Gaswell

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ April 03 2002,16:04)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">For 10p OFP Knowldege - where on Everon is this spot of Krk?<span id='postcolor'> I can't tell, and it's driving me crazy... I guess I need to play a few more Everon missions. So, where is it? It's not a trick question, is it? How do you pronounce Krk anyway?

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (WTFonslaught @ April 03 2002,08:48)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Maybe soviet air power was scrambled from another island?<span id='postcolor'> That would be Nogova, from OFP:Resistance.

Malden. Better and more varied terrain IMHO than Everon, and the vegetation provides good concealment. A few nice villages too, which is why I choose Malden over base-heavy Kolgujev (although I actually prefer the "climate" and vegetation of Kolgujev). A few military bases, a large island, a desert area, an airfield. Whatever you need it's on Malden. @Espectro: That's a nice valley. I've spent a lot of mission time down there.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (IceFire @ Mar. 23 2002,21:40)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">You say that there already ARE games in which the player becomes emotionally connected.  I find that hard to believe since I have never played one like that.<span id='postcolor'> I have. I think you're wrong and I think you should try other games besides Duke 3D and Tribes 2. It's almost like judging the film industry based on having seen the Pokémon movies. Like dismissing comics because you didn't connect emotionally to Garfield.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (IceFire @ Mar. 19 2002,13:52)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Now when I point at an area I want a unit to look at, would that just be like quickly telling him to look in that compas direction, or would that make him look at that direction more specifically?<span id='postcolor'> He looks at that particular spot, which may be a spot on the ground terrain or a spot on the sky box (which in effect makes it seem like he's looking in a compass direction). You can also tell them to look at an object, such as a truck. Use "no target" from the command menu to cancel any "look at" orders (including "scan horizon").

Thank God for the mission designer. That thing alone is more fun than most other games, including Ghost Recon.

Not sure I understand what you mean about "emotional lines".

denoir, you raise some good questions about how to define the heroes and the bad guys. Personally I prefer a balanced view, and I'm not too sure I necessarily want to play the good guys. In the setting of OFP I'd rather just be a squad leader trying to keep myself and my men alive while doing whatever I'm told to do. (Guess that would be make me Neutral Lawful.) I remember playing the ol' classic Hind, and in that sim you sure weren't some knight in shining armor. Especially not in those missions where you dropped anti-personnel mines over suspected Mujaheddin villages. That really got me thinking. I guess what I'm saying is that the most efficient anti-war games (or movies, or books, or whatever) are usually those that doesn't shy away from politically incorrect content, or tries to justify killing by anonymizing or demonizing your victim. I find it disturbing that I can nuke millions of faceless people in CivIII to an ESRB rating of "Mild Violence".

I find that it is possible to quickly build player attachment to digital identities by treating these identities as advantages for the player. For example, I can get somewhat attached to units that perform beyond my expectations, perhaps against all odds. These digital men I want to keep alive, not because they are my dear "friends" (a sad thought if they were...) but because I know I'll need their skills later on. However, in the OFP campaigns the squad is not persistent between missions. It could be, but it isn't. If I lose them all I get a new batch for my next mission, so why try very hard to keep them alive? Personally I think that OFP would benefit from a squad development system like in the X-COM games. Your initial squad members and every replacement have an initial random skill level. By surviving missions their skill level increase. You'll be sorry when a valuable team member gets himself killed, and that's at least some form of attachment.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (colt @ Mar. 13 2002,17:15)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I don't know if any-one here ever played Cannon Fodder on the Amiga by Sensible Software?<span id='postcolor'> I played it on the PC, but I must admit I completely missed the anti-war message... Personally I feel that games, movies, books, etc. should portray war as the ugly, wasteful business it is. OFP can do this to some extent, given proper mission design. </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Sith @ Mar. 13 2002,17:57)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> I for one would simply love to play such a game...<span id='postcolor'> Agree, and I'd like to see more OFP missions where I'm just another soldier doing my part and trying to stay alive. No Ramboesque solo raids, no 50-plus kill statistics, no über spec ops saving the free world all by themselves.

A medic can support wounded soldiers, same as an ambulance. We already have ammo trucks, so why not an "ammo guy"? Good idea.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Sith @ Mar. 13 2002,10:46)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">but the ingame radio messages shouldnt require the player to constantly check their text-translations at the bottom of the screen :)<span id='postcolor'> Well, they do. A lot of times some radio phrases are simply skipped, so I have to check the text to know what's going on. The text may be "Enemy machine gunner, 5 o'clock", but the radio might say "... 5 o'clock". For me, the radio chatter is more atmosphere than anything else. I can't really rely on it to build situational awareness.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (alswede @ Mar. 13 2002,01:38)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">but then I have to get out of the tank and jump on again to the seat of my choice.<span id='postcolor'> If you're turned in and the vehicle is not moving, you can jump between driver, gunner and commander w/o having to disembark.

Guess I should've thrown in a spoiler alert there. Oh well. It might have been worse - I could have mentioned how Lukin and Angelina later... Oops.

Lukin orders #3 to stay behind and set up a supply point (or whatever). No bug, just designed to make tank combat harder. In fact, later in that mission #3 will call for assistance when some enemy tanks are approaching his position.

There aren't that many civilians in the 1985 campaign, but there are quite a few in Red Hammer. Nasty lot, if you ask me.

Someone guarding a "Guarded by X" trigger will move to its exact location and wait there - forever, unless you specifically switch-trigger to a following waypoint. Groups always seem to pick the closest trigger when they decide which one to go to. Also, if you have three groups at three triggers and one of the groups are killed, one of the two other groups (whichever is closest) will move to the vacant "Guarded by X" trigger, even if it means leaving its current position at a trigger. This could in turn mean that the third group will go to the trigger left by group two, so you'd get a domino effect. I should probably mention that this is just stuff I've observed during testing, and I've also seen other stuff happen that makes me believe that it ain't as simple as it may seem. And until someone from BIS drops in to tell us the Truth, speculations and testing is all we've got.

To put it simply, placing a "Guarded by X" trigger will make that trigger's location (point, not area) become an objective for any groups on side X that have reached a GUARD waypoint. The closest such group will move to the trigger, even across a whole island. There is some higher-level AI to determine who goes to which trigger, but I don't know the exact rules. Any enemies near the "Guarded by X" trigger will be attacked, and the guarding group will move to support any friendlies under attack in the nearby area. When all is clear they'll return to the trigger location again.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Can't dodge incoming fire while reloading or changing weapons. Now that's unreal but it's also poor programming.<span id='postcolor'> ROFL!

Only if you use (hand) grenades when you should be using direct fire.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Hardliner @ Mar. 04 2002,15:47)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">In this case it is logical to believe that the SU25 would seem to have flown in from another Island.<span id='postcolor'> Nogova would be a likely candidate.

You can add them in the mission editor, or look for missions that specifically include those new weapons.

I actually found the AI spec ops to be invaluable in this mission. When I entered the camp (emerging from the nearby forest, of course) I set them to danger, engage at will, stand up. By advancing slowly into the camp I could simply watch as they did the dirty work for me. No return fire, no noise. Silenced weapons should be even more lethal now due to the AI fix in 1.45 regarding killer always detected.

Do yourself a favour and re-play the campaign. The AI updates, especially in 1.40, makes it more than worth it and the new stuff in 1.45 should warrant a replay too.

That gun thing is really a problem sometimes; a seemingly dead tank prevents a trigger from going off and as you say, the AI ignores it. That means I have to personally go around and plink every half-dead tank with a LAW to make the trigger go off.