[BlueFlames]

They don't have to share the end result with you, they do so out of kindness.

Part of the problem is that they aren't sharing it, if they never become willing to call it finished.  That's why I'm ranting about feature-creep.  If the project's destined to never be completed, it's just a website and a forum with a whole lot of hype and status bars that move backwards, if at all.

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]You're being awfully adamant about something you have no control over. I'd go do something more constructive with my time were I you.

Whether or not any campaign gets finished is utterly out of your hands, you may as well rant about man not having set up a base on the moon by now. You're being negatively critical and overly repetitive and it's not going to win you any friends or speed things up at all.
[/color]

[Prophet]

Originally posted by BlackDove
I know what I'm talking about in contrast to someone who has been here for only a few months.

I do hope you are not talking about me. You do remember that there is life outside the forums? I, nor anyone else, was not born on the day they registered.
For myself, I'm a VWBB survivor. And have not been around because I simply lost my connection and lacked any proper access to the net...


And I think this thread should be locked. It has become a two guys pissing duel and either side refuses to see the others point of view, nor do they even try to understand it. Hence, this "discussion" isn't going anywhere...

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by BlueFlames

Part of the problem is that they aren't sharing it, if they never become willing to call it finished.  That's why I'm ranting about feature-creep.  If the project's destined to never be completed, it's just a website and a forum with a whole lot of hype and status bars that move backwards, if at all.

Don't confuse feature creep with wanting to get the best result, though.  Things do change, work sometimes turns out to be worse than hoped, etc.  Adding stuff for the sake of it is daft, I recognise that - but I would bet the likes of BWO and MT aren't doing that, just taking advantage of new opportunities.  Bear in mind these 2 in particular were started before the SCP - there's probably stuff intended but dropped for them that can now be added.  And if the developers feel that those features/content add something worthwhile, then I won't complain - because I trust their judgement, and it's their decision to make, not mine.

[Blaise Russel]

I think the contention is that you don't need straight-off voice acting or a dozen shiny new cutscenes or never-seen-before fleets for all three races PLUS NEW ALIEN SPECIES or fifty missions with branching storyline and four different SOC loops or a completely new interface or an RTS mode or whatever in order to produce the best result, to create something of a "professional standard." After all, isn't the central, key, core appeal of a project its content and story?

(More generally:) Of course, I dislike this implication that a project needs to be huge and unwieldy in order to be considered "good" or "professional." If a big project has to have a lifetime measured in years to be half-decent, where does that leave projects that only took months, because the project lead had the sense not to write FS3?

If the problem is that the developer doesn't have enough time to implement this huge f*ck-off idea because he's only part-time, surely then the answer is not to take five years trying to get it in but instead not to do the huge f*ck-off idea in the first place? Surely what is needed is not patience but rather a sense of perspective? We're not big Hollywood studios, so perhaps it is inadvisable to try and release big blockbuster movies, no?

You know, if there were fewer "big projects" and more "small campaigns" the universe'd be a better place. :P

[karajorma]

I think we need both.

There's nothing wrong with having big projects that take years as long as there are people doing small projects that take months too. The problem is that everyone wants to do their own project and very few people are willing to work together in small groups and make the small less than a year projects.

I don't think anyone is saying that a project needs to be big to be good or professional. But if a project was designed to be big then releasing it when it's small is going to make it half-baked and poor.

I definately don't think there should be less "big" campaigns and as someone who sometimes stands on the shoulders of giants with his own campaigns (e.g SaH being based on Inferno) I can't see why you'd be calling for less of them either.  

What we really need is not less big campaigns but fewer small campaigns (e.g one person doing a campaign they'll never finish). What I like to see is people doing exactly what you did in SaH and using what's out there instead of starting a huge project of their own that will never get finished.

[Blaise Russel]

But if a project was designed to be big then releasing it when it's small is going to make it half-baked and poor.

True. But some features are extraneous and can be disposed with. The biggest offenders are, obviously, voicework and cutscenes; things of that ilk. Nobody *needs* voices or movies, smaller campaigns did and do well enough without them, and it's not as if leaving them out temporarily will render the campaign meaningless and incomprehensible. Ultimately, they'll be packaged as optional downloads anyway.

