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This isn't my next big campaign. It's a side project I began in February because the idea hit me like the blunt side of a hammer and I needed a break from my other campaign.
What this is is a few things. It's a proof of concept, it's me stretching my FREDing legs, and it's an experiment in storytelling. Far from the unwieldy length of Transcend, though, this one's a bite-sized four missions. Specifically, it's a very rudimentary implementation of tactics-based gameplay in the FS engine. It's far from an RTS, but it's certainly not regular Freespace gameplay either.
I make no guarantees about how much fun this is to play. It may very well be no fun at all. As I said, it's a proof of concept. And I'm sure some of the more advanced FREDers here are going to tear their faces off when they see the messes I've almost certainly made.
WINDMILLS
[DOWNLOAD] (http://rateofinjury.com/campaigns/Windmills.rar) (30 MB)
The campaign's designed to be played on medium difficulty and with these custom flags: "-ambient_factor 200 -nomotiondebris"
Requires a recent build of FSO. If in doubt, it's been tested and works with this (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,61806.0.html) build.
(http://rateofinjury.com/campaigns/windmills.gif)
Thanks.
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i dont know if its me or lots of ppl are downloading this but i can only dl at 9kbps........
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Sounds... Interesting...
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Tactics in FreeSpace? That's something I worked on a couple of years ago. My idea was to design a minicampaign called "FreeSpace: Tactics" (vaguely inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics) in which the player could only issue orders.
I dropped the idea after a single mission, mostly because of the fact that FRED2 didn't have enough tools to handle tactics. With FRED2 Open, however, it'd be possible to implement something like that: cutscenes, camera handling options and image subtitles can really give the impression of a strategy-based game.
By the way, I'm downloading Windmills right now. :)
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Hell yes Total War. :yes:
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http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Windmills
Created in record time, and waiting for more info. :D
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I've not finished it yet, but this is pretty cool. I suck at it. But it's cool. :cool:
The SIMULATION dude is really cool. IMO he'd make a badass villain... Playing games with you... While people die...
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-ambient_factor 200
WHAAAAAAT???
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Download finished for me in less time than it took me to read this thread, so it's not a problem on the host's end.
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:D :yes: This is...unreal, man. It almost feels like a different game altogether. Homeworld-like, and.....scary-ish too. I'm not sure I'm gonna sleep tonight. I kept thinking - this is like Ender's Game.
Puts a new perspective on it all. I really liked the final bit. Maybe now I understand why GTVA command doesn't seem to care about it's pilots...
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Also, is there anything it needs that is specifically in the Wanderer branch, or would it likely work fine with the 3.6.10 RC1 build? I mean I bet it's nice with the radar icons and all (assuming the HUD is enabled), I'm just curious if there's anything it needs.
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Wow the last mission is a complete mind****... It's not something you can play twice.
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Thanks to everyone who's responded so far. I'm incredibly relieved at least some people enjoyed this. The whole thing was a bit of a gamble.
Unfortunately I'll be without computer access for a little over a week starting a couple hours from now, so I won't be able to help with any of the bugs or what have you that'll no doubt crop up in that time. Just wanted to get this released before I left.
WHAAAAAAT???
Haha. It was necessary to get the visual style I was aiming for - unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any way to get the same effect on a per-mission basis.
Also, is there anything it needs that is specifically in the Wanderer branch, or would it likely work fine with the 3.6.10 RC1 build? I mean I bet it's nice with the radar icons and all (assuming the HUD is enabled), I'm just curious if there's anything it needs.
Shouldn't be. I'll confess I just grabbed the newest build I could find at the time to test it with - probably any build released this year will work fine.
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Not recommended to play before sleep. . . or for people who get nervous easily.
You really got a gift for scaring people :p
Love the campaign though. Something unique and can make you respect Command more. And I only just completed the second simulation. Now I'm off to sleep. . . as soon as I calm down.
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so wait, how do you make the friendlies green and the hostiles red like that?
EDIT: OIC, it's just texture replacement.
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so wait, how do you make the friendlies green and the hostiles red like that?
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Iff_defs.tbl
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so wait, how do you make the friendlies green and the hostiles red like that?
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Iff_defs.tbl
What? NO! The actual ships, geez.
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so wait, how do you make the friendlies green and the hostiles red like that?
I'd love to tell you it was some staggeringly clever piece of trickery on my part, but alas. They're just different .pofs with the textures changed.
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Yeah, I thought there might be some trickery with red and green suns and the high ambient factor, but I just cracked open the VP and figured it out.
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http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Iff_defs.tbl
What? NO! The actual ships, geez.
Oh, sorry. I misenterpreted your post. :(
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looks really cool. DLing
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More missions that sound like mindrape in a can from the one and only Ransom?
Downloading.
Now I'll need to turn off the lights.
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Ooh, people are getting creeped out by this. I need to get in on the fun. :D
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TBH Transcend didn't scare me in the slightest (No offense to Ransom, it was a great campaign)
We'll see if this can do any better.
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This isn't my next big campaign. It's a side project I began in February because the idea hit me like the blunt side of a hammer and I needed a break from my other campaign.
What this is is a few things. It's a proof of concept, it's me stretching my FREDing legs, and it's an experiment in storytelling. Far from the unwieldy length of Transcend, though, this one's a bite-sized four missions. Specifically, it's a very rudimentary implementation of tactics-based gameplay in the FS engine. It's far from an RTS, but it's certainly not regular Freespace gameplay either.
As you can see, the purpose of this campaign is different. ;)
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My mind has been raped and bircks have been shat.... this shows that an amazing campaign doesn't have to be long or graphically pretty, hats off to you and your insta-classic campaign :pimp:
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damn... it's hard!!!
what I'm supposed to choose one of the convoys on mission one to save?? cause I just get pawned every time :S
nice missions you've putted up... quite a bunch of hours fredding I'm guessing.
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The second mission is cool
when the real-life part shows up going "COMMAND!!! PLEASE RESPOND COMMAND!!!"
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SSHHHHH, no spoilers! or at least put a nice friendly spoiler tag
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Ransom Arceihn, I bow before your mindraping skills. May they stay this sharp for a long, long time.
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Ransom Arceihn, I bow before your mom's mindraping skills. May they stay this sharp for a long, long time.
:lol:
But dammit, I can't download it now.
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Wry? Because of the linkages being borked? If so just quote it...
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That won't work.
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http://rateofinjury.com/campaigns/Windmills.rar
Ye will have to copy and paste the link in order to get it to work, thanks to Goober for that.
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Yes, quoting works. Ya hit quote for the post with the link in it, and copy the link in the edit box. It's unchanged.
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Indeed.
Also, this campaign be freaky.
Edit: also, what's with the name?
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Methinks it's to do with the piece of music you hear in the last mission.
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Methinks it's because of the whole "imaginary enemies" bit from Don Quixote.
Except that the enemies probably aren't imaginary
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My God, Ransom. My God. You just made me feel like a horrible human being. And I think I love you for it. That was just...wow. :D
(...okay, I'm leaving that filtered. :lol:)
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My God, Ransom. My God. You just made me feel like a horrible human being. And I think I love you for it. That was just...wow. :D
(...okay, I'm leaving that filtered. :lol:)
About the filter: :ick:
About the campaign: I think it really brings to the forefront the moral choices Head-CM2 has to make every day. I think we should all cut that guy some slack now that we know how it feels to be in his position.
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I don't think he's the only one making decisions. From the FS mainhall we see that operative placed like a normal communications officer.
I think he "relays" the will of highly ranked officers.
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You're taking it too literally man. I just meant people are always rabbiting on about how mission control or whatever you want to call them are always making mistakes - While actually we should consider that they have to make important choices all the time.
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The reason I found this so impressive was because of how Ransom took such a simple concept and used it to drive home such a powerful message. It's incredibly easy to complain about a commander's decisions from the limited view of a fighter cockpit...but it's something else entirely when you're the one with that tactical screen in front of you, having to pull strings and decide who lives and who dies. I know I could replay the campaign and change my decisions, or else just open up the missions in FRED and see how making different choices would have affected the outcome, but I honestly don't have the heart to at the moment.
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It's incredibly easy to complain about a commander's decisions from the limited view of a fighter cockpit...but it's something else entirely when you're the one with that tactical screen in front of your mom...
LOL!!! :wakka:
Holy ****...that was more mindrape than Transcend in concept...
It wasn't the same type of creepy, it was worse.
My mind is really spinning out of control.
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Ooh, people are getting creeped out by this. I need to get in on the fun. :D
My thoughts exactly
Ransom, you've given me a brilliant reason to upgrade my internet and get to grips with things like these that little bit faster
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Woah, just woah :D
Really makes you think doesn't it.....
Oh and seriously Goober, WTF is up with the custom title.
If I ever become a mod I'll make March 31st a living nightmare.....justtt you wait! :lol:
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It was kind of a "wait, wtf?" moment when
In the last mission, the teams switched and my force of 3 leviathans exploded my own base
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It was kind of a "wait, wtf?" moment when
In the last mission, the teams switched and my force of 3 leviathans exploded my own base
I was doing so well at the beginning that I had to try complete the mission with Installation 02 (now my base) at 16% and the other at 100%. Eventually I lost, but not before getting Installation 01 (formerly my base now "their" base) to ~30%. :cool:
Then I got mind****ed by Epsilon 3.
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Somehow I feel thankful I never called Command stupid. I doubt I'll finish all four missions though... normally I'd blame laziness, but for this, definitely not. :doubt:
Clever hard-hitting play on human emotion. Nowhere near as creepy as Sync or Transcend, yet it's just as bad as those two.
Damn.
And I got stuck at the training part where you have the 2 cruisers aiming your corvette and the simulator tells you to press Q... I didn't know WHAT was happening, still totally blur even as the simulator went on, so I just selected one target and randomly pressed Q to the instructions (effect: cruiser died), and then selected the 2nd cruiser and kept hammering down Q (did stop for a few seconds as I waited for something to happen) but didn't see anything happen at all... the cruisers just stood there and did nothing :lol:
(PS: Props to the 80's-like art style. Neat cover for a beta work.)
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Somehow I feel thankful I never called Command stupid. I doubt I'll finish all four missions though... normally I'd blame laziness, but for this, definitely not. :doubt:
Clever hard-hitting play on human emotion. Nowhere near as creepy as Sync or Transcend, yet it's just as bad as those two.
Damn.
And I got stuck at the training part where you have the 2 cruisers aiming your corvette and the simulator tells you to press Q... I didn't know WHAT was happening, still totally blur even as the simulator went on, so I just selected one target and randomly pressed Q to the instructions (effect: cruiser died), and then selected the 2nd cruiser and kept hammering down Q (did stop for a few seconds as I waited for something to happen) but didn't see anything happen at all... the cruisers just stood there and did nothing :lol:
(PS: Props to the 80's-like art style. Neat cover for a beta work.)
you need to pick your own ship.
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I pressed the abort command and tried the defense mission after that. XD
maybe i just need to get used to it. :nervous:
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I was doing so well at the beginning that I had to try complete the mission with Installation 02 (now my base) at 16% and the other at 100%. Eventually I lost, but not before getting Installation 01 (formerly my base now "their" base) to ~30%. :cool:
Then I got mind****ed by Epsilon 3.
I think it was because I had my difficulty set to Easy instead of Medium, but both of the stations were well above 70% when the switch occurred for me. And the mission time elapsed was over half an hour by the time I was finally able to destroy the other station. :p
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Ehh... count me among those who didn't find it much fun. :no:
It was an interesting exercise, but the SIMULATION guy preaching at you started to wear on me after a while. It's like he's trying to discourage you from working for the GTVA (if in fact that's who's providing the simulation). And I'm not particularly a fan of RTS games.
The switch from "simulation" to "real life" in mission 2 was interesting, and unexpected, but it didn't grab me emotionally like it did for some other people in this thread. Maybe it's because I didn't feel immersed in the simulation.
The last mission was rather frustrating. Considering how badly I did at the first three missions, I was very pleased to actually be in a winning position after several rounds, with the enemy installation down to 50% and my own somewhere around 80 or 90. And then all the IFFs changed over, and I had absolutely no chance to recover, and ended up losing.
There were also some bugs in the last mission; by the end of the game there were three enemy and one friendly wings that were just sitting there, refusing to attack anything. None of the orders I gave the friendly wing worked. Also, according to the mission file, it looks like there were supposed to be a lot of messages that triggered after the escaping transport appeared, but none of them showed up. I was just dumped out of the mission with no debriefing.
I wanted to go back and play the last mission a second time, to see if I could do any better (keeping in mind the IFF change), but Ransom forgot to add the Tech Room to his custom main hall, and I didn't feel like playing through the entire campaign again.
