What makes a good fan mission?

Melan on 14/9/2015 at 08:07

This is overall good advice, and while yes, its points have come up before (some even in original Looking Glass design documents), it never hurts to repeat them as long as there are still missions with basic gameplay issues that could have been avoided with some forethought. This piece is also concise and well written. There are points where I have a slightly different opinion, but don't we all? Every author should take this list into consideration - you don't need to follow it, but I'd argue you should at least think about it.

Zontik on 14/9/2015 at 14:12

You should know the rules good to break them wisely.
Tiny switches... IIRC, they were designed to place them on the plain wall ("Casing the Joint"), not in the dark corners.

Unna Oertdottir on 14/9/2015 at 17:01

Quote Posted by greenie2600

It's not meant to be a list of commandments.

There are some good suggestions and some like/dislike points.
Picking locks forever is really annoying and boring, that's true. I'm afraid to replay some of the best missions because of that (Timoteus, Rocksbourg I)

Quote:

And of course I'm grateful for any fan missions that folks care to make, and of course creators of FMs should use their own judgement.

Since you know what's good for fan mission, try to make your own mission. You can implement your knowledge of a good mission there ;)

greenie2600 on 14/9/2015 at 17:26

I don't think it's really possible to design a level that doesn't limit the player's freedom. Simply by placing a wall, you're taking away the player's freedom to walk through that area. A level designer's role is to allow freedom within well chosen constraints, in a way that produces interesting and enjoyable challenges for the player to overcome. Choosing constraints that do produce enjoyable challenges is what makes a good mission.

For example, choosing not to put a statue in the courtyard, that allows the player to climb directly into the baron's chambers and complete the mission in the first two minutes of play, limits the player's options. And that's a good choice for the designer to make—I mean, a mission that hands you a win on a silver platter isn't much of a game, is it? That's just as boring and linear as a mission one which constrains the player to walk down a winding path with no forks or branches. Probably more so.

I promise you that the authors of your favorite missions thought long and hard about whether to allow the player to reach that balcony, about what points of entry to allow to the mansion, about whether to force the player to sneak through the crypts in order to get into the abandoned tower (or give them the option to skip the crypts entirely).

The best missions provide plenty of options for the player to choose from—but those options are deliberately and carefully chosen, and it's up to the player to notice them (hey, there's a place to put a rope arrow! hey, here's a basement window I can crawl through instead of barging through the front door! hey, if I move quickly, I bet I could use some moss arrows to get to the other side of this hall!), and to wisely choose which ones to take, and when.

And, yeah—when I say that players shouldn't be able to access areas that aren't meant to be accessible, I'm not saying that designers shouldn't let players climb all over the place. I love missions that let you take the Thieves' Highway. I'm just saying, finish and test every conceivable surface in your mission, so that when the player does get there, the game doesn't glitch out. And if there are places in the mission where you haven't done this—every mission contains many of them—then make sure I can't get there.

nicked on 14/9/2015 at 19:09

Quote Posted by Tannar

And if you did that, I'd enjoy getting to that location that you set up. And when that was done, I'd see if I could get to the untextured skybox edge again. And if you made the map even bigger and turned that into a legitimate location that was hard to reach, I'd enjoy getting there too. And then I'd try to reach the edge of the map again. And on, and on ... So what's the point?

I'm not being facetious, I'm genuinely interested in hearing why you think it matters, especially when many players (particularly Thief players) will try to climb out of the world. If we think that's fun, why would an author try to curtail that fun, especially since they aren't going to be successful, at least not without a ridiculous amount of extra work? I just don't get it.

Maintaining a level of polish is one reason - if the player can get out to the skybox or the edge of the map, they can see that the level isn't real, and the immersion is broken.
More important than that is trying to design good flow - one hard-to-reach place that rewards exploration in an area is great. Maybe even two of three that provide an alternate route. But too much extraneous level is potentially a frustrating maze taking the player away from the mission route.
Then of course you want to make sure the player can't get stuck - what if they jump down behind a building you thought was inaccessible, trying to find another route, and instead find themselves trapped? Real example - the village mission at the start of Sturmdrang Peak. You could get on some of the roofs there, and fall down onto the dock which was just a facade behind a gate. Then you were trapped and couldn't complete the mission. So I slapped some great big invisible barriers up. If I hadn't run out of resources for the mission, maybe I could have expanded the mission to allow the player onto the docks, but if you follow that to it's logical conclusion you quickly run into complexity errors because you can't just expand forever.

I think really it's just about finding the balance between making a mission that gives the player a well-paced story and stealth challenges, and making a climbing playground. You can't go 100% the latter without detracting somewhat from the former.

ValmontPhl on 14/9/2015 at 23:41

Quote Posted by Unna Oertdottir

Since you know what's good for fan mission, try to make your own mission. You can implement your knowledge of a good mission there ;)

I must say, I'm surprised that this type of comment took more than 2-3 posts to come up and at the same time, I'm disappointed it did at all.

Ubisoft is known for soliciting fan/player feedback and I am sure they receive feedback not nearly as well thought out, pointed or concise as OP. I don't believe anyone at Ubisoft, if they ever responded with "Since you know what's good for fan mission, try to make your own mission. You can implement your knowledge of a good mission there" would have their job for very long.
And I don't think very many batting coaches can hit nearly as well as their players nor producers sing as well as the performers.

"the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you." What are the authors without the players and what are the players without the authors? So lets not throw stones over the tracks - we are a community.

More than anything else, I appreciate the time and thought put into composing such a comprehensive post (with the added bonus of not throwing any single FM or Author under a bus; not even a short one)

So my hat off to you, Green and, for the record I agree with most everything you said.

greenie2600 on 15/9/2015 at 01:25

For what it's worth, I'm reorienting myself with DromEd right now. I doubt I'll get very far—I have terrible follow-through on side projects like this—but I'll at least mess around a bit :)

For those of you who create fan missions, I'm wondering: how many hours of work does it take you to produce a typical mission? I guess there's no such thing as "typical", but gimme a ballpark. No elaborate scripting, no cutscenes or custom voice acting, no multi-mission arcs—just a meat-and-potatoes, rob-the-mansion-blind sort of mission.

Unna Oertdottir on 15/9/2015 at 05:31

Quote Posted by ValmontPhl

I must say, I'm surprised that this type of comment took more than 2-3 posts to come up and at the same time, I'm disappointed it did at all.

What's a thread like this worth without the invitation for new authors? There are only a few left. Fresh blood is needed :devil:

@greenie2600: It depends how fast you can learn DromEd. To get some basics, read Komags beginner tutorial (or some more)
(http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131800)

nicked on 15/9/2015 at 05:41

Quote Posted by greenie2600

Always at least 400% more than you plan for. :ebil:

Melan on 15/9/2015 at 05:45

Quote Posted by greenie2600

I was at the peak of my Dromed skills when I made it, but (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124624) Prowler of the Dark took me five days including playtesting, 10-12 hours a day. (http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/12568-fiasco-at-fauchard-street/) Fiasco at Fauchard Street, a speedbuilding exercise for The Dark Mod, took me 11 days with a less intense pace (and it is a larger mission thatn originally planned).

If you take learning Dromed into account, and spread out your time, you can still make a decent beginner's mission in under a month.