Author Topic: RELEASE: Exposition  (Read 47730 times)

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

Offline Talon 1024

  • 29
  • How do you turn this on?
    • Mods, Games, and Stuff
The 158th Banshee Squadron is proud to present the release of Exposition, the first episode of the Into The Night series, and a prologue to Act 1! After a long period of hibernation, the team has spent many months of testing, debugging, and polishing to bring this campaign out of development and into the public!

Exposition is a 12 mission campaign that follows the story of Andre Greene, Callsign: Homie, through his time in the Earth Alliance as a fighter pilot in the highly decorated 158th Banshee Squadron.

Things are not looking good for the Earth Alliance.  12 Kiev-class destroyers and countless Andropov-class carriers of the Colonial Confederacy have descended upon the Aleutian Archipelago and established a stronghold near Strongpoint Obsidian.  The Earth Alliance barely has enough resources to hold them off, and taking down the strong Colonial war effort will require more than just pilots.

Under the command of Commodore Rowe, your squadron will take part in point defense missions, escort missions, lightning strikes, and massive battles.  Whatever your role is, it is always vital to the success of the mission, and I won't kid you, pilot, this won't be easy.

DOWNLOAD HERE! (64.7 MB)
Or download the Windows installer here. (65.2 MB)

Mirrored:

7z Archive
Windows Installer


Thanks, Swantz! -TS

To install Exposition, place the files from the 7z into a subdirectory in your Freespace 2 folder, and select the folder as a mod in the launcher.  It is recommended that you use 3.6.10 Final to play Exposition.

"No shields, no jumpdrives, no way out, and only two inches of steel between you...and them."
« Last Edit: October 02, 2009, 04:30:26 pm by thesizzler »
To understand religion, you need to understand morality first. | WCSaga website | WCSaga Forum | 158th website | 158th forum | Project Leader: WC: Hostile Frontier | WCHF Thread at CIC | Wing Blender | Twist of Fate | Multipart turrets on angled surfaces, tutorial included. | My Google Drive stuff | To convert speeds from WC to WCS, multiply both the cruise speed and the Afterburner speed by 0.15625 (5/32)

FS2 Mods I'm waiting on: Inferno 10th Anniversary
Current Project: Contestant Android app, Learn4Life iOS app, Blender Commander (importer).
The FreeSpace Font Foundry is back in action!

 
Seriously? Cool. Downloading . . . .

EDIT - played the first couple of missions. Pretty good. Only complaint so far is that it would be nice to have some intelligence briefs in the techroom so I knew what the sides were and what the conflict was about.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2009, 10:07:04 pm by Akalabeth Angel »

 

Offline Mongoose

  • Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
  • Global Moderator
  • 212
  • This brain for rent.
    • Minecraft
    • Steam
    • Something
Wow, it's great to see you guys get a release out there.  I think I know what I'll be doing tomorrow. :)

 

Offline eliex

  • 210
Oooohh. This is nice. I've been waiting to see this one released a long time.   :D

 

Offline shiv

  • Don't forget Poland!
  • 211
  • FRED me!
    • http://freespace.pl
This thing should be stickied and highlighted :D
http://www.sectorgame.com/vega
The Apocalypse Vega - Join the battle! A campaign for FreeSpace 2 Open

http://www.game-warden.com/earthdefence
Earth Defense project - Coming soon...

 

Offline Stormkeeper

  • Interviewer Extraordinaire
  • 211
  • Boomz!
First thing I did was check the date when I saw this. :p

Unfortunately for me I can't play this. :(
Ancient-Shivan War|Interview Board

Member of the Scooby Doo Fanclub. And we're not talking a cartoon dog here people!!

 

Offline Black Wolf

  • Twisted Infinities
  • 212
  • Hey! You! Get off-a my cloud!
    • Visit the TI homepage!
Highlighted. Highlit? Anyway, let me know if you don't like the icon or whatever. :D
TWISTED INFINITIES · SECTORGAME· FRONTLINES
Rarely Updated P3D.
Burn the heretic who killed F2S! Burn him, burn him!!- GalEmp

 

Offline starlord

  • 210
Wow! That definately is good news: This MOD is supposed to revolutionize ground/atmospheric combat under SCP along with shadows of lyat...

Might anyone might making vids of this?

 

Offline Dragon

  • Citation needed
  • 212
  • The sky is the limit.
Somebody should move the project's board from "Hosted Projects - Work In Progress" to "Hosted Projects - Fully/Partially Released".
I'm downloading it now, I cannot wait to check it out.

 

Offline Dilmah G

  • Failed juggling
  • 211
  • Do try it.
Spoiler:
Okay, I'm about 12 minutes into the first mission. My problem lies with the dialogue, or lack thereof. Blasting things is only satisfying for so long, the whole attack seems pointless, or rather emotionless. I don't know who these guys are, and I have little motivation to destroy them.

 

Offline Wobble73

  • 210
  • Reality is for people with no imagination
    • Steam
Highlighted. Highlit? Anyway, let me know if you don't like the icon or whatever. :D

I'm not part of the team so my opinion doesn't count, but 158th looks like 1S9th.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
Early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
 
Member of the Scooby Doo Fanclub. And we're not talking a cartoon dog here people!!

 You would be well adviced to question the wisdom of older forumites, we all have our preferences and perversions

 

Offline The E

  • He's Ebeneezer Goode
  • 213
  • Nothing personal, just tech support.
    • Steam
    • Twitter
Spoiler:
Okay, I'm about 12 minutes into the first mission. My problem lies with the dialogue, or lack thereof. Blasting things is only satisfying for so long, the whole attack seems pointless, or rather emotionless. I don't know who these guys are, and I have little motivation to destroy them.
I'll plus one that statement. I'll add to it that I have an intense dislike for nebula missions, especially when there's a large friendly object in the area that I have to protect with a geometry I do not know.

