kronzky

Is it just me, or do others find intros and cutscenes in MP games more of an annoyance than something that actually adds to the game? They make sense in single-player missions that you might play a couple of times. But I think for multi-player they just don't make sense. The main quality of a MP maps should be its replayability. After all, there are hundreds of missions out there, but it's the same few that you see being played over and over again. Because they're challenging, they're well thought out, and they simply work. Now - if you have some long intro or cutscenes in there, in doesn't matter how original or well-made they are - they might catch your attention the first couple of times you see them, but then, very soon, they end up being just annoying. You start dreading those objectives which will make you sit trough the same cutscene one more time - the same one you've already seen a million times! And - to make it worse - unlike in SP, you can't even skip through it! I wonder if part of the problem are the mission rating sites, where reviewers always seem to prefer lots and lots of cinematic stuff. But those guys play the mission once, and then forget about it. Don't they realize that, if the mission is good and online, that it's gonna be played hundreds of times? By the same people? That want to PLAY, and not sit through endless repeats of the same cutscenes!

Ohhh, now I see. Those cutscenes are meant as a sort of punishment! Well, they're certainly doing the job...

Yes, in theory an intro would make sense, and could actually be useful. But, unfortunately, most of the intros and cutscenes I've come across show nothing but pretty pictures. And the few ones that actually convey some information are way too long (the same thing could've been said in a couple of text messages), and use up huge chunks of bandwidth to download the custom sound files. I just think a lot of mission writers don't realize the difference objectives for SP & MP maps. In SP maps you can go all out, be a 'movie director', immerse the player in the storyline, surprise him, and just entertain him a little. File size doesn't matter, as noone's waiting for you to download it; and most likely you're only playing the mission a few times, until you've figured it out. In MP on the other hand, you want to keep the file as small as possible, and the big priority lies on replayability. People will play the map dozens (if not hundreds) of times, and don't want to be bothered with cinematics or drawn-out explanations. They know what it's all about after they play it the first time. Most likely they'll die very soon anyway, so it is more important that there's a detailed briefing they can read while they're dead. (They can probably not even see any cutscenes if they're dead already.)

Is it just me, or do others find intros and cutscenes in MP games more of an annoyance than something that actually adds to the game? They make sense in single-player missions that you might play a couple of times. But I think for multi-player they just don't make sense. The main quality of a MP maps should be its replayability. After all, there are hundreds of missions out there, but it's the same few that you see being played over and over again. Because they're challenging, they're well thought out, and they simply work. Now - if you have some long intro or cutscenes in there, in doesn't matter how original or well-made they are - they might catch your attention the first couple of times you see them, but then, very soon, they end up being just annoying. You start dreading those objectives which will make you sit trough the same cutscene one more time - the same one you've already seen a million times! And - to make it worse - unlike in SP, you can't even skip through it! I wonder if part of the problem are the mission rating sites, where reviewers always seem to prefer lots and lots of cinematic stuff. But those guys play the mission once, and then forget about it. Don't they realize that, if the mission is good and online, that it's gonna be played hundreds of times? By the same people? That want to PLAY, and not sit through endless repeats of the same cutscenes!

Yeah, I just tried it, and it's phantastic for testing. Just what I've been looking for. But - I would have never expected them to behave that way. To ignore me-yes; but to still ignore me, even if they see me shooting at them-I'd consider that a bug in the engine. Not that I won't take full advantage of it while it lasts...;) But it doesn't really make sense. As soon as a captive starts shooting, he should be switched to enemy mode.

I'm working on a friendly-fire detecting script myself right now - but just taking the rating doesn't really work. If you kill lots of enemies, the fact that you killed a friendly as well could get lost in the rating. I think the death of a civilian is worth -400 pts, the death of a team member -1400. For every enemy you get +200. So - depending on how often you check that rating, you might overlook some friendly kills (esp. if it's just a civilian). I ended up running a constant loop to check the rating, and comparing it with the previous check. If it decreased by at least -400 then I know we had some FF. But even that isn't perfect. If you throw a grenade on a bunch of enemies that might have a hostage among them, the positive count for the enemy kills will cover up that you also killed a friendly. But it's close...

> This setcaptive true And they keep ignoring me? Even if I start killing them off? That would be perfect!

And if you want to practice offline on a MP map, just copy it from you MPMissions folder into the Missions folder, and you can play it any time you want (with AIs). Of course, you could always just open a LAN game with yourself - but then you wouldn't have the opportunity to save or to accelerate time (things that come in very handy when experimenting with different strategies).

When I replay just one campaign mission, and save my current status, the saved status seems to be lost once I exit the game. (Which means I either have to finish it all at once or start all over again the next time.) It does create a folder for the specific mission I played with the saved files in them (in the \User\username\Saved\campaigns\campaignname\missions folder, but I can't access them in any way. Is there any way to actually go back to your saved status once you exit the program? I don't care if I lose my whole campaign status; I know how to restore that.

