Mission ideas

[[SWAF]Lunatic]

While i realise that OPFP was not that linear, it still had a linear path, ie, you had to go to a then b before c to do d in c.
What id like to see is you have to get to b to do d, it is up to you how you do it, you can do it by going to a,c or x, in y,z,or j.

So you have your mission starting point, and a briefing, but you do the mission your way, lets say a set of options such as, you can either go to the tankpark and take an armoured unit, you can go to the airfield in a truck and get a c130 and parachute in at a point of your chosing etc.

This would open the game up that little bit more.

[MP Studio]

That wouldn't be realistic http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

A soldier cant do what he wants...

[Franz_Schall [SWAF]]

Yes, dude - making the gameplay a bit more dynamic would be increasing your freedom of doing whatever you want to achieve your main goal.
But on the other hand it might confuse some people who simply don't know what to do and how to do next things.. http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

Personally, I'd like to see a full dynamical campaign as well, where every loss and every killed enemies affect your army's strength, ressources and planning etc. (maybe not achieveable until OFP3 is coming http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif )

I can't wait any longer to get more information about it http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif....

[Skul]

That's basically already happened in Resistance, don't you think?

[WhoCares]

It is only limited in Resistance. Your deeds have no influence on the general progress of the war. You are doomed to win the war or lose at some predefined branches.
A fully dynamic campaign on the other hand could last forever. It would work more like one side starts attacking. If they achieve the objective they will push the frontline forward. When they lose, they will launch another attack, maybe on an other location. When they continue to lose, the sides might change and the defender starts to attack...
An alternative might be the solution of Il2:FB, if I understand the concept correct (I don't have it). (For obvious reasons) You are not able to change the end of WW2, but your success in one mission has a direct influence of the progress in your front sector and by this on your future missions.

[Franz_Schall [SWAF]]

Yep, WhoCares - IL-2:FB might be one example for an approach for my thoughts. I'd favour a fully dynamical campaign, but it might be hard to design at the moment (too many unforseen possibilities, in-game cutscenes etc.).

[Hellfish6]

A dynamic campaign where missions would be generated on the fly (like at any given time, there could be, for instance, three infantry missions, two tank missions, two helo missions, and a specops mission that you can take personal control of) would be great. Kind of like how Apache vs. Havoc or Commanche vs. Hokum's dynamic campaign worked.

Cutscenes are nice, but secondary to a good campaign, IMHO.

[KimTuomi]

Hmmm, the subject of this thread did not quite sound what I had in mind, so I posted another thread after you.... Your writings in here are very similar afterall what I wrote in my post.

I'm with you guys; dynamic campaign, no separate "missions", only changing objectives.

A campaign designed by a human beats a dynamically computer generated campaign any time. I say leave the mission types exactly as they were.

[Jinef]

I would say, that there are lot's of human made missions, but you don't alays do them, for example if you are on guard duty, and you go off and have a fag, so some civvie with a bomb can blow up your platoon's APC, then you should get demoted and get given shit duty to do, like checkpoint duty.

We should have real soldier life coming through, not, okay we're on Everon, let's take morton then montignac then the area is secure, oh no it isn't the Ruskies just camcreated a hind. Let's spend more time on islands, so you get to know them, and make friends with civvies while doing checkpoint duty. Let's also have an island where the resistance is working against you, you have to do patrols through sniper towns and bascially live the life of a UN soldier in Kosovo or a British soldier in Northern Ireland, where you are despised, but are trying to help.

[SpeedyDonkey]

There is two different ways they could make it really good.

1, As in Mafia very good plot and a great atmosphere (with lots of very good cutscene) or 2, a dynamic one where you can do what you want, when you want and how you want, witch would be a bit more like Gta3. I would prefear the mafia one http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

(with mafia and gta3 i dont mean the games´s only the campaign structure)

[KimTuomi]

denoir, if we have a game with some kind of intelligence to "fix" the campaign back to the actual tracks storywise, it would work. BI people does the story and the game content itself but this subsystem could create true freedom for things. I find it kind of "wrong" that you are able to drop down the helicopter that is harassing you but in the start of the next mission it is again flying overhead.

[whisperFFW06]

Hmmmm... I think this would throw away the variety of situations and ennemy reactions you can have with scripted campaign, as in a dynamic system, every single situation has to be pre-rendered, and reaction is automatized.
No more scout-patrol mission, global island evac with player left alone (remember After Montignac), alliance and "diplomacy" with local resistance, etc... It's a big frontline system, with pre-scripted type of missions, all the same.
The big missing point is storyline. You don't have anymore. The "RPG" part of the game disappear... Sad...

Dynamic campaigns are ok for example in fly simulations, because, out of your plane, you are not really IN, you are in a global screen showing you the overall situation, or you jump directly in the next mission, in your cockpit. The only important point in these game is flying your aircraft, not your direct everyday life environnement.
This is not true in Flashpoint, your are IN, many things happen to YOU, not your plane. Need food, making stupid jokes, boring patrols, building your forward camp, rescuing comrades, making alliances, etc... And I don't want to see 2 Spec Ops mission with the same briefing with only 4 words changed, same cutscene in another place, etc....

Whis'

[Hovmand]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Jinef @<hidden> April 25 2003,12:07)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">We should have real soldier life coming through, not, okay we&#39;re on Everon, let&#39;s take morton then montignac then the area is secure, oh no it isn&#39;t the Ruskies just camcreated a hind. Let&#39;s spend more time on islands, so you get to know them, and make friends with civvies while doing checkpoint duty. Let&#39;s also have an island where the resistance is working against you, you have to do patrols through sniper towns and bascially live the life of a UN soldier in Kosovo or a British soldier in Northern Ireland, where you are despised, but are trying to help.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
That would be cool, but i doubt that the casual gamer would find it very interesting http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Franz_Schall [SWAF]]

Whisper, SpeedyDonkey - that&#39;s the point where the difficulties begin...
I would like to see a game wich includes a deep dramatic athmosphere, as well as a dynamic campaign, where the outcome of one mission has an effect to all the following missions.

I&#39;d like to see the freedom of completing missions as it is now.
But that isn&#39;t really related to a dynamical campaign, I think.

In GTA3, as far as I remember, the missions in GTA3 are connected to each other, too. What you have got there is that you can go around and (when not having an appointment) doing whatever you want. Besides that, the missions are connected among themselves just not that restricted as you find in massively scripted games (where you come from one mission straight into the next one).

Personally, I prefer the indeepth, emotion awaking style which made Flashpoint to the game it&#39;s loved for - the feeling of being an individual in a big conflict, whichever the final solution might be..

[SpeedyDonkey]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">In GTA3, as far as I remember, the missions in GTA3 are connected to each other, too. What you have got there is that you can go around and (when not having an appointment) doing whatever you want. Besides that, the missions are connected among themselves just not that restricted as you find in massively scripted games (where you come from one mission straight into the next one).[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Yes but if you make it "Gta3 style" good cutscene would be very hard to make in a accurate way. Maybe some kind of a compromise could be done, a few obvious things like If you shoot a chopper in mission 1 it will be gone in mission 2. And inside a mission you could choose if you want to attack town 1 or 2 first, but as fast as it gets "too" dynamic it will be hard to tie the missions together story wise and maintain the nice cutscene, witch i love {8^)

[Franz_Schall [SWAF]]

Yeah SpeedyDonkey - that&#39;s exactly what I thought at. http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Yes but if you make it "Gta3 style" good cutscene would be very hard to make in a accurate way. Maybe some kind of a compromise could be done, a few obvious things like If you shoot a chopper in mission 1 it will be gone in mission 2. And inside a mission you could choose if you want to attack town 1 or 2 first, but as fast as it gets "too" dynamic it will be hard to tie the missions together story wise and maintain the nice cutscene, witch i love[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>

[Jinef]

How about both?

Have a scripted campaign and a dynamic generator. They have another year and a half do if they start making missions now and just convert them over they could do it, for us, please&#33;

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[Harnu]

SAD (Search and Destroy) where we aren&#39;t suppsoed to be. Such as going into Laos and Cambodia to combat enemy movements.

[Hellfish6]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @<hidden> April 25 2003,03:13)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">A campaign designed by a human beats a dynamically computer generated campaign any time. I say leave the mission types exactly as they were.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
My idea of a dynamic campaign is a bit different. Instead of the way OFP missions work now, where either you win or you lose and try again, in a dynamic campaign you win, you "kinda win" you fail or you get killed.

You can accomplish your mission, like taking out a tank platoon with an Apache, and the enemy now has one less tank platoon. Not like in OFP campaigns now, where it doesn&#39;t matter how many kills you get or how many supplies you destroy - because it doesn&#39;t matter.

I suppose what I&#39;m talking about is not a campaign per se, but rather an integrated battlefield environment with finite resources that plays continuously. Missions are generated and the player gets to pick which one he wants to lead. The player leads his unit out on the mission and maybe he stumbles across an enemy supply cache. If he blows up that cache, the enemy has X amout of supplies than he did before. If he doesn&#39;t blow up that cache and continues with his original mission, then the enemy retains those supplies. And it will affect the campaign later, when those T-80s are running low on ammo - if you had blown those supplies, maybe those T-80s wouldn&#39;t be able to fight back not. Or if you did blow those supplies, maybe that T-80 has only one more main gun round left.

[ThruYerStErNuM]

A fully dynamic campaign is entirely possible in opf1 not just in ofp2 or 3. I think, if the developers have any sense in them, they are working on a full dynamic system, since the engine is made so well for large scale operations with many things happening at once. I have been working on a fully dynamic campaign for about 8 months now, and I&#39;m nearing a first release, and this is the first time I couldn&#39;t resist saying "oh yes you can" in a post to someone requesting this type of gameplay. What I have now is a system of giving the player full control over the entire army, with an automatically randomly generated opposing force, behaving in a seemingly realistic way without ever growing in number so much it bogs down the system too much. It&#39;s just one singe mission that plays out over many hours like a complete campaign. It feels just a little like GTA3, and in the future I may add on missions you can pick, like take out a certain target behind enemy lines for bonus points (used to request reinforcements/fire support). I really can&#39;t wait to see this in a newer OFP game with better graphics and high production values, and I am positive if BIS doesn&#39;t do it in OFP2, we, the community, will. Also, it is a great idea to have a constant gain in rank on the battlefield, so you can gain more and more control over the forces around you. You would need a good artificial intellingence in your commander to pick how the campaign will advance though. My system requires player intelligence. Random dynamic adjustment is the future of games in my mind, because it only takes just as much work to set up a formula for what should happen if something in particular does happen, as it is to actually decide what should happen after what will happen, as developers/mission makers do in a linear plot system. It just requires great processing power, only recently available, to calculate the behind your back stuff rather than just the on screen goodies most newer games focus so much on.

[Jinef]

Sounds very impressive. I would like to see Apache VS Havoc style pick the mission your rank allows, start off with patrols then progress to raids on enemy bases etc.

[Franz_Schall [SWAF]]

Wow, ThruYerStErNuM. I have never heard that it&#39;s possible in the current OFP version. I&#39;ve ever thought this amount of units involved would peak out every CPU which is on the market and make it in consequence not playable.

Heads up for your hard work - I&#39;ll d/l and test it when it comes out.

[CuteQA]

I really like the OFP&#39;s campaign style, we can play the story from a soldier to a pilot. I hope we are going to see a more detail, longer more better story in ofp2&#33;
The only thing i feel bad about ofp1 campagin is the later part.  There are less cutscenes ,and the characters is not talktive like the begining. It really gives a different feel while David Amstrong always talking to his Squad mates or active with Commander Slava. ( maybe poor David has no one to talk bcuz they all died later http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif  )
I hope there will be more cutscenes, activties, and more strenthen relationships between characters in ofp2 ( RES did it pretty well, but it can be better http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif )

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif  http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif  http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif  http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif  http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif  http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif  http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif  http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif  http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif  http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[//relic//]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @<hidden> 25 April 2003,20:13)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">A campaign designed by a human beats a dynamically computer generated campaign any time. I say leave the mission types exactly as they were.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
You haven&#39;t played Falcon4 I take it?

I&#39;d like to ultimately see a dynamic campaign plus a story based campaign, although that&#39;s unrealistic. It would be nice however, to have kills in one mission impact on the overall force levels on any given island.

The example that springs to mind is highjacking a russian helo in "Saboteur" (IIRC) in the CWC campaign and killing every russian you can find using it. Having this impact on the overall level of enemy forces on the island would be good.

[peanuckle_00]

I&#39;d like to see more ww2 style missions but played out using modern weaponry. I like the old ww2 movies where they go on these big adventures throughout europe to do stuff like kill hitler and find gold, kidnap someone from a mansion, then contact a resistance group and get to an airport. I like the long ww2 style adventure missions. I like those and demolitions team missions, conquering bases, and siezing towns. I also occasionally like the surprise mission where you have no idea what to expect because things seem so normal and then you end up in some big side mission. Oh yeah&#33;&#33;

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (peanuckle_00 @<hidden> 06 May 2003,00:52)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
You need COOP MISSIONS

[Xenios]

Two very basic things I would change about missions: First, no more missions that don&#39;t end until every single enemy is dead--and the last guy is wounded and hiding and you&#39;re never gonna find him. Let the AIs be smart enough to know when they&#39;re beat and when it&#39;s time to get the hell out of Dodge. Let a retreating enemy count as a victory.

Second, if there&#39;s another semi-dynamic campaign in which you must collect arms and resources (ala Viet Cong): When the mission goals have been met, don&#39;t end the mission suddenly and automatically. Let me end by pressing ESC or something, after I&#39;ve collected all the booty from the defeated enemy. And if I dawdle too long, maybe enemy reinforcements start showing up. And if I want to throw in the towell and admit I can&#39;t win this mission by pressing ESC, let that count against me in a semi-dynamic campaign.

Of course I would love to see a fully dynamic campaign, but I can&#39;t think any game that has pulled this off successfully yet. Even attempts at doing this with persistent online worlds, like WWII Online haven&#39;t worked out as promised.

[vortex3d]

Dynamic campaingns make more sense since all the wars have been pretty much played out. It&#39;s great to play the game and not know where you&#39;re going to be sent next.

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Harnu]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (MP Studio @<hidden> 24 April 2003,19:17)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">That wouldn&#39;t be realistic  http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

A soldier cant do what he wants...[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
But a soldier has to do whats needed to accomplish the mission.

[Jinef]

All within parametres of course and without risking casualties proportionate to the damage inflicted.

[Cannon Fodder]

I suppose it all comes down to whether you felt like you made a difference to the outcome of the game. Blowing a bridge to slow an enemy advance in one mission, for example, could prevent resupplying and weaken their forces in another mission. I fully support a completely dynamic campaign with a presistant set of soldiers in your platoon, each with a particular vocal style and appearance, so you can recognise those under your command / in command. This would add immeasurably to immersive nature of Flashpoint.

