[Nuclear1]

Before I hear a sarcastic answer of "Fred, DUH", I'll elaborate: what really makes a campaign good? What makes a campaign want to be played over again and spread widely? Characters, voice acting, mission style, length?

[Singh]

interest, a good story, a lot of love (playtesting is tough!), skill, mission style variation (cannot have escorts all the time ya know!), plot twists (again, comes under good story) and of course, a few characters. The length doesn't matter, as an example could be DEM, which although 3 missions long, has all the above and is still just plain ub3r!!

[NGTM-1R]

It has to be fun to play.

...now that's a non-answer, isn't it? Yet it really is the only possible answer, too.

I have rather enjoyed some campaigns that were utterly mindless. After all, we're all here because we enjoy dogfighting hordes of Shivans (or Terrans, or Vasudans, or any combination thereof) and launching uberpowerful non-conventional warheads at ships over a kilometer long. We want to see stuff blow up. Good gameplay can overcome most, or even all, obstacles.

Being new and different helps. We've all seen a Colossus kill a Sathanas too many times for us to find it very interesting. But how many times have we seen a swarming mass of GTVA corvettes or cruisers do the same? Not many. Sure, the Colossus and Sathanas duking it out looks impressive, but so does twenty Terran cruisers swarming over a Sath and tearing it to pieces. And that's something we haven't seen before.

[Kosh]

Good plot/story (they go hand in hand)

If there are any custom ships, having them actually work and be well balanced is a good thing

Good mission design/variety, as in not having BOE missions that crash my computer. *Looks at ngtm1r*

As bug free as possible, although bugs inevitably show up.

Spelling/grammer isn't a big issue with me, as long as I have the general idea of what is trying to be said.

[Fergus]

A good FREDer and of time.
Oh, yes you didn't want the most sensible answer....hmmm.
Not really sure I can add much to what Singh said, though Plot twists arn't really required, just of targets.  Or if you're really good, no targets at all.

[pecenipicek]

letsee... under what categories does derelict come? its all good until the "Derelict" comes in play...
i mean come one? how good can it be? i tried playing through it third and fourth times but i stopped always at the point that the SD comes into play....

[Falcon]

Originally posted by nuclear1
Before I hear a sarcastic answer of "Fred, DUH", I'll elaborate: what really makes a campaign good? What makes a campaign want to be played over again and spread widely? Characters, voice acting, mission style, length?

Fred, DUH

sorry anyways my answer:

Hard work and dedication. Both quantities I lack...........

Yep Im as lazy as they come

[pyro-manic]

Fun. Has to be fun...

[c914]

interesting good story with meany plot twists, diffrent missions styles.

[Kie99]

I heit baad grammmar and speeling in all of them campains what I donwlode.  Nonoe cud eva accuse me of bard gramar or stuff.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by Singh
interest, a good story, a lot of love (playtesting is tough!), skill, mission style variation (cannot have escorts all the time ya know!), plot twists (again, comes under good story) and of course, a few characters. The length doesn't matter, as an example could be DEM, which although 3 missions long, has all the above and is still just plain ub3r!!

Five.  (Unless you dropped the "cutscene" missions.)  But thanks.

[.::Tin Can::.]

Fun and a thought-out story. Give it a good plot twist or two, and you got it!

[Grimloq]

a chance to save the day is overrated. dont do it

having the entire GTVA fleet behind you, and then telling the player that YOU get to destroy that shivan fleet all by yourself will just get otu eaten alive when you are seen here

[Carl]

A good campaign is:

1. a good story. it has to be inspired, have something original to it.

2. good gameplay. no impossible missions like save a fenris from 24 ashemas, but make at least some of them challenging. added ships and weapons are a plus.

3. in mission voices. I hate having to read the top of the screen while I'm busy occomplishing my goals.

[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by Kosh
Good mission design/variety, as in not having BOE missions that crash my computer. *Looks at ngtm1r*

*shrug* Good gameplay varies by the player, unfortunately. (I tried to make that mission easy by having three bomber wings for three targets, each with its own escort wing. Whoops.)

[Lynx]

Balancing

[Knight Templar]

BIG SHIPS AND ESPLOSIONS!!!

[willy_principal]

Good plot... (What's happening)
Good story-telling... (How the things that are happening, are told)
Varied missions... (Not always doing the same thing)
Athmosphere... (give the player a sense of reality)

[phreak]

A good campaign has these qualities:

1) It will make me want to keep playing just so i can see what will hapen next.  Such campaigns include Sync and Homesick.

2) The campaign tells an interesting story that is believable within the realm of the Freespace Universe and has a definative conclusion (no half-life 2 ending).  Examples include Shrouding the Light, Warzone, Derelict, and The Scroll of Atankharzim (even though three people have played all the completed missions so far)

3) The campaign is fun to play, not tedious or impossible.  The Aeos Affair is ^*@#ing impossible and the last mission in ST is tedious.

4) To quote KT:

KT came out of the closet to say:
BIG SHIPS AND ESPLOSIONS!!!

I think Inferno would fit rather nicely here.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by PhReAk
1) It will make me want to keep playing just so i can see what will hapen next.  Such campaigns include Sync and Homesick.

Funny, I thought both those campaigns started getting tedious because they felt so repetitive.

On the other hand, I'd say Derelict is a good example of this point, because things change so much over the course of the campaign.

3) The campaign is fun to play, not tedious or impossible.  The Aeos Affair is ^*@#ing impossible and the last mission in ST is tedious.

Aeos Affair isn't so bad on lower difficulties.  Though IMHO Aeos Affair is interesting enough that I didn't mind the challenge of playing it on higher difficulties - something that's very hard for a campaign to accomplish.  A couple of month ago I managed to beat Aeos Affair on Medium, and found it a very rewarding experience. Though in general I quite agree... if a campaign is hard and is unremarkable in terms of interest, I'll abandon it without a second thought.