Creating Missions

[Nightjay0044 1]

Okay I don't know about anyone else but it's hard for me to make missions and stay interested in the whole creating proceess from start to finish.

I know there still can be lots of missions to be made. Could anyone post their thoughts on how they go about creating missions from scratch?

I mean thinking of what kind of mission you want then going about how your going to create it?

[CameronMcDonald 146]

I never create missions without a larger storyline. I can't do 1-step missions, they have to have a sequel or compaign.

What I usually do is think:

Why is there conflict here? (if the mission is about conflict - I have made at least one good non-fighting mission - 8/10 OFPEC)

What is the most realistic way this is likely to happen?

Can this be done within OPF? Lag? Realism?

What are the particulars of the mission?

Where will this take place?

What will the weather be like?

What units are involved?

How will the units move?

Will I recruit custom voice actors, or do them meself?

Am I likely to use custom music and sounds?

Is there any special addons/scripts/features I am likely to include? Are they necessary? Can I script them? Lag?

Then I get started.

[Guest]

CameronMcDonald has a point

That's a good way to start it yes...

But I start by writing the background and the walkthrough (what I want to happen, the experience) in my notebook. So I always keep a pencil and a notebook near.

Then I draw the units placement and stuff...

And the rest is almost like CameronMcDonald said

A good way on how to not loose interest is by slowing down its progress or stop for a while. Don't try to create missions in a day or if something fails you will give up plan with calm and create it within your time

[23-Down 0]

I am build my missions and campaigns spontaneously (on the spur of the moment.)

If i have a idea for a mission i think fast what can\will happens in the mission. and build it.

In the production of the mission i get only new ideas and add the ideas into the mission, if possible.

I think thats the best waz to build up a mission.

the best waz for my own.

[XCess 0]

Always alwyas always write down a storyline for your mission before you even think about opening the editor.

This gives structure to the mission and also set's goals for the creator, giving him something solid to work towards, and a reason to keep going.

As PTnbrvieira said, never spend too much time in one go working on the mission,m spread the workload over a month or two for the initial development, and then submit the mission for beta testing and continue. If you feel yourself getting tired or bored with the mission, do something ese for the rest of the day, and come back to it in the morning. Don't push to hard or you will loose every bit of creativity.

Although, I'm no THobson...

@Cameron, do you have that peaceful mission hosted anywhere other than ofpec?

[nominesine 0]

1) I start with a rough story line and a general objective. (What nations will be involved? What is EAST's goal? What's WEST's goal?? etc???). At this stage I might end up with a note saying something like: "American mechanized infantry patrols through 3 villages. No hostile contacts are reported in the area but insurgency is possible in all three villages."

2) I decide about an island and do some trecking on the map. I never scout the area with helicopters (unless it's a helo mission), I walk and drive around in 1st person mode until I find a setting that fits my story. The reason is I want to see the terrain as it will be seen by the players. What happens if I chose this path? What view will I get of the area if my team decides to cross that ridge, etc. To continue the example above: I chose Tonal islands and decided that a US vehicle patrol must drive through three towns east of the main airport to complete the mission. It takes aprox 30 minutes to complete the full tour without any resistance - just driving.

3) I decide about the units and place the player group on the map. Usually I avoid addons at this stage. I place event triggers and end triggers that fits my general story line and play the mission without any resistance. When the basic structure is working I save a back up copy of the raw mission. Example: A 12 man patrol riding in three hummers. When the units/triggers are in position I complete the full tour to make sure everything works as I intended.

4) I start to place oposing forces on the map and try different locations. Then I play the mission again and again and again, gradually raising the oposition as I go along. When I'm satisfied i update my backup. Example: I place a mix of civvie and militia units (they look almost the same) in the towns and gives them a randomized set of waypoints, that makes their wherabouts unpredictable. Some towns will be inhabitetd by peaceful civies, but there might also be a rockthrowing mob waiting, should I leave my patrol car, or a hidden insurgent on a rooftop with an RPG.

5) I change the default units to addon units, play the mission again, and again, and again to make sure everything works. New backup. Example: BIS soldiers is HYK desert soldiers, BIS Hummer is replaced by a desert Hummer, armed with MG.

