(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[Wingless_]

Lol, the voices are good. The only thing that really bugged me was the way that there was no emotion in them. I know you're not professional actors so it's hard but a bit of screaming here and there would be good.

Oh yeah, just on the outskirts of the north eastern forest near 3 is a hut with a bunch of bodies in it. It would be cool to add a voice that says something like "Dead, they're all dead". Just a thought.

And i've read the 1st 32 pages of this thread and might be a while before i catch up to where everyone is now.

[THobson]

It sounded emotional enough when it came out of our mouths.  This has been a read education for me.  I have now begun to notice how real actors 'over do it' just to seem normal.  Anyway as I said - what you see (hear) is what you get with this one.  Just put it down to them being very stoic rural folk that don't go in for wailing and brow beating - not unlike someone from Yorkshire in fact.

The voiceover in the hut in the woods was there in a previous version, and there in the next.  A minor cock-up on my part meant that it is not triggered in the version you are playing.

You are reading it all!?  So there will be no surprises for you.

[Wingless_]

Maybe, I'm going to try to finish it in some really original and crazy way that no-one has tried before. Like going commando into Stamenov's base and braining the bugger before sneaking back out to start the same thing with the other general. LOL

[Wingless_]

Ah, i've just re-read my post. By going commando i meant sneaking in black-ops style. Not, obviously the other meaning. (I wonder is there a remove underwear action in OFP?)

[THobson]

Good luck.  XCess did something very much like that, only he did Andropov first.

[LukieTee]

  hey all im back. I have to agree with the voice acting part, ive done a bit in my time and i can tell you its hard. If you want any help with it just ask but you will lose the accent.

anyway the   is a result of how my game has been going. I had been wandering around to the sweet sounds of fighting in the distnace where thru the fog appears some troops. BANG not anymore. I thought it was weird how they were running blindly and that their was only a few of em ... but hey no complaints so of i go again , yet again more enemy troops   few more bullets and troops less yet agian they looked like they were running. THen it came good old Abrahms pokes its big head out of the fog and BOOM it fires. We;re all in onepeice when i see a few dead bodies nearby lol then my lady starts fireing on an enemy platoon with her MG ... dam shes fiesty... me and two other soldiers quickly remove our laws and hit The abrahms 3 times the crew climb out and are greeted by me lady. And all is quiet. I get the repair truck i stole earlier on a suicide run where i literraly crawled towards it got in and ran away. and hey ho ive got my first Tank and the enemys Abrahms is already toast by the (now destroyed) enemy aircraft.  I cant get enough of this.  

[lilwillie_WI]

Thobson.

To answer a previous question you asked.

The first run threw I keeped the entire team alive at the cost of alot of restarts ;D But I had a attachment to them threw the mission. Wanted to see what was waiting for them at the end.

After your mentioning if I had them all alive at the end I loaded up my last save, just before the final push on the airport. They lead the way, and where basically massacred while I mopped up around them.

Great change of cutscene at the point of "at a price" Nice way to end things. I can imagine if I had allowed them to perish earlier it would have given me a grim reminder of battles previous.

Going over my missions/campaigns I've junked around with myself this inspires me to take one and expand it. I think that's why this one had me hooked.

[THobson]

Going over my missions/campaigns I've junked around with myself this inspires me to take one and expand it.

That is one of the best compliments.  Thanks.

Yes, being reminded of the places you team mates fell, possibly several hours earlier, can be quite poignant.  You may also have notice the music was different.  During that scene - it chooses an appropriate track depending on how long it has to play for.

I am glad you got attached to your team - that was one thing I wanted to achieve, but as a result people will now probably miss this adjustment to the final scene.

[Wingless_]

 >:(Just lost the whole post
Well, here it is again.

You last heard from me just after sending #8 back to the lodge with the second bunch of civis.
Apparently there's another group of them on the other side of La Trinite. I decide to head out and have a look.

