Wishlist to make a tutorial map super effective.

How far along is the tutorial map?

 

The map itself is "done".

There are a few dozen logic things that need to happen.

Vehicle spawners are all set up to spawn a type of each vehicle. Voices need to be added at some point, placeholder props are in place.

I'm going to be gone hunting for a couple weeks out in the middle of montana starting the 22nd. I still have a lot of preparation to do for that, so I'll be very busy for the next week and won't get to mess with it much.

beyond that, you'll have to talk to keef. He'll be the final judge of when the map is finished.




http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/10061381/1/tutorial?h=4b4f86

 

if ya need logic help... they say im quite good with triggers

 

I demand to know who "they" are so that I may scoff at them.

 

"they" are people that contacted me with problems concerning mapping

also the people that used my "trigger examples" in the mapping section (like auto com drop refs on flag capture, randomised cv and rax spawn location, switch picking between be and nf spawn, randomised ref location etc)

 

we gots it. the most complex set of triggers in here are problably that room with the light that change. Or maybe the presets and vehicles spawners, but all of that is functioning well.

 

Make Etho speak, thx

 

Cpatton has done a pretty good voiceover actually.

 

www.binaryapes.com/empires/TutorialTest2.mp3

Finished the first segment.

Notes, although no one will read this before giving feedback:
- I fall out of the accent a little in places. Accent is a little forced in others.
- Script is not perfect, some places that I have begged people to help me rescript ("RED DUST" D, I hope a sample will get me that feedback.
-some quality deficiencies. This should not be a problem, simply because it should be a radio transmission in the first place, I'll probably add more noise to it so it can at least be superficially realized that it is a radio transmission, without actually making the voice any less understandable.


This is a FIRST draft, it goes with the beginning of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFdyf1F093Q

Enjoy :D.


The point of my soundbyte is to sample what will go there, and get feedback. We will also need to simulate a box of someone speaking to them onscreen, as if another player is talking, so that they KNOW it is a transmission, and the player doesn't sit there while I talk thinking "where the fuck is that voice coming from". Give me feedback.

EDIT: oooooOooOOOOOoOooo, just played it with the video at the same time, I think I did a good job XD. Once you guys give me some feedback Ill make it perfect.

 

Replace butt with ass or rear end.
butt sounds rather childish :/



maybe carcass or some other demeaning or demoralizing word

 

rear end sounds worse.

I want to use ass, but I don't know how family friendly we are being :/.

 

wtf? Thats supposed to be a drill sargent? lol someone call major pain or headshot in here.

 

WE ARE NOT BEING FAMILY FRIENDLY, I mean good god if they are family friendly they will die of trauma when they finally join a real game.

 

Someone doesn't understand how ranks work, because i clearly mentioned CAPTAIN as the rank of the officer, not sergeant.

no. Actually, I just threw away two separate drill sergeant recordings I was working on. They were two recordings of essentially the same script, but with two different southern state American accents, rank sergeant, and a significant amount of yelling, because that is what drill sergeants do. This was my first instinct as well, but I dropped the sergeant bit after looking at a number of factors:

Script:
For the script I had, they were about to ship out to the front. Normally, you are not in the middle of fucking boot camp in the hours before you get shipped out. Since it was a live training session,I figured a script of this being their final test would be best.

Atmosphere/Extrinsic Story/Game Mechanics:
Yelling. Not many people like yelling, although it can work. However I'd have to reduce volume in the end anyways, even though yelling is still distracting from what is being said, and what the player is supposed to be doing. Since I felt we shouldn't come off as annoying and we shouldn't be detracting from the players trying to LEARN the game, I decided not to go with the America's Army approach, went with a higher officer position and demeanor.

Microphone limitations:
Unfortunately I do not own a professional mic. I have a friend with one and can set up some time for me to record at his place sometime, but only for the final run through since its inconvenient. My mic, like most mics, lacks certain capabilities that a professional mic would. Air velocities from screaming mouths causes static, which I can solve by moving the mic out of the way, but I can't solve the decibel ring, which would make anything said with too much force sound very, VERY annoying to human ears.


I'll rerecord with swearing tomorrow, some other tweaks, and any other improvements people can suggest, and then Metal Smith if you could trigger it in map that would be great. Should I add the superficial transmission static before sending it or no?

If you guys still want to go with the drill sergeant approach, I'll consider it for the second draft, but only if there is strong support for it. People don't tend to like drill instructors for a reason: they are annoying. In fact they are supposed to be annoying. Not like we need to annoy our player base anymore.

 

i would like to let you all know that I am retarded and have a tiny penis

 

you are an idiot, and where is your sense of fun? Should I come off as some skinny ass white California boy? Voice acting is voice acting, accent is just a little fun, and fucking listen to it before you say shit nub . If I want your opinion before you listen to it, I'll fucking give it to you.

 

i cringed

 

Listen to it with the video and stop being such a baby.

Some thoughts on the training course:

It would be nice if there was a portion where the engineer had to BUILD a wall, and or PLACE an ammo box to complete the training. If they are only given the health box instead, and instructed how to drop their own ammo box (voice over again), that would be wonderful. I think that they should have to build a wall to get above a tall ledge AFTER having built the bridge, so they know that they can also place their own walls.

Finally, add a convincingly audible explosion for the bridge, and a bigger visual too would be nice, so the bridge doesn't just *disappear* like some magic trick? Making it a breakable object would be a nice touch so it falls to pieces, but not really important.

Only other thing I can think of at the moment is some way for the player to realize that the voice-over is a transmission, so they aren't confused by the voice.

 

HE explosion on the bridge might work.