[Skullar]

Hello people, I want to discuss mission/campaign designing in general, and hope you comment on the following points.

1. Too much or too few happening ?

It came to my attention that a campaign should feature missions with quite some "boring" passages, and missions where the **** hits the fan.
If every mission is a "the fate of the universe depends on the outcome of THIS massive battle !!!" mission, you create a too simple pattern that inevitably kills all tension that might come up.
For example : Imagine a mission where you shall guard a convoy. its just boring if you know it will take at most 5 seconds till the scumbags are all over you.
Babylon 5 : IFH, for example, has long passages where absolutely nothing happens, for example when traveling through hyperspace.
Of course... boring uneventful missions shouldn't be common.
The EACW is supposed to feature missions where no battle events happen at all...
I assume a clever mixture makes up a good campaign. This can also be taken to the missions themselves.

2. How anonymous do you like it ?

The success of the wing commander series can be referred to the characters and the story they underline. You have not been assigned to Carrier XYZ in Quadrant 123, you have been stationed on the TIGER'S CLAW , you knew your wingmen, you knew Col.Halcyon, the CAG, you knew the bar, the barracks, and you even knew some of your enemies. Like Prince Thrakkath, Baktosh Redclaw , Kajja Fang , etc...
I am sure WING COMMANDER was originally so successful due to the atmosphere the game was able to create.
Cool Grafix added to the pleasure. Sweet VGAd days !

[karajorma]

I've always liked the addition of a few dud missions where nothing happens. I've always felt that most campaigns should open with a fairly simple mission (or at least a mission that starts out uneventfully) to give the player time to ease themselves in rather than throwing them in at the deep end.

There's a difference between uneventful and boring though. Sections with nothing much happening should always have something for the player to do to keep them entertained. Good mission chatter is one way of doing this.


As for your second question I personally try to keep Alpha one as anonyomous as possible but that's never been an excuse to keep everything else anonymous. The game is much more immersive if the wingmen fell real to you. The more detail you add to the people on board the better but try to avoid the Starlancer effect where everyone in your wing had a character but you couldn't give a s**t about any of them

[Primus]

Originally posted by Skullar

The EACW is supposed to feature missions where no battle events happen at all...
I assume a clever mixture makes up a good campaign. This can also be taken to the missions themselves.
 

Sounds excellent, as long as those non-battle missions have chatter and other events.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

one of my favorite tricks is to start off with a bang, let things get boring for a minute or two, and just when the player is starting to relax, you change the pace on him again.  It serves to give that "Holy ****" feeling, especially when fighters jump in right on top of him.  And i mean REALLY pick up the pace.  3 waves with a threshold of two usually works well for this, especially with multiple wings.   Soemthing else that we can tinker with, isn't so much boring missions right from the start, but instead, allowing each mission to build a little more momentum that than there was going in.  it makes a campaign almost like that book that you can't put down. of this can be achieved through simple foreshadowing in the conversations between the pilots.

[Nuclear1]

I've always found that the best way to start a campaign depends on your storyline. For instance, the Freespace 2 campaign started right at the Battle of Deneb, and therefore sent you into a combat-rich environment (proof through your first mission involving fending off waves of NTF fighters and the Belisarius).

However, other campaigns, like Derelict, which puts you in a boring, uneventful section of the galaxy, starts out... well, uneventful and boring.

For GTI Rebellion (my current project), it starts similarly to Freespace 2's main campaign. First mission has plenty of action, but not overwhelming. Then it gradually picks up, with some quiet missions for character/plot development.

As for characters, the entire plot of GTI:R revolves around the characters in your squad, so we're trying to make them as realistic and human as possible. There's never more than two or three in your squad at any time, so that avoids the "all wingmen invulnerable for plot effect" problem.

[Fergus]

I don't see anything wrong with dropping the player in it, but not the kind of "Oh my god, hundreds of Shivans have appeard, good luck".  Escort missions seem to make a good starter, the player will have the advantage and it doesn't constrict the story as much.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by nuclear1
For instance, the Freespace 2 campaign started right at the Battle of Deneb, and therefore sent you into a combat-rich environment (proof through your first mission involving fending off waves of NTF fighters and the Belisarius).

