From - Mon Nov 02 22:29:24 1998 Path: news.rdc2.occa.home.com!newshub1.home.com!news.home.com!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.news.gtei.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail From: dennya@mindspring.com (Denny Atkin) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim Subject: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss. Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 04:03:25 GMT Organization: Not officially representing CGW here in my free time Lines: 40 Message-ID: <364067e5.15703318@news.mindspring.com> Reply-To: dennya@mindspring.com NNTP-Posting-Host: user-38ld6ro.dialup.mindspring.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 3 Nov 1998 04:05:20 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 X-No-Archive: yes Xref: newshub1.home.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim:30154235 Okay, there are a number of folks here who SWEAR by dynamic campaigns, some going so far as to say they won't buy a sim that doesn't feature them. Here's the big question: Which sims are you holding up as examples of good dynamic campaigns? Because until VERY recently, there haven't been that many opportunities to experience a good dynamic campaign. Falcon 3.0's is often held up as the previous Holy Grail, but that's mostly people remembering things better than they were. Falcon 3.0 had a number of kludgy elements and faked occurrences in its campaign--such as the MiG-19s that often spontaneously spawned to harass you when you were landing. EF2000 had a fully dynamic campaign, but the mission structures were so repetitive that I bored of it as quickly as I did any "canned mission" sim. Longbow 2 had a good dynamic campaign, but the most interesting missions were the prescripted ones. So I pose these questions, just for discussion: 1) What are the examples of good past dynamic campaigns? What made them good, and kept them from getting boring? 2) If a mission featured a scripted campaign, but had features that kept it from being repetitive -- targets that stayed destroyed, enemy locations and force makeups that were randomly generated to keep them from being predictable, being retasked to destroy missed targets -- would that be an acceptable substitute? 3) Is it replayability or the chance to affect the outcome of the war that makes dynamic campaigns appealing to you? 4) A dynamic campaign is never going to generate a mission such as "shoot down Admiral Yamamoto in your P-38. " Don't scripted campaigns have the potential to be a lot more interesting? (I'm not at all saying I'm not a fan of dynamic campaigns, and I'll outline what I think the perfect campaign for today's techology is in a future post. But I want to hear from some of the rest of you without "leading" into a discussion of my own theories. And let's not even open hte multiplayer can of worms. :-) --------------------------------------------------- Denny Atkin / dennya@mindspring.com I have not yet begun to procrastinate --------------------------------------------------- From - Mon Nov 02 22:29:24 1998 Path: news.rdc2.occa.home.com!newshub1.home.com!news.home.com!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!ix.netcom.com!news From: "Greg Cisko" Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim Subject: Re: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss. Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 22:19:54 -0600 Organization: ICGNetcom Lines: 81 Message-ID: <71m0g1$bim@sjx-ixn6.ix.netcom.com> References: <364067e5.15703318@news.mindspring.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chf-il5-83.ix.netcom.com X-NETCOM-Date: Mon Nov 02 8:23:29 PM PST 1998 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Xref: newshub1.home.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim:30154240 Denny Atkin wrote in message <364067e5.15703318@news.mindspring.com>... >Okay, there are a number of folks here who SWEAR by dynamic campaigns, some >going so far as to say they won't buy a sim that doesn't feature them. > >Here's the big question: Which sims are you holding up as examples of good >dynamic campaigns? Because until VERY recently, there haven't been that many In shirt I would almost have to say there are no good dynamic campaigns yet :-) I did hear the campaigns in iF22 were supposedly good. But the rest of the game was basicly crap so I wouldn't even give it a shot. >opportunities to experience a good dynamic campaign. Falcon 3.0's is often held >up as the previous Holy Grail, but that's mostly people remembering things >better than they were. Falcon 3.0 had a number of kludgy elements and faked Correct. I remember vividly the first mission if the Kurile(sp?) campaign was always the same mission. Not very dynamic imho. Also not very realistic to shoot 15 migs only to get wasted