[WKK Gimbal]

I think scripted/predesigned campaigns usually have the most immersive atmospheric feel, but at the same time I think there&#39;s always this feeling of being forced through an obstacle-course, i.e. a linear, predefined chain of events.

On the other hand, totally random missions, generated by the computer often feel "pointless" to fight, because after all, it&#39;s just another random battle with no actual purpose. The uniformity also grants less Kodak-moments somehow.

I kinda like the mid-way path BIS seems to have struck. The mission objective is storybased and predesigned, yet there&#39;s enough of alternative paths within the mission itself, to play it out differently. Some of the official campaign&#39;s missions can easily be solved in 10-20 entirely different ways, yet the objective has meaning to the storyline. Sure, your kill ratio will not affect the next mission&#39;s starting conditions, but will atleast give you a nice scoresheet to take screenshots of, at the end of the mission http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[whisperFFW06]

I totally agree...

BTW, OT, nice to see you here, Gimbal http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Whis&#39;

[BronzeEagle]

I think it&#39;d be a neat idea to mimic one of those missions from those sixties and fifties era ww2 movies where they go on long journeys to destroy bridges and wreck train tracks or possibly steal some papers. I think it&#39;d be a cool idea to go deep into enemy territory to meet up with a militia and have to use a multiple choice option thing to negotiate an alliance. That&#39;d be neat.

[Crazysheep]

They had some non-linear paths on OFP, such as the mission where you attack montignac for the first time. If you fail, you get that mission where you start in the truck and then go to fight in the village, before losing and getting rescued by the Resistance....however, if you took montignac, you could go on and then your team dies and you wake up alone in the woods, deep in enemy territory......more missions like that would be good.

[BronzeEagle]

How about if you go on an air mission you can get captured for parachuting into an enemy village.

[mmtt]

Well, I would like campaigns like the ones you can find in Falcon 4.0.
At start, you can choose if you want to attack enemy air forces, tanks, troops or cities and where to strike mainly(as it is in Korea, it will mainly be defend Seoul and the frontline).
Once campaign stared, HQ shows different types of mission, CAS, BOI, SEAD, Strike... You can then modify it(waypoints, objectives), load up your plane.
Once mission achieved, depending on your results, your success in your squadron may shorten the war or make you lose it. Though it&#39;s mainly your squadron which is affected. After each missions or events, a small update appears on the screen showing the last offensive, bombings.

Operation Flashpoint could use such dynamic campaigns a less extent. It is hard work but you are really into the war as you see the Reds armored columns rolling past your lines and threatening the capital. Thus, in a bold move, you could blow up the bridge to stop dead cold their advance, try an insertion mission on a fuel depot or simply counter attack calling artillery support and the tanks.
That would give entertainment for all, those who likes covert ops or big assaults to answer a problem.

Though, those dynamic campaigns are more adapted to Air Combat simulators and are not the best to play into a story.


(Sorry for my losy English)

[SpeedyDonkey]

Im going to quote Marek Spanel from a interview made before (&#33;) Operatione Flashpoint was in "Beta stage"

Quote[/b] ]We wanted to create a fully dynamic campaign, originally. But the time showed us it wasn’t the best way to go. We needed to create more immersive feeling and the computing power is still so limited. We had to go for more conventional design and use almost normal campaign. Anyway, there are still non-linear features in the campaign structure. But it’s not the real dynamic campaign we’ve dreamed about. However, thankfully to this change there’s an easy to use mission editor built-in the game and I think this is much more fun and opens the gamers endless opportunities to create, play and share hundreds and thousands of completely different missions and campaigns and this is great value.

This was when the minimum system requirements were expected to be PII-300 with a Voodoo2. Anyway This shows that BIS was/is interested in dynamic campaigns. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[cornhelium]

Hi http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

I think Longbow2 & EF2000 could be good reference points on the question of structure vs. freedom in dynamic campaigns.

1. Longbow 2
The focus on the LB2 campaign was the front line, and concerted forward thrusts were the events that moved the campaign along and gave it structure. In your Apache you would fly seek and destroy/interdiction/insertion escort missions behind enemy lines while ground forces consolidated for the next big push, and the enemy would be doing the same.

If a division was weakened enough by attacks, it would not be in a position to make an advance, which made your actions behind enemy lines worthwhile. If a division on your side was left unweakened by attack for long enough, it would prepare to make a forward thrust to some tactical strongpoint* behind enemy lines, and nearly all flyable missions for that day would be Close Air Support over the advance.

Also there seemed to be some pre-scripted missions that were thrown in at certain points in the campaign (maybe just xx number of days in), and had to be completed (this would be stuff like supporting a Spec-Ops raid on a bunker or prisoner rescue at a fortified base).

It felt like a pretty small-scale war; semi-dynamic compared to something like Falcon 4.0, visible activity was sparse, and it got repetitive. Despite all this the detailed text reports, crew rosters, rookies progressing to Aces etc. made it feel more alive and immersive than any other sim at the time. I guess it boils down to how much of the inherent complexity in a dynamic system you want to make apparent to the player.

The great Enemy Engaged games have model, truly dynamic, campaigns, but the nature of the interface conversely makes it harder to get immersed in the business of being a chopper pilot...You can watch frigates moving offshore/enemy jets taxiing to the runway as easily as you can choose a mission with any Commanche/Apache/Havoc/Hokum unit and fiddle with your FLIR, but you never really attach to your base, unit, crew or bird and consequently, a lot of the tension of facing the unknown is lost.

* Not sure if these strongpoints were a pre-defined sequence, or determined dynamically in response to intelligence gathered about the enemy (Obviously the latter would be nice&#33;). Either way, the great thing about them was they had detailed enough text summaries to make it seem that the Plan was the very core of the game, not the Arena (Enemy Engaged).

...Text tells a story, and so do cutscenes - maybe cutscenes/conversations between generals could replace the text summaries attached to strongpoints? For example:-

Attack on a fortified hill position in the Ia Drang valley, Intro:
Generals discuss the importance of the position from their bunker while the camera shifts to a Firebase where artillery open up, moving to the hill and down into the tunnels beneath and the face of the enemy commander in his planning room.

End sequence:
Narration from your Platoon leader&#39;s diary as the sun sets over your camp ("Charlie company down xx%, assault failed on Hill xxx, 1st Platoon dug in on lower ridge, air support is poor since use of LZs xx and xx were lost due to enemy advance etc."),the camera shifting to burnt-out foxholes, APCs etc. at the battle scene. A tiger drinks from the river, and the enemy moves through the jungle as the stars look down...

2. EF2000

Still an incredible sim/game (the Windows version is freeware now).

One of the great things about it was the mission maker embedded within the dynamic campaign. The automated mission planner was a bit limited (this was in 1995/6), and would send many AI flights to their death by plotting waypoints over Anti-Aircraft sites etc, but the mission maker meant that if enough planes were available you could plan your own simple mission, complete it, then stay active for as long as you wanted. Coming to a dead stop on any Allied runway automatically rearmed/refuelled you, and you could go on and on, clearing out SAM sites, hitting bridges, factories, parked aircraft etc. until you started tipping the balance single handed. Hardly realistic, but easily the most fun I&#39;ve had with a game before OFP.

I know this isn&#39;t a good premise on which to create a campaign engine - the automated planner should be good enough that the player doesn&#39;t need to step in and correct mistakes. However, in the context of a dynamic OFP campaign, the option to create your own missions would be a great way of getting a quick fix of dynamic action, a bit like the current mission editor only with all the enemy/non-player activity done for you&#33;

Eg. If you want some seek and destroy action in the jungle, set your squad a patrol objective, assign a firebase for artillery/illumination, then go hunting; If spec-ops is your thing, take a SEAL team on aggresive recon, maybe you&#39;ll capture an officer and extract to an LZ; If you&#39;re a shit-hot chopper pilot, take out that AAA site that&#39;s giving the bombers a hard time; etc.

I&#39;m contradicting myself of course - with #1 I&#39;m asking to be part of a focused and structured war effort, and with #2 I&#39;m asking for the ability to opt out and do my own thing&#33;

I guess I&#39;m trying to say that; #1 describes the priorities I&#39;d want BIS to focus on in a dynamic campaign, while #2 would be a nice concession to the seasoned player that wants a change, or the my-way-or-the-highway kind of guy/girl http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[USSoldier11B]

Quote[/b] ]That wouldn&#39;t be realistic

A soldier cant do what he wants...


This is true, however, the initial plan never survives first contact. I have had missions go to complete sh&#33;t because an AI squad failed to take out some armor. The ability to improvise would be great, since OFP is styled to go where ever you want, when you want. I&#39;m able to do this in the original game somewhat (hence my nick name), but if mission structures were a bit more open ended, it would be cool.

[metto]

This would be very important in OFP2. We must have frontlines. Every town should be manned (doesn&#39;t lag if the engine creates soldiers in the village only after you are close, and deletes, when you are far). I hate in original game, you have the mission to seize a town. You don&#39;t go there, instead you look around the island: All other towns are empty and you can even visit Guba&#39;s house without anyone disturbing you.

[Hara Kiri]

Quote[/b] ]Yes, dude - making the gameplay a bit more dynamic would be increasing your freedom of doing whatever you want to achieve your main goal.
But on the other hand it might confuse some people who simply don&#39;t know what to do and how to do next things..

And all of you who had played Hitman knows what that can be in worst.

[Gollum1]

Cornhelium, you won´t mind if I post your great mission idea from the "animals" thread? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif


Quote[/b] ]I read an awesome book, can&#39;t remember the name or author right now, but it was a guy who was brought in by the Indian government to hunt down maneating tigers. Apparently a tiger wasn&#39;t designated a maneater until it had killed at least 20 or 30 people...

Anyway - this guy used the alarm calls of chital and other wildlife to locate the tiger. Some awesome scenes, like when he moves into a village that&#39;s deserted because of the tiger, seeing its tracks all over the place - pure OFP tension&#33; Could do a great mission where you have to win favour with locals by stalking a maneater...

[Commando84]

Some air-air fights maybe? That would be cool.

[ABsintheminded]

In addition to the single player story game, single missions, and the online play, a "command" campaign would be nice. Instead of a set of missions all predetermined, it could play out like a responsive mission editor, with you in general command of all the troops. Where they go, what their orders are, and when all is said in done, you could have the option to play an individual part in one of your troop movements. So enemy tanks are gathering and preparing to cross a bridge to attack one of your cities. Place your available units, give their orders on the map, and enter the game as, say, a demolitions expert set to destroy the bridge while your troops hold the tanks back. Or a tank commander fighting from the hill behind the line. Let&#39;s say that fails, and certain ai-determined objectives are reached by either side, and it&#39;ll return to the map for more orders. Now you&#39;ve gotta retreat, and get ready to defend the city.

Perhaps the command map could be accessed at any time, allowing you to roll with the punches of the war as both commander and soldier at the same time, which could also allow you to take over any position whenever you see fit. This could eliminate the need for "turns" that many large-scale strategy games use.

Something like this seems, in my head, no different from the custom mission option in ofp1, with the addition of a responding enemy ai and a continuity that will let you return to the command map. But, with all the cpu power this game might take, running a full army of units in several places around the whole island could get tricky. Especially with no clear way to cut out whole sections of the map to resolve without actually computing every bullet&#39;s trajectory. Unless there is. Which would be cool. Just a thought.

[ABsintheminded]

Oh... missions. My bad.

I&#39;d like to see a mission where you are on the line, but you are not there to fight. Perhaps find a certain sergeant in the fight for some reason. Radio is broken, or something. And through the mission, you have the option of fighting, helping certain units where they might need it, or just running in and out and completing your objectives. If you help, -maybe- things go okay. If you don&#39;t, lots of guys die. Who knows, with you there they may just win the skirmish hands-down, but you find your man dead. Win-lose situation, yo.

[SnypaUK]

MORE HELICOPTER INSERTIONS god those are kickass with all the banter as you look out the window while whizzing over a forest maybe while you hear radio chatter and the pilot and copilot talking eg come right were on radar. you could also make more atmospheric insertions like as you look out the window you watch as the helicopter on your right explodes in a big ball of flames as everyone yells and you hear chopper down&#33;&#33; screamed over the radio. you should also have more door opening animations on choppers as well as people jumping out on both sides of the chopper and hitting the deck

[ethereal]

Maybe they should give you only one fixed objective-and I expect this would only work as well with the Spetz Natz-Black Ops missions, a major goal, but you can achieve that goal using any means you deem necessary. Taking it further, there could maybe be consequences for your actions, suck as, maybe if you kill some of the civs then they&#39;ll be pissed at you and not help you in a later mission...

[Bruupo]

I think the problem of making the game appealing to casual gamers/action gamers is a serious marketting concern.

Which is why making a fully dynamic campaign could easily devolve into micromanagement and minimized cinematic rewards for those types of gamers.

Perhaps a dynamic campaign mode could be unlocked after finishing 20 well scripted, cinematic, semi-dynamic missions. This would get casual gamers used to the game before they attempted tackling a dynamic campaign, and would lower the cinematic expectations for the dynamic mode. The dynamic campaign mode would be seen as a bonus, would not have to be "perfected" to launch the game, and the mod community would have a great opportunity to help the devs flush out the dynamic mode.

There could still be lots of dynamic elements to the scripted missions, some might directly affect further missions- but too much of that would make the game very difficult for anyone who didn&#39;t want to stomp around the map looking for every easter egg each mission. Still, the easter eggs are important.
I would really like to see a camera item become important, perhaps the screenshots a player took with their "camera" could be loaded into an intelligence folder. It would be nearly impossible, I imagine, for the game to correlate anything to those screenshots other than where the player was standing at the time they took it, but even a sector based organization of those images could be important to experienced, tactically minded players who want to take a quick picture of an enemy position or installation which they feel they will have to tackle in a future mission. There are probably also ways of rewarding non-combat exploration by experienced players by giving them additional info in their next mission briefing. In short, I think intel objectives make great easter eggs, which have tactical effect, but still don&#39;t prevent casual players from succeeding if they only have access to the default mission briefing. The strengths and types of enemies scripted into a future mission don&#39;t have to be changed in response to intel side-objectives, but they could in certain circumstances.

Within a Vietnam setting, however, I personally feel that the best balance could be acheived between dynamic and scripted elements by essentially modeling two enemy forces for the player to confront. Regular army forces, such as the NVA, and guerrilla elements, such as the Vietcong. The NVA aspects of the campaign would be the more heavily scripted, and less affected by player success and attention, while the attitude and actions of various guerrilla forces (which could include "allied" Hmong tribesman, etc. in addition to Vietcong) could be much more responsive to player decisions.

