Really long and "story-driven" MP missions. Are they wanted???

[laggy 0]

Hi,

I know that the campaign in ArmAII is playable as hosted COOP, but since creating a MP compatible campaign seems very difficult (even BIS struggles), I have decided to wait with that project until solid information on how to do it well becomes accessable. For OFP I made some MP missions that kind of gave that "campaign" feeling (I think). Please stick with me as I try to explain my topic. The one mission I think of was a really long MP mission that had three separate parts. It was called "Operation Underdog".

Part 1. During night, as Delta Force units you had the objective to attack and take control over an airfield (on Tonal Island). The airfield had to be seized to enable an invasion force to land. When the airfield was taken a cutscene started where you saw U.S Chinook helicopters advancing on the airfield, music and texts saying that the airfield was now your camp of operations. A briefing scene followed, with an officer describing the next mission/objective.

Part 2. Time now switched to day. The airfield is now completely converted into a U.S forces base. Now you've got the new mission/objective to take out an enemy convoy that was transporting insurgents through Tonal. You had to plan an ambush in the desert and succeed. New cutscene with briefing and info after returning to base.

Part 3. Time switched to dusk. In this last part your task was to kidnap a "warlord" that was the source of all the problems. You had to infiltrate a town, find and kidnap the badguy, then take him back to base. If succeeded... Mission Completed.

In this three part, quite complex mission you also got your group filled up after every part, static objects were deleted and added to give the impression of time passing. Several scripts to add gameplay, as well as a lot of sounds.

My question is this:

Does this "concept" sound interesting to any of you as a MP mission, even though the total time for completion would be at least 2-3 hours ? Is it too long to be of any interest ? I personally prefer these kind of "story-driven" MP missions, that keep you busy half the night. In MP I loath anything but "group respawn", but I have no clue what the general opinion is. Finally, in ArmAII the save game function is present even in MP, so a suspended session is not a problem.

Before spending weeks on designing such a mission I would like to hear your feedback.

Thanks for any comments,

Laggy

Edited July 29, 2009 by laggy
clearity

[_pi_ 10]

Sounds Interesting, although don't like long cutscenes. I like more forced Coop, so for example try to complete 2 objectives at distant sites but at same time or you fail :cool:

I think also it depends if that MP Missions are set to large groups >=30 (or 40,50) players or for <=10 (or 5) players.

If there are ranks ppl tend to rush (I do) if spawn is fast (spawn vehicles) or set some roles, so if you play as a team you have 75% of success.

[EBass 0]

I would be very interested in these type of missiosn. Very interested indeed.

Considering everyone seems to play nothing but domination/evolution which can take 5 or six hours or more I don't see the length being a problem.

[Bad Pilot 0]

I was going to vote no but then I read your idea and thought it sounded pretty cool. Just bear in mind that if your mission starts with an intro sequence I wil hate you forever. That goes for the rest of you editors. Nobody gives a fuck about intros, especially with JIP. Cut scenes at the end (between mission stages) would be acceptable :).

[Starlight 10]

I have to say I think using the Revive part only from Norrin's Revive Script is great for this type of mission. Respawning reduces the sense of realism where as reviving increases the tension of securing the area and reviving a team mate before he dies.

[laggy 0]

Thanks for your opinion guys.

I have to say I think using the Revive part only from Norrin's Revive Script is great for this type of mission. Respawning reduces the sense of realism where as reviving increases the tension of securing the area and reviving a team mate before he dies.

Agree, forgot to praise Norrin's creation regarding respawn

Just bear in mind that if your mission starts with an intro sequence I wil hate you forever. That goes for the rest of you editors. Nobody gives a fuck about intros, especially with JIP. Cut scenes at the end (between mission stages) would be acceptable :).

Not even a short teeny-weeny "get in the mood" kind of intro ? :couch:

Laggy

[Stridergg 10]

I definitely prefer story-driven coop missions. Missions like Domination and CTI are great and awesome but my friends and I usually play them when no new story-driven missions are available.

[Starlight 10]

Have to say I like the intro in "Behind Enemy Lines" :icon_eek:

And I think that any single mission long or short can be enhanced with a nice intro.