6) I add some secondary objectives to the main one, makes a rough draft for the briefing and make sure every objective can be ticked off as it should. Example: during the patrol the vehicle patrol must look for a sniper in Town A, check a certain house in Town B, the patrol may only target armed civilians, etc. Then some more triggers that fires if a civvie is killed, if the patrol gets lost, etc

7) I build all cutscenes, record sounds, make intro/outro last. Usually I do this in a separate mission and imports all scripts/triggers/units into the main mission afterwards, with normal cut-and-paste.

8) I add some scripts to randomize the mission (unit placement, enemy movement). Just simple code, using the random-command - nothing fancy.

9) I BETA test my mission.

[Kendo J 1]

Ok Nightjay i post on your forum so this is for the benifit of others.. 10 steps

1.Start with the map.

2.The size of military force needed to occupy it.

3.what and where would a military commander deploy his troops.

4. what size of invading force needed to repel the occupyer

(important for the assets you get in game, no point in having a tank if you are an airbourne infantry man Tanks will stay with thier battalion/company/platoon).

(normally west invade, east occupy. However, we all know this is just US propaghanda! he he)

5. what role do you play? infanrtyman, officer, Sergent

6. Where on the map are you opperating.

7.What military units needed to occupy this area?.... Company sized (largest I use) or Platoon size. these are feasable sized units to encounter. They are also good self sufficient realistic sizes.

8. Your strategic objectives. No point in attacking/defending a base if there is no higher military strategy involved. E.g. Signals, AA, Ammo, Fuel are always important targets!

9. Other freindlies and assets e.g. other platoon squads artillery, Air cover, CAS... etc..

10. Scripts that will be usefull... then once you got all the scripts prepared, units on map, start to recce the areas where you plan to conduct the mission.

Now I start to put everything in place...

Kendo

[Serclaes 0]

In general i'm not saying : "Now I'll build a mission!"

Usually, as it often happens in course, i get a story idea. First a vague thing. Then, as i'm only making campaigns (same for me as for Cameron), i contruct a more detailed storyline.

Then i begin to think about the addons i want to use. Next comes the exact storyline sorted in chapters and missions (usually i have some basic mission ideas... like seize a city or something like that which i will incorporate).

The thing is that you shouldnt say : i want to make a mission to make a mission.

Just build a mission when you're in the mood to. Never force yourself or, as Xcess said, you will loose every creativity hence it will become boring for you and for the player.

[Drongo69 117]

My recent approach is to try to do as much as possible on paper. I note down specific and general concepts, planned addons/island and the overall goal. I try to write a brief guide to what the player should (and should not) experience whilst playing the mission. I make a list of must-have features and "would be nice to have" features. Sometimes I write script fragments or script flow diagrams too.

Before I actually sit down at the PC, I have a hand-written list of what features I want to implement in that session (often numbered for priority). I personally find just sitting down and working on whatever pops into my head is a good way to spend an evening achieving nothing.

Next I try to get the guts of the mission down in the editor. Depending on problems that come up here, I go back to working on paper, then back to the PC.

If I get bored with something, I leave it and (hopefully) come back to it later. Finally, don't try to release completed missions, go for a public beta. Feedback from other people is a great motivator and will give you some great ideas.

[Serclaes 0]

Indeed, paper for notes may appear outdated but it's your best friend.

[Student Pilot 0]

I don't know about anyone else, but I never really think about making a mission, then open up the editor and do it.  In fact, my only released mission (Red Tide) was a result of playing with the editor.  I wanted to see how to make a man climb a ladder.  I got him to do it, then I added a few more units and tried them.  Then I thought to myself, "Hey, this might turn out to be a mission."  After that I sat down and started planning things out.  However, while I always had a goal in mind, I never made anything concrete.  I didn't have a definate number of squads I would place, or a certain number of patrols I would utilize, or even the exact area of operations.  This allowed me to adjust the diffuculty by adding or removeing units/squads/patrols until I thought it was good.  Because of this, my mission expanded from a simple take the base mission to include several reinforcement squads which were stationed in several nearby towns.  Once the basic mission was made, I added extra features to improve the gameplay and atmosphere.  Finally, I beta-tested the mission and recieved many good suggestions from my beta-testers.

Everyone else is absolutely right, if you get bored with it, leave it alone for a while, maybe even a few days.  Also, Serclaes is right, don't go making a mission just to make a mission.  Do it because you enjoy it and want to see your creation succeed.

So, to conclude, I would say don't sit down and think about making a mission.  Just play around with the editor.  You may see something that you want to expand into a mission, perhaps you see some kind of terrain that would be just perfect for an ambush, or maybe that hill there looks quite strategic.  Let the ideas come to you, don't go looking for them.