while I was on final approach. Like there wouldn't be any air defenses near an american base... >occurrences in its campaign--such as the MiG-19s that often spontaneously >spawned to harass you when you were landing. EF2000 had a fully dynamic >campaign, but the mission structures were so repetitive that I bored of it as >quickly as I did any "canned mission" sim. Longbow 2 had a good dynamic >campaign, but the most interesting missions were the prescripted ones. I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too :-) >2) If a mission featured a scripted campaign, but had features that kept it >from being repetitive -- targets that stayed destroyed, enemy locations and >force makeups that were randomly generated to keep them from being predictable, >being retasked to destroy missed targets -- would that be an acceptable >substitute? For me yes definately. >3) Is it replayability or the chance to affect the outcome of the war that >makes dynamic campaigns appealing to you? Replayability for me is not the issue. But rather a chance to effect the outcome. >4) A dynamic campaign is never going to generate a mission such as "shoot down >Admiral Yamamoto in your P-38. " Don't scripted campaigns have the potential to >be a lot more interesting? Yes. Until you run into one that you cannot beat. Which you always know a flight of migs will be at a certain place every time. Yada, yada yada :-) -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes. cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com >(I'm not at all saying I'm not a fan of dynamic campaigns, and I'll outline >what I think the perfect campaign for today's techology is in a future post. >But I want to hear from some of the rest of you without "leading" into a >discussion of my own theories. And let's not even open hte multiplayer can of >worms. :-) > --------------------------------------------------- > Denny Atkin / dennya@mindspring.com > I have not yet begun to procrastinate > --------------------------------------------------- From - Mon Nov 02 22:29:25 1998 Path: news.rdc2.occa.home.com!newshub1.home.com!news.home.com!news.rdc1.bc.wave.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: silenus@home.com (David Clark) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim Subject: Re: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss. Message-ID: <363e80ff.260853340@192.168.0.2> References: <364067e5.15703318@news.mindspring.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.11/32.235 Lines: 89 Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 04:42:17 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.112.120.121 NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 20:42:17 PDT Organization: @Home Network Canada Xref: newshub1.home.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim:30154251 On Tue, 03 Nov 1998 04:03:25 GMT, dennya@mindspring.com (Denny Atkin) wrote: >Here's the big question: Which sims are you holding up as examples of good >dynamic campaigns? Umm... perhaps EF2000 and Longbow 2. The best "dynamic campaigns" that I've seen weren't Flight Sims at all - they were strategy games like X-Com and Jagged Alliance. >So I pose these questions, just for discussion: Good questions, well phrased. >1) What are the examples of good past dynamic campaigns? What made them good, >and kept them from getting boring? IMHO, the property that makes a dynamic campaign valuable is that the missions seem plausible, but unplanned. Modern warfare is extraordinarily fluid and chaotic, and set-piece battles are very rare. Battles should just sort of 'precipitate' out of the strategic situation - often large air battles are unplanned, and are simply the result of a few fighters running into one another - the furball grows as both sides dump in additional aircraft, while neither commander really understands the scale of the battle that is developing. The thing that made EF2000 so enjoyable was that most of the battles had a 'meeting engagement' feel to them - since there was no 'plot', my actions weren't constrained at all. I could avoid battles (if I was lucky), or search out more fights, depending on my understanding of the tactical situation. >2) If a mission featured a scripted campaign, but had features that kept it >from being repetitive -- targets that stayed destroyed, enemy locations and >force makeups that were randomly generated to keep them from being predictable, >being retasked to destroy missed targets -- would that be an acceptable >substitute? I guess so. My criteria is that the forces I face have a _reason_ for being there (even if the 'reason' is just random chance). If I feel like a scenario has been 'tweaked' for 'balance', my suspension of disbelief is gone. I want to fight the forces that would _probably be there_ in real life, not