Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => Topic started by: Cobra on March 18, 2005, 04:39:30 pm
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This will probably be the last time I asked for FREDers who aren't working on any projects. Pathways is at a standstill, and we desperately need FREDers.
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Refresh my memory, please. What is Pathways about?
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Pathways is about a wing of 70th Blue Lions pilots who are chosen for police duty due to increased pirate activity. Since the Capella supernova, pirate activity has increased and the GTPF (Galactic Terran Police Force) needed elite pilots yada yada yada.
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GTPF? Uh...why would an elite squadren....never mind.
That isn't really much of a plotline, and no offense, but you really shouldn't lead a project if you can't FRED your own missions.
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look at the new description in the FS2 Campaign thread. it's a CONSPIRACY.
jesus christ, i ask for FREDers and everyone bashes me. i'm sick of it.
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How long is Pathways?
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People bash you because it sounds like a storyline-less, cookie cutter campaign. You need to give details about a project for people to join you, you can't just say "I need help" and everyone comes running.
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Cobra, maybe if you fredded a couple of the first few missions yourself (for instance) and post them you will probably have better luck. No one wants to work on a project (no offense) where the leader doesnt do **** himself. A good way to put it is: "I wouldnt work at the mill if a 3 year old was my boss"
Just some friendly advice...
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Or another, better way to put it is:
"If I just graduated with a masters from med school I wouldnt go work for a brain surgeon that just got out of elementary school...i would end up doing all the work and getting almost no credit"
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WMC: It's got 15+ missions slated.
uhm, if you will be kind enough to look at the staff list in the campaign description, you will see that i am doing something.
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How about you stop *****ing and tell us about the campaign, rather than making us look it up?
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Can I ask...
The 70th blue lions was an elite squad. The best of the best, aside from SOC.
Why on earth would they be doping police missions?
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It's a CONSPIRACY. someone is trying to get the best pilots out of the way to do something. (ain't saying what it is :p)
maybe i should just quit this campaign and start the other one i have planned (one that you might tolerate)
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Wasn't this campaign already cancelled?
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what? i never cancelled Pathways...
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Cobra, have you considered joining Karajorma's FRED academy? You might learn a thing or two. You will NEVER complete a single quality mission until you learn to FRED, and nobody will successfuly complete one for you, because you won't be able to debug or coordinate design to any degree of success.
I was considering recruiting FREDers, but I decided against it. I can FRED 30 missions in about five months, so who needs a bunch of dead weight?
Also, I took a look at your forum, and I'd suggest dropping it, as all it seems to be doing is hurting your rep.
Note that none of this is to be considered as "bashing," I'm just trying to provide constructive advice.
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I though it was dead...
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I HAVE joined the FA. have you even SEEN my FA mission?
(BTW kara, i haven't updated in a while due to a few things)
you guys are really starting to piss me off...
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Guys i think that we are being a bit unfair to cobra. and cobra.....when people ask about your campaign in a thread that you started about the campaign, it's rude to tell them to look it up.
From what i gateher, the pilots are being reassigned as part of a conspiracy, and you are playing one of the reassigned pilots.
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Originally posted by Cobra
It's a CONSPIRACY. someone is trying to get the best pilots out of the way to do something. (ain't saying what it is :p)
Um....... yeah. Righ.......t.
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Originally posted by ShadowWolf_IH
From what i gateher, the pilots are being reassigned as part of a conspiracy, and you are playing one of the reassigned pilots.
yeah, that's about it.
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Interesting. I was wondering about that; it seemed a little off to me to turn elite pilots into traffic cops, but at least there's an explanation :p
I look forward to seeing the results of your work, Cobra :nod:
I think I'ma stick to ETF for now, tho.
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Sorry, gotta alot of things going on in real life, along with FREDing and testing.
EDIT:also, if you can give FREDers the mission outlines, no point saying "I want 15 missions" and crack the whip.