This could go as far as allowing the player to decide between accepting a "main" campaign mission and a side mission meant to stave off a future Vietcong attack, by pacifying a village, assisting and cementing a friendly relation with a guerilla group, etc. One aspect I really liked about Vietcong was the way it preloaded the character into the base before the mission was loaded, allowing the player to use the firing range to determine load-out, walk to the HQ to get their briefing, etc. I believe this model could be extended to allow the player to pick his squad right from the barracks of whatever base they were stationed at, but also would allow an excellent opportunity for a dynamic attack by guerrilla forces, when the player least expected it. Particularly if the player has been neglecting guerrilla force objectives in that region.

The key to having a semidynamic campaign of that type would seem to be having default load-outs and "recommended" missions to give casual players a rewarding and successful campaign, while allowing players who want to customize their missions and seek out all the easter eggs to not remove all difficulty from said campaign.

More thoughts later...sorry for the length.

[Platoon_EFeKT]

From the general posting here i dont think i ever encountered a major item that oddly should have been mentioned before (and if it did im sorry http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif ) - I think the new game should support in some way the missions from the first flashpoint... think of all the missions that have been done to the first game, all the work that the modding community done up untill now - even though the first game wont parish, it&#39;d still be neglected and all the work should be done from the beginning once again.
Enabling full mission support to the old OFP would make sure that:
1. missions could be kept on being produced to the 1st game.
2. modders from the 1st game&#39;s community would "feel comfortable" with the new game and start on making those wonderful things they do now without being forced to learn new editor techniques (even though i suppose the new game&#39;s editor would be more user friendly, there&#39;s always things that would never be the same)
3. (the most importent thing) this would enable players which are playing OFP2 to play MP games with players that use the older game, thus creating a huge MP gaming potential at the minute the game is released.

There are probably more good things about it then i&#39;ve mentioned that i just cant really think about right now, but still as you see enabling full (or partial) mission support between the two games has alot of potential, to the gamers from one side and to the developers from the other... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[Mugon]

I&#39;m just thinking about some new characters such as journalists, intelligence agents or civilian medics such as International Red Cross medics, with new missions, campaigns, and of course new gears.
I think these new characters are as essentials in a real conflict as soldiers or commanders, and it may be a good way to make new kind of missions, such as report news and pictures from the front line, collect essential intelligence informations behind enemy lines, or help and protect civilian population in war situation.

[Snypa UK]

continuing on the Dynamic campaign idea perhaps it could all be one mission. for example if we take the OFP resistance campaign wouldnt it be cool if you had one base in the hills at the start along with some troops then you plan the mission all in game so you decide where you go perhaps you perform reconnaisance first on your own then go back to base and have your troops join you then go blow it up you would have to excercise judgement so you dont attack a tank company using 12 men with a few AKs between them. Then youve completed your mission and the game autosaves. You then get a few more troops join you from the woods and you sit there with the map all in real time and plan what to do. If BIS made a command engine you could make a multi section platoon and wait till night and attack a tank base. steal some tanks and hold the city this could capture you another savegame once you capture the city. This means you have a base more troops join you and you start getting enough people to command and not have to lead or you could be at the front of every attack taking over a squad leader.

A good game with the same kind of dynamic campaign is Apache Havoc except you dont get more troops each time (or choppers) but you plan your sorties and you can fly them yourself or leave others to do it for you

[debug2112]

Bruupo, there-in lays the problem.

Regardless of which direction BIS chooses it will involve a marketting concern, and they will never be able to capture the large share of serious realism gamers without loosing a share of the run-n-gun kids. A happy medium of both works only for the short term, and word of mouth throughout history has placed more signs on empty buildings than not.

It is a very well placed tounge-n-cheek issue as to whether or not have dynamic campaigning to please one crowd, versus straight scripted, and finite blast-n-bang missions to please another.

This brief chat could get into deeper issues as well, such as the incorrectly termed "product branding", PR, packaging, product placement, and who smoozed who on the 9th hole last week.

Makes you want to be a fly on the wall at their table&#39;d meetings. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[TheManWithManyIdeas]

Mission Idea- Perhaps the emphasis on alternative approach should be stressed?

In other words, i would like to see missions in this kind of structure. [do] "A" [through] "B" [or] "C" [then] [try] D.

Also, i would like to see missions taken forward at the speed and style of commando-like raids. Perhaps even a kind of Rainbow 6 approach of storming and taking prisoners.

[Superskunk]

Start on a recon mission with a squad. After a while the leader commands you to take the lead. Passing some horrifiing sights and slipping passed bobytraps, your squad is ambushed by large enemy force.
You where lucky not to be shot at on contact, givving them all the firepower you have. You finally killed the last man of the enemy attackers. When you look back you find noone of your squad is left...
Since the radio has suffered serious dammage you cannot contact HQ. You deside to go on on your own.

As the night falls you find a an enemy command centre hidden in the bush. YOu attack the base all by yourself, and kill a hundred men, steal a vehicle and drive the way back home...you&#39;ll be awarded a purple heart and get the nickname Rambo&#33;&#33;&#33;
Hehe what a stupid tale~

[SnypaUK]

I believe the market for tactical missions is more for OFP as most people who play this beautiful game are the kind of people who like ultra tactical gaming and want to see the greatest military simulator ever. people who want run and gun military games all buy CS CFDS call of duty etc There could be two campaigns one unlocked after the other one as a grunt in a squad getting promoted up to a sergeant in a squad then another as an officer from a different perspective. commanding large bodys of troops from platoon right up to a battalion or perhaps further if players want it to be a RTS game but i doubt it or they would have bought empire earth or other RTS games

[GI_Rutger]

What I&#39;d like to see in OFP2:
- In OFP1, each civilian is innocent. Maybe they can set in OFP2 some collaborators and resistance civilians. For example: You, a escaped POW, runs to a civilian for help, but the civilian runs to the telephone and calls the Russians.
- Not that kind of promotions like in CWC. You know, when Dave Armstrong was a grunt, het was private, half a year later he&#39;s luitenant&#33; That&#39;s impossible&#33;
- No missions were you can gun down (for example:) twenty russian soldiers and 2 BMP&#39;s, with 6 guys with AK&#39;s and one RPG.
- When you make an quite good mission in the OFP1 editor, an original firefight, the mission will be completed in 15 minutes.Maybe they can make in OFP2 missions were you stand in front of the enemy trenches, but you can&#39;t attack, like in real times combats like Bastogne/WW1.
- In OFP1 there were 5 helikopters, 20 trucks and a few Abrams for each company soldiers, that&#39;s unrealistic. And in OFP1 there&#39;s always a BMP/Tank in the village you have to seize.
- A medical kit, which you can pick up (if you&#39;re a medic), and use it, although by three soldiers. You cannot heal a soldier which is heavy wounded.

I&#39;d lime to see it at an other point. I&#39;d like to see this kinda battle. Here&#39;s my example, I hope one mission in OFP2 will be kinda this:

You, a sergeant, are the platoon leader of the 2nd Platoon. Your battalion leader, some stupid Major, wants you to take a small town, it&#39;s called X. In X there are 20 Russians, with no armoured support but with a mortar. The best way (the most unexpected), is to cross the river and attack the Russians in the night. That night, 7 boats cross the river, filled with men of your platoon. Your men crosses the river silently, and take there positions. But the Russians spotted your men and are opening fire with an PK, from a window in a flat. Nailed to the ground, your men can&#39;t do anything. Two MAGs at the othere side of the river are giving support, but they don&#39;t shoot all the RUssians in 1 minute. After a minute you and your men have to retreat, hunted to the death by mortars, AK&#39;s, and PK&#39;s of the Russian.
When you put this mission in Resistance, 10 or 15 men of your platoon would be death. In OFP2, there have to be 2 men death, 2 wounded.

[GI_Rutger]

What I&#39;d like to see in OFP2:
- In OFP1, each civilian is innocent. Maybe they can set in OFP2 some collaborators and resistance civilians. For example: You, a escaped POW, runs to a civilian for help, but the civilian runs to the telephone and calls the Russians.
- Not that kind of promotions like in CWC. You know, when Dave Armstrong was a grunt, het was private, half a year later he&#39;s luitenant&#33; That&#39;s impossible&#33;
- No missions were you can gun down (for example:) twenty russian soldiers and 2 BMP&#39;s, with 6 guys with AK&#39;s and one RPG.
- When you make an quite good mission in the OFP1 editor, an original firefight, the mission will be completed in 15 minutes.Maybe they can make in OFP2 missions were you stand in front of the enemy trenches, but you can&#39;t attack, like in real times combats like Bastogne/WW1.
- In OFP1 there were 5 helikopters, 20 trucks and a few Abrams for each company soldiers, that&#39;s unrealistic. And in OFP1 there&#39;s always a BMP/Tank in the village you have to seize.
- A medical kit, which you can pick up (if you&#39;re a medic), and use it, although by three soldiers. You cannot heal a soldier which is heavy wounded.

I&#39;d like to see it at an other point. I&#39;d like to see this kinda battle. Here&#39;s my example, I hope one mission in OFP2 will be kinda this:

You, a sergeant, are the platoon leader of the 2nd Platoon. Your battalion leader, some stupid Major, wants you to take a small town, it&#39;s called X. In X there are 20 Russians, with no armoured support but with a mortar. The best way (the most unexpected), is to cross the river and attack the Russians in the night. That night, 7 boats cross the river, filled with men of your platoon. Your men crosses the river silently, and take there positions. But the Russians spotted your men and are opening fire with an PK, from a window in a flat. Nailed to the ground, your men can&#39;t do anything. Two MAGs at the othere side of the river are giving support, but they don&#39;t shoot all the RUssians in 1 minute. After a minute you and your men have to retreat, hunted to the death by mortars, AK&#39;s, and PK&#39;s of the Russian.
When you put this mission in Resistance, 10 or 15 men of your platoon would be death. In OFP2, there have to be 2 men death, 2 wounded.

Sounds good?
ps. sorry for my bad english, I&#39;m Dutch.

[SpecOp9]

I think it would be cool to walk around base and ask various commanders what jobs they have for you. And you can accept if you want, or no.

[Korpisoturi]

That wouldn&#39;t be realistic  ;)

A soldier cant do what he wants...
Yes, but in SPECOPS missions more ability to choose would be good. I think that next instructions shouldn&#39;t come after you have breached perimeter in one way, but after you just have reached the perimeter. Kinda style:you will receive further orders after you have breached Line Alpha, not after you have reached point Fa50. Also, collaborator civilians would be cool.

[IceFire]

I have an idea as how to design a dynamic campaign.

The player would have to act as both General, Soldier, and basically the general designer of the whole campaign.

Basically at the beginning of the game, the player would be informed as to how many total troops, tanks, choppers, crew, special operations units, boats, and other vehicles he has available for total for the entire campaign, and where on the island(or wherever) they are positioned. And a figure of how many units the enemy has and where on the island they are.

Before the first mission, the player would have to decide what to do first. He would most likely spot the closest and most vulnerable, or perhaps most valuable enemy defense and decide how to attack it. He would have to determine how much of his forces(troops, tanks etc) to send in and in a large scale .. what troop/tank/ chopper formation. That meaning where will the different platoons attack from, from where and when will the tanks and choppers strike. Once all the major planning for the mission is complete, the player would then actually start the mission.

In the mission, the player would have the opportunity to play one of the squad leaders in the battle. How well the mission goes would depend on how well he planned it out. Did he use choppers? Are there enemy Anti Air systems in the area?

After that mission, he would recieve 2 mission complete reports. One for the player as the soldier who was fighting, and one for player as the general who planned out the mission. This would be something like how many of his troops died, how many are left in the area, how many enemies were killed. He would also be updated if the enemy is reported to be planning a counter attack or if during the mission YOU played the enemy already attacked another base of yours, and in how much troop strength the enemy might be planning to use etc...

Then the player would plan out what he wants to do next. Where to move more troops, again like before the first mission.

In the end it would be up to the player to use what he has wisely to acheive the objective and win the game.

Basically this would work like a turn based strategy game, something like "Lords of the realm". But using a large zoomable map to plan out the "mission" portions of the game where the action actually take place.

Nothing happens except for during the missions when the player is actually out in the field.

The game AI would actually have to determine how to react to your own actions. It would have to calculate and "plan agianst the player". It would plan out it&#39;s own actions during the same time the player is planning out his own.

I think this form of a game would have alot of possibility. The actual missions would still be from the same perspective as OPF is now. You would play as the same squad leader or tank/chopper man as you can now. But you would have the opportunity to plan out the whole campaign and how and where you want to attack, and using which forces.

The bad part about this whole system is that there could not be alot of scripted/cut scene moments in a game like this.

What do you all think?

[Friedchiken]

awsome idea but the best thing would be to make mod support be able to do this. I hope BIS doens&#39;t lose track of whatever their original plans were.

But hey, I don&#39;t call the shots. And a campaign like that would be the best turn-based game ever&#33;

[IceFire]

Thanks, but it wouln&#39;t REALLY be turn based, but kinda.

Basically it would work like this. You(general) would choose where you want to move troops and what other actions you want to take during the next mission.

Then you would get to choose who you want to play during the next turn. Any other action that you wanted to do on that turn would not be witnessed by you. You would hear about it when the mission is over.

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX]

...that is turn based.

[IceFire]

...that is turn based.
Ok, fine.

[SnypaUK]

Quote[/b] ]You, a sergeant, are the platoon leader of the 2nd Platoon. Your battalion leader, some stupid Major, wants you to take a small town, it&#39;s called X. In X there are 20 Russians, with no armoured support but with a mortar. The best way (the most unexpected), is to cross the river and attack the Russians in the night. That night, 7 boats cross the river, filled with men of your platoon. Your men crosses the river silently, and take there positions. But the Russians spotted your men and are opening fire with an PK, from a window in a flat. Nailed to the ground, your men can&#39;t do anything. Two MAGs at the othere side of the river are giving support, but they don&#39;t shoot all the RUssians in 1 minute. After a minute you and your men have to retreat, hunted to the death by mortars, AK&#39;s, and PK&#39;s of the Russian.
When you put this mission in Resistance, 10 or 15 men of your platoon would be death. In OFP2, there have to be 2 men death, 2 wounded.

I think what this due is saying is that firefights should be more drawn out with lots of lead flying around but not everyone dead in a minute of fire unless its an ambush of course.

[SnypaUK]

I think that the best idea for high level command is up to company or battalion level at most. We do not want to turn this into a RTS game. For high level command to work individual squads need more initiative. taking cover and adopting the correct formations for situations. as well as handling MOUT and FISH all in their own initiative

[TheManWithManyIdeas]

I have an idea as how to design a dynamic campaign.

