Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: nuone on December 16, 2008, 10:29:41 am
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Wow, that was such an incredible campaign. First time I finished it, with FS2 Open 3.6.9 and mediavps 3.6.10. Using FS2 Open 3.6.10 was sluggish. Damn that was an incredible campaign.
(PS. First time posting too)
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Glad to hear you liked it! Any particular favorite missions? Did you get stuck on anything?
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with FS2 Open 3.6.9 and mediavps 3.6.10. Using FS2 Open 3.6.10 was sluggish.
wat
That combination should be rather prone to problems. Which 3.6.10 build did you try and what are your system specs?
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Wow, that was such an incredible campaign. First time I finished it, with FS2 Open 3.6.9 and mediavps 3.6.10. Using FS2 Open 3.6.10 was sluggish. Damn that was an incredible campaign.
(PS. First time posting too)
The music used in the campaign was really well integrated don't you think?
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The music was epic!
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The Music was freaking incredible! The tone and pacing are epic. I loved every second of it. Once I figured out how to use the Orb radar to locate signals. I will tell you wat, I would PAY to play this MOD. Incredible. Super job guys.
By the way, for some reason, when I ran build "fred2_open_3_6_10r-20081210_r4989" with the mediavps 3.6.10 everything was very pretty but VERY SLOW. I have a HP Pavilion Intel CoreDuo @ 1.60 GHz with 2 Gigs of DDR2 RAM. ATI Radeon X1650 512Mb. Now that I look at the specs they are kind of dated. Still, I'm not running quake or anything.
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I will tell you wat, I would PAY to play this MOD. Incredible. Super job guys.
You could always make a donation to the HLP server fund. That would keep these things coming. :)
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(PS. First time posting too)
:welcomeblue:
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Thanks
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I really loved the campaign, great work on it. Some lines I thought were a little cheesy or weren't realistic, but overall the entire thing was absolutely astounding, and the music was gorgeous (still trying to get all the tracks).
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I really loved the campaign, great work on it. Some lines I thought were a little cheesy or weren't realistic, but overall the entire thing was absolutely astounding, and the music was gorgeous (still trying to get all the tracks).
Yeah I know what you mean, they would sound unnatural, but it sat well with Bei's character, I mean he wasn't a redneck or your typical Hollywood style expletive spouting rookie shooting at everything that moves and even **** that doesn't
Bei came off as knowing crisp, cultured english, kind of like 'formal' english, rather than the whole heap of slang we know English to be. If he had turned around and gone "F*ck this" in the middle of a mission, it would've been the biggest WTF moment EVER, and the biggest character development F*ck-up in the history of the HLP.
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To be honest I'm pretty disappointed with the Campaign, for several reasons; Some more sever than others...
#1 Not voiced :(
A great handicap is that it's not voiced, which IMO is pretty much needed if you want to get people into your story. It's actually annoying to see so much written material not being used, and most people will miss a lot of neat/vital details during the missions as they are forced to read long conversations between all sorts of people. I know it's takes a lot of time to do this proper, but it just adds the extra detail that makes it shine.
#2 The story :blah:
So Earth was destroyed (or was it?..) by the Shivans despite the common knowledge of the Lucifer being destroyed and Earth saved, from the Lucifer. I'm finding it very hard to accept this twist, and even more so the fact that some humans have been able to survive on a half-finished Orion destroyer, in a nebular, for fifty years? Come on, that just doesn't work!
#3 In-game scenes :mad:
Tbh they just don't work. They are too tedious and more annoying than joyful. Especially the one where you encounter the Earth survivors for the first time. Too many cuts, it would have worked a lot better had it been done in a classic FreeSpace way...
But, I sense the joy you people have had making this, and that's a big plus. :)
Edit: You could make better use of the MediaVPs... Would certainly aid the Mod a lot!
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Well, if you keep playing you'd know what's up with #2
#1 is being worked on right now...
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To be honest I'm pretty disappointed with the Campaign, for several reasons; Some more sever than others...
#1 Not voiced :(
A great handicap is that it's not voiced, which IMO is pretty much needed if you want to get people into your story. It's actually annoying to see so much written material not being used, and most people will miss a lot of neat/vital details during the missions as they are forced to read long conversations between all sorts of people. I know it's takes a lot of time to do this proper, but it just adds the extra detail that makes it shine.
