(Review Completed) [SP] Village De-Pacification v4.3

[RKurtzDmitriyev]

There still remain a few things that would better the mission in my opinion and address a few more concerns but as it stands, its better than it was.

I'm really trying to control myself against putting in another huge revising spree, but just out of curiosity: what, in your opinion, would better the mission?  

BTW, I'm glad you were able to finish it. I take it the ending cutscene worked?

You must be an excellent player, because I can't complete even this easier version, even though I made it and play WGL all the time, and you can complete it even though you hate the mod.

And also BTW thanks for the review Krieg, hopefully I can test some of your projects now.

Sure, voice actors won't receive Oscar for their work, but it still is a large plus to the mission.

You do realize that all the "voice actors" were me, don't you?

Also, if you really miss AI voices, you can re-enable them as described at the bottom of the first post here.

[Krieg]

You do realize that all the "voice actors" were me, don't you?  

Now that you say it, I realize that all voices are remarkably similar and that they must have came from the same person, in this case, the author...    

Fixed!

[savedbygrace]

The ending cutscene is fine, aside from the zipping camera, it was not a bad attempt. The beginning cutscene made very little sense to me and was also annoying because it had to be played at each restart. What I normally do is design my intros in a clean slate mission template so that I can interact with the environment to setpos things with precision, preview things to ensure all the timing works smoothly before cutting and pasting it into my actual mission Intro. If you start your mission with a beinning cutscene, it may be a good idea to insert a savegame at mission start. Which brings up another issue.

One way to improve the mission would be to insert a few savegames after specific stages in the mission, such as at start after the cutscene, after the initial assault and the village is liberated and maybe after the first wave before the second wave gets too close.

I still think you should have added civilian vehicles to the town since there were actual civilians residing there. They would have been good for additional cover while moving around the city. You could have locked them too if you didnt want the player cruising.

The medic tent in town was crushed by armor and my medic was KIA which seriously reduced the gameplay since it made my aim suck. I was actually able to micro manage my men to the point of ending the mission with three in tow this time and if not for their Super Ai spotting, it would have made my progress slow. So, you may want to move the medic tent to a more protective place or add another in a fenced in courtyard. There is nothing worse than hammering the enemy with excellent tactics then being wounded with no way to heal, especially with no savegames.

Other than that, everything seemed fine.

[RKurtzDmitriyev]

Thank you for your response.

Having a savegame after that beginning cutscene is a good idea, I don't know why I didn't think of it before. It isn't too late to put that in now, is it? I will also consider a savegame after wave 1, but I'll have to think about it.

[savedbygrace]

It's never too late.

[RKurtzDmitriyev]

Oh, gee, thanks for getting that song stuck in my head. 

Haha, anyway, new version 3.36 with savegame after initial cutscene and a few civilian vehicles added for decoration.

Unfortunately, as I was playing through to design this, I did, in fact, get a crash, very similar to the ones I was having earlier throughout OFP. Frankly I've got nothing but speculation now. I was playing in 1280 X 1024 resolution, and maybe that's what did it in even with this new card.

I don't think that it is a global variable since the screen just freezes. It may be something like many scripts running at once depending on how you play the mission and that could be induced by the mod as well as your mission build.

I wouldn't think it's many scripts running at once. There should be at most 2 scripts looping simultaneously, 3 if you count one with an @ command. I've even eliminated that @ in the latest version.

One looping script is in beastcomms.sqs and checks whether they're all dead, and the other is in recon.sqs and looks for enemy reinforcements.

There are other scripts but they should take only a few seconds to run through. It doesn't sound like something a modern computer couldn't handle. Then again, this is OFP we're talking about.

[savedbygrace]

I truly want to say that it is the mod you're using because my mission is nearly island wide, dynamic and loaded with scripting and I only get a burst of lag when areas spawn. Aside from that, I am using oodles of particle scripts that are lag inducers in their own right and I have yet to see a slowdown or freeze of any kind.
The last time I had a crash was due to an addon that a mission author used in their project. I have not had a chance to retest your mission but hopefully soon.

[Krieg]

Just tested the new version.
Everything seems to work out fine.
All improvements noted!

[RKurtzDmitriyev]

Thank you Krieg.

I'm not planning to add anything really substantial, so your review should still stand.

I have not had a chance to retest your mission but hopefully soon.

Thank you, I'll look forward to it.

[savedbygrace]

I began playing your latest version tonight and events unfolded slightly different from before.

On all of the other playtests, I was able to take my time moving my men into position before Ordering Beast into the battle. This time around, Beast was spotted sooner than I could maneuver and the battle began early.
It was not necessarily a bad thing as it removed much of the attention from my squad and we were able to get inside the town before we began taking casualties. This time I was smart and wiped out the chopper that was dropping off infantry which made things much easier. I also was able to wipe out all armor before the area was flooded with infantry. The choppers posed a real challenge this time and actually got on my nerves. Well, mainly because the new type rpg was hard to figure out for distant shots.

Anyways, I was down to just infantry before I decided to call it quits. Not because the mission was too difficult but because I grew very tired of reloaded after game freezes. I still think its the mod because the game froze while in many different spots during many different types of actions. Luckily, I was able to take the city, wipe out all air and ground units before the counter attack arrived. I saved it before the counter attack and would have to reload my save from there each time the game froze (I stopped counting after 10 reloads).

I didn't want to stop playing because I know it is beatable. I definitely did not want to withdraw after accomplishing so much with my force so I kept at it until I grew tired of making progress and then having to reload when it froze.

It's a good, tough challenge but not worth the frustration of losing well earned ground to reload.

[RKurtzDmitriyev]

It's a good, tough challenge but not worth the frustration of losing well earned ground to reload.

Many thanks for your test, and I'm glad you enjoyed the challenge of the mission itself.

This is quite a bummer though. I'm not sure how to proceed. I can't seem to get it to freeze as consistently as you can. As noted above, I have experienced exactly 1 freeze during this mission since getting my new video card. Even that one could be completely unrelated to OFP, since I'm still getting strange freezes throughout my computer from time to time (just surfing the internet, for example).

I will have to test some more myself to see if I can get any more freezes.

Maybe I could try an experiment: make a conversion to vanilla OFP:Res and see if anyone still reports freezing. I still would really prefer WGL mod. I respect your very low opinion of WGL, but some people (such as me and many CiA server regs) really like it.

Are you 200% certain that you're not playing with any addons that could be conflicting with WGL mod? I hate to ask such a question, but since it's come to this, I feel I must.

So thanks once again, and I'll get to work on this mission again.

[savedbygrace]

I only run what is required when I beta test missions. Sorry, I don't mean to sound like such a pain over the mod and some of it's content does become familiar after a while so it's not all that bad but I still dislike the authors choice to remove the sound.

Aside from that I too am puzzled by the freezes. No other mission has frozen for me before.

[RKurtzDmitriyev]

I still dislike the authors choice to remove the sound.

If you like you can easily re-enable the voices as described here (bottom of first post).

And no, you don't sound like a pain, I appreciate your dedication in trying to slog through a mission that's freezing all the time.

[savedbygrace]

I DID re add the sounds to that mod and am ready for another play. Is there anything that I can help you on this one?

[RKurtzDmitriyev]

I DID re add the sounds to that mod and am ready for another play. Is there anything that I can help you on this one?

Why, thank you. And I can't think of anything in particular, since freezing is the biggest issue.