The player would have to act as both General, Soldier, and basically the general designer of the whole campaign.  

Basically at the beginning of the game, the player would be informed as to how many total troops, tanks, choppers, crew, special operations units, boats, and other vehicles he has available for total for the entire campaign, and where on the island(or wherever) they are positioned.  And a figure of how many units the enemy has and where on the island they are.

Before the first mission, the player would have to decide what to do first.  He would most likely spot the closest and most vulnerable, or perhaps most valuable enemy defense and decide how to attack it.   He would have to determine how much of his forces(troops, tanks etc) to send in and in a large scale .. what troop/tank/ chopper formation.  That meaning where will the different platoons attack from, from where and when will the tanks and choppers strike.    Once all the major planning for the mission is complete, the player would then actually start the mission.

In the mission, the player would have the opportunity to play one of the squad leaders in the battle.    How well the mission goes would depend on how well he planned it out.  Did he use choppers?  Are there enemy Anti Air systems in the area?

After that mission, he would recieve 2 mission complete reports.  One for the player as the soldier who was fighting, and one for player as the general who planned out the mission.  This would be something like how many of his troops died, how many are left in the area, how many enemies were killed.  He would also be updated if the enemy is reported to be planning a counter attack or if during the mission YOU played the enemy already attacked another base of yours, and in how much troop strength the enemy might be planning to use etc...

Then the player would plan out what he wants to do next.  Where to move more troops, again like before the first mission.

In the end it would be up to the player to use what he has wisely to acheive the objective and win the game.

Basically this would work like a turn based strategy game, something like "Lords of the realm".  But using a large zoomable map to plan out the "mission" portions of the game where the action actually take place.

Nothing happens except for during the missions when the player is actually out in the field.  

The game AI would actually have to determine how to react to your own actions.  It would have to calculate and "plan agianst the player".  It would plan out it&#39;s own actions during  the same time the player is planning out his own.  

I think this form of a game would have alot of possibility.  The actual missions would still be from the same perspective as OPF is now.  You would play as the same squad leader or tank/chopper man as you can now.   But you would have the opportunity to plan out the whole campaign and how and where you want to attack, and using which forces.

The bad part about this whole system is that there could not be alot of scripted/cut scene moments in a game like this.

What do you all think?

Quote[/b] ]The player would have to act as both General, Soldier, and basically the general designer of the whole campaign.

Sounds like an attractive idea. However is scraps 2 equally good ones.

1) Rank climbing scrapped
2) Some people like to play as just a grunt.

[IceFire]

Yes, rank climbing would definitely be scrapped.

But as for playing as a grunt, when you decide to go into the mission, you pick the officer/characted you play as. You can still move around and shoot/be shot at.

Best thing to do is to pick a unit that has critical importance when you go to the action phase. Whether that be an officer leading the attack, a sniper taking out some enemies, a specs ops soldier doing recon or sabatoge.

Whatever you decide to do on the mission.

[SnypaUK]

More Mindless assault missions ive decided. With lots of tanks and helicopters whinging around. perhaps you could have an entire city being taken block by block if enough power is on your computer

[skynet]

Sounds like fun, but then u will need new parts for the computer every time u play that particular mission http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge_o.gif

[kazi]

Campaign - 1970s "Asia" - South Asia

Gurrela "Freedom Fighters"
Enemy "Army and Air Force"


there should be battle. you are the lead of a squad, taking the assualt in Gurrela Effort to stop the Bombing of your headquarters and supply depots. It will be a full on assualt on the airfield, from all sides, the enemy is stiff, and is well equipped with tanks and helicopters.

Destroy Everything, except the the supply helicopters and save at least 4 attack telicopters and 3 planes.

The Gurellas would have "AK47s, SLR, .303 Rifles, Lee Enfield, Sten Guns, Bren Guns and RPGs.
"and 2 allied squads with 2 tanks (Heavy Armour)"
2 Cannons fire onto the airfield simutaniously, when you call in them, 4 shots each.
1 allied Fighter plane does a carpet bombing once, and leaves
when you call him in

The Enemy would have "AK47s, M16, Bren Gun, Sten Gun, SLR, Tracer Rifles, Pistol, 6 Heavy Tanks, 2 AA Guns (Mounted), 3 Machine Guns Mounted, 1 Sniper (Normal)
RPGs and LAWS, 12 Jet Fighters, 12 Attack Helicopters, 6 Supply Helicopters.

Approx 300 Gurellas including Allied Squads

Approx 250 Enemy Soldiers

[SnypaUK]

More of the firefights that we see in OFP and resistance and less infiltration B*******

[firedrake]

Everybody should see the film the Thin Red Line, nobody gets a choice of what, when, who and where. Can&#39;t we go around them, you been ordered to take the hill Captain&#33;

Thats war&#33; http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif

[Heatseeker]

Wathever the missions may be we definetly need the russia vs nato concept for the two equaly powerfull and balanced sides.
the invasion of some country, we could be part of the "preparation" team prior to invasion, sabotaging structures, gathering intel, assassination of politics, etc.

Then the big invasion, air raids on specific areas, marine insertions, tanks and infantry deploymant in the territory, capturing key points, establishing bases at strategic locations, capture and/or assassinate politicians, etc.

Small groups of civilian refugees escape into the most remote areas of the territory, nato starts getting involved, special forces operatives are sent into the territory and start doing recon of the area, training civilians to form a small resistance group, study the area and the best aproaches to invade the territory, satelites are diverted, preparation for the liberation begans.

Retaking the territory, nato launches a full air, ground and sea operation to counter the invasion forces, air force and navy air units start atacking enemy bases and get involved in intense dog fights with the russian migs.

Armor and infantry assaults, paratroopers, navy special forces start to engage the enemy. Refugee camps are established to assist the population while the intense combats take place... etc http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge_o.gif

We need OPF2 to be like the first one but bigger and more realistic, full scale war, all military branches, and i dont know about you guys but i want to be there where it happens, i dont want any RTS stuff with troop management and factorys and mines lol. I want missions where we grab the rifle or comand the troops in the field, to be pilot, crew, infantry, special op. etc. Drop the enemy flag, run in the jungle, be in the midle of a realistic full scale war.
If it were to make a strategy game ala C&C it should never be called OPF2 http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif .


edit: oh yeah, if bis would have to focus the game on both strategy and in combat sides neither of them would be good enough has it would require too much work and development not only in mission/campaign design but also units and models that are of the same quality of what addon makers provide these days not to mention engine upgrades, gameplay, etc...

[Sputnik Monroe]

Personally my dream game would be a combination of the Enemy Engaged series and flashpoint. I can see where a lot of people would rather play a scripted campaign for the story though.

Right now we have 3 modes of play: Single Mission, campaign, and Multiplayer. I think the solution is simple, add dynamic campaign as a 4th mode of play. Everyone gets what they want then. The game still has single missions and the 3 scripted campaigns plus a dynamic campaign generator.

I honestly think a dynamic campaign would raise the lifespan of the game to near infinite. A dynamic campaign would send the replay factor into the heavens.

The real question is how do you use addons in a dynamic campaign. Following is my theory for implementing user made addons into your campaign.

Now as for the formations in the campaign if at the start you could edit them. For example the campaign your on has 20 enemy formations on the island, 5 of which are Motorized Infantry equiped with BMPs,BRDMs,Urals,and UAZs. Well when you start your campaign you can select one of the formations and it brings up a list of the vehicles and troops in that group. When you look through the list you can substitute out units for other units of the same class. So for example, you could swap out one or all of the BMPs in the selected formation with that shiny BTR80 you just downloaded.

I hope I made sense.

[ArchangelSKT]

In extending the ideas around the mission editor dynamic campaign thing I would like someting like :

you either chose or get a random set of objectives ( nr is decided by player ) then you chose a specific geographical area to which all objectives are randomly scattered within .

In other words you don`t know where the action will take place , you only set your starting point outside the chosen area and may leave a " buffer " zone in between if one wishes for safer travel http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif at least for a while http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif

Oh I`d love to see that , I`d have the game on my HD forever http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif .

[GI_Rutger]

In the second episode of Band Of Brothers, Easy has to take out a few 105mm cannons. BIS has to make this kinda missions:

You&#39;re a airborne sergeant. American troops invaded Nogova, and you&#39;re getting orders to take out a few mortars. Grab some men and equipment, &#39;steal&#39; a truck and take out those mortars. No air/airmored support, you&#39;re just a simple element in the big invasion.

[kazi]

Do Missions on the "Falklands War" bascially based in the same era as the origianl game, in 1982.

Britain vs Argentina

Argentina captures the islands, and the british troops on the island are forced to surrender, and put on an unknown part of the main island.

The British Forces then go to islands and the argentinians unleash the first assualt by air, then sea, then land.

[GI_Rutger]

No, the Falklands scenario looks pretty much the same as the CWC one. The OFP2 campaign has to be different. It would be cool if you are a terrorist/guerilla and you have to attack the Russians at all the possible ways: by sniping officers, blowing up convoys.

[Coins]

I&#39;m sure if they made the logistics behind warfare more realistic (food, water, heating, healing, ammo, maintenance, fuel), we wouldn&#39;t have to bother scripting missions for protecting these targets because they&#39;ll actually have some importance for the defenders, for the AI and humans.
Do you notice we have barrels to represent fuel and water yet they have no use in the game? If we had to lug around a couple barrels each time we move camp, then it would make sense to keep the barrels together for protection and convenience and it would make sense for the enemy to want to destroy them.
Do you notice how when you get seriously injured, a field medic can heal you to 100% full health? If you are seriously injured, you should be air-lifted or transported to a field tent for surgery to get back to 100% health.
Do you notice how we have to either script people to stand around a campfire or make it an objective to approach a campfire? Do you notice how we can read maps in pitch dark in the middle of a forest without light? Soldiers should have to start a campfire every so often to warm up their joints and cook their food.
Do you notice how we never have to change or carry a spare tire? Or need extra parts to fix or salvage a boat?

If we make logistics more realistic, one simple mission can become very dynamic very fast.

[Phleep]

I&#39;m sure if they made the logistics behind warfare more realistic (food, water, heating, healing, ammo, maintenance, fuel), we blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah one simple mission can become very dynamic very fast.
Having a game mode which includes logistics may be a little more pleasant than having it forced upon everyone who plays the game. Maybe the dynamic campaign mode suggested above could use it.

Possibly being a background commander coordinating troop activities at certain points on the map. Maybe a turn based multiplayer system similar to the boardgame RISK or Rise of Nations where you choose to assault certain towns alternately and it zooms in for the combat using appropriate resources. Maybe you can choose to be personally involved but risk dying and losing the game entirely.

Possibly a little too far off track for BIS but when logistics are introduced in such detail anyway it takes your mind too far off the primary theme of the game.

[Coins]

Yes, logistics should be optional. And the need for food, water, heating and maintenance shouldn&#39;t be too intense, and should have no effect on the performance of the soldier or vehicle unless at critically low levels. This way it&#39;s not worrying to a soldier unless it&#39;s quite obvious that he hasn&#39;t brought his canteen or a snack or he is on a cold mountaintop.

What it will do though, is give a soldier a reason to go to the local bar, start a campfire, do something in a base besides guarding it, get evacuated (if dehydrated, starved, hypothermic, critically injured), go hunting or foraging, build a shelter or return to base for replenishments.

With compartmental damage (if it&#39;s included), a pilot might want to look over his chopper to check if it&#39;s properly maintained, and if it&#39;s not, the helicopter might have to make an unexpected detour. Hangars might actually be used for something besides hiding.

[Albert Schweitzer]

Make a battle of WWII. I suggest the battle of Monte Casino. GREAT HISTORICAL POTENTIAL and GREAT ACTION POTENTIAL. Not to think about the Intro. All that happened during the battle can easily used in OFP2&#33; Bu I guess happened too long ago

[Korpisoturi]

I heard it&#39;s set in Vietnam. I want to see these type of missions:

1)Bombing jungles with napalm.
2)LRRP
3)Helicopters.
4)River Patrol

[bmargb]

We should have real soldier life coming through, not, okay we&#39;re on Everon, let&#39;s take morton then montignac then the area is secure, oh no it isn&#39;t the Ruskies just camcreated a hind. Let&#39;s spend more time on islands, so you get to know them, and make friends with civvies while doing checkpoint duty. Let&#39;s also have an island where the resistance is working against you, you have to do patrols through sniper towns and bascially live the life of a UN soldier in Kosovo or a British soldier in Northern Ireland, where you are despised, but are trying to help.
It could be a great idea. I think that OFP2 should be a total soldier simulation.

[m21man]

Quote[/b] ]I heard it&#39;s set in Vietnam.
It&#39;s taking place in multiple areas, and it&#39;s modern. So no Vietnam War missions.


Quote[/b] ]Make a battle of WWII.
Good idea, but that&#39;s a job for a mod. How many WWII mods are out there? I&#39;m sure one could do a Monte Casino mission/mini-campaign.

[GI_Rutger]

Then the big invasion, air raids on specific areas, marine insertions, tanks and infantry deploymant in the territory, capturing key points, establishing bases at strategic locations, capture and/or assassinate politicians, etc.
If you have multiple campaigns, it would be cool if you have a full scale war campaign (a la CWC), a forgotten war campaign (like Resistance), and a peacekeeping campaign. The peacekeeping campaign would be cool: roadblocks, patrols, etc. But when you go on patrol in OFP1 you can bet your rolex on the fact that youre patrol is getting ambushed or sees anything suspicious. In a OFP2 peacekeeping mission, you patrol in the city, talk to some civi&#39;s etc.

[Kuja-]

I&#39;m surprised noone has mentioned Falcon 4 - it has a wholly dynamic campaign engine, and models factors such as experience, fatigue, fuel, ammunition, electricity, transport networks, airfield status, C3 networks and so on.  Not only does it model the war, but the tasking engine orchestrates both sides of the battle to the unit level so that they have macro/micro objectives and fight the war in an intelligent way. It is possible to give individual units orders or edit their tasking to achieve specific objectives. The 2D/simulated war is continued into the 3D gamespace so the units you see fighting on the 2D map are the ones you see fighting as you fly over in 3D.

IL2&#39;s dynamic engine is frankly a piece of shit.  It is simplistic to the point where it essentially chooses a type of unit, a local spawn point, and makes you go after it, with progression occuring when you achieve a fixed number of kills or sorties.  A less-than-dynamic mission generator, really.

To see a dynamic engine of the calibre of F4 in OFP would be amazing.  It is much preferable to a linear campaign, in terms of realism and replayability.

