(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[macguba]

Not the jeep.   Too early for stuff like that.    

The task you are undertaking has changed.  I did not fully appreciate this with Un-Impossible and the mission suffered because of it.   Originally, you wanted to make a working island.   You have achieved that with v1.1.    Congratulations - your OBE is in the post.    That whole exercise is now finished.  Kaput.   Deceased.   It is an ex-exercise.

You are now working on a new and entirely unrelated exercise, which is creating a really great mission.    Your starting point for this exercise is of course the finishing point for the previous one, but be very clear in your mind that you are doing something new.  

I did not get that clear in my mind:  subconsciously I was tarting up the old exercise.   This meant, for example, that Un-Impossible is stuck with that absurd change the flag objective.   It should have been changed to destroy the radio station or something, but it never was because it never occurred to me to rethink it because I was stuck in the groove of tarting up.    I should have rethought the whole mission:  not that a great deal would have changed of course, (and nothing that would have compromised the origina intention) it's just a question of psychology.

[THobson]

That's an insightful way of looking at it.  It makes great sense.  

On the Vigny jeep - I have the same feeling - it is just that it will seem strange later in the mission.  On balance I think better not.

I am not entirely with you on the flag changing objective in Un-Impossible.  One of the things I really liked was the quirky humour throughout the mission, and that was just part of it.

[macguba]

insightful

"Perceptive" dear boy, "perceptive".    

I take your point about the flag.   I don't know whether I would have changed it or not, not that it really matters:  the point is that it didn't occur to me and it should have done.

Perhaps make all northron vehicles CD equipped and all southrons not.   Or pehaps all lorries but not jeeps.  It won't seem strange:  that jeep is special anyway.   And of course not all players will use it.   And half of those that do will just assume they didn't notice the CD.

[THobson]

It has been a long time since anyone called me a boy - you can come again. ;D  I suppose it is safe to discuss spoilers here - after all it is where the mission is taken apart and dissected.  A couple of things I have done and am thinking about:

Done:
Larche is now, almost, undamaged whereas all the towns in the south are trashed or, in one case, mined.

Prompted by mikero's comment about civis peeping from behind the windows, there are now some civilians that are randomly moved to certain buildingPos locations - which are generally behind windows, it happens infrequently and not close enough to the player for them to get to the location before the civis are gone.  The intention is that maybe one player in ten might see something and then doubt their own eye sight.

Prompted by SEAL going off exploring in the boat:  I don't want to lock the boat and there is certainly plenty of fuel for it to get anywhere on the map, so of course someone will visit the islands eventually and find the usual stuff waiting to be setPosed into the action, empty flag poles and all that.  Not anymore.  Periodically the speed of the boat is checked and if it is moving a fully crewed chopper is created in the air that ensures it doesn't go far.  I suppose I could have wound the fuel level right down but the chopper solution looks and feels realistic.  This is the only object that is created in the mission and as it represents certain death for the player it doesn't impact long term game play so I feel okay about it.

I have mentioned the escape by the civis from Chapoi.  I plan not to explain this to the player, but there may be enough clues in dialoge elsewhere that enables the connection to be made - in the same way that some players may connect the request by the woman in the barn to find her mother and sister with what they are told in Houdan and hence with the shooting that takes place in Stamenov's HQ - or maybe not.

Thinking about:
Having the flags change when northrons or southrons over run each other's towns.  Also thinking about having Alexi change the flags in the towns and bases when he has the chance, I know the flag I want to use.  Also flags for the front line infantry groups.  Nothing very difficult, but cumulatively resource consuming.

I do like mikero's idea of barking dogs.  Cows and chicken might work also.  Ditto comment on resource consumption.

[macguba]

All good ideas.

The boat must have at least half fuel, otherwise how would Alexi get back?   Choppers have been established so createUniting one in is not a big deal, particularly since it only happens if the player is being arsy.   If you can, add a script to allow the player to visit his mum, camcreating the scene only if it is needed.    On one level a very subtle detail, very much the sort of thing you need to bring to the reviewer's attention.   On another level vital if you are to realise your dream of a working island.   Either your mum is real, or she isn't.

Don't be too subtle about explaining the escape from/massacre at Chapoi.    For many players (including me) it might be a week or more between one session and the next, you're not going to remember tiny subtleties.    This whole hint thing is a very hard thing to get right in mission editing:   it's rarely done well.    Ususally its too obvious or too obscure.      The first thing to get right is to ensure that all your text, dialogue and events can, logically, only have one possible explanation.   Much harder than it sounds.     The second thing is to make sure the player actually receives the clues - well you're going to be fine on that.   The third thing is to make sure that the clues are of the right level of obscurity/obviousness.   Also hard.

Flags in towns should change northron/southron to reflect current owner.    Better if somebody actually changes the flag but not essential as it is very unlikely that player will notices.    Fake to some extent with ten seconds of no flag.

