[Hades]

With all due respect, TopAce, you're taking the criticism rather immaturely by trying to delete every trace of it and act like none of it happened.

[Firartix]

With Due Respect I don't care about comments and would like to try this since it seems original.
And cool (at least on paper) - i really like the long campaigns, and the branch idea. And the hotkeys by type one. And moar i guess.
Plus i guess not anyone is able to make a cool campaign (at least i can't D:) and any and every campaign are somewhat nice.

THEREFORE ! I was really, really annoyed when i saw you deleted it, so I'd ask you to put the crappy download on mirrors AGAIN, or i'll be forced to take the other's word for it and say your campaign is definitely crap and useless, etc (and moar (and of course not just the campaign, you too (or maybe not)))

Be also warned that i'll trap you in TvTropes hell.
And don't say something childish like this.
Or it'll send this to kill you.
You can't win.

Edit: .... and because of the time it took me to read all this and link stuff, i'm going to be Late For School ! Damn ya!

[Kusanagi]

I wanted to download and play this but it seems I cannot I always enjoy new takes on universes and characters.

That being said, TopAce, with over 6000 posts and being on the current team for four kickass mods, I expected you to handle criticism better. I'm really disappointed.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Someone just re-upload it already so we don't need to suffer "why'd you delete it? I'm disappointed" post. I think we all get the idea.


TopAce, you worked your ass off to put together this campaign. Let people play it. And just remember that you can't please everyone. No campaign ever will please everyone

[TopAce]

I already said it in the previous post of mine that changing the whole concept would mean needing to change everything, and I won't risk re-releasing it just to see the exact same comments. You already decided you'd hate it, no matter what improvements are made between the two versions. It's unconscious.

TopAce, you worked your ass off to put together this campaign. Let people play it. And just remember that you can't please everyone. No campaign ever will please everyone

But if the overwhelming majority hates it, based on one and exclusively one aspect of anything, the light is shed differently.

That being said, TopAce, with over 6000 posts and being on the current team for four kickass mods, I expected you to handle criticism better.

I'm writing dialogs for none of these projects. FotG works with a strict prewritten script, at least as far as dialogs are concerned, Scroll is a well-organized project so others can fix strange things, and MG is dead. The number of projects I'm on has nothing to do with how much I can bear reading the same thing over and over again.

(and moar (and of course not just the campaign, you too (or maybe not)))

See? It's already the fhird page and there's already a personal attack in there. Ok, Firartix: I'm inviting you to a FRED contest. Let's see how quickly you cower off now.

With all due respect, TopAce, you're taking the criticism rather immaturely by trying to delete every trace of it and act like none of it happened.

I'm not acting as if it never happened. If someone asks directly: "Did you at one point make a campaign called Descendants of Sol?" I won't say no.

Since I replied using Quick Reply, I won't bother going back to the previous page, and I have to hurry to school now.

[Firartix]

(and moar (and of course not just the campaign, you too (or maybe not)))

See? It's already the fhird page and there's already a personal attack in there. Ok, Firartix: I'm inviting you to a FRED contest. Let's see how quickly you cower off now

Did you become idiot just because of all that bad comments stuff, or can't you just read ?

Plus i guess not anyone is able to make a cool campaign (at least i can't D:) and any and every campaign are somewhat nice.

More seriously this was just some kind of mega-joke post. But since you don't seem to understand it, i guess i'll get right to the point.

I don't know what exactly made you want to delete your campaign from mirrors.
What exactly are you hoping for ? Everyone to say "Oooooh wait nooooo TopAce come back, your campaign is so supaaaaaar" ?
Just denying everything about the campaign even existing is not going anywere, so it's the only reason i can see... and it's incredibly childish (being 16y old, i guess you an consider this some kind of attack this time) - or coward (if you don't want to show other your work because afraid of more critisism)

That's exactly why i wanted you to change your mind. I wanted to play this, because it looks real nice, and you seemed to put a lot of work into this. Also wanted to made up some kind of idiot, stupid and meaningless opinion about this campaign as i always do.

But fine, let that work go to waste...  Not like i'm begging you or something.

Now i'm off this thread.

[Mongoose]

I already said it in the previous post of mine that changing the whole concept would mean needing to change everything, and I won't risk re-releasing it just to see the exact same comments. You already decided you'd hate it, no matter what improvements are made between the two versions. It's unconscious.

How can you know we'll hate it if most of us didn't even get the chance to play it?  All my post was based on was a screenshot of some dialog from a single mission.  I don't know anything about the plot, or the mission design, or the modding you've done, or any of that.  And I'd like to know about it by playing the campaign, but I can't, because I don't have it.  I'm not the only person in that camp, either.  At least give everyone a chance to look at all the work you've done on this and form our own opinions.  I don't think anyone here wants to gang up on you.