So, for me, the fun factor was only maybe 2 stars out of 5. The technical achievement factor, however, was an easy 5 out of 5 -- I was very impressed with the idea, the fact that Ransom was able to kludge an RTS interface out of an FPS interface, and the sheer amount of stuff that he attempted in the campaign. And based on the number of questions he asked me over IM, I'm surprised there weren't more bugs than there were. :)
As a FREDder myself, I think that this a pretty amazing achievement. :yes: As a proof of concept, it's very thought provoking, and definitely pushes the limits of what you can do in a campaign.
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Just to pick one thing out of Goober's post...
It was an interesting exercise, but the SIMULATION guy preaching at you started to wear on me after a while. It's like he's trying to discourage you from working for the GTVA (if in fact that's who's providing the simulation).
I kind of feel like that was the purpose of the simulation...or to be more specific, that it was designed as a means of weeding out officer candidates who wouldn't be able to deal with the vagaries and uncertainties of a command situation. I'd imagine that modern military schools have exercises that achieve the same purpose, even if they're not executed in a remotely similar fashion. Most of the issues that Ransom raised are those that one might expect to undergo in an actual command situation, particularly one with as strongly-veiled upper echelons as the GTVA seems to exhibit. Dealing with shifting situations, having to prioritize between original mission objectives and new circumstances, questioning exactly what one is really achieving...if one can't deal with those questions hanging over one's head, then one probably shouldn't be assigned to a command role. And tying the whole experience in with the "player's" own past at the end was a nice little masterstroke, at least in my opinion.
Oh, and if you really were dumped out of the final mission just when that transport showed up, you wound up missing what for me was by far the most potent psychological punch of the whole thing, which is a damn shame. I also had that bug where one of my bomber wings stopped responding to orders, but that resolved itself nicely once the sides switched.
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Ransom forgot to add the Tech Room to his custom main hall, and I didn't feel like playing through the entire campaign again.
I'm gonna tell you a little secret that will make your jaw drop.
In the main menu, hit the "T" key. ;7
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Wow, Ransom.
Mind****
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Ransom forgot to add the Tech Room to his custom main hall, and I didn't feel like playing through the entire campaign again.
I'm gonna tell you a little secret that will make your jaw drop.
In the main menu, hit the "T" key. ;7
Damn you beat me to it.
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Windmills? Alpha 1 of La Mancha?
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Wow. That was a demonstration of genius.
And yes, I did find the gameplay fun.
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Unholy ****... Damn... This is... SO Ransom... Which is a good thing...
/me wakes up
And yeah, Don Command de La Mancha, I guess.
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So... anyone going to highlight this? Because that was truly well done. The abrupt shifts in point of view at the end were rather chilling.
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I'd love to...but I'm not entirely sure how to enter in a new highlight, and I'd rather not foul up the front page if I can help it. :p
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All you need is an image hosted somewhere for the highlight, and then it's just (url=blah)(img)imgpath(/img)text(/url)
Edit: Ok it's all highlightified now.
Also, I get a failed assert when I try to run this with a debug build, but no one else seems to be reporting any issues. This is with Wanderer branch r5146 or the new RC2. Am I the first one to try in debug or is something messed up on my end?
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Uh, chief? You might wanna take a closer look at the highlight
"Ransom Arceihn has released an experimental campaign that will could very well blow your mind!"
Just FYI
EDIT: Having finished downloading it, I played it, and in true Ransom tradition, I had to turn the game off about halfway through. The switch in mission two pulled a Transcend: IT SCARED THE **** OUT OF ME!!!
Ransom, you have yet again proven your awesomeness. You, sir, are amazing, and I bow to your superiority.
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Fixed the highlight. And yeah, it's pretty damn crazy.
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Thanks to everyone who's played it. I'm glad this is going down well.
Ehh... count me among those who didn't find it much fun. :no:
That's a shame, but I fully understand.
The preachiness of SIMULATION was definitely something I was concerned about. I'd intended for the dialogue to be matter-of-fact enough that it wouldn't grate - that all moral judgements would be inferences on the part of the player rather than explicitly handed down by SIM. It's humbling to know that I could have done better.
The difficulty was a problem, because of course you're at the mercy of the engine's AI most of the time. I allowed the player to progress regardless of the scenario's outcome (which combined with the luck aspect feeds into the campaign's themes), because it's meant to be introspective. In the situation you describe, I felt that the possibility of the player being made to suffer the loss they were about to inflict on their enemy was a potent thematic device. But I was certainly aware that for some failures would be frustrating regardless of the lack of punishment.
Ah, well. That's the nature of experiments, I suppose. Fun wasn't a primary objective of the project, I'll admit, so to be honest I'm (very pleasantly) surprised there haven't been more responses like yours.
I'm dismayed you hit a bug at that part of the last mission, though. It's really the crux of the campaign. Could you send me a PM detailing the exact situation?
(Also - the techroom was a deliberate omission. I felt it cluttered the menu too much to be worth inclusion for a campaign 30-60 minutes long, and if you really wanted to get to it you could just press T.)
also, what's with the name?
The title has a bit of a double-meaning - several people have caught one or the other already. It refers to the idiom from Don Quixote, as well as the music used in the finale. Both relate to different aspects of the campaign.
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The title has a bit of a double-meaning - several people have caught one or the other already. It refers to the idiom from Don Quixote, as well as the music used in the finale. Both relate to different aspects of the campaign.
Okay I *think* I understand the first part, but the music I still don't have as much as a clue.
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The readme implies there is voice acting, but I completed the first mission and didnt hear a word. With all the positive feedback I decided rather than complete it with no voice Id ask if this is how its supposed to be?
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That's how it's supposed to be, yes. The voice acting is limited.
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Cheers, Ill get back to playing :D
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Actually I kind of wish that Simulation was voiced by the speech synth, but it doesn't seem to want to do that, even if I've enabled it in the launcher. Would be kind of creepy still I think, and I wouldn't have to be speed reading so hardcore.
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I had to keep referring to the F4 Mission Log.
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The readme implies there is voice acting, but I completed the first mission and didnt hear a word. With all the positive feedback I decided rather than complete it with no voice Id ask if this is how its supposed to be?
Play mission 2. There's only one voice acted line, but you're not going to forget it. :shaking:
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The readme implies there is voice acting, but I completed the first mission and didnt hear a word. With all the positive feedback I decided rather than complete it with no voice Id ask if this is how its supposed to be?
Play mission 2. There's only one voice acted line, but you're not going to forget it. :shaking:
That really, really, really unnerved me.
Something about the pathos of it.
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Great job at this mod :yes: It relay gives second thoughts about war and what we have saw in other games.
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/me gets ideas :D
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Definitely interesting. I like it. The sim itself preached a bit too much at times and felt overly melodramatic, but generally it was a very good exercise, top notch work. That one point with the voice acting is stellar.
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I'm going to say I didn't enjoy it all.
This was probably inevitable. Harpoon Classic IN SPACE it was not. But what really, really sunk it was something Mongoose tried to explain earlier, making some wrong assumptions.
It preached the wrong things. This is not how you train an officer.
This is a simulation of an insane, dysfunctional GTVA military created as a proganda tool by the NTF. If this is how Command was trained, or operates, I have every right as a pilot to complain about him.
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This is not how you train an officer.
You are quite right.
This is pretty much exactly the kind of reaction I was terrified of while I was working on this. It's a misinterpretation of the project's intent, but the fact it's happened demonstrates my failure here. I apologise for that.
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This is not how you train an officer.
You are quite right.
This is pretty much exactly the kind of reaction I was terrified of while I was working on this. It's a misinterpretation of the project's intent, but the fact it's happened demonstrates my failure here. I apologise for that.
Well it did a good job of getting to you. But in my own military experience I'd have to concur that's not how you'd train officers. Maybe some kind of psychological assessment? But in those terms they look for "Motivated, Aggressive, Team Players". It could be an uber-advanced way of putting candidates under stress however, which is what many officer programs do to my knowledge at least to some extent.
Usually this kind of thing involves very straight forward instruction and commands, but this is like Officer Training: Transcend-ified
I enjoyed it x10 regardless :D
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This is not how you train an officer.
You are quite right.
This is pretty much exactly the kind of reaction I was terrified of while I was working on this. It's a misinterpretation of the project's intent, but the fact it's happened demonstrates my failure here. I apologise for that.
RANSOM NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
You did not fail. What happened here is exactly that: NGTM-1R misunderstood the project's intent.
I'm going to say I didn't enjoy it all.
This was probably inevitable. Harpoon Classic IN SPACE it was not. But what really, really sunk it was something Mongoose tried to explain earlier, making some wrong assumptions.
It preached the wrong things. This is not how you train an officer.
This is a simulation of an insane, dysfunctional GTVA military created as a proganda tool by the NTF. If this is how Command was trained, or operates, I have every right as a pilot to complain about him.
Did you ever play Portal? Yes? That's not how you run an autonomous wormhole research facility, is it?
Did you ever see Dr. Strangelove? That's not how it would work in real life, is it?
The point of Windmillls is to make you question everything you take for granted as a Freespace 2 pilot. Why am I blowing up this cargo depot? Why are there eight wings of Hercs jumping in to guard this ship? Aren't there people over there flying those bombers I'm mercilessly vaporizing?
Officer training is in no small part aimed to make sure you're appropriately brainwashed (just like any other kind of training.) Windmills...isn't. But come on. You read Ender's Game, right? The Giant's Drink? Psychological assessment?
I think what probably bothers you is that this isn't a simulation of an insane, dysfunctional GTVA military. The simulation voice certainly is. But the choices you make in the simulation are totally accurate to what Command does in nearly every mission. The 'Simulation' character just draws your attention to that.
And I think it's painful to examine those choices and realize exactly how amoral Command has to be.
Windmills adds a kind of realistic moral weight and complexity to the Freespace 2 experience that can be downright uncomfortable. It can be frightening. How many of us weren't shocked by that brief flash of the desperate pilot yelling for Command? We've all heard it a hundred times in other missions...but here it meant something.
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It may not be how you train an officer, but who the **** cares? It's still creepy as hell, and still awesome. Besides, there's always somebody who doesn't like a campaign, but when you consider how many people there are that enjoyed it vs. how many people there are that didn't, Windmills is not a failure, at all. Bottom line: people like it, therefore it's a success. Besides, Ransom, you're one of the best campaign-makers in existence, and hats off to you.
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This style of training would certianly weed out the weaker persons a lot more efficently.
Look at military Basic Combat Training, it's supposed to be a test of mental and psychological strength as well as physical, but it's piss-poor on the first two, just about ANY person can handle being yelled at for days-on-end, I can easily handle being yelled at constantly. What the style Windmills introduces is PURELY mental and psychological, it would decide who was better at making choices and taking chances and who wouldn't be capable of taking that kind of position without breaking down at first conflict.
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For all we know the GTVA wants thoughtful, morally nuanced commanders who can nonetheless make the hard decisions.
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What GB said. This is most emphatically not a failure. You can't please everyone.
Me, I didn't really try to dig too deep into analyzing every word, every statement, every action. The overall experience was highly unique and thought provoking. That alone is worth something. On top of that, I found it entertaining. I kind of doubt it is going to have nearly as much replay value since surprise factors in a big way to how you experience this campaign, but for me, the experience was a very good one. Kudos.
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What happened here is exactly that: NGTM-1R misunderstood the project's intent.
One can understand a project's intent without agreeing that the project achieved that intent.
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NGTM-1R is a harsh critic though.
Don't hurt me.
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What happened here is exactly that: NGTM-1R misunderstood the project's intent.
One can understand a project's intent without agreeing that the project achieved that intent.
Fair enough.
This is the most adventurous project we've seen in FRED for a very long time. It amazes me that it was -- in addition to having experimental merit -- a great deal of fun. I think NGTM-1R's criticism was unfounded and unsubstantial.
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I had to download it, seems interesting. It's 0:23 here and I'm giving it a shot...
Edit: Omg at the Second mission, contact lost
- 0:25
Edit 2: The Big red Orion was supposed to scare too, right? My camera was pinned somewhere else, although I made it at 0:02. Hehe
The total font concept is interesting and original too.
I also like the psychological part. It seems that I'm not even a Terran commander but some Man behind the curtain. :shaking:
Omg.
:/
-0:31
Edit 3: What a butterfly effect on mission 4! I couldnt even target the transport, duh.
Anyway. I've been planning to write the scifi book... and you definitely inspired me a tad bit. Hey, thanks for the experience.
-0:54
About the achievment, well, it's some, but I never fredded and,... you know. I've read some of the responses and yes, Don Quixote definitely came to my mind, although I don't know the metaphor for Windmills in the mod.
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Nor do I know the meaning of the music on the fourth mission.
Someone PM it?