Flags for at least some infantry groups would be good.   Many do not need them, such as those in towns.    Give flags to half of those groups that will actually benefit and see what it does to the performance.      Remember that your constraint on performance at present is static objects:  take away the sandbag fences at Chapoi and a whole world opens up.  (I'm not saying you should.)

A few atmospheric sound files would be good.    Use sound files and call then from existing player present triggers:   make a distant bush "say" the sound.    Sound objects and triggers are probably too resource intensive.     You're already over 5meg or whatever it is, nobody cares about download size now.   You may even be able to call the sounds from within ofp, if you specify the path in description.ext.  Dunno.

Alexi says, "I'm sure my father kept an old flag in his jacket ... so many pockets ... ah, here it is.   Oh, there are a couple in here.    What's that Bruno, you've got one too?  Well let's start making our presence felt."

Tip:  add what you want.   When the mission gets too laggy, delete that which is least important.   You may, when it gets down to it, be surprised at what is least important.

An idea which you probably have had already is to have a slow looping script.  It checks the player's distance from cerain objects, and fires consequences accordingly.    Instead of ten triggers each checking every frame or every 0.5s, you have a script checking every 30s.  Sorry, 31s, if it hasn't already gone.  

[Mikero]

>briefing

keep the magic, explain nothing.

NEVER over-rule a player's own imagination. If she thinks it's Thursday afternoon and snowing, and the Northrons are the good guys, there's magic in that. I 'think' there's another army in the south south. Never explain that there isn't.

Attack Vigny. Period, full stop.


>Jeep

Get rid of that jeep entirely, make it the Police one and only used / seen as we trip over the dead guys. As it is, i was torn between leaping in, and getting shot. Using the Police, it will make me stick around Vigny to investigate it.

>flags

The westrons are different, they don't have flags (yet), half of them are true civilians, use that Police vehicle to accentuate the difference immediately. I would be dissapointed if you allowed my >military< vehicles to have flags

"Well let's start making our presence felt."

bingo

I also agree with Mac, the distinctions between the flags are currently not there.


Scenicly (sp) it would make sense to me to see *any* roving group racing round with a flag attached, this is emphatic for me because of the intro execution scene, they're ALL running round like headless chickens identifying each other and who their allegiences are with. A squad or two of Northrons, lost, and near Chapoi

The battle scene btwn north south, chapoi, tanks, lacks this element of them vs them. For all I know, they're fighting themselves. The fighting there is scenicly dramatic, it's wide open, visually, spectacular, and lacks that element of who's who. This is particularly re-inforced when I didn't realise the tank on my right was shooting at tank on my left, not, both tanks shooting me. Rememeber player enjoyment. Mac *enjoyed* sitting on the ledge, watching it all. I want to cheer for one side or the other.

>World

you've built a world here Thob. I want richness. I dont mind if I never see the chapoi civilians, I want it's detail in there for when and if I ever do. Make me wonder, make me ask if I've actually played this game. Stop me from saying

"so, I did blah, mission complete". Let me think that maybe, umm, maybe I just didn't actually complete ALL of it. I dont need crude hidden objectives, just feelings that I really should have looked at Le Port.

[THobson]

I think we are all broadly on the same wavelength in terms of storyline and atmosphere.  Everything logical and connected, but not obviously signposted, the feeling, even after 20+hours of playing time, that ‘I might not have seen everything'.  Also I don't mind the player being puzzled by somethings as long as they are capable of thinking of a plausible explanation.  Did I really hear music drifting out of Sainte Marie? Could someone have left a music system on when the population were dragged away?  (New for v1.11 by the way)

I still have some underlying work to do on improving the war trigger.  Then I think the mission per se is about complete, it is then on to balance (LAWs etc), storyline, cutscenes and atmospherics.

On the technical side I only use triggers when what I want to happen is time or spatially critical, and when I have finished with a trigger I delete it.  Slow looping scripts using random, prime number based delays is where the mission started.  The large savegame bug forced me to make some changes to this (local variables in scripts that are running when the game is saved seem to contribute to the problem) so I now have a single, local variable light, housekeeping script that calls many of the scripts at time intervals that are prime number based (61 and 2.3 are current favourites).

I also have a growing suspicion that a script that is pausing at a ~ line still slows the game down.

Anyway - it is in that context I am puzzling over how to implement changing the flag when a location is overrun by the other side.  It is trivially easy to implement by giving each flagpole a name and using triggers.  I may just do it that way at the start but what I would prefer is something less resource intensive.  This is not a request for help by the way, it is finding these solutions that is giving me the most fun out of making this mission.  For example creating an armed, crewed, flying helicopter is not trivial - I could have just locked the boat or camcreated a shell when I wanted to kill it.

