Story arcs - content made interesting

A recent query on the SimHQ forums prompted a quick appraisal of scripted content. I originally only penned one opening story to be recorded for use in trailers and/or training mission at the start. We don't have the  resources to do much more than that, and I'm not really sure more is needed (it would be nice to have more but gamers are smart and like to push in their own direction).

As the campaign is mostly dynamic there isn't much mission building needed. To break up the mission variety we came up with some simple to implement content. There's the 'deck of cards' intel-collection quest, ambient quests (short versions of campaign engine generated sorties collected whilst flying) and some scripted missions just like Longbow 2.

The deck of cards content is reasonably easy to assemble. The scripted mission content requires more of a story telling flair and using text with some recorded speech in some places we can embellish the hand crafted missions. I have a number of characters, some re-used from the opening introduction.

I'm assembling story arc ideas for the future. Cyclic has volunteered to play a British SAS officer and associate (I hope Druid will come and play too). I get to play a bad guy.

We have some content ideas I want to flesh out for the following characters...

- The "We Care" charity worker (female role)
- Italian liaison officer (no stereotypes please, Herat is transferring from Italian control at start of game)
- US Photographer
- Brit reporter

As much as I'd LOVE to include the Bermuda short wearing Camp Stone CO practising his golf drive out the back of a Chinook, it requires dedicated rigging and animation, things we can't do right now. So we need to keep it simple, limited to things that can be expressed as dialogue and moving vehicles.