And Firartix, please do the thread a favor and just shut up.

[karajorma]

Hmmmm. This looks like quite the mess.


Now I've got a request to close this thread but I'm not going to do it for several reasons.

1. Having worked with TopAce on MindGames I still consider him to be a very good FREDder. I have no doubt that technically the campaign is brilliant. For that reason alone I'd like to be able to look at it.

2. While the reviews have been for the most part critical there is certainly enough enough to the game that even some of those who didn't like it wanted more. So we're not talking about a complete flop here.

3. There are many people interested in playing this game and quite a few people like bigchunk1 who have said that they did enjoy playing it.


So no, I don't think this is a complete failure. No, I don't think everyone hated it cause it was too experimental. No, I don't think this could possibly be anywhere near as bad as SGWP2. And no, I don't think anyone would want TopAce to pull the download permanently.

Even if I believed this was a failed experiment the simple fact is you learn from your failures, sometimes more than your successes. And I've never believed that failures should be completely swept under the rug, if only to stop others making the same mistake. 

[Akalabeth Angel]

I already said it in the previous post of mine that changing the whole concept would mean needing to change everything, and I won't risk re-releasing it just to see the exact same comments. You already decided you'd hate it, no matter what improvements are made between the two versions. It's unconscious.

TopAce, you worked your ass off to put together this campaign. Let people play it. And just remember that you can't please everyone. No campaign ever will please everyone

But if the overwhelming majority hates it, based on one and exclusively one aspect of anything, the light is shed differently.

Who cares what the majority thinks. If even ONE person has fun playing it, it's worth releasing dude.

You're going for something original, so put it out there. If after all is said and done, you consider it a failure. Then that's fine. Apply the lessons you learn to your next campaign. When I released my own campaign a few years back, it had fairly mixed reviews. But I didn't delete the thing, I just left it out there for people to try. Listen to the feedback, and apply the lessons you've learned to your next campaign.  Just because a few people gave you similar feedback doesn't mean that it's the ONLY type of feedback you're EVER going to get. Wouldn't it be better to get more information on what worked and what didn't?

And even the people who "hated" aspects of your campaign, I'm sure every one of them had fun at SOME point. They enjoyed some missions. They had fun blowing things up. Deleting your campaign implies it has zero value to ANYONE. When I seriously doubt that to be the case. Most people who play this game will find some value in it. And some people might love it.

[General Battuta]

I agree with Akalabeth. Also:

I already said it in the previous post of mine that changing the whole concept would mean needing to change everything, and I won't risk re-releasing it just to see the exact same comments.

All you need to do is find someone to go through and rewrite every single piece of dialogue. That may sound daunting, but it's easier than re-FREDding the whole thing. Make it a team effort, if dialogue's not your strength find somebody who's good at it.

[TopAce]

Here are some responses (without quote tags).

I pulled the campaign because I've grown tired to reading the same thing over and over again. It all comes down to dialogs, as if I had written a theatrical play, not a mod for a game. Nothing shouts "narrow field of view" more loudly than people commenting about one aspect of it all the time (respect to the few exceptions), without considering anything else. Okay: I got the message - even before The E decided to unlock it and let it all continue.

Akalabeth: mixed is a very moderate term to use here. Had I have to face a balanced ratio of likes/dislikes, it would still be up there. I was aware that some would find this too abstract to their likings. I just wasn't expecting this kind of imbalance. To reiterate: The core element of the campaign upsets people - The strength of political/social change I'm depicting here. You cannot see the motive of characters (drive force to raise in ranks, in this case) because you're assuming people will act in the same way as they would today. You are assuming that social relations are static and unchangeable, so it all comes down to something absurd.

Battuta: I don't want to "re-FRED" it. I'll make a new, FreeSpace campaign (actually I've had one in the works for a while now) with a basic setting people are far more comfortable with. In other words: It'll be less extreme, the characters would be a lot easier to relate to. I'm still convinced that working with a familiar environment, with more predictability will in itself help a lot in writing.

[General Battuta]

To reiterate: The core element of the campaign upsets people - The strength of political/social change I'm depicting here. You cannot see the motive of characters (drive force to raise in ranks, in this case) because you're assuming people will act in the same way as they would today. You are assuming that social relations are static and unchangeable, so it all comes down to something absurd.

No no no, you don't understand, and it's important that you see what's actually being criticized.

The strength of political/social change would be better if it were presented well. The problem is that the writing is not up to the task, and makes it feel somewhat comedic.

I can see what your setting is trying for, I like the concepts, I just bounce off the writing. You're making the failure out to be bigger than it is.

[Shivan Hunter]

Here are some responses (without quote tags).

It all comes down to dialogs, as if I had written a theatrical play, not a mod for a game.

