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Hello HLP. I need your help with something please.
For the last three weeks or so I’ve been struggling with a big, big decision that needs to be made, and I just can’t seem to break this deadlock. I’m wanting to resume work on my campaign, but what’s stopping me is whether to switch the player character from their current “Alpha 1” style silent protagonist to giving them an actual voice and personality of their own to go with the three wingmen that the player has who are characters. For now they’ve been the ones telling the story, while the player simply has to be “Alpha 1” and go and whoop some ass. And that’s fine. And that was “the plan” when I first started, and has been up until now. But I’ve been inspired lately to seriously think about making the player character into a character as well. And I just can’t decide what’s best, stick with “the plan” and keep the player as a silent protagonist, or bring a “fourth musketeer” if you like to the party. If I work on my campaign then make the switch later, it just means more work to do to turn the silent protagonist player into a main character in the already existing missions and script. And not just any main character, surely the player has to be the main character, yes? The decision is mine to make, but I really am struggling to make it on my own. So that’s where you lot get to come in! :)
Now, please understand I’m not interested simply in numbers who are for or against silent protagonists, so there's no poll here. I want people to talk about which they think is best and why. Do you prefer to just fly and be yourself and does a character persona being transplanted into your pilot bother you? Or do you prefer to be in another person’s shoes as they tell the story while you help them blast their way through their enemies? I need to see something persuasive that resonates with me to break my deadlock. I have tried looking at things online about gaming protagonists, silent vs character, and it hasn't helped. If anything, in a weird sort of way, it's made me want both at the same time, which is of course impossible. The arguments made me feel more stronger about the merits of both options, rather than knocking one down in favour of the other. So maybe here, with a more focused question instead of gaming in general, I can get the answer I seek.
Oh and if anyone wants to try the demo of my campaign, it’s linked below, you need Wings of Dawn. Input from anyone who’s actually played it and can thus talk about my campaign specifically, whether from trying it now, or because they tried it in the past, could well be especially helpful.
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=83179.0
Thank you for your time. I never thought I'd run into a problem like this when I started! :D
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If your campaign deals with relationships and character interactions, you should seriously consider giving your character a voice. Silent Gordon Freeman was an excellent fit and a masterful narrative choice for Half-Life 1; by the time of Episode 2 and Portal, Valve had grown to resent their own self-imposed restriction.
A silent protagonist is probably a better fit for a cog-in-the-machine story in which the player's subjectivity is purely reactive and your avatar's internal states shouldn't be expected to have any real influence on the narrative.
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The reason you find both arguments compelling is because they're both correct. Silent and voiced protagonists are the correct choices for different kinds of narrative. In order to break your own deadlock, you need to know what kind of story you're telling.
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If your campaign deals with relationships and character interactions, you should seriously consider giving your character a voice. Silent Gordon Freeman was an excellent fit and a masterful narrative choice for Half-Life 1; by the time of Episode 2 and Portal, Valve had grown to resent their own self-imposed restriction.
A silent protagonist is probably a better fit for a cog-in-the-machine story in which the player's subjectivity is purely reactive and your avatar's internal states shouldn't be expected to have any real influence on the narrative.
I do want the three to develop into close friends, and react to events in the story and some other characters. So I'd want the same for if three became four.
I haven't played any of those games you use as examples though.
But at the same time, the player isn't controlling big decisions if that's what you mean. The player isn't directing the machine. The player isn't even squadron commander, the player is a wing commander. In missions where more than one ally wing is present, the player cannot give orders to any but their own wing. That may change further on though, I haven't decided.
What do you suggest?
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When you have a silent protagonist, your character's internal states - his or her subjectivity - can't return to the game world to affect the plot or characters.
If the focus of your story is on the relationships within the wing, you need to decide whether you want the player character to be a spectator on that dynamic (with occasional decision power, if you so choose) or an active participant.
But if you pick the latter and make your PC a speaking character, bear in mind that this is going to come with defined internal states. The player can't fill in their own subjectivity, can't say 'Hrm, I like Alpha 2 and I hate Alpha 4' - they have to deal with PC's scripted opinions. People sometimes talk about this as a barrier to immersion; I don't think that's particularly important, since the mute contrivance is just as disruptive. But it is critical to think about as you write the characters.
It's perfectly possible to write the kind of story you're after with a silent protagonist. You're just going to have to use your other characters to do all the heavy lifting. Your choice here is how to establish bonds between the human player and your three wingmates: do you want them to be defined, dyadic interactions the player learns about, or inferred relationships the player establishes with the three NPCs?
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When you have a silent protagonist, your character's internal states - his or her subjectivity - can't return to the game world to affect the plot or characters.
If the focus of your story is on the relationships within the wing, you need to decide whether you want the player character to be a spectator on that dynamic (with occasional decision power, if you so choose) or an active participant.
But if you pick the latter and make your PC a speaking character, bear in mind that this is going to come with defined internal states. The player can't fill in their own subjectivity, can't say 'Hrm, I like Alpha 2 and I hate Alpha 4' - they have to deal with PC's scripted opinions. People sometimes talk about this as a barrier to immersion; I don't think that's particularly important, since the mute contrivance is just as disruptive. But it is critical to think about as you write the characters.
It's perfectly possible to write the kind of story you're after with a silent protagonist. You're just going to have to use your other characters to do all the heavy lifting. Your choice here is how to establish bonds between the human player and your three wingmates: do you want them to be defined, dyadic interactions the player learns about, or inferred relationships the player establishes with the three NPCs?
Yes, I've had many of these kind of thoughts rattling around in my brain lately.
When I first started making the campaign, I was more concerned about being able to FRED missions. I did still want a story, but I was more concerned with missions, so I went with the silent protagonist as a safe bet. I even made mention of the fact it might seem awkward the player's wingmen are giving the orders when the player is wing leader, although the player is of course still in control and can order the wing around. That would be certainly the most desirable thing to change.
I want there to be a focus on the relationships and the impact the events of the war has on them. As I said I have been inspired to make the player-character a part of that.
But at the same time, as you say, on the flipside, you take certain things away from the real-World player by doing so, which makes the silent protagonist a safe bet. Even for me, the character wouldn't be a copy of what I'd do in the same situation, the character would be an actual character.
If the player-character stays silent, it would be implied the wingmen like the player. Which would really revolve around praising the player for success, and staying loyal to the player in failure (since it's a branching campaign, so you can lose missions and still continue.) There'd be a bit more to do with it than that, but if the player became a character, then they'd like the player for who he is (it will be a male player-character. If silent, gender will not be specified.) Making the other three do the heavy lifting is what I've been trying to do so far.
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Please, don't be shy.
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If you want your character to effect the world around them, they need a voice. If you want them to be witness to it, they don't.
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That's ridiculously oversimplifying. The Antagonist's protagonist (see wut I did thar?) was silent, yet he affected his universe more than anyone else in decades.
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Didn't he talk a bit? Or was that only in the opening cutscene? Or am I confabulating wildly?
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I definitely remember him having conversations with Joshua throughout.
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He was nameless, but the protagonist talked throughout the campaign from time to time. The things he did say were rather simple.
Though if you resist Edward in the end, he does say much more meaningful things. Namely he decides what he wants to do with his life.
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Generally I prefer the silent protagonist. The active protagonist who has a massive impact, who makes big choices that I can't effect irks me. Blue Planet fell flat for me partly because the protagonist had dilemmas and I had no choice in how I reacted to them and some of my character's reactions seemed absurd. I accept that was necessary for the narrative direction but it doesn't really work for me.
A character-protagonist can be done well, Transcend is a great example of an active protagonist, but his a role with few genuine dilemmas - a scenario presents itself and his choices are to die or to do as his directives suggest. It wouldn't have been as good with a silent protagonist, but it would have worked with a silent protagonist minimal changes.
Unless it's necessary for the story you're trying to tell (ie. if your guy gets split off from his team-mates for a few missions and you want to break off the boredom) or you're exceptionally confident in your writing ability I'd stick with the silent one.
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That's ridiculously oversimplifying. The Antagonist's protagonist (see wut I did thar?) was silent, yet he affected his universe more than anyone else in decades.
Yes, provided you are willing to give the character unlimited agency, the ability to deal with EVERY problem on their own terms and no real sense of connection to the world. None of this applies to real character development. Further, the Antagonist also had another character who essentially talked for the player character and commentated on choices you made in game.
That's one type of story telling which is only possible provided your character has little to no connection to the world around them beyond a single minded goal. Which is FINE. But if you want to develop a world beyond that, your character needs to speak or find another way to directly interact. That requires dialogue. You can't tell the story of a group of mercenaries down on their luck unless you are willing to develop the relationship between the wingmen. I don't care how well written your dialogue is - when you have a silent protagonist, your choices are made for you and ultimately Freespace only has so many ways to express yourself. You shoot stuff, click stuff or press buttons. You can't rest a hand on someones shoulder. You can't nod gruffly. You can't warp physics or reality. You just shoot stuff.
A completely silent protagonist with agency is also far more demanding scripting wise than one with dialogue. That's why Freespace 2 was so well written because it was the perfectly written story with a silent protagonist - you ultimately don't matter to the story. Only your deeds do. You also, notably, lack agency, which leads to the idea of the campaign being linear.
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To shorten what I'm saying - if you want to affect the world, you can do one of two things. Give the protagonist personality or give the protagonist agency. Giving the protagonist dialogue through their personality is a very easy way of giving the protagonist agency. Restricting the dialogue of the protagonist forces their agency to be dependent on actions and thus reduces the amount of things you can do in your campaign. It especially restricts interactions with other characters such as wingmen.
You don't have to forcefeed the dialogue, either. There's plenty of methods in modern FREDing to make dialogue choices.
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It's an interesting question.
One of the big narrative questions when writing the story for a video game is that the player and the player-character have to mesh well. If the player dislikes the player character or disagrees with their actions, that disrupts the experience. In a sense, the player needs to agree with the player character's actions.
One useful shortcut to achieve this is the silent player character. The player can project their emotions onto the PC. This works well if the PC's actions are pretty straightforward- go on a mission, complete objectives, repeat.
Another way to do it is the sandbox approach: the PC's actions are completely up to the player. This method has its advantages obviously, but it doesn't work if the author is attempting to convey a specific story, rather than put the player in a sandbox and turn them loose.
Speaking player characters with author-defined personalities are the hardest to write, but when done right are very successful. A few examples of well-written speaking PCs:
Samuel Bei: Bei is sympathetic, and at the same time admirable. Bei's effectiveness as a PC is due not only to how he is written, but to the way the whole plot is written; his two major decisions (allying with the Vishnans and defecting to Earth) are prepared for in the plot to the point where the play agrees with them when they happen.
Master Chief (Halo): Contrary to the popular misconception, Master Chief DOES speak and has a defined personality (although one characteristic of that personality is that he's not very talkative). Nonetheless, his motivations are clear and simple: Save Humanity.
Sunder Marcel (Transcend): The player sympathizes with him, because he's as confused as the player is by the crazy situation he gets in to. However, he doesn't go crazy (he's perhaps the only character who stays sane) and acts rationally to stop the apocalypse.
The PC from The Antagonist: Again, as confused as the player is at the start. Learns things at the same time as the player. Sympathetic.
Based on the description of your campaign, Lorric, it sounds like it could be done either way. A speaking player character would be harder to write, but might end up fitting better into the squadron dynamic if done effectively.
