Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Titan on April 08, 2009, 02:43:26 pm
-
Well, uhm, dunno quite where to put this, but, here it is.
-
Highly character driven, Wing Commander style. That's how I like it.
-
Mackie FTW!
-
Y'know, I think Mackie is the one second from bottom. He never developed a real relationship with the player. But you still learn to love him.
-
In FS2 you had some character based wingmen. (IE Snipes)
-
Thats an exception.
-
Snipes AND Xinny and Xero. (or was it Zero, normal spelling?)
-
Do those guys even speak in that mission? I remember them being untalkative, strong silent types in that mission. The only voice was Snipes continually shouting stuff at you.
-
Well they have callsigns at least. Actually didn't one of them say something that prompted Snipes to say "What, do I look Shivan to you?"
-
Well they have callsigns at least. Actually didn't one of them say something that prompted Snipes to say "What, do I look Shivan to you?"
Well, if Snipes' first name is Carl, then maybe he would look shivan. :p
-
I'm going to say that in a perfect world they would have names and a few personality traits, and also be hard to kill, but if they do die have a new pilot be inserted into their old spot with a new name and personality. Although I believe this would be hard to do. Although I think I did play a campaign that did something like this after one of my wingmen died. but that may have been preplanned.
-
Well, if Snipes' first name is Carl, then maybe he would look shivan. :p
His first name is Christopher.
-
I think it really depends on the kind of story it's trying to tell. The retail campaigns were focused on the big picture - you felt like a cog in a war machine, and most of the recurring characters were well up the chain of command or never even really featured in the gameplay. Wingmen characters would have been counter-intuitive.
I'm a fan of more traditional character-centric narratives, but there's no 'best' way. If the campaign isn't intended to be a character story there's not much point slapping some characters in it who never go anywhere.
-
named characters and immortal! that way you can traumatize the player by killing it's long loved wingmates in an unpleasant twist of fate!!
-
The way you say that you seem evil. And a little insane. :D
-
I'm working on a six mission campaign, and I tried to give the pilot's squad a personality, rather than the individual wingmen. I use special hitpoints and scripting to prolong their lives, and use additional SEXPs to make them say amusing things amongst themselves when one of them bites it.
-
Transcend. :yes:
-
Highly character driven
These men and women are your WINGMEN!
They are NOT faceless! You have every meal of the day with them, you play poker and whatnot with them, you ***** about **** with them, they're supposed to be a tight knit group who take it really badly when one of them goes down. Which results in the rest being somewhat cold-hearted towards the green replacement.
That's why character driven campaigns really have me on edge, they're REALISTIC.
-
I agree, Charicter driven is the way to go. Hard to have a good story without good charicters.
-
I agree, Charicter driven is the way to go. Hard to have a good story without good charicters.
Amen to that
-
Or make it realistic.
Character driven at first... but no one bothers learning the given names of replacements, much less make friends with'em... because they will be gone too soon. Random callsigns would do for replacements.
Although one measure of how well you play could be how good you are at keeping your wingmen alive. Custom wingmen would have non-generic voice acting, but if you let them die, you lose them... if it's not in the plot that they need to live. Of course there would always be one or two "veterans" in the flight, but replacements would only ever use the generic FS2 comm sounds, while the veterans would use their specific banters at suitable times.
Or something like that.
Of course you can always introduce a functional ejection mechanism along with Search&Rescue parties, which would explain why we hear the same voices and see the same faces in FS2 over and over again. Personally I prefer realistically mortal wingmen (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnyoneCanDie) to characters kept alive by plot reasons (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathIsCheap)... but the former is several metric tons difficult to pull properly than the latter.
-
/me has voted.
Why not take a leaf from Blue Planet and Derelict? In BP, Corey and Taylor are invulnerable, but Nehru can get splashed. In Derelict, Mackie and the other two are invulnerable.
The "Alpha 1" syndrome shouldn't exist because it's unrealistic. Have more Alpha 1s like Snipes or Mackie.
-
Yeah
IMO I like to let some characters stay alive for plot reasons and let them die for a big "OMG!" moment. As long as the pilots in the wing are familiar to the player at least it's okay.
-
You can also do "I'm popping the top, someone come get me." If the wingmans hitpoints hit near zero, script it so he "ejects" and the ship blows up.
-
You can also do "I'm popping the top, someone come get me." If the wingmans hitpoints hit near zero, script it so he "ejects" and the ship blows up.
That would be interesting if technology like that was present in canon freespace. You'd think in the 24th Century they would've thought of something already...
-
Where's the Snuffleupagus option?