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Guys, can we ALL stop being ****ing assholes here? I'm absolutely sick of the way others are treated just because you all don't like the way they are doing something.
Cobra: It would be a better idea to post up more details about your campaign here.
Blitzerland: How the hell is his forum hurting his rep? He can have a forum for his own projects himself.
That's my two cents on this whole thing.
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Blitzerland: How the hell is his forum hurting his rep? He can have a forum for his own projects himself.
I understand where you're coming from. Ordinarily, no, a forum wouldn't hurt your rep, would it? But, as to this specific forum...
Have you looked at it? :wtf:
Pick any thread, and you'll understand.
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I've looked at his forum. It's a small community, and I am a member of the forum... though I hardly post.
I didn't mean to make that post sound like I was flaming you, or anybody else, but seriously, whenever somebody comes here with big ambitions, what do you all do? You flame him into oblivion, tell him he's stupid and that everybody fails on their first try. You all essentially crush their spirits. There are some people here who are wise and tell them good advice, but others just say "Oh, you're so stupid. You can't even make a good campaign because you are new." I mean, come on, the person who is new could have been FREDing since FS2 came out. Am I wrong?
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I'm not flaming him. His forum really is hurting his rep.
I would love nothing more than for Cobra to pump out a brilliant campaign, but at this rate, I doubt that will happen.
And he hasn't been FREDing since Fs2 came out. He can't FRED at all, although I believe he may be working on a mission for Karajorma's FRED academy.
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I wasn't referring to Cobra, though it sounded like I was. It was an example, saying that somebody came to the community and was new, and that they've been FREDing since FS2 came out. Should've been more clear on that.
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Turn it down, people. This doesn't need to be a flamefest. I won't support either side, but here it goes:
To the older members: Quit being a bunch of crusty old elitists. I understand that Cobra is rarely getting much done, but instead of flaming him, you could possibly try to help him.
Cobra: Don't take things so offensively. It's not a surprise that people get turned off about Pathways since you complain and take everything as a personal attack. Be a little more level-headed, then maybe some people would volunteer to work with you.
Inferno: Not everybody's ended up that way. Take a look at a couple of the best campaigns around. Sync was Ransom's first campaign, and he did it very well. Blaise came into the community guns-a-blazing with Homesick and STL. Not everybody fails on their first try.
That's all I have to say. Now turn it down before another potentially useful thread gets locked and thrown away.
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Pretty much want I wanted to say Nuclear 1.
I think we've reached the point where giving Cobra advice of this sort is counterproductive. If you like his idea then show your support. Otherwise keep the general complaining down.
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Cobra, you must understand that most of the FREDers are already contributing other projects and there are only a negligible(sorry, I don't know how to spell this word) number of idle FREDers, who are improbable to take a look into this thread until it does not sink down.
If you are a time millionaire(I don't know if you are this), make all the missions yourself. That's what I did and still do, I only request help if there is a dire need. If you don't insist on having new models, sound and visual effects, etc, than you really don't have much to worry about, if you decide to do things alone. If you think there are too many missions for you to handle, simply remove some non-important missions from the mission list, if those don't affect the plotline.
No-one expects you to be nitpicking about your missions, you don't have to spend twice the time necessary to make your missions playable. This is understandable if you are a rookie FREDer. The more experience you gather the better you can make your missions and the less time you will have to spend with a mission. Don't try to make Bearbaiting II, you should have simple missions. No-one will notice if there aren't any complex SEXP trees or there are only two debriefing stages or there is no AWOL debriefing unless the player intentionally tries to find bugs. Players in this community are not such: They don't play your campaign to find and complain about 'hidden bugs'. They try to do their best to beat your campaign, which means they try to complete it.
This is not intended to inspire you not to make AWOL debriefings. Instead, I only want you to not try make things complicated. Improve on the plotline, that's the heart of your campaign. If you succeed in making an interesting plotline, hunting for bugs won't even cross the player's mind, because he wants to see how the story goes on. To do this, he does his best to complete his given tasks, to see how the plotline develops.