Lastly, it is certainly possible to make a power, emotional, character-driven story even with a silent protagonist. I like to hold up Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War as a capital example of this. The player is a silent protagonist known only by his callsign, Blaze. However, you're leading a a four-pilot squadron, and your wingmen have very significant personalities. The player's reactions to events are guided by the wingmen's reactions. Blaze is not cut out of the squadron dynamic; his wingmen refer to him, compliment his skill, and even argue over his nicknames. One of the most emotional moments in all gaming occurs when Davenport, the comical motormouth of the team, dies
(a really good LP if you want to see for yourself) (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL786D6D5A88E74FB5)
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First, thank you everyone so far. It's funny, Battuta made me lean slightly towards going for a player-character, and now I'm leaning slightly towards sticking with the original plan. Heh, I want both aspects and I can't have them...
Kie99, if he's referring to Aquarius, together with InsaneBaron, highlight the potential problems with talking protagonists. I also dislike Bei, yet InsaneBaron is holding him up as a prime example of a talking protagonist done well. It's subjective. It's Bei and Sandman from Wing Commander Saga that make me worried about a talking protagonist. I can tolerate him much of the time, but other times he really gets under my skin. I'd trade him in for one of his wingmen in a heartbeat. And Sandman in the middle of the campaign I straight up disliked, but he managed to claw his way back to neutral by the end of the campaign.
It's an interesting question.
One of the big narrative questions when writing the story for a video game is that the player and the player-character have to mesh well. If the player dislikes the player character or disagrees with their actions, that disrupts the experience. In a sense, the player needs to agree with the player character's actions.
One useful shortcut to achieve this is the silent player character. The player can project their emotions onto the PC. This works well if the PC's actions are pretty straightforward- go on a mission, complete objectives, repeat.
Another way to do it is the sandbox approach: the PC's actions are completely up to the player. This method has its advantages obviously, but it doesn't work if the author is attempting to convey a specific story, rather than put the player in a sandbox and turn them loose.
Speaking player characters with author-defined personalities are the hardest to write, but when done right are very successful. A few examples of well-written speaking PCs:
Samuel Bei: Bei is sympathetic, and at the same time admirable. Bei's effectiveness as a PC is due not only to how he is written, but to the way the whole plot is written; his two major decisions (allying with the Vishnans and defecting to Earth) are prepared for in the plot to the point where the play agrees with them when they happen.
Master Chief (Halo): Contrary to the popular misconception, Master Chief DOES speak and has a defined personality (although one characteristic of that personality is that he's not very talkative). Nonetheless, his motivations are clear and simple: Save Humanity.
Sunder Marcel (Transcend): The player sympathizes with him, because he's as confused as the player is by the crazy situation he gets in to. However, he doesn't go crazy (he's perhaps the only character who stays sane) and acts rationally to stop the apocalypse.
The PC from The Antagonist: Again, as confused as the player is at the start. Learns things at the same time as the player. Sympathetic.
Based on the description of your campaign, Lorric, it sounds like it could be done either way. A speaking player character would be harder to write, but might end up fitting better into the squadron dynamic if done effectively.
Lastly, it is certainly possible to make a power, emotional, character-driven story even with a silent protagonist. I like to hold up Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War as a capital example of this. The player is a silent protagonist known only by his callsign, Blaze. However, you're leading a a four-pilot squadron, and your wingmen have very significant personalities. The player's reactions to events are guided by the wingmen's reactions. Blaze is not cut out of the squadron dynamic; his wingmen refer to him, compliment his skill, and even argue over his nicknames. One of the most emotional moments in all gaming occurs when Davenport, the comical motormouth of the team, dies
(a really good LP if you want to see for yourself) (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL786D6D5A88E74FB5)
And yes, it is for these reasons I went initially for the safe bet of a silent protagonist. And now I'm leaning towards it again.
I unfortuantely have not met the other protagonists you speak of. I do plan on playing Transcend sometime though. Also The Antagonist. Since you're here, I'll tell you that as I had played the games in your first review I talked about, and haven't played the games in the second, I'm going to take another approach again to the third. This time, I intend to play The Antagonist sometime, then immediately after, read your review.
Indeed. That's the problem! :) It can be done either way in my campaign.
But this Ace Combat 5 sounds very interesting indeed. It sounds like they've made their game exactly in the way I originally intended to make mine. I may well be able to take from them ideas on how to do this well in mine. So I will watch the LP. Thank you, InsaneBaron.
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Interesting topic.
I prefer a silent player character, and guess what, it's nice to find out there are still debates about the subject: a few years ago, I had the impression that character driven campaigns were dominating and influencing FREDders in a way that I found worrying. In the past I've been criticized for considering Blue Planet, Transcend and similar campaigns (which don't follow the style seen in the main FreeSpace series) as part of a specific genre people may or may not like instead of examples of next generation campaign designing.
Please mind that this could be a false dichotomy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy): you're saying that you either have a BP-like campaign where the player character is a key factor, or a campaign that follows to the letter the original FreeSpace games and their player character-free policy. You're not considering the "grey" part of the argument, a hybrid between the two: for example, you may create a campaign where the player doesn't say a word during the missions, but other than that is a pure player character, with proper characterization and stuff like that.
As weird as it may seem, I believe character-driven campaigns where the player character talks actually kill immersion. I'm a big fan of jRPGs where characters have all kinds of problems and say all kinds of things, but a message from Alpha 1 is not like one of Squall Leonhart's monologues, sorry. I don't think a space shooter can tell a story in that sense unless it's designed like Star Ixiom, a hybrid game between space shooters and jRPGs, which I recommend you to play if you get the chance.
(http://cdn2.spong.com/screen-shot/s/t/starixiom13887/_-Star-Ixiom-PlayStation-_.jpg)
Make something like that possible in FreeSpace and I may change my mind. :nod: Back to the topic, as somebody else already did I would like to cite the main FreeSpace campaigns, in particular FS2, as superb examples of very good campaigns that don't require the player character to talk. In FS2 the player character was always the same, but the way the campaign evolved made me feel like I was fighting a real war from different perspectives as pilots of different squadrons doing different things. A talking player character would have pretty much killed immersion during the Terran-Vasudan exchange program: when I played those missions, I felt like the player was a Vasudan because everything around me felt Vasudan.
PS
I agree with InsaneBaron: Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, also known as Squadron Leader, is a super example of a game with an elaborated plot where the player character doesn't say a word.
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I smile at the possibility of a campaign where the protagonist starts deviating in character on what the players would expect him to behave, in a crescendo until the players are screaming absolutely horrified and angrily at the actions and words of the player. It could also be a comical experience or a very inspiring one. A lot of variations come to mind, the most cliché of which is the "psichopathic good guy" who keeps being an absolute genius in both being a jerk and a professional.
e: Imagine a scenario where you just had an intense skirmish and are below 30% hull damage. The campaign recognizes this threshold and instead of having a sympathetic protagonist that tries to get the job done and get out, starts creating all sorts of public relation nightmares, instigating skirmishes with even more people and getting them to fight you. While you the player are thinking "shut up, you're making things worse!", the protagonist just keeps on getting more enemies to go after you and why not, alienate potential friends that could possibly help you. A frigate appears and the voice is all "Get the **** outta here, you lazy **** fat prick, or you'll slow me down" or something original, funny.
Then at the end if you survive, the protagonist will rant on how everyone seems hell-bent to get him and how there's no ****ing friend to help you ever. Or how good he is and how he doesn't need any friends whatsoever.
Damn, I like this campaign already.
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I was wondering : would it work to play on this "mute character" to build a character driven campaign ?
Other characters would start to ask Alpha 1 if s/he remembers what s/he is doing between missions... If going from a mission directly to another one makes sense... How long has it been since s/he slept, took a shower... If s/he remembers what's beyond a subspace portal/a briefing room... And something weirder : how does Alpha 1 seems to *remember* missions like s/he was there before, fighting the same enemies in the same way, and remembering how to avoid her/his own death... And what's Alpha 1's real name ? does s/he even know it ?
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Vassago's Dirge and BP2 are both amazing campaigns, and both were relatively recent. I doubt that silent protagonists were going away because of the former. But BP2 made me attached to certain characters due to the interactions with them, and still feeling like a cog in the machine for the first act (something associated with silent protagonists in FS mods).
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@ Mobius
The debate is nice, but I wish I didn't need to have it in the first place! :)
I have actually thought about somewhere inbetween, but I'm sure I'd really struggle to decide how far inbetween I wanted to go, and then I'd struggle to stick to it as I'd constantly be getting pulled in one way or the other as the story unfolded. It's going to have to be one or the other. I have seen what you describe though, G-Police and it's sequel handle it well. The Protagonist doesn't talk in the missions or the briefings, only in a few cinematics in both games. The rest of the time he doesn't say a word, but goes off on these monolgues in the cinematics. I'm pretty sure you never get to see what he looks like as well. The game doesn't really do characters though, there are a few minimal characters. It's basically cog in a machine stuff.
Oh, on you imagining yourself flying as different pilots in different squadrons, you still get treated as a Terran when you're with the Vasudans, right? You fight like a Vasudan! Didn't that mess up your imaginings of being a Vasudan?
Anyway, good to see another big endorsement of Ace Combat 5. I'm getting pretty high hopes that that will be helpful to me.
@ Luis Dias
What would you call that? A Trolltagonist? :P
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There's no 'debate', and there never has been - the solution has been clear (well, at least to some notables, including: the writer of FS2, me) since retail: FreeSpace can support all kinds of stories. The question is what works best for your campaign, for the story you're trying to tell.
Some people in the community have had literal freakouts over the idea that one type of campaign might be better than the other, as if FreeSpace is inherently built for one style. Fortunately the actual narrative architects of FreeSpace were sophisticated enough to understand heterodoxy.
Volition's Saint's Row series is a really interesting example of how to do player agency. The PC speaks pre-scripted lines but the player can choose from a number of predetermined personalities.
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Volition's Saint's Row series is a really interesting example of how to do player agency. The PC speaks pre-scripted lines but the player can choose from a number of predetermined personalities.
And that is a feature I really wish more games would implement, too. The downside is that it massively multiplies writing/voice acting requirements.
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Another permutation on this is the approach of TES-model RPGs, where the player character has a voice and influence on the world but still has next to no intrinsic characterisation.
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I prefer talking protagonists, probably because of experience with more stories that do it right that those which do silent protagonists right. One thing that I notice though: the more a protagonist is a person, and less a vessel for the audience to put themselves in, the more people will drop the story because they don't like the character.
That's not necessarily a bad thing (why accommodate an audience which don't appreciate the author's taste?), but you will start to lose people as your character becomes less generic. (Which may be why wingmen tend to have bigger variations in personality and values, while the audience proxy (player character) tends to be molded by the events around them and social norms/expectations, if they develop at all)
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It really doesn't matter.
Hell, you can even have Alpha 1 actually respond to Command without characterizing them much at all, if you want; you don't have to be silent to be in the mould of the original campaigns.
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I smile at the possibility of a campaign where the protagonist starts deviating in character on what the players would expect him to behave, in a crescendo until the players are screaming absolutely horrified and angrily at the actions and words of the player. It could also be a comical experience or a very inspiring one. A lot of variations come to mind, the most cliché of which is the "psichopathic good guy" who keeps being an absolute genius in both being a jerk and a professional.
Dimensional Eclipse - The Singularity has the jerkiest of jerk main player characters that I've seen in any freespace campaigns so far. Alas the release that is currently available on the forums isn't the full version of the campaign so I can't really recommend playing it as of this moment.
