[deep_eyes]

i agree KT

[redsniper]

What about Paradigm Shift? That campaign VW was gonna do after BWO.  IIRC it was supposed to be a campaign to wrap up the FreeSpace storyline.  I think if we can end the FS story and do a good job at it FS2 will be able to die happy.

[Stryke 9]

You know, this is an awful lot of fine sentiment, but I get the feeling that this isn't exactly the first time someone's stood up and said "I know! We can save the game with a community project!" and everyone got together and said "Yes!" and exactly ****-all happened. Unless something's actually done about it- and by that I mean the admins laying the smack down and deleting any campaign that isn't actively, and heavily, worked on, regardless of lame excuses and screaming by project leaders about how their baby is getting killed, exactly ****-all is about to happen again. And the way this forum's going, I don't see that happening. Everyone's gotten too comfortable doing nothing and then going on about how important it is, and the admins are no longer, ah, junta-like enough to make this **** happen (no offense:D ). Hell, most other forums I woulda gotten a month's ban for the David Copperfield thing- not that I'm recommending it now or ever, I'm just saying that I was surprised when nothing happened then, that Razor's never been properly taught to show respect, that the admins themselves are among the major spammers now. Anarchist that I am, I love what it's done for the forum, but amateur historian and psychologist that I am, I know dictatorships are the way to get people to do ****.

But whatever it is, it needs to be enforced. Turn HLP, as a Freespace modding forum like it used to be, into just that- think forced labor camp, and you'd have a project. Set deadline(even generous ones) and make everyone on staff work or get cut off from their HLP supply for a month (plus time, if they don't finish it by then), you'll get stuff done ahead of schedule. There's enough skill and more than enough free time to get a dozen campaigns going, it's just that everyone (me included) is bone idle and won't do **** until they feel they have to. Summer's coming up, and for me at least it's the last summer I might be able to do this ****. Now or never.


The first step, I believe, is to get rid of this God-damned language filter.

[LtNarol]

Welp, I personally don't think FS2 is dead, not yet.  Given that interest is declining, there are still several big projects hanging around, and TCs still hold quite a bit of interest.  Keep in mind though, nothing big and new has happened to the FS community over the last few years save for Inferno's first release.

Now, if only I could find a few dedicated fredders, I have a decent demo on the frying pan.  

[Knight Templar]

*strangely aggrees with Stryke*

iCool idea! get FS2 on downloads.com .

[Kamikaze]

I'm going to agree with Stryke (although I'm sure he'll claim he doesn't need any agreeing, he knows he's right ) and push that if a project like the community project is done it be rather rigid and serious and the admins back it with their support. I want to feel that our community can actually get some real **** done

[Black Wolf]

Strykes idea has some Merit, but it is fundamentally impractible for several reasons. First off, most of the very best modders, FREDders etc. are already doing campaigns here, or at least staff on them. You start deleting at the first slow downs, then you're gonna piss people off, and pissed off people don't make the best volunteers. Again on the harsh crackdowns to make people work - pissed off people, refuse to work, get banned/leave voluntarily because of the new Dictatorial regime that's taken over. F2S will still offer hosting, so will VWatch probably, even Angels Graveyard is providing campaign forums now, and there's always Stealths server, and if all else fails angelfire and EZboard. You can't force peoplle to work on a community project. It just wont happen.

Ultimately the only way to really get campaigns out there is to start having people make some tough descisions - to voluntarily leave campaigns and offer their services to some of the larger/more likely to be completed campaigns. I've spread myself too thin, and any day now I'm going to have to starty dispatching sorry but emails. Again, this can't be forced, and has to be voluntary.

And even if this were to happen, it still probably wouldn;t solve the bigger problem of dwindling community interest, as campaigns are almost never pimped outside the community, and the game itself is almost impossible to find outside the community. More people, fresh blood demanding updates and new stuff, increased community interest in coming campaigns, intense peer pressure - that's probably the best way to speed up work, not threats and punishments for failure.

[diamondgeezer]

Perhaps some campaign leaders should admit defeat, give up their faltering projects and allow their staff to turn their attention to other mods? (see Aldo's previous post)

[Knight Templar]

why not try n' wrap them up or something? I can see some campaigns just cutting their losses and such (OTT) but after all that work, wouldn't you want to show something?

