Campaign Idea. Plausable?

[C0LDSt33L]

Hey guys. I may have a campaign for ArmA in the works but I'm having trouble with the story.

The gist is that some US general invaded this small island because there was drugs/guns/whatever there and now that he's won he's kind of taken over and he and his 4 lieutenants rule the island/ embezzle money from it/whatever. They use their influence there and their friends back in the US to cover this up/pretend they are still fighting/peacekeeping for the new government. The campaign then has you fighting the occupiers.

Is this idea utterly believable in every way or would it have you  ing and  ing throughout each increasingly ridiculous twist? Would you find it distasteful fighting US troops? All thoughts and opinions are welcome.

[bedges]

the plausibility of the idea depends on how well you 'sell it'. if you just set up the campaign and it's a straight fight against the US, that in itself is not enough of an innovation. however, if you tell a decent story, have the player empathise with his character, build up the back-story convincingly enough, perhaps mention some real-world events here and there to reinforce the sense of reality, there's no reason this can't be as good a campaign as any other.

distasteful fighting US troops? i'd imagine that it's a bit distasteful fighting any nationality. evil is not the sole province of any single country, denomination or compass point - you get badguys everywhere.

[Wolfrug]

Like bedges says - how plausible and playable it is depends entirely on how it's made. Any story can be either bland and boring or exciting and innovative to the player, depending on how good a storyteller you are On the other hand, even if the background story is believable and solid, it doesn't mean the missions are, so you've got to focus on both elements: also, in nearly all ArmA missions, the background story has no effect on the mission/campaign itself really, so you've got to make a choice there: how important is the story to the campaign?
The easy way out is to make the background story something convenient that's just there to explain some stuff (US vs. resistance, yay!); that way you can focus on the gameplay more. On the other hand, making an integrated storyline/gameplay chef-d'oeuvre is also a possibility. 

Either way, good luck!

Wolfrug out.

[C0LDSt33L]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Yeah I was hoping to tell a good story, have characters you love and hate and a good atmosphere. I don't know how well I'll do but I'll soldier on with it

[LeeHunt]

I agree with Bedges and Wolfrug, and i have a couple other points:

Evil is certainly not the sole province of any country, but it would be good to show that the enemies you are fighting ARE distasteful-- perhaps the American troops of the corrupt general are shown in cutscenes or storyline to be corrupt themselves? 

A good storyline is a must these days i think.  There are plenty of tactical combat and "Black Ops" style missions out there to compete against- best as you are doing to make something different with an edge!

[savedbygrace]

Yeah yeah, Its over 30 days old, so what. Hey coldsteel, If you get stuck and are battling writers block, and you don't mind outside ideas, I could help you out with some. Casual conversation text and even voice acting if you like. Just give me a shout if you get stuck. I know how writers block can really prolong progress and cause compromise with your expectations.

[Crowey]

Maybe involve cutscenes where the corupt US troops murder or even just assault law abiding US troops this will help the guilt when you shoot them down, lol. ie. they could ambush some normal US tropps when they find they are transporting weapons or a drugs haul that they see as prosperous to themselves???

[Luke]

one thing you could try,

confrontation between corrupt soldier/civilian with (no one around) over vehicle stop, body search, whatever (something relatively meaningless).

civvy walks away.

at about 8 meters, soldier calls to civ, civ turns around, soldier shoots him.
soldier runs over, drops sidearm next to civ.
other civilians come, form crowd, soldier explains how the civ pulled a pistol on him.
Maybe crowd has family, (father setunitpos "down",father watch [getpos father select 0,getpos father select 1,getpos father select 2 - 15] make him look down, like he's on his stomach with grief).

Try something like that.

Luke

[Gotcha]

I think you should tell the story so that at the beginning the player thinks it's only a harmless peacekeeping operation, and the ugly truth reveals slowly. "Keeping the secret", CWC style. 

I know it's quite an old topic here, but decided to throw a tip in case someone's using this idea for his/her own campaign.