More fundamental things likes ship models and missions can't be cut so easily, but in this case the only cure is not to aim too high in the first place. I once had an idea for SAH where the EA happened across a new jump node and discovered a Terran colony in the system beyond which set off from Earth 'round about these times and had developed its own unique (and primitive) spacefaring fleet. There was some hoohah about rebellion and Ancient technology and a mandatory Shivan appearance, and it wasn't very good, but the important thing is that I didn't go through with it because another Terran fleet would be beyond my skills, even if I used my reputation of SAH to team up with somebody with modeling skills.

The point? Oh, right, well, the point is not to write cheques you can't cash. I suppose, though, that it's a matter of perspective and furthermore the example is not applicable to people with, you know, actual pof-making ability and stuff. Even so, everything is still second to the story, and if you've overstretched yourself you've overstretched yourself. Something can be cut out.

Thing is, if a small campaign can get along fine without any mods at all, then to a certain extent the same principle applies to any big campaign, unless said campaign is all style and no substance, aha. Eh? Eh?

I definately don't think there should be less "big" campaigns and as someone who sometimes stands on the shoulders of giants with his own campaigns (e.g SaH being based on Inferno) I can't see why you'd be calling for less of them either.

Also true. I wasn't entirely serious with that statement, but then again, I wasn't completely joking, either.

Thinking more philosophically: what if every project ran on a schedule of five years? What if every project offered to finish the FS saga in a explosive climactic rush of explosions, supra-juggernaughts and galaxy-sized space battles? What if every project promised full voiceacting and more cinematics than FS1 and 2 combined? What if this horrendous strawman was reality?

We'd be buggered, wouldn't we? Nothing would get done. No campaigns, no individual models, no backgrounds or weapons, because everybody would be saving them for the big projects, and because the big projects are waiting for big releases, there's nothing to enjoy.

Now, what if everyone did small releases? What if people didn't faff around trying to beat Volition at their own game, but instead spent their time making and releasing models and missions and campaigns and such? It's not even as if it precludes a big overarching plan, so long as it's just that and not an attempt to emulate the big publishers. Someone could produce a fighter, individually, and then a bomber, individually, and a cruiser, and a freighter, until he ends up with a complete ship list that just so happens to share a common style and could, feasibly, be a "new race" or faction or whatever, to be used by the original maker or by others. It'd be harder to accomplish the same thing with missions, as hard-hitting stories don't work so well spread out evenly over several months or whatever, but... lots of releases, all round!

What a terrific, unrealistic, open-development-esque communist idyll!

It's blatantly one-sided, I know, but it illustrates something, and that is I think it'd be better to err in favour of lots of releases than in favour of none at all. A big project ties up resources in the hope of awesomeness tomorrow, whereas small projects can be finished and enjoyed today. If forced to choose between the death of big ideas and the death of productivity, I'd know which way I'd flow.

(And I am coming down heavily on big projects, and it's unfair, and it's not really accurate at all, and in truth I don't really believe this, but I am interested in advocating a particular design ethos even if I am exaggerating the situation greatly. So, disclaimer: I do not wish to freight this or any other post with imperatives, and if it wasn't so sappy, I'd say 'big projects are A-OK', but it is, so I won't.)

Returning back from the detour, I could make the point that projects like Inferno and FSPort, which I have used and abused in the process of making my own campaigns, avoid the trap of big projects by using multiple releases to prevent stagnation. Technically, The Babylon Project is the worst offender of being too big for its team, being an on-going project, but because it releases and develops continuously, people remain interested and they provide feedback, which inspires the team to keep producing, and so on, so forth.



(Maybe I just dream of a situation where people produce things that can be used and enjoyed; filling gaps in current Terran/Vasudan/Shivan fleet lists and small, potent campaigns that can be  played right now instead of another GTVA Colossus or an epic tale set a thousand years after Capella and due to be released on the same date.)