Anyway - it is back to work now - I mean RL work.

[Goettschwan]

Hello Thobson, i have started to play your mission.
Your mission is a great thing, and i don't mean the download size
Although i only fastread the thread, i consider much of my viewpoints on this mission already expressed by someone so i will skip a bit on some stuff.
I use OFP 1.96, benchmark around 4500-4800, first few tries HiSky Pack, Sanctuary Anim Patrol Pack and DxDll enabled, later tries Hisky and Anim pack off, see below.
I have restarted several times to check some things, and i will now start again and fresh to try and finish the mission.
Things i found out in random order:
I used the boat to move quite a distance from the island, no chopper came. (maybe i didn't do it long enough, i only did it until i got bored -> about two or three minutes)
You can destroy the table in the house with tatyana by shooting on it but the bottles will be floating in the air afterwards, maybe there is a way to make the table behave like other furniture, i.e. not destructible?
I like the voiceacting very much so far, but i'd advise to rerecord some of the phrases tatyana says because they start to clip on my system. Also, make her(the woman speaking) not talk directly into the microphone to avoid P,B and S letters to sound overblown. Nonewithstanding you could insert a bit of pause between the first two phrases tayana says to make the first phrase stand out better.
As it is she is barely breathing inbetween.
I'd rather have here say a very wary "oh, not again, just leave me alone" followed by a pause and "oh, who are you".
I am opposed to changing her vocal expression here by the way, as somewhere earlier suggested, because i think thats about the right way considering she has been enduring her situation for -weeks? more?
I was very surprised by the rest of the voiceacting(e.g. your voice, if i am not mistaken) so far, i regard it as being in surprisingly high audio quality compared to some missions i played from the missions depot.
Making the character say "I will kill them all" makes him look like a - whats the expression, well, he looks very stupid saying it in front of two armys on the island.
I don't know if it is intended like this but it made my day in surprise to see later that thats exactly what the mission seems to be about ! (although i didn't read too far in this thread to avoid spoilers)
I speak from experience to tell you that damaging the jeep when you bombard the incoming enemies with grenades makes one long trek to the mountain lodge on Foot AND in Fog. Started to hate no 2x/4x. Thats the only moment btw., i have accustomed pretty well to it. Its good training for me, i have been too ramboish in its using lately.
But please consider moving the jeep somewhere further away from this house, as it is the point where the enemies will go apparently. Too dangerous for the jeep.
One MAJOR point i want to point out is that i started playing with the hisky pack enabled, and as i am using DxDll only for making the water reflective and overriding the night shader thingy i can tell you that you can BARELY see through the rain. Is this rain not from the original OFp ? I never had this problem and i played through all three BIS campaigns and then some.
Effectively the hisky pack does something to your rain which makes it look like a wall of grey static or something, and the nightshader override of dxdll colors it blue.
As an index, after tatyana gets killed, if you go outside there are two evergreen trees to your left,and if you advance to the second you are barely able to see the two guards that shot tayana. I even wonder i did play until after finding the lodge like this,
all the time thinking, "man, this mission is way too hard with the rain"  
Now all addons are off, except dxdll, whose nightshader override is back in place because it seems to make the rain less grey and therefore less annoying.
But now seeing what i should see i can go off and restart the mission.
I can only repeat others in saying that this is already a very nice world to be in.
Thanks,
StG

[THobson]

StG

Thank you for your helpful comments and I am glad you like my world.  

On the boat: in the version you have you can take it anywhere, it is the next version where a chopper will get you - but probably not after only 3 minutes.  

I don't have any of the add-ons you describe.  I have build and tested it in plain vanilla OFP so some of the add-ons you have may indeed spoil the effect I want to create.

Your comments on the first cutscene are helpful.  This is my first attempt at using voices.  The voice of Tatyana is that of my 16 yr old daughter - I must admit I thought hard about asking her to do it given what it is all about, but she was fine with it, but only on condition she is on her own  in the room with the computer, headphone and microphone.  None of the people doing the voices has done anything like this before so getting any change to expressiveness, accents and the like just won't happen I'm afraid.  At one point I even considered having voices that were deliberately naff (if that has any meaning in French) but decided against it.  I know what you mean about the sound clipping.  What I have found is that amateurs like us start each phrase very loud and then the volume tails off.  It is difficult to get an even balance - especially if I am not in the room at the time to spot it.  We will keep trying.

@All
As this has now been bumped to the top I could mention that in the next version if a town is captured (or re-captured) by one side then one of the capturing loons will run to the flagpole, the old flag will come down the pole and then the new one will be unfurled at the top.  It has cost me two triggers for each flagpole each of which has a name - and one player in a 100 might see it!  This feature is high on the list of things to come out if the version is too laggy.

[macguba]

The boys are right:  the jeep in Vigny is not quite right.   I like the idea of your transport being a police jeep and the location of the current one I was never especially happy with although I never said anything because I couldn't put my finger on it.

