(Review complete) [SP/QG] End Point Campaign Mission 1 - Mountain Thunder

[Rejen]

Hi zipper and Johnny, thank you very much for the great feedback I am really glad you guys enjoyed the mission. 

Mountain Thunder by Rejen
From the campaign "End Point"
v1.0

 I liked the picture of the paw, does it have relevance to something in the campaign that we later find out? Or earlier, even? Guess we'll have to wait to find out.

Its kind of a play on Blackwater's logo of a bear paw (Blackwater is one of the worlds largest mercenary recruitment agencies in the world and has a massive presence in Iraq and Columbia. It recruits many foreign nationals with military experience etc). Your regiments call sign is something along the lines of Black Dog. The logo kind of represents the Russian recruitment agencies name which is Black Dog. I havn't fully gone into details in the first mission and will flesh it out eventually.

Mountain Thunder by Rejen
From the campaign "End Point"
v1.0

Mission:
it was strange seeing my name as James Gardner in the intro and then having myself called Zipper5 in the mission. Though I'm sure you're going to change this when the campaign is released.

I had thought on doing that but wasn't sure as James Gardner is your false name, technically you would use it on documents so I guess I should change that later. The French Foreign legion gives its recruits false names this was were the idea stemmed from.

Mountain Thunder by Rejen
From the campaign "End Point"
v1.0

The radio messages for the artillery were nice but most of the time I didn't pay much attention to them and they were some times distracting, but not often.

A nessesity Im afraid as when I was beta testing I would sometime walk into the artillery's line of fire. When this message comes up its best to check your map for the target marker. I think I included the dot shell marker to show where the shell was flying to.

Mountain Thunder by Rejen
From the campaign "End Point"
v1.0

Overall:
A fun and exciting beginning to what is looking like to be a great campaign like The Cause. You work, Rejen, is very impressive. Lots of mission makers could and should learn from what you do. I look forward to seeing future installments of both The Cause and End Point, plus any other projects you decide to do in the future. Keep it up!

Thanks mate I am glad that the missions is as well received as is

Wow.  This mission seriously kicks ass!   

Mission Picture

The text "Break the silence in helping..." does not make sense to me.  Maybe use "while" instead of "in".  Regardless, until you play the mission, you have know idea what "Break the silence" means...

Aww shucks Means alot to me from fellow mission makers

Thats a good point about brake the silence... I kept it very general and downright vague hehe... I should have been a bit more specific but was at a loss at what to say. I think think the overview was a little rushed in hindsight... I couldn't find myself taking a decent enough picture Im afraid.

- Great start song.  Is this really yours?  (You say music by Rejenorst...)
- Some of the chatter text shows up on globalchat or sidechat as "Spanish unknown".
- Guys singing is another brilliant touch.  How do you get more than one sound file to play simultaneously?

the music I make with fruitloops and orchestral plugins or my own sample instruments, I get alot of fun out of making my own musics
Spanish unknown chatter was really there for atmos and isn't extremely important, the first radio with spanish unknown is just a check on Bravo Battery's status with an answer of Bravo Battery Status yellow. Or something along those lines.

To get the guys singing simoultaneously I just had 3 x soldier say "sound" in the script so it would look like this:

soldier1 say "singing"
soldier2 say "singing"
soldier3 say "singing"

then wait a few seconds and playmusic.


Thanks again everyone for the great feedback

- I repared that the briefing had no subtitles. This made it be pretty boring because English is not my native language and I didn't understand anything. Smiley Like savedbygrace I looked around and... at the first try of the mission I shot the silly officer in the head just to make him shut up! Wink And hey! You even added a consequence for this (Mission failed!). Very good!

If you do any of the following during the verbal briefing you will get punished:

-shoot commander Becker (friendlies will shoot you)
-shoot a squad member (friendlies will shoot you I think... not sure if I implemented or not.)
-shoot the guard behind you (friendlies will shoot you)
-shoot the truck once or twice (friendlies will shoot you)
-walk over 30 meters from briefing area (guard will walk towards you and verbally warn you to get back in line or he'll shoot you bitch ass )

-walk over 50 or 80 meters away from briefing area (friendlies will shoot you)

[Undeceived]

Sorry for OT...

the music I make with fruitloops and orchestral plugins or my own sample instruments

Rejen, can I ask, what fruitloops is and where you've got these orchestral plugins from? Because I'm a musician too (at the moment I work with Cubase, but without a good orchestral plugin) and am planning to make some music for ArmA missions as well. This is a great idea, I don't know why I never have thought about that! Thank you very much!

[Rejen]

Fruityloops is a music making software but what makes it stand out is that its easy to use and you make loops of music and then string them together rather than one long song. This is extremely good for amateurs who want to make their own compositions. I bought edirol orchestral plugin a while back to complement it as a vst plugin.