This is what pisses me off about people's hate lists. Those who are looking around for voice-only campaigns are missing some pretty good stuff, and you aren't even pleased by the fact that they're going to add voices in later. No, because you don't get what you want immediately, it damns the entire campaign. Top notch.
#2 The story :blah:
So Earth was destroyed (or was it?..) by the Shivans despite the common knowledge of the Lucifer being destroyed and Earth saved, from the Lucifer. I'm finding it very hard to accept this twist, and even more so the fact that some humans have been able to survive on a half-finished Orion destroyer, in a nebular, for fifty years? Come on, that just doesn't work!
And yet it's completely unquestioned that Vasudans can live on those giant hivelike installations for pretty much all of their lives. The explanation was plausible enough, but I suppose that not everyone can understand why it would work.
#3 In-game scenes :mad:
Tbh they just don't work. They are too tedious and more annoying than joyful. Especially the one where you encounter the Earth survivors for the first time. Too many cuts, it would have worked a lot better had it been done in a classic FreeSpace way...
Oh, building atmosphere is such a travesty. Why can't I be destroying more enemy ships? Goodness knows I don't have the attention span to watch this game if there's more than 20 seconds between explosions.
This kind of narrow-minded mentality annoys me very much. Choosing to whine about what the campaign doesn't have instead of appreciating what the campaign does have...I can't endure it. Ugh...
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Let the man give his opinions Foxtrot. It's not narrow-minded, it's having an point of view. I welcome any sort of feedback from people, bar flaming (since flaming someone's work is unconstructive and poor taste), and Spectre's criticisms were quite honest and specific. Plus he had suggestions for improvement.
#1 Not voiced :(
A great handicap is that it's not voiced, which IMO is pretty much needed if you want to get people into your story. It's actually annoying to see so much written material not being used, and most people will miss a lot of neat/vital details during the missions as they are forced to read long conversations between all sorts of people. I know it's takes a lot of time to do this proper, but it just adds the extra detail that makes it shine.
Voice acting is in progress, and may I say that the work that's been submitted has been really top-quality so far. The team's done a good job in getting everything organised.
Edit: You could make better use of the MediaVPs... Would certainly aid the Mod a lot!
I agree. I'm increasing compatibility with Mediavps in bringing the mod to 3.6.10.
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To be honest I'm pretty disappointed with the Campaign, for several reasons; Some more sever than others...
#1 Not voiced :(
A great handicap is that it's not voiced, which IMO is pretty much needed if you want to get people into your story. It's actually annoying to see so much written material not being used, and most people will miss a lot of neat/vital details during the missions as they are forced to read long conversations between all sorts of people. I know it's takes a lot of time to do this proper, but it just adds the extra detail that makes it shine.
#2 The story :blah:
So Earth was destroyed (or was it?..) by the Shivans despite the common knowledge of the Lucifer being destroyed and Earth saved, from the Lucifer. I'm finding it very hard to accept this twist, and even more so the fact that some humans have been able to survive on a half-finished Orion destroyer, in a nebular, for fifty years? Come on, that just doesn't work!
#3 In-game scenes :mad:
Tbh they just don't work. They are too tedious and more annoying than joyful. Especially the one where you encounter the Earth survivors for the first time. Too many cuts, it would have worked a lot better had it been done in a classic FreeSpace way...
But, I sense the joy you people have had making this, and that's a big plus. :)
Edit: You could make better use of the MediaVPs... Would certainly aid the Mod a lot!
You didn't finish yet, did you? If you get about halfway through the campaign, complaint #2 is explained.
And just to ease you in, man, almost no campaigns are voice acted.
If you didn't like the cinematic, atmosphere-and-story-and-character-driven style of Blue Planet, I'd suggest Silent Threat: Reborn, which is another campaign on the same level of quality that's closer to the core Freespace style. It has a ton of great moments and superb polish.
Lastly, Darius did all the work on this campaign (excepting assets which he drew from modelpacks and adapted music.)
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Dear lord...
Someone here just can't take constructive feedback :rolleyes:
At least I didn't say it sucked...
Edit: Thanks for being mature about the feedback, Darius :yes:
And to answer a specific question.