After circling to the north of 3 i head into the forest. Last time i was here i blundered into an enemy patrol. This time i crawled in and caught them napping.  ;D  :gunman: Stayed here for a bit and nicked some anti-armour gear and some ammo. I save after re-arming my squad. Literally ten seconds later another group of loons showed up. Several retries later we manage to kill them all without losing any of my squad. Steal some more gear NVGs etc and bugger off towards dourdan (I think). Just as i'm about to leave the forest i hear tanks. We hit the deck, a couple of seconds later a T80, T72 and vulcan roll into view from the direction of Dourdan I presume they've come to investigate the mugging of their comrades. With the confidence only inspired by lots of LAWS, plenty of cover, nice helpful fog and the naivete of someone who's only been palying OFP for a week and a bit, I order my guys to attack the T80. We blow the stuffing out of that tin can and leg it back to the cover of the trees. I order #8 to north of near the place where i found the second group of civis. After a bit of a slog, we are within 70m of #8 and someone calls a contact at 50m BUGGER!!!! I hit the deck as guys who were standing less than five metres from eight open fire on my squad.  :beat: Needless to say we all died. Except of course for eight who was in stealth/find cover. He should at least have called contact though because they were right next to him. Damn medics, can't tell the difference between a bush and a bad guy.

My last save game was just after blowing up the T80 so i'll play some more from there tonight.

-Wingless

[THobson]

Wingless:

For someone so new to the game you are certainly getting the hang of it, and beta testing, very quickly.  Losing posts is a pain.  If I remember I select the lot and do a Ctrl C before pressing the button.

He should at least have called contact though because they were right next to him

The game does have some random stuff like this.  Movement is a bit of a givaway, so if they were stationary he migth had difficulty spotting them.  It just keeps us on our toes I suppose.  I am trying to figure out who they are and how they got there.

[Wingless_]

I am trying to figure out who they are and how they got there.  

I think that maybe a patrol spotted him as he went near one of the roads and followed him but lost him when he found cover.

[Hauk]

Yo, first of all let me say i am a complete n00b at flashpoint. Having finally succumbed to the pressure from Hauk to buy this d**n game last week i went and bought myself a copy. This is my first beta test and i'm sorry to say THobson that you may have ruined my future beta testing experience completely (LOL). This mission is too bloody good and now will be the benchmark with which i measure all other missions. Hmmm....

Anyway, onto the mission.

Specs:
AMD 2800+, 32mb geforce fx chipset, 512MB RAM,
Benchmark 5112
AMD 2600+, 64mb radeon 320M, 512MB RAM,
Benchmark 3800
(I'm playing between my PC and laptop, transferring the savegame over as i go.)

Overview:
Pretty cool, could do with some re-wording to make it that bit slicker but otherwise good. Oh, and is the background supposed to be black coz i got a kind of dark green.

Breifing:
The voiceover is a nice touch. Briefing really good.

Intro:
Right so this is set in Yorkshire. Hmmmm... maybe not, its just funny seeing a bunch of russians running around with Yorkshire accents.(At least i think its a yorksire one)

Mission:
Land ho! Start on some beach, run, then walk, then crawl up the really big hill in kind of a vaguely SE direction. After a few hours (not really hours, more like long tedious minutes where all i did was press the W key) i make it to the top of the hill. Decide a stealthy approach is necessary so i crawl over to the building with the guards at the windows pop a few bullets in their skulls. Lay still for a minute no-one comes to investigate so i decide to explore the town. Nice touch with the voice when you see the bodies. Grab some ammo off the dead policeman and steal his binocs. I take the AK and the M16 and stick them in the jeep. Grab the other M16. Bugger all ammo, great. I have a look in the building, wehey!, cutscene. Its really well done but the girl's just been raped "No, Please not again" sounds as emotive as "Cleanup on aisle three" actually, there's probably more emotion in the latter. I realise this is just a beta and you'll probably change it later. Tatyana runs out into the street and gets shot. Great, I pop the buggers who killed her :gunman: and stick their guns in the jeep. Right, Patrol here any minute time to get out of Dodge. I hop in the jeep and head out ENE towards the lodge.

HALT!

Cr*p that was scary. I get out of my jeep and there's another cutscene. Everything was cool, except the line where he says "here's his grave" or something to that effect, had no sound. I've noticed in OFP that the sound diminishes relative on where the camera is to the source so if you had the guy talking inside and the camera outside thats probably why i couldn't hear anything. As i've said i'm a complete OFP n00b so I could be totally wrong and you could all be p*ssing yourselves at my expense. Yada yada yada, rescue civis, blah blah blah, onwards!