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Allow me to be the latest to offer my praise to Ransom. Though the "tactical" aspect probably isn't quite the way it was originally intended, owing to the rather limited AI, the "campaign" brings into sharp focus the moral issues commanders have to face. It only took about an hour for me to play through, but I probably won't be able to look at RTS's in the same way anymore. One thing I particularly enjoyed was how choices you had made prior to the last mission had an impact, and though my heart wasn't particularly warmed by any of the possible endings for the last mission (cough, cough), I feel it paints a convincingly bleak picture of a military operation. In the heat of a dogfight, it may be easy for any of us to assign our wingmen to a suicidal directive- we're trying to save ourselves and possibly the mission. However, as a commander, from the safety of... well, wherever GTVA CO's operate from, we have to choose who gets to live and who must die before shots are even exchanged. Furthermore, I'll add that the simplistic graphics (for the simulation, at least) contribute to making the experience more dehumanizing. Questions such as "why are we fighting?", "who are we fighting?", and the like are irrelevant- as a commander, you have directives, and they must be accomplished.
Also, props for the Ender's Game reference.
Despite what the simulation repeats on several occasions, the battles are for real.
Or so I think. On the other hand, I'm second-guessing the master of mind games.
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About the achievment, well, it's some, but I never fredded and,... you know. I've read some of the responses and yes, Don Quixote definitely came to my mind, although I don't know the metaphor for Windmills in the mod.
Do you remember any references to windmills in that work? They're quite common. :)
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Did you ever play Portal? Yes? That's not how you run an autonomous wormhole research facility, is it?
Did you ever see Dr. Strangelove? That's not how it would work in real life, is it?
The point of Windmillls is to make you question everything you take for granted as a Freespace 2 pilot. Why am I blowing up this cargo depot? Why are there eight wings of Hercs jumping in to guard this ship? Aren't there people over there flying those bombers I'm mercilessly vaporizing?
Officer training is in no small part aimed to make sure you're appropriately brainwashed (just like any other kind of training.) Windmills...isn't. But come on. You read Ender's Game, right? The Giant's Drink? Psychological assessment?
I think what probably bothers you is that this isn't a simulation of an insane, dysfunctional GTVA military. The simulation voice certainly is. But the choices you make in the simulation are totally accurate to what Command does in nearly every mission. The 'Simulation' character just draws your attention to that.
And I think it's painful to examine those choices and realize exactly how amoral Command has to be.
Windmills adds a kind of realistic moral weight and complexity to the Freespace 2 experience that can be downright uncomfortable. It can be frightening. How many of us weren't shocked by that brief flash of the desperate pilot yelling for Command? We've all heard it a hundred times in other missions...but here it meant something.
Oh, now you had to bring up Ender's Game. It's on.
That, too, is a simulation of an insane, dysfunctional military, in the business of turning out pyschotics and sociopaths. The book is horrible. Ender is deeply delusional or not actually human, if you accept the authorial fiat to, as an essay I'm fond of put it, "Create the innocent killer."
And that's the problem. As I observed, it doesn't really matter whether this is an accurate depiction of Command or not. If it is, then there is no mystery as to why the GTVA loses wars. Many people struggle, it seems, to cast the GTVA as composed of competent, able officers. This is "timeframe not specified" so I can't necessarily point out that in the wake of the Second Shivan Invasion there would undoubtedly be massive shakeups in the GTVA's military culture, producing a leaner, more effective officer corps. But at the same time, I can point out that we are not experiencing a peacetime GTVA military in FS2. They have eighteen months of wartime operations under their belts. They would know exactly how dangerous this sort of officer is. They have experience during the T-V War and the Great War too. GTVA forces have always demonstrated relatively high morale and a willingness to engage the enemy consistant with that. If they were being commanded by people like this, that would not be the case.
The purest example of this is the frequently-repeated "choose who lives and who dies" thing in this thread. No. That's not how it works. A service academy will drill this into your head; a good commander never knowingly sends men to their deaths. As for the enemy, that's another issue. If they wanted to survive, they should have stayed home.
Now, given what we know of the NTF and its taste for summary courtmartials and other symptoms of a force with poor discipline, this is perhaps an effective training tool for those attempting to gain entry into Aken Bosch's inner circle. It teaches Magnificent Bastardy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagnificentBastard) well enough...
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Good commanders knowingly send men to their deaths all the time. It's called sending them into combat. You just don't send them to certain death. Past that, it's a matter of convincing yourself of the probabilities.
And this is what I mean by you missing the point: this campaign is not in any way meant to be a simulation of GTVA officer training.
Get past that fact and see what it's really about.
And there was nothing insane or dysfunctional about the military in Ender's Game. Only, perhaps, Colonel Graff -- who made the right decisions to preserve humanity.
Also, if it's horrible, why is it required reading for US Marines...?
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One can understand a project's intent without agreeing that the project achieved that intent.
NGTM-1R keeps arguing on the basis that this would be a terrible and crazy way to train officers, which is entirely correct but it is most certainly a misunderstanding of what I was trying to do. No part of me believes this might have been how the GTVA trained anybody.
But that's fine - what I meant earlier was that, like a joke that has to be explained, any reasonable misinterpretation can only be the fault of the author. I'm not trying to defend my own work here. NGTM-1R's opinion is one I respect and though I can't apply his arguments directly the fact they exist is as good as any criticism.
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Actually, the more I think about it, the more I like the context of the NTF thing. It really does seem like the sort of thing the NTF would throw at you. And it definitely fits the context of Aken Bosch' worldview.
As for Ender's Game: perhaps because it is horrible. Like I said, creating the innocent killer. Or perhaps his ability to divorce himself from his feelings. These are useful things to believe/practice (and Graff is a standin for every Marine drill instructor you'll ever have the displeasure of displeasing?) to a degree. But in the end, I still believe that Ender's life was calculated to create sociopath, a pyschotic. This is not a reasonable goal, and while I tend to err on the side of the survival of the species I also think that Ender's game was horrible novel for another reason. Ender wasn't necessary. Someone else would have seen what he did; someone else would have (should have, at that, considering he threw away humanity's entire military might, which was a decision that in the end would have to be taken by a politician) given the order.
Ender was pointless. Speaker for the Dead was a joke. Ender is not capable of feeling. He's already shown that off before.
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Actually, Ender was a careful balance between psychosis and emotion. His brother Peter was rejected as too ruthless, unlikely to earn the loyalty of his men, and his sister Valentine was considered too soft and emotional.
Ender never threw away humanity's entire military might. He won every battle he ever fought, and only in the final battle at the Bugger homeworld did he sacrifice an entire fleet. But the fleets he'd commanded in every other battle went on to found colonies on the worlds they'd conquered.
If Ender isn't capable of feeling, why did he have such an enormous breakdown when he finally acknowledged the reality of what he'd done? Why did he agonize over his likeness to his brother? The novel makes it clear that he struggles with everything he does, and very nearly fails in Graff's eyes as a result.
ANYWAY!
You seem to be having some kind of trouble thinking about this campaign. The important thing here is the questions being asked. It doesn't have to fit into the universe as some kind of GTVA or NTF training simulation. Did the Transcendent belong to the NTF or the GTVA? Nooooo.
I just find it really odd that you can't acknowledge the value of the questions this campaign is asking. Because Allied Command does makes these choices daily.
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I just find it really odd that you can't acknowledge the value of the questions this campaign is asking. Because Allied Command does makes these choices daily.
Yes, but with less of the "OMG! LOOK WHAT YOU DID YOU LITTLE SH*T!" They make their decisions and get over them, no matter what the outcome is, like most modern military leaders. The more you dwell on the shortcomings the less of an effective leader you become in the present. Assessing your failures is essential, but emphasizing them and their negative results in such a way as to scare the Commander works in a mindf*ck campaign like this one, but notso much in the real world. Because Allied Leadership crapping its pants just isn't cool :)
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Reread my post, please.
This campaign points out those decisions.
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Absolutely awesome. The final simulation is also a great idea - jumping groups between battles for offense or defense. Considering the lore and number of ships and stuff already available in the FS2 game, I think it'd be really interesting and impressive to see a large-scale RTS game based on the franchise. Of course, I think I'm like, 3 years too late in saying this.
Windmills was jaw-dropping. I set a new password and logged in just to say this.
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That was absolutely stunning storytelling. As the point of view changes in the last mission the story became creepier and creepier. Personally I'd love to see more of this. Well done indeed.
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You seem to be having some kind of trouble thinking about this campaign. The important thing here is the questions being asked. It doesn't have to fit into the universe as some kind of GTVA or NTF training simulation. Did the Transcendent belong to the NTF or the GTVA? Nooooo.
I just find it really odd that you can't acknowledge the value of the questions this campaign is asking. Because Allied Command does makes these choices daily.
And I'm point out that if Command really is making these kind of choices, then Command needs to be stood against the nearest wall and shot. :P He's not doing his job, or at least not right.
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You seem to be having some kind of trouble thinking about this campaign. The important thing here is the questions being asked. It doesn't have to fit into the universe as some kind of GTVA or NTF training simulation. Did the Transcendent belong to the NTF or the GTVA? Nooooo.
I just find it really odd that you can't acknowledge the value of the questions this campaign is asking. Because Allied Command does makes these choices daily.
And I'm point out that if Command really is making these kind of choices, then Command needs to be stood against the nearest wall and shot. :P He's not doing his job, or at least not right.
Oh, c'mon. Play the damn campaign before you comment on it.
You've got a group of military and civilian ships and limited resources to protect them. (Say it's a convoy running the heck away from Capella.) Take it as a given that they've got to get from point A to point B with risk of attack. Of course you have to allocate your resources somehow. In what fairy tale land could you get out of it? Do you want to pull a Janeway and find the third option that lets you get out of every hard choice?
Do you call in that cruiser for fire support, knowing it could draw bombers? Do you call reinforcements, knowing they might be used better elsewhere? Do you send your stealth fighters to help a friendly warship at the potential cost of the overall mission?
These are pretty damn realistic scenarios, NGTM-1R. And someone with your military background should be practically salivating over the degree of tactical and strategic depth they offer.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the FS2 main campaign is full of these scenarios. "Several Allied warships are still in the nebula. We can wait no longer. Proceed with demolition of the portal." Or, perhaps, "The third convoy group has entered the field of engagement. Blah-blah-blah, a medical ship, and blah-blah are now headed for the Capella node." Do you ditch the existing convoy and head for them?
These are choices we, as players, face in many a mission.
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I've enjoyed the campaign, but I found those "What are you going to do now, sir?" situations a bit forced. In reality, Command should do whatever it takes to prevent those situations from happening in the first place. They may happen, but surely not in the daily routine...and I don't think you can base training simulations on rare events.
Even having to make that kind of decisions may be considered a defeat: no matter of your decision, something bad is going to happen.
Battuta: I don't think the main campaign is a good example, either. We all know that the player is (and is supposed to be) the equivalent of who knows how many fighters or bombers, so we can't base scenarios on "I have 2-3 wings available, what should I do with them?" - the number of available forces may be various and off the schemes we all know. Keep in mind that FreeSpace is a series in which 8 fighters are supposed to protect destroyers from relentless attacks even if there are many additional forces available to do that. Don't forget that FS is a game.
Other than that, I would have really liked to see this as a pure minicampaign set anywhere/anytime in the FreeSpace Universe, and not as a simulation. IMO, it would have been more realistic and enjoyable, and would have also lacked the creep-creep factor that belongs to a different genre of campaigns, like Trascend and Sync.
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I've enjoyed the campaign, but I found those "What are you going to do now, sir?" situations a bit forced. In reality, Command should do whatever it takes to prevent those situations from happening in the first place. They may happen, but surely not in the daily routine...and I don't think you can base training simulations on rare events.
Nail on the head.
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I've enjoyed the campaign, but I found those "What are you going to do now, sir?" situations a bit forced. In reality, Command should do whatever it takes to prevent those situations from happening in the first place. They may happen, but surely not in the daily routine...and I don't think you can base training simulations on rare events.
Nail on the head.
Nail on the head, but he's disagreeing with you: 'they may happen, but surely not in the daily routine...'
As you'd say, NGTM-1R, you don't train just for the daily routine, you train for the worst-case scenario.
Of course you base training simulations on rare events. You just don't base all of them.
And to turn your own metagame arguments back on you, Mobius, in how many campaigns do you fly totally uneventful patrols or escorts? In spite of the fact that they probably make up the majority of such missions?
Look, I see your objection: Command shouldn't let these scenarios happen. Yet they clearly do. As in the case of the withdrawing-from-the-nebula scenario, in spite of everyone's best efforts, sometimes hard choices have to be made.
This is a Freespace version of the Kobayashi Maru.
I've enjoyed the campaign, but I found those "What are you going to do now, sir?" situations a bit forced. In reality, Command should do whatever it takes to prevent those situations from happening in the first place. They may happen, but surely not in the daily routine...and I don't think you can base training simulations on rare events.
Even having to make that kind of decisions may be considered a defeat: no matter of your decision, something bad is going to happen.
Battuta: I don't think the main campaign is a good example, either. We all know that the player is (and is supposed to be) the equivalent of who knows how many fighters or bombers, so we can't base scenarios on "I have 2-3 wings available, what should I do with them?" - the number of available forces may be various and off the schemes we all know. Keep in mind that FreeSpace is a series in which 8 fighters are supposed to protect destroyers from relentless attacks even if there are many additional forces available to do that. Don't forget that FS is a game.
