Weekly Update
May 13, 2012
I missed the last two weeks for updates, forgetting the first one, and being out of town the last one. Today I updated the GR campaign page with all new images and content. Nine missions have been completed, with two more to go. I also need to see if any Finnish speakers would be willing to voice some dialog. With time to finish the last two missions, plus finalize dialog, and test play and fix bugs, I am shooting for a mid-June release.
As oppposed to calling the remake of Gambit Royale as "Special Edition", I decided to make it clearer that this is a different campaign experience. The new title is Gambit Royale FDF Edition. Just to be clear, the FDF Edition has the same plot as the original, but the experience is almost completely different. If you have seen the Bond films Thunderball and Never Say Never Again, that's an example of two films with the same starring actor that have the same plot, but are very different films to watch. Although I am baffled why Sean Connery would be in a remake of one of his own films (maybe someone could enlighten me), I hope that players will find the FDF version a fun and worthy playing experience.
Weekly Update
April 22, 2012
The opening cutscene for mission 8 has been completed. I have to correct myself from last week. It appears that I planned for 12 missions, not 11. Nevertheless, this might be reduced back to 11 as I had merely sketched out mission ideas about four months ago, and two of them may be better combined as one. I have yet to start work on mission 9. Instead I spent the past few days fixing a few bugs that I found from playtesting the completed missions so far, and I made some tweaks to a few of the cutscenes. Lastly, I plan to recycle one of the cutscenes from the original release of Gambit Royale because it fits here just as well. I will make some small changes to it, but otherwise the rest of the campaign is completely new content not counting dialog, although there is a lot of new dialog too.
Weekly Update
April 15, 2012
I will start posting weekly updates here, when possible, regarding the progress of my campaigns. For this week, I have completed mission 8 out of a projected 11 for Gambit Royale v1.5. This one features a HALO jump for a spec ops sabotage mission, with some optional side objectives. I will build a small pre-mission cutscene for it this week, and start on mission 9.
I showed the first few cutscenes of the campaign to a friend of mine, and one thing that was evident is the overload of information. There are probably 9 minutes of movies before the first mission starts, and I will be revisiting them before release. One major goal of version 1.5 is to explain the plot better than I had previously, and being a complex plot it is challenging to convey just enough information without going overboard. Certainly some players won't be interested in the plot, and they can always hit ESC to skip a movie although I tried to make them as entertaining as I could. Until next week, have fun gaming!
April News
April 1, 2012
The past month has been quite busy. This Website had a makeover with some CSS3 effects added and a new color scheme, and I also posted my SQF script library. However I will be tweaking that in the near future, and I also need to provide download links.
Gambit Royale v1.5 is currently two-thirds completed. If you are interested, here is a cutscene on Thirsk showcasing Denmark. I apologize for the video quality. At any rate, this scene has a direct analog from the earlier release of the campaign. Although most of the campaign is completely new in content, I wanted to keep a few elements like this scene that I felt worked well. Additionally, a mission directly follows this scene played as Denmark. I would have liked to have done the mission more Sam Fisher style (Splinter Cell), but Arma is more about combat than hanging from the sides of buildings, so the mission focus is to avoid detection and escape with your life.
March Update
March 1, 2012
The remake of Gambit Royale is progressing quite rapidly with mission 5 currently under development. Redoing the first campaign while in the middle of building a completely new campaign is both a major undertaking, and a bit of a gamble. I believe the end result will be worth it as I firmly believe that the plot is very good, but found it was rather complex to portray it within a game. What I like most so far with the Special Edition is that the new cut scenes show the dynamics between Denmark, General Zheldak, and Natalia much better than was achieved in the first release. New dialog has been added, and most of the original dialog is used as well. The addition of FDF missions provides a new dynamic, while reducing emphasis on the Delta Force team. Nevertheless, Gambit Royale remains focused on special forces type missions as it is meant to be a political thriller like a Tom Clancy novel, at least in spirit.
The follow-on campaign Dark Tides is partly a Navy Seal campaign, but it will be more focused on full-scale combat between the CSLA and AFMC as it progresses. Early missions will include themes such as civilian evacuation inspired by (not based on) Grenada 1983, infiltration and sabotage of CSLA infrastructures, and investigation of a ghost town. Three cut scenes of moderate length currently exist for Dark Tides.
Finally, I am working on getting my SQF functions library posted on here. I added some DB tables to support it and input about half of the functions into there, so hopefully that will be finished before end of March.
