Hey
This has been racking my brain for years, missions that are so utterly immersive and expansive, realistic that they stand out above all the rest, missions that continue on for hours/days, mp or single player.
I do understand the huge amount of time and effort required to pull of these style missions, and to even call them missions would not really be right, more like seperate 'games' in themselves.
A few missions have been released that have come close to my idea of what a really great ofp mission could be, but what I dream of can be done, and hasent yet.
Heck, I even spent huge amounts of time writing up a detailed description of this sort of mission, a mission which really didnt even have a definite end nor actual 'primary' objectives, aside from trying to survive and maybe even prosper within a very 'volitile' and alive enviornment. But as time wore on through making the mission I realized that I personally no longer have the time nor the energy to work on a mission for the next 6 months after having just recently spent 3 years working on my completed GR mod, that alone was difficult to fit in with my busy work schedule and vowed to never again.
So, heres my rough description of what would be nice to see in a mission, I wont actually describe the mission I spent time starting on in case it actually does get done someday(yea right
).
Entire island utilized
An alive enviornment, not just a few guys hanging out in towns, real stuff goin on with a purpose. Convoys. And not just dumb whatever convoys, give every action a reason. Convoy moving from a town to another town to transport and sell goods? Convoy moving to carry troops to reinforce a position? Convoy moving arms and ammo? And stuff like that, the convoy dosent just get from A - B and thats it, like to see it ALL - guys get out, give em a continuous purpose to their cause, maybe moving to and from the supply vehilces as if unloading the supplies.
Civilian actions, realistic to their situation. Interactual scenarios would be nice too. Another words not just civilians thrown around to and fro to make it seem more 'immersive' , give em a purpose, give em a real life.
A heck of alot more involved in the mission than just killing, the scripting possibilites for ofp are almost limitless. CTI proved that. Make a huge realistic money system, where you can goto certain places and buy, just like in CTI, and even sell.
And so the players can interact with this alive enviornment, join fights, fight eachother if desired, buy weapons/vehicles, explore, go on adventures for rewards that are usefull, and much more all in a mission that may be able to go on and on. And of course realistic negative reactions should be implemented for players attempting to ransack freindly areas, to remove cheating possibilities and to also allow total freedom with realistic consequences. And players can accumulate money and get better weapons/vehicles etc.
And oh yea, only 1 or 2 ai instead of having 6-12 guys to try to manage. If the enviornment is done right in this sort of mission it should easily be enough and not need to provide such massive armies, which would only distract players from being immersed in the experience. And also allowing one or two ai would put a high price on finding good, well skilled ai to join you in such a mission, rather than having a dumb soldier that cant shoot strait. Of course this also helps manage lag and individualizes the mission and lastly gives everyone a chance even if they arent experts in strategically managing their ai yet still allows ai avaliable to efficiently use tanks and such.
I'll put this bluntly: No mindless unit spawning. I have seen enough of this in missions that would have been much better without it. Spawning units can be good for lag, but dammit if a unit is gonna be spawned, it should be done in a manner where that spawned unit will function as if it Had Been There The Whole Time, thats how its supposed to be. Spawning units should be a very presise science where the player should Never know there was any units spawned, nor should a player be 'jipped' of a righteous victory because of unfair unit spawning. I wont go any farther on that.
As I stated, an alive enviornment. Some sort of alive 'system' that really works, and keeps on working. Towns trading with eachother, ai groups waging war at times that players can get involved with, the list goes on, an alive island, the real deal.
And im not typing this to bash missions that are out there, Im typing this cause I cant find it in me to do this thing myself and I really want to play a mission like this, it can be done, this I do know. The mission that I started work on thats similiar to this sort has already been described in detail in text documents, its all doable, but I cant spend that sort of time on mission modding anymore.
Anyhow, its all whatever. This is just a concept for missions that I will probably never see come true because most modders dont have the time to do it all. Back to looking for a good cti game online ;D .