[justify]Back in the days when I didn’t have grey hair yet, I used to run on occasion a mission series called "Mr. Carke" (I’m great at naming things) in which a dashing and daring PMC group called "Crimson Talon" would protect an eccentric businessman who’s hell-bent on making shady deals in unsavory places of the world.[/justify]
[justify]Mission features Mr. Clarke The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.[/justify]
Does not have military training. He may panic under fire or refuse to travel further on foot without adequate friendly forces in the vicinity. This is a highly erratic individual who is prone to buffoonery and irrational decision making.
Has basic firing range skills. He may pick up assault rifles, carbines, smgs and pistols - enemy and friendly equipment alike. If he does, PMCs have to communicate to all protection elements that the HVT might be e.g. equipped with an AK.
Too good for menial labour. Mr. Clarke will flat out refuse to do things he feels are beneath him. He requires a driver at all times and in front of business partners, he may even insist on PMC’s opening the doors for him to look like a big shot.
Does not carry a radio. The HVT does not carry a radio, he complained it made his pants feel too heavy…
No dynamic map marker. Mr. Clarke does not wish his location to be tracked via GPS. You will have to keep an eye on him the old-fashioned way, which can be difficult as he may demand to meet his esteemed business partners in private.
Crimson Talon
No planning phase. There is no overarching campaign or even mission strategy as the HVT is extremely secretive with regard to his intentions. He will only reveal a rough idea of where he wants to travel, often even just one location at a time. You’ll have to constantly assess the situation and deal with the uncertainty that this weirdo might change his mind with the flip of a coin.
Limited PMC equipment. Crimson Talon is privately funded mostly out of the pockets of Mr. Clarke himself and since he is ever so stingy with the budget you will not be equipped with fancy military grade weaponry. That means no grenade launchers, no rocket launchers, no kevlar helmets, no armored vehicles, no air support - only low capacity LMG’s and a mixed assortment of rifles and SMG’s.
Travelling light. The HVT does not like waiting around for people trying to catch a stamina break. Only small backpacks (if any) are distributed and your mag-count will be lower than usual. We are here to make great business deals, not to wage war!
Indifferent to war crimes. Crimson Talon is a collection of mercenaries, dishonorable discharges and other degenerates. All they care about is protecting the source of their income, thus avoiding civilian casualties ranks very low on their priority list. However, on missions where BluFor forces are present PMC’s will always be on their best behavior, keeping weapons tight and lowered at all times, in order to avoid severe sanctions or legal quarrels.
PMCs are expendable. There is no honor among thieves and cut-throats - if you are surrounded or left behind wounded do not expect a rescue mission. PMC’s will fight tooth and nail to protect and rescue the HVT but they won’t bat an eye over leaving behind their comrades in arms.
HVT must not die. If he is killed the mission has failed and PMC’s will disperse to frantically reach the safety of their base while being hunted by enemies and Mr. Clarke’s business associates alike.
[justify]This video shows some gameplay of the second Mr. Clarke mission. Note: not all mission features as described above are implemented at that point.[/justify]
[youtube]m62GxFvYq_Y[/youtube]
[justify]As you can imagine, creating this kind of missions is rather time-consuming as they require writing a basic story script, finding ideal locations for the story to play out, creating the mission itself and making the crimson talon EDEN compositions from scratch. So I would like to gauge the general community interest in re-making them before I invest too much time into it - this forum post alone took me almost 45 minutes to write and format (I’m slow I know). :oops: :LOL:
This could be played as a series of short one-life-only missions with the average length of a PvP mission and slightly lower AI aim, thus enabling us to play two or three Coop missions in one night.
So what do you guys think, should Mr. Clarke make a comeback or did we play this character-scenario enough in the past?[/justify]
Although it sounds very interesting, you should communicate with staff first, as there are some rules regarding player loadouts which would basically make this mission in violation of them.
