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

[B-oodThorn 10]

Yes they are welcome as are any other missions .....variation keeps the game alive!

[laggy 0]

Seems like the poll results are pretty clear.

Thank you for voting.

Laggy

[madrussian 347]

Regarding skipable cutscenes:

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

IIRC, in general for intros in ArmA you can usually just press any key to skip them. I've also played missions where you could not skip intros... very frustrating on the second go-around.

For cutscenes midway through a mission, I'm not sure if a press-any-key option is even possible. Having said that, how would the player even get to his action menu or radio during a cutscene? If you can make it work though, cool!

If I was choosing between the action menu and the radio for skipping, I'd defiantely go action menu. But press-any-key trumps them both, imo.

Good luck with the mission! :)

[jakerod 254]

I don't know if its possible in multiplayer now or not but having an auto-save after cutscenes is normally a good idea.

[laggy 0]

I don't know if its possible in multiplayer now or not but having an auto-save after cutscenes is normally a good idea.

Another great idea, thank you!

[madrussian 347]

btw Laggy-

Many of us are really looking forward to your new creation. Any preliminary teaser-style details? :)

[laggy 0]

btw Laggy-

Many of us are really looking forward to your new creation. Any preliminary teaser-style details? :)

Thanks for the kind words!

Well, it will be inspired by an old classic war movie called "Kelly's Heroes".

You will play a group of "rotten apples" who wish to gain some personal "wealth" during the war in Chernarus.

Humor and playability will be an ingredient again, I hope.

Hope that gives you an idea.

Laggy

Edited August 3, 2009 by laggy

[kozzy420 21]

I would like any singleplayer campaigns hehe. The longer the better, more story the bettter (:

If anyone needs any VOICE work let me know I can do some. Also if anyone needs ORIGINAL Instrumentals/Beats for there mods!

[tophe 68]

Me and my mates would definitively play that mission... many times if it is executed well. A good story could really enhance the experience... so does some nice cutscenes (as long as they stay around 1-2 minutes).

[st!gar 3]

That goes for the rest of you editors. Nobody gives a fuck about intros.

Bullshit. I love intros. If done well, they can pretty much set the tone for the whole mission.

[laggy 0]

Bullshit. I love intros. If done well, they can pretty much set the tone for the whole mission.

My personal opinion as well :)

[the unknown 0]

This is one of the things the community needs old fasion co-ops where you had a short intro a briefing with a bit of a story and a couple of objectives to take. In the OFP times I made nothing els but these kind of missions, the problem with making them is that you have to make up story's and that aint one of my strong points.

Not sure how you are planning on making this laggy but maybe its a good idea to make 3 separate missions and make it into a little campaign kind how the band of comrades missions for flashpoint where made.

[nominesine 0]

I liked Operation Underdog a lot and I gladly help you fine tune your next mission before it's released. Another idea that I like is a story driven death match, where the opposing players have separate agendas, but the mission doesen't require them to confront each other. Albeit if one player fulfills his main objective, the other player should fail a minor objective. Thus giving the players an incitament to hazzle each other during game play, but not necessarily exterminate one another. With multiple slots on both sides you can then have two Coop missions running at the same time on the same map. Or you can play it as a randomized SP or MPcoop mission, if you lack others to play with. Very good for replayability.

EDIT: I voted yes, BTW ;)

EDIT 2:

Nobody gives a fuck about intros

Grow up and get some manners, will you? If you don't want to watch the intro you can always disable it at MP setup. JIP or not. There's no need to be rude because some people likes to spend time pleasing other people with top notch missions, that they hand out for free for you to enjoy.

Edited August 11, 2009 by nominesine

[[aps]gnat 28]

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

Yep. My popular "Island" trilogy for OFP was done that way.

Each had its own general location, each had different chalenges, each with different resources and target (or attacker) types.

One tip, don't give to many weapon or vehicle choices .... mean and lean. That promotes more interest in reviving friends ..... they'll need every body to make it through.

[Binkowski 25]

I think a good variety of both would be good. In my missions I use the "Situation" note in the briefing to go into very good detail about what is going on around the time of my mission.

[sirex 0]

really, really, hate intros.

i start the game with -nosplash and -world=empty, just to get greeted by a damn non-skippable intro movie ? if the mission has respawn its not too bad, but otherwise it'll pretty much remove all chance of me playing the mission again.

[lockjaw-65- 0]

This poll should have another option if you like both. I personaly like both options and this depends on what time I have, what mood etc. :-)

[laggy 0]

Well, I guess you do belong to the people who are interested in those kind of "long, story-driven" missions.

It doesn't necessarily mean that you aren't be interested in CTF or CTI.

I just wanted to see how many that would actually like to see a mission like the one I explained.

Cheers,

Laggy

[Lonestar 11]

I voted yes but i have one fear : wouldn't it become repetitive after a while?

At least with regular missions ( domi, evo) it's hard to explain but you have the impression that you're in command beacuse the targets can be set randomly and in domi especially you have side missions that prevent you from getting bored. Plus there are counterattacks and the cities can be re taken by the enemy.

I don't know if i'm making a point here but this is what i feel.