Fruityloops you can find online at www.flstudio.com and edirol orchestral plugin you have to buy the box I think from edirol's webpage (not sure what the address is)

Hope this helps.

[Denz]

v1.14 Veteran Difficulty with Durg's Vegetation Fix, MaddMatt's Effects and some of the PROPER Gameplay mods

Overview
Kind of a nondescript picture.
"Break the silence in helping" > by helping

Intro
Nice backstory using contemporary references and the voices are great.

Briefing
Fine, plenty of information. Maybe use links to map markers to enhance the briefing.
Typo:
Notes section
"unerving" > unnerving
picky English time
"been assigned to watching over" > assigned to watch over
"RACS controls" > control
"RACS is lacking" > are lacking

Mission
I like the little details here, like me getting scolded for leaving formation during the squad briefing.
I'm not really sure about the credits here also they tend to stay on screen a little too long.
After joining the multitude heading up the mountain, I swapped my AK74 for a rifle with a GP25 Launcher from a dead comrade. I would have loved a sniper rifle or AK74 PSO but perhaps that would change the mission dynamics too much.
There didn't seem to be much in the way of tactics here. It was just a long, bloody uphill slog.
As I had Durg's Vegetation Fix loaded I was able to use the small patches of shrubs as a semblance of cover although of course this hampers the friendly AI as well as the enemy.
Upon reaching, I suppose, the midway point. The fight degenerated into a chaotic firefight with RACS appearing from everywhere and firing from the slope overhead. I constantly had to search for medics I also had to swap my rifle for an M16 with M203 launcher as I was running out of grenades - damn they were handy.
Typo in radio message:
"all squads commited" > committed
I guess you are using a spawn/createunit script? As I began making my way up the final slope there was this weird apparition of RACS soldiers appearing right above me. Could do with a distance check there.
The mission ended as I was still engaged in a rather hectic situation.

Outro
I like the distorted voice effects. What software did you use to create those?
Not quite sure why a Harrier was dropping bombs unless I missed something during the voice comm.
At least I know understand the overview pic.

Overall
hmmm, to be honest I'm not really sure what I thought of this mission.
On one hand, it was a really enjoyable and hectic fight up hill that challenged me constantly.
On the other, there didn't seem much coordination of the assaulting forces involved. I missed not having control of a squad and just had to go with the flow. Unless of course that was the whole point 
Those poor AI families, all those little fatherless polygons crying over the pages and pages of the casualty list   
The story behind it all was great though and I'm looking forward to the rest of the campaign.

I must get around to playing The Cause campaign. Wolfrug's been banging on about it forever now.

[Rejen]

Hi Denz,
Thank you for the kind feedback

Outro
I like the distorted voice effects. What software did you use to create those?
Not quite sure why a Harrier was dropping bombs unless I missed something during the voice comm.
At least I know understand the overview pic.

I use Cooledit pro and soundforge. The harrier was to signify the US getting involved. Although confusion and chaos was a large part of my aim I think I may have gone overboard with it hehe.

Overall
hmmm, to be honest I'm not really sure what I thought of this mission.
On one hand, it was a really enjoyable and hectic fight up hill that challenged me constantly.
On the other, there didn't seem much coordination of the assaulting forces involved. I missed not having control of a squad and just had to go with the flow. Unless of course that was the whole point 
Those poor AI families, all those little fatherless polygons crying over the pages and pages of the casualty list   
The story behind it all was great though and I'm looking forward to the rest of the campaign.

I must get around to playing The Cause campaign. Wolfrug's been banging on about it forever now.

I ran into alot of problems with this mission. Ultimately and I hope it doesn't come as to much of a spoiler: The combat mission will be regarded as a massive blunder by the SLA, although not quite a failure, in the next installment.


EDIT: If any of the OPEC staff would like to review this missionthen please feel free.

Thank you.

[mathias_eichinger]

Hi Rejen!

Have not tried out your mission and I can't say at this point if I will review it. But: If this is part of a campaign I would wait to have the full campaign ready for review, because right now the mission review would go into SP missions.

Cheers

Mathias

[Rejen]

Thats ok, I release the missions as SP missions until I have about 5-10. But if you'd prefer to wait until there's a campaign thats also fine by me Thanks.

[mathias_eichinger]

Hey, it's up to you, I just wanted to notify you. 

[Rejen]

I reckon you can go ahead and review it as it will be a while before I can make more Im afraid.

[mathias_eichinger]

I'll review this one.

[Rejen]

Thanks mate

[mathias_eichinger]

The mission has been reviewed and can be downloaded from the missions depot.

Regards,

Mathias

[Rejen]

Thanks mate Looking good 

[Worldeater]

Uhm, the description in the Mission Depot fails to mention that this one requires Queens Gambit.

 

[schuler]

fixed