It could be run as official campaign but you’d need to join MMT first (3 successful missions are entry points). After that MMM needs to approve all missions in the campaign - they all need to be submitted at once before campaign start.
It’s a risk for you to do all of this alone, that’s why I support MMT created campaigns. But there are issues with it which are for another topic.
[justify]I appreciate your likes and comments on the post. How do you guys feel with regard to shorter one-life missions with slightly reduced AI accuracy? I’ve also been experimenting with the long barrel shotgun and find it’s performance rather good -could be a cool security personnel weapon. Would you be up for having one shotgun per fireteam?[/justify]
[justify]Thanks for your inputs. I’m aware of the mission submission process and its restrictions towards custom factions - I’d be cool with "only" running this as a series of mini-ops or maybe as a campaign at some point. However, this thread serves more to gauge the general interest in this slightly unusual blast from the past and to maybe refine it a bit before I start production.[/justify]
[justify]I really enjoy 1-life missions but they have to be rare. I can definitely see people do not like the concept of it similar to PvP. In my opinion at most one every month. We will see what people think about the concept of a 1-life mission in this Friday OP as it is a 2x 1-life mission. I hope people will like it and we can have more of them! [/justify]
[justify]About the reduced accuracy: I think it’s not even necessary. In 1-life ops you play much safer, you will for example not just stand in the open and shoot because that could mean you will be watching the rest of missions instead of playing it. Reducing the accuracy might lead to people being less careful, the op being less tense as a result and thus eliminating the main selling point of such a mission, in my opinion at least. [/justify]
I like one life missions and I’d play them all the time, so no problem there for me. I like the concept [user avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/4259784/avatar/small.1400079666.png” name=“Anders”]4259784[/user] put forward with having two per event so people still play more than just until they die.
I’d like to point out one thing - we should enable AI controlled playable units to cancel the battlecrap doing crap and people "dying" because their connection dropped. It works like this - we do a selection in the lobby (slots are by default controlled by AI). When we are done with slot selection, admin disables other slots and we can play as usual, no AI involved. In case a player’s connection drops, he can come back and take control of his character.
Be careful though, by default one 3DEN module will overwrite your settings to default of CNTO (no AI in lobby). So you’ll need to delete that module first and then manually change the setting in the editor.
I like the sound of it all Clarke. This friday mission kinda serves as a test for both one-life missions and no GM missions. Hopefully people like it and we can use that way of playing more.
About AI accuracy I would rather see the discussed tweak about setting up the medical system so people are more likely to go unconscious than die when hit.
I really like the whole idea, and I would like to see it happening regularly. I’m also hyped about the shotguns. I’ve been trying to use them as often as possible. Just make sure not to distribute the bunker buster rounds. Wouldn’t want to level the whole town if you miss an enemy.
I also like Highway’s idea about AI controlled playable units.
Uh, to be fair. I think i is already annoying when you die you have to wait 60 min. (I’m happy that i don’t die allot). But if i have a evening free and finnaly can play arma and then we are playing one-life missions, i might gonna be a little bid sad. So long waiting time… If it are short mission (max 45/60 min) i can handle.
You keep your evening open to play a official OP and can be over so fast… So if we play one life mission / MR clarke mission, i would enjoy that on a other day then OP’s day’s. Because i would dislike to give my free friday eve for that. Tuesday -> i can live with that. But Friday if i have time i just wanna play… otherwise im gonna meet with friends or something.
[justify]Thank you all a lot for your inputs. :thumb:
I have currently a few cnto projects in the pipeline and I’ve made a priority list - first and foremost I’ll concentrate on our new PR branch documentation and upon completion, I’ll contact [user avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/13688253/avatar/small.1433248519.jpeg” name=“Highway”]13688253[/user] for some tips on EDEN compositions (I left MMT before they were a thing). If all goes well we should see a Mr. Clarke test mini-op pop up somewhere next month. 8)[/justify]