Cheers

LoneStar

[dalia 13]

Intro are good, but in Mp i think it's better to modify mission and delete intro, and keep the cutscene mission only. We can't make a SP mission and add only Player slot for transform a Sp to MP Mission, theres is many works for transform a Sp to Mp mission.

But in Sp, it's interesting to add many intros with save behind.

[laggy 0]

@Dalia

Yes, creating a MP mission with a SP (story and atmosphere) feel is a real challenge.

You have to be really careful with the timing of cutscenes and their execution, otherwise you can achieve really weird stuff.

Adding variety is also hard, since you have to relate to multiple players, that can do their own thing.

I guess that's why my missions take such a long time to complete.

In SP only, you could do them in a couple of days, including custom scripts and sound.

To make them work well in MP takes many hours of planning, bug-tracking and tweaking.

I haven't been able to create more than one MP mission in ArmA2 yet, but I made several for ArmA1.

If you have that game installed, you can try out these to see what I mean:

http://www.ofpec.com/missions_depot/index.php?action=details&id=204

http://www.ofpec.com/forum/index.php?topic=33240.0

http://www.ofpec.com/forum/index.php?topic=32824.0

http://www.ofpec.com/forum/index.php?topic=33359.0

http://www.ofpec.com/forum/index.php?topic=33358.0

Laggy

[[GLT] Legislator 62]

I don't prefer cutscenes in mp games. They should stay in SP missions. Especially when using random mission elements it's a pain to create a cutscenes that fits the mission and is synchronized on each client. That's why I'm outsourcing cutscenes of my missions to Youtube :p

Here's the beginning of a huge piece of work that will be released "when the beginning is done" :p

lZ5omqULhec

Divided into separate missions it'll be a long story driven mp campaign :) Right now I'm getting myself into stringtables so people who don't speak german can use them as well. There will be some addons needed which have to be released at the same time including example missions and a documentation. It'll take a while, especially after the new patch 1.04. Some things have to be retested again :o

[CarlGustaffa 4]

No cutscenes in MP. No delayed start due to long heli insertion etc. If anything, the possibility for the player to play "unlocked" cutscenes at own leisure, i.e. when bored during guard duty :)

Not all about the constant heavy fighting. Parts could be convoys, quick logistics runs etc.

Don't like the proposed dying. I prefer respawn, but where staying alive is rewarded with shorter respawn times. Could even have magical teleporters for all I care, as long as inexperienced players isn't immediately thrown off to spectate mode, and rambo players gets penaltized for not being interrested in team playing (die a lot = wait a lot). With time, the effect normalizes.

A dynamic conflict system that scales in difficulty with the amount of players. If there is only a few players left, give them suitable missions, even SOM (SecOps) would suffice.

If rewards, keep them small. Not a hardware fest.

---

One idea I played with once was this mission: "Create an MSR from random point A to random point B", starting somewhere along the top left of the map ending at the ocean. Your FOB would be located at point A, meaning there will be lots of different starts. Along this route/corridor, you are tasked with clearing neaby locations.

A lot of PR features to be considered to avoid loners, exploits. I.e. a kit system would be brilliant to avoid having only anti tank guys.

[madrussian 347]

The problem imo with continual respawn is that you can't ever lose the mission by losing all playable soldiers. To each his own though, maybe the best is make it all optional.

As far as cutscenes goes, Laggy has indicated a desire for some level of cutscenes in his upcoming MP missions, and I so I say for him that's the way to go. (i.e. Because he's passionate about making those kinds of missions.)

Great thing about OFP/Arma though is the large productive community. No matter what our individual preferences, chances are there's someone making a mission that suits us. In fact, I can think of no other game engine that allows the sort of custom respawn I'm dreaming up.

EDIT-

btw Laggy, I reread the choices in you're poll and it's actually a pretty loaded question, to an extremely humerous fault. Based on the words "long story-based mission..." in the topic title, you're definately gonna get a slew of people that are interested in those types of missions. btw- I think I mentioned this before, but - Count me in! :D

Edited October 18, 2009 by MadRussian

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Revive system then. My biggest problem sometimes is how one stupid move, or simply by being a natural jinx, can ruin the evening. That ONE shot putting you as a spectator for the remaining two hours of the mission. It just sucks. There is no sense of reward for playing it uber safe, when that bullet tracks you down. You might as well play rambo style.

Yes, you can't imagine how sore a loser I am, or how much I hate getting killed when I felt I didn't deserve it. :D

But it would be nice for a change if winning was determined by something else than destruction of the enemy.

I'll take Domination as an example. By default, the radio tower can appear anywhere within a circle. In public games at least, the general playout is that the tower is the last thing to go. I modded the mission (back in Arma1 days) so that it would appear somewhere on the boundary of the circle. Now it became a clear objective that you could actually get to in order to make the rest of the target easier.

As for optionals, what I miss since we are a very small unit, is for missions to have a parameter control in the lobby that sets the amount of enemies, for those private moments. Many missions look awesome to play, but are totally unrealistic for our small unit to even attempt. So, number and difficulty controls would be very nice to have.

"Real" missions would be very nice, especially some deep recon elements. Maybe you don't even fire a single shot and still nails the mission (objective)? That's the kind of playstyle I love the most.

Not "dictating" what must and must not be there, just providing feedback and wishes, because I love the idea.