the ones that a scenario designer feels I can handle. I never minded being outnumbered in EF2000, since if I was, it was just my bad luck, not designer maliciousness. >3) Is it replayability or the chance to affect the outcome of the war that >makes dynamic campaigns appealing to you? The chance to affect the outcome of the war is not important to me at all. Most pilots won't affect the outcome of a war materially either - the reason I play flight sims is to role-play (however inaccurately) the experiences of someone with a much more interesting job than me - and the limits of individual power is part of that role. Of course, I also loved the occasional uneventful CAP mission in EF2000, so I guess I'm kind of peculiar. >4) A dynamic campaign is never going to generate a mission such as "shoot down >Admiral Yamamoto in your P-38. " Don't scripted campaigns have the potential to >be a lot more interesting? I suppose. I find the generated missions in EF2000 and Longbow2 to be extremely interesting - no two are the same, since the strategic situation, the position of the threat, etc are always different. Others disagree, and say that after a while, one dam-busting mission is pretty much like the next. I've never felt that way, but I can understand their position. >(I'm not at all saying I'm not a fan of dynamic campaigns, and I'll outline >what I think the perfect campaign for today's techology is in a future post. >But I want to hear from some of the rest of you without "leading" into a >discussion of my own theories. And let's not even open hte multiplayer can of >worms. :-) Without having seen the game, I guess Falcon4 offers the most promising type of dynamic campaign. What I really want to play is a highly detailed 'world simulator' in which both armies would carry out their war plans in real time. My aircraft would be one of the combatants, neither more or less influential than any other. In the end the victor would win because they _won_, not because I managed a 75% kill rate instead of a 65%... David Clark Third World War (GDW) website... http://members.home.net/silenus/tww/index.htm From - Mon Nov 02 22:29:25 1998 Path: news.rdc2.occa.home.com!newshub1.home.com!news.home.com!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.nodak.edu!not-for-mail From: "Michael J. Iverson" Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim Subject: Re: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss. Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 22:48:53 -0600 Organization: North Dakota Higher Ed. Network Lines: 62 Message-ID: <363E8B35.64CBAFDD@badlands.nodak.edu> References: <364067e5.15703318@news.mindspring.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: und-as3p28.und.nodak.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: newshub1.home.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim:30154263 For me, a dynamic campaign should give me that "OK, time to go to work" feeling when I roll down the runway (or lift off from the FARP). It might not be the most challenging mission I've ever flown, but I know that I'm contributing towards the "war effort." I'd like to feel that the world is alive around me. One thing I didn't like in LB2 was that after a half hour or so, the "world" would just go to sleep - no more enemy CAPs or strike missions, no more enemy advances. Show me stats, supplies, squadron members, and info on my pilot. I think Red Baron II was one of the only sims that made me genuinely pissed off by having my pilot killed in action. I definitely wanted to stay alive in that sim. IMO, scripted missions have a tendency to be made a little too hard. Some game designers seem to think that impossible odds = fun. I disagree. Mike http://volunteers.warbirds.org From - Mon Nov 02 22:29:25 1998 Path: news.rdc2.occa.home.com!newshub1.home.com!news.home.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!cyclone.bc.net!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.ycc.yale.edu!mars.its.yale.edu!rjl26 From: rjl26@mars.its.yale.edu (Robin Lee) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim Subject: Re: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss. Date: 3 Nov 1998 05:14:22 GMT Organization: YLS Lines: 61 Message-ID: <71m3fe$pk3$1@news.ycc.yale.edu> References: <364067e5.15703318@news.mindspring.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mars.its.yale.edu Xref: newshub1.home.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim:30154269 In article <364067e5.15703318@news.mindspring.com>, Denny Atkin wrote: > >(I'm not at all saying I'm not a fan of dynamic campaigns, and I'll outline >what I think the perfect campaign for today's techology is in a future post. >But I want to hear from some of the rest of you without "leading" into a >discussion of my own theories. And let's not even open hte multiplayer can of >worms. :-) Just a few thoughts... 