Other than that, I would have really liked to see this as a pure minicampaign set anywhere/anytime in the FreeSpace Universe, and not as a simulation. IMO, it would have been more realistic and enjoyable, and would have also lacked the creep-creep factor that belongs to a different genre of campaigns, like Trascend and Sync.
THE MAIN CAMPAIGN IS CANON. DEAL WITH IT. STOP THE FANWANK BEFORE YOU GET A CRAMP.
Play on Insane, dude. Alpha 1 ain't nothin' special -- just a skilled pilot. And eight fighters are damn well plenty to protect a modern carrier, so why aren't they good enough for an FS2 destroyer? You have no idea if additional forces are available.
This campaign is meant to make you understand WHY there aren't other forces available to relieve Alpha 1.
Garsh, where's Snail when I need him?
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As you'd say, NGTM-1R, you don't train just for the daily routine, you train for the worst-case scenario.
You let the trainee work themselves into the worst-case scenario (which, I admit, mission 4 did, though in a rather forced manner) rather than thrusting it upon them so blatantly. You don't simply present them with a losing scenario and say "solve it", that doesn't help as much as showing them how things got to this point in the first place. (It makes for good gaming, though.)
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As you'd say, NGTM-1R, you don't train just for the daily routine, you train for the worst-case scenario.
You let the trainee work themselves into the worst-case scenario (which, I admit, mission 4 did, though in a rather forced manner) rather than thrusting it upon them so blatantly. You don't simply present them with a losing scenario and say "solve it", that doesn't help as much as showing them how things got to this point in the first place.
And again you're asking this to be a realistic recreation of commander training in the GTVA.
It's a piece of literature, not a documentary.
Which is not to say it's not realistic. But it can jump into the narrative wherever it damn well pleases -- including the assumption that you're under unusual circumstances or that your character has already undergone hours and hours of more basic training.
I think your criticism is irresponsible. This is a staggering piece of FREDing and the most original work we've seen in years. You're criticizing it on essentially spurious ground. What you want would have utterly destroyed the pacing, atmosphere, and message of the text.
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Well, I did excuse that. :P Just not quickly enough.
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My apologies. I see it now.
I think we're probably not disagreeing any more, then.
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Wow, this was incredible. I'd love to see more of this style, if at all possible.
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I can't get it to show up, am I doing something wrong?
1) click download
2) navigate to Computer/Games/FS2
3) save as default option (RAR file)
Then nothing shows up, and I can't find it anywhere.
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Extracting the campaign from its .rar archive might be a good place to start. :p
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*headdesk*
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:lol:
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Actually, Ender was a careful balance between psychosis and emotion. His brother Peter was rejected as too ruthless, unlikely to earn the loyalty of his men, and his sister Valentine was considered too soft and emotional.
Read some of the other books. Peter was rejected because he was not ruthless enough. This information comes out when Bean is being used to fight the world and Peter is not.
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Actually, Ender was a careful balance between psychosis and emotion. His brother Peter was rejected as too ruthless, unlikely to earn the loyalty of his men, and his sister Valentine was considered too soft and emotional.
Read some of the other books. Peter was rejected because he was not ruthless enough. This information comes out when Bean is being used to fight the world and Peter is not.
I've read them, but that seems like a retcon -- for purposes of this discussion I'm just paying attention to 'Ender's Game'.
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Okay I just played this, and it was a good story and displayed excelent FREDing. But I dont see why everyone was so freaked out. I agree that SIMULATION was atleast semi psychotic, but my reaction to failure was " oh, well that sucks." not "agh my mind it esplodin!"
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You kind of have to let it freak you out, and really think about the implications. Kind of like the "Blair Witch Project".
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Defiantly worth the time to play it. Very good story, could use a bit of a graphics enhancement. Still this is only a Beta version. This could a very amazing style very quickly. Would defiantly play more like this.
Kudos my good man.
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Defiantly worth the time to play it. Very good story, could use a bit of a graphics enhancement. Still this is only a Beta version. This could a very amazing style very quickly. Would defiantly play more like this.
Kudos my good man.
Were you playing with the MVPs on? I don't think this is any kind of beta.
You're supposed to use the command line settings from the first post so everything is pure red or pure green.
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You kind of have to let it freak you out, and really think about the implications. Kind of like the "Blair Witch Project".
Blair Witch Project didn't freak me out the first time I saw it...even if I tried being freaked out, I'd be lying if I said it was scary.
It was just retarded.
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I didn't really like the first few missions, everything seemed as though it was set in stone too much. The installation battle was very enjoyable though, until I ordered my Epsilon to destroy that transport... and then thrown into the cockpit of a fighter I actually tried to kill my wingmen, but they were invulnerable. I think that shouldn't been an option as well, tbh.
Other than that, deep **** man. deep ****. :yes: :shaking:
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Set in stone? Did you try replaying them and making different choices? It seemed like they had different possible outcomes. 'Save more civilians' vs. 'save more military', so on.
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Yeah, but they all had set goals "Go here, defend this" etc etc. The last one let you do your own thing entirely so long as you won.
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This is not how you train an officer.
You are quite right.
This is pretty much exactly the kind of reaction I was terrified of while I was working on this. It's a misinterpretation of the project's intent, but the fact it's happened demonstrates my failure here. I apologise for that.
Longtime Lurker... rarely, if ever, posting... but i just reset my password to disagree with you here.
What you offered us here is almost a piece of art... it poses more questions than it answers, it wants to be interpreted, and it almost begs you to think about it... it's not for everyone, but is there anything that really IS for everyone ? ;)
Seriously... the only thing that i am disappointed in is that you seem to take such badly thought out critcism to heart. So it's not "Harpoon in Space" ? or "realistic GTVA Officer Training" ? ... either notion is absurd for anyone who went at it with an open mind and really thought about it - or even just read your introduction post.
As already said, your work poses more question than it answers and if anything my impression was that "Windmills" offers us a glimpse at the very troubled (and bitter) mind of a Pilot trying to rationalize how "Command's" decision making process might work... the insistent questioning from Command during the missions really sounded to me like someone thinking to "themselves" and wondering constantly about the "Why?" behind the orders - the orders that they someday in the past received and that led them to commit acts that deeply trouble them up to the present.... alternatively it might be said pilot accusing or confronting an officer of Command with the result of their decisions... maybe just in their head as well. ;)
What could i have done ? What could someone else have done differently ? Did this really have to happen or could it have been avoided ? Did you really want to do this ? Would you do the same ? How could you have done this ? What purpose is there to anything if it ends with so much pain/guilt ? Isn't that exactly what goes on in peoples heads after a tragic accident or traumatic experience ? ... and that is exactly what Windmills and "Command" was all about to me. The "tone" of Command at least suddenly makes perfect sense.
I can only speculate about the title. "Windmills" certainly brings Don Quixote to mind... and the thoughts, the many "what ifs", people have after tragic events certainly appear to be just as futile as Don Quixote's charging of windmills... but i am only really blindly guessing now. ;)
In any case, "Windmills" certainly is not about actual "real" officer training (LOL) and it's quite a bit diferent from "Ender's premise as well. Ender "thought" he was playing a game, when in fact everything was real.
The Protagnist in Windmills - again, as i interpret it - isn't playing a game at all... rather, it is all going on inside his head and it is all about a traumatic experience that (in the context of the story) really happened in the protagnists past and that he simply can not come to terms with.
The one (quite ironic) similary to "Ender" would be that we, as actual players, at first might "think" we are playing a simulation that may "really" exist within the context of the canon of the Freespace universe, when in fact it is all going on inside a persons mind and not "real" at all. Kind of the perfect direct opposite of Ender's premise. And as in perfect symmetry, we have the appearance of a "simulation" on the one hand... and a quite real tragic event as the trigger of the "thought process" that we as players are actually observing on the other.
Now i don't want to pretend that i have it all figured out and understand your work perfectly - and maybe i am just completely off as well heh - ... but what i certainly can do is appreciate the thought that went into it, the questions it poses... and the room for interpretation it leaves. It was creepy and absolutely mindblowing storytelling. Please make more of it for those of us who can appreciate it... trying to please "everyone" and especially those who are unable or unwilling to think outside the box is a one-way trip to mediocrity as so many commercial games constantly demonstrate.
To round out my impression... Gameplay appeared secondary to me ... it was - no question - revolutionary for Freespace Modding and it was an essential vehicle for telling your story... but the "main course" of the Windmills experience clearly was the storytelling, not the gameplay, if that makes any sense - and it really is astonishing to see such an intricate piece of work in the form of a Freespace Mod of all things... all the more shame on the people who can't appreciate it.
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Thank you, Mikes. It's posts like yours that make the whole ordeal worth it.
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I agree completely with Mikes. I knew as some point someone would sum up what I thought of the campaign without my having to type out a novel or two :D
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With so much good press about it, I decided that I needed to try it. I grabbed the wanderer build that worked for Ransom and gave it a shot. Now I have a problem.
While I'm playing through the tutorial, the playing field is suddenly wiped clean randomly and I'm not able to continue the mission. Is there anything I'm doing wrong here?
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With so much good press about it, I decided that I needed to try it. I grabbed the wanderer build that worked for Ransom and gave it a shot. Now I have a problem.
While I'm playing through the tutorial, the playing field is suddenly wiped clean randomly and I'm not able to continue the mission. Is there anything I'm doing wrong here?
I simply installed the "Good old Games" Version and let Turey's installer do the rest, put the Windmills directory in and changed the command line settings as recommended in this thread.
Worked just fine without any kind of issues.
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AMAZING!
I'm speechless... The ending definitely rivals Transcend in its crushing cinematic flavor. Ransom would make a great film director since he can come up with visions like those. Gameplay wise, its about as much as you can get from FRED. Storyline wise, its one of the deepest campaigns so far, the final mission actually lets you contemplate the thoughts on the nature of war that are placed. I didn't feel temped to use time compression.
As for the whole "simulation" convention, I got more of a feeling that this would be more of a crazy nightmare someone would have from spending too much time in the actual simulator that the training program itself. A person who isn't morally flexible and determined would suffer from such doubts if placed in a commanding position. The whole point of a chain of command is to remove such doubts.
I'm interested in unveiling all the depth behind this campaign, there is surely much more to be seen if you make different choices throughout:
READ ONLY IF YOU FINISHED IT AT LEAST ONCE:
In my first playthough I:
1.Saved the entirety of the convoy, SIMULATION said that it was miraculous and perhaps the mission should be recalibrated. I didn't call in the reinforcement cruiser at all.
2.I don't know what options there are here. I was allowed to call in the Aeolus from mission 1 as I haven't used it then. A enemy Corvette arrived, then a Destroyer, communication was broken and I saw the pilot die.
3.I helped the transport and the fighting cruisers but didn't make it on time. Got slandered for derailing from main objective.
4.I was doing awesome at first. O1 was 100% with 4 cruisers pounding down O2 at 64%... and then the sides switched... i later received a corvette as reinforcement saying that "their contempt for civilian lives has fueled our propaganda and led to defections." Regardless of that O2 later got smashed and I ordered the fighters to chase down the fleeing transport. As a pilot I shot down the transport and then the crazy wingmate. The pilot was later said to have became admiral.
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I've downloaded and installed the campaign, but all I get when I try to run it are several error messages and then it crashes and quits.
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I've downloaded and installed the campaign, but all I get when I try to run it are several error messages and then it crashes and quits.
Walk us through what you did. Are you running the R2 version of the 3.6.10 builds?
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Which error messages do you get? And could you run a debug build and post the <FreeSpace>\data\fs2_open.log file here afterwards? And, yeah, have you tried the 3.6.10 RC2 builds?
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no, I'm using 3.6.9, and my computer's kinda out of a freespace state right now... will get that as soon as possible.
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no, I'm using 3.6.9, and my computer's kinda out of a freespace state right now... will get that as soon as possible.
Yeah, you can't do much with 3.6.9 anymore, R2 FTW
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the R2 version of the 3.6.10 builds
R2 FTW
RC2. This ain't Star Wars.
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the R2 version of the 3.6.10 builds
R2 FTW
RC2. This ain't Star Wars.
I thought that's what they meant...
OK... how do I get my hands on 3.6.10 RC2?
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http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,62210.0.html
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the R2 version of the 3.6.10 builds
R2 FTW
RC2. This ain't Star Wars.
Well SORRY for not being a stickler for proper acronyms. :lol:
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the R2 version of the 3.6.10 builds
R2 FTW
RC2. This ain't Star Wars.
Well SORRY for not being a stickler for proper acronyms. :lol:
It's just that communication is much easier when people use the same terms about things. In the same manner it might very well be confusing if I were to refer to FreeSpace 2 with the acronym F2.
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Fair enough, apologies
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Thanks very much for the link... am downloading... will give update later.
