problems" that you guys mention are only temporary.  You been in the community as long as I have and you know it just gets better.  we're about to get tortured captives, just when you thought we had it all, generic opfor just came out the other day, what's next?  We still haven't done mecha, or even a futuristic city island.  Theres lots of ideas just find out what you like or what attracts you and do the same thing, jump on the bandwagon.  Too original can be a bad thing.  Another thing, do your research.  Find out why a war must be fought, come with a good story and make more than one mission.  That last sentence will help you the most.  I think its beautiful that you're all struggling to make good missions.  

No it's not getting better.  What goes up, must come down.  And that's the number of missions being released.

Evidence?

Like OFPEC said, they are NOT getting as many mission submissions as they used to.

I remember when Flashpoint Arena was made, they had an overwhelming number of missions in its  database.

And now?  We have'nt gotten a single mission submission.  Maybey only 2 or 3, but nowhere near 20 missions each day.

Why is this?  Because there are not as many people available to make missions as it used to be.

No, we have'nt done "Mecha" because nobody is available to want to do it.  Sure, we have a few Mech addons, but not nearly enough people to create their own mod.

I was in Op Sci fi (star wars mod) for a good few years.

I know the pieces fit, because I watched them fall away.  Archangel and Radix, which was once the Admins of the web site, suddenly had to go to college, and they simply did'nt have the time to put into a Star Wars or Warhammer mod. Thus: No more Star Wars mod.  Same thing with the other members of that web page.  They simply "Lost Interest" in doing it.  And losing interest in their work is exactly what has been proven via the Poll in this thread.

And nobody is struggling to make good missions...I don't know where you pulled that off.  People are just struggling with the motivation to finish their work completely.

[Artak 0]

Like OFPEC said, they are NOT getting as many mission submissions as they used to.

True true. We don't get Singleplayer missions anymore as much as we used to. We're running out of anything to review in that category very shortly.

However, we have a really really long list of Multiplayer missions to review, and more are coming in rapidly. Too bad it takes so much more resources to review MP missions, and because of that the process takes a lot longer.

I guess this this says one thing. The Multiplayer side of the game is so good, that the part of the community who play and create Singleplayer missions is fading and the part of the community who're actively playing and creating MP missions is growing stronger.

One might even say that OFP's Multiplayer feature is keeping the game alive (don't shoot me for having said that ).

A solution to people in search for new SP missions to play is to get cooperative MP missions. I'm not sure, but I think most people forget or don't realise that most cooperative MP missions can be played alone. Play it just like you would play a SP mission, but only through the MP mission starter.

Although most people building MP coops seem to think that they don't have to be the same high quality as SP missions, because the simple fact that there's going to be many players involved will make the experience fun, there still are people who tune up and polish these coop into something really good.

OFPEC's 25 top rated MP missions

Have fun

[BoweryBaker 0]

I wish ofpec would rate campaigns. Whether single or multiplayer, there have been a lack of campaigns.

[Artak 0]

OFPEC reviewed campaigns

[aviel 0]

Bad bad poll m8, anwsers are scatterd, not to orderd

to many anwsers = not good pol

Happy - Mass anyway