Campaign Progress
February 10, 2012
I have decided, after changing my mind numerous times since November, to develop and release Gambit Royale Special Edition. I have worked heavily on it the past week and anticipate having a beta version by late March or early April. Why am doing this? Was the first version that bad? Well, no, I have received a number of fantastic comments from other players, mixed with a few buggy issues. Here is the breakdown:
- While working on my next campaign Dark Tides, I realized that I could link it to a "loose end" from Gambit Royale, that being the ChDKZ and Denmark's involvement.
- Denmark's apparent loss of sanity was never well explained.
- My own fault for developing the campaign in one direction, then heavily changing course 6 months into the project, and later regretting that decision.
- One of the main reasons I changed course is that the BWMod was going to be an integral part of the campaign, but after OA was released it caused popup errors on the screen, and BWMod was discontinued and I was sad.
- I feel some of the missions are not quite "right", especially Maelstrom.
- I had never developed missions prior to work on Gambit Royale, and feel more confident that I can release something closer to what I originally planned.
The nice thing is that I can develop missions and cutscenes much quicker than before, having gained both experience and written a functions library for repetitive tasks. The only bad thing is that it delays work on Dark Tides. Here is a rundown on what I tentatively call Gambit Royale "Special Edition" version 1.5:
- 100% newly developed missions and cutscenes, except for previously built and *never* released scenes and missions on Thirsk. No missions from the original version are used, and no previous locations are used either, with the opening title movie being the one exception as it still occurs in Chernarus.
- Addons required: FDFMod, Thirsk, Quesh-Kibrul, and BB's A2 Mercs.
- 11 missions (instead of 8), playing a mix of Delta Force and FDF roles, plus 2 as a spetsnaz.
- The basic plot is the same, but it will be better explained, and this will tie into the follow-on campaign (Dark Tides) much more smoothly.
For those who have played version 1.0x of Gambit Royale, you may be wondering how similar the missions are to the first release. For the most part, it will be a completely new experience. What will be reused are elements that I feel worked the first time. Here is a reference to the old campaign missions to help you figure out similarities to the new version:
- Mission 1 Retribution [Shapur] - completely redesigned on Thirsk, occurs later in the campaign, and only similarity is the primary mission goal
- Mission 2 Conspiracy [Chernarus] - the team leader as prisoner will still exist, but I am still debating implementation details
- Mission 3 Deception [Chernarus] - no longer exists
- Mission 4 Scirocco [Zargabad] - elements of this mission will be reused, possibly split over 2 missions on Quesh Kibrul
- Mission 5 Turbulence [Takistan] - at least a couple elements of this mission will survive, but the mission itself will not exist
- Mission 6 Infiltrator [Shapur] - I really liked this mission, except when the BIS_fnc_direction compass sometimes would forget to work, some features of this mission will be reused
- Mission 7 Maelstrom [Takistan] - will not exist, although certain elements might be reused, and there will be some major battles but with a different opponent
- Mission 8 Gambit Royale [Zargabad] - some elements of the final mission will still exist
The opening title cutscene has an expanded all new "pre" opening, and the rest was completely rebuilt from scratch to fix some underlying issues with it. Most of this cutscene is very similar to the original, in great part because the entire campaign was created from this scene. The "Flight to Zargabad" cutscene which I did as an homage to Indiana Jones was originally done on Thirsk (and never released), so GR 1.5 will have the Thirsk version. The other cutscenes will be entirely new.
I will post updates on this and Dark Tides as they progress.
Site Development
February 10, 2012
One of these days I plan to finish this Web site. It is completely custom developed by me in PHP 5/MySQL based on an incomplete MVC framework that I wrote in 2009-2010. I am going to blame Arma for distracting me from work on the site, although part of it is that I do development at work (C# and ASP.NET) and seldom want to do the same during my "down time." Future plans (to finish the site) include adding user comments, archives, links to my posts instead of just putting them all on the front page, and some back-end administrative features. Most of this capability exists, it just needs to be implemented on the front-end and carefully tested.
Also related to finishing this site, there is a link to 'scripts' that has no content as of yet. The plan is to put my functions library there that I had developed for Gambit Royale. The delay is related to some changes and updates that I have been making to it lately, plus I need to decide how best to present it. Perhaps I can use something like phpdocumentor to facilitate it.
In my previous post I mentioned an unfinished addon called Root User. I am undecided on whether to release a beta for it, or when, as it would take time away from campaign building which I would rather concentrate on at the moment.
February Update
January 29, 2012
Without any warning, I got the urge to create an addon on Saturday Jan 28. I have never built a full addon to Arma, let alone released one, but that it was I did. Start to finish in one day, and I even did the laundry and reinstalled another PC at the same time. This (simple) addon replaces the default GPS display with one of five other possible options. Click here to view the BIS forum topic on this.