No, seriously. There are times where characters can be good for a campaign and others where I don't really find them appropriate-ish. For example there are campaigns like for example Procyon Insurgency which is based more around gameplay and the 'bigger picture' of the plot than actual characters. This works very well and I'm sure lots of people enjoyed the storyline of that campaign despite the fact it had no (wingmen-level) characters. In this case I don't think characters are needed, and nameless funnies do just fine.
But then there's stuff like Blue Planet which has one of the most mind blowing storylines out there. This campaign would be pretty much lost without characters since they added so much to the plot at the wingman's level. The background of the player character and his wingmen added a whole new dimension to the plot of the campaign. In this case I think characters are really good.
So, really IMO it depends on which type of campaign you're going for in terms of style. There are classic-style campaigns which don't really need characters and there are character-driven campaigns. Both are enjoyable.
So, Snuffleupagus.
-
Something that hasn't really been done, yet, and I'm rather shocked it hasn't, is that nobody has noticed the obvious standin for characters.
Ships. Capital ships.
We watched the Galatea get Killed Off For Real in FS1. We saw the Bastion pull a Redemption Equals Death in FS2 for its failure to get to the node in time to help fight the Lucifer back in FS1. The Colossus is a major character in FS2.
But the only fan-made campaign that really got this concept was Transcend, with the GTCv Generation.
-
Something that hasn't really been done, yet, and I'm rather shocked it hasn't, is that nobody has noticed the obvious standin for characters.
Ships. Capital ships.
We watched the Galatea get Killed Off For Real in FS1. We saw the Bastion pull a Redemption Equals Death in FS2 for its failure to get to the node in time to help fight the Lucifer back in FS1. The Colossus is a major character in FS2.
But the only fan-made campaign that really got this concept was Transcend, with the GTCv Generation.
I'm not so sure. I've played Transcend, and I didn't think much about the Generation. I thought the SC Kuldar from Flaming_Sword's Shivans! v0.21 mod did it much better.
-
Yes that's a good one.
Admiral Bei anybody?
Well generally speaking Command should have some kind of personality...hesitant in some locations to risk Alpha 1 depending on the campaign etc.
But as anyone in the military in some kind of front-line role or has served would know, the bonds between your squadmates are pretty tight. (I'm not talking from experience, but rather what Vet's have told me)
-
I like the X pilot ejects if he's taken too much damage idea.
-
I'm not so sure. I've played Transcend, and I didn't think much about the Generation.
"But you're dead!"
-
I'm not so sure. I've played Transcend, and I didn't think much about the Generation.
"But you're dead!"
"Memories never die."
[attachment deleted by evil Tolwyn]
-
Something that hasn't really been done, yet, and I'm rather shocked it hasn't, is that nobody has noticed the obvious standin for characters.
Ships. Capital ships.
We watched the Galatea get Killed Off For Real in FS1. We saw the Bastion pull a Redemption Equals Death in FS2 for its failure to get to the node in time to help fight the Lucifer back in FS1. The Colossus is a major character in FS2.
But the only fan-made campaign that really got this concept was Transcend, with the GTCv Generation.
Blue Planet did it. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,60375.0.html)
-
Lemme just jump in here with an example of wingmen that I personally liked- Starlancer. Love it, hate it, "WTF is Starlancer?" it, I do think they got the wingmen right. Your wingleader (you may be Alpha 1, but you aren't the CO as a player) changes several times over the course of the campaign, and your fellow pilots do actually have personalities. They can (and will) die, eject, banter with each other- the sorts of little things that humanize them.
On a slightly different note, I had an idea for a campaign I may start working on at some point that would have your wingmates jump out if they're ship has taken too much damage- tantamount to defeat or ejection, since you lose support, but the character can be kept alive in a less ham-fisted method than simply giving them ship-guardian.
-
Yeah, the problem I find is creating "LIKEABLE" characters. I just FRED-ed a mission which featured some decent character development only to realise that it basically made you hate all of them for being so cynically minded.
-
Highly character driven
-
Ohai James :drevil:
First time I've ever agreed with you :p
-
I use a compromise...
The main goal, IMO, is using alternate sources of plot description other than Command, brefings, debriefings, command briefings and ships' COs. Some characters also help with balance.
But character driven? IMO it shouldn't become common among user-made campaigns...it should be limited to only a few of them...
-
That's a good point. A campaign feels empty to me without a Snipes or Mackie but on the other hand, overdoing it would destroy the novelty of these characters.
-
Ohai James :drevil:
First time I've ever agreed with you :p
lol