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Plus, things like R2, etc will mean Release 2, which is an update after something has been finalized (ie Windows Server 2003 R2). That can get very confusing with a Release Candidate, which is released before finalization of the first release, and is not planned to be an official release, but the quality is usually getting very close. In our case though, I've never made release candidates so I've been working out the kinks in the process as they're released. Hopefully we'll just have an RC3 and then a final this time. We will likely never use a R2, R3 etc system but it's still confusing when they get mixed up. Hopefully RC2 fixes the issues for this user anyway.
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While I'm playing through the tutorial, the playing field is suddenly wiped clean randomly and I'm not able to continue the mission. Is there anything I'm doing wrong here?
How long was the playing field blank for? It's meant to do that, but a new scenario is supposed to appear a few seconds later.
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Update: I got it to work... it's an interesting plot line, but it was kind of difficult for me to get used to. Ah well, it was really good though! Very original.
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Update: I got it to work... it's an interesting plot line, but it was kind of difficult for me to get used to. Ah well, it was really good though! Very original.
Well Ransom's always had his own "Style" :D
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While I'm playing through the tutorial, the playing field is suddenly wiped clean randomly and I'm not able to continue the mission. Is there anything I'm doing wrong here?
How long was the playing field blank for? It's meant to do that, but a new scenario is supposed to appear a few seconds later.
It blanked out unpredictably during the events of the simulation, so I could never find my way through it without the screen blanking out. I ran the debug build, and I'll post up the code if need be.
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Very strange. I have an idea what might be causing it, but which part of the tutorial has it blanked out at? And how long have you waited after it does before quitting the mission?
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In the stealth fighter mission (2 or 3? Don't remember) I can't order Alpha wing to proceed to the unknown signal buoy. They just ignore that order but do everything else I tell them to do. Plus I can never seem to get to all the waypoints anyway.
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One time, it happened right when I went to order Beta wing to supplement Alpha wing's defense of the transport, then it blanked out another time as I was trying to tell the cruiser to fire at one of the enemy ships. I don't really know when or why exactly it happens, but it's making getting through the tutorial an impossibility.
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Have you tried using time compression after the playing field's wiped? I'm trying to figure out if it's something just triggering early or another problem entirely.
In the stealth fighter mission (2 or 3? Don't remember) I can't order Alpha wing to proceed to the unknown signal buoy. They just ignore that order but do everything else I tell them to do. Plus I can never seem to get to all the waypoints anyway.
The protect order is grayed out. You have to use the 'destroy my target' order to investigate the unknown signal due to the way Freespace deals with IFF.
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I played this and it was an exciting and unique experience. The last mission was incredible. My one complaint was that on the last mission, I ordered my bombers to attack but when they arrived on the other side, they did nothing. Meanwhile enemy bombers unloaded on my installation, eventually destroying it.I was kindof upset about losing because my bombers did nothing. However, overall still and excellent mission.
BTW, congratulations of the immense popularity this has already received. I have already seen this on several "play these campaigns" lists.
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I played this and it was an exciting and unique experience. The last mission was incredible. My one complaint was that on the last mission, I ordered my bombers to attack but when they arrived on the other side, they did nothing. Meanwhile enemy bombers unloaded on my installation, eventually destroying it.I was kindof upset about losing because my bombers did nothing. However, overall still and excellent mission.
Yeah, bombers were problematic in that mission. They're not supposed to be able to attack the installations at all - since there's no reliable counter to them I felt it unbalanced the gameplay too much.
But Freespace has other plans, I guess. I'll look into it. Good to hear you enjoyed it regardless.
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I played this and it was an exciting and unique experience. The last mission was incredible. My one complaint was that on the last mission, I ordered my bombers to attack but when they arrived on the other side, they did nothing. Meanwhile enemy bombers unloaded on my installation, eventually destroying it.I was kindof upset about losing because my bombers did nothing. However, overall still and excellent mission.
Yeah, bombers were problematic in that mission. They're not supposed to be able to attack the installations at all - since there's no reliable counter to them I felt it unbalanced the gameplay too much.
But Freespace has other plans, I guess. I'll look into it. Good to hear you enjoyed it regardless.
I definitely agree with the balance issue. Part of the problem was they just wouldn't die so I could get reinforcements at my base.
What happens if you win the mission?
Does it just not have you switch sides at the end? And the transport scene still occurs?
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What happens if you win the mission?
Does it just not have you switch sides at the end? And the transport scene still occurs?
Yep.
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I think Ransom is way overdue for a nice custom title >.>
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I think Ransom is way overdue for a nice custom title >.>
I remember him having one... Or was that Blaise Russel...
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Alack, I am outvoted! :nervous:
Title'd. :)
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Personally I approve of the new title :)
(http://media.southparkstudios.com/media/images/1110/1110_m_knight.jpg)
Now all Ransom needs is a South Park episode :lol:
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M. Night Russel
I don't get it :blah:
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You're a disgrace to Bollywood *hint, check the picture I embedded in my previous post*
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Haha! Thanks, Goober.
We can only hope I'll never make a The Happening.
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I still don't get it :blah:
Something to do with the creator of Derelict (Blaise Russel) and south park?
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M. Night Shyamalan, is a two-time Academy Award nominated Indian-born American filmmaker and script writer of major studio films, known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that usually climax with a twist ending.
I think it fits well.
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Haha! Thanks, Goober.
We can only hope I'll never make a The Happening.
You're welcome. :)
Instead of The Happening, how about Project 03? ;)
the creator of Derelict (Blaise Russel)
Blaise Russel did not create Derelict.
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Now I'm wondering if colored text is a symptom, or a cause...
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But the Derelict SCP thread in this forum was started by a Blaise Russel...
EDIT: Now that I look closer he was only one of the creators, another member of the team being Ransom. But I still don't get it.
EDIT2: Now that I look even closer it seems he just organised the voice acting...this makes Ransom's title even more confusing :(
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Just because Blaise didn't create Derelict doesn't mean there weren't plenty of other contributions from him...
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EDIT2: Now that I look even closer it seems he just organised the voice acting...this makes Ransom's title even more confusing
It's a reference to M. Night Shyamalan, a horror movie director, combined with Blaise Russel, a good FS2 campaign writer. Because Ransom made Sync and Transend - two (and the only two) horror campaigns for FS2.
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It doesn't have anything to do with Blaise Russel except for that it's got Russel's name in it.
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Fixxored post. I wasn't misreading and accusing people of not reading, no, never!... :nervous:
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Heheh, now I look dumb.
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Seriously... the only thing that i am disappointed in is that you seem to take such badly thought out critcism to heart. So it's not "Harpoon in Space" ? or "realistic GTVA Officer Training" ? ... either notion is absurd for anyone who went at it with an open mind and really thought about it - or even just read your introduction post.
I haven't been following this thread. But I take exception to this. I went in with an open mind.
It's simple. It's immersion. It's the fourth wall. It's the framing device. I never spelled this out because I considered it relatively elementary, but clearly it's not.
We were presented with a scenario; now we have to justify it (those of us who want our stories coherent, anyways). Give me another mental justification that will work for this scenario.
You don't have one.
That's where it all started to fall apart. Yes, it was very good gaming. But it wasn't up to Ransom's usual standards of storytelling, and that was a big shock and an even bigger disappointment from the man who brought us Transcend.
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Go back to all the stuff I posted earlier, NGTM-1R -- the framing device fits fine. And it's unsettling because it seems so un-military.
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Go back to all the stuff I posted earlier, NGTM-1R -- the framing device fits fine. And it's unsettling because it seems so un-military.
But then, the framing device failed, because this is a military story. Yes, it's a good story, in much the same way the Prequels were good movies...but it's not a good military story, in much the same way the Prequels were not good Star Wars movies.
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Are we still arguing about these Epileptic Trees again? I'd just be glad if I could get a copy of FS2 that doesn't throw a fit with every other campaign I download. I don't worry about this metacanon stuff that may or may not really matter in the long run. Drawing my own conclusions is fine enough, but I don't shove them into other people's faces and say "that's the law."
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Go back to all the stuff I posted earlier, NGTM-1R -- the framing device fits fine. And it's unsettling because it seems so un-military.
But then, the framing device failed, because this is a military story. Yes, it's a good story, in much the same way the Prequels were good movies...but it's not a good military story, in much the same way the Prequels were not good Star Wars movies.
Thinking outside the box.
You can think outside the box as much as you want, but it will not make the Star-Wars Prequels any better. It's a completely different issue.
If, on the other hand, you put every story that you come across into a preceonceived box (i.e. "because this is a military story"), then it's no wonder really that you couldn't enjoy Windmills. That however, isn't Ransom's fault.
As said before, Windmills leaves a lot up to interpretation... but as i understood it, it was a story about grief, guilt and intense self-recrimination... that was only told in a military context and in a very particular way.
I'd just be glad if I could get a copy of FS2 that doesn't throw a fit with every other campaign I download.
Copy from http://www.gog.com/en/frontpage/ works just fine for me.
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IMO, you are missiong the point of the campaign if you are looking for any story in it at all. The idea of this campaign is to remove the story, to place the battles in no context. In that way the player's emotions are evoked when he must make decisions with little to no context. Without the context, who knows what is right? However, at the end, it is shown that making decisions solely based on strategic value in battle/war can be dangerous, as the context matters.
In other words, this campaign's story is the emotions it evokes in the player, not the plot written into it.
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IMO, you are missiong the point of the campaign if you are looking for any story in it at all. The idea of this campaign is to remove the story, to place the battles in no context. In that way the player's emotions are evoked when he must make decisions with little to no context. Without the context, who knows what is right? However, at the end, it is shown that making decisions solely based on strategic value in battle/war can be dangerous, as the context matters.
In other words, this campaign's story is the emotions it evokes in the player, not the plot written into it.
It's a way of looking at it. But i would argue that in Windmills "story", the decisions already have been made and the worst already has happened. What you as the player get presented with... is how the (unnamed) protagonists deals with all these horrible things that have happened. When you begin playing... you are at the beginning of his thought process... how he imagines people at command may make decisions. When you are at the end (of the game/his thought process) you discover what actually happened and that the protagonist is still (unsuccessfully) trying to come to terms with it and that this attempt at "coming to terms with"/"working it through" is what you just have obvserved as you played through the campaign. The implication of course being that what happened was so horrible that the protagonist will carry that guilt with him forever (even years later as an admiral etc).
The second component would be what you observed, that the player first plays through basic missions - like any other game - and then suddenly gets presented with a quite emotional context that focuses grief and guilt at exactly the decision(s) that the player just made. But this second component is not the story in my eyes, rather it's a device to emphasize and intensify the story that is being told. This "device" takes up a lot of the total playtime and encompasses practically all of the gameplay found in Windmills, true enough, but it's just that, a device to deliver the story. On the other hand the use of this "device" is a large part of what makes Windmills so great... as this level of "audience" involvement really wouldn't be possible in any other medium, which kind of shows the potential that computer games could have at expanding the ways that stories can be told.
In any case, to me it's a story first and a game only second, although the gameplay is of course an essential device to deliver the story.
Again, as i understood it anyways ;)
The campaign can certainly evoke emotions, even more so if you let it draw you in and really think about it for a moment,... i would strongly disagree with the notion that there "is no story" in it however... there is, brilliant and thought provoking at that,... it just is not presented in the usual way and it's quite different than the kind of story that is usually featured in a Freespace campaign as well ;).
I also can just emphasize that anyone who hasn't played it yet, better not read any spoilers. It really is something that you need to first enjoy with an open mind and then think about in order to really appreciate it.
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If, on the other hand, you put every story that you come across into a preceonceived box (i.e. "because this is a military story"), then it's no wonder really that you couldn't enjoy Windmills.
Oh come now. I didn't build the box, Ransom did, because he told his story through the view of a pilot and officer (presumably GTVA, but perhaps NTF). I didn't put the story in the box. The story came inside the box, the usual four-walls-and-one's-transparent box that stories always come inside. That box had the markings and accoutrements of a military story, because of who it was being told about (pilot and officer), and what it was telling (military operations).
Instead, it wanted to be Ender's Game, but it missed the critical point that Ender's Game was framed about someone who should be bewildered and have everything military sound strange to them. So it had to make everything that was military truly strange and bewildering, which causes those of us on the other side of the fourth wall to sit up and go "wtf was that man", destroying suspension of disbelief.
It's not a bad story, as I've said. It was born into the wrong medium, though, and hence can't be told well.
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Stop making definitive statements. Most of the people in this thread are disagreeing with you and believe it was told well. And given that Ransom claims he was 'terrified' of that reaction, I think you may be discouraging him and others from doing such original work in the future.
Which is not a good idea.
Freespace is not 'the wrong medium' for this story. Your assumptions about it are the wrong medium for this story, and if you could free yourself from those assumptions, you would enjoy it more.
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Stop making definitive statements. Most of the people in this thread are disagreeing with you and believe it was told well. And given that Ransom claims he was 'terrified' of that reaction, I think you may be discouraging him and others from doing such original work in the future.
Which is not a good idea.