[TheRookie 0]

I think its a good idea, but i suggest to create it first for smaller groups of players - i really love smaller but storydriven coops especially when you play it on lan with friends.

[laggy 0]

Have to say I like the intro in "Behind Enemy Lines" :icon_eek:

And I think that any single mission long or short can be enhanced with a nice intro.

1 -Thank you *bow* Thank you !!!

2- That is exactly it, in a story-driven mission with few players it is always nice to get to know your character, I think. I'm quite surprised (in a good way) over the poll results so far.

[galzohar 31]

It would be awesome IF you could pull it off in a realistic, playable and fun manner. And that's a very big IF.

And I'm assuming you're speaking of coop, right? As I really can't see how you can pull this off PvP.

[laggy 0]

I am speaking mainly of COOP yes, even though I don't think a deathmatch would be non doable either.

Laggy

[madrussian 347]

Sounds awesome laggy! Good luck with it.

(btw - Loving your behind enemy lines mission!)

I've been thinking on something like this for some time.

A few features I'd love to see (probably beyond your intended scope but what the heck):

1. A strategic, turn based meta-map system, ala MTW2. Gameplay alternates between:

a. Map phase where you receive updates on the situation and plot out your next move.

b. Real-Time phase where you attempt to complete missions / fight out battles in real time.

2. Multiple characters per player that can die and/or be captured. No respawn, highly limited revive. Players control one of their characters at a time, and can obtain new characters by completing certain objectives. Fear of death is prevasive.

3. Overall victory/defeat system (revealed to the player up front).

a. Victory condition goes beyond simply taking over the entire map (i.e. You can get extremely creative here.)

b. Overall defeat condition goes beyond the possibility of losing all player characters. (i.e. Again you can come up with some excellent theme based overall defeat conditions here.)

4. Non-linear Mission structure. Dynamic objectives / events... some of which the players can directly affect, others which they can unwittingly bring on, and still others occurring beyond the player's control entirely. The players only experience a subset of the entire set of possibilities with each playthrough.

5. An overall external yet organic force driving the mission to completion (through victory or defeat). Overall mission duration maximum targeted at about five or six hours. Shorter if the players lose quicker. As opposed to a traditional long, narrow, and linear mission, the model here is short, but extremely wide with possibility.

6. Mission is geared so that the players will likely not achieve overall victory on the first play through. Because of the highly dynamic structure, players won't dread starting over. Indeed, they will actually look forward to it.

This is my ArmA2 dream in a nutshell. :icon_twisted:

[Bad Pilot 0]

Not even a short teeny-weeny "get in the mood" kind of intro ? :couch:

Laggy

I joined the server because I was in the mood. What I want is a load-out and a sit rep. However, I would not lose my war boner if the intro lasted less than 5 seconds.

[galzohar 31]

2. Multiple characters per player that can die and/or be captured. No respawn, highly limited revive. Players control one of their characters at a time, and can obtain new characters by completing certain objectives. Fear of death is prevasive.

When all your characters die, you disconnect from the server and come back next week when the campaign is restarted? Or what?

5. An overall external yet organic force driving the mission to completion (through victory or defeat). Overall mission duration maximum targeted at about five or six hours. Shorter if the players lose quicker. As opposed to a traditional long, narrow, and linear mission, the model here is short, but extremely wide with possibility.

What happens when I have to go to lunch? We pause the war until I come back just to find out someone else has to go? What?

6. Mission is geared so that the players will likely not achieve overall victory on the first play through. Because of the highly dynamic structure, players won't dread starting over. Indeed, they will actually look forward to it.

What happens when a couple players decide that victory ain't gonna happen and want to restart, and leave when they realize others want to keep playing?

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see something like this, but you really have to think through these stuff before you even think about actually making them. At the end people need to play your mission.

Edited July 30, 2009 by galzohar

[laggy 0]

I joined the server because I was in the mood. What I want is a load-out and a sit rep. However, I would not lose my war boner if the intro lasted less than 5 seconds.

How about a cymbal crash for atmospheric music and your leader screaming "FIRE" to get you into the story ?