No I haven't played the entire campaign, mainly because it crashed after I found and saved the GTD Sanctuary. But I'm not really up to finishing the campaign until voice has been added, as it literally is half the experience. And again I'm finding it hard to imagine how someone can survive on a ship in a nebular (Where is this nebular btw, compared to Earth) for fifty years. At least the Vasudans had other planets to live on and they had the luxury of constant supplies.
Again, I'll try to explain my problem with the cinematics...
They are too long, and too tedious (The Lucifers attack on Earth is a perfect example, so is the first encounter with Earth survivors) If done proper they'll be less of an irritation and add more to the story being told.
Furthermore the first time you visit Earth needs some tweaks.
The beacons needs to be closer (about 6000m). The first encounter with the Shivans, however, was well made!
All of this being said there is one thing I really like about BP... Those rapid firing primaries (They just rip apart anything! Overpowered?)
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I for one loved the use of cutscenes. In fact that's what inspired me to learn how to FRED them, I'm still working on sophisticated "Cutscene Missions". Blue Planet inspired me to do a lot of things, such as pursuing FRED-ing rather than "Leaving-it-to-Ransom".
Fair enough the whole element of trying to bring FS2 into the 21st Century through character-driven plot and cinematic elements was a bit of a hard one for me to grasp, I for one had a major WTF-moment when I saw the introduction cutscene to BP. But that's what sets BP apart from ST:R. They're Different. And they're done well.
Dear lord...
Someone here just can't take constructive feedback :rolleyes:
At least I didn't say it sucked...
You better not have..... :lol:
We can take constructive feedback, we're just giving our opinions on your feedback
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If you don't want to wait for the voiced edition, you can consider using 3.6.9 build and enabling computer generated speech.
But playing a fully voiced version is a valid point, especially for such a high quality campaign. I really liked Derelict for that reason. ^_^
As for the story... all will be explained in time.
The Lucifer cutscene was pretty annoying for me, too. But only cause I sped it up and the Orion didn't get destroyed. XD
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After reading noodles "review" I have to conclude the BP is just not a mod for me...
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Dear lord...
Someone here just can't take constructive feedback :rolleyes:
At least I didn't say it sucked...
Edit: Thanks for being mature about the feedback, Darius :yes:
Huh? I wasn't mad or anything. Just correcting a few factual misperceptions.
Believe me, we've had way worse.
Also, you need to understand that almost none of the campaigns on HLP are voice-acted. Those which are usually have pretty poor quality. This is because quality voice acting can add two to three years to a campaign's development time (as in the case of Silent Threat: Reborn, which ended up with great VA.)
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Is it just me or do most female voice actors seem to speak through their nose? :nervous:
No offense to anyone of course...
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The person who voiced the first Briefing/CB for Derelict had a bit of that. From then on I thought all CO's in the Freespace Universe must walk around with a cold.
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The beacons needs to be closer (about 6000m). The first encounter with the Shivans, however, was well made!
I definatly agree on that....
Unless of course Darius manages to incorporate the autopilot feature into that mission, were you just hit alt+a (or whatever you have it assigned to) and the game automatically speeds up and then slows down when you're close. I remember seeing it in other campaigns, but I can't remember in which ones. At the moment the only thing you get is "you have not selected a navpoint" or something like that.
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The beacons needs to be closer (about 6000m). The first encounter with the Shivans, however, was well made!
I definatly agree on that....
Unless of course Darius manages to incorporate the autopilot feature into that mission, were you just hit alt+a (or whatever you have it assigned to) and the game automatically speeds up and then slows down when you're close. I remember seeing it in other campaigns, but I can't remember in which ones. At the moment the only thing you get is "you have not selected a navpoint" or something like that.
Wing Commander Saga.
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And even now it does the classic Wing Commander style of autopilot where you see your ship scream across the screen before arriving at the next waypoint.
Or more commonly, a Kilrathi ambush. ;7
And not so commonly, an astroid field.
Or less commonly, a minefield.
And rarely, a combination of ambush and one of two fields.
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The person who voiced the first Briefing/CB for Derelict had a bit of that. From then on I thought all CO's in the Freespace Universe must walk around with a cold.