1. For me, the "generic mission" problem is not a particularly troublesome issue because I find little appeal in the high dramatics of a "mission that won the war." Drama on that level does not take place very often in air warfare; by and large, an air campaign consists of a series of routinized mission profiles run on targets that aircrews know little about. Even for those rare missions that do wind up having a hugely significant impact on the war, aircrews are not likely to know about this until after the fact, though they may have some good guesses as to what they are doing (witness Smallwood's account of the anti-Saddam missions during Desert Storm, for instance). A so-called "routine" sortie provides more than enough drama for me -- "blow up the Death Star" missions have a little too much of Hollywood about them for my taste. 2. Extension of the first point: for training, planning, and proficiency reasons, mission types are by nature generic. You want aircrews to be able to fit the mission into one of a fixed number of profiles for which they have been trained. Even where the mission is genuinely different, the operations structure of a modern air force is going to try to force the situation into familiar terms. Therefore, missions that "feel the same" may be realistic, and while some may argue that they become boring and therefore undesireable, I don't necessarily see them as such. 3. An interesting mission does not have to be scripted; a relatively generic, template-based sortie can be turned into a genuinely memorable mission by the introduction of those random events that make tactical military aviation such a chaotic affair -- assigned tanker could go down, somebody crashes and fouls the runway, somebody goes down and you get called to CAP the survivors, etc. There is no particular reason that these events need to be scripted; their very randomness is what makes them exciting. 4. As a general matter, I view mission generation and campaign dynamics in much the same light as I view sausage production; I don't really want to inquire too closely into the details of either. The illusion that I want to maintain is that the missions are generated by a real operations staff reacting to unpredictable events, not by a software campaign engine or by selection from a fixed database of mission scripts. And like sausages, the worst imaginable case is when the mission itself reveals obvious hints as to its origin. To me, a so-called "dynamic campaign" produces missions that simply *look* less contrived than "handpainted" missions, and therefore is a little better at maintaining the illusion. -R. -- _____ Robin John Lee YLS '99 - New Haven, Connecticut, USA Vulture's Row/Russian Navy - From - Mon Nov 02 22:29:25 1998 Path: news.rdc2.occa.home.com!newshub1.home.com!news.home.com!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!204.210.0.20!news.san.rr.com!not-for-mail From: "Jarrod Smith" Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim References: <364067e5.15703318@news.mindspring.com> Subject: Re: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss. Lines: 105 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3155.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 Message-ID: <2Rw%1.5101$q15.153954@news.san.rr.com> Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 21:50:44 -0800 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.210.61.137 X-Trace: news.san.rr.com 910072254 204.210.61.137 (Mon, 02 Nov 1998 21:50:54 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 21:50:54 PDT Organization: TWC Road Runner, San Diego, CA Xref: newshub1.home.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim:30154285 Denny Atkin wrote in message <364067e5.15703318@news.mindspring.com>... >Okay, there are a number of folks here who SWEAR by dynamic campaigns, some >going so far as to say they won't buy a sim that doesn't feature them. > >Here's the big question: Which sims are you holding up as examples of good >dynamic campaigns? For me, it is Longbow2 and Falcon 3.0. I had a hiatus from simming during my collegiate years (lack of hardware fundage :-), so I can't comment on anything in between. > >So I pose these questions, just for discussion: >1) What are the examples of good past dynamic campaigns? What made them good, >and kept them from getting boring? Essentially, I don't much care for branching type missions that make up a "campaign". It annoys me that the mission objectives will be the same each time you play through the campaign in one of the "winning branches". That detracts from replayability which is something I value very much in a sim. What keeps a dynamic campaign interesting for me: Each mission provides different objectives depending on the