Thank you for the first two tests on this mission Mikero and Cheetah.
But guys I was really surprised how "bad" the mission played out for you.
I'll would have a hard time to reply to everything you wrote, but be sure I'll consider your whole posts as fars as possible while working on the next version.
The biggest problem so far, that I can read all between your lines, is "getting into it".
The alpha testers at the BI forums had less problems with that, as most of them seem to be zombie fans.
My current point on getting into it is:
I'm serious when calling it a simulation. It's like all those flightsims, most people can't spot the fun anymore, if they play it on "ultra realistic" settings.
My mission seems to have a big problem to suck people into it, that are not much interested into zombies, and/or don't have at least a little bit of real military background knowledge. I'll try to descripe what I'm talking about in short:
The zombie fan (or even a zombie enemy) might say:
I've seen/played all things zombie before. Everytime it's only about small rooms, low on ammo, escape. I would like to know how this would be in a more realistic open terrain enviroment. Damn, an army should get such a problem under control in no time, so I don't have to fear this zombie fiction.
The military background thing:
(In short: Make do with what you've got.)
Your busy superior: ...Lieutenant your mission in this worldwide state of emergency is to evacuate all the civilian survivors on Sarugao island. Situation on this small, unimportant island is unknown, we have no contact. Here's an island map, your platoon will be deployed by ship. Set up the rescue center at the old military habour and get on it. Good Luck!...
So many of the things you don't like are intentionally- Most of the time a soldier will have to work with maps, and not by knowing the area of operations. (unknown island)
- Many operations are dull and uneventfull, and most of the soldiers prefer this I think.
- Communications on the island are broken down, thats why the evacuation has to be supervised like this.
- This mission is a big scale evacuation simulation not a big scale zombie hunt. (so yes, the overall mission is a bit "empty" and doesn't try to entertain hollywood like (simulation again))
- No one really cares if a soldier survives a mission or not, but if he survives and wasn't successful someone will care...
(I want to say: This mission is about how many civilians you can evacuate, not how cool you fight off zombies that might attack your squad. The survivors are the ones in real danger, not your soldiers.)[/list]
It looks like the mission plays like I wan't it, but I'll have a problem to find interested players for it. - Any thoughts on how to interested the normal ofp player for it, without him being frustrated by the dullness/difficulty he'll find in this mission?
Some smaller things:
Nice ideas for the intro, but a moving newsman is to difficult in ofp editing. Also this sound sample out of a movie doesn't give me much freedom, and correspondents sounds wouldn't have the same "reality" quality. (A small problem also is the movie plays around the 50s/60s, so the newsman acts different than in a today newsreport. - It's a small tribute to the movie like it is now.)
Yes there is a colorfilter over the whole mission, you are wearing a gasmask with colored glasses, didn't you notice?
The flashlight is working/looking like a small vehicle spotlight. I think there's a problem with your OFP setup and the addon. I hope you can fix that. - Oh wait, are you using custom animations? I've noticed Sanctuary's rifle animations effect the flashlights in a bad way.
Splitting your (realistic) 9 men squad up from the beginning is exactly the right way, to rescue as many civilians as possible.
Mikero if I just add a
small truck and let the player do everything himself, the whole mission would take even longer, and you would rescue less civilians.
Cheetah I can't add a helicopter, the mission would get too easy.
You don't have to redo the whole mission if the convoy gets stucked!? Just load the automated savegame up.
Using time acceleration in such a big mission isn't a good idea, I haven't noticed big bugs caused by it, so I won't deactivate it, but it's always possible.
...have to quit for now this is getting too long...
Things already in work for next version:
- a new list document in the briefing, with links to all of the question marks on the map. It replaces the San Alto map link
- back/exit/forward links in the tutorial documents
- moving mapmarkers for the convoy
Cheetah (or anyone else who likes to do this special, short test for me):
Please try if it's really that difficult to do evacuations remotely. Because while reading your test I've got the feeling you didn't do it "by the book".
1. Just wait at the rescue center.
2. Open the briefing tutorial, chapter "Evacuations".
3. Order some AIs into a HMMWV and let them drive to San Alto.
4. Read the tutorial carefully step by step, and evacute the San Alto survivors with the ais, like the tutorial tells you.
I would like to know, what you think about the remote evacuations after that, because I've already included workarounds for the occuring problems.
PS:
Yes I finished my mission 2 times now. Playtime is around 2 hours, in earlier versions it were 3 hours.
Guys you can just quit and continue a mission at any point whenever you like in OFP. But I think you already know that.
The mission will always end, if all civilians are either a zombie or evacuated, so just check every question mark on the map and do there what you're orderd to do.
Topic: (Review Completed) [SP] Zombie Outbreak Simulation (Read 13741 times)