Having said that, I did create an unfinished addon well over a year ago, maybe 18 months now. I have been "testing it" ever since, although I haven't made any changes in most of that time. This addon is for mission makers to assist in... yeah, mission design. I call it "Root User" or "chroot", due to giving you god-like powers in a mission. For those not familiar with BSD or Linux, the dry info on chroot can be found here. I never finished it because I was never going to release it, but I suddenly looked at it again on Friday and decided to make a module version. Essentially, Root User gives the player an action shortcut which brings up this UI:
This has a host of options to help stress test a mission, such as setting all units to combat mode blue, making you invincible, spawning units, the ubiquitous mapclick option, and even the ability to "end mission" with options 1 to 6 and even fail. Why? It's quite useful if you just want to test your briefing.html (which is really the debriefing) or any other custom functionality for mission end. I didn't want to be responsible for creating a cheat tool, which is why I decided to build it as a module, meaning you have to place the module on the map to use it, so you can't exactly cheat. On the other hand, if you're one of those clever players and use a tool like the debug GUI, you can simply call the init file to start it up.... if you're clever. :)
Ah, that brings me to my usual monthly topic, campaign building. The 1.04 patch to Gambit Royale is still coming. I had decided to replace the 2nd cutscene with a new one that explains the plot better, but that required begging the voice actor of Denmark to reprise two of his roles. Ok, it wasn't that difficult, but these things take time. And in the meanwhile I have discovered that the original opening cutscene/movie is now crashing Arma to the desktop quite frequently since patch 1.60 came out. It was *never* an issue before, at least not on my PC. No one has ever reported it crashing, but not saying it hasn't happened. So I have begun to rebuild the opening movie from scratch. That movie is the very first thing that I ever wrote for Arma, now close to two years ago. I have tried improving it numerous times, but it's a real behemoth. I don't know how many players realize just how much work that cutscene was to create. There is a ton of things going on in it. Since then I have refined my skills considerably. If you have played Gambit Royale, I'm talking about the opening movie with the credits and James Bond theme at the harbor, that was not the original plan for the scene. The opening is in the same location, but there were supposed to be ships, but I didn't realize that ships were not part of the game yet! So I threw an Mi-17 in the background, still at the docks, not that it mattered anymore. And in the original (and shorter) version, Ian fired an RPG at Denmark's truck, killing him. Then an Mi-24 showed up and blasted Ian's escape vehicle just as he reached it while running, knocking him down. However it caused ACE2 to create a horrible ringing noise which was very bad for a cutscene! So, because of ACE2, Denmark lives, hahaha. I decided instead to have Denmark and his henchman confront Ian and knock him out. And I would go on to develop the campaign without ACE2 after all, but that's another [long] story.
So in regards to rebuilding the cutscene, I have learned various new techniques in these two years of mission making that I can do some of the things that I originally had hoped to do, including the return of ships (as an optional addon). I am now using a slightly modified version of TPW's "Foggy Breath" script to simulate cigarette smoke for Denmark, but only if you are running the cigarette mod. I think the immersion is great by adding these little things, but I don't want to force players into using a long list of addons if they don't care about these things. My campaigns are kind of like a "build your own bling bling" style. I don't think anyone else has ever done that.
Furthermore on Gambit Royale, this *may* become version 1.5 as in one and a half. I don't really want to spend the time on it, but there are things I want to change, so we will see. This could include a completely redone mission 1 (Conspiracy) in a totally different location, no longer on Otmel, and I am considering a more focused version of mission 2 (Deception). I am also tossing about other ideas of earlier concepts of the campaign that included Quesh Kibrul. This was my first concept image for the campaign back around May or June of 2010:
That was taken on Quesh-Kibrul with the Russian Desert Camo mod, and the ACE2 B61 nuclear bomb. I think the EMP should have knocked the Mi-17 out of the sky. Just saying.
As to Dark Tides, I have so far been making cutscenes for it mostly in an effort to tell a story. One of them turned out to be quite complex, but I completed it in only 3 days despite being nearly 6 minutes long and the most complex one I have ever done. The primary change to Dark Tides over the past month is that I will be using the island of Moschnyi for 2 or 3 missions, and believe me it serves a purpose in the story. I highly recommend this island if you haven't tried it because it is a quality effort, and surprisingly big at around 9km in length.