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
You know, this is an awful lot of fine sentiment, but I get the feeling that this isn't exactly the first time someone's stood up and said "I know! We can save the game with a community project!" and everyone got together and said "Yes!" and exactly ****-all happened. Unless something's actually done about it- and by that I mean the admins laying the smack down and deleting any campaign that isn't actively, and heavily, worked on, regardless of lame excuses and screaming by project leaders about how their baby is getting killed, exactly ****-all is about to happen again. And the way this forum's going, I don't see that happening. Everyone's gotten too comfortable doing nothing and then going on about how important it is, and the admins are no longer, ah, junta-like enough to make this **** happen (no offense:D ). Hell, most other forums I woulda gotten a month's ban for the David Copperfield thing- not that I'm recommending it now or ever, I'm just saying that I was surprised when nothing happened then, that Razor's never been properly taught to show respect, that the admins themselves are among the major spammers now. Anarchist that I am, I love what it's done for the forum, but amateur historian and psychologist that I am, I know dictatorships are the way to get people to do ****.

But whatever it is, it needs to be enforced. Turn HLP, as a Freespace modding forum like it used to be, into just that- think forced labor camp, and you'd have a project. Set deadline(even generous ones) and make everyone on staff work or get cut off from their HLP supply for a month (plus time, if they don't finish it by then), you'll get stuff done ahead of schedule. There's enough skill and more than enough free time to get a dozen campaigns going, it's just that everyone (me included) is bone idle and won't do **** until they feel they have to. Summer's coming up, and for me at least it's the last summer I might be able to do this ****. Now or never.


The first step, I believe, is to get rid of this God-damned language filter.

Scarily enough, I agree 99% - the language filter will remain in place.

[Sesquipedalian]

Well, SA is proceeding quite nicely.  I am quite happy with the work my staff is doing.

[Knight Templar]

Yeah, I would too if I had GE producing that kind of work for me

[karajorma]

One idea. If we really need a community project why on Earth is everyone talking about starting something new that will take ages to finish?

If we are going to do a community project we should get behind an existing project rather than trying to reinvent the wheel by starting again from nothing.

[Petrarch of the VBB]

hear hear. What is the point in starting afresh, the project will only die like all the others.

We need to get more people onto the large projects, like the StarWars conversion, the TVWP, and even TAP! And all the others, Inferno, Reciwhatever, and so on.

[Knight Templar]

right, there's some logic to that, but then, which project does everyone get behind? And then, doesn't that take away hal of what the project is? I mean, some of the campaigns around here, let's say Machina Terra for example. (they've been around since before I was born and I've been interested in them for just as long) Frankly, I wouldn't want to know anything about them, wether it be story or ship or plot. I don't know if my feelings are misplaced or not, but some things I just want to be suprised by.

Then there's the problem of where we draw a line to that. I mean, do we make campaigns to try to show people a story that will invoke shock and awe (haven't heard that term for 3 weeks) or do we do it just to test are mettle? Or is a truely good project a bit of both?

EDIT: After reading Petrarch's reply I realised something. It's comming to terms with the ending that I don't like being spoiled. I just realised, something like TVWP, there's nothing really to spoil (in the way of suprise).

To make a point, I think half the fun of Freespace 2's open ending is seeing what people can come up with to solve the puzzle. Seeing the full picture before it is put together just doesn't seem right in my head I guess.

bah. All this discussion is making me feel old. Must. Regenerate.

[Stryke 9]

On the other hand, the FS2 ending as it is seems way too inconclusive to stand. I mean, after killing the Lucy you knew it wasn't the end, but it still had an air of finality, like something was accomplished and the GTVA was safe for a time at least. FS2, there's none of that. Shivans could come roaring round the bend ten minutes later and kill everyone- and in general it just left a bad taste in the mouth, like they weren't expecting to have finished it then but had to cut it short. An ending we make wouldn't have to be final, it wouldn't even be technically "official", it'd just be getting something out the door- which isn't gonna happen at all, at this rate. If we finish it fast enough, hell, we can work on another. And so on. It would, in the end, be no more canon than, say, Derelict is- it's popular, lots of people integrate the events into their plot, but it's not obligatory (for that matter, nothing is entirely. Anyone who wants to make a campaign where the Shivans are sentient bananas and everyone flies around in a magical donut is free to, they'll just have an accordingly more difficult time convincing other people it's a good idea. We're a pretty conservative bunch.)
 
