Orchestral Sounds

[klavan 0]

I remember a discussion at the OFPEC some time ago about custom music into OFP user's mission. The conclusion was that none of the music labels would start a legal action for such kind of diatribe mainly for economical reasons (it's unconvenient for 'em).

I can't remember who stated that, he was a guy of the OFPEC staff which should be employed in that particolar businnes sector.

Personally i've always used custom music for my mission (eminem to rage against the machine for example) and the way a choosed to avoid problems was to cut the songs before the end or to insert portions of 'em instead of a complete file.

Klavan

[nominesine 0]

I remember a discussion at the OFPEC some time ago about custom music... The conclusion was that none of the music labels would start a legal action for such kind of diatribe...

I can't remember who stated that, he was a guy of the OFPEC staff which should be employed in that particolar businnes sector....

I believe I said something similar while I was a member of the Ofpec-staff. What i said was simply...

No music publisher in their right mind will ever take legal action against teenagers using music to spice up their gaming sessions.

There is no profit to make from it. Technically it is illegal (in most countries anyway) to use music without permission in an OFP-mission. The most severe effect that could follow a breach of the copyright law would be that the legal owner asked your internethost to remove the file containing their music music. But that risk is theoretical, IMO.

I'm not in the music business. I work for a Swedish newspaper IRL (publisher of written text and photographic images) but the copyright laws are the same for all publishers.

[XCess 0]

CameronMcDonald, have you had a chance to play the mission? I'd like some feedback on the beginning stages of the mission before devloping it further.

THanks for your time.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Mate, it's currently camping on my desktop. RL committments have had me on the compy a lot, but sadly, not a lot of gaming. I'll get there, though, brother.

[XCess 0]

yay, i thought you completely forgot.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Beta report incoming! ETA: This afternoon, AEST.

[XCess 0]

woo

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Cancel that, here it is!  

13/3/06 - 2140hrs.

CAMERONMCDONALD BETA TEST INC.

*EDF INVASION*

BY XCESS

SYSTEM TESTED ON:

3.94GHz P4 - 6410 OFP Benchmark.

2048MB RAM.

256MB ASUS GeForce 6800GTO, NVidia 84.20 Forceware Drivers

Soundblaster Audigy Z2 w. 5.1 speaker setup.

OFP SETTINGS:

DXDLL (Set for best picture quality, reflections on, etc etc.)

ECP 1.085e

CAM DSAI Extension V1.1 (coming soon!

Material Properties Addon

WGL Texture Replacement Pack

WGL Nature Replacement Pack

Berghoff Nordic

INGAME SETTINGS:

Veteran Mode - All options disabled except crosshair and Super AI.

2070m Visual Distance

Visual quality to full

Frame rate to full.

1280 x 1024 x 32 Resolution.

.005 LODS on objects + shadows

BETA TEST BEGINS

-- SPOILERS BELOW --

- Overview:

None - don't forget it in the final release, XCess (that pic you put in the photography thread would go well). A different title than EDF Mission would go down well too!

- Briefing:

None - Woah, was I surprised. It's been ages since I've played a mission minus a briefing! I guess if it's still in Beta stage, that's OK, but you'll need one in the final release, since without it (and map markers) I dunno what, where, why and all the rest of it, eg. Who is Bravo? Why are we attacking? Who is the enemy? etc etc ad infinitum. Without a briefing, missions usually are a bit of a no-brainer. See later for more info.

- Intro:

Ah, one of these missions with an intro IN the mission - I see! Nice RSC you've got there, mate - I'm definitely going to be looking you up to make some for me in the future! However, consider adding a savepoint once it's over. It was irritating dying and then having to watch the boat splash around again. Solid, clean camera work. However, when the tracers are flying past, the boat keeps getting stuck to the same point - I think it's a setpos command gone wrong. In the final release, I hope you extend it to add some meat to the plot, with some tense squad chatter (think Red Dawn, except Retaliation style).

- Mission:

I started in the boat, invasion music started up (subtle nod to DidArt - the music is quite good). Two words at this point: Custom Voices. If you want people to LOVE this mission, get some good voice actors for your radio chat and just idle talk as well. ECP only goes so far - you need custom voices for those... well... custom + contextual moments. Landed upon the beach without a hitch. All good insofar.

Hell breaks loose. Good scripted mortars (as afore mentioned, a horrified scream of "Mortars!" would g a long way...) knacker my leader. A squad of mechanised infantry pin us down like so many wingless flies in that little gully. Boat gets flattened like a tack by a BMP, which is promptly shot to scrap by a M72 rifleman. I capped the leader of one of the squads and his machine gunner, and get in a quick save. So far, so good, I think to meself.