You've written a mod for a mostly singleplayer game that focuses on story as much as- and in some cases, more than- gameplay. The dialogue in a FS campaign has to be believable or the rest of the story falls apart. The rest of the story isn't the problem here- it's that the dialogue is too weak to hold it together. A simple dialogue rewrite (maybe some consulting from the BP team) would work wonders for your campaign.

You cannot see the motive of characters (drive force to raise in ranks, in this case) because you're assuming people will act in the same way as they would today. You are assuming that social relations are static and unchangeable, so it all comes down to something absurd.

No, we're not- at least not to the extent you seem to think. Take the dialogue Spoon posted for example, and your point about the Admiral being an incompetent moron who nobody trusts. You can present that point without making everyone act like a complete dick to everyone else. Maybe a captain or even a pilot would question her motives and competence. A lot more would be said to each other than to her face. But a pilot and an admiral both would not act completely unprofessionally, especially while on flight duty, and ESPECIALLY during an important mission.

For instance, take the mission banter from FS2, mission 3: "I can live with being a pawn if the game makes sense". Beta 2 (IIRC- it was Beta something) questions Command about the coordinates they were given. He all but calls Command an idiot- but here's the thing. He doesn't say that directly. He criticizes Command professionally, not personally, and implies that Command intentionally let Bosch go. But he only says that directly to the other pilots, where he's on roughly equal ground.

This isn't something that will be fixed by changing the setting, the plot or what have you, because none of those are the real problem. The characters and dialogue are what make a FS campaign, especially with the BP trend we're in right now, and if you have characters but develop them in such a way that they don't seem believable, that carries over into the rest of the immersion for the campaign.

[General Battuta]

A good example is the little pop-ups telling me how to feel. These need to go.

'Show, don't tell' is a key element of writing. You can't provide little instructions to the player on how they should react; you have to supply stimuli and let the player do the feeling on his or her own.

[Shivan Hunter]

Ohhhh yes. Forgot about that... yeah, if anything ruins immersion for the player it's... what would those be called anyway? Stage directions? 'cause reading those is like hearing actors read out the stage directions.

[EDIT] if you must give the player a certain character, do most of it with what he says. If you must show what the character is thinking, do it like Transcend did: First person, not second person. The player (not the PC) being talked to in second person riuns all sense of immersion whatsoever.

Sound harsh, I know, and don't think I'm talking about your entire campaign here- there are a lot of redeeming factors- but that particular element just needs to be killed with fire.

[TopAce]

Battuta: Those popups aren't used very frequently. I used them whenever I felt they needed to complement what was just seen. I know about the "Show, don't tell" thing, and that's why I didn't provide lengthy biographies. I wanted this particular conversation to convey the message of being disorganization, chaos and debilitation, all because of your superior's inability to handle situations, and the fact that they were facing an unknown alien race face-to-face caused even more fear and divide. It didn't come across. This all wouldn't have been so had I decided to work with a perfectly organized stereotypical military without any personality, which I couldn't do because of the basic concept I was working with. Every time I create a new message, I'm trying to see events through the eyes of the character that's speaking, and wonder what s/he would say. Had I worked with a very different set of characters that are thrown into very different scenarios, the entire conversation would have been different, and that's what I've been trying to emphasize.

[General Battuta]

This all wouldn't have been so had I decided to work with a perfectly organized stereotypical military without any personality, which I couldn't do because of the basic concept I was working with.

What we're trying to get across is that this isn't the problem. You could have used the military you had (at least in my opinion) had the writing been better. And that's not a failure on your part, just something to work on.

Every time I create a new message, I'm trying to see events through the eyes of the character that's speaking, and wonder what s/he would say. Had I worked with a very different set of characters that are thrown into very different scenarios, the entire conversation would have been different, and that's what I've been trying to emphasize.

Your intent is admirable and I really respect it, but it was the execution that failed, not the basic ideas. Writing is a craft, like modeling or FREDding or coding. Bring in an expert.

You could have used the same characters in the same scenarios and made it work. They were not fundamentally flawed. You don't need to give up on the whole thing - I really love some of your concepts, like the machinations for promotion - but the execution wasn't there.

Think of it as a model with great concept art but a ton of Booleans and bad smoothing and weird geometry errors. It's not the basic idea that needs work, it's just the meat.

[Kolgena]

At least make plans to re-release it in the future if you're not going to re-upload the current files now. I feel that a large part of the community sincerely wants to give your campaign a try.

[General Battuta]

At least make plans to re-release it in the future if you're not going to re-upload the current files now. I feel that a large part of the community sincerely wants to give your campaign a try.

Yes.

[TopAce]

Writing is a craft, like modeling or FREDding or coding. Bring in an expert.

Can you recommend someone?