[CAMP] Black Lands 1.2

[Undeceived]

Title: Black Lands
Version: 1.2 (beta)
Author: Undeceived
Game type: Single player resistance campaign
Required game version: Arma 2 + Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead (V. 1.62)


Features:
- Story-driven resistance campaign (19 missions + cutscenes) with an enthralling plot about a group of men struggling against their enemies
- Custom music (including some self-composed titles)
- Many cutscenes, intros and outros
-  A mix of linear, straight-forward missions and wide and complex ones with many tasks
- Weapon pool (weapons and gear are forwarded and available in the next missions)
- Squad management system (get to know the background story of your men and chose your group for the next mission)


Description:
After the Russian army takes control over Chernarus, Tomas Cerny and his best friend Dimitri, among other war-survivors, form up a resistance movement. At first, the group is able to cause harm to the Russian intruders, but little by little, Tomas sees the strength of the movement crumbling and deteriorating. As eventually Dimitri is killed in an Russian ambush and Tomas, all at once, loses everything he loves and cares for, the resistance fighter finds himself all alone, devitalized and a broken man. In his darkest hour, Tomas is suddenly contacted by an agent of the U.S. intelligence, who is able to light up a small flame in the young Chernarussian again. Tomas learns that there are still people who want to rise up against the Russians. He is able to find new courage, meets new friends and goes on the most difficult journey of his life. He passes through adventures and defeats, experiences friendship as well as betrayal and faces survival and death.


Beta test (read this!):
- PLEASE help me with the correction of English grammar mistakes or strange expressions! Thanks!


Download:
All needed addons and installation instructions (check the readme) are contained in the download.
[CAMP] Black Lands 1.2 (beta) (154 MB)

[SaOk]

Have been waiting for this. Going to test right away. 

[Wiki]

going to test it too.but later, I'd like to test the whole campaign, as you've made all of the missions

[Undeceived]

Yes, they are finished, but not yet translated. And some minor configuring stuff needs to be done.

[Mad_Cheese]

ooohhhh snap. I'm getting a bag of chips for this. 

[Pirin]

I am having NO luck getting away from the bar.    

Ahh, never mind.  I went around back and asked a friendly soul for a light.  After some "persuasion" he helped me out.

Really enjoying this so far!

[Inlesco]

I've been waiting for a long, story-'n'dialog-driven campaign like this. Gave it a go today and here's the long-awaited (I hope ) feedback.


Intros

Great quality overall - well-chosen cam angles, good action scenes, fine music and a poetry-like storytelling with some unnecessary lines (I'm sure this will be improved as the campaign passes beta stage).

1st mission - Death came upon me (Afterwards)

An interesting concept. However, I didn't like the long run to the barn hideout through forests and all the dangers a typical Chernarus night 'offers' to us . The later scenes were rewarding, although a bit hyperbolized. But that's reasonable - it's an emotional crisis for the main character to see his friends murdered and being betrayed by a fellow. Also - the family, everything that matters... has been lost.

Despite some awkward design-decisions (long runs, scenes without the possibility to skip), it was enjoyable and new experience.

2nd mission - Awakening

Although this mission is quite linear, I liked it because it set the dots in a good way. Several scenes had too long dialogs and they didn't make much sense, possibly forcing player to skip or start to think that this is unworthy to watch throughoutly. I suggest to shorten the scenes and remake the dialogs a bit to sound more 'intelligent' and consistent.

3rd mission - Starting to inflame again

The first and IMO the most important remark - this mission must be divided in two. Why? It's too long. The boat drive isn't enjoyable at all and the car which was left at the light tower wasn't useful. I had to go on foot facing Russian patrols in the forest.

I experienced a weird bug - after the bartender was accidentally killed with a C4 (satchel charge), reloading the last save didn't work out - the bartender died and died time after time. Probably because of he was placed inside an object of the bar building. Correcting the placement pos might be the solution.

Overall, the atmosphere was lovely with some interesting ideas. Sorry to repeat myself, but... This mission must be divided in half .

4th mission - Setting-up time

Who doesn't like the sandbox-type gameplay? This took some time and was enjoyable at the max. Nothing to add, nothing to cut.

Conclusion

This has tons of potential to become one of the best (if not the best!) campaigns ever made for A2(CO). As I mentioned before, the first 4 missions should become 5 to make the experience smoother. There's a number of mistakes in the texts and unnatural english language expressions overall, but that is usually corrected later. As a person who holds a deep interest in video game soundtracks and music, I recognised many of the soundtracks you used.

An introduction to the features this campaign implements (weaponry inheritance through missions, etc) would be great for complete beginners to start. Of course, you can make it optional.

Technically, everything is fine so far.

IMO - the strongest features of this campaign are long, content cutscenes and an interesting, unique storyline.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the content and find out what'll happen next. Surprise me, Undeceived!

[Undeceived]

Inlesco, thanks a lot for your great test.

I'll look into it and will probably cut that mission in two.


About the language issues and unnatural sentences: @ Americans or Englishmen: Please give me a hand with this if you have some minutes of time. The campaign is available in German too, but English isn't my mother language... Thanks!

[Undeceived]

I'm thankful for Inlescos input about cutting the third mission in two, but I'm still unsure.

If someone else played the mission: Do you have the same impression that the mission is too long and would be better if divided in two?

What I also could do is to skip the boat journey from Chernogorsk to the light house. I think that it would have the same effect as cutting it in two parts.

What do you think (Inlesco as well)?

[savedbygrace]

I'll give it a go later tonight and see whats what.

[Undeceived]

Thx, mate!

[Inlesco]

I'm optimistic that you'll divide the 3rd mission in two parts. Those could be connected with a more accurate explanation of the storyline, characters, their past, how they became Chernarussian people, or even philosophical quotes etc. The possibilities are limitless. And finally you'll have a decent number of missions in total - 20.