Did I? I hope that was indicative of my old mic's crappy quality or my nasal state on that particular day, and not the way I generally speak. :p
And Spectre, if you find voice acting that indispensable to your enjoyment of a campaign, you're shutting yourself off to any number of truly excellent creations. Last time I checked, one's eyes were perfectly capable of reading text, and one's brain perfectly capable of comprehending it.
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The beacons needs to be closer (about 6000m). The first encounter with the Shivans, however, was well made!
I definatly agree on that....
Unless of course Darius manages to incorporate the autopilot feature into that mission, were you just hit alt+a (or whatever you have it assigned to) and the game automatically speeds up and then slows down when you're close. I remember seeing it in other campaigns, but I can't remember in which ones. At the moment the only thing you get is "you have not selected a navpoint" or something like that.
Wing Commander Saga.
It's also in the Twist of Fate demo IIRC.
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Voice-acting isn't the heart of a campaign - plot is. That's what people should be concerned about. :p
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The person who voiced the first Briefing/CB for Derelict had a bit of that. From then on I thought all CO's in the Freespace Universe must walk around with a cold.
Did I? I hope that was indicative of my old mic's crappy quality or my nasal state on that particular day, and not the way I generally speak. :p
Yeah it sounded like your nasal state, I noticed it changed a bit through the campaign :P
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The person who voiced the first Briefing/CB for Derelict had a bit of that. From then on I thought all CO's in the Freespace Universe must walk around with a cold.
Did I? I hope that was indicative of my old mic's crappy quality or my nasal state on that particular day, and not the way I generally speak. :p
And Spectre, if you find voice acting that indispensable to your enjoyment of a campaign, you're shutting yourself off to any number of truly excellent creations. Last time I checked, one's eyes were perfectly capable of reading text, and one's brain perfectly capable of comprehending it.
Yes, I'm fully capable of reading, comprehending, and communicating in English, thank you very much! But you're missing the point here...
voice acting adds the final sense of completion to a campaign, and after replaying the FS2 campaign I honestly can't engulf BP's so-called story driven campaign. It feels very dead, and frankly it's not that great to be forced to read ridiculously long phrases about what is happening/going to happen and about your objectives when fighting. Hell, even real fighter-pilots would have a brain meltdown of they were to have all their information delivered through a novel...
Anyhow I've heard people are trying to get BP voiced, so I got that part covered...
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SPECTRE, most campaigns aren't voice-acted. It takes forever. You'll learn how to extract story from messages and stuff as you keep playing user-made campaigns; it's really not a big bother.
Transcend, for instance, is one of the greatest story-driven campaigns out there. It has no voice. It doesn't need it to be great.
And yes, I'm one of the voice acting leads. It's going well. It has been going well for about eight months now.
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Yes I know, but that still doesn't make it less of a matter for me...
It's a personal opinion, so please don't pretend you know what I perceive as being "great! It's very immature and pretty annoying, actually...
I stated my initial thoughts about the mod, as a source of feedback with the goal of H-E-L-P-I-N-G the team to improve their product. However, it's good to hear that there is a process in motion to fill in that lacking feature...
And kodos to the guy behind the FRED'ing, despite some annoying cut scenes it's very well made and the battles are extremely intense (especially the nightmare battle with the Lucifer!) without falling victim to the Battle-of-Endor syndrome that so many custom battles tend to do.
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I was just concerned you'd miss out on some genuinely spectacular campaigns due to the voice-acting issue. You'll really find they aren't too hard to understand. You can always press F4 if need be.
I would never dream of dictating what you think to be great, good sir. I was simply referring to the community's thoughts on Transcend.
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I still think its completely retarded that DEM or the JAD's haven't been VA'd yet.
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Why don't you go organize a voice acting effort, then?
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They would make the campaigns a lot funnier especially since the voices wouldn't have to be too serious other than Alpha 1.
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Why don't you go organize a voice acting effort, then?
OMG
If anyone's with me I'll totally go for that, who made the JAD series btw?
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Axem
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Actually that is another problem with BP, IMO... I don't like how Alpha 1 now has a predefined personality, and even speaks, OMG! Not true to the Alpha 1 Code of Badass Silence.
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Actually that is another problem with BP, IMO... I don't like how Alpha 1 now has a predefined personality, and even speaks, OMG! Not true to the Alpha 1 Code of Badass Silence.
