Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: karajorma on April 05, 2003, 08:54:14 am
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JamieK posted an interesting topic a few weeks back on the VWBB. Unfortunately it died down after only a couple of answers so I thought I`d resurrect it here.
For all of those of you working on plot design for a campaign. How much do you tell your team members about each mission?
Do you give them detailed lists showing the major events, goals and directives or do you just give them the plotline for the mission and leave them to get on with it?
On the other hand, for the FREDders amongst us what would you like to see when the missions designers hand you a mission? Do you prefer simply coding a mission when you're given all the details or do you like to decide what the goals and directives should be to fit within a given plotline?
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I figure its a really hard line to walk. With BWO, we've got to a HTML page that has all of the paragraph long mission descriptions as well as the critical events and goals that must happen....I leave the rest upto the designer. Thats where the good stuff happens anyways....you can tell people to be creative...you have to let them be.
Guidance and direction is what I've focused on as opposed to a rock solid description of everything.
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As a mission designer I always like to have a certain freedom to create minor events (no consequences for main plot). Ofcourse there is a main plot involved which must be followed but to make a completely pre-designed mission is no fun.
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We have a storyline that will be followed, but it is very summed up, so the mission designer has the freedom to do a lot of things we never even thought of doing.
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I normally supply a plot, setting, list of vital ships, and an outcome... then the designer can accomplish the goals any way he/she wants...
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Aldo comes up with the main campaign points. Then me and the team throw ideas at him, and between us we refine it again and again.
A similar process shapes the individual missions, although usually it's just Aldo and the FREDder concerned who bandy ideas. Missions are then passed around the Reci forum for the other guys to chuck in their two cents.
Something like that, anyway :)
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Going against the grain here, the TI mission outlines I send out are usually pretty detailed - they generally give the basic idea for the briefing, a fairly detailed idea of the stages in the mission, and the enemy intensity within these stages, some debriefing info, sometimes a few suggestions for if the mission turns out too easy or too hard, etc. etc. - I do however make it quite clear that if the FREDder wants anything changed, then all they have to do is contact me and we can discuss it.
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Absolutely everything, since I am the only mission designer for my project and thus I have to tell myself everything to get it done at all, right? :D
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Since I'm the only member working on my campaign I come up with ideas and run them by my "idea men" (little brothers) and they tell me what they think. They're brutally honest too, which has lead to more than a few ideas being scrapped.
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Similar here.
I do most of the things in my own, so mutual understanding is not a problem. :D
The other two guys have so little time for FS nowadays, that there is no too much cooperation. in mission design.
Mission building in team requires so much communication, that none of us could handle.
Too much definition for FREDders wouldn't work anyway, because there are things that simply can not be done in FRED.