[savedbygrace]

Played with latest beta on regular.
Overview
Great title font and image cropping!
Intro(s)
I'll work on English grammar corrections over the Thanksgiving holiday. You picked some spectacular angles throughout. The setpos scenes were great as well. There was a decent balance of action packed and somber scenes in there.

Briefing
Not much to say here.

Mission
Death Came upon me
I have to agree with Inlesco on this one. The task of evasion across Chernarus has been done to death, so the starting mission just seemed to be a requisite warmup to wade the player into the story. Don't get me wrong, evasion is challenging in it's own right if the opposition feels real enough. This felt fine, but as stated before, it just feels familiar.

One thing to note: The pine trees provide a cheat for the player as in AI block. If the player stands within the branches, the AI can't seem to locate him. I encountered a camp site of about three men and used a tree to engage them. If it were not for the limited ammo, I may have cleared that area. A distance check or trigger activation to reveal the player may help.

Awakening
I have always enjoyed sneaking through urban areas with heavy enemy patrol routes and utilizing stealth to avoid being spotted. This one was decent but I didn't push it to the limits. Perhaps future tests will allow me to do that.

Starting to Inflame Again
In regards to mission length, it's not bad at all. It really depends on how long the player takes to flee the city and even then, savegames provide a means to break it up manually.
There are quite a few flaws in this mission however.
1. Not sure if you intended this but most, if not all vehicles are unlocked. This allows the player to devastate the opposition by running them down without consequence.
2. As part of the first one, grabbing a tank or APC and mowing down opposition goes without consequence as well
3. The player has the freedom to kill with the starting pistol without consequence unless he kills the target or the guard next to him.
4. Some of the enemy standing outside the pub do not respond to the alert when the player kills the target
5. If the player holsters his gun and then picks the rifle up off of the dead guard that accompanied the back alley officer, the pistol can not be un-holstered. If he picks up a rifle before he holsters, it can be swapped normally.

The boat ride was unnecessary and could fade out and back in with the boat being setposed near the light house to shorten the length some(if you wanted to). But if you need it to advance the story through conversation between the PC and the priest, it's not really all that bad.

Setting Up Time
The pistol was never carried forward to the crate. It's magazines were.
The bandage wounds option quickly disappeared while the player rolls to his back and becomes helpless
The steal the bike task was, well, senseless. So many cars sitting around and I have to take the one thing that can't hold extra gear and can't provide cover when I need it. aside from that, the whole fix the car thing was a good idea except there was no fixing the car. I ended up having moral conflicts with it(imagine  that). I was going to steal the bike and just leave but you had to have me talk to the fellah. That's like getting to know someone and then stabbing them in the back. It's much easier to commit the crime when you don't know who is involved.
I opted to take the bike but eventually had to come back and do the inevitable.
The AI ability to spot the player feels much like the supermen of old. It's too tough to approach any of the first objectives without instantly alerting the AI (Fuel truck, medical barn, other patrols)It may be easier with an actual silenced weapon but I honestly doubt it because the moment you choose to take out a target, they all know whats going on.

After several reloads to approach either task area, I became frustrated with the difficulty and decided to not play anymore. This is not what you want, I'm sure. The balance definitely needs some adjustment, perhaps some trigger tweaks too because there is no audible warning to stay out of certain areas; they just shoot to kill once you cross that invisible trigger line.

I rode my bicycle up to Pustoshka and was disappointed that no cars could be broken into, the store was empty(no meds), no patrols, no people. Could be that you raised the standard for immersion and I was expecting more than what was there.

Overall
Currently, the cinema overwhelms the game play but is sure to smooth out once you have more game play to balance it all out. Great camera angles, some of the music was so loud it was static...y if that even makes sense. Grammar corrections and audio will boost the overall presentation but condensing some of the cinema may go far as well.

Maybe it's me, but the AI prevent me from completing the last mission.

[Undeceived]

SBG, thanks a lot! Great work!

Thanks for your offer with the grammar corrections.


Mission 1:

Hhmm... Now you guys got me here. I have no idea how to change the design of the mission. What I could do is to add some small objectives or something like that.
If you have any idea how to make it more interesting, your suggestions would be much appreciated.


Mission 3:

Well, to be honest, I really need the boat trip to develop the story. There are some important information (which make sense only later in the campaign), but I understand that it's quite long.


Mission 4:

My friend, you're getting old?! Just kidding - I'll look into it and see how I can balance it or at least make it clearer to the player where that trigger line is.

This will probably disappoint you but I think that I'll remove all cars from the first village, so that there's only the motor bike.

Oh, and... There's a way to steal the motor bike without having to talk to the salesman and having moral conflicts because of it (loved to read that, btw, haha Kill 100 Russians but as soon as it gets personal, one gets moral conflicts nvmind ). -> Anyway: The man leaves after some minutes, but he enters the house first to take his stuff. Maybe I should make this a bit clearer for the player... Thanks for the hint!


The rest you reported seems to be bugs which I feel able to fix (most of them at least). Thanks a lot for reporting, Saved By Grace!!

[savedbygrace]

Whats age got to do with anything? 

The boat ride was fine when using the 4x speed.

The difficulty was with me first trying to play the mission weaponless(without that holstered pistol). And then approaching the areas in broad daylight. You could give the option to wait until night.

I can't explain it. I guess when I expect that missions are going to pour on the immersion, I try to make decisions based on what I would do in real life. I thought about taking that bike outright while he was working on his truck but when I got close to him, he just started talking. I even selected the option that I was just distracting him to steal his bike(tried to be honest). I was then disappointed when there was no option to fix the truck, make friends and have him give me the bike. Next time, I'll just become a stone cold killer.