[aldo_14]

Often, content constrains story; the story I want to do with LS can't be done with the existing FS2 models, backgrounds, etc.

[CP5670]

Blaise Russel: Couldn't have said it better myself.

I think we need both.

There's nothing wrong with having big projects that take years as long as there are people doing small projects that take months too. The problem is that everyone wants to do their own project and very few people are willing to work together in small groups and make the small less than a year projects.

I don't think anyone is saying that a project needs to be big to be good or professional. But if a project was designed to be big then releasing it when it's small is going to make it half-baked and poor.

I definately don't think there should be less "big" campaigns and as someone who sometimes stands on the shoulders of giants with his own campaigns (e.g SaH being based on Inferno) I can't see why you'd be calling for less of them either.

What we really need is not less big campaigns but fewer small campaigns (e.g one person doing a campaign they'll never finish). What I like to see is people doing exactly what you did in SaH and using what's out there instead of starting a huge project of their own that will never get finished.

As was stated before, this situation is pretty much unavoidable due to the nature of FS2's story and the amount of time it takes to make even one fully polished mission.  I know I would never devote so much time and effort to making missions that aren't exactly as I want them and follow a story different than what I have in mind, which is what joining an existing project would ask of me, since I am after all doing it for fun. I'm sure many other people feel the same way, especially people who have been around the community for a while and have experience in mission design and the details of the FS universe. This isn't going to change anytime soon, unless of course a project head advertises that they are paying their staff.

The sorry part of this whole affair is that a few people won't even consider that there might be a problem here, preferring to flat out deny its existence and get way pissed at anyone who brings it up.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Blaise Russel
True. But some features are extraneous and can be disposed with. The biggest offenders are, obviously, voicework and cutscenes; things of that ilk. Nobody *needs* voices or movies, smaller campaigns did and do well enough without them, and it's not as if leaving them out temporarily will render the campaign meaningless and incomprehensible. Ultimately, they'll be packaged as optional downloads anyway.

Boy have you chosen the wrong person to argue that with. Quite frankly I've been having nightmares until recently about how to tell the MG story without cutscenes. Now that we have in-game cutscenes it might be possible to avoid a full rendered one but a year ago it was a case of introduce the Starborn in cutscenes or don't bother with the project at all.

The simple fact is that like the narrator in a story the Starborn are there for the player not the character he controls. As the development of the mod proceeded it became obvious that the only way to introduce them was to step outside of the game engine with a cutscene or to simply hand the players a big readme and tell them to read it before starting the game. Anything else would have left the player wondering "Who are these guys?" and completely spoiling the story.

Originally posted by Blaise Russel
More fundamental things likes ship models and missions can't be cut so easily, but in this case the only cure is not to aim too high in the first place.

There's a difference between not aiming high and not telling your story at all because it will require determination to finish. From the moment I read Geezer's plot for MG I knew I wanted in. I knew it would take a long time to complete but I figured that there was no way that I was going to let the story not get told.
 MG mostly uses mods released to the community because we knew how hard it would be to make a new fleet but there are a small number of mods we can't do without. Without a modeller on board I knew that it would be hard but again it was either a case of finding one, learning how to do it myself or simply giving up on the whole plotline. I certainly wasn't going to do the latter.

Originally posted by Blaise Russel
The point? Oh, right, well, the point is not to write cheques you can't cash.

But surely this whole thread is about people writing cheques they can cash as long as it's on a long term repayment policy
 

Originally posted by Blaise Russel
Thing is, if a small campaign can get along fine without any mods at all, then to a certain extent the same principle applies to any big campaign, unless said campaign is all style and no substance, aha. Eh? Eh?

Again it depends on the campaign you want to make. Sometimes you do need a mod to tell a story. Sometimes you need lots.

Originally posted by Blaise Russel
It's blatantly one-sided, I know, but it illustrates something, and that is I think it'd be better to err in favour of lots of releases than in favour of none at all. A big project ties up resources in the hope of awesomeness tomorrow, whereas small projects can be finished and enjoyed today. If forced to choose between the death of big ideas and the death of productivity, I'd know which way I'd flow.