But no. We aren't going to have everyone do the TVWP, Petrarch. It's a nice campaign, but it's your campaign, not everybody's. Never mind that that'd be a turnoff for participating, it'd mean that everything was already preset, that it'd just be a lot of uncreative **** work- the very uncreative **** work you haven't done, likely partially because it's so dull- modding isn't supposed to be just slave labor for you, dude, we don't get paid enough to be bored. And it wouldn't be fair to the other campaign workers- after all, a lot of them are pretty decent, and just as or even more than deserving of completion. BUT. If one gets selected for this whole schmazola, then all of them would have to or you'd have a lot of very angry project leaders storming out. And those project leaders sometimes have a degree of skill, even reliant on the rest of us staffers as they are.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Knight Templar
right, there's some logic to that, but then, which project does everyone get behind? And then, doesn't that take away hal of what the project is? I mean, some of the campaigns around here, let's say Machina Terra for example. (they've been around since before I was born and I've been interested in them for just as long) Frankly, I wouldn't want to know anything about them, wether it be story or ship or plot. I don't know if my feelings are misplaced or not, but some things I just want to be suprised by.

You could make pretty much the same arguement against a new community project. After all if we do build a fantastic community project together who will want to play it? We'll all know the plotline. Twisted Infinites would have worked because large parts of the community ignore F2S and so would be unaware of the plotline but anything at HLP would be known by the whole community.

Sticking with working with an existing project, one idea would be to get behind a project that would attract people from outside the community. That means that TBP, Star Wars and even the SG-1 project currently being discussed on VWBB are good ones to get behind.
 Even better you can't really spoil the storyline for that kind of mod because all you have to do is recreate something from the show.

Look at the missions from TBP for an example of what I mean. Knowing what was going to happen wouldn't have spoiled that mod much because there aren't any mods in it we haven't already seen and most of the plotline is also well known so there are only little surprises.
Secondly once the mod has been completed many people start making new missions for it themselves. The spin off's are where those of us who contributed to the project get to play something that we don't know the plotline to.
 Again I'm using TBP as an example cause if you look at the forums you'll see lots of missions being made by people who are newbies. If we want to keep FS2 alive we need to bring in new blood.  

People are crying out for a B5 game. The sad fact is that very few of them know about the existance of TBP and most of those who do can't play it cause they don't have FS2 and the FS2_open is quite at the stage where it supports it seamlessly.

The SG-1 project over at VWBB is at an early stage but would also be another good one to get behind. As far as I know there aren't any space shooters for that universe. I'm sure the fans wouldn't mind playing one.

Finally any community project can't be based in the FS2 universe. That sort of thing won't draw in much new blood. Most of the newbies won't have played FS2 and will have a hard time following the heavily detailed plotline. If the community decides to make something new it has to be set in a universe differnet from FS2 so that we can attract newbies.
 In that way we can advertise it as a completely new game. Once they are here we can explain how this wonderful new game can be easily modded to play FS2 on it.

[Unknown Target]

Think of it this way: will you bother to play this game in another year? With all the new games coming out, will a new campaign for a 5-year-old game really pull you back in?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Unknown Target
Think of it this way: will you bother to play this game in another year? With all the new games coming out, will a new campaign for a 5-year-old game really pull you back in?

Almost certainly. I've been waiting for some of those campaigns for years.

Besides if you can point out a better space shooter that will be out by next year I might be playing that instead but until something better than FS2 comes along I don't have anything to replace it with.

I ditch a game when it ceases to be fun. I don't care how old it is.

Besides why are you bothering to drum up support for your newer version of FS : forever if you don't think anyone will be around in a year to play it?

[RandomTiger]

Space games without a movie connection dont seem to sell that well. PC games sell dramatically less than console games.

The chances of a good PC combat based space sim making freespace obsolete is not that likely as far as I can see.