But it's definitely a different experience to play a character that is so damn loathsome
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First, thank you everyone so far. It's funny, Battuta made me lean slightly towards going for a player-character, and now I'm leaning slightly towards sticking with the original plan. Heh, I want both aspects and I can't have them...
Kie99, if he's referring to Aquarius, together with InsaneBaron, highlight the potential problems with talking protagonists. I also dislike Bei, yet InsaneBaron is holding him up as a prime example of a talking protagonist done well. It's subjective. It's Bei and Sandman from Wing Commander Saga that make me worried about a talking protagonist. I can tolerate him much of the time, but other times he really gets under my skin. I'd trade him in for one of his wingmen in a heartbeat. And Sandman in the middle of the campaign I straight up disliked, but he managed to claw his way back to neutral by the end of the campaign.
It's an interesting question.
One of the big narrative questions when writing the story for a video game is that the player and the player-character have to mesh well. If the player dislikes the player character or disagrees with their actions, that disrupts the experience. In a sense, the player needs to agree with the player character's actions.
One useful shortcut to achieve this is the silent player character. The player can project their emotions onto the PC. This works well if the PC's actions are pretty straightforward- go on a mission, complete objectives, repeat.
Another way to do it is the sandbox approach: the PC's actions are completely up to the player. This method has its advantages obviously, but it doesn't work if the author is attempting to convey a specific story, rather than put the player in a sandbox and turn them loose.
Speaking player characters with author-defined personalities are the hardest to write, but when done right are very successful. A few examples of well-written speaking PCs:
Samuel Bei: Bei is sympathetic, and at the same time admirable. Bei's effectiveness as a PC is due not only to how he is written, but to the way the whole plot is written; his two major decisions (allying with the Vishnans and defecting to Earth) are prepared for in the plot to the point where the play agrees with them when they happen.
Master Chief (Halo): Contrary to the popular misconception, Master Chief DOES speak and has a defined personality (although one characteristic of that personality is that he's not very talkative). Nonetheless, his motivations are clear and simple: Save Humanity.
Sunder Marcel (Transcend): The player sympathizes with him, because he's as confused as the player is by the crazy situation he gets in to. However, he doesn't go crazy (he's perhaps the only character who stays sane) and acts rationally to stop the apocalypse.
The PC from The Antagonist: Again, as confused as the player is at the start. Learns things at the same time as the player. Sympathetic.
Based on the description of your campaign, Lorric, it sounds like it could be done either way. A speaking player character would be harder to write, but might end up fitting better into the squadron dynamic if done effectively.
Lastly, it is certainly possible to make a power, emotional, character-driven story even with a silent protagonist. I like to hold up Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War as a capital example of this. The player is a silent protagonist known only by his callsign, Blaze. However, you're leading a a four-pilot squadron, and your wingmen have very significant personalities. The player's reactions to events are guided by the wingmen's reactions. Blaze is not cut out of the squadron dynamic; his wingmen refer to him, compliment his skill, and even argue over his nicknames. One of the most emotional moments in all gaming occurs when Davenport, the comical motormouth of the team, dies
(a really good LP if you want to see for yourself) (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL786D6D5A88E74FB5)
And yes, it is for these reasons I went initially for the safe bet of a silent protagonist. And now I'm leaning towards it again.
I unfortuantely have not met the other protagonists you speak of. I do plan on playing Transcend sometime though. Also The Antagonist. Since you're here, I'll tell you that as I had played the games in your first review I talked about, and haven't played the games in the second, I'm going to take another approach again to the third. This time, I intend to play The Antagonist sometime, then immediately after, read your review.
Indeed. That's the problem! :) It can be done either way in my campaign.
But this Ace Combat 5 sounds very interesting indeed. It sounds like they've made their game exactly in the way I originally intended to make mine. I may well be able to take from them ideas on how to do this well in mine. So I will watch the LP. Thank you, InsaneBaron.
Glad to help! I brought up AC5 because your description of Plan A reminded me of it. Mobius's name is actually taken from the game before it in the series :P also very good, but it doesn't have the same squadron dynamic.
Basically, it looks to me like a risk-reward calculus. A silent protagonist would be the safe approach: easier to write, less likely to go haywire. There's nothing wrong with having a silent protagonist at all. A speaking protagonist would be the high-risk-high-reward approach; if done right it might well add to the effect, but it would be harder to do well and more likely to turn out wrong. I say "turn out" because, in my experience, it's very hard to judge how people will react to your own work until you put it out there. Like you said about Samuel Bei, there's a degree of subjectivity here- some people will integrate with a given speaking PC better than others.
@Hellzed: Homesick's "recommendations" for the first couple missions actually do that.
Team! It's time to cut back on the silly chatter! Did you hear Alpha 1 complaining about having to fly a Loki? Did you hear Alpha 1 yakking about sitcoms? Did you hear Alpha 1 talking at all? No! Alpha 1 is a professional, and you all could learn a lesson from him! :P
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I'd like to point out that in Ace Combat 5, the player character is not 100% quiet. During certain conversations, at some point the player is asked a yes or no question which can be answered by pushing the left (YES) or right (NO) button of the joystick. Most of the times answering yes or no to a question asked by a wingman would change his/her reaction, nothing in particular... but I recall at least one part in the late stages of the game, where the player guided a task force on the ground to an enemy base by deciding whether or not said task force should take shortcuts in order to get to its target. Shortcuts meant more enemies, the other routes were safer but required more time.
EDIT: Oh, I forgot, twice in the main campaign the player is asked a yes or no question that basically was the game developers' way to let the player decide which one of two missions in a branch should be played. In fact, the player needs two playthroughs of the main campaign in order to play all missions.
Lorric, this may serve as source of inspiration. :)
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I'd like to point out that in Ace Combat 5, the player character is not 100% quiet. During certain conversations, at some point the player is asked a yes or no question which can be answered by pushing the left (YES) or right (NO) button of the joystick. Most of the times answering yes or no to a question asked by a wingman would change his/her reaction, nothing in particular... but I recall at least one part in the late stages of the game, where the player guided a task force on the ground to an enemy base by deciding whether or not said task force should take shortcuts in order to get to its target. Shortcuts meant more enemies, the other routes were safer but required more time.
EDIT: Oh, I forgot, twice in the main campaign the player is asked a yes or no question that basically was the game developers' way to let the player decide which one of two missions in a branch should be played. In fact, the player needs two playthroughs of the main campaign in order to play all missions.
Lorric, this may serve as source of inspiration. :)
Well, he's still silent in that you can't hear him. But yes, that's an interesting campaign idea.
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@InsaneBaron : I was thinking about something a bit different. What if Alpha 1 has no real characterisation because he is not an actual human being, but a *simulation* of a human being in a specific environment (a galactic war...) ?
(of course he is, we are playing a video game)
Now, think about an explanation that wouldn't break the fourth wall. What if the Shivans were simulating every moment of this war with powerful quantum computers (thus breeding a whole population of "virtual humans" and "virtual vasudans") ? A glitch could happen, with some of these virtual humans gaining consciousness of what they are, "where" they are, and what they are really doing.
But there is no escape from a Shivan's dream...
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The Matrix is so 1999.
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What's comforting with the idea of The Matrix is that you still have a body somewhere.
Given it would be a simulation, a whole story could happen in a blink. For example, the last seconds of a shivan cruiser hit by a beam (the damage explaining computer malfunction).
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Glad to help! I brought up AC5 because your description of Plan A reminded me of it. Mobius's name is actually taken from the game before it in the series :P also very good, but it doesn't have the same squadron dynamic.
Basically, it looks to me like a risk-reward calculus. A silent protagonist would be the safe approach: easier to write, less likely to go haywire. There's nothing wrong with having a silent protagonist at all. A speaking protagonist would be the high-risk-high-reward approach; if done right it might well add to the effect, but it would be harder to do well and more likely to turn out wrong. I say "turn out" because, in my experience, it's very hard to judge how people will react to your own work until you put it out there. Like you said about Samuel Bei, there's a degree of subjectivity here- some people will integrate with a given speaking PC better than others.
I've watched quite a few of the videos now. The last one I watched was Operation Footprint.
It's the same general idea as mine, but it has it's differences. Like the Yes/No thing. That would just be a nuisance in a Freespace game I think. They also have the highest saturation of chatter I've ever seen in any game. I like lots of background chatter but this is the first game I've ever seen where I think it's too much. It's literally non-stop, you literally don't get a moment's respite from it. Anyway, such a thing isn't really possible in a non-VA Freespace game. I'm trying to keep chatter to a minimum when the player is engaged.
But it is pushing me to want to do as I originally planned, seeing a game where it has been done with a silent protagonist. Even the Yes/No thing seems largely inconsequential to me. I might find it a nuisance if I was playing that game too. It does occasionally matter, like when Wingmen are asking if you approve a plan or not, but otherwise seems largely inconsequential. I wouldn't mind seeing what the response would be if Blaze were to say no to his boss on that first mission though! :p
It has always felt like risk reward too. A little bit like hitting that gamble button on a fruit machine. Of course, those things are rigged... but it really could have that kind of double or nothing impact, a bad player character really can blow the whole damn thing, because of that special impact they have. A bad character is just some jerk/moron/annoyance that's around, but having that character speak and act for the player is a whole different matter.
On the other hand, they can have a tremendous enhancing effect to a game. I think I'll be going with silent protagonist at this point. I'll be watching more of the videos as relationships within the team have not yet been touched on really. That reporter guy is interesting, he's kind of serving as what the player's perspective would be if the player wasn't silent.
The Matrix is so 1999.
The Matrix is everywhere.
@ Mobius
Thanks for the input. There isn't really anything I can add to your post though that hasn't really been said in my response to InsaneBaron.
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By the way, AC5's yes or no system is rather simple, but could be used as a base for a more interesting and complex game experience.
You could use subtitles to show multiple options and let the player make a decision that may change the outcome of a mission. Imagine for example that ship X is not following the orders given by Command... what would you do? Contact the ship itself, inform Command via a secure comm channel, or ask your wingmen what they noticed? This is just an example. :)
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By the way, AC5's yes or no system is rather simple, but could be used as a base for a more interesting and complex game experience.
You could use subtitles to show multiple options and let the player make a decision that may change the outcome of a mission. Imagine for example that ship X is not following the orders given by Command... what would you do? Contact the ship itself, inform Command via a secure comm channel, or ask your wingmen what they noticed? This is just an example. :)
I don't think I want to do such a thing. It could be messy in the middle of a mission. I also don't know how it would be done.
However, it is a branching campaign. Maybe I could do something like give the player a briefing which presents two or three plans for a mission, and the player gets to choose which one to go with, leading to two or three different missions.
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By the way, AC5's yes or no system is rather simple, but could be used as a base for a more interesting and complex game experience.
You could use subtitles to show multiple options and let the player make a decision that may change the outcome of a mission. Imagine for example that ship X is not following the orders given by Command... what would you do? Contact the ship itself, inform Command via a secure comm channel, or ask your wingmen what they noticed? This is just an example. :)
FS2 by way of Bioware? :p
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Been done yo
I don't think I want to do such a thing. It could be messy in the middle of a mission. I also don't know how it would be done.
However, it is a branching campaign. Maybe I could do something like give the player a briefing which presents two or three plans for a mission, and the player gets to choose which one to go with, leading to two or three different missions.
