path: root/Doc/dynamic campaigns.txt

From - Mon Nov 02 22:29:24 1998
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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
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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
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From: "Greg Cisko" <gcisko@nOsPaMix.netcom.net>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim
Subject: Re: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss.
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 22:19:54 -0600
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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
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From: silenus@home.com (David Clark)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim
Subject: Re: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss.
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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
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From: "Michael J. Iverson" <micivers@badlands.nodak.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim
Subject: Re: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss.
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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

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From: rjl26@mars.its.yale.edu (Robin Lee)
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Subject: Re: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss.
Date: 3 Nov 1998 05:14:22 GMT
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In article <364067e5.15703318@news.mindspring.com>,
Denny Atkin <dennya@mindspring.com> 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 <amraam@ix.netcom.com>
YLS '99 - New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Vulture's Row/Russian Navy - <http://www.webcom.com/amraam>
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From: "Jarrod Smith" <jsmith@scripps.edu>
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Subject: Re: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss.
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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

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From: "enzo" <enzo@nospam.com>
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Subject: Re: Dynamic Campaigns: Discuss.
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 22:07:25 -0800
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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.