To more effectively avoid people finding bugs, make your missions balanced in difficulty. It is more likely players will find a bug in five or six attempts than in one or two.
I know I said I would not FRED for your campaign, but I will give you advice if you need some.
*expects to receive a number of disagreeing responses*
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I agree with everything TopAce has stated.
What? :nervous:
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Me too. And I was actually happy to hear that...
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Originally posted by Fergus
Sorry, gotta alot of things going on in real life, along with FREDing and testing.
EDIT:also, if you can give FREDers the mission outlines, no point saying "I want 15 missions" and crack the whip.
i had mission outlines in a document ready to be posted, but then i got a nasty virus and had to restore. (Dammit :mad: )
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Most of what you see in the pathways external is old stuff, from when Cobra first got here. He's come a long way in a few short months. Having Pec on his staff was a mistake, that fortunately he no longer has to live with. He asked for some help, I can't, my plate is full. He's new to being in a mod and very new to leading one, give him a break and some patience.
Cobra if you are fredding then it is my advice to Fred the missions yourself, and then have a few people that you trust play the missions separately, and not in campaign form. What you need more than fredders is a solid tester. You've shown that you are willing to try to learn almost anything, that's a bonus, put what you have learned to use, and go to town on fredding. Get a good alpha tester, someone who will tear your missions apart and force you to fix them, and you cannot help but become a better fredder.
Learn to seperate mission dialogue from story dialogue, and when you initially build your missions don't include the story dialogue, but have an eye toward creating areas where it can take place, and make sure that you note the amount of time that it takes for a ship to go from point A to point B, if this is your "story dialogue time" That way you know how much time you have to work with. Start small, first few missions should be relatively easy...let's just get our feet wet and do some story stuff missions. After that, you can make themn increasingly more complex, but keep an eye on the pace of the missions, and allow it to increase in tempo with each successive mission.
To be honest, you lack focus, so let's concentrate on that. When you are building missions, alot of things will enter your head that will be "neat". Don't do them. Stick to the story that you have written. You will have different ideas for the story, don't do them. Leave the story as it is, until you talk to someone who knows the story as well as you do, and then...don't do them. Wait a week or so before implementing story changes, they may sound good at first, and then when you have redone the story to include them, you find that alot of the time "neat" means "corny" :)
This is the hardest one....take your time. there is no need to rush, especially as a new fredder.
My serious recommendation to you is, fred it. You will become a much stronger fredder for it. Don't overplay the missions that you have done, it gets boring. play it until it is finished, then don't play it for a few months, and when you no longer remember how the mission is built, play it. It's a different feeling than you get when playing it during construction. You are new to that mission when you do this, and you will feel what your players will feel when they play it.
Have fun making your mod match your dream for it.
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YAY! First Post! (wow, that's sad, i've been lurking for years, and just now break my silence for Cobra...) *quickly tries to avoid any welcome-beams headed in my direction*
Anyways @Cobra: Can you email me an outline of what you want for a few missions? (Nivek_clough AT yahoo DOT com) I'd be willing to try doing some FREDing for you. I warn you, although I did plenty of personal FREDing for FS2 retail, I'm definately rusty with the SCP FREDing. If what you want is clear, I'll whip up some quick versions of the missions for you to approve.
@ Everyone else: HA! see sometimes when you do ask, you can actually get results.
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:welcome:
Exits are to your right and left, and flamethrowers are under your seat. Be careful, though, as they are sometimes filled with water, so bring your own Napalm or try to club someone with the non-working shotguns in the weapon closet. Also, be careful while wandering the ventilation shafts. If you see a large, five-limbed creature that looks really pissed, it’s probably Carl, give him your lunch and he'll hopefully go away. If you see a big desert creature its probably Raa, give him a fish and he might leave your head alone. In the event of an emergency, the n00bs will be the last into the escape pods, if there’s any room left. The Plasma rifles in the forward locker are released only under authorization of an Admin, [V] God, or hyperintelligent shade of the color blue. Oh, and whatever you do, don't mention the word Freespace followed by the number 3.