[Gollum1]

We should have real soldier life coming through, not, okay we&#39;re on Everon, let&#39;s take morton then montignac then the area is secure, oh no it isn&#39;t the Ruskies just camcreated a hind. Let&#39;s spend more time on islands, so you get to know them, and make friends with civvies while doing checkpoint duty. Let&#39;s also have an island where the resistance is working against you, you have to do patrols through sniper towns and bascially live the life of a UN soldier in Kosovo or a British soldier in Northern Ireland, where you are despised, but are trying to help.
It could be a great idea. I think that OFP2 should be a total soldier simulation.
Of course this would be the ideal campaign for us OFP fans, but I&#39;m afraid making friends with civilians and being ambushed by 5 guys every third mission wouldn&#39;t sell as much as an all-out war campaign, I think. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif

[Heatseeker]

I would like OPF2 to be more like VBS1 (i guess...), with small campaigns focused around real life operations, more realism&#33;&#33;&#33;
We could have small 5/6 mission campaigns/scenarios focused on delivering a complex and realistic representation of diferent combat situations, that would be perfect for me.
The resistance campaign didnt do justice to this so called realistic simulation engine and was infact very bad.
I would gladly prefer to have 15 semirealistic missions like "Ambush" for example than a unrealistic campaign with bad plot, bad characters with strange voice acting and bad rambo missions, please make it more interesting than an ordinary "action" game.
No more red hammer/resistance action stuff please http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif .

[BoweryBaker]

Just make the missions seem more like there is a real war going on meaning more ambience. More of driving through a town and seeing destroyed vehicles, dead bodies, thumbs up, stuff like that. The battle ambience noises in flashpoint were cheap and not high quality so improve those to sound like a real war. Make more scripted events like choppers coming in blowing stuff up, stuff like that while you&#39;re a soldier. Make it seem like a real war is actually happening everywhere around you and the fate of the world doesn&#39;t just rest on the hands of twelve people unless its some type of special operation but this is conventional warfare that is going on in flashpoint mostly. You can&#39;t hear radio signals directly in your ear unless your a BAS unit but you guys had that going on for normal infantry. Infantry commands should be directed from the commanders mouth, not a radio, and if he&#39;s using a radio he should have it pulled out and up to his mouth, likewise with pulling out a map. Thats another topic though, but the missions should be more of a total war simulation like its been said before. All of soldier duties. Lets see just about every job the military has played out in flashpoint.

[Friedchiken]

Maybe it would be interesting for consumers if OFP2 was designed like a "training-lite sim" like the Metal Gear VR stand-alone game.

Players would play stand-alone training-style scenarios like forest patrols or tactically-engaging battles (if rare in the real world).

I think OFP2 would be more engaging as a consumer military sim if it had a shorter-more focused campaign with a variety of stand-alone missions that challenge the player in a variety of tactical situations like how armies give mock scenarios to their officers to try out new strategies or to retrain officers.

Someone somewhere said that "fiction is life with the boring parts left out."  Even though ofp&#39;s campaign arguably fit that matra, more people discuss the merits of a standalone mission like Ambush than any mission in the original campaign.

I think 1/3 of the game should be the campaign while 2/3 should be composed of single missions.

This also makes sense from a developer&#39;s point of view.  It&#39;s easier psychologically to scrap an unfinished single mission than to sloppily finish an unfinished campaign in the event that time runs short and the publishers are breathing down the mission maker&#39;s back.
------------------------------------
Another the option is to make many mini-campaigns focusing one long "mission" each.

[funnyguy1]

It`ll be great to add the trainning campaign,
Not only in game first mission teaching you where your HP bar is situated, but like in VBS, the basic military training system, that every private must pass. It`ll be also a "super" value of the game, because you`ll have BASIC military training without leaving your room ;)

Maybe spec op training too http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/unclesam.gif ?

Like "driver-factory" mode in NeedForSpeed.

sorry for bad English (as usually http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge_o.gif )

[Friedchiken]

While OFP2 will be made as a "game" in mind, how about having some "simulation" type single missions just to entertain some of the more hobbiest gamers that will buy the game?

[BoweryBaker]

I&#39;m definitely a hobbiest. I never play single player because i feel its not real enough. the commands come over a radio that everyone owns, and if you&#39;re near the enemy and your radio goes off he doesn&#39;t hear it. That&#39;s poor to me so for more realism i often only play missions with people, co op. Everything else just isn&#39;t realistic to me and thats what i crave, realism. I figure if i get good enough ill be a really good military mind, but thats not going to hurt anybody. I don&#39;t have a militia or an army or anything and even if I&#39;m too fat to be a super soldier, but i&#39;d feel more happy about myself if i had this fictional world with all real world features that enabled me to save the world under realistic circumstances and challenges. Certain factors that affect a person will never be in a game though. That&#39;s why i play these games, just to know that hey if i really tried hard i could be a good guy. I was born with asthma so i can&#39;t just join the army to get my chance so ofp is a dream come true. Tissues by the door.

[funnyguy1]

Here Is what I think.

1. Ofp was/is just a GAME, and some ppl bought it just for stuff like "red hammer/resistance"...
I love It, evil russian general - guba, Viktor Trosk - ex spec op things. It`s just a game with more or less realistic plot.

It`s also quite realistic game. I think resistance, heroes, and stuff is very nice. It make`s the game , let`s say, less real (in the good way).

There`s also a bunch of guys who like ofp just for it`s realism, and who didn`t care about the plot.

What we`re trying to do, here on this forums, is to make ofp2 closer to VBS1, i mean all those realism things, real missions and so on.

The best solution is imho to make campaign, with fictional plot, with all this "resistance/red hammer" stuff, and to satisfy all those hardcore guys who just adore the realism, simply create the military training campaign (as I said earlier), the real-war campaign or enlarge number of the "single missions" in game, simulating the real-war operations.

To assume:

2 campaigns:

a) fictional game campaign (not quite real, for players who didn`t care about campaign realism)

b) real-war operations campaign (for others; like me)
or more of the single player missions simulating the real-war

+ the basic military training:) (well, it`ll must be realistic)

regards

Just make the missions seem more like there is a real war going on meaning more ambience.  More of driving through a town and seeing destroyed vehicles, dead bodies, thumbs up, stuff like that.  The battle ambience noises in flashpoint were cheap and not high quality so improve those to sound like a real war.
It would be cool, if you could see the flashes on the horizon at night, just like in Band of Brothers. For example: you and your squad are riding with a hummer, getting closer to the battlefield. The closer you get, the louder the explosions get.

[Joker621]

dear Sirs,
just few ideas for OFP2. I don&#39;t know if them have already been considered, so excuse me.

1. It&#39;s better few stunning units/weapons/vehicles rather several units/weapons/vehicles
with standard details/textures/realism. This is true expecially for OPFOR (RED) side, always
undervalued.

2. Same thing for islands: better one or two islands very accurate, with seasoned textures,
etc. Can be good permit an editor option to "populate" cities and villages with civilians
and their activities (even here, it&#39;s better few men/women/cars/bus/etc. moving in real life
activities).

3. It&#39;s better to maintain OFP2 a combat simulation. I&#39;ve read someone requesting recruitment,
training, carrer, &#39;love letters&#39; and so. My little opinion is these features require time
(time that programmers can dedicate to improve the simulation&#39;s core).
Still, with time, the player want to by-pass these features to get quickly in combat.

Now, You understand my english is poor, so my scripts language knowledge, as many peoples.
For this reason

IT&#39;S NECESSARY TO IMPROVE MISSION EDITOR

4. waypoint action. i.e.: at WP 02 I&#39;d like embark my group on bmp. When I create that WP
for my group and select "get in", a message could ask me to select the vehicle where embark
my group. Just a simple &#39;click&#39; on this vehicle and all is done. Same thing for aircrafts,
units, etc. Make missions in this way is very easy (not more scripts).

5. unit property. i.e.: when I create any unit, a new scroll list could be availaible to
select action, body position, etc., (not more scripts).

6. IT&#39;S NECESSARY TO IMPROVE SUPPORT/REINFORCEMENT LOGIC. i.e.: I&#39;d like to create some units
to reinforce my group. I could create one platoon, two APCs and one chopper, placing them
at my HQ. During the mission, if I will need some help, just a &#39;support&#39; radio request, a
&#39;click&#39; on the map to locate where send support, and HQ AI will send suitable unit from that
available (could be APCs, or platoon).
Same concept can be applied to AI forces.
In this way, who makes the mission must just create some units at HQ. Will be AI to send
them as reinforce when necessary (not more scritps, activations, sensors, etc.).
Don&#39;t worry. All variables will be always present for skilled users, but novice will make
their own handsome mission in easy way.

7. It&#39;s necessary improve buildings concepts. Even here, it&#39;s better few stunning building
models, rather bad/inaccessible buildings. Not more bodies jutting through walls. All buildings
must be accessible. All building must be destroyed a bit for time. Please, see film library
of recent conflicts.

I hope that can help OFP2 programmers to maintain a very high standard in their products.
Best regards.

[Silver Falcon]

I would like to add link to informative (sticky) thread on Flashpoint/Editing and scripting:
http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....y667780 (http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard311/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=7;t=44110;st=0;&#entry667780)

It contains wery useful information or links to sources. These are Field manuals an so on. This thread is made to give mission editors good informations needed to make realistic missions, briefings and so on. I think it could be useful for OFP2 too - at first for suggestors and at second for BIS mission makers too (perhaps for AI too as it contain manouvers and tactics).

[Superskunk]

How about a condition level for every human.

We know in ofp a human can get injured, and can die. When you are injured, your aim gets worse. Also when you run a while, and start breathing louder...you aim is worse, untill you have rested enough.

Perfect system, but it could have more improvements, like:
WHen you are a trained soldier you have condition 60 (for example) ... a terrorist or rebel, might be trained littlebit less, so he gets 40-50 condition points. A civilian gets only 20-30 condition points. And special-forces may get even higher points for condition as 60.

The condition points affect the time they can run in straight line, without rest. In ofp, a civilian, with m16 armed, could run same speed, same length, as a trained soldier which isnt the way it is in real life. Ofcourse a soldier has more equipment..but still.
So a civilian should get tired much sooner then a soldier.

Im not sure this will be an improvement or, just irritating for players...but i believe it is a bit more realistic&#33; http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/xmas_o.gif

[Albert Schweitzer]

Just make the missions seem more like there is a real war going on meaning more ambience.  More of driving through a town and seeing destroyed vehicles, dead bodies, thumbs up, stuff like that.  The battle ambience noises in flashpoint were cheap and not high quality so improve those to sound like a real war.
It would be cool, if you could see the flashes on the horizon at night, just like in Band of Brothers. For example: you and your squad are riding with a hummer, getting closer to the battlefield. The closer you get, the louder the explosions get.
Sounds too much like WWII. The rigidity of the frontline and combat zones have decreased since then.

[funkster]

Funnyguy, I think you have some good points.
We all want realism, and CWC was close, but when you think about it, if you REALLY want the experience of a soldier, from what Ive read, &#39;war is 99% bordem and 1% terror&#39;&#33;

Frankly, most of the time would have you doing guard duty where nothing happens, you might be there for eight hours, and all you do is let a few people in the gate, never once raising your rifle. And then later on, if you&#39;ve been bad, maybe you&#39;d get a mission where the objective is &#39;clean the toilet block&#39;, yay&#33;

Would a game like this sell? Somehow, I doubt it.

CWC came as close as any game to being realistic, ie, there are long periods without enemy contact, just patrolling etc, and at first this is fine, as one marvels at the ambience of the game and the virtual world BIS has created. But after a while, periods of nothing become quite boring once you feel you know the gameworld.
I think this is great that BIS created a fairly realistic depiction of the soldiers experience, but lets face it, most people do not want to play a mission where there is half an hour of patrolling without enemy contact, maybe a breif firefight, and then another half hour of nothing. Personally, I do.
I think, like funnyguy said, the best option is to have two campaigns, or two play modes. Maybe &#39;realistic&#39; and &#39;action&#39;.

In actions mode, you would know that every mission is going to contain, well, action.
In realistic mode, you may spend forty minutes out doing a patrol and never see an enemy and then come home mission completed.
What would REALLY up the suspence though, is if enemy patrols were realistically placed. Eg, you&#39;re out in the forest, maybe 10kms or more from the nearest enemy base, but you still happen to run into an enemy patrol, in this way, you could never let your guard down knowing that, just as in real life, an enemy may be anywhere. In Resistance esp., you knew you could totally relax, and not have to even bother taking cover or scanning around, because you would only ever encounter an enemy patrol within 300m of an enemy base - too easy.

Anyway, like all of you, I want more realism, but this must be balanced with exitement, because their needs to be a way to sell copies to the masses, unfortunately&#33;
TWO DIFFERENT PLAY MODES/ OR CAMPAIGNS PLS BIS&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;

PS, Hi people, first post, been hanging out at Codie&#39;s forums. Might start hanging where the real OFP2 lives now&#33;

[OFPDude]

funkster wrote

Quote[/b] ]&#39;war is 99% bordem and 1% terror&#39;&#33;

Hmm.....your wars involve dominoes and your grandad ??

I think you got it the wrong way round war is 99% terror/fear and 1% bordem.

http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/icon_rolleyes.gif

[Friedchiken]

Funnyguy, I think you have some good points.
We all want realism, and CWC was close, but when you think about it, if you REALLY want the experience of a soldier, from what Ive read, &#39;war is 99% bordem and 1% terror&#39;&#33;

Frankly, most of the time would have you doing guard duty where nothing happens, you might be there for eight hours, and all you do is let a few people in the gate, never once raising your rifle. And then later on, if you&#39;ve been bad, maybe you&#39;d get a mission where the objective is &#39;clean the toilet block&#39;, yay&#33;

Would a game like this sell? Somehow, I doubt it.

CWC came as close as any game to being realistic, ie, there are long periods without enemy contact, just patrolling etc, and at first this is fine, as one marvels at the ambience of the game and the virtual world BIS has created. But after a while, periods of nothing become quite boring once you feel you know the gameworld.
I think this is great that BIS created a fairly realistic depiction of the soldiers experience, but lets face it, most people do not want to play a mission where there is half an hour of patrolling without enemy contact, maybe a breif firefight, and then another half hour of nothing. Personally, I do.
I think, like funnyguy said, the best option is to have two campaigns, or two play modes. Maybe &#39;realistic&#39; and &#39;action&#39;.

In actions mode, you would know that every mission is going to contain, well, action.
In realistic mode, you may spend forty minutes out doing a patrol and never see an enemy and then come home mission completed.
What would REALLY up the suspence though, is if enemy patrols were realistically placed. Eg, you&#39;re out in the forest, maybe 10kms or more from the nearest enemy base, but you still happen to run into an enemy patrol, in this way, you could never let your guard down knowing that, just as in real life, an enemy may be anywhere. In Resistance esp., you knew you could totally relax, and not have to even bother taking cover or scanning around, because you would only ever encounter an enemy patrol within 300m of an enemy base - too easy.