I don't believe we have to choose. There's room for both.

Originally posted by Blaise Russel
Returning back from the detour, I could make the point that projects like Inferno and FSPort, which I have used and abused in the process of making my own campaigns, avoid the trap of big projects by using multiple releases to prevent stagnation. Technically, The Babylon Project is the worst offender of being too big for its team, being an on-going project, but because it releases and develops continuously, people remain interested and they provide feedback, which inspires the team to keep producing, and so on, so forth.

Some stories have that option. Some don't though. MG has a nice breakpoint that allows us to split the campaign into a chapter 1 demo and the main story. After the breakpoint there is no good point at which to end the story. It would be like ending a movie halfway through and saying "come back next year for the ending". (And I'm not even talking about somthing like the end of Empire Strikes Back. I mean there is literally no place suitable that wouldn't feel like we just decided to cut and run)

Originally posted by Blaise Russel
(Maybe I just dream of a situation where people produce things that can be used and enjoyed; filling gaps in current Terran/Vasudan/Shivan fleet lists and small, potent campaigns that can be  played right now instead of another GTVA Colossus or an epic tale set a thousand years after Capella and due to be released on the same date.)

In many ways I agree with you. What we need to take steps on is not the big campaigns but the little ones that go nowhere. I know it's hard to distinguish those at the inception from things like your own campaigns and Sync/Transcend which do deliver but the community is wasting many times more effort on 1 or 2 man projects that never see the light of day. At least when something like Reci or OTT gets cancelled some of the hard work is used by other campaigns. When the small fry die it's all wasted.

Originally posted by CP5670
As was stated before, this situation is pretty much unavoidable due to the nature of FS2's story and the amount of time it takes to make even one fully polished mission.  I know I would never devote so much time and effort to making missions that aren't exactly as I want them and follow a story different than what I have in mind, which is what joining an existing project would ask of me, since I am after all doing it for fun.  

Have you not heard the basic hypocrisy in your statement? "I can do whatever I like as long as I enjoy it. I'm not going to tell anyone elses story cause I don't want to. You, you and you. Shorten your stories so that they aren't what you want to do but can be released more quickly, chop chop!"

I'll be damned if anyone is going to tell me that he can do whatever he wants for five years but if I do I should think of the community. If I enjoy spending years working on a "big" campaign who gives you the right to lord it over me and say you should do it this way but I'm not going do it someone elses way?

[CP5670]

Have you not heard the basic hypocrisy in your statement? "I can do whatever I like as long as I enjoy it. I'm not going to tell anyone elses story cause I don't want to. You, you and you. Shorten your stories so that they aren't what you want to do but can be released more quickly, chop chop!"

I'll be damned if anyone is going to tell me that he can do whatever he wants for five years but if I do I should think of the community. If I enjoy spending years working on a "big" campaign who gives you the right to lord it over me and say you should do it this way but I'm not going do it someone elses way?

I like how you are equating a very general suggestion on time management with the specific story requirements of a campaign project. I'm always open to any suggestions for my own work, certainly something as general and vague as this one, but are you trying to tell me that there is a campaign out there that will allow me to just do whatever I want with the story? Let me sign up! There are simply no campaigns like that; without a fairly restrictive back-story for mission designers that ties events together, what you will end up with is not a campaign but a collection of good standalone missions.

Also, you're free to ignore any advice in this thread and spend your entire life with your campaign, if that's what suits you. I for one won't be complaining. There is no such freedom when working on someone else's campaign unless you happen to have the same story vision (which is less likely with FS2 than most other games); going against the main plot means effectively leaving the project.

And show me where I said you should you think of the community. I've been saying over and over again that this is precisely what you should not do. It's clear from the earlier posts in this thread that not everyone is enjoying the projects after having them drag on for years (and who can blame them?) and are doing it just because they think the community will appreciate it. No wonder they are blowing their tops when the slightest hint of criticism comes up. (okay, forget about BF's attitude, but Prophet's original post brought some relevant issues to light)

[Prophet]

Originally posted by High Max
Yeah, it is pathetic. I do like the fact that BWO is adding FS Open features to it, but the voices can wait. WHY NOT JUST MAKE A VOICE PATCH after the campaign is released? Some people are just too damn picky.

