Brecourt Manor - Playtesting version, single player

[rise44]

If you're not at all interested in single player missions and/or interested in helping me test my first map, don't read any further.

This map is called Brecourt Manor, the first map in a series of maps (read: mod) called Battle of Normandy (short BoN). BoN is a campaign which depicts historical battles fought during Allied invasion of Europe in the summer of 1944, beginning on June 6th and ending on August of 1944. I'm aiming to make all maps and missions as accurate as possible both geographically and historically while on the same incorporating the entertaining aspects of Faces of War to the campaign.

So, here you go: Download BRECOURT MANOR (http://www.tpu.fi/~a4vrissa/fow/BoN.rar)

Since this is my first mission, I'm really looking forward to some constructive advice and commentary from modding experts and passionate players alike. I hope the mission is somewhat bug-free at this point (I finalized everything in a hurry). I already know that some tweaking is needed (for example the campaign menu preview thumbnails - the alpha-channel-stuff is killing me), but I'm hoping your feedback would arise points invisible to me.

Have fun and thank you!!

P.S. I'm so sorry I don't have any screenshots to show you right now. I really have to hurry to work! ;)

[Instinct]

Will look at it as soon as I find time, but I'm sure others will be faster and give valuable critics :)

[Zeke Wolff]

Ok, I´ve just played thru your first mission and to be honest, although it was fun, it was a bit too easy but hey, maybe the easy part was due to my superior use of tactics... :)

Anyway, some critism.

a) the asphalt road (the one you see in the beginning where the motorcycle enters the scene from), it would look much better without all that grass on top of it.

b) same thing with the trenches. No grass inside the trenches please.

c) the halftrack approach... the crew are very well aware of the US presence, and still they only jumps out of the halftrack and stand there, waiting to be gunned down...? That part reminded me of the early 50´s war movies in which the Germans were always portrayed as being stupid morons who always fell for the old trick "camerade"... :realbig:

d) the guns... if I´d been the gun crew, if would have turned the guns toward the attacking force, instead of continuing to fire towards a distant target whilst being cut down from the behind.

e) once again the guns... You do know that the guns weren´t really 88´s? All guns that fired on the US that day were indeed reported as being "those darn German 88´s" but the real thing was 10.5 cm´s howitzers. The game doesn´t include any of those, but simply change the 88´s to the 150mm German Sf18 instead. Just a thought.

f) maybe cut down the US force to five or maybe just five guys? Or add some more Germans in the trenches as protection.

g) most importantly, it was fun! :hurray: I want more! :realbig:

~Zeke.

[Viceman]

Just played it with tactics, it was fun and nicely done small mission. The fog of war could be enabled, after all it was quite easy just to snipe almost all the enemies. Or just leave the sniper off from yankee troops. And when the german reinforcements came with halftrack, they just standed around some waypoints for them could been nice. And leave one men in the halftrack because now i just run and captured it to my own usage and the results were devastating. But overall it was very fun to play and there was no bugs (atleast i didnt noticed any). Hopefully i see more missions from you. ;)

[rise44]

Thanks for the critic!! Nice to hear some expert comments. I'd like to reply to some of it.

Here's to Zeke Wolff:

a & b) Really, there's grass on top of the road and in the trenches too? That's a ridiculous mistake on my behalf. Although, I must defend myself by saying that my PC is "not the strongest tool in the shed". I played thru the original FoW campaign (and every playtest of my own mission and some user missions too) with the lowest graphic settings. And I mean the lowest, and still had incredible lag in some missions. Take a look at the preview images for the Brecourt mission, those screenshots have been taken with those graphic settings. Anyways, I'll check the map with better graphic settings and correct this childish bug.

c) Yeah, this is an issue I haven't figured out yet - I haven't been able to make the actor > attack_enemies (or something like that) work just yet. Will do.

d) Actually the guns have the "deviate" option ticked in their action (or order) to fire at the distant target and when I playtested the mission myself, one of the guns even fired a couple of shells at me. And several times the guns were turned at me to shoot (and that looked funny as hell, 'cause it seemed like there was an invisible force yanking at the gun to shoot at the beach. Did you notice this?) but at the last moment they turned back shooting "at the beach". As an historical issue, there's no mention anywhere on the stories of this attack of 101st Airborne's, 506th PIR's Easy Company, that the guns would've actually fired back. If there's any believing the "Band of Brothers" book, episode #2 of the TV-series or the operational re-caps on the Internet. I don't know why but it seems the attack was so sudden and fast that the guns didn't have time. Maybe the guns were trenched so deep that it wasn't possible. Maybe, maybe. I think it's more fun this way. It's not fun dodging four (maybe after the first one's down, three) cannons shooting at you.