It's been done a lot and it's pretty easy. BP2 and JAD both have mid-mission dialogue choices and lots of decisions. JAD even has a mouse-driven dialogue system, but it's likely to be a bit more challenging.
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Been done yoI don't think I want to do such a thing. It could be messy in the middle of a mission. I also don't know how it would be done.
However, it is a branching campaign. Maybe I could do something like give the player a briefing which presents two or three plans for a mission, and the player gets to choose which one to go with, leading to two or three different missions.
It's been done a lot and it's pretty easy. BP2 and JAD (eventually) both have mid-mission dialogue choices and lots of decisions. JAD even has a mouse-driven dialogue system, but it's likely to be a bit more challenging.
Fixed for accurate-ness. And the mouse driven dialogue system is so much easier (both for the player and the FREDder) to use than training messages.
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I haven't played either so I can't comment. But the idea of using this doesn't appeal to me anyway. Thanks for the information though.
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However, it is a branching campaign. Maybe I could do something like give the player a briefing which presents two or three plans for a mission, and the player gets to choose which one to go with, leading to two or three different missions.
You actually couldn't do that, since there's no UI for that. The briefing screens, simply put, are not set up to allow that sort of interaction. There are two ways to do branching campaigns in FS2: One, the retail SOC loop way, which presents a binary choice to the player. Two, the way most branching campaigns have done it, by evaluating in-mission events.
When we were doing WiH: Tenebra, this was a big issue that ultimately led to the creation of the dreamscape environment, a mission that allowed interactivity on a greater scale (even if we didn't end up using it to that end due to time constraints).
Regarding the topic of the thread: I strongly recommend that you play WiH, if only so that you can see what sort of things can be done with a fully scripted protagonist.
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I wonder if you could use axem's mouse selection script (heavily modified) to make a menu out of a mission...
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I don't see why not. In essence, this is what the mainhall mission script did ages ago; this would just be a matter of translating the user's choices into a sexp variable and using that to determine which mission to branch to.
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You definitely could - it's just the Dreamscape or Bem Cavalgar with a better interface. You'd have to have loading screens before and after but c'est la vie.
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I wonder if you could use axem's mouse selection script (heavily modified) to make a menu out of a mission...
This is, in fact, how Scroll intends to allow the user to choose a campaign fork.
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However, it is a branching campaign. Maybe I could do something like give the player a briefing which presents two or three plans for a mission, and the player gets to choose which one to go with, leading to two or three different missions.
You actually couldn't do that, since there's no UI for that. The briefing screens, simply put, are not set up to allow that sort of interaction. There are two ways to do branching campaigns in FS2: One, the retail SOC loop way, which presents a binary choice to the player. Two, the way most branching campaigns have done it, by evaluating in-mission events.
When we were doing WiH: Tenebra, this was a big issue that ultimately led to the creation of the dreamscape environment, a mission that allowed interactivity on a greater scale (even if we didn't end up using it to that end due to time constraints).
Regarding the topic of the thread: I strongly recommend that you play WiH, if only so that you can see what sort of things can be done with a fully scripted protagonist.
The missions are loose in my campaign. Not locked into a campaign. You play them through the techroom. So the first one would introduce the options, and tell you which mission to play for the choice you made.
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I'll explain how I would envision this going, as I've been thinking about the idea, and I wouldn't mind using it.
My debriefings tell you which mission to play next. Or that you've lost. So let's imagine the player has been told to go to Lorric12a.
So the player loads up Lorric12a from the techroom. The briefing in Lorric12a would tell you what the goal is, and tell you that you have some freedom on how to accomplish that goal. You'd click commit, and you and your forces would be around the base or something before the attack, and two or three people would present you with ideas for how to accomplish the goal, and maybe discuss/argue it amongst themselves for a bit, then you'd go to the debriefing and it would say something like...
"The choice is yours. If you want to go with X's plan, go to Lorric12b. If you want to go with Y's plan, go to Lorric12c. If you want to go with Z's plan, go to Lorric12d."
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Ummm
You do realize that setting up a branching campaign (like, proper campaign) is not actually that hard, and does wonders for immersion? Also, you can do stuff in a campaign that you simply can't in single missions (like keeping track of certain things between missions).
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Ummm
You do realize that setting up a branching campaign (like, proper campaign) is not actually that hard, and does wonders for immersion? Also, you can do stuff in a campaign that you simply can't in single missions (like keeping track of certain things between missions).
The main problem I have is the difficulty in going back along the branches. You have to play the whole thing again just to play those extra missions. And there would be a lot of extra missions. It's much easier to replay if they're all there. It would also be a lot of unnecessary extra work I think, but even if I could just make it happen in the blink of an eye, I'd still prefer to keep the missions loose.
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If you think that's a good idea, sure, go ahead. I happen to think that it's not optimal, that the campaign format is the best way to ensure your narrative gets told the way you meant to tell it, and that your goal should be to create an experience people would want to replay to experience the possible branches, but it's your campaign.
Also, there's always the techroom and CTRL-SHIFT-S for those people who want to play the branches they've missed the first time through.
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If you think that's a good idea, sure, go ahead. I happen to think that it's not optimal, that the campaign format is the best way to ensure your narrative gets told the way you meant to tell it, and that your goal should be to create an experience people would want to replay to experience the possible branches, but it's your campaign.
Also, there's always the techroom and CTRL-SHIFT-S for those people who want to play the branches they've missed the first time through.
Then they'd need my prompting to know where to go, so we'd be back to needing the missions loose again.
It can always be looked at again if I finish the project whether to package them into a campaign, if it would work. Like my idea about choosing one of 3 mission plans, would that be possible in a campaign file?
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Stick the filename for the next branch in Recommendations, nobody cares what's in there.
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Or construct a hub type mission with cargo containers (or some other object) that get revealed for each new mission you unlock. Complete a mission, get sent back to the hub with new missions unlocked. So in theory you could go back and unlock new missions or continue on in a single path.
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Off-topic:
With a Hub type mission I keep wondering if it would be possible to model a giant hall room (like the FS2 Main menu) and make you stuck looking in the direction of the gates (which you shoot with a special weapon) to trigger going to different rooms... where you can trigger talking to others or get a briefing and then get sent to the hangar to take off in a SEXPd take off sequence.
Did the engine ever get support for animated stuff that would need? (Unless you cheat and make the doors ships that 'move' when you 'shoot' them with the mentioned special ammo or use Squad commands to order it to 'relocate')
This was originally an idea that turned into thinking out loud... :\
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Or construct a hub type mission with cargo containers (or some other object) that get revealed for each new mission you unlock. Complete a mission, get sent back to the hub with new missions unlocked. So in theory you could go back and unlock new missions or continue on in a single path.
I have no idea how such a thing would work. It's potentially an interesting idea, it makes me think of Crash Team Racing and Crash Bash. Wouldn't it be faster for the player to just go to the techroom my way though, it would take longer to load the hub mission and probably longer for the player to choose a mission too. But I do like the idea of filling it up with all the paths. Probably too complicated for me anyway though.
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Or construct a hub type mission with cargo containers (or some other object) that get revealed for each new mission you unlock. Complete a mission, get sent back to the hub with new missions unlocked. So in theory you could go back and unlock new missions or continue on in a single path.
I have no idea how such a thing would work. It's potentially an interesting idea, it makes me think of Crash Team Racing and Crash Bash. Wouldn't it be faster for the player to just go to the techroom my way though, it would take longer to load the hub mission and probably longer for the player to choose a mission too. But I do like the idea of filling it up with all the paths. Probably too complicated for me anyway though.
A simple hub mission would be very small and quick to load. It would probably save the player time since the amount of steps to get to the next mission is greatly reduced (as well greatly increasing user-friendliness and making your mod seem more professional).
With a well constructed hub mission, the steps are Mission -> Hub -> Mission.
With going to the tech room all the time, the steps are Mission -> Mainhall -> Tech Room -> Mission Simulator -> Remember Which Mission I'm Supposed To Take -> Mission
Just as a thought experiment, I built a very rough mockup of how I envision such a hub to be.
(http://lazymodders.fsmods.net/axemart/FreeSpace/hub%20branching.png)
Basically each container is cued to campaign-persistent variables that get activated in previous missions. I sort of used the different colored containers to indicate if this mission would branch or not (1 branches to 2a and 2b, 3b branches to 4b and 4c). To go to a new mission, you just target a container and press something like Primary Fire or Spacebar. Then the mission ends and the game shuffles you to that mission, and then back to the hub after its over. As well you could have training messages that pop up when you target a container to remind you which mission is "the one where X happens."
Its a bit more work, but makes the experience so more seamless.
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Maybe we could talk about this if I ever complete the project. I like what I see. But are you still blocking people from sending you pms?
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Shooould work now. I can be hilariously bad (read: never reply to) at responding to PMs, so beware!
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Shooould work now. I can be hilariously bad (read: never reply to) at responding to PMs, so beware!
Hmmm... well, it will be a long time in the future anyway.
Once the missions start piling up though, won't the hub get hard to deal with when you're trying to find this one box in like 20 of them, when you could just go to the techroom and make the selection quick and easy. I'm going to time this, how long it takes me to go from the debrief to the techroom to the selection...
7 seconds. It's so quick and easy. And I wasn't trying to be fast or anything either, just doing it naturally. The hub might not have even loaded in by then. It would be a lot easier to look over the missions in the techroom than in the hub too, as you'd have to select them one by one, while the techroom, they'd all be there in front of you. It might be something the player has to get used to a little bit at first, but they'd soon be zooming through to the next mission.
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Techroom selection isn't a good idea, it kills immersion too much. It's also a sign of lazy FREDing. :) A proper hub mission and a branching campaign would be much more professional.
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I just timed the mission load for the hub mission in JAD:XA. It takes me around 8 seconds the very first time to load it, and substantially less for repeat times. Like 2-3 seconds.
There can be lots of ways to help the player find the mission he wants among many. Sorry to bring up JAD:XA again, but each "choose your next mission ship" has its own distinct and related model. A drone for a turkey shoot, a navmarker for a race, the boss you're going to duel, etc. You could also have the branching paths take opposite directions or any other number of subtle indicators.
Also, when I was getting footage for Shadow Genesis for the 2013 release video, I, being still real unfamiliar with the missions, chose the same mission in the tech room like 3 times. In a row. You might be familiar with every single mission, but its going to be hard for a new player to remember which mission he's at (even if you've told him), especially if he's playing just a few missions at a time.
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Techroom selection isn't a good idea, it kills immersion too much. It's also a sign of lazy FREDing. :) A proper hub mission and a branching campaign would be much more professional.
It just feels like making things worse to me. Less efficient, less workable, slower, more complicated than it needs to be. This isn't about trying to cut corners.
I just timed the mission load for the hub mission in JAD:XA. It takes me around 8 seconds the very first time to load it, and substantially less for repeat times. Like 2-3 seconds.
There can be lots of ways to help the player find the mission he wants among many. Sorry to bring up JAD:XA again, but each "choose your next mission ship" has its own distinct and related model. A drone for a turkey shoot, a navmarker for a race, the boss you're going to duel, etc. You could also have the branching paths take opposite directions or any other number of subtle indicators.
Also, when I was getting footage for Shadow Genesis for the 2013 release video, I, being still real unfamiliar with the missions, chose the same mission in the tech room like 3 times. In a row. You might be familiar with every single mission, but its going to be hard for a new player to remember which mission he's at (even if you've told him), especially if he's playing just a few missions at a time.
