(Review Completed) [SP] Deep Water

[bedges]

hawkins, you are the saviour of the impatient sir

d/l now...

[The-Architect]

Cheers Hawkins.  

[bedges]

mkay - this will take a while on and off, i'm giving this a proper beta shakedown (killing my own guys, dancing in front of the hostage takers, that kind of thing) so i'll add to just this post as i go along...

intro

again, there are the vehicle shots in which there's hardly any vehicle. the first vehicle shot in fact has two tyre tracks and that's it. the voices are pretty low-volume, but still understandable.

some of the black-outs are too quick, gives a jumpy feel to the thing - dunno if that's just flashpoint catching up or what...

briefing

siterep - "it's a village called..."
infiltration - "Sat-Comm"?
aaa threat - "can't allow those guns..." last link has a bracket on its own line...
enemy forces - "please note that there is..."

mission

hmmm. skipped the swim again, collected goodies, sort of a repeat of last time (up to the lighthouse first) but after dropping the two guards up there, the alarm went off in the village. neither of them saw me, so what's up? someone saw my buddies left at the jetty? i shall investigate...

more soon/

[Hawkins]

Gave this another go.

At some points, the intro feeled a bit long, especially during the name blackouts. Also, it would be great to know what the guys did who are mentioned, or at least say "Thanks to..." or sth.
Some of the voices are really low-volume. If possible, could you boost their volume up a bit?
This time the alarm went off when we attacked the village, this didn't happen last time. Maybe we we're too fast then.
I took out one Flak that was on the north side of the ville, near the road. Another one was stationed at the south end inside the fences. I was gonna take that one out, but to my astonishment, there was a SEAL manning it... Ok I thought... Bravo must've beat me to it and decided to use it against the enemy.
Enemy reinforcements started to arrive just before our chopper got to the beach. Some guy must've slipped past me, but I remember killing the "runner" that left the ville in that jeep. Anyway, our gunships took care of most of them and we got off without any injuries.
When I checked the intro on the previous version, I noticed a three man patrol inside the woods to the west of the ville. I wondered then how on earth had I evaded them, but this time we ran into them but took care of them before they were able the cause any grief to us.
Didn't remember to check out the castle this time.
Didn't notice any scripting errors or anything. Though, when the alarm went off this time and the resistance guys shouted trivolka or however you spell that, it played three times in a row, each time overlapping the previous shout. The shout seemed to come from the same guy. Not a biggie though, it just caught my ear.

[The-Architect]

Cheers guys. It seems like everytime I update new things come up.

@Bedges
I think what you said about Flashpoint catching up makes sense. Everything works as it should when I run it through, but I've usually stopped and started enough for Flashpoint to get its act together. Maybe I'll add something in the Readme that says you should run a BIS cutscene first. I dunno what else I can do there.

I'll get on those spelling errors.

If you left guys at the Jetty chances are they were detected. There's the APC that goes by plus a foot patrol.

@Hawkin
I agree with the length of the cutscene. I might do away with the blackouts altogether and put everybody's name at the end. What do you guys think?

Will look at the Volume again.

I'm stunned about the SEAL too. I think I figured it out though. I used the ManMG script. Maybe there's a problem with sides. I'll look into it.

Runners x2  ;D

I left the Castle up to you. I think its obvious that you shouldn't blow it up. I did add some full ammo crates though. Maybe I'll add a trigger which will alert the base if you blow it.

Cheers for your time guys, I'll get right on it.  

[Acecombat]

I cant find the crates , can anybody tel this blind man where they are?  

[bedges]

as mentioned in the briefing   they are hidden in the reeds on the left of the concrete jetty as you swim in...

[Jim666]

I'll try this as soon as i get home.

I was downloading the addons last night, but i ofp.info was going slow, and some of the downloads lost connection so i lost track of what i had.

I'll redownload tonight though, then post a review.

[Acecombat]

I did look there but no otpions came up as they usually do when you near a crate and i thought they werent there  

[Mikero]

@Hawkins

thank you

OFP 1.96, Veteran, Benchmark 5895, no super ai

Readme

excellent and clear to understand.

BUG

a zip, along with the rangerpath folder is included in addons


Overview:

I nice picture being a different, narrow format. Crisp, clear and easy to see what the hell it is.

I like to see version numbers and author advertising. These are not present.

Intro:

IMPRESSIVE! You just keep watching, don't you.

Impressive use of Myst style music. This intro has very little flashy bang bangs, and you just keep watching.