-Pilot

[456820 0]

Well normally i think of the story line and what kind of mission then i think of everything possible to go into the mission then open up the editor and fly and drive about the mission area on my own till i get a good idea what the mission will be like terrain wise.

Then ill start by placing in basic units such as a small idea of the mission no fancy AI scrpting or units with lots of random waypoints just plain units with waypoints if really needed.

then i will play the mission as it is if its no good and i dont see light at the ned of the tunnel its usually not thought out well enough so i either go back to step 1 or say this mission will be no good and quite it.

If the test mission goes well ill delete all units and replace them with the propper units for the mission like groups with large random waypoints with all the correct settings inside the waypoints such as formations and behaviour mode.

Then ill add all empty objects to create a realistic looking base. Then ill play it again see if all is going well if so ill carrry on making the mission starting to add the light scripting usually in my case custom death scripts and a description.ext with weapons and onloadmission text and so on. (Note the weather and time/day will also be done in the eidtor)

Then ill add the slightly heavier scripting if needed such as AI scripts.

Then all the triggers will be correctly added then the mission will start to be looking like a propper mission then ill keep testing till ive got the mission i want then ill add briefings, overivews and pics to it. Then start testing it then add radio sounds (from voice actors and custom music) to the mission then test again once im pretty sure everything is how i want it ill go into beta testing the mission once all is done ill leave it on my hard drive for a week or so incase new ideas pop into my head then ill release the mission.

Hope that helps

[Nightjay0044 1]

hey thanks everyone, I got some good advice to work with here.

Well usually when I make missions, I try to think of a theme or a introduction to the mission. Such as a black op raid on an Anti-aircraft unit or a nato assault on a russsian armoured column. which I got those from the Prima's Official strategy guide if anybody got the Gold edition withou the GOTY edition just gold edition individually.

Some hard parts for me is coming up with objectives, how hard am I saposed to make it, I mean what really is realistic because I don't always know what a commander would do. See now a days with mission editing and creating your own missions, it's you have to be more creative..For example..

It may get boring if you have a theme that you play as part of a squad to attack an enemy town and clear the area...I mean you could make a hundred of those but they are all basically alike..You got to think of a lot more then jus that in my opinion. But you know when you make single player missions like the official BIS mission "Clean Sweap" that's a basic attack a town mission but your a black op in that one...

Those missions are fun...Becuase it seems like whatever BIS missions are made you seem to feel the realism in their missions and the mission just feels right... Does anybody know how BIS go about making their missions?

Okay I've had this thought...Like mentioned above, driving around until you find a spot that fits your mission. well maybe you could think of is that some aspects as this....

What will the players and AI's soldiers line of sight be?

Do you want it to have lots of hills or be flat land?

Do you want forests or any trees?

Maybe you could consider your terrain like that...when your looking for an area of the map to put it on, then when you have your mission in mind and you know your island you can think to yourself okay I know what I want and where I need to drive or fly around.

Also sometimes like a few of you said, I do just create missions for the sake of creating them...But I do want to see my self make another successful mission...YOu see if anybody ever played my hold port mission, I was working on that mission for a long......time. It's pretty much the way I want it now. Maybe that's what a mission maker like me should do is only create and work on your mission when you have the passion to do it or else your work is going to be gone.

One part that is different now in making missions is that the users/players who play your mission know what to expect from the AI soldiers...WEll yeah that's easy....So say you have a small 3 man patrol going around a building.....The player looks at that and thinks to himself, well this will be easy to kill them. Then again you could mix it up and make them patrol in diagnal lines and not straight lines going around the buildings and towns.

Heres a point we could discuss, I like to make my missions feel like real missions, make them unpredictable in most ways but not neccessarily in all ways, be suprised, feel in the heat of the moment, get into the mission not just play it. Try to make the mission as meaningful as possible not just an oh, attack the town mission..those don't excite mission players unless theres some action.

Well I hope that give you guys more thoughts on what I'm thinking about....Thanks everyone..

[Trapper 0]

All BIS Missions have one advantage, which always makes them feel so realistic and fun, even if they're not sensational. They're all official pioneers:

- They're all based around the big CWC campaign. No need for a new big background story, CWC is a good one.

- All units and islands are perfectly fitting these scenarios. No need to think about addons. And they're balanced.