Don't worry about JAD, I've seen your thread even though I've never played any JAD, and I've seen the shots of your hub, so at least I can relate a bit to that and it's interesting to see how long it took your real hub to load.
I'm very limited for models though for this campaign, before managing to make one relevant, so that's a no go really.
It is a good argument that a player might get lost if they have to pick back up in the middle of the campaign on another day. I guess we're just going to have to look at this stuff if I manage to FRED all the missions.
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If I had to pick the next mission in the techroom I'd laugh and drop the campaign.
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If I had to pick the next mission in the techroom I'd laugh and drop the campaign.
Why? Do you not play single mission releases then?
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Single mission releases generally don't require you to pick the next mission in the techroom...though even when we've shipped single missions we've often given them a campaign file so they'd be apparent to new players in the campaign room, since they were released alongside full campaigns and needed to pop.
It's also a sign of sloth. There are a dozen really easy solutions to the problem of 'pick the next mission', from the incredibly simple to the incredibly ornate. Skipping those solutions is like forgetting to add mission objectives or traitor debriefs - this kind of basic polish work needs to get done.
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Single mission releases generally don't require you to pick the next mission in the techroom...though even when we've shipped single missions we've often given them a campaign file so they'd be apparent to new players in the campaign room, since they were released alongside full campaigns and needed to pop.
It's also a sign of sloth. There are a dozen really easy solutions to the problem of 'pick the next mission', from the incredibly simple to the incredibly ornate. Skipping those solutions is like forgetting to add mission objectives or traitor debriefs - this kind of basic polish work needs to get done.
Do you ever use the techroom?
I don't know. What's easy to someone like you would probably be really hard to someone like me, I've seen you talk of things being easy before which are certainly not to me. Especially for something like this. It would be understandable if this was just a linear campaign, then I'd want a campaign file to go with it. But I also want the player to be able to access all the missions without playing the campaign again. I'm sure a lot of people don't know about ctrl+shift+s. They might not even know the campaign is branching.
And why do you need a traitor debrief, that's something that seems like completely unnecessary work, quite possibly just to make the game worse. If someone wants to just shoot the place up, let them have their fun. Otherwise a traitor mechanic is just an aggravation that triggers once in a while because some fool flew in front of you and got blown up.
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I should've said AWOL debrief (unless you just lock the jump drive, which works better depending on your setting's fluff.)
And it really is easy. Pop up a training message at the end of the choice mission, for instance. 'Press 1 to [go branch A], press 2 to [go branch B].' Detect the next keypress on 1 or 2 and set a var that the campaign file reads. Ugly, simple, reliable. Or tell the player to land in a different location, or approach one of a pair of nav buoys, or...there are so many options.
The traitor mechanic is hardcoded, by the way, nobody gets to have their fun! (might be a way to turn this off in mission specs, actually)
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I should've said AWOL debrief (unless you just lock the jump drive, which works better depending on your setting's fluff.)
And it really is easy. Pop up a training message at the end of the choice mission, for instance. 'Press 1 to [go branch A], press 2 to [go branch B].' Detect the next keypress on 1 or 2 and set a var that the campaign file reads. Ugly, simple, reliable. Or tell the player to land in a different location, or approach one of a pair of nav buoys, or...there are so many options.
The traitor mechanic is hardcoded, by the way, nobody gets to have their fun! (might be a way to turn this off in mission specs, actually)
Ah. Yes, I switched off the jump drive. Player's not going anywhere they shouldn't. ;)
I don't know what a var is. I haven't paid attention to the mechanic of putting a campaign in a campaign file though, as I didn't expect I would be doing it for this one. So maybe this is do-able, but what about the problem of the player not being able to easily play all the missions? You can't go to a branch back in the campaign and play from there, you have to play the campaign again. And you'd then lose your other branch in the techroom, it would be replaced by your new playthrough. Is there a solution? If there is, it would be appealing to me to try and make it work.
In one of my missions, someone tried shooting stuff up. He got a message, something like "Hey, don't shoot your allies, m'kay." Something Spoon put in I'm sure. But I don't think anyone fought back.
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Maybe the solution is to do both. Give the player all the missions to play as single missions in the techroom, and give the player a campaign to play through in the way they are familiar. I can go with that. I've been looking at the campaign editor section in the Diaspora walkthrough, and I guess I could do the branches and the bonus missions would be SOC Loops.
Having to go into the techroom to play such missions after actually defeating the campaign wouldn't be a problem would it? You'd have to do that anyway normally if you wanted to replay missions, you'd just be doing it from the single missions section, instead of the campaign missions section, which would be incomplete. And of course those that know about the ctrl+shift+s combination could still use that. The campaign itself could then also be restarted and replayed if desired without losing the missions as they'd still be around in the single player section. And I could keep my directions on which mission to play next. If playing through single missions in the techroom, you'd know where to go. If playing the campaign, you'd just continue as normal and be taken there automatically. Maybe I could even take that out in the campaign and leave it in in the single player missions.
Quite exciting! I can do red alert missions now. niffiwan told me the red alert bug should have been done away with now that 3.7.0 is in town.
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Maybe the solution is to do both. Give the player all the missions to play as single missions in the techroom, and give the player a campaign to play through in the way they are familiar. I can go with that. I've been looking at the campaign editor section in the Diaspora walkthrough, and I guess I could do the branches and the bonus missions would be SOC Loops.
Having to go into the techroom to play such missions after actually defeating the campaign wouldn't be a problem would it? You'd have to do that anyway normally if you wanted to replay missions, you'd just be doing it from the single missions section, instead of the campaign missions section, which would be incomplete. And of course those that know about the ctrl+shift+s combination could still use that. The campaign itself could then also be restarted and replayed if desired without losing the missions as they'd still be around in the single player section. And I could keep my directions on which mission to play next. If playing through single missions in the techroom, you'd know where to go. If playing the campaign, you'd just continue as normal and be taken there automatically. Maybe I could even take that out in the campaign and leave it in in the single player missions.
Quite exciting! I can do red alert missions now. niffiwan told me the red alert bug should have been done away with now that 3.7.0 is in town.
By single player missions I assume you mean techroom missions?
And this sounds like a good way to do it. Convenient for the player, as he can actually play through the campaign proper, yet still access mission in the techroom. Maybe add a readme that lists the possible mission paths?
Even in branching campaigns, I believe the cheat code reveals all branches of a campaign. I worked that way in The Antagonist, allowing me to try the alternate ending.
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Maybe the solution is to do both. Give the player all the missions to play as single missions in the techroom, and give the player a campaign to play through in the way they are familiar. I can go with that. I've been looking at the campaign editor section in the Diaspora walkthrough, and I guess I could do the branches and the bonus missions would be SOC Loops.
Having to go into the techroom to play such missions after actually defeating the campaign wouldn't be a problem would it? You'd have to do that anyway normally if you wanted to replay missions, you'd just be doing it from the single missions section, instead of the campaign missions section, which would be incomplete. And of course those that know about the ctrl+shift+s combination could still use that. The campaign itself could then also be restarted and replayed if desired without losing the missions as they'd still be around in the single player section. And I could keep my directions on which mission to play next. If playing through single missions in the techroom, you'd know where to go. If playing the campaign, you'd just continue as normal and be taken there automatically. Maybe I could even take that out in the campaign and leave it in in the single player missions.
Quite exciting! I can do red alert missions now. niffiwan told me the red alert bug should have been done away with now that 3.7.0 is in town.
By single player missions I assume you mean techroom missions?
And this sounds like a good way to do it. Convenient for the player, as he can actually play through the campaign proper, yet still access mission in the techroom. Maybe add a readme that lists the possible mission paths?
Even in branching campaigns, I believe the cheat code reveals all branches of a campaign. I worked that way in The Antagonist, allowing me to try the alternate ending.
Yes.
I would like them to go in blind, not be able to see the paths right from the start. It's something that could be thought about maybe later on after it was released, but I'm not sure how I'd describe it. I guess ideally they would unlock it somehow after beating the campaign.
I played the Crucible campaign recently, which is supposedly the only fully branching campaign there is. That will change if I complete this. Opening up it's campaign file and having a look should be useful.
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I'm not sure if you've made any decisions yet Lorric, but I hope you're still keen to hear alternative opinions. And, having read through this before posting, I've noticed it's coming across as somewhat... dictatorial? Inflexible? I don't know - just consider this a general disclaimer - insert your own IMO's throughout and remember that all this is just my opinion. So, with that out of the way:
There are two issues raised in this thread, so I'll start with the simpler one: your techroom missions idea. Simple answer: don't do it.
Please, don't let my tone there disguise the way in which I mean what I'm saying. It might sound dismissive, and I suppose that's not entirely unfair, but you have to know that using that technique... it's at best inelegant and at worst actively offputting to the vast majority of potential players. As it is, people just don't play single missions in our community. It's a harsh but true fact of life around here. Asking people to play what would effectively be a dozen or so single missions... look, it's just not going to happen. People are either going to be confused or annoyed. Mistakes will happen. People will forget which mission they're supposed to be playing, accidentally click the wrong one - the story will inevitably end up corrupted. And FS2 has a very powerful campaign editor integrated very tightly with the excellent mission making tools which will allow for a proper branching campaign. In this day and age, with Axem's mouse select scripts (Which ar4e actually very, very easy to use) and the various examples already done around the community (Bem Cavalgar, WiH etc.) there's no reason not to allow the player's choices ingame to drive a campaign down a branching path, there really isn't.
To be entirely honest, it feels a little like something I recognize from my own projects - a sort of modding inertia. I suspect tht when you came up with the idea for the branching campaign and the techroom missions, you may have been unaware of the alternative options for how it might otherwise be done? And now that you're aware of them, they feel like they might be too difficult to do right, and besides, you have a perfectly good way to do it already? I've felt that exact way about lots of things in the past - FSO (when it was new), HTL models, skyboxes instead of individual nebulas, using scripts, tonnes of things. It's difficult and a little bit intimidating to learn to use new skills but I promise you, it'll be worth it - especially in this case.
Now, as to the question of whether to use player characters. I'm on record many times as saying that I prefer a silent protagonist in FS campaigns. It's been done well plenty of times (not least in all four of [V]'s official campaigns), and, let's be honest, people don't expect a player character. Adding one adds a lot of headaches to the development, and will inevitably affect people's enjoyment and opinion of the campaign, so why do it? Extra work for no necessary extra gain, and a lot of potential backlash.
My biggest problem with player characters is partly the fact that a significant part of your audience just isn't going to like or identify with the character you create. This is a problem in and of itself, but it's made much worse when the narrative of a campaign forces you to play as a character who makes decisions that you personally strongly disagree with. This is particularly important if you have any kinds of shades of grey in your campaign. As the most well known player character campaigns, the BP comparison is impossible to avoid, so I'll make it here. In AoA, I didn't particularly care about Sam Bei, or identify with the character all that well. Not any reflection of the quality of the campaign, I just didn't click. And TBH, it didn;t really affect my enjoyment of the campaign since Sam never really made any decisions I disagreed with. For all the narrative stuff going on, It was basically a straightforward campaign - the GTVA are good, the Shivans are bad, kill the Shivans. A few things I didn't really understand were going on, but whatever, no big deal. However, this got turned on its head in WiH, where things were much more complex, and as such, being railroaded by the character of Laporte and the narrative necessities of the storyline was much more jarring.