Good use of serriffed text. Almost impossible to make courier readable. That was well done.

BUG

Formosa

needs to be listed later, perception is, this is the Island we will go to.


BUG

Colinsville..... something.

flashed before I read it.

some later text, same session was a little too quick, the above, flashed by.


I am assuming the attack is early morning, it's a little fuzzy on my monitor.

I dont like the triple assault on the brat. What I think you were attempting was a 3 hit punch before he fell. But it smacks of cheesyness, overdone brutality as if this will be all this mission is.

Rarely seen testers mentioned in this way. You just keep watching, not because I want my name in lights too, it just 'works', it makes the intro deeply involving, backed by music, as in, "My god, just how much work has gone into this mission?" asks the player. Good stuff.

final briefing in 'barn' didn't work too well for me visually, again, a fuzziness issue. Would suggest, and ONLY suggest, you darken the speaker even MORE so that, effectively, it's the lamp you are attracted to.

BUG

speech volume is suddenly turned down, muffled. Llater in the mission proper, I get blasted out of my chair by the speakers! Please fix that.


Terrorist: says

NOPE. you dont need his moniker, others yes, but no need for the initial labelling, it detracts.

Final comment, very good situational awareness in initial scene with the continual flicking back to the focal point.

Briefing:

Plan:

typo

IN the Barents Sea

typo

no comma required.

suggestion.

because you mention the time, i would reword it to

wakeup. You are aboard.....

I think you trapped yourself there. I would have used "2am" to give myself some leverage as to when we actually do kick off.

additionals:

slightly misleading

"the chopper we rode in on", well, yes, in the intro, but it contradicts the zodiac and jarrs.

HA!

"make a note of it" I sure did! with a quadruple double click <grin>

Friendly forces

I would not mention Bravo again in later paragraph, i would say "this team". The impression is, it's another team, and not the bravo who did the power station.

"without much worry"

you meant to imply

"without retaliation"


"please not" = please note. And, I would drop the please.

----

the best briefing I've encountered. A story and mission in itself. Richness in detail, easy on the eyes, and well laid out. Some minorest of missing commas not worth mentioning.


Notes:

beautifully presented. I agree with the sentiment, but, it doesn't ring true that ANY government would NOT attempt a sas style mission for it's citizens. It would be foremost, and often dismissed, but, I bet, everyone out there has 'contignency plans' it's part of Special forces (substitute sas for the equivalent) raison d'etre


1 minor niggle that, because it reads well regardless.
----

Gear:

I'm not familiar with any of this stuff so I always assume the author has equipped me 'reasonably'. if not, it's an -endmission

Group:

surprised we aren't listed. I like to see the skill factor.

Map;

Nasty, very cleverly done.

Niggle:

I needed to see target markers on (most of) the objectives. I think you DELIBERATELY removed them to force us to read the details. In which case, you are forgiven and blessed.

selection tabs.

u have to be careful with short burst clicks, audio prodigy's in particular are notorious and produce the blue screen of death.


Mission:

Eek! NVG immediately.

BUG

Zodiac is too high out of water.

Lovely use of snow. Fantastic.

BUGish

occaisonal, unexplained 'stop swimming' action.

Distance.

you MUST reword your 'briefing' to make player aware that this WILL be a very, very, long swim, elsewise, we think it's a bug.

suggestion only

"Infiltrate the Island" objective = "Swim a very long way (to Island)"

suggestion:

if you want to make it a tuff one, remove the x4 ability

BUGish

i tell my sqaud to disembark, they remain in 'disembarking' mode during swim. Perhaps cripple this ability for the swim


Immensely relieved to have feet on land, that god damn island just wasn't getting closer. very well done.


Have plenty of time to observe brighter lights, M2 nest?. (I came in slightly SW)

Offensive language:

Overdone, and, offensive. It's supposed to be humorous. It isn't.


Turns out I landed exactly square on, cia guy is in front.

BUGgy

I expected a conversation trigger when i met him. It was a bit full on before him. Quite a bit missed from 'traffic' noise.

Suggestion: echo is ready after i get very close to cia?

Annoyance:

although I 'agree' no objective markers on breifing, i think I deserve them on the map.

I get the squad to hold fire while there's traffic about, a BTR and possibly something else

I don't know if six auto loaded a radio, but i get others to drop their breathers.

Minor irritation. put / on off diving mask?

I give #2 a law, but he can't get more than one, he gets stuck.

