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--- ofp:missions:campaign_design [2011/08/15 09:25] – added note about dtaext and global scripts. snakeman
+++ ofp:missions:campaign_design [2024/07/31 13:08] (current) – links added. snakeman
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-====== Campaign Design ======
+====== OFP Campaign Design ======
+[[https://www.pmctactical.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=43|OFP Forum]], [[:ofp|OFP Home]], [[ofp:file_formats|OFP File Formats]], [[ofp:tools|OFP Tools]], [[ofp:missions|OFP Missions]], [[ofp:modeling|OFP 3D Modeling]], [[ofp:terrain|OFP Terrain]]
+**Operation Flashpoint (OFP)** aka ArmA: Cold War Assault (CWA)
 **Campaign Design** by Snake Man
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 This is some thoughts about how to design a campaign.
-First of all you need to decide if its a storyline driven or mission content driven. What it means is that if you have really good storyline, you can manage with slim mission content (however it is at the end first person shooter which you cant forget) or if you lack storyline elements you need to beef up the mission content to the maximum.
+First of all you need to decide if its a story line driven or mission content driven. What it means is that if you have really good story line, you can manage with slim mission content (however it is at the end first person shooter which you cant forget) or if you lack story line elements you need to beef up the mission content to the maximum.
-**Storyline Driven**
+**Story line Driven**
-You have intensive characters which player familiarizes and attaches himself, there is alot of cutscenes which make movie kind of atmosphere and tells the story. This sort of campaign can be small like 5-10 missions or so.
+You have intensive characters which player familiarizes and attaches himself, there is a lot of cutscenes which make movie kind of atmosphere and tells the story. This sort of campaign can be small like 5-10 missions or so.
 **Mission Content Driven**
-If the storyline is slim, there is maybe no characters to recognize, cutscenes are just something random or similar non interesting, then you concentrate on the mission content gameplay for example 50 missions so the player really feels like doing hard work to complete the campaign. The PMC campaigns (except few) are content driven, like in [[http://tactical.nekromantix.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=3|PMC Fury]] we have over **200** (yes, twohundred) **missions** where you painstakingly go through the BIS islands with a precision to cover all the landmass available, the cutscenes in this campaign were poor if not totally worthless but the missions then balanced the whole thing. At the same time the mission content can include tight team saving ([[ofp:missions:saveStatus]]) and/or weapon saving ([[ofp:missions:weaponPool]]) which also brings the content level up a notch.
+If the story line is slim, there is maybe no characters to recognize, cutscenes are just something random or similar non interesting, then you concentrate on the mission content game-play for example 50 missions so the player really feels like doing hard work to complete the campaign. The PMC campaigns (except few) are content driven, like in [[https://www.pmctactical.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=3|PMC Fury]] we have over **200** (yes, two hundred) **missions** where you painstakingly go through the BIS islands with a precision to cover all the landmass available, the cutscenes in this campaign were poor if not totally worthless but the missions then balanced the whole thing. At the same time the mission content can include tight team saving ([[ofp:missions:saveStatus]]) and/or weapon saving ([[ofp:missions:weaponPool]]) which also brings the content level up a notch.
-Of course who's to say that you cant have storyline driven campaign of 200 missions with team and weapon save, I just havent seen one yet ;)
+Of course who's to say that you cant have story line driven campaign of 200 missions with team and weapon save, I just haven't seen one yet ;)
 ====== Mission Techniques ======
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 **Creating Campaign Manuscript**
-When I design a campaign I can just start to slam units in editor which shapes itself then into a campaign, this actually was what happened to //PMC Command Campaign//. It started with one generic mission, then came another one and soon I noticed I already changed island when I did the missions in campaign style. Lateron PMC Command Campaign evolved into its present state which is so much more than it started, even its name evolved to **[[http://tactical.nekromantix.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=6|PMC Baltic Command]]**.
+When I design a campaign I can just start to slam units in editor which shapes itself then into a campaign, this actually was what happened to //PMC Command Campaign//. It started with one generic mission, then came another one and soon I noticed I already changed island when I did the missions in campaign style. Lateron PMC Command Campaign evolved into its present state which is so much more than it started, even its name evolved to [[https://www.pmctactical.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=6|PMC Baltic Command]].
 Another way is to not even touch mission editor, but open a text file and map of the island terrain(s), then start to plan how you want to missions to proceed by looking interesting places on the map or just to see that you cover each city or landmark. You then proceed to write the mission names, dates, times and small descriptions into the text file. Also recently on the **PMC Joint Justice** campaign I wrote the normal text file, but also made 1 jpg image out of each mission showing illustration in the island map of where the units are starting, attacking, defending and where the objectives are etc. It became so easy to afterwards start to build the missions in mission editor, as the complete manuscript / design document was already done. In programming circles its been said that you have to design the program first, then the coding itself goes without a problems. I'd say same applies to campaign creation.