Roleplay style missions

[nominesine]

When I was younger I was a great fan of paper back roleplaying games (Ad&D, Warhammer RPG, Twilight 2000, Traveler, etc) and during 10 years of computergaming I have only found a similar experience in two (2) games: Baldur's Gate and our ever popular favourite OFP.

That's why I would like to post a wanted poster, here in the mission ideas forum. I urge you, all the skilled mission designers in the community, to design missions with a roleplay feeling. I'm sure you can do it.

What do I mean by a roleplay feeling?

1) A mission with a story line that develops "in-game". Not a story line that is presented only in the briefing and then followed by an action-packed-firefight. Preferebly the story line is presented with  cutscenes and voice acting, but clues like maps, rsc-pictures, etc that you can find in-game.

2) A MP mission that you can play in a LAN with your friends (or over the internet using Teamspeak). In order for the missions to be replayable they need a certain element of randomness.

3) A mission that includes several objectives, or possible ways to complete an objective. This is to ensure that the players need to talk and cooperate in order to achieve their goals.

To put it simple, I would like to have the feeling from BIS CWC-campaign or the FDF-campaign in a MP-environment. I know, of course, that it's impossible to create a campaign in MP-mode with the current game engine.

But how to create a similar feel in a MP-environment then?

My suggestion is to create small mini-campaigns of MP-missions, like several people does from time to time. I made a humble attempt to show what I mean by releasing my missions named AF01 MANHUNTER, AF02..., ...03, ...04 etc in the missions depot today (and please don't classify this as advertizing, because i'm trying to raise a general question  ;D).

This is the best I can do myself to achieve what I am looking for. But there is mission designers far more skilled than I am in the community, and therefore i would like to start this topic before a larger audience than my closest circle of gaming-friends.

Feedback please. Anyone else who share this RPG-wish???

  /nominesine

Post Scriptum: for those of you who are too young to remember, the abbrevation RPG (in the gaming community) meant Role Playing Game, before OFP changed it to Rocket Propelled Grenade.

[C0LDSt33L]

Hi. Bored_Onion and I are currently working on a campaign for OFP. Although pretty far from a classical rpg: it does include a lot of elements that you mentioned may provide a roleplay feeling.

For us story is always very important as is its involvement in the missions. Hence our story develops in-game with revelations being delivered mid-mission. You'll also be pleased to hear that there is full voice acting throughout as well as using custom resources.

One of the things we did in the development of the campaign was to look at reviews of previous missions and campaigns to emulate what they did right and avoid what they did wrong. It appeared randomness was important to replayability so we have made a point of including it in every mission where appropriate. There will also probably be LAN versions of the missions available for download (I'm a great fan of LAN myself  ;D)
There are also many missions including the ability to take objectives in multiple ways.

It's mainly single-player though so perhaps you're not interested but I share your dream. If your interested in the campaign you can visit the website (there's a link in my signature).

Anyway, if anyone made a multiplayer mini-campaign with a roleplay feel I'd be pretty interested in playing it.

[Texas]

In the capmaign we are designing (The Civil war is the temporary name) we want to make it that a player can chose his side throguh his actions and influence the outcome of the campaign.

[nominesine]

I'm keeping an eye out for both of your campaigns, but I still want to get this feeling in MP environment. By trial and error method, I've found that intros and voice acting in MP helps, even if it means more time staring at the "Sending..."-screen, waiting for a fat download.  

But I think that you (both of you) are right... the important factor is user interaction. If my behaviour affects the plot/action, it increases the gaming experience.

Maybe I should do some time studying how to make local variavbles public. Then I will be able to design the missions I can do in SP-mode to MP