So, given all that, the logical assumption would be that I would be advise against a player character. Well, almost. The reality is that all of the [V] campaigns and most of the user made silent-protagonist campaigns have been relatively black and white affairs. Very rarely have the kinds of shades of grey that WiH was able to play with been prominent, and in all honest it might be hard to play with those kind of narrative ideas with the player remaining utterly silent all the way through. However, you have an advantage that they didn't have in WiH in that you are specifically setting out to make a branching campaign. Eliminate the rails, and suddenly railroading ceases to be a problem, at least in theory.
So my suggestions would be thus: If you want to make a basic, traditional, Freespace sort of story, where the morality is pretty straightforward, keep your player silent. It's easier and will lighten your load, almost certainly making the campaign better. If, however, you want to tell a more morally complex story, then a player character might be inevitable, but for god's sake branch your campaign whenever the player has to make a significant choice, and let the player, not the writers, decide how that character thinks and works. In my opinion, those are the two peaks in the continuum of options available to you. Deviate from them, and you'll struggle.
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I mostly agree but I'd probably soften your caveats about players disagreeing with the protagonist. In general players are able to recognize that the PC has a distinct personality and desires and might make choices they'll disagree with - this is the foundation of most game storytelling, inside FreeSpace or out. I don't think player attrition due to voiced protags is a significant concern for all but the most ill-written campaigns.
It is, however, a hell of a lot easier to keep your protagonist silent, since most people can't write at even a basically functional level.
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I mostly agree but I'd probably soften your caveats about players disagreeing with the protagonist. In general players are able to recognize that the PC has a distinct personality and desires and might make choices they'll disagree with - this is the foundation of most game storytelling, inside FreeSpace or out. I don't think player attrition due to voiced protags is a significant concern for all but the most ill-written campaigns.
I understand what you're saying, but for me it's jarring to try to immerse myself in an interactive story where I have a degree of control and agency, and then to lose that agency during critical times in the plot. It's much more frustrating than in a movie, where you have zero agency, or, at the other extreme, in a big, sandboxy RPG like Skyrim, where your decisions are (or at least, are skillfully made to feel) at the heart and soul of the plot. Where FS2's silent, nameless-soldier protagonist felt very much more like an observer - almost like a movie - WiH fell much more in the middle of those two extremes, and (again, to me) felt awkward as a result. That's probably more of a testament to the complexity of the storyline though - as I said, most silent-protagonist campaigns that have been made for FS2 in the past haven't had enough complexity for the player to have any reason to disagree with the actions set for him by the writers.
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It's definitely a challenge, and I expect it'll always create some friction - more or less depending on how well the character works for you - but I have a lot of faith in the ability of players to understand that they're someone else right now and to enter that character's headspace. Where that doesn't work, I think it's down to the writers failing to do their jobs well enough, rather than an intrinsic structural problem with player characters.
Vast amounts of entertainment, agentic or not, are built around characters who are unsympathetic, monstrous, self-destructive, or otherwise difficult to identify with: but nonetheless a lot of these stories work really well even when the player is asked to play these characters. A lot of people think Saint's Row 2 was Volition's best narrative.
If I do a campaign outside Blue Planet it'll be a silent protagonist, because I want to explore a different approach to storytelling and agency. Ironically, if V did another FreeSpace campaign, they said they'd probably use a voiced protagonist with a defined personality.
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It's definitely a challenge, and I expect it'll always create some friction - more or less depending on how well the character works for you - but I have a lot of faith in the ability of players to understand that they're someone else right now and to enter that character's headspace. Where that doesn't work, I think it's down to the writers failing to do their jobs well enough, rather than an intrinsic structural problem with player characters.
I strongly disagree here. I just don't think you can push FreeSpace to that degree of character depth and pretend it's the writers' fault if people don't like it.
Get FS to work like Star Ixiom, and your ideas would make more sense.
Ironically, if V did another FreeSpace campaign, they said they'd probably use a voiced protagonist with a defined personality.
Proof or it didn't happen.
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In an interview more than a decade ago, you said that heterodoxy was good, and that the FreeSpace mythos could support all sorts of stories even if the canon campaigns themselves pressed for a grim, intentionally depersonalized narrative. The community's clearly taken that to heart; many of the most popular FreeSpace campaigns use speaking protagonists, or venture into genres like horror. Would you stand by your words, or do you feel that the FreeSpace universe and game design lend themselves best to a particular style of narration?
I think if we were to make a FreeSpace game now, you would probably see a lot more character depth and development. We made a stylistic choice at the time, and it kept us very focused.
Not only are you up against V's own opinions on the game, you're up against the summed evidence of everything we've made in this community. People enjoy campaigns with characters. People enjoy campaigns without characters. Not everybody likes the same things. Heterodoxy is the order of the day - there's no one right way to make a FreeSpace campaign.
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People enjoy campaigns with characters. People enjoy campaigns without characters. Not everybody likes the same things.
And most people like both!
Neither concepts are bad or more/less adapted to FS. It's just a matter of execution.
And if the tools are lacking for doing your execution in an ideal way, you make better tools and/or get creative.
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Yep. To quote Mr. Scott,
I love the fact that it's impossible to speak of the FreeSpace universe monolithically. The mythos expands with every story and mission that players create. Heterodoxy is a good thing.
The more techniques people try the stronger the community is. A creative monoculture means death.
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Prove how that means we would have had a talking player character in FS3. More character depth could mean more characters like Snipes or Bosch; there's absolutely no reference to an Alpha 1 that talks in what we have from :v:.
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You're right, fair enough. Do you genuinely believe that the only correct way to write a FreeSpace campaign is to use a silent protagonist? Why did you hope Blue Planet would become as big as Inferno if you felt that way? Would you prefer to see Transcend, Blue Planet, Wings of Dawn and the rest unmade?
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No, I simply believe FreeSpace's mechanics are good for many things but not for that sort of characterization. When I want to play games with lots of characters that are well developed, I switch to jRPGs, where I can read (or listen to) conversations more conveniently, see gestures, facial expressions, etc.
This is nothing more than a personal opinion, that's it. It doesn't mean I don't like characters in FreeSpace, though.
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I think FreeSpace offers as many tools for characterization as your average short story, and maybe a few more. Speaking of which, keep an eye out for my FreeSpace short story 'Morrigan in the Sunglare' in an upcoming issue of Clarkesworld! I've been talking to Jason Scott about it, so maybe I'll ask him some more about his thoughts on voiced protagonists in FreeSpace.
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Oh wow, that'll be fun!
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No, I simply believe FreeSpace's mechanics are good for many things but not for that sort of characterization.
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It's just a matter of execution.
And if the tools are lacking for doing your execution in an ideal way, you make better tools and/or get creative.
lrn2read noob
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I think FreeSpace offers as many tools for characterization as your average short story, and maybe a few more. Speaking of which, keep an eye out for my FreeSpace short story 'Morrigan in the Sunglare' in an upcoming issue of Clarkesworld! I've been talking to Jason Scott about it, so maybe I'll ask him some more about his thoughts on voiced protagonists in FreeSpace.
It'll be fun indeed, but please be very specific when you ask questions and make sure that the answers you get are not ambiguous.
StarLancer had a talking player character who on average said a phrase per mission. It's completely different compared to what we see in, for example, Blue Planet. If anyone from :v: says he's fine with talking player characters, please tell him what you mean by that.
No, I simply believe FreeSpace's mechanics are good for many things but not for that sort of characterization.
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It's just a matter of execution.
And if the tools are lacking for doing your execution in an ideal way, you make better tools and/or get creative.
That's why I said things can change if you find a way to import Star Ixiom's game mechanics. :p
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I'm not concerned about disambiguating questions for your benefit. The community is correctly and overwhelmingly open to all kinds of narrative styles in FreeSpace. You're free to hold whatever opinion you like.
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So? You're the one who cited :v: in order to gain the upper hand in this discussion. The burden of proof is on you. :p
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I already said that you were right, his statements don't point explicitly to a voiced protagonist. Volition has used voiced protagonists in every game since FreeSpace, but there's no guarantee they would've in a notional FreeSpace 3 (and personally I'd prefer they didn't.)
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So? You're the one who cited :v: in order to gain the upper hand in this discussion. The burden of proof is on you. :p
No, Mobius, he cited :v: as saying that the multitude of narrative styles we've seen in FS modding over the years is totally fine, and that just because they stuck to one particular mode does not mean that anyone using a different mode is in any shape or form wrong.
That you don't get along with scripted protagonists in FS is totally fine too. Noone's forcing you to like it. But, on the other hand, you should make a greater effort at not making statements that can be read as ex cathedra condemnations of said protagonists.
The big sticking point for me, whenever I read your opinion pieces on campaign design, or campaign narrative, is that you haven't released a campaign yet. There's no piece of yours that shows your perfect vision of what a FreeSpace-style game should look like. Frankly, if Battuta, Goober, Karajorma, Spoon, Droid803 or Axem talk about how to write a campaign, then I listen, because there's stuff available from them that I can check out and that shows how they made their approaches work. When you expound on how inferior voiced protagonists are, I have a hard time taking you seriously, because equivalent examples written by you are not available to the public (And the pieces of writing that are available have issues, to say the least).
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I don't think one needs to be a creator to be a good critic. Although it would help, sure.
One also needs to be a little careful about that counter, it kinda has a really small bit like "You have no idea how hard it is, stop talking **** about it!1!" inside of it.
Personally, I understand what both Mobius and Battuta are getting at. I also didn't like Laporte and the experience of "me" delivering "almost" good lines, but not quite, and sometimes awkwardly off putting or with bad timing... gave me an annoying sort of an uncanney valley personified in Laporte's character. As if if I were playing a massively non-likable or just wildly different character I wouldn't mind at all and would consider it fun. Or if the character was so well played that even if it was its own, I couldn't but accept it, because it would have been so terribly well written.
Laporte is a weird experience. And enough experiences like that kinda throw someone off from that mechanism. OTOH, I agree with Batutta that this is a problem of delivering the goods, not on the existence of them. Characters, if written, can be either well written or not. (For instance, I could really not bother with the whole Shivan and Ancients war from the very first dialogue between wingmates in the very first mission, it can have that kind of an impact).
If one's less sure of himself or herself about being able to deliver a good character, then my advice is obvious, refrain from anything that goes into the direction of writing a lot of those. If one really wants to do that kind of stuff, however, I really don't see why wouldn't one really want to dwelve in this.
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Yeah I'm afraid the writing in ASW put me off after about three missions. I felt really bad about it, but...
Jeez, that reminds me, I completely neglected ASW in the big campaign roundup, didn't I? It probably deserves a spot somewhere in there.
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Sorry E, I think you're wrong, I just read the previous posts again, and apparently Battuta cited :v: in what seems to be a form of argumentum ad auctoritatem: I was supposedly wrong because a person from :v: said they would do what I wouldn't. This is illogical; also note how Battuta apologized for interpreting the recent revelations from :v: in a way that was convenient for him.
The big sticking point for me, whenever I read your opinion pieces on campaign design, or campaign narrative, is that you haven't released a campaign yet. There's no piece of yours that shows your perfect vision of what a FreeSpace-style game should look like. Frankly, if Battuta, Goober, Karajorma, Spoon, Droid803 or Axem talk about how to write a campaign, then I listen, because there's stuff available from them that I can check out and that shows how they made their approaches work. When you expound on how inferior voiced protagonists are, I have a hard time taking you seriously, because equivalent examples written by you are not available to the public (And the pieces of writing that are available have issues, to say the least).
