Who's Planning a Campaign?

[grayman]

I'm w/in shouting distance of completing my first William Steele mission, so my thoughts have turned to the subject of campaigns.

 

My read on how campaigns work says that a campaign is appropriate if all missions are available at the same time. For instance, a group of authors, each working on different missions in parallel. When the last one's finished, the campaign's put together and released.

 

In my case, however, I plan to release missions over at least a 2-year period. Since savegames from TDM rev N can't be used with TDM rev N+, releasing the missions in campaign format isn't going to work. A campaign only makes sense in this case when the last mission is finished and the entire lot can be bundled into a campaign.

 

So, if you're planning a campaign, how do you see it working? Are you hanging onto your early missions until your later ones are done? Is there a group of editors working on a single campaign? Are you (like me) stringing out your missions over time?

 

Thanks.

[Springheel]

It would certainly be useful if there was a way to save persistent data between missions that wouldn't be affected by code updates. Not sure how realistic that is though.

[demagogue]

It's an issue if you're carrying over inventory across missions, but if it's not that then I don't see the problem releasing them sequentially as individual FMs. Then at the end you make the full campaign version ... That's, e.g., how Keeper of the Prophecies was done. (Actually, even if you are carrying inventory across or something like that, you just add it to the starting gear for the individual versions, and save the cross-mission stuff for the campaign version).

 

I scripted out a campaign, and if I were to build it, my idea was to organize it as a series of 1-month builds to churn them out, and I'd release them together after the last one. It's just written as a single experience.

 

Edit: Another option is to string the campaign together as you go, but also release saved games people can drop into their "Saved Game" folder -- at release & when there's a TDM update -- so people can at least start at the mission they need to without needing to replay to get there. (Is it possible to bundle saved games with an FM release? E.g., the player doesn't need to drop them into the folder. He just opens the "Load Game" menu and they're there in the queue. That would be convenient.)

[PPoe]

I think that the most important thing is to be able to spent your gold from previous mission in the shop before next mission. that is the trully motivation to find loot. (At least that is what I loved in Thief)

Edited December 3, 2011 by PPoe

[grayman]

It's an issue if you're carrying over inventory across missions, but if it's not that then I don't see the problem releasing them sequentially as individual FMs. Then at the end you make the full campaign version.

 

That appears to be how I'll end up doing it.

 

Another option is to string the campaign together as you go, but also release saved games people can drop into their "Saved Game" folder.

 

An interesting idea. Unless persistent player data is separated from general saved data, though, the campaign (with canned saved data for each mission) would have to be re-released with fresh canned saved data for each TDM rev, independent of whether there's a new mission or not, just so the game doesn't crash due to the canned saved data being out of sync with the new rev.

[Sotha]

I was planning to first make Thomas Porter series in individual missions and then later mash them up into a campaign, with slightly updating each mission to make the plot fit better.

 

Since it is difficult to get animated briefings from individual missions joined into a campaign I am not sure if I want to see the trouble. I dpn't want to degrade the briefings into text only either.

 

Add into this equation the fact that many people consider FM's as a single use entertainment, I decided I will probably not see the trouble of mashing the missions into a campaign. It will be a lot of work, and would probably benefit only newcomers.

 

Heck, I'd need first to make something like two missions to finish the TP story, and I don't have time nor motivation to do that either.

 

Maybe later...

[Shadowhide]

@Sotha: well i hope not

[jaxa]

NHAT was released all at the same time but was later repacked as a campaign. So if you're serializing your FM releases there should no problem releasing a campaign version, as many T2 mappers have done (see Dracula reloaded and others). Only problem I could see would be the structural change of allowing persistent items and $$$, and some people taking a long time to download the campaign in one setting or for some other reason preferring the original files. Idk whether individual NHAT were taken off the downloader after the campaign was uploaded, maybe you want to head to that thread or talk to Goldchocobo and see how he felt about it.

Edited December 3, 2011 by jaxa

[Glyph Seeker]

I would love to replay the Porter series as a campaign. Just my two cents.

[i30817]

Would a campaign allow a lesser download in total? You know, reused textures, compression of single solid file, etc.

[Melan]

Compared to the individual missions, definitely.

 

Also, add me to the ranks of players who would replay a mission series if it was re-released as a campaign. I replay them in mission form as well, BTW.

[Baddcog]

Would a campaign allow a lesser download in total? You know, reused textures, compression of single solid file, etc.

 

Nope. Missions are compiled individually. So you still have to DL 5, they are just packaged so they load in order and you have 1 file instead of five. The most you will save space is loading screen, read me texts..

 

All the textures, models etc... are already on your computer, so they account for 0 space in the DL. (Unless they are custom of course, in which case depending on how an author uses them between missions you would only need them packed once instead of multiple times)