Cobra, do you FRED for this campaign? If so how many missions have you got done? If not then what exactly do you do?
I have been working solo on my campaign and have 5 missions done so far (The first goes on for 40 minutes but. meh.) and have released a demo. Also it would be extremely obvious that there was a conspiracy in the works if the elitest squadron in the GTVA were being traffic cops. :rolleyes:
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well, er actaully, i'm working on one right now...
also, thanks yubyub. we're using retail, ransom arceihn will be redoing the campaign in SCP. also, i want you to go to Game Warden (http://www.game-warden.com), register there, go to the Pathways forum in the hosted section (natch :p) post in the open recruitment thread, and i'll give a yell for an admin to give you internal access. (and yell at skippy to add you to my staff list :D)
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ransom arceihn will be redoing the campaign in SCP
Great. Then you'd have to do it twice. Besides, more people around here use SCP than Retail, nowadays.
Ransom should be either creating a sequel to Sync (which I loved), or using his talent elsewhere.
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That's great Blitzwhatever, it's good to see that people can slam on a mod without ever seeing the internal forum for that mod. Actually the campaign looks pretty good.
Oh my, that's your ass that you are showing at the moment.
With a little guidance Cobra will be fine, and his mod will be fine as well. I would think that you learned that in your near two year tenure here.
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Oh my, that's your ass that you are showing at the moment.
Harsh, but not unexpected. I didn't bash him at all. I've never bashed his campaign, I just said it should be done in SCP to begin with, rather than wasting a load of time.
You are an idiot. I'm sorry, but this clearly isn't a misunderstanding, you knew perfectly well I wasn't bashing his campaign.
Before I left HLP awhile back to pursue other interests, did I offend you in some way?
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I think you could call that bashing his campaign
And Cobra, it might be better if you FRED around half of it, thats were it won't be so hard on you, but you will still gain exp.
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Hey, how about type up a Prologue to the story and post that here.
Should work up some more interest. :)
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Actually, that's a really good idea.
Silence the critics, Cobra. Could you show us the first mission or whatnot?
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Originally posted by Blitzerland
Ransom should be either creating a sequel to Sync (which I loved), or using his talent elsewhere.
Originally posted by Blitzerland
You are an idiot. I'm sorry, but this clearly isn't a misunderstanding, you knew perfectly well I wasn't bashing his campaign.
By saying that the best fredder on his team is wasting his talent on the campaign, you're not bashing it?
This is twice. And I'll use this as the answer to your question in the Ferrium forum. Here is where you bashed another project that hasn't been released yet.
Happy?
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Yeah, I guess I have now...accidently. But when you posted that reply in Ferrium, I hadn't. You were just trying to slander me, then.
I didn't mean for my post to be taken this way. All I meant was Ransom's extreme talent shouldn't be spent copying a campaign over to SCP. This is just my humble opinion, and you don't have to listen to me, at all, if you don't want to. Come to think of it, it really is his choice, I suppose.
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*listens to arguments*
oo, a fight!
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Nah. I don't care. I just like to point things out.
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Grug and Blitz:
yubyub is coming up with a prologue demo. ;)
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Hail Ceasor! (salad) :D
Hmm actually, how about a Rome meets FS2 mod... :)
You could have ships called Hastati, and Principe and my most favourite unit second only to spartans Triarii! :D
(Which obvcourse would be some super duper fighter) ;)
Actually, I think I might make a couple of ships named after these... :D
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the GTF Tripoli? :D
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Originally posted by Blitzerland
I didn't mean for my post to be taken this way. All I meant was Ransom's extreme talent shouldn't be spent copying a campaign over to SCP. This is just my humble opinion, and you don't have to listen to me, at all, if you don't want to. Come to think of it, it really is his choice, I suppose.