- Most players won't question the plot and realism, because they believe the mission was made by the "gods".

Official missions officialy continue the story. Missions by fans always have to take criticism to be just fiction.

- BIS made full use of the simple OFP possibilities with all of there missions, before any users could think about creating their own. So all obvious military mission plots and tutorials have already been made. - Everyone who wants to create an unique and excellent mission afterwards has to work twice as hard and strain the OFP engine with advanced tasks. Unofficially CWC sequels without new features or superb story will stand in the shadows of the originals for beeing just another "attack that town" misison.

[sanctuary 19]

Personnally, i don't have an "ahead planning" when making a mission, or it is very rare.

That is because i have already tons of story and campaign ideas

in my head, but each time getting started is the most difficult part .

So for a really completed mission, usually all starts by toying around the editor, or writing a small script about a situation.

Then sometime i want to enhance a bit more the situation i started to create in the editor and it ends into a mission project.

There, i think about a story, or just more features to add, then continue until the mission take a good path and i can enjoy it.

After that, once the mission itself is done and the story completed inside it, things get somewhat boring and completing totally the mission begin to be an annoying process.

As once the whole thing is done, making the final small tweaks and beta testing it again and again and again... is the best way to get on my nerves.

So after a while usually i leave it like it is for some weeks, until i get back to it to try to finish it and add cutscenes.

[D.murphy man 0]

Back when i made missions (dont have the time now) i ALWAYS got bored half way threw and to this day have hundreds of half made missions. Id usually just make a script or be experimenting with fun stuff using scripting, after a while ill have all these seperate experiment missions with all kinds of intresting and fun scripts, then id get an idea on how to use some of them in one mission and throw it all together and make it up as i went along

At the moment i have one HUGE dynamic coop mission involving a zombie infested island. Theres randomised music (the theme adapts to events happping like scary music when zombies attack, slow music when nothings happening) and randomised ways to escape which the players have to find them selves (like searching a delivery depot turns up documents about radio parts being transported, you have to find them and go to airport to fix radio etc..) and also players have to search buildings for food which players can eat or trade with a NPC gun shop owner for ammo and guns which the shop owner has a randomised limited supply off. plus guns can be found in houses all across the island which is completely randomised.

Even though i got it all the basics and place the mission in its current form is playble i lost complete intrest especially since it was hard for me to organised beta testing with others on MP to test how certain things worked online etc... plus all the time it took to get it all in place sort of made me sick of the mission to bother tweaking it to perfection

hopfully ill go back to it one day...

[Guest]

Heres my take

come up with a really seemingly good concept that is immersive and utilizes much of what ofp offers.

Then as you begin writing down the stuff on paper, be realistic as to what can be done in a reasonable amount of time considering your own limitations and ofp's, which prolly means getting rid of alot and changing things.

During actual creation more stuff will have to be removed, changed, added, while constantly asking what if _this happens, then do this2, <<-- after this2 is done, what if _this2 happens, then do this3 -- meaning the more dynamic the mission is, the more freedom it has, a mission is not made great by addons, but by what the mission itself is composed of.

[Nightjay0044 1]

lol, okay what if you think of a theme or a story structure such as attack a town. How about thinking of a certain amount of soldiers that would be suitable for this type of mission. I mean your not going to have 150 soldiers in a town on the island of Everon literally are you?

So I mean say to your self, okay I'm going to have 25 or 30 soldiers in this town as the enemy. Then you could think of okay what would be an acceptable amount of allied soldiers to go up again this force..You think, well I could almost match the enemy strength and say I'm going to have 15 soldiers and a couple of tanks.

But I mean how hard should you make a mission?

How easy should you make a mission?

Also my lack of interest comes from...

-placing the units

-where to place them

-how many should there be for both sides

-should I have reinforcements...

Lets talk a little bit about reinforcements. I do think this is a good way to spice up your mission. Because when you attack a town you know there are going to be soldiers in the town waiting to open fire on you. But what you don't always know is will there be any reinforcements. THey could come from the North, South, East or West, by plane, helicopter, vehicle transport etc..Also it falls into counter attacks...

What I love doing is feeling the aspects of the mission when I play it. You know you just feel apart of it. Like my hold Port mission that I have that took me forever to make and it's still not exactly great but it works for me. See there are just so many considerations and factors in mission making it's almost endless..

My point in thie board is to discuss all these aspects as far in-depth as we can go so we can help ourselves or others that come along and want the information. Well that's about it for now..

