WIP Beta released Operation 235: A BeamNG Story V1.2.3

I'm all for criticism, in fact, I love it because it gets feedback and after many people give you different suggestions for improvements, you get a really solid resource.

 

Get a grip kid...

 

I like your scenarios and this one is even a bit more fun and complex than the first one. So great work!

One thing I would say though is that the cars paint is setup very weirdly. The cars have no specular and almost look neon colored because of it. The white one is especially noticeable.


I think having colors more close to the stock vehicles would be better.

 

Ok, I will do that. I'm going to make a video trying to show what i'm talking about. My original post was more of a rant if anything else. I will try to show Darthbob how to make his story more diverse by showing him my perspective. I love Darthbob's work on Bridge Conundrum and I still thought Operation 235 was fun too. I will give proper criticism instead of a rant, I apologize to Darthbob for being rude. I hope he can forgive me.

 

That's more like it!!

 

Of course I can forgive you. Not much harm was done, after all . I do appreciate you taking time to evaluate your mistakes and taking the time to give constructive criticism.

 

Darthbob555 updated Operation 235: A BeamNG Story with a new update entry:

More fixes!

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

Cant finish chapter 9.

 

I know it's hard. The PC affects it as well as the code will run at 60FPS whether your computer is giving you 60FPS or not.

 

Could you explain (without too much spoilers) what we should expect on chapter nine? I've tried with different settings (from low, 50s fps, to high, 30s fps) and i always get the same result: the sky becomes tiled with some kind of bricks (the nuclear fallout I guess) and the bridge gets impossibly blocked with no options to reach the last waypoint. No bricks falling but huge concrete blocks laying around.

BTW I like it very much. The idea of the bridge connecting two different maps is very good and reminds me of a similar idea posted recently by Occam's Razor. I understand this and The bridge Conundrum as excellent proofs of concept and first experiments with the idea of Beamng stories. As such I think there is plenty of room for improvement in the plot/writing front .

 

First of all, make sure that you run the latest version everwise it will not reset properly.
The way I completed it (I did this with a steering wheel) was I did a handbrake turn to cause the meltdown and then go onto the dirt path. There are some corners you can cut between waypoints, can't remember which ones, which saves you time. Once you get onto the beach, you need to floor it, without loosing control, to the next waypoint. If you managed to get to that waypoint, you should reach the next waypoint on the bridge without too much haste as the bridge being blocked doesn't happen until 10 seconds after the waypoint before being blocked. Hopefully this makes sense
But yeah, it is hard.

 

Alright, I've been meaning to weigh in since the first one, and I played this one last night, so here goes.

First off, I think it's really cool that you're making overarching stories in BeamNG! You're exploring uncharted waters here, and you still have a long way to go, but you're certainly inspiring a lot of people, and that's super important. c:

Your story has improved slightly from your first campaign, but it still doesn't really feel like much. This isn't solely because of your plot, but rather due to the way you write things--it almost feels monotone, if you can describe writing as such. Almost every sentence ends with a period, and many are structured similarly, leaving the descriptions feeling boring and same-y. This sucks, because you're definitely varying your word choice, it's just getting lost in the overall structure! (Plus, you could afford to simplify some sentences and be more concise in general; sometimes less is more, y'know?)

Adding punches of emotion is crucial to breaking the monotone, especially for the action scenes where boring writing sticks out the most. Add bursts of excitement! Use short exclamations! Or slow down the action...and make a dramatic reveal.

Also, line breaks will help a ton. For your scenario descriptions, just add extra <p>paragraph</p> segments to space out the text; separate paragraphs by topic, and separate gameplay notes from story if applicable.

These are mostly just general suggestions, though. Getting tone right is hard to achieve and even harder to explain, so my best suggestion is to analyze some writing you like, and find out what appeals to you. Trying to read your writing out loud always helps, too, as does listening to someone else speaking. I can tell you've put a lot of thought into your story, but bland tone can turn it boring in an instant!

You might benefit from separating your story from real-world context, in order to give you more freedom to create fantastical situations. Otherwise, you get situations like Chapter 5, where your average-citizen player character, after chasing down the obviously-suspicious mayor in lieu of the police, simply talks to the guy...and agrees to hide him from the police for seemingly no reason? And is never tracked down for the rest of the campaign?? And the island never knows what the deal is even though the police found out and "235" was specifically stated so many times??? My point is, develop some reasoning before the actions happen, even if you break a lot of rules.