So after re-arming my squad with some of the nicked assault rifles from my jeep we jump in the truck and head for the first bunch of civis. Half way there i nearly crash into a tree, (i was looking at the map at the time) other than that the trip is completely uneventful. Another cutscene. A bit lost about the whole my father's cabin, this could do with a line or two to explain it in the objective notes but otherwise very good. I grab the civis and cart them all back to the lodge.

I decide to head to the second bunch of civis on foot, after a quick sprint we arrive at the farmhouse(or whatever it is). More cutscenes wehey! Only thing was when the soldier saluted all i could see was the back of his head.

Hmmm... More civis on the other side of 3 eh? Why not.

I head East to pass 3, then turn south. Search the smaller forest, nothing. Then I head further south, blundering around like a geriatric elephant on speed I walk straight into the middle of an enemy patrol. In the space of about twenty seconds i lose #4, #7, #3 and then i get shot.

Bugger.

Gave up there and watched CSI. I've saved just inside the first forest so i'll pick up from there tomorrow (actually this evening as i did all this yesterday and am now writing this in work.)

So far this mission is bloody good. Really atmospheric and slick. The voices ("Lets kill them all together, my friend" is inspired) while emotionless add to the experience and i'm sure the final version will be much improved.

Thats it for now.
Definitely more tomorrow.

-Wingless

I didn't pressure you  

Hauk

[THobson]

Mikero:
About your suggestions for the outlying hamlets and fishing villages.  I have just had a look at what I can do.  I don't want more units or fires because of the lag.  I tried the scuttled boat idea, good idea screwed up by BIS I'm afraid:
1. A dead boat in water will sink out of sight, irrespective how deep the water is, so a scuttled boat would need to be on the beach.  That brings me to:
2. A boat that is empty, with no fuel and that has been destroyed will still emit the sound of an idling engine.

I have had to settle for the yet more damage option.

Hauk:
I presume you have tried the mission.  I still have space on my beta testers list in case you had any comments or suggestions.

All:
The next version is nearly ready.  There are a lot of small changes.  Key ones that I have not made yet are:  closure on the concentration camp scene (the guys are still left standing around like zombies); and tidying up of the endscene.  Also I have done nothing to reduce lag compared with v1.23.  In addition, a lot of the changes I have made I have not yet tested in a run through so there may be the occasional syntax error popping up.  Stuff that I have done includes:

randomising the starting locations for several armour groups (Mikero - all that exploring you did gone to waste )

removing the phantom woman - finally - I think.

members of the team start with lower skill and skill levels increase more slowly

reducing the ammo that can be picked up from dead soldiers across the map

closure of the Dourdan Woman story

preventing Stamenov getting out of his building in an unkillable state.

changing the way each army reacts to the death of their leader

changing some of the dialogue (the voiceover at the bus now makes sense even when it happens late in the mission; ‘desperate to hide…' is gone; etc.)

fixing various bugs: an RPG is removed from inventory when you place an av mine using one; the voice over at the third set of civis is back; soldiers that are killed after they surrender stay down etc.

etc. etc.

The reason I am saying all this is that one week from today I will go on holiday for two weeks.  I may have access to the internet if they have an internet café on this particular Greek island, but I will not have access to the game. So I can either put up the fairly raw next version soon, or wait three or four weeks and then put it up with possibly some of the things I want to do incorporated.

Any views?

[Mikero]

>any views?

because there's no show stoppers in 1.23, and because IT is the replacement to 1.1, i think an interim patchy release (1.24) of some minor tweaks could wait. Personally, I think this animal is still being digested.

the only items that seriously affect my gameplay in your list are the further reduction in ammo, which will be a VERY good thing, and make the game replayable, again, enturely differently, and hopefully the skill level which remained too quick.

Sorry to see the loss of another woman, but where there's wolves there's sheep, right?

I'll always look forward to replaying this mission, can't get enough of it Thob, but if you wanted to sit back and let things stew awhile, that'd be fine too.

[tudders]

I want the new version and i want it now!  ;D

Save the new version for when more changes have been made.  The anticipation of 1.24 will make it even better when it is released.