The lack of custom assets, like custom interface art or custom music, is something that surprised me when I played this.

Mission 2:
Spoiler:
"We're flying in a hurricane". No, you're definitely not. It doesn't feel like a hurricane at all.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2009, 07:36:41 am by The E »
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

  
Dagnabbit... I just noticed the highlight for this! I must be blind. Can't wait to try this out. DL-ing now! :D

 
Somebody should move the project's board from "Hosted Projects - Work In Progress" to "Hosted Projects - Fully/Partially Released".
I'm downloading it now, I cannot wait to check it out.

I note that the "unreleased" projects group is getting smaller. Which can only be a good thing.

 

Offline Kie99

  • 211
Just had to end mission 3, I've got no idea who I'm fighting or why I'm fighting them.  In the first mission I was shooting endless  waves of Communists with no explanation or dialogue.  None of the friendly fighters lose any health though.  In the second I was doing the same after 3 or 4 minutes of waypoint traversing, with the only dialogue along the lines of 'Where are the damn carriers?', which I was already thinking. 

In the third mission there was a small dogfight, followed by a conversation and then silence for some time.  Suddenly a cruiser starts losing health at a high rate, and I see some blips on my radar.  I fly towards them with my wing mates and most of them get wasted by enemy fighters, I get to the Leningrad, and see it spinning away like crazy. It's docked with something called 'Captain's Rig' which I have no chance of seeing because I can't even approach the Leningrad without being smashed by it.  Once it gets to 15% Hull (by this point I'm cheating) I can't damage it any more.  I kill the Stalingrad, then the Leningrad, and Command tells me it is jumping out because it has enemies to kill.  I try to jump out, but can't, and see a flashing red blip on my radar.  I fly towards, and discover it's a stealth fighter.  I start shooting it, but it is invulnerable.

At that point I pressed shift-esc.  Sorry if my review seems a bit brutal but I found this practically unplayable.
"You shot me in the bollocks, Tim"
"Like I said, no hard feelings"

 

Offline Spoon

  • 212
  • ヾ(´︶`♡)ノ
I have to agree with Kie99 really
Mission 1 was just a 10 minute long dogfight and as everyone else already said before me. It feels like a really lifeless attack and hardly inspires motivation to kill the enemy.
The second mission was a boring patrol run with a battle I had little influence over.
The third mission is just... meh...

Cliché redshirt 'colt' gets 3 seconds of spotlight about getting an ace medal and then dies. "Goodbye Colt, I hardly knew ye!" /care.
The turret sound effect of the carrier turrets is really loud and obnoxious.
Then after a bit one of the carriers get wasted from long range with absolutely no mention on the comm channel. Nobody apparantly cares enough that one of the carriers is getting totalled. It just... happens.
Then after 10 minutes in the mission, it just endless fighter waves and 2 enemy cap ships that just won't die. Then I just gave up and didn't felt like playing anymore.

Also, it didn't felt like atmospheric flight... at all. Just a dark greyish nebula in space.
And the lack of custom music just adds to the feeling it all happens in space.

Overal, underwhelming and just no fun to play because of poor mission design.
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 
I didn't mind the first two missions though as I said a little more backstory would help a lot with connecting the player to what's going on. The player really needs their hand held since they're being dropped into a totally unknown situation. (other than it's pre-FS1)

I am likewise stuck on the third mission. Though I keep getting killed after about 8 minutes. And I agree the carrier's guns are a little obnoxious. The most of the other effects are just fine.

 

Offline T-Man

  • 210
  • I came... I saw... I had a cuppa!
Jesus, I wasn't expecting to hear this! A big congrats to the 158th team.

Shall hopefully be able to download and give it a twirl this weekend.
Also goes by 'Murasaki-Tatsu' outside of Hard-Light

UEF fanboy. Rabid Imagination.

 

Offline TopAce

  • Stalwart contributor
  • 212
  • FREDder, FSWiki editor, and tester
Downloading right now...

In advance, all I can recommend is to wait with advertising the campaign a bit (at ModDB, etc.). Based on feedback that you receive here, re-release a more polished campaign (with Intelligence entries or more story-revealing dialogs).

Ok, I'm currently at mission 5. Here are my comments about the first four missions. I'd like to approach this mod from the different perspective.
Spoiler:
My greatest complaint is that my wingmen are invulnerable! I know it's because these aren't nameless pilots such as in the main FreeSpace 2 campaign, but it doesn't benefit gameplay at all. It's bad (but relieving at the same time) that I know that no harm can be done to my wingmen. This leads to the problem of showing off the enemy faction. A faction that loses dozens of fighters without taking down a single enemy fighter doesn't make them look menacing.Is it absolutely necessary for the plot for all wingmen to always survive?

You've heard some complaints about the missions' lengths. I concur with these people. It's not tension building at all to be flying in emptiness for long minutes.

On the plus side, the effects are amazing. The new interface is great. The only one I do not like is the briefing's background image. I can't tell you what's wrong with it, I just don't like it. The skybox in mission 4 is also excellent. I don't know who made that, but he's got some talent.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2009, 01:51:47 pm by TopAce »
My community contributions - Get my campaigns from here.

I already announced my retirement twice, yet here I am. If I bring up that topic again, don't believe a word.

 

Offline -Norbert-

  • 211
Okay I just had a really weird experience.
I'm in the first mission in space.
And when the Leningrad finally decides to flee and activates the afterburners, it's flying backwards....

I can't say if it did that before, since that was inside a nebula and thus outside my visual range.