Don't worry if we're not on the same wavelength (although we are).   It's your mission, you just do whatever you dayum well like.

StG is right, the quality of the sound files - both techinically and of the acting - is well above average.    Open to improvement perhaps, but as StG suggests the weak point in that whole area (insofar as their is one)  is probably the script.  In places its excellent but in places its quite weak.    You can tell your daughter from me that her acting is good.   (Considerably better, I may say, than the lassie who did Un-Impossible.     You wouldn't believe it but I spent a whole day editing together different takes and adding and subtracting silence to get the rhythm right.)

(Another common problem with amateurs is very significant variation in volume.    Hard consonants and words get much louder.      Combined with the diminuendo effect you have observed (which is also common) it's very hard to edit.   Practice makes perfect.)

For the flags, is there anyway of checking whether the player is close?  If not, just change the flag by magic.     If the two triggers are north present and south not present, consider combining them into one by using an anybody present trigger and countside thislist commands.

[THobson]

I had a 'EUREKA' moment when I read mikero's suggesiton to lose the jeep and use the police vehicle instead.  It has the twin benefits of being unusual and also the lack of music will not be so obvious.  Ideas joining up again.  I too cannot put my finger on what is not right about the location of the police jeep, but I keep fiddling with it.  

Thanks for the comments about the sound and the acting.  This my first attempt at script wrting also - as you can tell.

Having a loon change the flag contributes close to zero to the lag, it's just a bit of scripting (doMove and a small amount of distance checking until he reaches the pole).  The resource consumption comes from have 2 triggers and each having a name.  The two triggers are North present and South present and in both triggers the same script is called in both the activation and the deactivation fields.  So north arriving, north leaving, south arriving and south leaving will all call the script that checks to see if the flag should change, and if it should then it changes it.  So the same script works for all flags and also it will handle a successful counter attack when a town might be retaken. Nice idea about the anyone present trigger.  I am due my hard earned glass or several of red wine soon so I won't be able to think about it until tomorrow.  At first sight I am not sure it would deal with the situation of both N and S being in the trigger area and then the last of one side being killed, unless I were to have a script running all the time there are loons in the trigger area, and that might not be better than a trigger.  I may be wrong - off now to 'relax'

[macguba]

The anybody present trigger may not help, it was just an idle thought.

Funny how it turns out that you, mikero and me were all unhappy about the jeep.    Part of the problem is that you wouldn't park it there:  a common source of unease on vehicle placement.   We are all well attuned to the mores and subtleties of where you do and do not park.   A good example of how mission making is much more difficult than it looks.   It order to make it feel realistic you have to have the jeep where somebody would actually have parked it.    Drive into the village in order to use the woman in that building a few times and see where you actually park.   It may be different in daylight and at night.

If it's going to be a police jeep of course it may be somewhere else altogether.

I'll edit the script if you like.

[Mikero]

>jeeps

apart from the fact that the military jeep should't be there (for gameplay distinctions) it was too square on to buildings. It was planted, not parked.

I didn't notice the police jeep being 'wrong'. Just didn't notice,. that's all. It *might* be because it too is planted too square on to buildings perhaps?

Pehaps put the dead policeman in the thinng, he was shot as he comes up road, that way. player will almost certainly see the thing and think about using it, on the road, in the road as one of the last things she does before leaving town. Another one of those "damn, original plan foiled, have to think again" things. This continual rethink of what to do was a great theme in the game, constantly having to adapt.

>flags

you're gonna hate me Thob

the southrons have to trash buildings if they take over a town. IF the player spots it, it will dramatically reinforce the difference btwn sides. Use of ambient gun noise here would be 'ok', but only just.

As far as ai walking to flagpole, I want that for the richness to detail, and the reason I want the richness, is, sooner or later, player will 'discover' one of these little extras. It will leave a permanent impression that 'mission complete' isn't quite truthfull .

[Mikero]

>triggers

not being a scripter, can someone explain why they're evil? Did I get it right that these things cause lag? What's the issue with them?

[THobson]

I am well onto my way to the first bottle and I just snuck out - my other half will have something to say soon.  So I will be quick and the typing will be crap.

Triggers just sit there and are checked many time a second.  In most missions it is no problem.  In big ones it causes lag.  I delete them when I can.  With these they have to sit there all through the mission.  Also these have to have names.  Names cause the savegame bug.

I worked quite hard - but clearly not hard enough - to park the jeep as if is were parked by blokes in a hurry - if you see what I mean.  Anyway its gone now.

I had in mind that the dead policeman in Vigny was 'good and decent' he was trying to do what was right and that is why he got shot.

I too want the detail - even if no one sees it.  

Have to go.  Duty calls.

By the way, trashing buildings is not a problem.