Then my squad gets totally wasted by grenadier flankers up in the trees on the right - good ole OFP super AI working as usual. I die about 10 times in the same spot, sometimes from rifle grenades, sometimes from a burst or 6. Feck this, I think. Down to 2 men, I get command (finally). My machine gunner and I take cover in the gully, and wait for the brainless Russians to come running down the side - together we waste about 6 or so between us, me hiding in a bush. Another BMP shows up and ruins the party, blowing my machine gunner into the sea. I leave my citadel a.k.a. bush, and race into the forest, hit once in the lower back by a PKT round slung at me by the vengeful BMP (turns out it hit my pack or something, because I took no damage). I'm all alone by now, overlooking Morton from the western edge of the forest - things don't look good. A distant explosion signals what I feared might happen... the low-flying Mi17 has impacted with a building in Morton, and incapacitated itself.

Alone, and with 3 mags of 20 x 5.56mm ammo left in me M16A1, I decide to be a good lil EDF rifleman and scout the enemy positions in Morton before turning tail and running the hell away like the chicken I am. To faciliate my aims, I turn to a tried and true OFP-Professional player secret - crawling along the beach. About halfway there, a disembodied radio message (from myself to myself) - says that I should find some explosives to blow up the Urals - under my breath, I say "Bugger that." At about this time, some disembodied firing starts up somewhere behind me. Turning, I see Bravo squad meet its doom - a roving Russian 3-man patrol shut them up without a single casualty. Shit.

During my long crawl, the uber-AI of the BMP crew throw a few PKT rounds my way (THROUGH the forest I'd ran into), but no HE-Frag PG9s - lucky me.  I crawl along the steep slope of the Morton "cliffs," and peek over once I've got good visual into the town square. Jaw meets floor. Two or three squads of Russian infantry are standing, rifles slung, doing nothing in particular near the Morton fountain. I cap one, and then crawl along the cliffs to the two barracks buildings on the southern cliff. There, using helpful DMA rolling animations, I pick off 10 or so Russians attempting to flank me along the coast about 500m away. I laugh, wondering at the accuracy of the JAM weapons.

After this, things get quiet - I wonder whether I've cleared the village all by my lonesome. Thus, I resolve to crawl into the danger zone. Doing so, a single Russian officer runs headlong into me (ironically, with a scream of "Americanski!") - I blow his brains out. 8 rounds left. Crawling to a Red rifleman's corpse, I make use of a dropped AK74. This is looking good, I think. Things may just be going my way...

...meanwhile, just to the west of the village, an AI Russian machine gunner sees an interesting EDF rifleman crawling across the corpse of his comrades near the Morton church. Being no different to any other AI, he drops prone and attempts to shoot me. As the rounds pass over my head, I realise that due to the high recoil of the PK the idiot cannot hit me - his rounds are all going high. Yawning, I casually squeeze off 10 or so rounds at him - all miss. The Russian is blazing away at me with no effect except to splinter the poorly textured BIS church's paint job. Getting slightly more agitated, I adjust my aim more carefully this time...

...and a very lucky 7.62x54mm bullet leaves the chrome-plated barrel of the PK, soars through the cold Everon morning air, zips under the rim of my US-made PASGT helmet and impacts with my beautiful EDF/Llauma face. I die. Understanding that there is no true ending built into this version of the mission, I proceed to unPBO the mission to take a look at its internals.

- Outro:

N/A, this is only a mission segment, as emphasised by XCess.

COMMENTS:

Obviously, XCess, this mission needs work, but your effort does demonstrate potential. It is plain to see that you have designed this mission for play in Cadet mode (or in Veteran with waypoints enabled, if possible). This is a big no-no for mission makers like you and I. I'm sure reading the above you saw how I managed to amble off the waypoints and go off on my own, thus disrupting all the nice scripted waypoints you'd placed, and causing Bravo to head to their doom all alone.

A mission maker needs to be prepared for the player doing the unexpected, like throwing themselves out of a jeep, running away like a softie or, like I did, disengaging into a nearby forest. This can (in part) be assuaged by the Briefing (and associated map markers), which gives players a guide to landmarks, objectives, and (in brief) what to do. Many times I was stumped - how was I meant to know where on the western edge of the forest Bravo meets me? Where do I go? What do I do?

