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Offline NightJay0044

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What's your liking in making missions?
« on: 10 Apr 2009, 06:41:06 »
Hi, I want to do a post about people in creating missions. It's very siimple.

When you think of creating a mission, what's your first thought and motivation for it?

If your stuck on creating an idea, how do you get past it?

If you say to yourself, there are a bunch of missions out there already how do I create one that hasn't been done already?

My idea is to broaden the horizon on this subject. To get ides out there ot help me and others create missions because frankly I get stuck at even starting to create a mission.

Cheers,
NightJay
Who's hyped for Arma4, long live Arma!

Offline mathias_eichinger

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Re: What's your liking in making missions?
« Reply #1 on: 10 Apr 2009, 11:26:35 »
Hi NightJay!

My motivation for creating missions is to have an enjoyable product in the end. That said, I do it for the joy of others and therefore I am motivated by beta tests. I think you can learn from any beta test: The more negative ones help you to fill any gaps in your own knowledge and the positive ones are a real reward for all these hours building and testing all over.

How do I get ideas for missions? My first source is

http://www.military-sf.com/resource1.htm, especially the "Military Targets" and "Missions" sections.
I just take up a keyword from these sections and try to imagine what mission I could create around that, find the proper locations, and decide on which units to use.

A while back, I created the storyline for our OFPEC campaign. While I have toyed with the thought of doing a completely different mission with addons ever since, I keep coming back to the campaign because the broad outlines for a number of missions are already there.

You can find all about it here:
http://www.ofpec.com/forum/index.php?topic=32603.0

If I finally decide to use unit addons and a different world other than Sahrani, Wikipedia is a source of inspiration. There's a list of wars:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars where you can just pick the war your favourite unit addon has participated our could participate in.

A more or less detailed description of all the world's armies is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_total_troops

And if you are - like I am - into obscure, small armies, you can cross-check
the list of camouflage patterns
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_camouflage_patterns
with the list of assault rifles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assault_rifles

As an example, you can find that Albania uses the US Woodland pattern BIS has already supplied a set of soldiers with and it uses the AK-47.
So, with a lot of artistic license concerning helmets, load bearing gear and support weapons (MGs, RPGs) by giving the standard woodland soldiers Kalashnikovs, you can create an interesting "What if" scenario against the Serbian addons out there. Or against whom you just like to be up against.

Hope this helps!

Cheers

Mathias

Offline NightJay0044

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Re: What's your liking in making missions?
« Reply #2 on: 10 Apr 2009, 19:07:24 »
Hey Mathias, thanks for the info, yes that is what I'm looking for with the first link you gave me. It's hard to come up with ideas by yourself sometimes.

Quote
http://www.military-sf.com/resource1.htm, especially the "Military Targets" and "Missions" sections.
I just take up a keyword from these sections and try to imagine what mission I could create around that, find the proper locations, and decide on which units to use.

I checked out that website and clicked on missions. That should give a person a few ideas of creating something.

As for addons, I don't really use addons much, just depends if it fits the mission but I did briefly look at your campaign, sounds like a pretty good one, I'll have to read into it more though.  :), possibly a future time.
Who's hyped for Arma4, long live Arma!

Offline Zipper5

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Re: What's your liking in making missions?
« Reply #3 on: 14 Apr 2009, 10:13:10 »
I make missions very often, it's one of my favorite things to do in ArmA. Only 1 out of 50 I actually finish, however, as I usually hit a wall in terms of something not working that should be working but, simply because of ArmA, it doesn't. My motivation tends to be because of a story I see or read, or an idea someone posts up (read: the OFPEC campaign), or usually it's from missions others have made. I try to take that idea and either adapt it or expand it when making the mission and try to add my "personal touch", so to say, to make it different from the other missions of the same type that are already out there, if there are any.

I also tend to prefer not using addons in my missions as it makes it easier for people to download, install and play. Sometimes I'll use addons as it, again, adds my "personal touch" to make it stand out from the sea of stock ArmA units in missions. However, I have yet to finish a mission using addons as they can sometimes turn out to be what's breaking the mission.

Offline firegraphite

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Re: What's your liking in making missions?
« Reply #4 on: 16 Apr 2009, 05:25:20 »
Hi All!

Well, I primary started making missions because I felt like here are stuff that my friends and I would like but couldn't find anywhere. Or something that I felt might get improved. Basically I got ideas of my own, then my friends would suggest something I'd incorporate if I think its cool. And then what happens is that the missions I started making wound up quite differently than what I intended.

Also some movies. There are these movies that I'd like to implement in some missions. With emphasis on the action and not just the cinematics. I know I'm not the only one who looks to the movies. The Normandy Landing (Saving Private Ryan/The Longest Day) is probably the most famous (or infamous?). Its basically been replicated thousands of times. LoL. Then there's Enemy At the Gates' sniper vs. sniper action. And a whole other bunch of other movies that spawned a legion of missions. LoL.

I remember a particular campaign, Everon Vice by Barton and Barton(?). Really fun satire off some movies. James Bond, Die Hard, The Fast and The Furious, etc. LoL! Hahaha. I was having difficulty with some missions there but I just couldn't help laughing :P

Right now I'm actually thinking about how to implement the action-packed extraction at the end of "Behind Enemy Lines". Never easy but that one would be most cool. Helicopters trying to keep a horde of mechanized infantry with BMPs at bay while our man tries to get on one of the choppers. Although on a real world perspective, I'd say that guy's chances of making it out alive are near impossible. Now there's that challenge of making it more possible while retaining the best of the action. But that's another story.

Also I checked that website mentioned by matthias_eichinger. Wow. Lots of potential mission ideas there. Its a powderkeg of ideas or more like a roomful of explosives waiting to explode. LoL :good:

Cheers all!!  :)