Hippo Posted 2 hours ago Posted 2 hours ago (edited) Some may find it unusual that after (many, many) years of DCS enjoyment, I only tried using the Campaign Builder for the first time a few days ago. What I found was shocking and dismaying. I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms regarding the sheer inadequacy of this tool. That the replies I received to a recent forum question about what should be a trivial campaign creation issue involved user-created APIs and delving into the minutae of 3rd party campaign missions just says it all. I won't turn this into an essay about persistent campaign-wide variables and unit status tracking, proper branching support and other essential features for a tool of this nature. Instead I will just point you to what was available in a twenty-six year old product, for an idea of what the functionality a tool of this kind should provide; I'm sure Matt Wagner will be able to provide further details if required. Of course, now it's plainly obvious why all* third party campaigns are, structurally, trivial linear affairs rather than complex, branching and endlessly replayable experiences that, in the hands of talented creators, can rival any dynamic campaign. I think the development effort in creating such a tool would be relatively minor in relation to the enormous benefit it would return in the long run. Certainly I would've put it way ahead of, e.g., the recent very pretty but mostly unnecessary laucher app, in a priority list. * No, not all, but those that aren't involve players writing down codes and jumping through other hoops. And I am continually in awe at what the pro campaign creators produce, especially considering how lacking are the tools at their disposal. Think of what they could achieve with a tool like the one linked to above. Edited 2 hours ago by Hippo System spec: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D @ stock, MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Ventus 3X OC 32 GB DDR7, Gigabyte X870 Gaming X, Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB EXPO (2 x 16GB) DDR5 5300MHz C30, Samsung 980 EVO 500 GB NVME M.2 SSD (system drive), WD Black SN 850X 2TB NVME M.2 SSD (games drive), Thermalright Assassin Spirit 120 Evo Cooler, Asus XG43UQ Monitor, Oculus Quest Pro, Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS, Thrustmaster Pendular Rudder
Recommended Posts