state of the total war (air and ground, supply lines, etc.). If your supply lines are out, you open them up. If you are losing ground, you cover the retreat. If you are taking ground, you take out critical elements of the enemy's defenses, and/or defend your ground assets as they move forward to capture territory. This type of ebb and flow can go on indefinitely until you make some decisive moves toward accomplishing your objective. This is limited by your performance both in the cockpit as well as inventory and personnel management, etc. This is what immerses me into a dynamic campaign. The individual missions are less important, and any good stout mission generator with subsequent mission editing options will fill the bill in that dept. I did like the splash of hollywood that was infused into LB2 by virtue of its scripted missions interspersed with the generated ones. You still can't argue with the entertainment value of a well-designed scripted mission. I guess for me, I seperate the mission from the campaign. I can enjoy flying a cool scripted mission. But it is different from fighting war from the campaign perspective. I guess I like the illusion of a strategic element that is infused into a good dynamic campaign engine. >2) If a mission featured a scripted campaign, but had features that kept it >from being repetitive -- targets that stayed destroyed, enemy locations and >force makeups that were randomly generated to keep them from being predictable, >being retasked to destroy missed targets -- would that be an acceptable >substitute? Much of what you said above would go a long way toward fixing some of the problems, but in the end, even though this is realistic and believable, it doesn't help the replayability aspect a whole lot. I'm not saying a sim like this wouldn't be fun, though. It certainly could be an acceptable substitute, but there would have to be some type of extraordinary multiplayer capability and/or mission builder to enhance the experience. Otherwise, it wouldn't last that long on my harddrive. >3) Is it replayability or the chance to affect the outcome of the war that >makes dynamic campaigns appealing to you? As outlined above, I think both are important to me. Also the illusion of strategy going on behind the scenes and you playing your part in that strategy makes a good dynamic campaign compelling to play. >4) A dynamic campaign is never going to generate a mission such as "shoot down >Admiral Yamamoto in your P-38. " Don't scripted campaigns have the potential to >be a lot more interesting? Scripted *missions* do have the potential to be more interesting. Scripted campaigns do not, IMO. >(I'm not at all saying I'm not a fan of dynamic campaigns, and I'll outline >what I think the perfect campaign for today's techology is in a future post. >But I want to hear from some of the rest of you without "leading" into a >discussion of my own theories. And let's not even open hte multiplayer can of >worms. :-) Here is what I think would be incredible in a "campaign engine". The engine calculates orders which get handed to you from on high. These orders state that you need to accomplish some objective to further the war effort. Say it is to reduce the opposition's EWR capabilities by some percentage, or reduce their naval capabilites in some capacity. Whatever. This becomes your short-term objective over the next handful of missions. The sim then hands you tools: Intelligence gathering tools, a sophisticated mission planner/builder, updated information on the assets that you have to complete the task, etc. Then you set out to work and build your own campaign, or at least part of it. Then jump in and fly whichever missions look to be the most fun to you. The combination of immersion, strategy, replayability, and challenge in a sim like this would make it irresistable, IMO. Unfortunately, it also sounds difficult and expensive to put together :-) Jarrod Smith The Scripps Research Institute http://www.scripps.edu/~jsmith From - Mon Nov 02 22:29:25 1998 Path: news.rdc2.occa.home.com!newshub1.home.com!news.home.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!newspeer.monmouth.com!newsfeed-east.supernews.com!supernews.com!Supernews69!not-for-mail From: "enzo" Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim Subject: Re: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss. Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 22:07:25 -0800 Organization: http://www.supernews.com, The World's Usenet: Discussions Start Here Lines: 186 Message-ID: <71m6db$49n$1@supernews.com> References: <364067e5.15703318@news.mindspring.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.211.61.222 X-Trace: 910073067 WUENVH4GT3DDECFD3C usenet78.supernews.com X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Xref: newshub1.home.