If they take it as discouragement like that, then that is their issue. If they take it as the criticism it is, which mentions where things went wrong and hence how not to do it again, then perhaps something will be learned.
I know most of the people in this thread are disagreeing with me. This is not a situation I'm terribly unfamilar with, seeing it frequently when I review written forms of fanfiction. I could, perhaps, argue that they don't have the training (hence the proper context or knowing the right terms) or experience of somebody who graduated with a creative writing major. I won't, however, and simple say that I have high standards. Yes, there were many bright points, and I do not dispute that. But Ransom was right to be afraid of this particular reaction, because this lightbulb was DOA, and if you notice it was DOA, then everything starts to unravel as the "reader" is forcefully ejected from the story.
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You...review...fanfic? That's like, a thing someone can do with their time?
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You...review...fanfic? That's like, a thing someone can do with their time?
Question: How is creating missions for your mod not fanfic?
Do you not do some form of quality control on them?
That's reviewing fanfic too.
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Stop making definitive statements.
:wtf:
Most of the people in this thread are disagreeing with you and believe it was told well.
But note, not all. It's a legitimate review, even if it is a minority opinion.
And given that Ransom claims he was 'terrified' of that reaction, I think you may be discouraging him and others from doing such original work in the future.
First, I think Ransom is exaggerating; second, I think any artist who is genuinely interested in making a particular campaign is not going to let previous reviews dissuade him.
I think this kind of discussion is good. And furthermore, regardless of whether NGTM-1R and I (or anyone else) think the story immersion was successful, I think we both agree that the campaign was a first-rate technical achievement.
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I'm concerned that the way NGTM-1R phrases his review indicates a narrow view towards 'good' Freespace campaigns.
I worry that he's confusing militophilia (is there a better word for that?) with valid entertainment. And, to be honest, I'm concerned that part of his 'unique' reviewing style is poking holes in things that don't conform to, say, the standards of the US military.
My primary concern is that he doesn't think it's a first-rate technical achievement, he thinks the whole thing was DOA.
The Internet is a clumsy medium for this kind of discourse. As long as Ransom views it as a success, and others view it as worth emulating (and improving on), I'm satisfied.
But I am dissatisfied with what I perceive as NGTM-1R's need to protect himself from moral ambiguity by resorting to military trivia. It feels like an attempt to create a third answer to the dilemmas raised in Windmills: "I'd never have to make these choices, because in real Freespace life, they'd never come up."
In this particular situation, mind -- I'm not drawing any dispositional conclusions about him as a person.
EDIT:
Let me clarify. This is a good thing to read in depth, since it is basically the disconnect between me and NGTM-1R.
I saw all the problems he did, recognized that this clearly couldn't be a regular officer training simulation, and then immediately made the leap I was invited to make: into wondering what it really was.
'Windmills' doesn't answer that question. But the question itself is a vital part of the atmosphere. It's something that's supposed to be nagging at you the whole time.
And I (I, mind you!) find it a bit absurd to stand about nitpicking at the question, when the question itself is clearly an invitation and a key element of the narrative.
It feels like NGTM-1R missed the boat everybody else jumped into. Which is why he's still standing on the shore declaring the campaign DOA.
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I'm concerned that the way NGTM-1R phrases his review indicates a narrow view towards 'good' Freespace campaigns.
I worry that he's confusing militophilia (is there a better word for that?) with valid entertainment. And, to be honest, I'm concerned that part of his 'unique' reviewing style is poking holes in things that don't conform to, say, the standards of the US military.
My primary concern is that he doesn't think it's a first-rate technical achievement, he thinks the whole thing was DOA.
The Internet is a clumsy medium for this kind of discourse. As long as Ransom views it as a success, and others view it as worth emulating (and improving on), I'm satisfied.
But I am dissatisfied with what I perceive as NGTM-1R's need to protect himself from moral ambiguity by resorting to military trivia. It feels like an attempt to create a third answer to the dilemmas raised in Windmills: "I'd never have to make these choices, because in real Freespace life, they'd never come up."
In this particular situation, mind -- I'm not drawing any dispositional conclusions about him as a person.
EDIT:
Let me clarify. This is a good thing to read in depth, since it is basically the disconnect between me and NGTM-1R.
I saw all the problems he did, recognized that this clearly couldn't be a regular officer training simulation, and then immediately made the leap I was invited to make: into wondering what it really was.
'Windmills' doesn't answer that question. But the question itself is a vital part of the atmosphere. It's something that's supposed to be nagging at you the whole time.
And I (I, mind you!) find it a bit absurd to stand about nitpicking at the question, when the question itself is clearly an invitation and a key element of the narrative.
It feels like NGTM-1R missed the boat everybody else jumped into. Which is why he's still standing on the shore declaring the campaign DOA.
Not to make a personal attack on NTGM-1R, as I am sure there are others that would agree with his expectations for a Freespace campaign, but I would have to agree with General Battuta that he is missing the point. I think everyone playing this campaign realizes that this is not an attempt to create a realistic interpretation of what an officers' training simulation in the Freespace universe would be like. This is presented directly by the campaign itself, as the ships are obviously rendered realistically. We already know from canon Freespace that training simulations are very realistic simulations of combat in the Freespace universe. As such, approaching this campaign as you would approach any other Freespace campaign is clearly out of the question, not only because of the differing artistic style, but because the game is played from an entirely different point of view, that of an officer in the (presumably) GTVA.
This is why Windmills succeeds, it differs from the standard Freespace campaign; it cannot be compared to any others. As I already stated, it attempts to remove context from the battles which take place. As such you cannot approach this as if it were what is typically understood to be a story or plot. Not to say that story or plot is not important to the campaign, but not in the traditional sense. As General Battuta said, this ambiguity is integral to the enjoyment of the game; while you may not entirely understand what it is, it still evokes powerful emotions, arguably moreso that a campaign in which that context suggests doom for the human race. To approach it as a fanfic would be inappropriate, as many of the campaigns strengths are subjective; the user defines choices and the response to losses.
I don't think it is wrong to approach a game expecting to be drawn in by a traditional plot, especially for a game as plot driven as Feespace. However, this mod's gameplay moves away from that of Freespace (obviously). As such, it deserves a different approach. I think the insistence on a traditional approach to criticism of this campaign is what limits NTGM-1R's enjoyment. To make an analogy, many people approach Walden in the same way as they would any other book. As a result, many people who read the book hate it. However, by approaching it differently, examining it for what it's worth, we can see Walden as one of the greatest pieces of literature of all time.
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What he said ^^^^
The moment you stop expecting this to be "True2Life" Officer Training, and focus on the actual campaign, the more you'll enjoy it and respect Ransom.
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I keep thinking of the metaphor of Portal. Obviously, the moment you start the game, you know this isn't how a wormhole-gun-testing 'Enrichment Center' would really be run.
And part of the game's impact is wondering why.
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I wonder why people are discussing the obvious.
We all know, having played Transcend and Sync, what Ransom's style is like. I'm not a great fan of that style (but I somewhat like it) and I don't see the point in discussing it even more. How can I pretend Ransom to adapt his style to my own? People discuss as if we're all obliged to play campaigns and therefore we have the right to complain and pretend changes.
De Gustibus Non Disputandum Est
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Mobius, try reading the thread before commenting next time. NGTM-1R isn't disputing Ransom's style in general; he's taking fault with how this specific campaign was presented. Several other people and myself seem to be disagreeing with his fundamental assertion, but that doesn't make his opinion any less valid than anyone else's.
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Hm, crashed at the stealth fighter level, might have been random... interesting concept though.
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I've just played this campaign, and in my opinion it's excellent. I really thought it was great how the Simulation kept asking rhetoric questions, which were to make you think. Also, another nice touch was that your performance in the previous missions affected how the last mission proceeded. :)
My performance:
Mission 1 (The end part): I tried to make sure that a good proportion of both sides made it out. However, the medical frigate and science cruiser were destroyed. All the military vessels made it out
Mission 2: Really, not much to say about that - all the green capital ships were still alive when I lost communications. However, since I didn't want to get a shock from the voice-acted line, I turned down the volume. Too much, unfortunately, which meant I didn't hear it at all, which disappointed me a bit. I'm not going to go play that mission again just for that line, since I can probably hazard a guess on how it's played out.
Mission 3: I got the stealth fighters to go around doing all the things that came up along the way, which meant they ended up getting abducted by the void. :p
Mission 4: I decided to keep my cruisers at 01 so I could mince all the enemy ships as they came, until the sides switched. I then struck up a balance between offense and defense like the Simulation said. I managed to destroy 01 with 02 at around 50-70% (I don't quite remember). I let the transport go, though, since I didn't think it necessary to destroy it.
I actually liked the 'retro' red and green graphics - they made it so you focused more on the action and not on how pretty the ships were (I had a problem with the second mission, though, where the enemy corvette appeared as the HTL model with textures as opposed to the plain red ship). It reminded me of a nuclear war game I played once, where everything was minimalist - I think the missiles were like pyramids flying through the air, and you had the retro-style spark-looking things and aircraft made out of lines.
The name, too - while I don't really know what it signifies - I like how an innocent word like 'Windmills' can be a facade for something not so innocent.
However, I don't think I got as much impact as other people did, as I try to not take games too seriously. :nod: I still think that this is an excellent campaign, and one I would recommend to others. :D
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I like the Red and Green interface, it felt "Realistic" :) I tend to take games too seriously and as such I thought the end was the best part of the game and subsequently told all my friends who were into gaming :P
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So what is with the name anyways?
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Check out Don Quixote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_quixote), for one possible interpretation.
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I'm still trying to figure out what the music on the fourth mission has to do with anything.
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Check out Don Quixote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_quixote), for one possible interpretation.
That was my first thought.... just not sure.
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Mobius, try reading the thread before commenting next time. NGTM-1R isn't disputing Ransom's style in general; he's taking fault with how this specific campaign was presented. Several other people and myself seem to be disagreeing with his fundamental assertion, but that doesn't make his opinion any less valid than anyone else's.
Isn't that connected to Ransom's style?
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If, on the other hand, you put every story that you come across into a preceonceived box (i.e. "because this is a military story"), then it's no wonder really that you couldn't enjoy Windmills.
Oh come now. I didn't build the box, Ransom did, because he told his story through the view of a pilot and officer (presumably GTVA, but perhaps NTF). I didn't put the story in the box. The story came inside the box, the usual four-walls-and-one's-transparent box that stories always come inside. That box had the markings and accoutrements of a military story, because of who it was being told about (pilot and officer), and what it was telling (military operations).
Instead, it wanted to be Ender's Game, but it missed the critical point that Ender's Game was framed about someone who should be bewildered and have everything military sound strange to them. So it had to make everything that was military truly strange and bewildering, which causes those of us on the other side of the fourth wall to sit up and go "wtf was that man", destroying suspension of disbelief.
It's not a bad story, as I've said. It was born into the wrong medium, though, and hence can't be told well.
Who built the Box ? Ransom certainly did not. Ransom choose the Medium (and heavily modified it), no more, no less. The "Box" that you choose, if anything, appears to be a matter of preconceptions about the Medium. If you look at what is actually there... even just the lines of Command... then it is rather obvious that this is not a military story of the usual kind. And if what Command says is not enough, then moments like the end of Mission 2 or the switching of sides in Mission 4 are rather broad hints that there is something very wierd going on ... and that is even before the final conclusion of the piece.
Also, as said before, Windmills is not Ender's game: While there may be a similar notion of how not "everything is as it first seems", not just the way it is told is very different, but also the underlaying basic premise is something else entirely. However... i find it almost comical that you point out how you find Ender's game portraying everything about the military "strange and bewildering".... and yet you entirely miss or deliberately dismiss everything that Ransom did to make the Windmills experience "strange and bewildering" and instead, when everyone else starts wondering "what this is actually about" ... you just comment how it does not fit into your preconceived box and therefore "fails".
Furthermore, the technological achievement that this campaign represents was what first made it possible to tell this story in this particular way - however, as said before... the technological achievement, impressive as it is, pales comparison to Ransom's achievement in storytelling that was achieved through it. Calling it the "wrong medium" just further illustrates a very basic failure to understand what this campaign was all about.
If the above sounds harsh then i'm sorry... it's nothing personal, rest assured.
It just needs to be pointed out, with emphasis, that the very thing that did not work for you in this campaign, is the exact same thing that made it such a great achievement in my eyes, nor am i alone in that assessment. As such, your posts are sadly hardly helpful, nor constructive, as the only thing that Ransom could learn from them is how to make Windmills less enjoyable for all of us who were able to appreciate it with an open mind.
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Yeah, well-said, Mikes. I think that's what rankled me about NGTM-1R's posts as well.
But, that said, it was definitely nothing personal, and I shall continue to enjoy and respect his company.
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Hi! This is my first post here.
I have a problem when i try to play the tutorial. It crashes after the simulator says "let's begin".
I've tried many builds: Wanderer build r5112 20090320, Nightly (Windows): 22 Mar 2009 - Revision 5114, Nightly (Windows): 18 Mar 2009 - Revision 5106, 3.6.10 (RC2), 3.6.9; but nothing works.