Well, in all fairness I have to say that Derelict got release without voices. And the voices are still not released. The work can very easily end up unfinished if your... "suggestion" is heeded.

[BlackDove]

Originally posted by High Max


Yeah, it is pathetic. I do like the fact that BWO is adding FS Open features to it, but the voices can wait. WHY NOT JUST MAKE A VOICE PATCH after the campaign is released? Some people are just too damn picky. I'm not that damn picky about voices, just the quality of the missions and ships and story. Plus the files are too large and I have dial-up. I could download from the college and put it on my flash drive though. The main thing that I find hilarious about the whole thing considering BWO is the fact that Inferno has many more ships, weapons, and extra stuff compared to BWO, yet Inferno looks to be released before BWO. What the hell? That is messed up. No one cares about having voices right in this moment. Why not just make a patch? Because the BWO team is afraid that if they don't add them right when the campaign is released, then it won't be as popular and you won't get many downloads? Wrong. Truth is, if you release voices and with such a large file size, you will actually get less downloads because all the 56kers can't download such a massive file. So you would actually be losing downloads if the voices and campaign are in one huge file. Though my two top campaigns that I'm waiting for are Inferno and BWO, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Inferno WILL be released before BWO (by Christmas if everthing goes as planned), at the rate things are going with BWO. It gets extremely old having to wait an astronomical amount of time for a project that should've been released years ago:shaking:

Also, why doesn't someone just remove that Babel Effect page on Volition Watch that says "coming in November of 2001"? Keeping it there is pointless, wastes server space, and deceives n00bs into thinking that the campaign is still being worked on when Babel Effect is dead.

... and people wonder why I insult them.

[StratComm]

And I honestly missed voices in Derelict.  I'd hate to see something as story-centric as BWO get released without voice, if just because I want the full experience the first time I play it.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by CP5670
I like how you are equating a very general suggestion on time management with the specific story requirements of a campaign project. I'm always open to any suggestions for my own work, certainly something as general and vague as this one, but are you trying to tell me that there is a campaign out there that will allow me to just do whatever I want with the story? Let me sign up! There are simply no campaigns like that; without a fairly restrictive back-story for mission designers that ties events together, what you will end up with is not a campaign but a collection of good standalone missions.

I'm not talking about time management and if you're being honest neither were you. You've already mentioned in this thread that you're talking about campaigns taking too long because of more than simply bad time management. e.g

Well, BlueFlames is being harsh, but his main point still stands. I guess someone had to say it. You can make perfectly good, highly polished campaigns in a reasonable amount of time by simply not having super ambitious goals with the quantity of missions and extras like new ships. I'm not saying you are doing that, but we have several projects here that are. I sort of got it wrong myself and have learned my lesson, although I wasn't quite as bad as many other campaigns.

How is that a comment about time management? That's a dig at all the hosted campaigns you think are trying to do too much. Well sorry but it's not your choice how we decide to spend our time and it's pretty arrogant of you to tell us how we should spend our time when you're not willing to join a hosted campaign and have someone tell you what to do yourself.

Originally posted by CP5670
Also, you're free to ignore any advice in this thread and spend your entire life with your campaign, if that's what suits you. I for one won't be complaining. .

Post already quoted proving that you are.

Originally posted by CP5670
And show me where I said you should you think of the community. I've been saying over and over again that this is precisely what you should not do. It's clear from the earlier posts in this thread that not everyone is enjoying the projects after having them drag on for years (and who can blame them?) and are doing it just because they think the community will appreciate it. No wonder they are blowing their tops when the slightest hint of criticism comes up. (okay, forget about BF's attitude, but Prophet's original post brought some relevant issues to light)

Well if you're doing it out of a desire to just pass on advice that's fine. I'll even thank you for that one. Don't happen to agree with your advice but that's another matter.