When I replay just one campaign mission, and save my current status, the saved status seems to be lost once I exit the game. (Which means I either have to finish it all at once or start all over again the next time.) It does create a folder for the specific mission I played with the saved files in them (in the \User\username\Saved\campaigns\campaignname\missions folder, but I can't access them in any way. Is there any way to actually go back to your saved status once you exit the program? I don't care if I lose my whole campaign status; I know how to restore that.

My path was OFP 1.46 - Resistance - Red Hammer. Since I wasn't quite sure what would happen if I tried to install Red Hammer over Resistance, I just copies the relevant files from the CD to the campaign and add-on folder on the HD, and Red Hammer works just fine (as does Resistance).

While doing a cameracommit (covering a distance of about 1500 meters within 20 seconds), I get the error 'Cannot load mipmap data\00000mc_pilote2.paa'. It is supposed to lock in on a regular soldier (not a pilot, if that's what the message means), and it seems to have something to do with the distance covered. As long as I show units within a certain area, it's fine. But then, on the way to the other group further away, it crashes. If I reverse the whole thing, starting with the second unit and moving to to the first one, it shows the secong group ok, and will then crash on the way to the first group. Any ideas? (Edited by Kronzky at 6:29 am on Dec. 7, 2001)

I am looking for some beta testers for a pilot mission that will be the intro of a full campaign I'm working on. The concept of it is a bit different from your regular OFP mission, in that you have to be a bit creative in solving the objectives. It's not just a 'go in and kill'em all' kind of scenario... I can't give away too much of the story right now, because exploring that is part of the challenge, but that is part of what I would like to get some feedback on as well; if there is interest in storylines like this. I would definitely like to hear feedback on the difficulty of it. (I doubt anyone will complain that it's too easy, though...) Do players need more help, clues and support, etc, or is it just the right challenging level? There shouldn't be any major bugs or inconsistencies left in there, but since I'm working on the visual stuff now (cutscenes, etc.), I figured this would be a good time to get some outside testing and feedback. Thanks for your help, and to download it go to http://www.contrex-us.com/games/dlofp.htm

I had high hopes for GR myself, after all the hype surrounding it, and after having bought and enjoyed all the previous Rainbow Six games, but the demo was a huge disappointment for me. (I had nearly pre-ordered the final version. Boy, was I glad I didn't, after trying the demo.) The biggest letdown for me was the AI (friendly as well as enemy). My own guys would trot down some path like a bunch of drunks with tunnelvision. They didn't look around them, they didn't use cover, they were just oblivious to their whole surroundings, and got mowed down by the enemy on a regular basis... The enemy AI is better in some regards, in that they do use cover or go prone, but that's about as far as it goes. You can be inside a house and empty a magazine into one of the guys, and his buddy standing in the next room, is not moving an inch. Ai behaviour has been hardly improved at all in GR, compared to Rogue Spear. It still has all the old weaknesses and failures. Enemy positioning is another weakness that is quite disappointing. Once you've played a mission, you know exactly where each enemy is positioned (so if you found one once hiding just behind a corner, next time you just sneak up to that corner, pop around it and kill him. Very exciting.). Enemy AI also has the habit of this lemming-like behaviour of running into exactly the same spot where one of their buddies has just been killed; so you just sit there and wait, and take out one after the other... I won't go into locational damage too much (if you shoot some guy in the foot he's more likely to die than of a headshot), because I'm sure that's something that can be fixed by an update. But as far as variety of gameplay is concerned - yes, you can decide whether you want to kill them slowly and quietly and fast and with a bang. But that's about how far it'll go. If you look at the totally different ways you can solve an objective in OFP, and the different storylines that sometimes result from that, you'll see that there is no comparison. But to hear it from the horse's mouth, just go to the GR forums. After the demo came out, I'd say 90% of the posts there were mainly negative. (And these were hardcore Rainbow Six fans, who couldn't wait for the next release, and grabbed it the days it came out.)

And if you're totally lost, I mean, without the slightest clue of what area of the map you're at, and all the hills and streets look alike, just go to the next town and have a look at the sign that has the town's name on it. That should help...

Well, yes, if you're looking for realistic pictures, definitely get GR. (But then again, why not just get a movie instead. Gonna look even better.) But if you're looking for realistic and intelligent gameplay, then I'm afraid you're stuck with OPF...

Don't forget about the RPG you can get (with a little arm-twisting) from one of the resistance fighters at the castle! But it seems there's a time limit to it, too. It cut me off after 30 minutes. That might be the real problem to finding an alternative ending for this mission!

SpaceAlex: "This is the easiest mission" Hmm. So you find Flashpoint harder than this? I find that quite surprising...

I was able to sneak in totally undetected in V1.0, without firing a single shot going in or out; but not in 1.3 anymore. The door guard always keeps detecting me. Did anybody get in without being noticed in V1.3? (Edited by Kronzky at 12:09 am on Nov. 19, 2001)