When using the debug Wanderer build:
This is the command line:
C:\fsopen\fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe -mod Windmills -nomotiondebris -ambient_factor 200
This is the error message:
Assert: sip->afterburner_fuel_capacity
File: ship.cpp
Line: 4306
Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 008988a0()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 008a1476()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 00998651()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 008a1a55()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 0073965b()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 00746039()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 007463ae()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 00ca9006()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 00ca8e8f()
kernel32.dll 7c816fd7()
------------------------------------------------------------------
And this is my fs2_open log:
==========================================================================
DEBUG SPEW: No debug_filter.cfg found, so
only general, error, and warning
categories can be shown and no debug_filter.cfg info will be saved.
==========================================================================
FreeSpace version: 3.6.10
Passed cmdline
options:
-ambient_factor 200
-nomotiondebris
-mod Windmills
Building file index...
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\Windmills\Windmills.vp'
with a checksum of 0x35df1206
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\FS2OGGcutscenepack.vp' with a checksum of 0x84396e99
Found root pack
'C:\fsopen\ls_neb.vp' with a checksum of 0x77fbe8c7
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\multi-mission-pack.vp' with a checksum of 0x377695e0
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\multi-voice-pack.vp' with a checksum of 0xd50e7442
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\root_fs2.vp' with a checksum of
0xce10d76c
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\smarty_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0xddeb3b1e
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\sparky_fs2.vp' with a
checksum of 0x164fe65a
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\sparky_hi_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0xa11d56f1
Found root pack
'C:\fsopen\stu_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0xd77da83a
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\tango1_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0x4c25221e
Found root
pack 'C:\fsopen\tango2_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0x86920b82
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\tango3_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0x705e8d71
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\warble_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0xd85c305d
Searching root 'C:\fsopen\Windmills\' ... 32 files
Searching root
pack 'C:\fsopen\Windmills\Windmills.vp' ... 110 files
Searching root 'C:\fsopen\' ... 146 files
Searching root pack
'C:\fsopen\FS2OGGcutscenepack.vp' ... 10 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\ls_neb.vp' ... 168 files
Searching root pack
'C:\fsopen\multi-mission-pack.vp' ... 110 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\multi-voice-pack.vp' ... 307 files
Searching root pack
'C:\fsopen\root_fs2.vp' ... 157 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\smarty_fs2.vp' ... 10 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\sparky_fs2.vp' ...
3027 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\sparky_hi_fs2.vp' ... 1337 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\stu_fs2.vp' ... 2355 files
Searching
root pack 'C:\fsopen\tango1_fs2.vp' ... 32 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\tango2_fs2.vp' ... 15 files
Searching root pack
'C:\fsopen\tango3_fs2.vp' ... 10 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\warble_fs2.vp' ... 52 files
Found 16 roots and 7878 files.
AutoLang:
Language auto-detection successful...
Setting language to English
Initializing OpenAL...
Using 'Generic Software' as OpenAL sound
device...
OpenAL Vendor : Creative Labs Inc.
OpenAL Renderer : Software
OpenAL Version : 1.1
... OpenAL successfully
initialized!
Failed to init speech
Initializing OpenGL graphics device at 1024x768 with 16-bit color...
Initializing WGL...
Requested WGL
Video values = R: 5, G: 6, B: 5, depth: 16, double-buffer: 1
Actual WGL Video values = R: 5, G: 6, B: 5, depth: 16, double-buffer: 1
OpenGL
Vendor : ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL Renderer : RADEON 7000 SDR x86/SSE2
OpenGL Version : 1.3.1072 WinXP Release
Using extension "GL_EXT_fog_coord".
Using extension "GL_ARB_multitexture".
Using extension "GL_ARB_texture_env_add".
Using
extension "GL_ARB_texture_compression".
Using extension "GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc".
Using extension
"GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic".
Using extension "GL_ARB_texture_env_combine".
Using extension
"GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array".
Using extension "GL_EXT_draw_range_elements".
Using extension
"GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat".
Unable to find extension "GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two".
Unable to find extension
"GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object".
Unable to find extension "GL_EXT_pixel_buffer_object".
Using extension
"GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap".
Unable to find extension "GL_EXT_framebuffer_object".
Using extension "GL_EXT_texture_rectangle".
Using extension "GL_EXT_bgra".
Using extension "GL_ARB_texture_cube_map".
Using extension "GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias".
Unable
to find extension "NV_point_sprite".
Unable to find extension "GL_ARB_shading_language_100".
Unable to find extension
"GL_ARB_shader_objects".
Unable to find extension "GL_ARB_vertex_shader".
Unable to find extension "GL_ARB_fragment_shader".
Unable to find extension "GL_ATI_shader_texture_lod".
Found special extension function "wglSwapIntervalEXT".
Max texture units: 3 (3)
Max elements vertices: 2147483647
Max elements indices: 65535
Max texture size: 2048x2048
Can use compressed textures: YES
Texture compression available: YES
Using bilinear texture filter.
... OpenGL init is complete!
Size of bitmap info = 705 KB
Size of bitmap
extra info = 40 bytes
ANI cursorweb with size 24x24 (25.0% wasted)
GRAPHICS: Initializing default colors...
SCRIPTING: Beginning
initialization sequence...
SCRIPTING: Beginning Lua initialization...
LUA: Opening LUA state...
LUA: Initializing base Lua libraries...
LUA:
Beginning ADE initialization
ADE: Initializing enumeration constants...
ADE: Assigning Lua session...
SCRIPTING: Beginning main hook
parse sequence....
Wokka! Error opening file (scripting.tbl)!
TABLES: Unable to parse 'scripting.tbl'! Error code = 5.
SCRIPTING:
Inititialization complete.
SCRIPTING: Splash screen overrides checked
SCRIPTING: Splash hook has been run
SCRIPTING: Splash screen
conditional hook has been run
Using high memory settings...
Wokka! Error opening file (interface.tbl)!
WMCGUI: Unable to parse
'interface.tbl'! Error code = 5.
ANI 2_radar1 with size 209x170 (33.6% wasted)
Windoze reported 16 joysticks, we found 0
Current
soundtrack set to -1 in event_music_reset_choices
TBM => Starting parse of 'windmills-mus.tbm' ...
TBM => Starting parse of
'windmills-wep.tbm' ...
TBM => Starting parse of 'windmills-aip.tbm' ...
TBM => Starting parse of 'windmills-shp.tbm' ...
ASSERTION:
"sip->afterburner_fuel_capacity" at ship.cpp:4306
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 008988a0()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 008a1476()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 00998651()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 008a1a55()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 0073965b()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 00746039()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 007463ae()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 00ca9006()
fs2_open_3_6_10d-20090320_r5112-Wanderer.exe 00ca8e8f()
kernel32.dll 7c816fd7()
Int3(): From e:\storage\fso\fs2_open-wanderer\code\globalincs\windebug.cpp at line 1072
When using the 3.6.10 (RC2):
This is the command line:
C:\fsopen\fs2_open_3_6_10_RC2_debug.exe -mod Windmills -nomotiondebris -ambient_factor 200
This is the error message:
Assert: sip->afterburner_fuel_capacity
File: Ship.cpp
Line: 4204
Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
parse_ship() parse_shiptbl() parse_modular_table() ship_init() game_init() game_main() WinMain() WinMainCRTStartup()
kernel32.dll 7c816fd7()
------------------------------------------------------------------
And this is my fs2_open log:
==========================================================================
DEBUG SPEW: No debug_filter.cfg found, so
only general, error, and warning
categories can be shown and no debug_filter.cfg info will be saved.
==========================================================================
FreeSpace version: 3.6.10
Passed cmdline
options:
-ambient_factor 200
-nomotiondebris
-mod Windmills
Building file index...
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\Windmills\Windmills.vp'
with a checksum of 0x35df1206
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\FS2OGGcutscenepack.vp' with a checksum of 0x84396e99
Found root pack
'C:\fsopen\ls_neb.vp' with a checksum of 0x77fbe8c7
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\multi-mission-pack.vp' with a checksum of 0x377695e0
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\multi-voice-pack.vp' with a checksum of 0xd50e7442
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\root_fs2.vp' with a checksum of
0xce10d76c
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\smarty_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0xddeb3b1e
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\sparky_fs2.vp' with a
checksum of 0x164fe65a
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\sparky_hi_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0xa11d56f1
Found root pack
'C:\fsopen\stu_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0xd77da83a
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\tango1_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0x4c25221e
Found root
pack 'C:\fsopen\tango2_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0x86920b82
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\tango3_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0x705e8d71
Found root pack 'C:\fsopen\warble_fs2.vp' with a checksum of 0xd85c305d
Searching root 'C:\fsopen\Windmills\' ... 32 files
Searching root
pack 'C:\fsopen\Windmills\Windmills.vp' ... 110 files
Searching root 'C:\fsopen\' ... 146 files
Searching root pack
'C:\fsopen\FS2OGGcutscenepack.vp' ... 10 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\ls_neb.vp' ... 168 files
Searching root pack
'C:\fsopen\multi-mission-pack.vp' ... 110 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\multi-voice-pack.vp' ... 307 files
Searching root pack
'C:\fsopen\root_fs2.vp' ... 157 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\smarty_fs2.vp' ... 10 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\sparky_fs2.vp' ...
3027 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\sparky_hi_fs2.vp' ... 1337 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\stu_fs2.vp' ... 2355 files
Searching
root pack 'C:\fsopen\tango1_fs2.vp' ... 32 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\tango2_fs2.vp' ... 15 files
Searching root pack
'C:\fsopen\tango3_fs2.vp' ... 10 files
Searching root pack 'C:\fsopen\warble_fs2.vp' ... 52 files
Found 16 roots and 7878 files.
AutoLang:
Language auto-detection successful...
Setting language to English
Initializing OpenAL...
Using 'Generic Software' as OpenAL sound
device...
OpenAL Vendor : Creative Labs Inc.
OpenAL Renderer : Software
OpenAL Version : 1.1
... OpenAL successfully
initialized!
Initializing OpenGL graphics device at 1024x768 with 16-bit color...
Initializing WGL...
Requested WGL Video values = R: 5, G:
6, B: 5, depth: 16, double-buffer: 1
Actual WGL Video values = R: 5, G: 6, B: 5, depth: 16, double-buffer: 1
OpenGL Vendor : ATI
Technologies Inc.
OpenGL Renderer : RADEON 7000 SDR x86/SSE2
OpenGL Version : 1.3.1072 WinXP Release
Using extension
"GL_EXT_fog_coord".
Using extension "GL_ARB_multitexture".
Using extension "GL_ARB_texture_env_add".
Using extension
"GL_ARB_texture_compression".
Using extension "GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc".
Using extension
"GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic".
Using extension "GL_ARB_texture_env_combine".
Using extension
"GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array".
Using extension "GL_EXT_draw_range_elements".
Using extension
"GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat".
Unable to find extension "GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two".
Unable to find extension
"GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object".
Unable to find extension "GL_EXT_pixel_buffer_object".
Using extension
"GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap".
Unable to find extension "GL_EXT_framebuffer_object".
Using extension "GL_EXT_texture_rectangle".
Using extension "GL_EXT_bgra".
Using extension "GL_ARB_texture_cube_map".
Using extension "GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias".
Unable
to find extension "NV_point_sprite".
Unable to find extension "GL_ARB_shading_language_100".
Unable to find extension
"GL_ARB_shader_objects".
Unable to find extension "GL_ARB_vertex_shader".
Unable to find extension "GL_ARB_fragment_shader".
Unable to find extension "GL_ATI_shader_texture_lod".
Found special extension function "wglSwapIntervalEXT".
Max texture units: 3 (3)
Max elements vertices: 2147483647
Max elements indices: 65535
Max texture size: 2048x2048
Can use compressed textures: YES
Texture compression available: YES
Using bilinear texture filter.
... OpenGL init is complete!
Size of bitmap info = 705 KB
Size of bitmap
extra info = 40 bytes
ANI cursorweb with size 24x24 (25.0% wasted)
GRAPHICS: Initializing default colors...
SCRIPTING: Beginning
initialization sequence...
SCRIPTING: Beginning Lua initialization...
LUA: Opening LUA state...
LUA: Initializing base Lua libraries...
LUA:
Beginning ADE initialization
ADE: Initializing enumeration constants...
ADE: Assigning Lua session...
SCRIPTING: Beginning main hook
parse sequence....
Wokka! Error opening file (scripting.tbl)!
TABLES: Unable to parse 'scripting.tbl'! Error code = 5.
SCRIPTING:
Inititialization complete.
SCRIPTING: Splash screen overrides checked
SCRIPTING: Splash hook has been run
SCRIPTING: Splash screen
conditional hook has been run
Using high memory settings...
Wokka! Error opening file (interface.tbl)!
WMCGUI: Unable to parse
'interface.tbl'! Error code = 5.