Happy New Year
January 2, 2012
Work continues briskly on the new Dark Tides campaign and the 1.04 patch of Gambit Royale. I originally planned to release the patch last week, but then I started adding a few more things, such as optional ACE2 equipment. The good news is that Gambit runs fine with ACE2, and for those running the mod, extra gear and weapons will be available in missions 2 through 5. There really isn't any bad news, only that I feel the need to test it more rigorously. Dark Tides will be the sequel to Gambit Royale, although it picks up with a different cast of characters, and is a sequel in the sense that it continues the Chernarus plot started in missions 1 & 2 of Gambit.
For anyone interested, here is a slightly unfinished cut scene that will replace the 2nd one from Gambit Royale. I am attempting to explain the plot better than I had previously. I wrote quite a back story early on, and most of the plot is explained in the mission briefings. In fact, this very scene was always referenced in the briefing to mission 2:
"We just received word of a Russian missile strike on a farm near Gvozdno about 3 hours ago. We believe this is a ChDKZ controlled area, and have yet to verify the reason for the strike, although MI-6 advised us that at least one top ChDKZ officer was there at the time of the strike."
The scene did not exist until yesterday though!
More information on Dark Tides will be posted later this month. I am creating the first 3 or 4 cut scenes and missions simultaneously because of a numerous ideas that I want solidified as quickly as possible.
December Update
December 27, 2011
I am preparing to release version 1.04 of Gambit Royale. The biggest change by far is the reduction of required add-ons from 3 to 1, replacing one of them with SchnapsdroSel SpecOps & Mercs for OA. I decided to remove the Russian Desert Camo mod because it plays a limited role in the campaign, and to remove the dependency on the Ak mod. I have switched from Massi's Delta Force to SchnapsdroSel SpecOps primarily because the latter mod provides some unique OpFor units.
I had planned to release v1.04 by today (Friday Dec 30th), but decided to make a few more modifications. One was the limited inclusion of ACE2 army guns and launcher, plus some miscellaneous gear. ACE2 is an optional mod, meaning if you run it, the equipment boxes will appear. I dynamically check for running mods in my missions, so if ACE2 is not present, you won't see any errors. ACE2 has a considerable amount of equipment, and I don't feel it is necessary or even realistic to make it all available. On a side note, the mortar attack in the mission Turbulence sounds really good with ACE2 running.
Other changes are listed below:
- added extra intro to opening movie
- moved 1st mission to 4th in sequence
- fixed extra loud voices apparently caused by the 1.60 patch
- fixed last mission being super sluggish after 1.60 patch, possibly First Aid related
- changed GPS from Motorola Droid to Garmin
- changed method of displaying current mission at start
- changed player from suit-wearing civ to black ops in opening mission
- removed civ Ian from Scirocco mission
- changed Natalia's avatar to something more suitable that wasn't available when missions first developed
- removed opening music from Conspiracy mission
- a few minor scenematic alterations to various movies
The new campaign under development is tentatively titled Dark Tides, and it will be rather long. The reason for the length is that the player will take on three different roles: USN SEAL, AFMC soldier, and a CSLA officer. This provides the campaign with three perspectives on events, with the SEAL for the high-tech special ops, the AFMC for the infantry missions, and the CSLA role to help make the campaign more in-depth. Dark Tides will have the same level of story-telling as Gambit Royale, and a large number of cut-scene movies. Gambit has over 22 minutes of in-game movies, and I would expect Dark Tides to have in excess of 30 minutes of movies. As for the campaign name (which could change), it's a reference to the Navy SEALs infiltration on beaches under the cover of darkness, and also a reference to the darkness of future events that will unfold. Like Gambit Royale, Dark Tides will involve a plot pertaining to WMD's. In this case, the use of chemical warfare by the CSLA in its desperation to win the war against the AFMC. Dark Tides will require the wonderful CSLA mod (obviously) and TF86 SEALs. The campaign will occur on Chernarus (mostly) as an extension to one of the plot threads from the first two missions of Gambit Royale.
December News
December 3, 2011
While developing the sequel to Gambit Royale, including new effects and features, I decided to do some maintenance on the first campaign which is now around nine months old. In doing so, I realized that I was not happy with a few things, and that I had released a campaign with some significant differences than what I had originally planned. Keep in mind that I wrote the story to Gambit Royale before Operation Arrowhead was released, and wanted to use the new setting without totally destroying the campaign, which is why it has a ChDKZ plot on Chernarus in 2012 and then you're in Takistan and the ChDKZ plot is forgotten. The updated version will restore the start date to occur during Harvest Red (Oct 2009) and include more information on the events leading up to the opening scene with Denmark on Chernarus.
I had strongly considered making this a 3-part campaign, with the first part on Thirsk, but I think the development cycle will take too long, and in the end I didn't want a radical departure from the campaign released last March. The most important point for me, after starting on the sequel campaign, is that the two campaigns should fit together well.