Hard Light Productions Forums

Community Projects => The FreeSpace Campaign Restoration Project => Topic started by: fightermedic on December 17, 2012, 11:07:05 am

Title: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: fightermedic on December 17, 2012, 11:07:05 am
Pandora's Box 2.2
Quote
One year prior to the return of the Shivans, the NTF Civil War is at its peak.  As a pilot newly assigned to the 51st squadron, GVD Abydos, currently stationed in the secure Vasuda system, you have little to look forward to other than uneventful patrol and convoy escorts.  Until the NTF make a bold raid into the Vasuda system...

One of the classic campaigns, Pandora's Box, has once more been upgraded to work with the latest Mediavps and nightly builds. Furthermore, full TTS voice acting has been added, and therefore you no longer need to pause and read, when instead you should be shooting down NTF scum!
Please let me know of any wrongly assigned sound files, or any other bugs you might encounter.

Download link:
http://www.moddb.com/members/fightermedic/downloads/pandoras-box-22-restored

(http://imageshack.us/a/img819/3426/screen0014c.jpg)
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.0
Post by: Macfie on December 17, 2012, 12:22:06 pm
Should be Pandora's box v 2.2.  Version 2.0 was released in 2008
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.0
Post by: fightermedic on December 17, 2012, 12:28:12 pm
oops, I will correct it
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: perihelion on December 17, 2012, 09:28:40 pm
Thanks, guys!  I remember playing the original version of this campaign years ago.  Downloading now.
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: FreeSpaceFreak on December 18, 2012, 11:30:56 am
Heyy, great news! I'll have to play this as soon as I get back to my joystick. Congratulations!
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: Colonol Dekker on December 18, 2012, 12:10:09 pm
Zod Campaign :nono:



But well done for the hard work restoring / updating it :yes: :yes: :yes:
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: Solatar on December 18, 2012, 12:35:47 pm
Used to be one of my favorites back in the day, glad to see it make a proper re-appearance.  :yes:
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: Nemesis6 on December 19, 2012, 05:06:41 pm
So is the one in the archive 2.2? Because it says 2.0. Just a little confused.
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: fightermedic on December 19, 2012, 06:16:48 pm
So is the one in the archive 2.2? Because it says 2.0. Just a little confused.
yea, i confused the names and i didn't want to upload again just to change the name, you have the right one
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: mmm99 on December 22, 2012, 02:57:43 am
Wow What a campaign! just finished playing through on the terran branch. Great work Fighter Medic!  :yes:
This is now one of my favorite campains. look forward to the next one.
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: fightermedic on December 22, 2012, 07:00:42 am
Wow What a campaign! just finished playing through on the terran branch. Great work Fighter Medic!  :yes:
This is now one of my favorite campains. look forward to the next one.
thanks for the praise, but i'd like to state that this was not alone my work, rather i was finishing what the others had already begun
glad you liked it, in my personal opinion, of all the campaigns we have revamped, pandoras box is rather medicore. i think most of the other campaigns are better

anyway, stay tuned, the next release will arive very soon :)
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: mjn.mixael on December 22, 2012, 09:31:41 am
Just cause I'm curious, why don't you pack these into a VP install? 1 VP for main files, and 1 VP for voice. IMO, that's just a cleaner way to make a final release, because then you can also have support checksums and whatnot.
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: fightermedic on December 24, 2012, 04:55:35 pm
packed files in some obscure format like vp are heathen witchcraft and to be avoided should one attempt to join the heavenly ranks of the followers of true freedom of thought  :nervous:





BURN THE HERETICS! :beamz:
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: mjn.mixael on December 24, 2012, 06:22:29 pm
 :wtf:

K, well. The VPs don't prevent any use of the mod assets.. just allows for clean installs and easier support, which is handy for the things that FSCRP is doing.

But whatevs.
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: Veers on December 24, 2012, 07:11:37 pm
For some reason, I felt
Spoiler:
the ending was very anti-climatic
. But definately a classic Campaign, great to play and will again.

Thanks for taking the time to restore this little beauty.

Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: Macfie on December 30, 2012, 09:30:17 pm
You need to clean these up a little before you release them.  Remove the mission backup files from the missions folder.  Also you have models for 4 nebula boxes but only have maps to support two of the models.
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: Flygit on May 08, 2013, 08:50:12 am
Nintendo took down the mediafire link. Care to upload it again?
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: fightermedic on May 08, 2013, 10:54:09 am
yea i just saw that myself
that's for the second time now, the hash key seems to be the same as on something nintendo doesn't want uploaded
i'll upload it to moddb
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: mjn.mixael on May 09, 2013, 08:57:52 am
It's must be because they have a game called Pandora's Box and one called Pandora's Tower... does MediaFire have a way you can contest the pulls?
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: fightermedic on May 10, 2013, 08:51:32 am
it does, but there has been no reaction at all the last time
at least now i know what the hell they confused this with, must be this pandora's box game indeed

edit: uploaded to moddb
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: SypheDMar on June 21, 2013, 04:21:51 pm
For some reason, I felt
Spoiler:
the ending was very anti-climatic
. But definately a classic Campaign, great to play and will again.
I have to agree to the ending. As for the rest of the campaign, I think it's at best okay. I've never played the original, but I feel that this campaign compared to more recent works has shown its age. The TTS for the Vasudans fits pretty well initially. Some Vasudans are missing the Vasudan speech, and one particular mission briefing has the Vasudan speech lasting extra long.