ANI 2_radar1 with size 209x170 (33.6% wasted)
Windoze reported 16 joysticks, we found 0
Current
soundtrack set to -1 in event_music_reset_choices
TBM => Starting parse of 'windmills-mus.tbm' ...
TBM => Starting parse of
'windmills-wep.tbm' ...
TBM => Starting parse of 'windmills-aip.tbm' ...
TBM => Starting parse of 'windmills-shp.tbm' ...
ASSERTION:
"sip->afterburner_fuel_capacity" at Ship.cpp:4204
parse_ship() parse_shiptbl() parse_modular_table() ship_init() game_init()
game_main() WinMain() WinMainCRTStartup() kernel32.dll 7c816fd7()
Int3(): From e:\storage\fso\fs2_open\code\globalincs\windebug.cpp at line 1072
Thanks in advance.
-
Hi! This is my first post here.
I have a problem when i try to play the tutorial. It crashes after the simulator says "let's begin".
I've tried many builds: Wanderer build r5112 20090320, Nightly (Windows): 22 Mar 2009 - Revision 5114, Nightly (Windows): 18 Mar 2009 - Revision 5106, 3.6.10 (RC2), 3.6.9; but nothing works.
As said before, whatever build is the current default (some 3.6.10 version) in Turey's installer worked flawlessly for me. No crashes or other noticable bugs.
-
Hrm. Go to 32-bit color?
-
As said before, whatever build is the current default (some 3.6.10 version) in Turey's installer worked flawlessly for me. No crashes or other noticable bugs.
Thank you! That solved the problem, although it gave a lot of errors.
Hrm. Go to 32-bit color?
I should have done that months ago. Maybe now newer builds won't crash.anymore.
Thank you.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The campaign was excellent, as always Ransom Arceihn (i liked Trascend and Sync too).
It's hard to be on command's shoes, but I feel no remorse.
I also liked what you did to the Freespace Engine, all using FRED. Very clever from your part.
Congratulations on this release!
-
Mobius, try reading the thread before commenting next time. NGTM-1R isn't disputing Ransom's style in general; he's taking fault with how this specific campaign was presented. Several other people and myself seem to be disagreeing with his fundamental assertion, but that doesn't make his opinion any less valid than anyone else's.
Isn't that connected to Ransom's style?
Not at all, and asking that indicates to me that you still haven't read any of the relevant posts. :p NGTM-1R indicated that he's a fan of Ransom's style in general, and he went so far as to say that he liked (or at least appreciated) the story behind this campaign. He simply felt that telling this story within the medium of the game inherently limited its ability to be told well, a view which, as I said, several people have disagreed with.
-
I'm getting it as soon as i can get hold of an "unlocked" pc... IE one i can bloody save files to :mad:
-
I loved it. Probably because of the unique gaming experience, probably because of the story itself, probably because of the questions it raised.
Now, instead of listing all the things what the others did, I will recall what happened to me the very first time in my gaming history as I was playing thins campaign:
In other games, I always tend to be on the good side. If its an SW game, I always go for the light side. In all RPG's, I am going for the good ending. In FS and RTS games, I always try to accomplish all bonus/secondary objectives.
And here, I took no care. I happily threw away innocent lives to complete nothing but the main objective.
In mission 1, I saved the military convoy. In mission 3, I ignored all the side-missions and found the Orion in the end, though, to be honest, I sent Alpha 1 to investigate those signals. And in the last mission, I sent Epsilon for the transport, without a delay. And I killed my wingmate, without a delay. And I felt no remorse. And as I imagined myself as leading a destroyer and thinking about this incident, I really felt nothing...
It was the first time when I had such a reaction. Hats off, Ransom - you managed to help the manifestation of something inside me what I thought that it didn't exist at all.
I'd love to see more of that.
-
Your lack of emotion kinda scares me... I mean... that was like the whole point of the campaign wasn't it? To evoke emotion while showing off some very creative and excellent FREDing?
-
Thanks very much, Lucika!
Your lack of emotion kinda scares me... I mean... that was like the whole point of the campaign wasn't it? To evoke emotion while showing off some very creative and excellent FREDing?
Well, it's meant to be introspective - SIMULATION never answers any of the questions it raises. As long as the experience was meaningful for Lucika, the campaign's done what I wanted it to do. I think it's very interesting to see the different reactions people have had.
-
Your lack of emotion kinda scares me... I mean... that was like the whole point of the campaign wasn't it? To evoke emotion while showing off some very creative and excellent FREDing?
It evoked some sort of "Do your job and shut up!"-feeling, what, as I stated before, never happened to me before. I should say that it was a different level or state of responsibility. Not on a personal, but a "higher" state.
-
I was bored and decided to play this. OH. MY. GOD. This is THE BEST campaign i've ever played.
-
I played it last week, just about made the effort to gain access to my weekly PC fix. I'm both happy and upset with the results as i was trying to make a "tron" style mini-mod. But i really like the effort that's gione into the Fredding, don't be so quick to criticise the Fredding if it works Ransom :p
By the way, i had to open the missions in Notepad as Fred 3.6.10 gave me Uber-crash. Any ideas?
-
I was bored and decided to play this. OH. MY. GOD. This is THE BEST campaign i've ever played.
^ **** yeah. I wasn't expecting the mindscrew in the fourth mission at all. Ransom, I salute you.
-
Can I seriously for-the I-don't-know-how-many-times-I've-asked get an answer to what the music on the fourth mission have to pertain to Windmills?
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windmills_of_Your_Mind
-
I still don't see the relevance.
-
Because that was the music?
-
The title has a bit of a double-meaning - several people have caught one or the other already. It refers to the idiom from Don Quixote, as well as the music used in the finale. Both relate to different aspects of the campaign.
It relates to the campaign somehow, I don't know how or why.
-
It relates to the campaign somehow, I don't know how or why.
...
The campaign is called Windmills.
The song has the word "windmills" in its title. And:
The song illustrates a person's mental state after a romantic break-up, relating the way emotionally charged thoughts and memories can run in tortured circles.
I...kind of fail to see what you're still missing here. :p
-
I got that they both had winmill in the title but I didn't understand the meaning. Thanks for pointing it out though.
I'm not asking what something means anymore, it shouldn't take ten pages of asking to get the answer. :doubt:
-
So, when I attempt to run the campaign, I get the following:
Error: Unrecognized operator.
In sexpression: ( and
( has-arrived-delay 10 "Zeta" )
( query-orders
"Zeta"
"Destroy my target"
5
"Cruiser#three"
)
)
(Error appears to be: query-orders)
File: MissionParse.cpp
Line: 6016
Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
I am using 3.6.10 (whatever comes from the installer; just ran it again to make sure, everything's up to date), and I do have the nomotiondebris and ambient_factor 200 stuff in effect. Any suggestions?
-
Oh, suggest you grab hold of Release Candidate 3 of the 3.6.10 Builds. Obtainable here: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,63492.0.html :D
-
3.6.10 (whatever comes from the installer; just ran it again to make sure, everything's up to date)
Ah, yes. Yet another thing that I dislike with the Installer. People think it is the most up-to-date thing on HLP.
It's not. Quite outdated, actually. Get FSO 3.6.10 RC3 manually. There is a link in my signature.
-
Wow... that was awesome... :eek2:
Ironically as a commander... to make decisions... very true my friend a very informative campaign indeed.
I like the twists.
-
Jeff, Dilmah, thanks. That did it.
So what does it say about me that the emotion elicited from the final mission was amusement? I suppose it's similar to the amusement that, say, Pulp Fiction prompts, but amusement nonetheless.
It seems to me that--and I presume this is intentional--it's pretty damn impossible to prioritize in the stealth mission given the lack of context. What sort of base? Are there time pressures beyond the seven minute limit? What happens if I don't find it? What happens if I do find it? Do we have any ideas what the signal is? How important is that cruiser? Who or what is on that transport?
So I suppose my answer to the 'does context even matter' question is that it certainly does when trying to make decisions beyond how best to blow stuff up
Anyway, a very impressive piece of work, even if it did feel a bit dry and clinical. The simulation wasn't meant to have a voiceover, correct?
ETA: Oh, one complaint. In the first mission I got a 'equal results' message. Didn't favor one or the other. Yet in mission 3Side 2 kept getting reinforcements with the message 'your sacrifice of the civilians is used as propaganda'. I mean, I guess 2/3 of them did die, but it wasn't exactly a sacrifice. Of course, propaganda isn't exactly fair, so...
-
ETA: Oh, one complaint. In the first mission I got a 'equal results' message. Didn't favor one or the other. Yet in mission 3Side 2 kept getting reinforcements with the message 'your sacrifice of the civilians is used as propaganda'. I mean, I guess 2/3 of them did die, but it wasn't exactly a sacrifice. Of course, propaganda isn't exactly fair, so...
Yeah, that was an oversight on my part. The final mission doesn't take an equal or perfect result into account and I haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.
-
Very interesting project. I played it twice already :)
found this strange though : In the final battle, sometimes when the cruiser jumps out to the other base its weaponry changes - beam weapon gets replaced by laser turret or the opposite, or sometimes beam weapon that has been destroyed/damaged by fighters/bombers gets repaired to 100% again after the jump.
-
that was a truly interesting concept. i liked it quite a bit. ^.^
i'd love to see a full campaign on that. :D
-
Amen. Although I'd imagine it'd be one helluva time-consuming effort.
-
This campaign blew my mind out. Damn nice. :yes:
-
What build was used to make this? Rc3? I know i've got 10-something. I should update at some point.
-
I think it works with RC3.
-
I think it works with RC3.
It does.
At least, that's what I ran it on.
-
Definitely runs..... A few odd results. Like at the end of scenario 4 when you ummmmm, how to say it without spoiling it......
When you are meant to be able to kill things in a fighter, the controls lock out... At least once. Sometimes it runs fine though *shrugs*
-
Wow. I didn't expect something like this. Very cool. :yes:
-
:Insert Mini-Necro beam here:
My two cents: I feel this campaign absolutely must be played with the text to speech on. I did so with Microsoft Anna (English) from Windows 7.
The feeling I got with Microsoft Anna:
1. SIMULATION is an AI (obviously)
2. The AI is a little bit on the emotionally detached / experiment with humans / rampant / malfunctioning side (think GLaDOS from Portal).
#2 is important because it caused me to go along with "this is not how one would train an officer." Of course not! Obviously the training simulation has gone haywire! "Help! Unplug me! Something's gone wrong!" *bangs simulator door* "LET ME OUT!" *wink* The detached, monotonous computer voice adds immersion for a "malfunctioning simulator" interpretation.
Storytelling: 4/5 (some of the "switches" and sudden "questions" were too abrupt)
Gameplay: 4/5 (see above - biggest example is the abrupt "switch sides" thing)
Concept: 5/5
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Can anyone tell me please if the link in the OP is up to date if not can anyone update it or post the latest?
I get weird graphics when I go to the mainn FS main screen after the intro movie, have anyone experienced something like this? I have the latest (3.6.12)
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The weird graphics are part of this mod. If you're really unsure about them, post a screenshot of it and a debug log.
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The ships should be mostly this weird shade of green for friendlies or this weird shade of red for enemies. You'll also be quite removed and not in control of a ship yourself.
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OK, thanks. You know if there is a newer version that the on on the OP?
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Considering this is a release by Ransom, the download links in the first post most definitely point to the latest possible files. It wouldn't be his style to hog updated materials for himself.
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thanks for the assist.
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Where can I find a download for this? I'm very much interested in playing this, but the first page link is down.
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Where can I find a download for this? I'm very much interested in playing this, but the first page link is down.
I noticed that myself. Go to the FreeSpace wiki, look up Windmills, scrolll down, and click the link to FSMods. It was working last time I checked. Hope this helps!
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Managed to find it after digging, but that version crashed during the second mission, I think. It was the one where you lose contact with the ships you were commanding. It was rather ironic that as the computer was telling you that you would occasionally be unable to reestablish contact, the game itself crashed.
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Managed to find it after digging, but that version crashed during the second mission, I think. It was the one where you lose contact with the ships you were commanding. It was rather ironic that as the computer was telling you that you would occasionally be unable to reestablish contact, the game itself crashed.
Strange, not sure what to say. Were you using the recommended build?
I'm afraid I'm not much good with tech problems. Anyone else out there?
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http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=58358.0
tried this link in here?
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Shoot, no. I had no clue that that thread existed, thanks. I'll try to get that when I have access to Internet on my computer.
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Even if you don't see this, let's be honest with the right voice acting the simulation narative would be all the more frightening
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Shoot, no. I had no clue that that thread existed, thanks. I'll try to get that when I have access to Internet on my computer.
Even if you don't see this, let's be honest with the right voice acting the simulation narative would be all the more frightening
:ahem:
:necro:
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jr2, Release threads are never necroable. They are always relevant, no matter how long ago someone posted in them.
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It's a fine experience to revisit.
I would find it eeriest without VA though.