Hello.

You may have read my post in Mod Making, and again, this thread is about what people want in a scene or mission, though I might not be able to code the mission (I will try to enlist someone's help later). As always you may post anything an everything, including non-constructive criticism (THIS DOES NOT MEAN FLAMES). I appreciate your posts and thank you once again.

-Joe

1:Challenge:
Vanilla missions are not hard. It makes it more tedious than fun to murder zombies or dummies over and over again through easy choke points. Missions should be difficult, but beatable. Make the player multitask and/or resource starve them to force them to make smart choices with their money.

2:Innovative/Creative design and Detailed Objectives:
I can only play so many "defend your brain until help arrives missions". Give the player complex objectives that take either time or luck to overcome. Examples include finding parts to a key to get past a gate/door, digging for a secret entrance to X facility, etc.
Another good mechanic I see rarely used is a timed objective. Kill/rescue X actor within X time frame or you lose. A fun example might be a map where a deadly gas cloud is raising in level from the soil and you must fight your way to the top of a tower for evac before the poison rises and kills you.

3:Lua scripting:
It's really become a priority and essential part of a good mission. It also makes things a lot easier and helps bring ideas to the table. Not to mention it vastly expands the possibilities of what a mission can entail.

4:More weegee:
In before it.

Concept: X base is preparing a salvo of nuclear missiles aimed at *insert location*. You have X minutes to get in, disarm the warheads/destroy the targeting computer/destroy the missiles before they launch and destroy *location*

Should have multiple paths through the base (obviously) and a number of ways to accomplish the final goal.

These are all very interesting ideas and grif's idea seems like it has a lot of potential; I will think about the idea of multiple paths to completion.

One idea that I had in mind for a timed mission was to have a captive with 10hp in a room with a door and an enemy right behind that door. When time ran out, if you had not infiltrated the base and killed the guard to rescue the prisoner, then the door would open and the guard would kill the prisoner, ending the game (with you failing of course). If you did manage to rescue the prisoner, then the screen would display a text message (the prisoner's speech) saying something like: "I... I don't think I'm gonna make it soldier... you need... need to take this to... Command... Don't fail dammit... or all is lost..." and then the prisoner would die releasing an OSD like the one in Zombie Cave. Just then an alarm would sound and enemy reinforcements would come pouring through some tunnels behind you. To escape, you would have the option of running a gauntlet of enemies in one escape tunnel or hidden booby traps in another, both tunnels eventually leading to your escape on the other end. The trick at the end is that your dropship would be there, but a giant flak cannon on the roof would blow it into a million pieces, most likely killing you if you are outside. If you are smart enough to stay inside, then a missle barrage comes from off screen and kills the flak cannon, upon which time another dropship is sent down, and you make your escape.


How 'bout THAT?

-Joe

I'd definitley play it.

I've always wanted to have a mission where there are zombies chained up to generators digging for gold with spades. There are coalition around them standing guard and you must get into the base behind them (I don't know what the actual objective would be when you get into the base though).

You can either slaughter the lot, sneak past them, or shoot the generators which break the chains and then the zombies attack the guards. You could use this as a distraction or to thin their numbers a bit before killing them, hopefully if you jetpack over them or something the guards aim for the closer zombies rather than going for you.

Hmm, maybe with mind controll collars.

Yeah that's what I was thinking.

Krumbs' idea sounds like a good thing for me to start with. Thanks!

-Joe