Anyway, like all of you, I want more realism, but this must be balanced with exitement, because their needs to be a way to sell copies to the masses, unfortunately&#33;
TWO DIFFERENT PLAY MODES/ OR CAMPAIGNS PLS BIS&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;

PS, Hi people, first post, been hanging out at Codie&#39;s forums. Might start hanging where the real OFP2 lives now&#33;
I think someone of significance said that "drama is life with the boring parts cut out." Why not give the player the option to place an AI character to do the boring things like march or stand guard as the time scrolls by in an instant?

I think that the game Vietcong had one of the best balances of realism with drama as you controlled your character on all the "exciting" missions while you also had the option of reading about his less fun (but darkly humorous) experiences in his memory book.
(like getting severe swamp foot, patrolling an abandoned sector, getting pissed at the allied indigenous troops, standing in gaurd duty).

In the campaign, you could have a 2d map where you could issue marching plans (optional by difficulty toggle), or other tactical actions that don&#39;t involve contact. I&#39;m thinking something like Jagged Alliance&#39;s camp management map along with an auto-walk system like in Fallout&#39;s world map.
In this map you could do things like arrange an humanitarian aid convoy, train indigenous troops, get an interpretor for villiage elders. Then the game generates the calculations for getting into contact and then a message pops up saying "PFC White: sir, I see someone" or "*contact: ambush*". You take control and investigate. It doesn&#39;t need to be the enemy either and you would need to confirm things before you blow away friendlies or civilians with artillery fire.

Keep in mind that this feature is an option and some people might want to experience all the waiting. But many RPGs allow you to set a time to wait with and interrupt you when an enemy crashes your rest.

In a way, I think it would be cool to handle decision-making like in Jagged Alliance 2 where you can do non-combat activities by making turn-based style menu decisions. (training police/rebels, or negotiating with local leaders)

Then we could have single missions that parody the boring things soldiers do like mow the lawn or man a checkpoint kiosk. I think tossing in a Military Police joke would be funny, if irreverent.

(I guess these ideas apply more for a US Army Special Forces style campaign where non-military activities have everything to do with the war at hand.)

[DracoPaladore]

I&#39;d like to see more combat patrols or recons that straight out assaults. Meaning your squad moves to a certain sector to secure it, check for enemy, or hold a position until reinforcements arrive. Enemies could be randomly or in set locations to ambush or counterattack depending on what you&#39;re doing.

I&#39;d also like to see a larger role in the vehicles, like tanks and aircraft. While they were there, I wish they could be more fluid with the infantry and not clunking around the small village your assaulting on its own (doing its usual spin-move-spin-spin-move stupid duck maneuver) while the infantry are still crawling on their bellies towards the edge under heavy fire from a group of guys still lying prone even after the tank rolled right by them.

[The Frenchman]

As far as missions go, I would like at least one checkpoint guarding mission. It would be something similar to the checkpoint mission in the 1969 Vietnam campaign by Spanky G. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[Friedchiken]

I&#39;d like to see more combat patrols or recons that straight out assaults. Meaning your squad moves to a certain sector to secure it, check for enemy, or hold a position until reinforcements arrive. Enemies could be randomly or in set locations to ambush or counterattack depending on what you&#39;re doing.

I&#39;d also like to see a larger role in the vehicles, like tanks and aircraft. While they were there, I wish they could be more fluid with the infantry and not clunking around the small village your assaulting on its own (doing its usual spin-move-spin-spin-move stupid duck maneuver) while the infantry are still crawling on their bellies towards the edge under heavy fire from a group of guys still lying prone even after the tank rolled right by them.
Patrols and cache raids were authentically depicted in that old game "Seal Team" (1993) by Electronic Arts.

While the enemy at first were just VC irregulars, you needed stealth and weapons discipline in order to overcome your lack of numbers and ammo. Then when you started demolitions missions under the faces of the NVA regulars, that helicopter support you had became very very important, as there were even more enemies that were harder to kill.

For the easier difficulty levels in "NoName", a time compression mode would make a quiet patrol very exciting for the average player as he would jump from one firefight from the next

[fatcroc5]

not really on topic here but you need the floowing things integrated into a mission to be realistic:

-dynamic artillery, AI or human
-air strikes
-helo support
-misc support

in real life arty can be called down in seconds, but as far as OFP1 is concerned (with CoC arty) it takes alot longer, and the target may have moved. (or killed you http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif )

[Dslyecxi]

in real life arty can be called down in seconds, but as far as OFP1 is concerned (with CoC arty) it takes alot longer, and the target may have moved. (or killed you http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif )
This is a Hollywood-induced misperception of yours. "Real-life" artillery behaves basically like what you see in the CoC UA.. you call for fire, they dial it in, load the guns, fire the mission, and then you have to wait for the rounds to fly to your target before you get any of those satisfying booms. That&#39;s assuming that you don&#39;t fire spotting rounds first to make sure everything&#39;s aimed in properly. If you want it faster, you&#39;d better pre-plot some locations for arty so that you can call fire on pre-plotted stuff when the SHTF.

Bear in mind that BIS has developed an extremely high-fidelity artillery simulation for VBS1, so they of all people will have a good idea how the "Real stuff" works. It&#39;s up to them whether they simulate it at the same level for us PC gamers..

[smoot]

I would like to have the option of choosing what type of role I will have in combat.  

example:

I start the campaign and I then get run through boot camp.

After boot camp I then have a choice of helo Pilot, Jet Pilot, Soldier, Special forces, Tank, Support, sniper, etc.

Lets say I choose Jet Pilot, I then get run through a pilot training camp.  Or if I choose soldier i get run through a training camp geared for soldiers.

After advanced training I then get shipped out to battle and my role through the battle is that of which I enlisted as.  This would give lots of replay value, and make the different classes have more meaning then what they do now.

I think something like this would really make the single player more fun.

[morglor9]

We should have real soldier life coming through, not, okay we&#39;re on Everon, let&#39;s take morton then montignac then the area is secure, oh no it isn&#39;t the Ruskies just camcreated a hind. Let&#39;s spend more time on islands, so you get to know them, and make friends with civvies while doing checkpoint duty. Let&#39;s also have an island where the resistance is working against you, you have to do patrols through sniper towns and bascially live the life of a UN soldier in Kosovo or a British soldier in Northern Ireland, where you are despised, but are trying to help.
That would be cool, but i doubt that the casual gamer would find it very interesting  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/huh.gif
well, that may be true, but Flashpoint wasn&#39;t really for casual gamers either. too immersive to be for the casuals.

[Jinef]

Well it&#39;s interesting I said that before BIS announced the new info about the games. We now know there is going to be more interaction with civilians.

Some Operation Types:

Attack
Defend
Patrol
Rear Security

[B.B.]

missions where this mission has to do with the results of the last mission.  a strategic campaign with good planning involved.  everything from air drops of supplies and ammunition to special forces missions that the story hinges on to overt missions using regulars.

[Stendac]

I hope the next gen game includes two-team coop missions in the online multiplayer. There were coop missions, but it would be cool to have coop type missions with two opposing teams. They would begin at different points on the island and be tasked with retrieving an item from a city guarded by enemy AI. Both teams will by trying to be the break through the enemy AI and be the first to get their item and get out, yet at the same time they will be looking out for the opposing team and doing their best to keep them from completing their mission.

Damn, I guess that isn&#39;t really a "coop" anymore. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/icon_rolleyes.gif

[Berghoff]

I don&#39;t know if this is mentioned before, but It would be nice to have the ability to create your own "map" instead of the OFP map where you see all trees and bushes located in pinpoint precision. It would be nice to see a handdrawn map. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[funnyguy1]

About the campaign...

I would like to see a realistic campaign in therms of real military tactics and events on the battlefield...
I would like to se some kind of priority, or I don`t know, order of warfare...Some operations like precise rocket attacs and bombings are performed before others etc...It`s quite self-evident thing, but well, I just wanted to make sure....

[Codarl]

I hope the next gen game includes two-team coop missions in the online multiplayer. There were coop missions, but it would be cool to have coop type missions with two opposing teams. They would begin at different points on the island and be tasked with retrieving an item from a city guarded by enemy AI. Both teams will by trying to be the break through the enemy AI and be the first to get their item and get out, yet at the same time they will be looking out for the opposing team and doing their best to keep them from completing their mission.

Damn, I guess that isn&#39;t really a "coop" anymore. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/icon_rolleyes.gif
already possible in ofp... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif

[CameronMcDonald]

Rear security missions appeal to me, but I also like "chewing-the-fat" kinds of missions.

I once made one where you went on a small patrol, had a chat with the lads, and then drove a truck to a main base. Once there, a bit of reward-orientated target practice finished off the mission. Got 8/10 at OFPEC, and not one enemy killed.  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

As for new ideas, I would like to start editing with Game2 right away, to make a "better-than-original" campaign. I hope to see some resupply missions, as well as even...

...a drag your wounded comrade to safety will occasionally dropping him and returning fire kind-of-scenario.

[firedude_edd]

I always thought a dynamic campaign would be good. Anything can happen during missions, you might go on a patrol and find nothing, and whilst returning to base you run into a tank battallion heading towards the base.
Yes, it would be nearly impossible to do such a thing(although it has been used in Flight Simulators like Falcon 4.0, where events including ground forces occured in real-time around you).
Maybe randomizing missions? Give a number of different events that randomly get added during the mission would be good.

[Stryder]

Ideally, you&#39;d have both a dynamic and a scripted campaign (yes, some games do have both)

[funnyguy1]

AI generals and commanders should now where and how the can attack. For example, AI should calculate the number of enemy units, and hold the attack/retreat (an I mean the tactical movement not a run for your life).
Particular units should have a morale system that motivates them or makes them flee/panic or surrender (and that should be a completely independent thing of the AI general/commander level, however would be extremely cool if a commander under certain circumstances could surrender a whole squad).

Moreover some templates should be done, like possitions in buildings that are best for mg nests, possitions for rpg`s, possitions for entrenching tanks, guns, possition for snipers.
Templates just like in DMA dynamic missions, "attack a city", "patrol here", "destroy tanks there", "black op here", "hold possition here". Some templates however should be connected together shomehow, (with some randomness) for example if you take a city or a village, the nex night a milita or a resistance could try sneak in and destroy your supplies, ammo or vehicles, or when on patroll you could be ambushed...or no, If the AI commander decides to call support.

Things like convoys, entranching, diging foxholes, creating fire possitions, and minefields, securing important objects such as power plants and bridges, should be automaticall. No matter if player is assigned for such task or no...would be cool also if the campaign had a mode in which you observe the warfare on a detailed map, the AI general or you can give orders and move forces around the map, and you can jump into action wherever and whenever you want.

Taking a large city is a matter of couple days or weeks, and securing it and holding is even harder...the dynamic war system would allow you to stick so long ina one city...That would require months to finish the game... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/inlove.gif

edit:
Quite important thing imho...
What about some strategic points (places, buildings etc.) on map? I mean points like hospitals, power plants (nuclear ones or water-power station maybe?) oil fields, bridges were mentioned many times, but what about other things?
When entering a city It`s obvious that there are some places/buildings you must secure first like post office, local media office (radio, tv etc). It would add a lot more of  immersion and realism. The economy aspect is very important, and controling those volunerable and important places really helps with your progress.

edit2:
What about ambushes? Would be nice if AI knew how to hide in the foliage or in buildings, and I`m not talking about simply taking cover...What I mean Is to make the AI able to cover so that the enemy couldn`t see them. Both friendly AI and the enemy AI of course. Ambushes would be really messy..

[Stickler]

I agree with FunnyGuy. While there should be a back story, someone invades or oppresses then someone else comes in to help or what not, but in the end the fights and progress of the war may change dramatically during the war. I agree that a sort of General AI would be a great implementation. Instead of a Dynamic campaign there could be dynamic objectives. A whole campaign would be hard to create on the fly but if the player were given objectives on the run it would be much easier to give local and immediate information to the player to allow them to execute the objective. Many soldiers may not know exactly what it is they&#39;re fighting for or where they will go to next until given further orders after completing objectives. I believe that along with this AI General proposed by FunnyGuy there could be a sort of preset list of priorites that this AI General can create objectives. For example, as mentioned above, a bridge that controls a lot of traffice or is a huge checkpoint to and from a certain objective. Well the AI General may want to attack a speecific place, let&#39;s say a power plant, then before that they create a list of prioritized objectives before they can actually get to that power plant. And to get there you must capture and secure the bridge.

I believe, in a multiplayer aspect, that there should be more of an emphasis on class based objectives. For example if a squad was to attack a bridge and secure it, could there be an objective for the engineers in the area to locate and create a sort of defensive structure or barrier in case of a counter attack. I don&#39;t mean in the sense of an RTS like construction but let&#39;s say an engineer has the ability to create a small sand bag barrier in case a defense is needed for something like a bridge or crossroad. I also believe that if you give these sort of class specific objective it may open up more tactical freedom or choices and allow those who play seemingly minor support roles, like engineers, to actually become involved in the choice making of defending or assaulting. I also would like to be able to set up garrison&#39;s or essentially create small field HQ&#39;s in the cities based off of existing buildings like an office turned into a fortified position looking over a large intersection in a town. the closest I can come to it look at the garrisoning in Red Alert 2 but from a first person tactical point of view.

[Sniper Pilot]

I belive they should have both, where you could choose between a storyline Battlefield or the Dynamic

[mickuzy]

would be cool if you had to train to open missions. so although the whole campaign you would be mainly a grunt. then the side missions (this is if there is no dynamic campaign) could be opened thorugh your training that you would only have to do once. so lets say your platoon is ordered to assault the town. You want to have armoured support, unlock it with the training ( and you may or may not have to do a side mission to relieve the tanks so they can aid your push.) You want air suppourt, chopper training. you might also have to do a side mission like ride in a convoy protecting artillery pieces to have artillery support.

then lets say you have done all the training, have all the side options open, you would only be allowed to pick a limited number of them more than one but not to many. so you could pick combos like artillery and armour or air and sniper or extra squads and special forces. but if you pick the maximum the enemy is more entrenched in the town. so lets say you chose to relieve the pressure on a fellow company, while you relieve the pressure on them the enemy has longer to prepare.

i know some of these features are already in armed assault but im trying to suggest a more evolved method of it. if all of this is already in armed assault i do apoligize.

[mickuzy]

What about a resistance hiring mission. ur a resistance leader and u go into villages in an attempt to bring people to your cause.

[churnedfortaste]

What about a resistance hiring mission. ur a resistance leader and u go into villages in an attempt to bring people to your cause.
Sounds pretty neat.

