[SP] The Cause 2 - Mission Beta Tests

[manzilla 1]

But I will have to wait and see if anyone else reports any errors.

If anyone uses the following addons and experiences any errors please let me know:

VOP soundmod

VFTCAS addon

and Extended Event Handlers addon

I tested the very first beta and all others with VFTCAS and XEH plus a ton of other Mods/AddOns and I've never encountered this problem. VOP does create error messages with a bunch of other content though. I use it occassionally but to be honest I never saw any problems with this mission.

I'm pretty sure VFTCAS and XEH are not the culprit, unless you have another non-XEH compatible being used as well. A lot of problems can occur when you get XEH and non-XEH compatible together.

[rejenorst 18]

Sorry things are taking a long time for x,y,z different reasons.

First 2 missions are in the final stages, probably only require minor touch ups in spelling etc.

Campaign Chapter 1 overview:

Chapter campaign intro (90% done)

Mission 1 Hunted - beta v0.9 (Last beta release before release in campaign.)

Campaign cutscene (85% done just needs voices and a few camera angles.)

Mission 2 A New War - beta v0.9 (Last beta release before release in campaign.)

Mission 3 - (90% done, just waiting for some voices from Dead Kennedy)

Mission 4 - (75% done, requires voices and a bit of variety from the visceral fun)

Mission 5 - Have been holding off on this and did a fair bit of work on a few missions for chapter 2

Its been hard to get Russian voice actors, especially since my missions tend to be voice intensive (as in I tend to code in alot of voices), thankfully I got some help from Dead Kennedy and Audio-Studio.ru hope nobody minds me advertising their webpage as I promised I would in exchange for voices. Cheers.

Mission 1 - Hunted

I released this mission as a beta ages ago, have since added an intro and extended outro also did some small touch ups here and there. Some spelling mistakes need fixing and I may insert a deletewaypoint trigger before campaign release.

Credits:

Voices: Ivan Grigoriev, SniperGRU, [OTK]Sansey, Rejenorst

Music: Rejenorst

Beta Testers: Zipper5, CameronMcdonald, Froggyluv, Manzilla

You can download any of the tracks from my website which is still in its early days: www.rejenorst.com

Mission 2 - A New War

You may get some performance issues on this one as there are quite a few units moving around. This mission is mostly about visceral fun. As in mission 1 you are never the squad leader, you are always following a leader into battle.

Credits:

Voices: Ivan Grigoriev, Deadkennedy, Rejenorst

Music: Rejenorst

Beta Testers: Zipper5, CameronMcdonald, Froggyluv

www.rejenorst.com

Download is in two flavours:

1) For ARMA2 only: www.rejenorst.com/vids/TC2ARMA2.rar

2) For ARMA2 Combined ops (ie: ARMA2 + ARMA2:OA only: www.rejenorst.com/vids/TC2ARMAOA.rar

There's no major difference between the two, I just noticed a significantly different color sheme in OA so I altered the ppeffect colors to match that of the arma2 version and also I made some changes to where the subtitles where located for the ARMA2:OA version and some minor switchmove problems for the first mission outro's had to be sorted.

If you have any problems try turning off mods. If the problems persist let me know which version you downloaded, where approximately you encountered the problem, and if possible check your arma.ppt file and copy past the last few lines. Cheers.

P.s. each rar contains both missions for either ARMA2 or ARMA2: with OA installation.

Edited August 10, 2010 by Rejenorst

[Zipper5 74]

That's sick, mate. I really wish I had my PC. :(

[rejenorst 18]

That's sick, mate. I really wish I had my PC. :(

Cheers :) Don't worry enjoy your holidays. Speaking of which forgot to add beta testers to the credits *blush* have just added. Sorry about that you guys have been a big help for me :)

[ericfr 0]

Very very Great Job !!!

I'm in the first mission (A new War Co version), impressive, very immersive No lag No bad Ai.

Full situation very interresting and stressful.

Thank you very much.

To finish at the last waypoint, I had to find a hidden enemy unit

Edited August 9, 2010 by EricFr

[rejenorst 18]

Thanks man, glad you enjoyed it. I am quite relieved that it's working well for you :D

that last soldier who is hidden; I forgot to remove his RPG. Will fix this for the campaign release. Units on that balcony who switch to RPG weapon will duck their head making them invisible to units in the sawmill courtyard.

Just a quick note the missions tell a story in the following order:

Hunted

A New War

Its not nessescary to play them in order, but just a note for anyone who feels the need to be "in the know" with the storyline. Also there is plenty of text in ANW to fill the gaps but none of it is essential reading I just added it for fun.