I'm not working on MG primarily for the adoration of the community. I work on campaigns cause I enjoy it. It's my choice to work on the campaign and it's my choice to decide what level of completion is good enough. That's been pretty much the view of every single person who is currently hosting a project and I'm sure it was also your view when you had one of your own.

People are blowing their tops not because of criticism of their campaigns but because it is pretty arrogant for someone outside of the team to tell them what they should cut out to meet some arbitrary deadline. Pretty much all of the people with "big" campaigns are saying "It's my campaign. It's my choice. I'll take advice but I won't take someone not connected to my team telling me. No cutscenes, No voice acting. Move faster"

[Nuclear1]

Originally posted by karajorma
I'm not working on MG primarily for the adoration of the community. I work on campaigns cause I enjoy it. It's my choice to work on the campaign and it's my choice to decide what level of completion is good enough. That's been pretty much the view of every single person who is currently hosting a project and I'm sure it was also your view when you had one of your own.

Quote in red is about to be siggified. I don't know about a lot of other people, but if I'm going to make a campaign, I'm going to do it because I enjoy FREDing and telling stories. I don't do it to be immortalized in the FS community or to do some good for my rep (trust me, no amount of campaigns can fix that right now).

The only real reason that I don't do voiceacting in Rogue or GTI is that I simply can't find any female voiceactors. I've got several female characters at critical parts in the story, and if I can't do full VA'ing, then I won't do it at all.

Originally ranted by High Max
*snip*

That was totally uncalled for. Let BWO do its job at making a top-quality campaign, and if it doesn't deliver (which I highly doubt it won't), then criticize away. Honestly, how many single campaigns have been in development for as long as BWO? It's not as if every single campaign in development has taken as long as BWO, and with a number of already-available campaigns up for download, you should have plenty to tide you over until BWO comes out. Go back and play some of CE's other projects and then look at why they're taking so much time on BWO. Derelict and Warzone were top-quality campaigns, with each of them getting better and better. Let BWO take their time. They'll do their job, and they'll do it right.

My complaint arises from poor management of a project. When an add-on becomes a mandatory feature for release, and new technologies suddenly must implimented, just because they're there, the delays become nonsensical.

Am I correct in assuming that you have only released your solo project Second Front? Are you involved with any other campaigns that operate as a team? If not, I don't really think that you have much room to argue this. Managing a project is much more difficult than you could imagine. There are some who make it look easy (such as Sesqui when I did work for Scroll; I learned a lot of project-leading skills from his examples), but it really is difficult. Trying to lead a group of FREDers is hard enough in terms of getting them to complete their missions within a reasonable timeframe, but also managing modellers and others just adds to it.

I know CE's standard of campaign building and management, and I'll leave the BWO team to live up to that standard.

The simple fact is that like the narrator in a story the Starborn are there for the player not the character he controls. As the development of the mod proceeded it became obvious that the only way to introduce them was to step outside of the game engine with a cutscene or to simply hand the players a big readme and tell them to read it before starting the game. Anything else would have left the player wondering "Who are these guys?" and completely spoiling the story.

I can hopefully expand using this quote. Just like kara needs cutscenes to tell MindGames' story, I have my own needs to tell Rogue or GTI's story. These happen to take the form of the music, and I thank Singh muy mucho for all the painstaking work that he's done to give GTI the music that it needs to help tell the story. It might sound confusing at first, but, IMO, the music can add to the atmosphere wonderfully, so long as it's the right track at the right time. Wagnerian motifs (like John Williams' style) can be used to add to the story in a way that is simply powerful; Middle-Eastern drums and vocals heralding a Vasudan fleet, or dark and mysterious tunes playing with the GTI...

My point is that every team has its own needs. If BWO feels that voice-acting will add to its character-heavy campaign and give it soul, then let them have voice-acting.

[TrashMan]

I must agree with Blaise Russel on his POW..

I myself am working on a one-man-campaign currently (as on some others) and it is going slowly, but at leat I release 90% of the stuff I do to the public.
 At least if my campaign fails people (community) will have something out of it...

The Archangel and Whitehall are for instance central from my 3rd Chapter (if it ever get's done that is) but I released them anyway.. Why not? let the pople have fun!