[Guest]

I know what you mean, hold the port is a good mission, and I did try a few times to solely eliminate all the enemy forces in the town by not extracting and trying to snatch up laws and rpgs from dead soldiers, very difficult, never did it, but was nice to have the option. Obviously this mission was designed to not allow you to win basically. In a campaign of course this is fine, a single mission like this would suck lol - you ran away- mission complete! yay! I know, this is obvious, but a simple example of a reason for the particular mission difficulty, being you carry on from the loss being you survived and the whole atmosphere of the campaign basically says to me WOW, the Russians are a liiiiitle more prepared than thought, and we are in trouble.

I think really myself there are already alot of attack the town type missions, and most of em throw u with a ton of ai to manage, they are normally moderate to difficult, where it seems managaing ur ai units is more important than what your player does. Like you said tho, when you start adding in other elements, the mission takes on a wider scope, like reinforcements coming in to back up the enemy, and as you consider more options the mission goes from being the standard 'attack the town' to a unique experience.

Like, for instance, if west knows Russians have reinforcemtns in a nearby town, how about you are a spec ops team that must slow down and destroy as many of those reinforcements as possible before they get to the battle (satchels, mines, rockets), then carry the mission on from there - head to the battle and attack the enemy from the rear. Lots of scenarios are really possible, its just one. Difficulty, my opinion, make it an adventure, dont make it difficult to a realistic level, myself id rather make a mission somewhat moderate to easy but allow many things to do, and also allow elements within the mission to be optional that ARE difficult, but not required, and also allow for a player not doing a good job somewhere to make the mission doubly difficult later - like in this scenario that I have thrown out, maybe blowing up some of the reinforcements is not the most deadly of tasks, but obviously the task of taking the town is doubly more difficult if you kill only 1 tank instead of 2 or 3.

Just some thoughts.

Edit/// add

good grief, now that you got me going

Another thing I think is real important is terrain, by which I mean what the terrian conditions are that much of the fighting will take place on, in ofp I have often disliked the many missions that stick u out in the wide open against enemies that are 100 to 200 meters away, being afraid to fire a shot and letting ur ai do it cause as soon as u fire a shot a whole volley of bullets come at u, where often no matter how good your position is its muchly chance that you survive, not very 'fun' in my opinion. Having a little cut up terrian, or buildings nearby, or even woods, or any of these together helps alot, where you can move about, set up somewhat solid deffensive/offensive positions, where you are not constantly engaging at long ranges. In my opinion a sinlge mission that is focused to a degree around one battle should take in consideration how the battle may pan out with the terrain.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Bit late for a reply - but, no Xcess - poor thing got terminated when OFPEC went down. Plus I upgraded to Resistance just after so (watches great mission fly out through the window). Sorry dude, I'd loved to have shown it to ya.

[XCess 0]

Would have loved to have seen it

Let's hope they managed to salvage it *crossing fingers*

[crashdome 3]

I create something that would be fun and is fresh and new. Usually it might revolve around an experimental script or idea.

Ironically, most of these missions which turn out to be simply 'demos' of my idea or script prove to be more popular amongst my friends than my well-built missions using regular ideas.

Another Thing I think is often forgotten is just having plain old fun:

My friends and I have made some pretty zany missions that make no sense at all... just good clean destruction. Those are also popular - especially if they are hard and have alot of random events.

One of my friends thought it would be neat to have a Ranger Training mission set (when the BAS units were released oh so long ago). He started it off nice where we got into the mission with gear and all next to a city... next thing we know our weapons disappear and some text shows up proclaiming that we were about to be tested to the absolute limits. Suddenly enemy units start popping out from the town throwing grenades like it's snowball fight. We have no weapons but can see a few crates in the center of town.

We played that mission over and over for HOURS and only once did one person survive and be able to kill all the 'nade soldiers.

His next mission involved running (no weapons so it was slowwwww running). Goal was to get to other side of forest the fastest you could. The trick was there were enemies hiding in bushes that would pop out and chase you with satchel charges. You don't know FEAR until you see a guy run up behind you and get on his knees setting his suicidal human-smart bomb to *Boom* setting.

Anyways... the thing is that realistic missions are great... but you cannot forget that having fun is the goal and spending 8 months on a good mission and having good replayability is nice, but 8 silly missions in 1 month can be just as entertaining sometimes.