Tower

nicely done, hidden tent stuff. I have a few retries here becuase I'm in beta search mode, not sneak mode. Am surprised by the innacuracy of this weapon, and, the need to hit three times the kevlar armour of the enemy.

I like savegames as a feedback to player. Their use as retry's are secondary.

Just before the savehame, echo (snipers) tells me of a runner on the beach. This surprises me, there's nothing I can do about it I'm too far away. I check back on briefing to see who echo are and where they might be.

This is dangerous stuff because looking at notes during fights mean you lose the notes forever if killed. Really need an 'echo' on the map please.

Ok, so the snipers are overloooking st pierre, this makes me decide to go flush that town out before doing much further 'objectives'.

As i head towards St Pierre there's more msg about tanky things arriving in other village. I hit a savegame to test the tower again. Seems like this 'runner' is a zone trigger if I approach tower.

I get to st pierre in time to see a brdm? moving it's way north. So , nothing really I can do about this. I would have had to knock the 'runner' off, before heading to my tower objective.


we start taking out a few nasties running about St P. The noises from my SILENCED? guns astonish me.

The enemy ai doesn't seem very bright, and later, they appear to turn very nasty indeed.

A few retries involved while I rummage around. There's a T72 mincing about, and I decide that since some sort of alarm has happened (armour in other village) I might as well open up.

retry. splattered by m2nest lighthouse side of town.

retry. splattered by brdm on lighthouse side, #2 is hopeless with rpg

retry. splattered by 2 nasties in road near lighthouse


BUG?

i can heal, none of my team can.

retry. splattered at castle.

found ammo crates, is this why #2 can't load from beach? engine is confused?

All round, nasties in unexpected areas of map, are great.

I get overlooking St pierre, there's a T72 attcking it's own buildings which suit me. A general indication that reinforements are coming from west.

various retries as I knock off m2 nests, and that damn nast AA flak gun.

BUG

div zero error when I ran back towards lighthouse and scoped a brdm

even more retries.

a great msg from snipers saying 2 loons are on their way to castle.

I retry from tower again. This time, I clear castle and come down into woods, I hold fire until we see a lot of things, in the meantime radioing bravo to get on with it.


a squad of nasties come at us in forest, 9 o'clock. savage cheatsaves involved


#5 says he's out of ammo. I check, and this is THE FIRST TIME, a squad member is, truly out of ammo. Did you script fix that engine bug???


possible BUG

because he's out of ammo, i can also get him to medic himself. First time i can to a wounded squaddie.


plenty of flares going off as Bravo start zapping tanks

BUG

anohter div zero error.

I zap a tank and eventually meet up with Bravo, I shoot one of them because they are same uniform, or very close to, the Resistance. In the dark, tuff to discern. Because of that I pretty much lose interest in the mission as being too tricky, too cute.

Kill the brat accidentally of course, nice voiceover, get the last AA gun, call in chopper who doesn't in fact have much to do. The crates that i could have got more rpg from are suddenly unavailable.

Noticed the barn with bodies.

Appreciated the considerable time for events to happen. Nothing more yawning that radio something and it all just starts. 4 mins is nice

Liked the feedback radio stuff as far as where choppers were and would go. This mitigates the lack of info on the map.

call in evac, and off we go.


OVerall

MAN this is a tough mission to play AND test. I had about an hours gametime enjoyment here.

the same uniform Bravo pretty much spoilt it for me though, it was quite tough enough thanks.


Personal Rating?

A definite 8+ when some small irrirations are fixed up.

[Mikero]

 More 'undocumented features'

i gave this another run through. This time, a far far easier time of it. basically took out the lighthouse, tower, castle, rpg'd the two artillery pieces and then called in the cobra.

bugz

the cobra inexplicably decided to land behind buildings, north and just stayed there humming it's engines. (all armour destroyed)

From a savegame after tower (I think), there was NO presense of the reinforcement armour,  despite radio msgs to the contrary. They simply never appeard.

Outro

loved it, plus the best choice of limited music. Not sure about using courier on that, your choice of course.

typo

THE guys at ofpec

I would add the word "how do you rate our 'allies'"

meaning these spetz (of course) are our friends this time round. Not obvious, you have to delve into the briefing a bit

Unless there's a technical reason to do so, putting Spetz as a moniker to their conversation is overkill (not so HQ of course)

[The-Architect]

Jeez, that's a lot to get through. A lot of valid point though. I'm gonna get right on it. You know, there is an option to skip the swim. Although its only highlighted to you in Cadet mode.  