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by Prophet

Well, in all fairness I have to say that Derelict got release without voices. And the voices are still not released. The work can very easily end up unfinished if your... "suggestion" is heeded.

The original release of Derelict didn't include voices, but I'm not sure whether or not it was ever the intention to fully voiceact it at the time of its release.  There is an unfinished voiceacting pack for a few of the missions available.  Blaise's Derelict re-release was made with the full intention of being voiceacted, and I know that the voiceacting is almost complete and should be released relatively soon; I finished up my own part (Tau Sigma Station) a month or two ago.  I would personally like BWO to be released without voices initially, as their lack doesn't really bother me, but it's ultimately the team's choice as to what they want in their finished product.

[karajorma]

Are you saying that the community got nothing when Reci and OTT were cancelled?

[Blaise Russel]

Boy have you chosen the wrong person to argue that with. Quite frankly I've been having nightmares until recently about how to tell the MG story without cutscenes. Now that we have in-game cutscenes it might be possible to avoid a full rendered one but a year ago it was a case of introduce the Starborn in cutscenes or don't bother with the project at all.

My own inclination would have leaned towards not bothering. If there's no way to implement something because the first choice is too ambitious and second choices ('anonymous' command briefings like Derelict's quotes, SAH's history essays and FSPort's Ancient transcriptions, in-game cutscene-missions at pre-SCP, Technological-Superiority levels) don't do it justice, I personally would not bother, it's not that critical anyway. Which is somewhat unambitious and overly flexible, but it'd be a strange world if we were all alike, eh?

Of course, I have the (dis)advantage of not wanting to create fantastical storylines that push envelopes and involve entirely new concepts or races or ships or whatever. My interest is in filling in gaps in the current FS mythos, so to a certain extent I already have all the mods I could ever want; they were all included in the game. Mods tend to hang off my stories, instead of my stories hanging on mods. My interest doesn't lend me to having project-critical mods, which is probably why I can be so blasé about dismissing elements that are too much bother for me to implement. So yeah, valid point, man.

I don't believe we have to choose. There's room for both.

Oh, of course there is, of course, and the question is academic. But I still would prefer more intensive, productive smaller projects than bigger, more ambitious, slower goliaths.

In many ways I agree with you. What we need to take steps on is not the big campaigns but the little ones that go nowhere. I know it's hard to distinguish those at the inception from things like your own campaigns and Sync/Transcend which do deliver but the community is wasting many times more effort on 1 or 2 man projects that never see the light of day. At least when something like Reci or OTT gets cancelled some of the hard work is used by other campaigns. When the small fry die it's all wasted.

I disagree somewhat. Firstly, missions are wasted no matter the size of the project. While models and music and such can survive intact and live again in another campaign, if a project reaches core-content-production stage and then keels over, that's FREDtime wasted right there.

Secondly, I'd argue that 'small' projects that never make it are more 'big' than 'small'. They're not as big as the very big ones, but it seems to me that a campaign that is too ambitious for its maker automatically becomes 'too big'. Then again, 'big' is relative. Is a thirty, forty mission campaign big for me? What about a new fighter model? A whole fleet list? A music track? How about two? And for someone else? What about a team of people? A team of people that aren't overstretched? Hmm...

Regardless, I'd still like to see more small projects... I mean, sort of taking the model scene and expanding it, so people are releasing single missions and mini-campaigns and less mod-dependant projects and things. But this is more an extension of my own design philosophy.

My point is that every team has its own needs. If BWO feels that voice-acting will add to its character-heavy campaign and give it soul, then let them have voice-acting.

There's no "letting" them have anything; it's not in anyone's power to tell anyone what to do, be it abandon projects that some random member has decided is "too big", whatever that means, and has too many "extraneous features" or to force people to help established projects simply because they have a forum and a badge and got here first. This is important, although it doesn't need to be emphasised because if anyone tries it, they'll accomplish sod all.

Though it would be a cool HLP-Movie-spinoff-thing for Communists to take over the Administration and force the listed projects into hiding.