[Grimloq]

...because i may set up a mini-campaign. well, not maybe, definately

its called '900 Days', and its prolly about 10-12 missions, including a few new ships (maybe 10 at ABSOLUTE maximum), new music, and a new mainhall. its about (yet another) return to terra. however, to my (limited) knowledge, this type of return hasnt been done much.

those of you who know your history will prolly recognize the comparison between the battle of leningrad and this campaign, then again, you might not, so here:

leningrad was a city ordered destroyed by hitler in the second world war. his forces laid seige to it, and wreaked general havoc. many russians died in the siege, lots of them from starvation or malnutrition. 900 days after the seige started, it was finally stopped by a large russian offensive.
thats leningrad in a nutshell (i hope i got it right... )

so, you can look forward to this. its not especially tense or ESPECIALLY unique, but it will have interesting homeworld-like missions and new music... and good gameplay hopefully.

right now its only an idea (and idea supplemented with some concept art, missions planning, and music...) so don get yer hopes up even if you like it.

well, just thought id announce it.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Sounds cool, new campaigns are always great!

*Now we can both wait for 5 other people to post 'join up another campaign and help with it instead'. But if someone like Blaise Russel can churn out campaigns, any one person can do it. (Top Ace did a campaign by himself too, probably others)*

[Grimloq]

its possible. this is just a little background practice thing. although you get to look forward to meeting the Falconer

itll be fun

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
*Now we can both wait for 5 other people to post 'join up another campaign and help with it instead'. But if someone like Blaise Russel can churn out campaigns, any one person can do it. (Top Ace did a campaign by himself too, probably others)*

I tend to be the person who says that a lot but if you notice I generally say that I've go nothing against someone trying to make a campaign on their own (In fact I'm doing exactly that myself).

What I tend to do is warn new people exactly how much effort is required to make a campaign single-handed cause a lot of people come in, makes 3-4 missions quickly and then feature creep comes in and they get stuck. It's very easy to start with a simple no-mods mini-campaign and end up trying to write a 60+ mission campaign with no original FS2 models in it.

10 Mods is a lot. That's actually more new stuff than MindGames has. We've been going for more than a couple of years now and we haven't even finished half of them (although the lack of a full time modeller is mostly to blame for that!).

Making a campaign on your own or starting up a new one is a
lot of hard work. I wouldn't dream of saying that you can't do it single-handed. If I believed that I'd pack up TMA forever and work full time on MindGames. What I'm saying is that before you need to be realistic about what one person or a small team can achieve.

You mentioned TopAce and Blaise Russell as examples of people who have managed to make campaigns single-handed and I consider them very good examples because neither of them went mad when it came to the number of new mods they were using.

TopAce's RR had two or so while Blaise IIRC simply used other peoples.

Now I'm not going to say to Grimloq that he should abandon his idea. I'm not even going to say that he should use mostly released mods as I know that he can model. All I'm saying is that before starting he needs to know what a large task lies ahead of him.

Unlike most of the newbies who I give advice to Grim has actually been in the community a little while. He's worked with the TI team too IIRC so I'm sure he actually understands what a long slog a campaign can be.

With all that in mind I'm gonna say good luck Grim.

[Grimloq]

*counts up total MODs...*

lesse... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 for the TC... maybe that much, anyway... a new mainhall (not easy, but then again SO cool!)... maybe, 3-4 new music tracks, and music tracks are pretty easy to do (easiest tables to deal with IMO), and possibly- POSSIBLY 2-3 MODs for the shivans. anytihng else will prolly be other d/lable MODs.

the only reason im having ANY MODs in this is that the TC (cant tell you what the 'TC' is, i might later, but for now i dont know if it will have an effect on the storyline) has some very specific needs, and is technically a new race, so they have a whole new theme of ships (though not many). the shivans have very few because i only need a few new ships, and then again only for storyline reasons.