You said "u have to be careful with short burst clicks, audio prodigy's in particular are notorious and produce the blue screen of death."

I have no idea what that means. Please elaborate.

The alarms will go off if you are detected. if you were seen near the beach then reinforcments will be called for. If the radio tower is down then someone will have to drive to get reinforcments. If both runners are killed then reinforcments won't arrive at all. They automatically come down once you've lifted the hostage though.

There's so much to reply to I think I'll just stop here and get on with the fixes instead. Bear with me.  :-\

[bedges]

few other points.

the loon hidden on the radio tower remains in crouch position when shot. this happens in pretty much every animated loon dispatch.

shot whomever was in the aagun, error message - '_gunner = _units select _closestUnit|#|':Error Zero divisor. this popped up a few times afterwards.

i checked out the alarm raising thing - it was all down to me stumbling about   frankly i think you could get away with being a bit more ruthless about the stealth - there's the report globalchat inside the apc, so if it's being asked to report, perhaps it's not that much of a stretch to imagine that each time the apc goes up to (for example) the castle ruins, the driver will expect a wave from one of the guards.

i went through it nice and carefully, the whole village was cleared and both runners were eliminated, and yet the reinforcements arrived on calling the evac choppers. that doesn't beggar belief, just unexpected is all. it's fair to expect at least one of the enemy would get word out. and i've just re-read your last post, so that'll be why

i took out the AA gun in saint pierre, but the 'destroy aa gun' objective didn't check off. you may wish to make it more clear that it's the second (hidden) aa gun that the objective refers to.

on the guards, they're standing about outside, there's light snow, some - the tower guards - are in the middle of nowhere... i realise you're limited by the game to some extent, but perhaps they could be listening to music, drinking - might fit in with the briefing line explaining that they're not all that well trained nor disciplined. just a thought. otherwise the constant movement of patrols and occasional animations are pretty cool - why not make use of the smoking script again? didn't see anyone else toking...

had a look at the intro and outros in the editor - it wasn't flashpoint catching up. the car is out of shot as it fades in. having looked at cameraI.sqs, i notice you don't fully black out before fading in again. this may have something to do with it, dunno, but again, the shots last a good 4 seconds too long imo, well after the vehicle has left the shot.

the outros are both very well done, although i confess i was a wee bit confused as to why the russians were moving in after the fact. there was one shot in the winning outro, the chopper dropping the parachutes, that lasted a bit long too. but aye, nice shots, nice light. there are priests in the 'farmland people' addon you might want to look at, but otherwise the guy in white does the trick nicely. poignant

good stuff.

[Mikero]

@bedges

apologies. My comment that "typos wern't worth mentioning" applied to AFTER all your fixes.

@arch

>jeez that's a lot to get through.

that's a compliment to me that I did my job properly.

> you can skip the swim

yes, i knew and I don't want you to allow that. Just make it blitheringly obvious it will be a LONG swim. if you can't, start me closer. It took AGES even from the first land visual. This is as tough and as good as you want to make it, but you have to let player know that it's not one of those start in boat and get out things, it's a long, long, very long, swim. Player must pay attention to his compass, if not. Tough.

>short burst clicks.

some sound cards, on some cpus, resent this (diary selection tabs). Your short clicks to each page can cause cpu crash.

@bedges again.

I 'forgot' to remember that. The guard, top of tower remained at attention, it was only the savegame cutting in that told me he was dead !

>area triggers

I had no issue with it, i 'discovered' the two loons at top of castle later on, it would be 'obvious' to me, they would shout a warning if they saw anything.

[456820]

okay then now ive been bothered to download the addons so heres my review

Overview
Very nice work here i love this overview.

Briefing
Well its fine apart from i wish there were a few links to markers becasue i didnt know where everything was.

Mission
Very good all the sounds work i got up to the hill near the castle ruins and started to take out resistance in Saite Pierre until some men came out of no where still dont know where they came from and wasted my whole squad then me.
Anyway all sounds seem to work there were a few missiong words from the text on the screen something to work on maybe but it doesn matter much

Overall
This is a great mission as it is just needs some very slight modification like the links to markers would serously help becasue i didnt know what objective i was heading to.
And i didnt know that there were more than just us 6 in the mission then i relise about bravo and ech i think and i wondered what they were doing they just said they were in place to attack attack what? the town the flak cannons the radio tower