Hand-in-hand with reasoning is characterization. All of the people in your story are faceless, and have no personality to define themselves and their actions. I can tell the mayor is a scumbag because of what he did, but it doesn't make me feel like he's a scumbag, especially since he straight-up tells you about his ridiculous scheme right after you take him down, and the how or why of that encounter isn't described. Is he apprehensive when you confront him? Did you intimidate him so much that he was begging at your feet confessing? Maybe some underground group helped put the plan into action, and the mayor's life is at stake if he gives himself (or them) up! There's so many directions you could go, just to explain one small moment in the story.

You also need to consider how the gameplay is going to tie to the story. In Operation 235, a significant chunk of the plot is advanced by the player simply driving from one location to another, often under a speed limit. This is okay to do maybe once, but it gets tedious the more time it takes up. You shouldn't make the player take every menial action in the story because it's part of the story; give them a break and fill them in on what happened at the next important part. For instance, Chapter 1 is entirely unnecessary: you're making people drive a considerable distance at 40 mph with no other reward, and the events that transpire during the scenario can easy be merged into Chapter 2's description. (And in Chapter 2, you do more 40-mph driving! See where I'm coming from?)

The action sections of the story are where your work really shines! The chase is great, the police dodging is fun, and the final scene really puts the pressure on the player. I only have a couple gripes in this area:

• In Chapter 5, the cop cars you're heading towards are pretty close together, meaning the scenario is only interesting for maybe the first 30 seconds before you realize you've cleared all the obstacles and just have to make it to the safehouse. It would be more interesting if the cars were placed more evenly on your route.
• Chapter 9 is pretty neat, but every time you throw a reactor in the path of the player, you're reloading all static object collisions--which makes the game lock up a little, and can throw even an experienced driver off course. In the future, I'd advise making use of a mobile prop object to create obstacles like these, so you don't have to reload collisions every time to get them to work. (Maybe you could create such an object yourself!)

That's mostly all I have to say, aside from a couple minor points I forgot, probably. I really hope I helped you out here! I'm looking forward to seeing your future improvements. ^_^

 

Thanks for the feedback! I can tell you took sometime in writing this so I really appreciate it . One thing I would like to ask is about the "mobile prop" - is this like the falling bricks or is this an object that has a movable collision mesh?

 

Glad to hear it!

I meant anything from the Prop category in the vehicles menu--it might be a good idea if you could use one of those in a way that suits your needs, or just make your own prop (for instance, something like the Metal Box seems pretty simple).

 

A couple other points I wanted to mention:

Some of your checkpoints, especially on wide roads, don't really cover the whole road and only inhabit a small section in the middle. While it's still pretty easy to go through them, it's generally good practice to make sure they're at least as wide as the road, for simplicity's sake.

The scenario menu descriptions could also use some work. I guess you're trying to be vague and not spoil anyone who glances at them ahead of time, but they're kind of...ridiculously edgy. And not even an enjoyable kind of edgy, because half the time you're using the same words from one description to the next, dulling them even more. You'd be better off with a sincere, concise message that vaguely lets on what the scenario involves, but still hides crucial information from the player.

 

Could you make a story of a trucker in his T-Series? I think it would be pretty cool if the trucker has to deliver a very valuable and important piece of equipment. The piece of equipment has gotten the attention of some very dangerous secret organization and will stop at nothing to take it.

It would probably make sense to wait until the T-series trailer comes out.

In the trucker story, there should be a chase scene where they successfully take your trailer and you have to chase down another T-series down a highway with obstacles and traps laid by the secret organization (some explosions would be awesome).

Also, one more thing. Is it possible to get an AI to chase YOU down? Cause that would be epic. Running away from two black Pessimas trying to take you out and steal your delivery! If it is possible, then is it possible to have the AI follow the road if they lose you? Cause the chase AI can be quite stupid and doesn't see obstacles and would drive across anything to get to you.

 

It is possible to get the AI to chase you but you can only have one at a time as the AI then start chasing each other. I could see a trucking story working, it would require a suitable map with some open roads and a few motorways to make it more interesting. Thanks for the suggestion