And by this you mean what? :eek: It is purely illogical not to listen to somebody's opinion just because there's no curriculum one can refer to, and I agree with Luis Dias. You're making another mistake, too: you're presuming that I voice my opinion because I pretend to have the ultimate solution to FreeSpace storytelling that you'll see in some uber super mod I'm working on, which is wrong. I'm not criticizing X to promote Y, I'm criticizing X, period.
Also, you don't know my gaming background, so you're not in the position to say I cannot be credible when I say something about characters and their development. I have more RPGs and jRPGs than space and flight simulators, so I know what's like to play a game where characters do matter: I believe such games have certain characteristics which at the moment we cannot reproduce in FreeSpace, and that perfectly explains my opinion.
PS
It's sad that due to many circumstances I haven't managed to release a campaign, but the fact that what I do could be used to attack me in discussions like this gives me the creeps. Why do people feel compelled to reply to critics with other critics? It's fallacious. If community member Z is wrong in a thread I don't see why this should be used as an excuse to criticize what Z has done. :sigh:
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I think it's clear to everyone where your opinion is coming from. Let's drop the topic.
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I'm not sure if you've made any decisions yet Lorric, but I hope you're still keen to hear alternative opinions. And, having read through this before posting, I've noticed it's coming across as somewhat... dictatorial? Inflexible? I don't know - just consider this a general disclaimer - insert your own IMO's throughout and remember that all this is just my opinion. So, with that out of the way:
There are two issues raised in this thread, so I'll start with the simpler one: your techroom missions idea. Simple answer: don't do it.
Please, don't let my tone there disguise the way in which I mean what I'm saying. It might sound dismissive, and I suppose that's not entirely unfair, but you have to know that using that technique... it's at best inelegant and at worst actively offputting to the vast majority of potential players. As it is, people just don't play single missions in our community. It's a harsh but true fact of life around here. Asking people to play what would effectively be a dozen or so single missions... look, it's just not going to happen. People are either going to be confused or annoyed. Mistakes will happen. People will forget which mission they're supposed to be playing, accidentally click the wrong one - the story will inevitably end up corrupted. And FS2 has a very powerful campaign editor integrated very tightly with the excellent mission making tools which will allow for a proper branching campaign. In this day and age, with Axem's mouse select scripts (Which ar4e actually very, very easy to use) and the various examples already done around the community (Bem Cavalgar, WiH etc.) there's no reason not to allow the player's choices ingame to drive a campaign down a branching path, there really isn't.
To be entirely honest, it feels a little like something I recognize from my own projects - a sort of modding inertia. I suspect tht when you came up with the idea for the branching campaign and the techroom missions, you may have been unaware of the alternative options for how it might otherwise be done? And now that you're aware of them, they feel like they might be too difficult to do right, and besides, you have a perfectly good way to do it already? I've felt that exact way about lots of things in the past - FSO (when it was new), HTL models, skyboxes instead of individual nebulas, using scripts, tonnes of things. It's difficult and a little bit intimidating to learn to use new skills but I promise you, it'll be worth it - especially in this case.
Now, as to the question of whether to use player characters. I'm on record many times as saying that I prefer a silent protagonist in FS campaigns. It's been done well plenty of times (not least in all four of [V]'s official campaigns), and, let's be honest, people don't expect a player character. Adding one adds a lot of headaches to the development, and will inevitably affect people's enjoyment and opinion of the campaign, so why do it? Extra work for no necessary extra gain, and a lot of potential backlash.
My biggest problem with player characters is partly the fact that a significant part of your audience just isn't going to like or identify with the character you create. This is a problem in and of itself, but it's made much worse when the narrative of a campaign forces you to play as a character who makes decisions that you personally strongly disagree with. This is particularly important if you have any kinds of shades of grey in your campaign. As the most well known player character campaigns, the BP comparison is impossible to avoid, so I'll make it here. In AoA, I didn't particularly care about Sam Bei, or identify with the character all that well. Not any reflection of the quality of the campaign, I just didn't click. And TBH, it didn;t really affect my enjoyment of the campaign since Sam never really made any decisions I disagreed with. For all the narrative stuff going on, It was basically a straightforward campaign - the GTVA are good, the Shivans are bad, kill the Shivans. A few things I didn't really understand were going on, but whatever, no big deal. However, this got turned on its head in WiH, where things were much more complex, and as such, being railroaded by the character of Laporte and the narrative necessities of the storyline was much more jarring.
So, given all that, the logical assumption would be that I would be advise against a player character. Well, almost. The reality is that all of the [V] campaigns and most of the user made silent-protagonist campaigns have been relatively black and white affairs. Very rarely have the kinds of shades of grey that WiH was able to play with been prominent, and in all honest it might be hard to play with those kind of narrative ideas with the player remaining utterly silent all the way through. However, you have an advantage that they didn't have in WiH in that you are specifically setting out to make a branching campaign. Eliminate the rails, and suddenly railroading ceases to be a problem, at least in theory.
So my suggestions would be thus: If you want to make a basic, traditional, Freespace sort of story, where the morality is pretty straightforward, keep your player silent. It's easier and will lighten your load, almost certainly making the campaign better. If, however, you want to tell a more morally complex story, then a player character might be inevitable, but for god's sake branch your campaign whenever the player has to make a significant choice, and let the player, not the writers, decide how that character thinks and works. In my opinion, those are the two peaks in the continuum of options available to you. Deviate from them, and you'll struggle.
Hello. This is a very nice post. Thank you for taking the time.
I am still interested in hearing what people have to say. Do you mean other people are seeming dictatorial and inflexible or me? I think you mean others, yes? And I think I know what you mean, both words, as you can tell yourself by putting ?s next to them, aren’t quite right. Too strong. But I see what you mean.
I’ve already said I like the idea of doing a “proper” campaign and the set of single missions at the same time. Do you think that will be acceptable?
Yes, something like that. I was aware branching campaigns were possible to create, but it all comes back to the fact that you’d never be able to get the entire mission tree in the techroom. That’s the big problem. Of course, I didn’t know about shift+ctrl+s then either, but I suspect a lot of people don’t. But even then, it doesn’t tell you where they fit in the tree, it just displays all the missions.
I wanted to do something different. It’s bad enough being new, but why is anyone going to be interested in Freespace campaign #2753 especially when made by a beginner? I wanted something different. Something I could do that’s different that doesn’t require you to be a FRED god, or turn out a bunch of new ships. And I settled on the two things that I could do to make it distinct, my branching system, and the fact that as of then and as of now, no one has released any material for Wings of Dawn. Besides Spoon of course, and a single mission created by Axem that came packaged with it. I also hope my own story will come off good, I don’t need to know how to FRED to write a story. That doesn’t mean I want the FREDding to be poor or anything, I think the missions are good and fun. If I don’t like them, why would anyone else? But they’re not going to break boundaries or be masterpieces or anything either. I need to learn to walk before I can run.
I have gone deep into the Ace Combat 5 let’s play that InsaneBaron linked now. And I was something like 95% sure I was going with a silent protagonist at the point of reading your post, and I’m now all but sure after reading yours. I intend to watch the entire LP of Ace Combat 5, so really only something going drastically wrong with that LP to put me off or a super-compelling argument in favour of player-characters on here is going to change my mind at this point.
In terms of decisions the player has to make I don’t think they’d have to make any moral decisions. Maybe they’d make a decision on how to approach a mission like was mentioned earlier in the thread, but branches would basically be determined by the player’s skill in the cockpit. I did think of one possibility I might use, but that also wouldn’t be a moral choice, just a choice. About whether to accept a challenge from an enemy or not.
I wonder if we could have a chat about the stuff you said in your fourth paragraph? I think your experiences could be helpful to me.
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You could always build a menu into one of your missions that lets the player choose any mission in any branch of the campaign. It'd be a little work but nothing impossible.
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You could always build a menu into one of your missions that lets the player choose any mission in any branch of the campaign. It'd be a little work but nothing impossible.
Wouldn't know how. They'd still have to work their way back to that mission though to make another choice. I had wondered if it would be possible to create a mission that could do such a thing at the end of the campaign, kind of like Axem's hub with all unlocked missions available, so the campaign wouldn't truly end and the whole tree could be unlocked in the techroom, but didn't post about it because of this flaw.
If I ever finish the missions, I smell a big discussion on the horizon about this stuff... :)
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That's exactly what I'm saying, and I'm confident you'd figure out how to do it.
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That's exactly what I'm saying, and I'm confident you'd figure out how to do it.
Well, someone else would probably have to figure it out to get rid of the flaw then tell me how to do it. Then I'd take care of the rest. :)
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Also, all this 'walk before you can run' business, I think you're building up FRED as harder than it really is. My missions in BP2 were my first pieces of FRED work and I can say without any particular ego that they were fairly cutting-edge at the time. Same goes for Spoon and WoD.
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Also, all this 'walk before you can run' business, I think you're building up FRED as harder than it really is. My missions in BP2 were my first pieces of FRED work and I can say without any particular ego that they were fairly cutting-edge at the time. Same goes for Spoon and WoD.
Well if it was easy, everyone would be turning out cutting edge stuff and WoD style total conversions.
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Not at all. The hard part of FRED is sitting down and doing it. The systems required to make complex missions aren't tough to learn as you put a little time into it, look at existing work, and have someone to ask questions.
The reason people don't turn out more material is because they don't have the time and the dedication.
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Not at all. The hard part of FRED is sitting down and doing it. The systems required to make complex missions aren't tough to learn as you put a little time into it, look at existing work, and have someone to ask questions.
The reason people don't turn out more material is because they don't have the time and the dedication.
How long did it take you?
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BP2's dev cycle (after we tossed out the alpha) was 18 months. It was a team effort, but the FRED work proper was done by two people. I think Spoon's development time was similar.
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BP2's dev cycle (after we tossed out the alpha) was 18 months. It was a team effort, but the FRED work proper was done by two people. I think Spoon's development time was similar.
Thanks.
I think I'm kind of barking up the wrong tree here though. I was thinking to find out if the learning process was similar in time to mine. And if it was considerably faster for you then I'd be able to say that it comes easier to you than me, which I've always suspected. And if not, then I'd be surprised.
But it doesn't really matter I suppose. I'll go back to the post before.
Not at all. The hard part of FRED is sitting down and doing it. The systems required to make complex missions aren't tough to learn as you put a little time into it, look at existing work, and have someone to ask questions.
The reason people don't turn out more material is because they don't have the time and the dedication.
For me it's kind of the other way around, I'm good at staying on task once I get started. But I can still get stalled for a long time when I can't figure something out. You say "take a little time" what does that mean? It can take me like well over an hour to get a simple SEXP to work properly. The first time. Once I know how to do it, then I can repeat it as often as I want. So the idea of something complex...
I don't have someone to ask questions unless you count the forum itself. The last time i asked questions, I did get help, but it felt like it was being given grudgingly (not always, at times). I've basically had to figure it all out alone. There isn't someone I can just chat with about FRED. Though I have since noticed others seem to get help without that side, and there's been a lot of talk here in this thread. Though this thread wasn't about FREDding to begin with.
FREDding, time goes by faster for me than anything I've ever done in my life. It's shocking to me at times how fast time is obliterated when I'm FREDding. This isn't because it's super fun, though it does have it's rewards, but (I think) because I'm giving it everything I've got.
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Just do it man, stop letting fear take the best of you.
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Just do it man, stop letting fear take the best of you.