Edited August 10, 2010 by Rejenorst

[subtee 0]

Wow.

The intro and the athmosphere and music in hunted is some creepy end of the world type of sh:yay:t! Brutal ! :)

The " A New War " -mission was EPIC !

Really lookin forward to play the finished campaign!

Love the voice acting also! even tho in some cutscenes in hunted it seemed to be really low in volume (compared to the other sounds).

Amazing work! How long do you think untill the whole campaign is ready ?

[ov3rlord 0]

Dude, how the f*ck do you keep making such awesomeness?! Every mission of yours for both ArmA 1 & 2 have been the mutt's. Really looking forward to the finished campaign. Cheers for all your blood, sweat and tears that must have gone into making this.

[rejenorst 18]

Thank you very much for your feedback it is highly appreciated :)

@Subtee -

The lowered volume is due to tank engines or background noise where the game engine seems to assign db levels and lowers the volume of the vocal sounds. I think I found a command to deal with this by playing the sounds in 2d instead of 3d. "unit or [unit, target] say2D speechName"

Will check this before campaign release. It will probably take a while before the campaign itself is released. It ultimately depends on how fast I can get the vocals for Russian parts and how much time I have to complete everything.

I am guessing that I will probably finish sometime this year with chapter 1. I could technically continue without additional Russian voices but I feel its important for the atmosphere. I will release missions here when their ready to be beta tested so hopefully mission 3 should be ready soon as well.

@Ov3rlord -

Cheers man, it took a lot of time and effort not only on my behalf but for the beta testers and Russian contributers such as Dead Kennedy and Ivan.

[Kommiekat 11]

Great work!

A New Kind Of War was a bit heavy on my system performance, but enjoyable.

Haunted had a great story. Just loved the way Yuri yelled "Move It!" ( I forgot what he yelled) but it made the mission very immersible.

The ending was a cool ?outro?. Love it.

[rejenorst 18]

Great work!

A New Kind Of War was a bit heavy on my system performance, but enjoyable.

Haunted had a great story. Just loved the way Yuri yelled "Move It!" ( I forgot what he yelled) but it made the mission very immersible.

The ending was a cool ?outro?. Love it.

Cheers man :) Cheers man glad you liked it.

[maturin 12]

I had forgotten all about this! Can't wait.

[stun 5]

Bug Report:

Not sure if this has been reported before. The Hunted mission is crashing when playing it using combined operations. I have tried both the A2 and A2OA versions of the missions with the same result. I used no addons and have experienced the crash with vanilla A2OA 1.54 and the latest Beta 74858. The crash occurs at the same place each time - it is the point when the character is starting to get up form the mass grave and the soldier points his gun at you. The game locks up and then stops responding. I have tested using A2 and the mission works fine, so it seems to be a problem with A2:OA.

[rejenorst 18]

Hi Stun, I noticed this already and have to update the missions.

The error is a result of the new version not accepting the old lip sync files which I had edited. I basically have to redo all the lip files for the two missions.

I had the same problem in one of my other missions until I replaced the lip sync files.

So just a note to anyone wandering in:

PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PLAY THESE MISSIONS WITH THE PATCH 1.54 UNTIL A NEW VERSION UPDATE. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

[stun 5]

Thanks for the update Rejenorst. I was a bit worried that it it was my computer's overclock that was causing the crash.

I will play with A2 until the next update.

Welcome back by the way. I'm very excited you are releasing missions again. I had planned to have a go at porting the cause for the Kju's fabulous CAA1 mod put didn't have the spare time. I recently had another look at it, but some of the issues may be more than my meagre mission making skills can cope with - as trying to deconstruct someone elses missions can take quite a bit of time - partilcularly yours as the are quite complex with lots of triggers.

[rejenorst 18]

Yeah I dare say TC1 would be a bitch to try and convert given all the lengthy SQS files. Hehe :) Also I am shitty at leaving notes in scripts. I should make a habit of making notes in the scripts.

[maturin 12]

Holy, holy shit, that was such a blast. I don't know how the hell Yuri and I survived while the rest of them died like flies. I'd ask if you used any scripting wizardry to make us escape notice but we were both hit several times. I don't think I fired a single shot at an actual enemy the whole time, I was too busy trying to stay alive.

I love the use of music, the mines going off (you had me pretty convinced I should watch my step) and the alternate history of the civil war. Playing as a civilian makes you unable to run very far with the ACE fatigue system, but I was able to keep up and stealing a few moments of rest actually added some engaging activity to the slow retreat.

