Multiplayer campaigns 5+?

[HellfireRWS]

After a very long time of trying to convince my friends to get ARMA2, they finally have. My friends had read that the official campaign for ARMA 2 can be played coop, and that is what they want. I am not sure if Harvest Red supports 5 player coop, and if it doesn't I need a campaign that is.

What campaigns out there are coop for up to five players? (yes i have used search)
If I edited the Official campaign to add more slots, would it break the campaign worse (if its even editable)
Are there a series of good missions that could stand in as a campaign

[luizsilveira]

I'm interested in this as well, and I miss a bit a centralized page (wiki?) with user-made campaign information (a list of them, ranking would be great, SP or MP, supported mods and the hell).

Anyway, but if you just browse the user mission section of the forums you will find quite a few. The info is all scattered there though, and of course not all are there. I've find a few via google and by looking at various community resources (like the obvious Armaholic etc.).

Among others I'd suggest:

Delta Force 1
Delta-Force-II
Chasing-Grim-Reaper
Day-of-NAPA
Operation-Mighty-Justice (not 100% this can be played coop MP but I really think so)
p-i-r-o-g (there is high command towards the end)
Chesty-Puller
Tora-Bora-Campaign(9-Missions) (I'm not sure this one has cutscenes).
The Forgotten Few (24 men platoon, cutscenes and replayability, got very good reviews)
Ghost-Recon-Island-Thunder-campaign - Ace2-able with revives. Coop9.
Ghost-Recon-Podagorsk - Playable with vanilla but Ace2 recommended, looks very good. 8 missions, coop 9 players
Rainy-Fall - CO10
Marshal-of-Savanna - Isla-Duala COOP 15
Namalsk-Crisis - needs a couple of add-ons but it's a big project (22 missions!) that looks amazing.

-------------- The ones I'm not sure can be played MP Coop:

Operation-Dutch - is coop playable but only for 2 players
F-A-L-L-O-U-T (22 missions, 5 different endings, not 100% can be played coop but I think so).
Wiki-s-Creations is a collection of campaigns (and other missions). It doesn't mention if they are MP playable but worth checking imo.
Operation-Cobalt - 9 missions long, excellent reviews
SEAL-Team-6 - Needs a few add-ons. Lots of side missions and varied objectives for max. re-playability.
Operational-Detachment-Delta - SpecOps campaign

Anyway, these should already give you plenty of play hours. If you'd make good use of an extra soldier, feel free to pm me

Edit: I edited to add more campaigns and I'll continue to do so if you don't mind. That way we can at least have a list of campaigns to play

For selection purposes, I'm not including the ones which didn't get much review (nor the ones which got bad reviews). I'm also leaving aside (for now) the ones which need too many or massive mods or add ons. I also went for campaigns designed towards infantry (with some Specops and the like), leaving aside those featuring multiple roles like piloting aircrafit, driving tanks and the like.

Lastly, I also made a (very incomplete) selection of some SP campaigns I'd like to try myself, if anyone want those just PM me.

[HellfireRWS]

Thank you for your reply. THe campaigns you listed sound very good.
Ill talk to the group and PM you. we will probably need someone to keep us alive, as i have not played in a while, and they have never played.

[HellfireRWS]

I just wanted to post again so I can write down my experience. The game sessions so far haven’t been bad. The first game night was filled with.

What is the jump key?
Where is the enemy?
How do you get into Vehicles?
Who killed me?
Did I just kill you again?
How freaking big are these maps?
etc.

After the first night we went in and played some of the official SP missions I converted to MP (they all worked fine) still my players did things like.

Drive full speed into a town and try and run over the bad guys.
Rambo charge and wonder why they died
Stand in the open and look for the enemy and died

That was all things they will learn not to do in time, and it was getting better near the end of the second night.

I just knew they were going to complain and say “this game sucks” or “this is too hard and not for me”, but they didn’t. The one complaint they had was the end of the missions were anti climactic, and that a simple score board will kills listed seemed like a letdown after a long mission. On that note I would like to pose a question to the community.

What would you like to see at the end of a successful mission to make it feel exciting, and that you had done a good job?

My initial thoughts were for a failed mission an OUTRO with a set number of graves, flag flying in the background at sunset

For successful completion, an OUTRO with a podium like scene with the top 3 scorers standing on the podium (is that even possible?)

[luizsilveira]

heh, nice description of the experience there. Funny to imagine.

When I'm playing SP, one of the things I really like are the intro/outro cutscenes exactly because they add a bit of immersion and a nice outro brings that "accomplishment" feeling a notch up. That's one of the reasons why I like campaigns and tend not to play individual missions. Playing MP coop I feel much less the need for an amazing outro as simply a laughter with buds on TS going through a "we've done it!" and a debriefing already feels pretty good.

I'm not sure about the podium or score idea as I feel it might be a bit at odds with the whole "work as a team" idea. Some times you can do a great job for your team just by spotting, planning, laying suppressing fire and many other things that don't convert to kills. Conversely, you can be a hell of a haxxor 733t shooter who kills a lot but is a pain to play with because he's selfish, exposes himself too much, etc (you know the type).

So I don't feel anything towards an incentive to get more kills helps at all. Getting "the job done" as a team, the satisfaction of a good plan well executed, is the must - for me at least. And in that sense I think nice outros help much more.

My 2c

[HellfireRWS]

Edit: I edited to add more campaigns and I'll continue to do so if you don't mind. That way we can at least have a list of campaigns to play

For selection purposes, I'm not including the ones which didn't get much review (nor the ones which got bad reviews). I'm also leaving aside (for now) the ones which need too many or massive mods or add ons.

That’s awesome, thanks for updating the list. I appreciate the fact you trying to keep the list to campaigns that don’t require many add-ons. I don’t want to get them confused or frustrated by needed to download add-ons all the time (I can be an add-on junkie)

[luizsilveira]

That’s awesome, thanks for updating the list. I appreciate the fact you trying to keep the list to campaigns that don’t require many add-ons. I don’t want to get them confused or frustrated by needed to download add-ons all the time (I can be an add-on junkie)

Yeah, just what I thought. Getting a group of 5 or so people together with all the correct mods all the time can be a bit of a nightmare. I, however, can't play without at least the AI mods any more (ASR, Zeus and possibly SLX).

Anyhow, another idea for your "finishing mission anti-climax" problem might be running a debriefing among the players. Having a talk about high and low points of the mission, what people did well and what the group can improve, how well the plan was conceived and how well it was executed, that kind of thing. May help having a good "closing" feel to the mission and also help to improve the team's skills and cohesion for the next one.

I just PMed you.