I've always regarded that as a simple mission Your basic brief is kill some wings of enemy fighters then watch the pretty light show

[Ferret]

That mission served as a "LOOK WE HAVE BEAMS THIS TIME OMFG" mission.

[Nuclear1]

Originally posted by karajorma


I've always regarded that as a simple mission Your basic brief is kill some wings of enemy fighters then watch the pretty light show

True, but the idea I'm trying to get across that the player was instantly put into a combat zone with a decent amount of enemy fighters, even if you were just performing menial escort tasks.

I don't see anything wrong with dropping the player in it, but not the kind of "Oh my god, hundreds of Shivans have appeard, good luck". Escort missions seem to make a good starter, the player will have the advantage and it doesn't constrict the story as much.

Agreed. Sometimes throwing the player straight into a firefight works, at least later in the game (example being the second-last Derelict mission or the capship battle in Aeos).

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Skullar
Hello people, I want to discuss mission/campaign designing in general, and hope you comment on the following points.

1. Too much or too few happening ?

2. How anonymous do you like it ?
 

1/I think you sometimes need pointless missions for the sake of exposition and tension.  The trick is not to have them too long, or too dull..... I remember one of the very first missions we made for Reci was a 5-10 minute long nav-buoy chase, followed by a very brief bit of action.  It worked for me  because diamondgeezer is ****-hot at writing dialogue; but to another person it might be boring as hell.

The way I approach it - not being a FREDer myself - is simply to look at the mission, think 'how does it advance the story', and then work out how to make that advancement into a proper interactive mission.

2/  I'm ambivalent on it.  

For the most part, I consider the overall story arc more important than the characters within; they'll maybe be a few  named characters who provide exposition, possibly a mcguffin here & there, but generally I don't see much point in having an excessive degree of relationship; IMO, whilst you might expect pilots to know each other well from the barracks, you wouldn't expect them to have that sort of personal conversation in a mission.

If the player had a way to reply back to questions, etc, then maybe I'd view it as important.  But as alpha 1 is - in my plans - always an anonymous proxy for the player, I can't give him a voice; so all you can have is a 1 way conversation, which is totally useless IMO for building a real  friend/enemy type connection between the player and NPC - the best you can do is hint at it.

That said, I have considered & planned very heavily character driven campaigns..... what's maybe worth noting is that they have never had a centralepic  'war' story, I've always planned them around the general protagonist-sidekick-antagonist dynamic, and in my preferred storyling, over revenge.

[KappaWing]

In my project, the first few missions are really intense to snap the player into the story. Then there are two missions with no combat or weapons whatsoever (not boring, however). Then BAM! Fleet Battle!

What I'm trying to do is jerk the player violently around in an alternating pattern of eventful-noneventful-eventful to keep them on their toes. One rule of thumb is that every single mission, Battle of Endor or tranquil patrol, must advance the storyline, especially for campaigns that rely heavy on stories and plotholes (such as Homesick or Sync). That way, no mission is ever boring.

About the naming thing, I like to name characters and have Alpha 1 develop a strong bond with them. And just when they are in a particularly close moment, 9 Dragons warp in and Blast him to Kingdom Come! Then the player is so mentally and emotionally racked that they have a hard time fighting the rest of the battle. A few missions after that should be quiet escorts while the player silently (or loudly) mourns the loss of his comrade.

[Axem]

As its been said, "boring" missions are good for advancing the plot. It also goes in good for character development. I like starting off slow, let the player experience the mundane so when the action comes, it shows that things are changing.

With regards to the player, I like keeping him (or her) as anonymous as possible. He (or she) is you. How am I supposed to know you'd agree that spacing those defenseless pirates is a good idea? I think developing other characters is better cause you get more freedom there.

[Fergus]

Also, there is the problem with a known Alpha 1 in that in order for you to empathise with the character you have to be able to relate to them.  If the player is supder-duper (ouch, bad vocab) and is part of super-secret-plan-x-and-is-in-love-with-y-who-is-a-secret-NTR-spy...yeah, I think you catch my drift.