Although you put it rather tactlessly I actually agree with you in part. If you're going to make an SCP campaign you should try to design it from ground up as one because that will enable you to use persistant variables to interconnect the storyline and you can design missions with features in mind that aren't available in retail.
If you've made a mission for retail then by all means you can upgrade it to SCP by adding nameplates, nicer backgrounds etc but I do see very little in that which needs a FREDder of RA's caliber to it. There's not much point in touching the mission logic if you're upgrading the campaign to SCP (unless you decide to attach some bells and whistles you couldn't do in retail).
However it sounds like RA is actually FREDding retail missions for the campaign not just simply converting them in which case he isn't wasting his time. There is no one better placed to convert a mission than the FREDder who wrote it originally. :)
(I know that Cobra can't run FS2_Open so I can't really blame him for not making a campaign he can't play himself though :D )
Blitz : If you're often having your comments taken the wrong way then it's a sign that you need to learn some tact. If a comment can easily be misinterpreted you need to take a few extra seconds to explain in a little more detail what you actually mean.
Notice how I've basically said what you were trying to say above but (hopefully :nervous: ) no one should take it as me bashing Cobra's campaign because I took the time to explain what I meant.
Anyway lets end the discussion on Blitz comment here. I don't want to have to close this thread because of the fallout from one tactless comment.
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No Blitz, you didn't offend me before you left. You have ofended me since your return though. That's the last i'lls ay on it, if you want to continue we can go to PM.
Back to Topic.
Be careful Cobra, I'm about to steal Ransom from you....j/k
A prologue story would be great, or maybe actually fredding the prologue story into a 3 or 4 mission demo. A demo would certainly generate interest. Either way you do it is fine by me, but one way or another get it done and shut the nay sayers up. :) I can't work for your campaign, but i'm rootin for ya.
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that's actually how many missions the prologue is, 4-5 missions. :)
thanks for the support guys. :)
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how many missions (campaign, not prologue) are currently fredded?
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well, er, so far none. we had a storyline change, so it's back down to zero.
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What's the new storyline?
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err, i'm not sure if i should do this, this one would reveal too much of the campaign. :nervous: should i?
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Just give us the basic plot, like you did before. Unless you want your project to remain totally secret. This probably won't attract new FREDers or staff-members, unless you give them a really good reason.
You had a conspiracy theory plot that could've worked, if done right. You should get a good proof-reader and go with your original idea, rather than starting over.
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Tell nothing. Let the heathens beg!
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good. i wanna keep this secret. it would be a surprise to all of you.
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Originally posted by Blitzerland
Just give us the basic plot, like you did before. Unless you want your project to remain totally secret. This probably won't attract new FREDers or staff-members, unless you give them a really good reason.
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Giving them a pay?
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@cobra
i might help you if you want me to... give me note at: hunne(at)inorbitDOTcom
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Giving them a pay?
Imagine how fast all the "stalled" projects at HLP would complete themselves. :nod:
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:D
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Originally posted by Hunne
@cobra
i might help you if you want me to... give me note at: hunne(at)inorbitDOTcom
can you FRED?
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uh oh what happened to my former reply...(i never wrote it like that?)
nevermind
@cobra
yes i think so , haven´t done campaigns so far but got myself a bunch of nice missions constructed with FRED2 and FRED2open
i´m studying now and it may take some time for me to complete a mission...you decide! give me a calll....
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Yar! Thar be scurvy knaves on yer galleon!
(i.e. word filter)
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Aldo, dude, something has to be done about this filter. You're losing yer usual flair!
Yaar, bloody cuthroat pranking staff! an0n upon ye all! an0n!
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Cobra...
do you want some advice?
the first thing to do is to finish the plot...
if you don't do that...well...you don't need me to tell you what's might happen (scrap half-way campaigns)...
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Your cynicism appalls me, willy_principal!
We have finished the plot.
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the demo plot, anyway. :nervous:
Ransom, go ahead and make teh missions in SCP, since that's what Pathways is. i can finally use SCP!!!