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim:30154288 Denny's starting a new thread! I'm getting verklempt! ; ) Ok, I've gotta bite on this one - can't allow the possibility for a new pro-canned movement (or even a "maybe scripted isn't so bad" movement, for that matter either!) : ) Disclaimers - this is all MHO. I ended up getting really wordy. My apologies, but I wanted to write until I got it all off my chest. Denny Atkin wrote in message <364067e5.15703318@news.mindspring.com>... >Okay, there are a number of folks here who SWEAR by dynamic campaigns, some >going so far as to say they won't buy a sim that doesn't feature them. > >Here's the big question: Which sims are you holding up as examples of good >dynamic campaigns? Because until VERY recently, there haven't been that many >opportunities to experience a good dynamic campaign. Falcon 3.0's is often held >up as the previous Holy Grail, but that's mostly people remembering things >better than they were. Falcon 3.0 had a number of kludgy elements and faked >occurrences in its campaign--such as the MiG-19s that often spontaneously >spawned to harass you when you were landing. EF2000 had a fully dynamic >campaign, but the mission structures were so repetitive that I bored of it as >quickly as I did any "canned mission" sim. Longbow 2 had a good dynamic >campaign, but the most interesting missions were the prescripted ones. > >So I pose these questions, just for discussion: >1) What are the examples of good past dynamic campaigns? What made them good, >and kept them from getting boring? ----Top examples were Falcon 3 and Longbow 2. Both integrate air and ground combat well, give a certain degree of flexibility, and both calculate the progress of the war according to the ability of the ground forces to fight, not according to your mission score. Therefore, you can get killed in a mission, but still win a battle, because you managed to make a positive impact. You are a part of the picture - important, but you are *in* the world, not "the world revolves around you" - critical distinction to make. --------Good examples include iF/A-18E, TAW, and apparently Tornado (although I didn't get very far into Tornado's campaign, but for non-campaign related reasons) iF/A-18E is good, but TALON still needs more refinement before it will realize it's goals properly IMHO. Very important that friendly assets (eg friendly naval ships) will try to protect you/themselves with their SAM screens - opens up possibilities TAW took an interesting "multiple scoreboard" approach, but it seems to have taken a purely political aspect to the war rather than considering the ground war. That pays too much homage to the low-intensity conflicts IMHO. That prevents it from being ranked with Falcon 3/Longbow 2. (I could even sneak X-COM into the picture! : ) ----------Mediocre examples include RB2, EF2000, M1TP2 RB2 - basically a random mission generator. M1TP2 - same thing. EF2000 - no ground war, your FEBA moves as a result not of the battle, not even of your accomplishments, but exclusively as a result of your mission score. ---------Examples that deserve to be shot are iF-22 Raptor and Team Apache. iF-22 Raptor claimed dynamic and was scripted. Team Apache either also claimed it, or at least hinted strongly at it with it's real time clock (that ended up being utterly superfluous). JSF might belong here, too, but frankly I got sick of it way too fast to figure that out. >2) If a mission featured a scripted campaign, but had features that kept it >from being repetitive -- targets that stayed destroyed, enemy locations and >force makeups that were randomly generated to keep them from being predictable, >being retasked to destroy missed targets -- would that be an acceptable >substitute? You seem to be describing Janes F-15 for the most past. My answer is no. For starters, poor scripted missions are no better than random mission generators. Good scripted missions, no matter how you shake or stir it, end up where the player is always trying to second-guess the designer. Also, "randomizing" a scripted mission isn't a whole lot more fun than shaking up one of those glass paperweights with the fake snow inside. Sure, a few elements may shift around, but you're looking at the same scene no matter what. IMHO, even when dynamic campaign missions get somewhat repetitive, it still doesn't feel as rigidly constrained. >3) Is it replayability or the chance to affect the outcome of the war that >makes dynamic campaigns appealing to you? Both, but there is more to it than that. Several things (most have a little interrelation): 1- Yes, replayability 2- Not doing the same mission over again just because I failed it the first time 3- Being able to play a part/have an affect in a simulated war, absolutely - as long as the designers carefully balance my ability to affect that war so as not to over or under value my contribution. If I find myself *caring* about the state of the war when I'm driving to class, that's a good sign. That's never happened to me in any game except those with dynamic campaigns. 