[NGTM-1R]

I personally have Alpha 1 talk some, because, well, it's weird when Alpha 2 responds to Command instead of the flight leader, you know?

Mostly, though, I took my cues on character work in Freespace 2 from playing Homesick and Derelict. People don't have to interact with Alpha 1 for them to be good characters and likeable, or hateable (is that a word?) as the case may be. And you can give more characters personality then you might think.

Even the bit characters of Cleaning Crew have some personality. The commander of the Actium, for example, instead of saying "Good luck, pilots." at the end of every briefing where you work with the Actium says instead "Skill, pilots." I admit I blatantly stole that from BattleTech, but it still makes the Actium's CO different from the regular briefing guy. Or for another example, Alpha 1 of the Blue Lions makes references back to "The Romans Blunder", and I'm probably the only person alive who's ever included the original FS2 Alpha 1 as a character seperate from your own and made them female.

I name characters. I'm a writer. All my characters have names, including Alpha 1. The names, for the most part, exist only in my head. If I ever hammer the incoherent story ideas based on Cleaning Crew that are sitting on my harddrive into real story, you'll find out what all the names are. But quite a few of the characters in Cleaning Crew have their full names used at least once, four or five, more then I can remember in any other campaign.

It's also untrue you really need boring missions for character development or advancing the plot. The same can be accomplished in fairly active missions: look at some of the missions Shrouding The Light for examples. It is certainly easier in a calmer mission, but they aren't, strictly speaking, necessary.

[KappaWing]

Very true. Briefings/Debriefings can be used for character development too if you use them wisely.

Edit: Ahhh! TiMe WaRp!

[WMCoolmon]

No mission has to be boring. You can always add dialogue, or some other factors to keep it interesting. Putting a lot of time into the mission to add easter eggs or side plots that don't have to happen can also make an otherwise boring mission interesting.

Ex: Your typical shoot-the-cargo-depot mission. You can:
1) Boobytrap cargo with explosives, or maybe a ship or a sentry
2) Have things be scannable. If you scan a certain cargo container, Command sends in a transport for further investigation
3) Impose a time limit, after which the player will have to deal with some sort of escort (A Fenris and a bunch of Lokis)
4) Dialogue. Plot/character development.
5) Use some clever SEXPing to make a wingman show off some flying tricks, complain if you blow up the cargo container they're going after.
6) If the player takes longer to destroy a certain cargo container, maybe it triggers a security system (or DOESN'T trigger a security system) or the objects inside survive the blast and turn out to be something interesting.
7) If the player catches on to number 2, put things you wouldn't guess would be in military cargo containers, but really do make some sense (Condoms ). Reward the player for getting themselves more involved.

Edit: aldo, bhave you ever tried using training messages with is-key-pressed to let the player 'reply' to messages sent to them?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Edit: aldo, have you ever tried using training messages with is-key-pressed to let the player 'reply' to messages sent to them?

Just be very careful which key you use. Try to use 1-4 and you'll be scratch your head a lot first time you try a repeating event.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon

Edit: aldo, bhave you ever tried using training messages with is-key-pressed to let the player 'reply' to messages sent to them?

Thought of it, but IMO it doesn't seem 'natural'.  Other thing is that AFAIK you can't really store the answers from the player, so I think you'd need a huge tree of SEXPs to have a reasonably complex conversation.

There was a time when I wondered if you could do a sort of 'detective' campaign; using this sort of thing to interrogate people.... eventually you'd get enough information from various missions (possibly some randomly generated) to trigger the 'end' sequence when you hunt down the bad guy.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Thought of it, but IMO it doesn't seem 'natural'.  Other thing is that AFAIK you can't really store the answers from the player, so I think you'd need a huge tree of SEXPs to have a reasonably complex conversation.

Wouldn't be too hard to assign the answers given to a variable.

[aldo_14]

Hmm...I dunno; I thought there was a cap on the number of variables or preserving them or something.

It's not important; I could never think of a good idea of how to make a realistic gumshoe campaign that didn't involve great amount of explosions.  It's a concept I've thought about quite a lot in general; how would you build a game around hunting a serial killer ala se7en (without resulting to making it a generic and overly linear adventure game).