My critiques are all aesthetic, and they're the kind where I nitpick because I wish I was able to make such things and do it my way.

I'm not sure the sequences of the soldiers killing the women has as much impact as you might want it to. It's a very familiar scene, even in Arma machinimas, and I think it would be better if it was mostly intimated. Let us see the soldier raise his gun, but not shoot. The anticipation is better than the result of him firing too many bullets and watching the low-res blood spray. Put that part of the action more in the corner of the screen or background.

And the less time we spend staring into the PC's eyes, the better. You can't animate his pupils, I assume, so it would be better just to see a flash of them opening, then cut to black. Arma 2 doesn't have enough facial detail to stare into his eyes and not feel like he's a robot.

I also preferred the mysterious, movie intro atmosphere of the original cutscene, but that's just me (perhaps because Yuri and Pretronov's acting is a cut above the American specops). I noticed that the Hydras fired at the house did not explode and the fires burning in Krastnostav start all at once. (Did you place a bunch of 0 hitpoint cars?)

My opinion of Yuri's grieving scene is that the understated acting keeps it from being overdramatic. My advice would be to remove one or both of the subtitles, as his voice tells us all we need to know and you want to make people strain to hear his garbled story. It could create more empathy and won't make us think about (to put it coldly) how the father-killed-sister-raped pattern is so often used.

Edit: Didn't realize that the cutscene with the very Irish guy was part of mission 0, not mission 1. I like how you've taken the Georgia conflict analogy to the next level, but I'm not really a fan of how you've done it. Yuri's friend sounds like you trying to educate us, whereas he should be talking to Yuri as a friend who is familiar with the situation. I can't imagine two people on the edge of a war calmly discussing the larger geopolitical patterns feeding that war, complete with quoted statistics. This exchange, together with the car narration, seems overwritten. More likely they would simply make some angry illusions to the overall situation, and I think players will be able to fill in quite a few blanks on their own if you use the word "oil pipeline." Going into such detail and especially mentioning the real-world conflict Chernarus takes inspiration from only raises more questions of greater complexity than what you can handle in a voiced cutscene. I think all this would be handled better with the written exposition in the briefing of the next mission, or even in the briefing of mission zero.

Also, the camera tends to jerk and jump around in the car cutscene car cutscene. It does the same thing in the intro for A New War, which is shaping up to bring my computer to its knees. Looks like an incredible, complex battle so far. I don't know why I ever set foot in an APC when riding on the roof is so much better. The first song is perfect, but the second tends to get drowned out in all the machinegun fire.

Edited November 6, 2010 by maturin

[rejenorst 18]

Hey man :) Cheers for the feedback. I've noticed a lot of what you've mentioned there. I really went overboard with Jack's lines. I wanted to make him a wanted ex IRA fugitive who spends his time gun running between Chernarus and Russia so he emphasises but isn't really the emotional type. However yeah I threw way to much stuff into the first mission in order to piece together the hows and why's. I will definately follow your advise on this for future missions.

Your absolutely correct about me using the Georgian war analogy. I was actually (at the time) trying to piece together what happened from the Russian perspective and I threw a lot of that into the story. It would have been better to let the player's imagination fill in certain gaps for flexibility.

I had actually contemplated making Yrui invincible but decided not to. I just use the domove command on him to try and keep him ahead of the pack to increase his chances of survival.

Cheers again for the feedback.

[maturin 12]

I wanted to make him a wanted ex IRA fugitive who spends his time gun running between Chernarus and Russia

Oh, that's a fun idea; I wish we knew it in-game. Likewise, the whole story makes much more sense to me because you told me on the forums that the PC and Yuri are half Russian half Chernarussian. That the sort of thing that gives the campaign its flavor, and introduces the ambiguity of the situation much better than remote, uncaring geopolitics.

Edit: Just finished the second mission. Absolutely fantastic battle. Large-scale fights that play well are hard to find, as they make squad control or worse yet, high command, a struggle in itself. But you've managed to tune everything perfectly, avoiding the meat grinder effect where the sides wipe each other out and entire fronts collapse too early. The action was constant and the reinforcement system worked flawlessly, with lots of Russians on the field right up to the cleanup phase. I would have gone a little stir crazy if I hadn't left Yuri far behind at times, but his slow pace keeps him safe so we don't have to fret about him.

I loved how the civilians were actually fleeing the battle rather than lying around cowering. It makes you much more likely to shoot one accidentally. The sporadic artillery fire was well-done and the ending cutscene was excellent.

Edited November 7, 2010 by maturin