I'm not scared. I was dismayed at one point in the thread. But I'll almost certainly be "pulling the trigger" once I've finished watching the Ace Combat 5 Let's Play.
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Not sure if this was mentioned yet but Ace Combat Zero is also a great watch as well, since it only has ONE wingman with you, who asks you questions which you can answer with YES or NO, and it should be noted that not answering at all is treated by the game as an "answer."
ACZ also features a "reputation system" which is based on what targets you destroy.
Destroying EVERYTHING that is destroyable pulls your reputation more towards being a bloodthirsty money-seeking mercenary who wants money and power above all else. NPCs in the game, including your wingmen, will comment on this (in fact enemy pilots will scream at you about what a jerk you are). Destroying only mission-critical targets and sparing wounded enemies will pull your reputation more towards being a "knight" who values getting things done without unnecessary bloodshed. Striking a perfect balance between the two gets you a reputation of "soldier" who does what they deem is necessary to get the job done.
Your wingman's behavior will also subtly change to match your own. The more bloodthirsty you act, the more bloodthirsty THEY act...
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You forgot the enemy aces! They also change depending on your level (mercenary, soldier or knight) and at least three playthroughs are needed in order to face them all. :)
A similar system could easily be implemented in FreeSpace using campaign variables. Has anything like this ever been attempted?
PS
In ACZ, the ultimate enemy is always the same regardless of your level, and his code name is... MOBIUS!!1!1
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Having a few small scenes which are determined by the player's actions does go a long way towards making your story feel reactive.
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Yeah, while I generally think large scale branching isn't worth the time unless you go full Alpha Protocol (the traditional win path/fail path is particularly egregious), I think having in-mission decisions as a mode of player expression can be really valuable.
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Yeah, while I generally think large scale branching isn't worth the time unless you go full Alpha Protocol (the traditional win path/fail path is particularly egregious), I think having in-mission decisions as a mode of player expression can be really valuable.
What is Alpha Protocol?
I am indeed going to split to a winning path and losing path, with splits within those. I hope the campaign editor can handle that. However, there isn't going to be any point in the campaign where you're screwed, so it's not a true losing path. Unless you've failed. If you still have a mission in front of you, you can win the campaign.
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What is Alpha Protocol?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Protocol
It's a third-person stealth shooter RPG by Obsidian. It's main feature is that every decision you make in it, be it in dialogue or in gameplay, is important in determining how other characters react to you, which in turn influences how the story plays out. It's arguably the game that is most reactive to what the player does; Unfortunately, its actual gameplay mechanics (aka the shooty bits) are quite clunky, and bugs are everywhere.
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There are no briefing icons in my missions.
Lepanto has been doing some beta testing for me. He mentioned the briefing icons. Basically what I said is:
"Ah the briefing. It seems like so much work for so little gain. I also don’t like giving away ship types and things in the briefing. Most briefings you have no need of that stuff to understand them. I tried making those briefings when I first started out and found it extremely annoying. They’re so much harder to make than what they should be, it’s ridiculous. I’m surprised everyone else seems to bother with them."
But I also said I might try again to implement them. And I did.
Either things have gotten easier since FRED 3.6.12, or more likely I just didn't get my head around it the first time somehow, but I've tried it again, and it's really quite easy. I've updated two missions already. All will be brought up to the standard. I'd likely never have gotten around to it otherwise. No wonder everyone has them. I've been marvelling basically forever that everyone puts up with the difficulty I thought came with these briefings. For one thing, I didn't think you could move the icons. Imagine trying to make a briefing where you can't move the icons and you'll have some idea of why I didn't want to bother with them.
And this concludes another episode of why Lorric does not think FREDding is easy and is scared of things getting too complicated. But at least the briefing icons are in fact easy and quite quick too. So if anyone else happened to get put off by the briefing icons, there you go. :D
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I'm surprised you were going to try and go without briefings... that's prime real estate for story/character development and a perfect place to set mission expectations and then later crush them for massive damage.
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I'm surprised you were going to try and go without briefings... that's prime real estate for story/character development and a perfect place to set mission expectations and then later crush them for massive damage.
It's the icons I didn't have. I still had the text.
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I like this approach or, at least, the philosophy behind it. Sometimes briefings give away too many details about missions, like the ship classes used by the enemy, and turn out to be "prophetic", if you pardon the term.
Typical situation: the Shivans are believed to attack an allied ship, and the ship icons used during the briefing clearly indicate that there will be Nephilims and Manticores as the bulk of the Shivan attack force. How can the GTVA know that in advance?
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There are things called "reconnaissance" and "long-range sensors". You probably never heard of them.
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Typical situation: the Shivans are believed to attack an allied ship, and the ship icons used during the briefing clearly indicate that there will be Nephilims and Manticores as the bulk of the Shivan attack force. How can the GTVA know that in advance?
That would be what setting the briefing icons to "unknown" would be for. Because you can do that. And while :v: didn't always remember to, to my amusement, the option is very much there to click on it and display a questionmark.
Hell, set it to display Sathanaseseseses on every icon if you want. Should give them a good scare.
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Kinda makes you wish for a "faction" or "unknown" or "unspecified" icon pack.
Say a Station is represented by an octagon, a destroyer a Triangle, a fighter as a Square, a bomber as a hollow square. Civilians as circles, etc.
Maybe I'll give this a shot in the afternoon. Just gotta re-install GIMP.
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You could just use the fs1 icons, though you can still click on any ship icon to see what ship class it is set for. that's why you should just use the unknown icon.
Also, briefings do not, as a rule, give away too much of the mission. Any good mission designer gives away exactly the information they want to in a briefing, regardless of icons.
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You could just use the fs1 icons, though you can still click on any ship icon to see what ship class it is set for. that's why you should just use the unknown icon.
Also, briefings do not, as a rule, give away too much of the mission. Any good mission designer gives away exactly the information they want to in a briefing, regardless of icons.
You know, it must have taken me like 2 years to know you could click on the icons myself. I didn't figure it out myself either, I saw someone do it on a let's play to my surprise.
I've also already made use of the unknown ability. I expect to make use of it for any mission where you don't know what's waiting. (Btw, I realise you were not talking to me. I'm just saying.)
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Heh, it probably took me about that long to figure out I could click on them too. :p
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FS1 icons plus ship classes set as unknown equals unpredictability, which is probably what Lorric needs.
There are things called "reconnaissance" and "long-range sensors". You probably never heard of them.
Sure, long range sensors can easily predict the exact bomber class the Shivans are going to sortie from the other side of the nebula. :p
Come on Matth, people and :v: should have used the unknown icon more often. ;)
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Ah but let's be fair here. The briefing for the FS2 mission where you fly the Mara did not tell you to dive dive dive.
Sometimes a briefing can work in your favour through storytelling. After all, a tactics briefing is only intended to determine how you want the situation to turn out. Not how it actually does.
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FS1 icons plus ship classes set as unknown equals unpredictability, which is probably what Lorric needs.
There are things called "reconnaissance" and "long-range sensors". You probably never heard of them.
Sure, long range sensors can easily predict the exact bomber class the Shivans are going to sortie from the other side of the nebula. :p
Come on Matth, people and :v: should have used the unknown icon more often. ;)
Whenever shivan fighters showed up in briefings, I just assumed the class was set as "command's best guess for what kind of fighters you're likely to see."
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Ah but let's be fair here. The briefing for the FS2 mission where you fly the Mara did not tell you to dive dive dive.
Sometimes a briefing can work in your favour through storytelling. After all, a tactics briefing is only intended to determine how you want the situation to turn out. Not how it actually does.
Exactly, a kind of Starship Trooper's fiasco where everything is so well ****ing planned in the briefings, how every enemy ship is analyzed, etc., and then this briefing shows itself to be absolutely misleading, if not incompetent and the whole mission goes bananas with everyone screaming at each other blaming anyone else.
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I have now completed my journey through the let's play with the Wardog Squadron. And I will be sticking with a silent protagonist now for sure, and I am now free to move forward with the story aspect of the campaign.
Don't let that stop you from posting in the thread though if you still want to discuss anything that's been raised in it. I may well join you too.
A big thank you all for your efforts to help me. Truly, this thread has gone greatly over any expectations I might have had for it when I created it, and has done more than just answer my initial question. I am most grateful.
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I have now completed my journey through the let's play with the Wardog Squadron. And I will be sticking with a silent protagonist now for sure, and I am now free to move forward with the story aspect of the campaign.
Don't let that stop you from posting in the thread though if you still want to discuss anything that's been raised in it. I may well join you too.
A big thank you all for your efforts to help me. Truly, this thread has gone greatly over any expectations I might have had for it when I created it, and has done more than just answer my initial question. I am most grateful.
Glad this all helped! Actually, it influenced my own decision regarding the player character (Thiazi 1) for my own little project.
Glad you enjoyed the AC5 playthrough. It's one of my all-time favorites, and BryUK made a really good playthrough of the whole series that really showcased the storyline well.
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I have now completed my journey through the let's play with the Wardog Squadron. And I will be sticking with a silent protagonist now for sure, and I am now free to move forward with the story aspect of the campaign.
Don't let that stop you from posting in the thread though if you still want to discuss anything that's been raised in it. I may well join you too.
A big thank you all for your efforts to help me. Truly, this thread has gone greatly over any expectations I might have had for it when I created it, and has done more than just answer my initial question. I am most grateful.
Glad this all helped! Actually, it influenced my own decision regarding the player character (Thiazi 1) for my own little project.
Glad you enjoyed the AC5 playthrough. It's one of my all-time favorites, and BryUK made a really good playthrough of the whole series that really showcased the storyline well.
So you will be having a silent protagonist too?
The game itself doesn't look fun to play to me. I don't like heavy missile combat and invulnerable wingmen (I presume they're invulnerable since they never die.) The wingmen seem to contribute very little offensively too, so it's basically you who has to do everything. But I did find it an interesting experience. Three wingmen just like my campaign. It might well see a revisit at some point when I'm trying to write my story.
So thank you! :D
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I have now completed my journey through the let's play with the Wardog Squadron. And I will be sticking with a silent protagonist now for sure, and I am now free to move forward with the story aspect of the campaign.
Don't let that stop you from posting in the thread though if you still want to discuss anything that's been raised in it. I may well join you too.
A big thank you all for your efforts to help me. Truly, this thread has gone greatly over any expectations I might have had for it when I created it, and has done more than just answer my initial question. I am most grateful.
Glad this all helped! Actually, it influenced my own decision regarding the player character (Thiazi 1) for my own little project.
Glad you enjoyed the AC5 playthrough. It's one of my all-time favorites, and BryUK made a really good playthrough of the whole series that really showcased the storyline well.
So you will be having a silent protagonist too?
The game itself doesn't look fun to play to me. I don't like heavy missile combat and invulnerable wingmen (I presume they're invulnerable since they never die.) The wingmen seem to contribute very little offensively too, so it's basically you who has to do everything. But I did find it an interesting experience. Three wingmen just like my campaign. It might well see a revisit at some point when I'm trying to write my story.
So thank you! :D
I was actually planning on having a speaking protagonist, but he was becoming impossible to write, and after the discussion I decided that unlike Transcend or Blue Planet, this isn't the kind of story that needs a speaking player character. So I took the same approach: letting the wingmen do the talking.
On a tangent, Ace Combat might explain my personal preference for Hercs and Taurets with their huge missile banks.
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That, or the Tauret being the only good fighter the Zods have :P