I think that's doable in 2 seconds :292:

Edited July 29, 2009 by laggy

[madrussian 347]

@galzohar

I've actually spent way too much time thinking all this through. :p

IMO, such a dynamic campaign would achieve the perfect balance of fear-of-death, dynamics, possibility, and high stakes game play many of us are craving. :)

When all your characters die, you disconnect from the server and come back next week when the campaign is restarted? Or what?

As far as your last character dying, there are many possibilities.

First of all though, note that you control one character at a time. During a battle (occuring as part of the battle phase), when your character dies, you go into a death-cam mode until the end of that battle. From death-cam mode, you can monitor other players. When the battle is over, any other battles are played out (where you may or may not have another character engaged). After all battles are resolved, back to the map phase.

Most likely, during battles where you have no main character, you can enter the battle as a pawn of another player. (i.e. a minor generic character that you only control for that battle). In addition, perhaps other players can hand over ownership of one of their characters to you, if they choose.

Constrast this to a standard coop, where when you lose your last soldier, you are stuck as a spectator from that point on with absolutely no hope of returning to play!

Also note the campaign length has an upper max measured in hours... so no worry about coming back the following week.

What happens when I have to go to launch? We pause the war until I come back just to find out someone else has to go? What?

Not sure exactly what you mean here. That feature point again:

5. An overall external yet organic force driving the mission to completion (through victory or defeat)...

What I mean here is something along the lines of having a built in mechinism so that the mission does not go on indefinately (which is usually frustrating. as we are all limited in the amount of time we have to play these games). If the player can expect the mission to last approximately X number of hours, he can plan accordingly.

Couple of other points that may relate:

My ideal mission would be geared for a small number of players (1-6?) and yet perfectly playable by a single player.

I know how much people seem to love JIP and persistant servers, but imo JIP has had a hugely negative impact on mission making regarding ArmA and ArmA2 in general. In the old days of OFP, mission designers churned out large numbers of wonderful small story-based coops. Since the advent of JIP, so many mission designers have turned to making CTI type missions (which are not at all appealing to me). IMO, the only place for JIP should be for when your connection goes bad, and you need to reconnect.

What happens when a couple players decide that victory ain't gonna happen and want to restart, and leave when they realize others want to keep playing?

Again, I'm thinking of a small number of players that know each other (LAN gaming etc), so this shouldn't be an issue. But to answer your question more directly, either the AI would take over for the departing player's character, or ownership would be handed over to the player who wished to remain to slog it out.

---

One day I will create my dynamic turn-based mission. But currently time is constrained by full time job and all those RL responsibilities (don't we love em). :D

In any event, much of what I'm talking about is based on extremely advanced scripting though, so no breathe-holding here... But just maybe Laggy can incorporate some of this in his upcoming masterpiece!

[galzohar 31]

Everything you're mentioning makes your ideas look more and more like a full time job mission.

One of the most important things to remember when making missions: In an actual combat where you're facing a decent enemy, you're not going to live long. If you can live through even 30 minutes of a mission, either that mission has no action, or that mission has very poor enemies, or that mission is purely a "find a way to trick the AI so you can wipe the floor with them" which may not be easy but it's not exactly a battle either, more like a problem-solving game.

I don't think many people would jump into playing a 1 hour mission when they can die in the first 5 minutes, and I don't think anyone will play any mission where they have very little chance for dying for 5 full minutes. The former is boring because of spectating and the latter is boring because of no action. That is the #1 killer of long missions with no respawns, which means a mission that's not either short or has respawns will have a very very hard time to be made as a playable mission.

Again, remember, people need to want to play your mission.

[nichevo 2]

If your mission has three distinct parts... why not make them different missions? You could release them as a bundle.

The first problem with an epic long mission is that if I like part 3, I can't play it without slogging through parts 1 and 2.

Also a huge mission like you suggest has more scope for bugs. All that object spawning, time skipping... mix that in with JIP and you have a testing nightmare.

I guess I'm trying to say don't bite off more than you can chew! (If you think you're good at chewing, all well and good.)

[Alpha-Kilo 36]

Laggy,

your idea sounds like a very challenging mission. Challenging to make and challenging to play.