thx for the warning karaj, but i do kinda know what im up against, and this is kinda like a slow little project ill work on when im very bored of everything else. like i said, dont get yer hopes up too much. itll prolly take upwards at a year or something to complete (a few new MODs and 10 or so missions, maybe that long, maybe not).

id like to point out that im tryint to keep the number of MODs down i know truespace very well, and i have in fact churned out a model in less than 30 minutes before.

and remember to factor in that when im the only person working on a campaign, until i release it there no uploading files to share, coordinating efforts, dealing with ideas and incorperating them (maybe), keeping everything organized... the list goes on and on. so, skipping all that, that save a LOT of time and hassle, and is also what scares away a lot of people

[Akalabeth Angel]

I certainly mean no disrespect to those who give the often heard "help with another campaign instead", but everyone knows it's coming so I just thought I'd be the herald.

   I'm struggling with my own campaign of similar size to what you've just listed. I think many of my missions however are overly complicated and consequently take both time to write up and playtest (playing the mission is the REAL time hog). I think if I can get past the first few missions I'll be alright though, the first few missions are more of an intro and thus are kind of boring (though no repetative). Once I get into the simpler battles, rather than the patrol, scan, change of mission parameters, etcetera I should be okay.

[Grimloq]

*nods* i know what you mean. then again, i can zoom through SEXPs like a well-oiled squirrel.

[Flipside]

That image will quite possibly give me nightmares Grim

[aldo_14]

It takes me about 3/4 of a month per model I do, incidentally.  1-5+0/3 models can be quite a lot.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Before you decide you need to create a bunch of new mods, check around to see if there are any that will suit your campaign. I have a bunch of MODs in my campaign, but there all either from existing MODs or other released models, or even simple table modifications.

     Someone like Aldo for instance has put out a lot of models, but they haven't necessarily been used too often (I'm using a couple of his if I'm not mistaken). Some people make missions, some people make models. So check out the latter to see if they're right for your missions.

[Grimloq]

ok, ill look around for anything that will work. but what i need is VERY specific, im afraid... and im sure the falconer (a ship) will be by me, its too specific. anyhow, ill look. there will be a few terran ships, i think, that ill use. since this is about a return to sol, the vasudans dont do much. (they really cant care right now in the campaign )

aldo_14: well, in 1/2 hour, i mean the LOD0 mesh, untextured but its a starting point. and i know thats of MODs for one person.

[Kie99]

I will finish The Truth Revealed alone. Unfortunately all story line details are currently classified. Apart from it involves killing Vasudan ""Rebels"" (HINT)

[Akalabeth Angel]

I must say as a Vasudan sympathiser I prefering killing Terrans or Shivans myself Though my campaign may have a little bit of everything, speaking of which:

Wow - after 2 days I'm 90% finished a mission involving zero combat. What progress!

[Grimloq]

i hope you don mean the type like 'smart-casual, minimyum wage'... (the first mission in 'homesick')

 

[NGTM-1R]

That's no so bad, Akalabeth. I've taken forever to finish non-combat missions before.

Although, on the other hand, my campaign was built over the course of about six days...

[Axem]

Non-combat missions are fun... espically when you have 25 messages all in one send-message-list sexp.

Or making an ingame cutscene thats 5 minutes long. Now THAT's fun!

[Grimloq]

hey, with ingame cutscenes, how do they work?

is it like, one entire mission? or do you FRED it in so its literally ingame? and then it switches back to game? how does it work?

[Anaz]

you use sexps to disable the HUD, and teleport the player ship around as your camera.

[Grimloq]

-and make sure he doesnt move?

soooo, its not so much 'ingame cutscenes' as a handy manipulation of the player if it works.

anyway, this is good. it makes a fitting end to some missions!

[Axem]

All cutscenes are just a handy manipulation of the camera are they not?

And there are easy ways to make the player stay in one position. Really simple if you look at the Coordinate Manipulation sexps. With those you can even make the player face one way, and move in another direction.