I'm not at all pleased with the writing, but that's not the fault of the FSRCP. My biggest complaints with the campaign are the patrol missions. They're too long, too boring, and feels pointless. The "Wait-for-leader-to-finish waypoint-then-engage-hostiles" is not fun nor rewarding. The biggest FRED gripe that can be easily fixed is hearing the victory theme every time a primary goal is completed and listening to the "somber continue mission" music even when the mission was mostly a success.

Spoiler:
For the mission with the cloaking: I think that mission can be better improved since post-processing allows ship to decloak better. Using the Ship Select effect would look very convincing. There's even an effect named Decloak! (Doesn't come with mediavps by default, however)
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: fightermedic on June 21, 2013, 05:38:59 pm
you people are aware that you CAN win the last mission right? it is really hard but possible to save the pandora ;)
thanks for the feedback :)
i too think that pandoras box is a medicore campaign at best, with a few strong moments
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: SypheDMar on June 21, 2013, 08:59:44 pm
That's not it. Saving it feels anti-climactic. It was basically, "Destroy the bomber wings as they respawn","disarm the giant flak that's being annoying", and "kill everything to pass time while the transports are inching towards the destroyer". And then the debrief talks about getting the transports beer.  :blah:

Anytime!
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: Macfie on June 22, 2013, 11:08:00 am
As for the rest of the campaign, I think it's at best okay. I've never played the original, but I feel that this campaign compared to more recent works has shown its age. The TTS for the Vasudans fits pretty well initially. Some Vasudans are missing the Vasudan speech, and one particular mission briefing has the Vasudan speech lasting extra long.

I'm not at all pleased with the writing, but that's not the fault of the FSRCP. My biggest complaints with the campaign are the patrol missions. They're too long, too boring, and feels pointless. The "Wait-for-leader-to-finish waypoint-then-engage-hostiles" is not fun nor rewarding. The biggest FRED gripe that can be easily fixed is hearing the victory theme every time a primary goal is completed and listening to the "somber continue mission" music even when the mission was mostly a success.

I think you have to consider that the campaign was written 12 years ago and was written for retail.  At the time it was considered very innovative.  It was one of the first user made branching campaigns.  You have to remember that the FSOpen project has added many capabilities that didn't exist when this campaign was written.  The campaign is a classic and part of the history of FreeSpace user campaign development.
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: mjn.mixael on June 22, 2013, 03:03:29 pm
As for the rest of the campaign, I think it's at best okay. I've never played the original, but I feel that this campaign compared to more recent works has shown its age. The TTS for the Vasudans fits pretty well initially. Some Vasudans are missing the Vasudan speech, and one particular mission briefing has the Vasudan speech lasting extra long.

I'm not at all pleased with the writing, but that's not the fault of the FSRCP. My biggest complaints with the campaign are the patrol missions. They're too long, too boring, and feels pointless. The "Wait-for-leader-to-finish waypoint-then-engage-hostiles" is not fun nor rewarding. The biggest FRED gripe that can be easily fixed is hearing the victory theme every time a primary goal is completed and listening to the "somber continue mission" music even when the mission was mostly a success.

I think you have to consider that the campaign was written 12 years ago and was written for retail.  At the time it was considered very innovative.  It was one of the first user made branching campaigns.  You have to remember that the FSOpen project has added many capabilities that didn't exist when this campaign was written.  The campaign is a classic and part of the history of FreeSpace user campaign development.

Classic does not mean it has aged well. It may have been 'wow mad-awesome' when it was released... but if it bores someone who was introduced to things like BP.. then it bores. The fact that it's classic has nothing to do with it. It's place in the history of FS/HLP is still the same... but it's ability to impress has likely diminished.
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: Kon on November 03, 2013, 02:33:52 pm
The mission NTFCampV3.fs2 in the second Vasudan arc is broken.

Spoiler:
The Iron Fist's escape pods spawn too soon and too close to the Iron Fist. All 8 are always destroyed in the Iron Fist's explosion, leaving the mission a failure. I just Guardianed half of them to complete the mission. It's been too long since I touched FRED, so I'm not sure how to protect the pods from the explosion without permanently Guardianing them. Is there an SEXP for timed invulnerability?

As for the campaign, I'm almost done and it's been fun if somewhat frustrating at times. Too often, I kept retrying for objectives which were revealed to be impossible. This led to a few  :banghead: moments. I also would have liked more control over my ship and loadout selection. I do think there are too many missions where Alpha wing's configuration is locked, sometimes even when able to fiddle with other wings. But I do enjoy how the loops were used, and getting back at the NTF after those early underdog missions was a great payoff for the first arc.
Title: Re: [Release] Pandora's Box 2.2
Post by: Govenator on April 14, 2014, 10:07:30 am
I liked the campaign.  There were some pretty good battles and cool ideas like the
Spoiler:
cloaked ships. 

However it did leave me wanting more story so I can see why many people consider it "not one of the best" freespace campaigns.