e) I thought I'd leave this to the playtesters: if any of you mention about this, I'll change the guns... And here it is! :) But yeah, that's true, they weren't really 88's but 105's. And I knew it all along, I just thought the 88's would be more familiar to players and the fact that the actual soldiers thought they were 88's why wouldn't "the players depicting the soldiers in the game" be allowed to think that too. :blabla: But you're right. I'll change the guns.

f)
maybe cut down the US force to five or maybe just five guys?
You mean five or four guys? Yeah, that's a good notion. I hope you played the mission with the tactics mode. I played it through once with tactics and walked away winning with only one guy alive on the team. But I rushed it through with aggressive tactics and got some of my own killed unnecessarily. But thinking of Viceman's critic too, I think I'll get the sniper out of the US-team.

e) Thanks, that's the main thing!!

And here's to Viceman:

- I'll enable the fog of war. That's my bad! :)
- The sniper comes off. Way too easy I suppose, at least with the fog of war disabled.
- Take a look at answer c) above, the halftrack-issue is covered there. And I won't let everyone exit the halftrack next time...

Thanks so much guys for the feedback! I really appreciate it!

As Arnold said: "I'll be back!"

[kapulA]

Well I played the map with my mod and it was a pretty fun experience although some of the 88s kept shooting in the hedgegrow in front of them which to self-destruction when they loaded HE shells as they have an increased radius of damage in my mod.
Points while playing:

1.The minimap seems to be a bit off at some places,you should attempt to fix that.

2.Some ammuniton crates have Allied markings on them,which is a bit weird as they are German crates.

3.Those trenches seem a bit too small to be occupied by a cannon.Alternatively you could do a depression in the land with the trench exiting in it,so there's more space for the 88 crew.

4.The edges of that asphalt road should be smoothened.Use the GEM editor smoothing tool(just hold shift when in the height tool and press.)

5.I'd like a 6 man team but there's no need for the sniper so you could perhaps replace him with another rifleman.

It was a fun map though,my casualties were 3 guys that bought it from a potato masher when they were hiding behind that car at the start of the map,since I also edited the grenade damage radius. :)

[Soldier of Destiny]

Hey rise44,

to help you:

-Set the "offset" of your waypoint number 9 to for example "400". Then your 88s will fire higher and not attack the ground

-To let only the troops in the back emit the halftrack, set the "mode" in the properties of "emit" to "passengers" (instead of "all")

[rise44]

Lots of thank you's go out to Soldier of Destiny and kapulA. Nice to see that people are interested in commenting on creations of other mappers!

Once again, I'll reply. Soldier of Destiny first:

-Thanks for the offset tip. I knew about that option in waypoints but didn't actually know that it'd affect those cannons that way. Nice! Not that it would've been an actual problem for me, since the guns blasted away quite nicely, NOT hitting the hedgerow in front of them - at least in my mod (I haven't changed any values for any gun, vehicle, soldier, anything).
- I already changed the emit command to passengers. Quite obvious. That command is, I mean. Thanks anyway!

Then kapulA:

1. I actually thought that the minimap was ok. Well anyways, fixed it (again) and it should be ok now.
2. Thanks for the notion on crates! I didn't actually ever zoom so close as to see those markings. Possibly this is just a graphic settings issue, since I've edited on maximum quality textures (with grass and such) for just a few days. That first version of the map you've played was edited on maximum performance textures (no grass and such). It's possible I didn't even have a chance to see the markings.
3. I tried lots of different types of entrenchments for the guns but finally settled with the "trench_exp2" (or something like that) 'cause I like the claustrophobic feel it gives. I like to think that those guns were really trenched in very deep and tight by the Germans.
4. Smoothened out the edges of the asphalt road. Thanks for the tip!
5. The team is now a 5 man team, no sniper included. Two rifles, one smg, one mgun and the officer.

All in all, I've moved on and started to make a new map for my mod. I'll probably get back to Brecourt Manor when I've got the time, at the latest before I release the Battle of Normandy mod. Brecourt is at its "final demo"-stage, so to speak. I don't like some of the texturing myself but I like to think that after a few more maps, I've gotten some fresh ideas and skills to make the Brecourt-world more interesting-looking.