[smellyjelly]

Is the campaign going to be free roaming, where we can get asked for special missions, explore our base, go through training, and get requests for us join an on going battle (with no loading screens like Evolution), or is it going to be in chapters like Arma was?

I think if BIS adds a free roaming campaign to ArmaII it will really improve the gameplay and will make the series more popular. The game would be much more realistic, smooth, and enjoyable if we could travel from the kill zone to our base independently and without joining a mission. It would be cool if fighting outside a mission would actually make a difference:

Let&#39;s say, for example, that City A is kept dependent on the missions, but the smaller group of cities, B, are dynamic. So if we go to B and kill all the soldiers/guards, they will be replaced by the soldiers/guards from A. Then, when we join a mission, City A will have less reinforcements so the mission should be easier.

In Arma the missions were usually so forward, "just follow that street" or "kill the group of enemies standing over there". I&#39;m hoping there will be larger cities, where the enemy will have set up positions on rooftops, bases, checkpoints, roads/alleys, ect, and we will have to fight them along with other squads. That way we have some nice background noise as they fight, we&#39;re not forced to do all the work, and if the AI is dynamic enough then every mission should end differently as the other squads take different paths or eliminate sections of the city. The missions shouldn&#39;t be perfectly balanced, like 25 guys on one side and 25 on the other, but rather 50 guys with only light vehicles on one side and 25 with light and armored vehicles.

Honestly, I&#39;m hoping for battles that last a while, so it&#39;d be nice to have a few checkpoints and more than one save spot to choose from when loading, preferably unlimited like in Oblivion.

Of course free roaming would have other advantages. Let&#39;s say that you&#39;re down a dirt road in the middle of a forest, when suddenly, a bomb next to your humvee explodes. Everyone escapes from the destroyed vehicle uninjured, but then you&#39;re ambushed from all sides. Something like that would have been expected in the Arma chapter-style campaign, but if it&#39;s done randomly when free roaming it&#39;d be unexpected and surprising.

The idea behind free roaming is you&#39;d have the kill zone, neutral zone, and a friendly zone. Obviously in the kill zone you&#39;re going to be fighting, in the neutral you&#39;re should be expecting the unexpected, but in the friendly zone, which I haven&#39;t really mentioned, there&#39;s not much to do. I&#39;d say eating and sleeping, but I doubt most fans will welcome to these RPG features. Target training would work, as long as the so-called "skill points" is from the actual player and not tallied by the character.

So, what do you think? Since my ideas of free roaming are very similar to Evolution, I think this should be possible. The problem is, BIS may not have enough time, or just may not be up to it. If this is added though I think it could bring ArmaII from average to new and refreshing.

[Lou Montana]

What about a resistance hiring mission. ur a resistance leader and u go into villages in an attempt to bring people to your cause.
By the way, this thing makes me remember about Midwinter, an Amstrad and Atari game, where you are the fresh new leader of the resistance on an icy lost island, and where there is people in town.
You had to get people with you to fight better (each person had different abilities) but some guys/girls couldn&#39;t bear some others, so if you wanted the better sniper of the island, you had to get the boy from a village. You could also get the old lady, as anybody on the island had respect for her, she could make anybody follow you... and so on, the angry scientist could also pirat radio stations to contact people around, etc, etc

A nice game by the way  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/inlove.gif

[vilas]

to make not linear mission

in editor BIS should give logic gate "if yes than, if not than"

such logical gate should help to make not linear missions, which can end i different ways

for example if vehicle1 destroyed than next waypoint is A, when vehicle is good than waypoint B

but now there is no such possibility, cause every waypoint follow previous

logical gate yes/no can make from one waypoint, two possible waypoints depending of trigger/action

now in OFP/ARMA we have only possibility to loose or pass mission, but in real war there can be other possibility

for example you can ONLY make mission now like i remember from OFP
for example steal the car
when car was shot, broken, than mission fail, but with logical gate, we can have if UAZ is brokek, get UAZ2

or mission like free city from enemy, and than free another city
for example enemy in city 1 is too strong, your units took casualties, than just go back, recover troops and attack only city 2, and when you did that job, civilians from city 2 join you, and you can go with them to free city 1

now it is impossible without serious scripting, but such things in editor could be use full

as it comes to changes to the editor, i would like to see trigger, waypoint for artillery, withouts scrpiting, for everyone to easy make mission with artillery
triger like "fire area" and waypoint "fire at are"
than we can put such triggers near enemy position, start mission, wach artillery firing at enemy and run there, artillery can in waypoint have "how many shots" field
than you take position in attacked city

also sometimes there is a rpoblem without scripting to do parashooting soldiers
my proposition is to do "para transport" waypoint for airplanes
now choper lands to load out transport, i want easy waipoint in editor &#33;

[smellyjelly]

I think the best campaign would be one like Stalker or Oblivion. If you&#39;ve never played them, then it&#39;s basically free roam where you&#39;re given tasks to complete the main story, but you&#39;re also free to talk to other people and get side tasks from them.

ArmaII should have a modified version of that:

First of all, the goal should be to gain as high of a rank as possible and then take over the largest city in the game.

Let&#39;s say that when you first arrive to the warzone as a private your side has already conquered one large city and a small town. The large city would have your base where the officers will permanently stay. They will page or call for you to talk to them in person, and then ask you to perform the main missions at certain times and if you complete a few of these missions with a good score then you&#39;re promoted. However, if you&#39;re not with your squad when they leave, go missing in action, or fail the mission then you need to try another one. If you just keep on failing the special missions and run out then you&#39;re shipped back to your homeland and the game over (of course you should be able to reload and try again). As you complete the special missions more cities become safe for you to explore and you get promoted, so better weapons and vehicles become available.

Inside the cities or towns will be civilians or comrades who will ask for your help. Civilians will have simple and creative non-combat tasks ranging from helping a family find their missing son to destroying a car without trace to get rid of "evidence". The soldiers missions, however, would be a bit more realistic and most would include a small amount of combat. The cool thing about letting the player find and select their missions is that you could surprise them with amushes or car bombs because driving around the town or in middle of the forest wouldn&#39;t be irregular.

Enemy controlled cities should also be free to explore, but only at the players risk. I should be able to sneak in and steal some rare weapons or vehicles if I choose, that would be gone after the city is conquered. However, in order for the main missions to work it would be difficult to implement a way to freely capture the city, so they should be heavily guarded and impossible to clear.

Friendly controlled cities, however, can be attacked. A simple call of the radio informing us of the attack would be sufficient enough, and in order for this feature to not be annoying we shouldn&#39;t be forced to participate in the defence. If soldiers or civilians die, though, then they won&#39;t be able to give us side missions.

In order for this to work flawlessly I think these features need to be added:

-The ability to sleep so we can skip time.
- A place to store weapons and vehicles where they won&#39;t dissapear
- A way to quickly transport between cities.
- Realistic AI behavior, like sleeping at night or driving around the city.

[NoRailgunner]

I like to see much more interaction between players decisions and the storyline. Player should be more responsible to team eg. death of teammember, collecting gear, hide usefull stuff, break communication silence.... all these "little" things should affect gameplay and further missions. It will be great if campaigns have different endings&#33;

[P226]

Well no offence smellyjelly but if you want a "STALKER" game stick with STALKER.

ArmA is a game, not a mod for STALKER. I might be wrong but the suggestions you made should be to the STALKER devs and ask them for a STALKER 2 with different location, weapons, storyline.

Just my opinion.


About the the topic now... About ArmA missions/campaigns they are ok. But it&#39;s not "immersive" enough to me. Not enough dialog. I feel like ArmA was half finished were OFP was a great campaign. More dialog and immersion.

Everybody remembers Armrstrong and Gastowsky&#39;s missions&#33; For the time they were great. I remember the mission where you had to run away from Russians in the forest alone in the early begining of the campaign.

[smellyjelly]

But can you honestly say that Arma&#39;s format is preferred?

My idea isn&#39;t just like Stalker, I was just using that to help describe the free roam aspect. I don&#39;t mean to be obtrusive, but my idea has a lot of unique benefits that are rare among other games.

* The first would be the environment. With ArmaII&#39;s new building destruction, along with the ability to knock down trees and fences, the consequences of war would be evident. As long as buildings don&#39;t respawn, then I think this would add a sad or shocking atmosphere that is currently missing in Arma.

* Another advantage, one which I believe I&#39;ve already mentioned, is the element of surprise. With Arma&#39;s current campaign, surprise attacks are almost impossible because they&#39;d be too predictable. I mean, if there was a mission where you had to casually drive on an abandoned road, wouldn&#39;t you be a little suspicious? If ArmaII has free roam then driving would be very common, so you might be less cautious when, suddenly, a VBIED (aka car bomb) explodes right next to you. Your vehicle is disable and you start getting shot at from the distance by several enemy soldiers. At this point you take cover and realize your only chance for survival is to either call for backup or try to kill them yourself. Sounds fun, right?

Anyways, it&#39;s late and I&#39;m having trouble concentrating at the moment. I&#39;m not trying to start a flame war, I just wanted to explain my idea a little bit more in dept.

[P226]

I&#39;m not trying to start a flame war, I just wanted to explain my idea a little bit more in dept.
That&#39;s what you did, perfectly. I don&#39;t think anybody could think that was anything else than a simple discussion&#33; http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

I am sure BI are open for suggestions but asking them to move away from the milsim... Well people bought ArmA for what it was and the people from BI seem to love what they do. I am maybe wrong but it&#39;s how I feel. I doubt BI made that much money (compared to many other games we play or played) of it.

But I don&#39;t understand... If you like STALKER that much. Why do you want a "copy" of it by BI? For the ArmA maps? More "realistic"? What&#39;s wrong with STALKER?

I think ArmA&#39;s scenario wouldn&#39;t stick at all with a STALKER concept. Soldiers never free roam in conflict zones. When they go outside that&#39;s for a reason. You can&#39;t "copy and paste" a concept on any scenario.

I haven&#39;t played STALKER but I heard and read much about it. And as far as I understood I can&#39;t see this concept applied in ArmA without loosing the milsim aspect.

[smellyjelly]

I&#39;m not trying to start a flame war, I just wanted to explain my idea a little bit more in dept.
That&#39;s what you did, perfectly. I don&#39;t think anybody could think that was anything else than a simple discussion&#33; http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif
I know, but I&#39;ve seen other topics escalate too far when people get defensive.  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

I think I understand what you mean though: In real life no soldier would realisticly go through all of that, taking over cities, doing missions for civilians, ect. I understand now how my idea could turn some of the original fans off, but trust me, that&#39;s definitely not what I want.

Although, I&#39;ll admit that perhaps STALKER a bad example to represent my idea. I should have said "a polished version of Evolution with:

* Realistic civilian behaviors. Most should drive at night, they should park there car and walk into buildings/houses, ect.

* The enemy should also have realistic behaviors, such as reguler patrols, traps, ambushes, ect. There should be "hot zones" in or near each city, where the base is located.

* There needs to be a General that will plan out the attacks and give them to your Officer. The officer will then lead you to battle and that would basically serve as a mission.

* I believe that BI already announced that there would be nonviolent missions, like getting some beer for your teammates. These, along with special missions (like stealthy) could add a bit of viriaty between the main storyline."

I&#39;m sure if BIS did make a campaign like I described they would make it realistic. I understand that there would be some people who would hate if this was implemented, but I recall BI stating they were making four different campaigns, three singleplayer and one multiplayer. I&#39;m sure everyone will be able to find at least one they like, and if not, then maybe ArmaII just isn&#39;t for them.  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif

[P226]

Now I understand better. Unforunately I doubt BI will work into that.

This concept could be great mainly for MP I think (thus making it less than likely BI will work on it). I doubt it&#39;s even possible to make AIs making smart ambushes. Imagine on the map AIs planning to block streets to push your forces toward a desired ambush point/area, and on a map scale (and we&#39;re talking BI&#39;s maps here&#33; lol)... I&#39;m not even talking about AIs managing several missions at once, adapting to a situation, coordinating air and ground forces (example: inf "painting" targets for airstrikes) etc...
I don&#39;t know anything about programming but making all this happen&#39;s got to be something hard.

Also I&#39;m thinking about ressources required to make all this "world" live... I mean STALKER devs worked mainly on this concept. But this isn&#39;t the "core motivation" of BI I think.

That&#39;s a good concept for MP if considering the Evolution thing but on SP that wouldn&#39;t fit. And putting so much time on a MP "concept mission"... I don&#39;t want to be pessimistic but I doubt this is going to happend.

[Entelin]

Would I be alone if I said "who cares about singleplayer?". Personally, my interest in singleplayer goes about as far as putting a bunch of units down and watching them fight. Arma&#39;s largest failing was that it didn&#39;t have any polished multiplayer missions, as can be seen by the fact that nobody plays the default ones, its all evolution, or sahrani life, or others.

Almost inevitably singleplayer gets lame in about a day, regardless of the game, AI is nowhere near good enough in *any* game to be more than a tool to a real persons strategy. As such, there is no test for ones strategy more suitable than other humans.

Take a hint from other fps&#39;s and don&#39;t bother devoting much time to what will inevitably be a failed attempt to make an entertaining single player campaign.

Beating AI doesn&#39;t take skill, it&#39;s just a mater of time before you learn how to exploit its intelligence flaws. And when you do, its universal and without variance. Now I&#39;m not saying AI is unimportant, its very important in a game like this in multiplayer so that you can implement large battles directed by numerous humans against each other. It has the potential of becoming the ultimate realism+rts+fps war game.

[Commando84]

Hi i have a idea for missions&#33; Take spy photos&#33; Special ops or agents sneaking and hiding around and taking photos with a camera and avoiding enemy patrols.

would be awesome&#33; Im thinking of one of the old ofp mission on Kolgujev where you as a special ops had to spot some shilkas at a few bases and then return back.

I know in arma there is binoculars, radio, ak and other weapons but there should be a camera for the recon and spy missions. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

Also i dunno where to put this put antiperson mines&#33; its very evil but i guess its something that special forces of many countries would use in small numbers to setup a small defence line around a camp in the forest or something or for rebels to do with less high tech mines.

[smellyjelly]

Hi i have a idea for missions&#33; Take spy photos&#33; Special ops or agents sneaking and hiding around and taking photos with a camera and avoiding enemy patrols.
I like that. It reminds me of the Goldeneye Silo mission where you had to take a picture of all the machines. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

If a camera is implemented, it should be used to take pictures and post them online with the consoles.

[Uziyahu--IDF]

I&#39;d like to see some recon or 19D "Cavalry Scout" missions where you get points or accomplish something with each enemy unit you spot and identify, while avoiding combat.

