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Offline ONoSixIsDown

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wanna play?
« on: 15 Mar 2008, 01:26:00 »


hey all, I'm in the process of completely rebuilding an old(ish) project of mine.  Crimson Reign to be exact.  Since the latest submission to the beta thread my skills and knowledge have grown and i when i decided to continue work on C.R. I felt that all that messy building wasn't worth salvaging and that it was easier to just remake the mission from scratch and give the game more flavor in the form of atmosphere, playability and balance.  I'd like to explain a few things that i want to do and ask advice on if it's worth doing and if so, how best to implement. 


Actions.... I mainly want to use actions to give the player options of talking to npcs that may or may not have variable conversations.  Also I want to be able to do stuff like giving the player the ability to walk up to a friendly unit and via the action menu be able to assign said npc to your squad.  To me, this represents a good way to make the mission more interactive. But i understand how it might be a hassle 


Cut scenes..... I like using cut scenes as much as the next guy.  Though you can do great things, i feel that all events should be happening in real time.  intro's and outro's are to be included, but that's about all i want them for.  one of the reason's i want things to happen in real time is for conversations with npc's.  I like using custom actions to start an npc to talk (using titletext) but i find it hard to be satisfied due to the fact that i dont' think i could set it up easily (and efficiently) so the convo ends if say, the npc gets shot or if the player wanders off. What do "you" think.  is it important to have good flashy cut scenes?

realism... how far is too far as mission concepts and spoken dialog between units.  when does it become too much?

playability... a few things i want to implement in a fast and easy-to-use way to control multiple squads.  I know there are a bunch of ways to do this but i'm not sure which one i should use and even if it's worth it in the long run.  Also, how long is too long as far as mission length and time spent traveling.  Obviously, i don't want my mission to be over in under 5 minutes but i don't want someone getting bored half-way through.  Is it best to break up the mission between obvious "breaks in the plot instead of dragging on a mission between phases?


that's about all i can think of.  anything thing else that you would advise me to pay attention too? thanks for the help.
CRIMSON REIGN COMMING..... eventually :/

Offline johnnyboy

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Re: wanna play?
« Reply #1 on: 15 Mar 2008, 06:49:59 »
Hello ONSID,

I've always loved your name by the way!

Regarding NPC conversations, I also prefer these to be "live".  I think this helps to not break immersion.  I prefer to use sidechat instead of titletext for these "live" conversations.  It helps to differentiate the text from cutscenes, plus you can see more than one line at a time.

For my ARMA mission Last Tango in Bagango (http://www.ofpec.com/missions_depot/index.php?action=details&id=117&page=1&game=ArmA&cat=sp), I used live conversations twice.  Once for an interrogation observed by the player, and another between the player and the survivor of the interrogation.   In both cases I had to handle the case where the interrogater, the captive, or the player might be killed, which would terminate the conversation.  Also, the Interrogation conversation would be terminated if the Interrogators spotted the player or his team.  Attached are the .sqf scripts for these two conversations.  Eventhough these are sqfs, they are easy to read, and you could easily enough code the same using .sqs.

Here's some sample code from the interrogate script:

Code: [Select]
comment "hardass says: u are friently with north?";
if (alive hardass1 and alive civ1 and !gInterrogatorDetectEast) then
{
  hardass1 dowatch civ1;
  civ1 dowatch hardass1;
  hardass1 say "s1_friendly_w_norteno";
  hardass1 globalchat localize "STR_s1_friendly_w_norteno";
  sleep 3;
};

comment "civ1 says: no";
if (alive hardass1 and alive civ1 and !gInterrogatorDetectEast) then
{
  hardass1 dowatch civ1;
  civ1 dowatch hardass1;
  civ1 say "c1_no";
  civ1 sidechat localize "STR_c1_no";
  sleep 1;
};

In this code you see how each line of dialog is within an IF statement, so the dialog will not be said unless both hardass1 and civ1 are alive, and the interrogators have not detected the east (which is determined by a global variable set by a West detects East trigger).

So its not too hard to have live conversation that stops if one of the talkers is killed. 

Give it a try, I think its worth it.

And, when are you going to get ARMA?

Have fun,

Johnnyboy
El Cojon: "Do you like to Tango?"
You: "Only in Bagango."
Download Last Tango in Bagango and discover how El Cojon earned his name...