If you guys have interest and time to test the latest version of Brecourt, let me know and I'll make it available. And remember, if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours: if you'd like me to comment on your maps, I'd be more than happy to do that.

Cheers!

EDIT: I forgot to mention about a problem that has come up here:

I've got a problem with grass. When I play my map with the game (not the editor testing mode), there's grass in places where it shouldn't be, for instance on asphalt roads. I thought this would be simple to fix with the grass tool.

But, the editor doesn't show the grass for some reason! I thought I'd be extra sure and "removed" the grass with the grass tool, even though I didn't see it! Just right-clicked the mouse and went all over the map with the tool. Then I tested the map again with the game, but still, the grass is there! Is it possible that this has something to do with the terrain settings?

Anyone?

[wawaee]

I've got a problem with grass. When I play my map with the game (not the editor testing mode), there's grass in places where it shouldn't be, for instance on asphalt roads. I thought this would be simple to fix with the grass tool.

But, the editor doesn't show the grass for some reason! I thought I'd be extra sure and "removed" the grass with the grass tool, even though I didn't see it! Just right-clicked the mouse and went all over the map with the tool. Then I tested the map again with the game, but still, the grass is there! Is it possible that this has something to do with the terrain settings?

It could be a bug o_O or you just didn't done the steps correctly ..... ;)

[eVokker]

wow cool looking map. ewerone has pointed the critisims, so i decided to tell that this map is cool ;)

[rise44]

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

[mandrake]

NICE map to play i like it

[Mishkin]

Does anyone still have this map or can post a url? the link is dead and i wanted to try it.. i am searching for singleplayer maps.

[Hero_Swe]

Mhmm, I agree with the above post

[rise44]

Hey, guys!

You've been asking about the Brecourt Manor-map. I bought a new computer over a year ago and all the Faces of War-stuff was left on the old hard drive as I ran out of time to build scenarios. I've been busy working and running a business, so the BoN-campaign was put to side.

But have I got news for you! I'm digging up the old computer from my warehouse to use it at my company's office. I'll also check if I've got the Brecourt Manor-map still there - and also a map called Pegasus Bridge which I nearly finished before ditching the old machine - and will post them here then.

I bought a copy of Men of War a week ago, do you guys know if these old maps work with the new game? And is there an editor already available for Men of War? I've been thinking about starting to build again on my pastime...

[FFA702]

The mow editor is include when you instal the game,its in your main game directori.

[rise44]

Yeah, so it seems. I checked it out myself earlier. Silly me. :)

[HrcAk47]

Old maps are 100% compatible. But i'm not sure about the coding. Maybe the 0.mi will require rework.

[Tommy2guns]

when i click on the link,it says the link is broken.

[rise44]

The link actually should be broken, since it's a link to a folder from my previous web provider. I've got a new one, but haven't still dug up the map file from my old hard drive.

Patience please! I'll post the new link here as soon as I've got the time to invest in this. Sorry for the wait.

[Zeke Wolff]

Old maps are 100% compatible. But i'm not sure about the coding. Maybe the 0.mi will require rework.

Although some maps made with the FoW Editor might have black-and-white checker boards on them due to either renamed texture in MoW, or the FoW texture being left out in MoW (I´m using v1.02) and some of the original maps from FoW did have this "error". Also some of my own maps had errors/terminators when trying to load them into the MoW editor. Seems that some parts of the train entities has been changed in MoW (plattform, cistern and tradevan) caused an terminator in one of my maps.

~Zeke.

[rise44]

Here it is!

The unfinished and helplessly untested Battle of Normandy mod, containing both Brecourt Manor and Pegasus Bridge scenarios - hopefully. :oops:

I have no time to test these with Men of War myself and I really, really can't remember which point I was at with building these scenarios. If they won't work with MoW, try Faces of War.

Hope you enjoy! Comments and criticism are again appreciated - I just might get back at these at some point!

Battle of Normandy - BoN.rar (http://vrissanen.com/mow/BoN.rar) (ca. 2,85 Mb)

Kick ass.

[FFA702]

the first mission is nice,but taking out the arty is hard cuz dynamit don blow them hup,so i take the german alf trak to destroy them.i cant finish the 2nd mission, a script dont work at the end, when you take the town, noting appen.

btw,nice work!