One of the most awesome missions in one of the Delta Force games was where you had to hold the laser designator onto a target while your airstrike came in and enemy patrols were walked around you.

[Baddo]

Would I be alone if I said "who cares about singleplayer?".
I&#39;m not going to buy a multiplayer-only ArmA.

Maybe I will just go play OFP: CWC campaign over and over again... that would mean no more money for BIS from me http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif so BIS better come up with good singleplayer stuff next time. I&#39;m sure they are trying.

[dale0404]

It has the potential of becoming the ultimate realism war game.

Changed your quote a little for ya&#33;
http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

[gonk]

I still think a random campaign maker is what is required... like Falcon 4 or IL2.... Variety is the spice of a good game... or life.. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

[Mr_Centipede]

IL2 dynamic campaign in my opinion is not a "Dynamic Campaign" but rather a random mission generator.

Falcon 4/Falcon 3 on the other hand, is truly dynamic campaign. The map is truly alive with tanks, trucks, arty doin battle on the ground while aircraft above doing their things in the air or support the ground troops. No other game have done so much like the microprose team did for falcon 4 in terms of dynamic campaign. At least, as far as I know, no other game have truly dynamic campaign like falcon 4.

[[GLT] Legislator]

I hope the missions of the arma 2 campaign will be far more complex than in the arma 1 campaign. I&#39;d like to see every kind of mission ... convoy missions, search & destroy, hold the line, aerial combats, tank battles, undercover operations, sabotage missions, assassinations, rescue operations, evacuation scenarios, ... I think there must be a good mix of it. Operation Flashpoint did it that way , but from today&#39;s point of view it was "very limited".

[wipman]

Hi, i&#39;ll like to be able of play the campaign in MP, not all the missions,
just as chained missions, 3 or 4 chained consecutive missions; for
avoid performance lag as much as possible; but be able of play the
entire campaign as a serie of consecutive missions will be very pimp
and will help to work (in MP) as squads assuming the role of the unit
that you&#39;ve chosen to play as. Let&#39;s C ya

[zinc]

How about swimming into a heavily boat patroled enemy harbour, maybe plant time delayed explosives on a couple of enemy destroyers?

The other idea I had is for campaigns. How about three separate ones, Airforce, Army and Navy?

[dentist guba]

i am glad that BI have said that there will be short nonviolent missions, i enjoyed them a lot in OFP as they gave you the full picture of a soldiers life. They will also be important due to this game revolving around a team of deep characters and character development cutscenes tend to be less effective than interactive versions (Gamasutra article (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3868/shoot_to_thrill_biosensory_.php?page=1))-see page 4

Also these missions serve an important gameplay purpose. if a player is constantly bombarded with action they soon get accustomed to it (after all, adrenaline is a drug like any other). However, if you introduce "downtime" it makes the pacing closer to a sinusoidal pattern rather than a straight line and enhances the players enjoyment of the action sections, much like the difference between occasionally going on a rollercoaster rather than being an experienced fighter pilot. (for more info see all of above Gamasutra article).

[wipman]

Hi, will be very pimp if we had more than one campaign with just
one side, i&#39;ll like to see some completly different campaigns; one
with the Marines, other with a different history/background with
the russians and even another with the rebels side.
Even one with the civilians trying to find their way out from the
war zone will be very pimp; to play it with as much a pistol and
two magazines, very scripted and with some kind of text options
ala RPG, that may be pimp... . Let&#39;s C ya

[SpectreX]

I think VIP EXTRACTION mixed with bigger mission to get to final objective? example:BLACK HAWK DOWN, would be interesting.extraction being only  1 part of a mission.driving and fighting thru hostile fire.
helos need refueling?planes and tanks at designated resupply point,engineer class responsible for resupply point/defense?
Now that ARMA2 is in the pipeline the possibilities of what you can do in a game like this, puts me in a state of awe.
gamming since wired framed games,seeing the progression to ARMA2 ,which I&#39;ve just recently upgraded for the sole purpose of this games release in retail.q6600 4gig ram 1TB HD 4870 HD GC . your Studio is putting a game concept in line with one I&#39;ve been dreaming about for 27 years.thank you.
After playing 1800+hrs of bf2,and COD4, W@<hidden> I&#39;ve been waiting.ARMA2 it is, by far the best game being released this year,by what I&#39;ve seen so far. FPS is involved? I hope so,along with team and squad set up.


Piloted UAV&#39;z? for ground support?yes?
another mission flag cap is always a favorite. free roam assault? civilian protection/search and destroy? recon and ambush?
ranks and stats tracked,higher ranks have priority in vehicles squad leader and commander interface,for orders and mission objectives commader controlled  manned UAV&#39;s.?.
I  haven&#39;t seen much in the way of missions, but Im sure you all have some good ones up your sleeves.

if tunnels haven&#39;t been implemented, they should for ground troops trying to avoid detection and cover for airstrikes,I&#39;m sure some could be incorperated? different objectives in mission would be a new idea too,also free roam like GTA4/ AKA TEAM DEATHMATCH.not just flag cap,even tho that&#39;s still good.your call.:D

WHENS THE PC ALPHA ,BETA? sign me up http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif
spec&#92;out http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/pistols.gif

[SASrecon]

I think a great idea would be to have the ability to change the insertion and extraction points in the campaign and not have them set, in Special forces the groups are often given an objective and some resources and they are left to plan the insertion and extraction etc.
I often try this in ARMA1 xr warfare servers, i&#39;m given the enemy base location, i mark myself some waypoints, fly my helicopter, land it then hike a few km or even take my boat to the shoreline from san tomas or rahmadi&#33; Then i laser the enemy base and we win  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif
But what i&#39;m saying is that i don&#39;t like the set insertion and extraction pts in the ARMA1 campaign.
Maybe this will be included in ARMA2 as you progress through the military ranking system to eventually become high commander but i hope BI gives this a thought

[oscar19681]

type of missions i would like to see in campaign.

1 retreval of vip in conflict envirement. Think ala tears of the sun . Your team has to extract a vip .
2 direct action
3 search and destroy. Destroy key members or other enemy forces
4 combat search and rescue. extract downed pilots or other allied personel behind enemy lines
5 forward observer / guiding laser guided bombs to the target
6 deep recon.
7 extracting civilian personel from a certain area to prevent genocide
8 bomb damage essement
9 hostage rescue
10 collecting valuble enemy documents
11 harrasing enemy forces
12 sabotage missions

[oscar19681]

anyone care to discuss mission in the campaign

[oscar19681]

Some feedback please?

[Balschoiw]

We have no idea what the BIS campaign(s) will look like, so there´s little to discuss for us unfortunally. I guess input for certain missions is a bit late I´m afraid as the plot for the campaign hould be already fixed by now and most likely the campaign is already in the works if not more.
You still can do such missions once the game gets released.

[Black0ps]

I would like to see a mission where you communicate directly to the leader of one of the seperatists/underground factions and they ask you do something like raid a government encampent(that you have to locate by talking to civilians to get intel) and free or take hostage someone of importance.It could be to get supplies or whatever for them aswell. Then there could be a mission like the ChDZK is losing the fight quickly and you need to track down OR help the fleeing warlord.

[Topper Harley]

An Evolution mission in the Vanilla Version of ArmA II made by the dev´s would be awesome&#33;
(for Multiplayer)

[Mavericko]

That wouldn't be realistic http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard301/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

A soldier cant do what he wants...

Well thats not completely true, for special operations forces, sometimes they simply get "extract object A from this location" and it is up to the team itself to decide how to proceed with the mission

Oh and in the interview from Tascali you can see a hint:

"Left click your mouse while holtding "Alt" on position where you want to be picked up

Keep in mind that the chopper always travel from the base.
It takes some time!

You can also board the chopper in the base straight away"

[stanko]

type of missions i would like to see in campaign.

1 retreval of vip in conflict envirement. Think ala tears of the sun . Your team has to extract a vip .
2 direct action
3 search and destroy. Destroy key members or other enemy forces
4 combat search and rescue. extract downed pilots or other allied personel behind enemy lines
5 forward observer / guiding laser guided bombs to the target
6 deep recon.
7 extracting civilian personel from a certain area to prevent genocide
8 bomb damage essement
9 hostage rescue
10 collecting valuble enemy documents
11 harrasing enemy forces
12 sabotage missions

Some very good ideas, Oscar.

I'd like to see complex surveillance in ArmA 2. For example, anti-personnel mines, surveillance cameras, high wires and trained dogs in military base. Ability to cut wires, disable cameras, disarm and set mines or traps, etc. BIS, make it as real as possible, that's why we play your games :D

[Westmoreland]

How about swimming into a heavily boat patroled enemy harbour, maybe plant time delayed explosives on a couple of enemy destroyers?

The other idea I had is for campaigns. How about three separate ones, Airforce, Army and Navy?

What about Army, Navy and Spec-ops? I don't like air missions much..

Missions like "Rescue the captain", "guard the coast", "attack coastal village full of Chedaki pirates" :)

[sparks50]

The carrier will no doubt be a very cool starting point for invading forces in multi player.

[De_little_Bubi]

oh i can see aircraft accidents :/
there rly should be a "tower script" which will manage the traffic.
(i already saw it in some evolution maps)

[sparks50]

Haha, yes, especially when I try to land my C-130 Hercules there :D

[Axeman1224]

There are an many missions and many different ways to go about a mission. The hardest part of doing this in real life is the boredom of waiting for something to happen. One mission i would like to see is route clearance. If the enemy has ied's and you dont clear the route, it could compromise your entire mission. Especially if the enemy conducts a complex ambush using one or more ied's and then attacking with machine guns and rpg's. You would be surprised on how many resources an attack like this affects.

[-=GHOST=-]

Idea For a Series Of Missions

(This Idea will require a Desert Mod...)

Joint Op: British SAS, U.S NSW DEVGRU, U.S 27th MEU.

OpFor: PMC Commandos, Regional local militia, Unknown heavy support elements.

(Initial) Briefing:

SAS Recce/Recon patrol insert somewhere off target and patrol to their 'AO'.

After many nights in their LUP, they 'eyeball' their target and call in the boys...

Their next mission is to RV with another SAS 4 man patrol...


(btw I have alot more 'story wise' for this scenario... im wanting to get into the Machinima side of this game. So i've been writing a story, and this is basically like the very first part of a very lengthy mission... :D )

without going into detail.. to complete what I just listed; in real time, is a fairly long and arduous process. SO all that right there COULD well be the one, long, fairly 'boring' first mission mission :p


:D

[Bunkers]

Just a general suggestion to mission makers: add some parked civilian cars along the streets in urban areas. I've seen this in some (few though) missions in ArmA1, and it really gives a more realistic urban atmosphere. Like in a real town there would usually be alot of parked cars along the roads. They also provide good cover.

[CarlGustaffa]

That can be done quite automatically now ;)

[MoS]

I came up with an idea just now. It is a MP map. It is 1-3 players (commanders) against maybe up to 30 players.

The clue: it is some kind of island defence (aka towerdefence).

The goal of the 3 player section is to conquer the island with a huge (but predefined) amount of ressources. Maybe 3 infantry battalions and 2 tank squads and some helicopters. All of the 3 players are acting like commanders and the newly introduced high command could be very useful for this.
If their side looses a unit it can be instantly recruited back in their base (which is by the way on a small island or an aircraft carrier). The condition for taking over a town could be that over 30 friendly units have to be within the cityradius for about 5 minutes.
When they manage to take over a town they can recruit there soldiers there and the amount of ressources rises too (of course the 3 commanders can choose by themselves where to attack).

The oppsoing team of 30 player has to defend their territory. They also have a predefined set of ressources and if they loose a town, they also loose ressources. To defend their towns they can deploy static defenses and build up sandbags with the use of their ressources. They should be able to recap a lost town only when 20 minutes (or so) have passed so that the 3 comms have time to deploy their own units there.

I can imagine this map to be extremly entertaining. The 3 comms could use a lot of scripted stuff like for expamle tomahawks, uavs, artillery strikes and of course the high command (with a unit camera maybe?).
The other team is of course forced to respond immediately and set up countermeasures like own artillery positions, AA sites, machineguns and to fight the incoming force back to where it came.
I guess this sort of map needs some time limitation (10h?) otherwise the 3 player team could not loose by any means.

Well what do you think? :rolleyes:

[Mr_Centipede]

Less specops mission, more conventional/grunt mission. ala "ambush" or "battlefield". Because of a simple reason that I suck at spec ops.

Thank god for the mission Editor... but if BIS could do it... then I'm more than happy to accept it :))

[redmotion]

Sets of missions (short campaigns perhaps - maybe only 4 missions per campaign) that specialise in the player being just a tank driver/gunner/commander, helicopter pilot from doing drop offs and pick ups of infantry to being a fully fledged combat helicopter pilot with air and ground targets.

[CzingerX]

I don't like being forced missions. I understand though there needs to be some guide for most gamers in a video game. What I'm trying to say is I would like to be thrown into a world to were I get to do things the way I want at anytime, to force the final outcome.

What I'm getting at is the option to have the entire game completly dynamic. Arma 2 does succeed in this to a certain degree. Most than any other shooter out. Besides that everything else is like perfect to me.

[spandrel]

Long missions involving travel and force preservation of a small mechanized group (5 vehicles, a few soldiers) through hostile territory held by small militias whose numbers in total far exceed BLUFOR numbers. These missions would be like mini-campaigns in that there would be numerous possible paths to get to the destination. There would be people you could talk to along the way who would give you information regarding conditions further along the road.

All of this would take place within a context of a larger war including limited nuclear exchange in both Eastern and Western europe, possibly exacerbated by a transnational faction (probably Islamic extremists or the like...)

The Arma2 engine has the potential to allow long seamless gameplay on individual missions. Each single mission could represent points of interest in longer chains of events.

Another idea might be called Ethnic Cleansing. UN troops trying to stop attempted "racial sanitation actions" by neonazis on ethnics. Multiplayer would be possible, and very interesting: one side would be the UN and the other would be racialist forces who would have goals related to killing as many non-player civilians as possible and escaping, as well as guerrilla actions against BLUFOR.

Further complicating the mix could be guerrillas aligned with the civilians but opposed to the other belligerent groups: again, Islamic extremists would fit that role well. They would be tasked with attriting BLUFOR when possible as well as reprisal actions against the nationalist militias, but ideally their goals and methods would be different somehow, perhaps in terms of force composition: they would have poorer vehicles but perhaps greater numbers, while NatFor would contain more conventional military elements including LAVs, light artillery and perhaps even decrepit helicopters.

In a large map with three factions and multiple, varied goals per faction, this type of multiplayer scenario would go a long way toward modeling the complexity inherent in any sort of war in Eastern Europe.

We haven't seen the last Bosnia or Beslan.