4- related to #3 - What you do, actually **matters**. There is a point to it other than simply "jumping through hoops", then getting Pavlovian reinforcement by little FMV treats. :^P Phooey! I want a sense of accomplishment that's more profound than that. 5A - Not second guessing the designer. You are focused on what needs to be done, what you can do to help the war effort, not "Would the mission designers really hide an ambush over there? Do they expect me to have to resort to guns or try something else? Maybe I'm supposed to use a stealthy fighter?" 5B - MISSIONS ARE NOT PUZZLES!!! the worst examples - "Ok - let me get this straight - I have to first go to point A and hit the tanks with the Mavericks, then I have only a few seconds left to afterburn to point B and use the AMRAAMs on the Mig-21's to protect my rescue helo from being shot down, then I have to go to point C and dogfight with another group of MiGs before they bomb my airbase. Whew, that only took eight failures to figure out!" 6 - Unpredictability - I've repeatedly heard the claim that only a scripted mission can really surprise a player. I disagree - There are many things that I have experienced in dynamic campaigns that were surprising, entertaining, and all the more fun because elements create situations that mission designers couldn't or wouldn't have possibly dreamt up. Ask me if I'd prefer to explore the state by train, car, or helicopter... Sure, a train may go through some nice scenery, but really you're just along for the ride. In a car, you can go pretty much where you want. In a helicopter, you can do whatever you want. Even if you still choose to travel in a straight line, just the knowledge that there is a wide expanse of possibilities is very powerful. 7 - Dynamic campaigns tend to have a world that reacts more to what you and other vehicles do. Scripted campaigns tend to only care about what happens in the context of the mission design. (Example - In Team Apache, enemy helicopters and AAA are only located along the line created by your waypoints. Take the scenic route instead, and you can completely bypass the vast majority of threats. Worse yet, the helicopters in Team Apache can only operate in a little tiny area. They're nothing more than flying roadblocks. Even if I was spotted in another location, they couldn't be vectored in after me.) Now while there are exceptions, the fact is that such omissions would be *glaringly* obvious in dynamic campaigns where they may be more subtle in a scripted one. In other words, you can't fake things as much. >4) A dynamic campaign is never going to generate a mission such as "shoot down >Admiral Yamamoto in your P-38. " Why can't it generate such a mission? It really wouldn't be all that hard if you think about it. Games like Warlords have "heroes" that lead the armies as they move around the board. A WW2 dynamic campaign could fairly easily model the movement of such VIPs as they travel around to lead their forces. Some dynamic campaigns already model intelligence assets. Given that the computer is tracking the movement of VIPs and an intelligence asset is present in the area (in this case, in-theatre codebreakers and a transmission intercept, as I recall), a dynamic "kill VIP mission" to "shoot down Yamamoto in your P-38", "Go shoot Saddam's Winnebago" or "drop a bunker-buster on Saddam's HQ" is certainly possible. It only takes imagination, a little development time, and perhaps the development of a few tools to help make such things possible. > Don't scripted campaigns have the potential to >be a lot more interesting? I don't believe so. The simplest way to put it is this - take the number of times you've finished a mission and said to yourself or a friend afterward "Wow! That was one hell of a mission!" For me, the number of times I had that feeling in a scripted campaign to the number of times I felt that in a dynamic campaign is not even remotely close. I'd honestly ballpark the frequency at an 8-to-1 ratio in favor of the dynamic campaign. >(I'm not at all saying I'm not a fan of dynamic campaigns, and I'll outline >what I think the perfect campaign for today's techology is in a future post. >But I want to hear from some of the rest of you without "leading" into a >discussion of my own theories. And let's not even open hte multiplayer can of >worms. :-) Good idea. Let's focus on the campaign. : ) Bottom line for me - If forced to choose, I'd still take a mediocre dynamic campaign over the best scripted campaign any day of the week. Neil M.