I've already talked about custom voices, so I'll leave that alone. Be sure when that radio message about the explosives comes through, it's either from another unit in the squad (like it is now - good work there) - OR, if the player is on his own, HQ or some other entity, or said by the player (as opposed to the player radioing himself, maybe something spoken quietly like, "Hmmm... I bet those Urals would make a big bang" and a hint, "Find some explosives to destroy the Urals." I strongly doubt the player would radio himself. And maybe also delete the name "Player" from the radio message - how does anyone know he's the Player (unless he's cheated on his last 3 girlfriends and it's a callsign )?

There are a few other little points I will list below:

ADVICE:

- Set the Mi17's flyinheight to around 40-50. This should prevent destruction of buildings and Mi17. Alternatively, place the Mi17's waypoints away from the town.

- Use HD weapons - will generate more atmosphere, and should help prevent total death of squad within first engagement. Also circumvents OFP uber-AI problem.

- More reinforcements needed, perhaps beef up Bravo. There are about 4.5 squads of Russians to < 2 of EDF, and 2 armoured vehicles to 0 (that KIA didn't make much of a difference, I'm afraid). That is, unless you want this mission played like a lone wolf scenario, or with OFPFreak mode on.

- Custom radio + voices recommended. Easy to make, and add a whole new dimension to missions.

- Briefing (or at least map markers) required for veteran players.

- Consider a failure trigger (when the player runs away tooooooo far) and a "We're all getting wasted!" trigger for both squads.

- Create a trigger for OPFOR Morton garrison to be set to alert and in defensive positions once the battle begins - if you were on guard in Morton, and you heard firing just over a hill, would you be relaxed about it?

- For final version, build storyline via intro + outro (when you get there, mate ).

- Finally, keep it up! I'll be happy to test your next version.  

[XCess 0]

Thanks for the reply cameron. I think I'll add a squad check and change the way the waypoints work if the player becomes the leader (somehow i managed to keep my squad alive in testing). I'll make the player radio bravo squad.. that's alpha now.. if all the others die.

You'll see why there's so few men once i add an intro (story introduction intro) and brieifng, and markers.

Will add a savegame

Will make the mi17 fly higher after it spots you.

not sure what you mean about the tracers and the boat stopping, i don't setpos it, maybe i should setCaptive it until the player gets out, you're not supposed to be engaged until the mortars start falling.

I will make sure to give the ruskies on the beach HD weapons.

Adding voices is aan obvious must, but finding them is the problem

Using the preview means u can only design for veteran

Also I think I'll make a defensive positions script using DM lean and ICP animations to make morton feel more real.

Will change the sidechat after a squad check, if you're the leader you'll talk to yourself.

I'll make a temp brifing for the next version.

Oh, and the western forest was a typo, I meant east   \I swear, I can make a typo of a whole sentence sometimes..

**edit** does anyone know where I can find a good static anim with multiple firing positions? GOnna put a few guys in the windows with them.

[cozza 24]

Cameron did better than me. Lost all but 2 men during the landing. Ran into the forest. Hid behind a tree firng off round into a bush. Run out of ammo (No suprise why ) I run back to get an AK but some cheeky russian was behind me and shot me point blank range.

[XCess 0]

the results of a covert op gone wrong

What do you think of the atmosphere? How immersive is the mission? How could I make it more immersive?

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Like I said above, a bit of meat on the plot would help immerse the player a lot more - why are they there in the first place? What year is it? Who are the enemy (besides being Russian)? What is the situation? What was the main objective before everything went to hell?

Problem is, all this info usually takes a cinematic mission to get across.

[XCess 0]

Then the next version should be perfect

I'm going to add a storyline intro and briefing, aswell as an overview (I probably will use the pic you suggested).

[Wonder 0]

For a russian atmosphere it might be a good idea to include male bass chorus vocals (red army chorus style)

[XCess 0]

I think I should make a seperate topic for the mission itself. Wonder was your reply in reference to my mission "invasion" or a general suggestion? I'm guessing the latter. Although I will have a few sequences in the intro showing the Russian movement into Everon and they're reason for being there (and also where in my mind the Malden islands are actually located - the Aleutian islands)

[XCess 0]

After having a hell of a lot of trouble with alt tab.. it seems ofp likes to piss me off by making me alt tab in and out of ofp about 5 times before the ofp screen will actualise minimise so i can edit my scripts.. I am nearing completion of the first beta of Invasion.

I will post a new thread when I release beta one of EDF Invasion. Expect to see it within the next few hours.