The problem with intros is that the mission makers seem to like them a lot, but most players want to start playing as soon as possible. If you want to make a lengthy intro to your next mission, you might want to provide an incentive for watching it: The intro could reveal some information which is not presented in the briefing. (A simple example: You have to search and destroy an enemy camp. The briefing says: The camp can be anywhere. But in the intro you could see the camp in the forest with a castle in the background. Now you know where to look.)

If an intro is made well, I will watch it once or twice, but what I don't like is an outro. I would rather walk around the area after completing a mission. ArmA2 with the modules and the dialogue system is perfect for free roaming without a specific task. After "Behind enemy lines" I could imagine to start a little punitive expedition but the mission is not designed this way.

In your next mission you could let the player choose which ending he wants: Suppose an officer congratulates the character on the successful completion of the mission. Then, the player may walk to a tent --> end mission or he walks to an ammo crate and chooses fresh gear --> start free roaming. At any time he can return to the base to either pick up more ammunition or to go to his tent and exit the mission.

[madrussian 347]

To quickly weigh in on intros...

I personally think intros/cutscenes in general add a lot of atmosphere, especially if they are well done. If they are too long, that can get a bit frusterating. How long is too long? Well that depends on the cutscene I guess and the information it needs to convey. I don't think you could ever get by with just five seconds... that's just way too short.

It is important to make the cutscenes skipable. Once we've seen a cutscene, we may want ot skip it upon another playthrough. Plus apparently there are those we don't appreciate a good story and want to get straight into the action. Thus skipable cutscenes will please everyone!

Regarding end of mission, I personally like the mission to end with a cutscene. But I guess there's nothing wrong with making continuing the mission optional. More options is generally better.

[Alpha-Kilo 36]

Mad Russian,

I agree with you as far as single player missions are concerned: If an intro is good, it's nice to watch it - otherwise it can be frustrating. And 5 seconds is too short to tell a story (apart from Cymbal and "Fire!").

I don't know what makes a good intro but I know what makes a poor one: Boring stereotypes which remind us of old Hollywood B-movies. And long battles filmed from strange camera positions. And scenes which appear random and out of sequence.

Another problem is language: If you don't understand the intro it becomes frustrating frustratingly quick - even if it is made well and contains important info and everything! That's why I am quite sure that most or all intros/cutscenes will be skipped when we play this mission in my group. Even the short intro to "Behind enemy lines" was skipped.

To Laggy: If you intend to include German subtitles or dubbing I volunteer. Just send me a PM!

[laggy 0]

If your mission has three distinct parts... why not make them different missions? You could release them as a bundle.

The first problem with an epic long mission is that if I like part 3, I can't play it without slogging through parts 1 and 2.

I see your point, but that kind of kills the immersion (I think). I wouldn't feel much for my character if he had just died in the previous mission, to then just resurrect in the next one. That was the immersion killer in original CWC, if I remember correctly. One solution would maybe be to include a cheat (like endmission) in every part.

In your next mission you could let the player choose which ending he wants: Suppose an officer congratulates the character on the successful completion of the mission. Then, the player may walk to a tent --> end mission or he walks to an ammo crate and chooses fresh gear --> start free roaming. At any time he can return to the base to either pick up more ammunition or to go to his tent and exit the mission.

Great idea and I have considered this option before, just didn't think anyone would care for it. Good feedback.

It is important to make the cutscenes skipable. Once we've seen a cutscene, we may want ot skip it upon another playthrough. Plus apparently there are those we don't appreciate a good story and want to get straight into the action. Thus skipable cutscenes will please everyone!

Great idea as well, how about a standard action or radio channel for this option?

Even the short intro to "Behind enemy lines" was skipped.

WHAT!!!

Thanks for the interesting and informative feedback everyone.

Laggy

[_Hurricane 0]

Seems promising this mission. You should definately make it if you want to!

As for feedback, I can't come up with anything that hasn't already been said.

I'd definately include the Revive script in a mission like this.

First aid, like in the ArmA 2 campaign, would also be a great option.

[Scimitar67 10]

I am mainly interested in SP missions. IMO best to concentrate on mission quality and originality. Intro not necessary. I prefer infantry missions. I don't think ARMA I and ARMA II do helicopter and aircraft very well and best to leave that to more developed sims.