Actually I loved it, it made it more like
Brothers in Arms: Freespace
and not
Freespace: Mod no.502
The Alpha One code of badass silence was something that I suppose fitted the retail campaigns, but now with a personality, you can empathize with the character and feel what he feels in a way, like in Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway (yes, I'm a fanboy of THAT TOO!)
It's also more realistic IMO, I mean, how many pilots put a wad of duct-tape across their mouths before they put their helmets on?
DON'T SAY ALPHA 1!
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True, but Sam Bei isn't Alpha 1 and therefore not as badass :P
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True, but Sam Bei isn't Alpha 1 and therefore not as badass :P
Yes, Sam Bei has "FEEEEEEELINGS"
Making him Human, rather than badass :P
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Never really understood why Alpha 1, supposed squad leader, never even utters a word in retail. =/
I know it was done to let you feel like you were Alpha 1. Something that Halo also does, but at least Master Chief has a damn voice. :blah:
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Actually that is another problem with BP, IMO... I don't like how Alpha 1 now has a predefined personality, and even speaks, OMG! Not true to the Alpha 1 Code of Badass Silence.
At first I did agree, but later on it adds a lot to the story.
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Never really understood why Alpha 1, supposed squad leader, never even utters a word in retail. =/
I know it was done to let you feel like you were Alpha 1. Something that Halo also does, but at least Master Chief has a damn voice. :blah:
Well there was a debate on the pilot claiming his kill on the Bastion cinematic to be Alpha 1 some time ago.
True, but Sam Bei isn't Alpha 1 and therefore not as badass :P
You know what? I disagree. :P Samuel Bei is more badass. ;)
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He feels more human, I'll take that over Alpha 1 the bot anytime...
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Daz said on the HLP IRC channel that there was going to be a new player character in WiH... I'm eager to find out what he's liek.
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True, but Sam Bei isn't Alpha 1 and therefore not as badass :P
QTF... I may also have figured out why I hate him so much... His name! It's sounds so sissy :ick:
Furthermore the whole Admiral Bei and Commander Bei is simply too similar to Battlestar Galactica's Adama familiy. It almost feels like a traditional rip-off of sorts, with a little variation of cause...
In short: I can't identify myself with Samuel Bei at all... He's an annoyance of epic proportions.
I guess I just like Volitions way of doing it much more. Begin your journey as a simple rookie nobody knows or cares about, and end up as the ultimate badass of the entire fleet.
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Even the ultimate badass of the fleet (Being an elite squadron leader) has to give orders, why Command has to give out every single little order to a wing is beyond me, even orders are relayed down the Chain of Command.
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I'm not sure Alpha 1 in the retail FS2 campaign was actually any kind of ultimate badass. Without stat buffs from difficulty level, you were utterly dependent on warship and wingman cover -- even a pair of Maras might be more than you could handle if you weren't quick.
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I'm not sure Alpha 1 in the retail FS2 campaign was actually any kind of ultimate badass. Without stat buffs from difficulty level, you were utterly dependent on warship and wingman cover -- even a pair of Maras might be more than you could handle if you weren't quick.
Yeah, in retail you had that development of you as a pilot.
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Yeah, in retail you had that development of you as a pilot.
Hmm, I had always thought that the voiceless Alpha 1 was to signify that you as a pilot were insignificant in the general workings of the GTVA - however but it contradicted itself when Alpha rose to become the squadron leader of the most elite squadron in the Aquitaine . . .
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Yeah, in retail you had that development of you as a pilot.
Hmm, I had always thought that the voiceless Alpha 1 was to signify that you as a pilot were insignificant in the general workings of the GTVA - however but it contradicted itself when Alpha rose to become the squadron leader of the most elite squadron in the Aquitaine . . .
Yeah, "Nameless cog in a machine" or something like that. I meant you as the player physically getting better as a pilot as the campaign progressed, thus the missions became gradually harder.
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I don't fully love either way of doing it. I've been trying to figure out a good way for Alpha 1 to express feeling for ages. No matter what you do it never really works perfectly.
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I think the real joy in playing a campaign with a fleshed-out Alpha 1 persona, particularly a campaign like Blue Planet that pulls off the concept so well, is simply that it's different. Nearly every user-created campaign out there follows the retail model of the faceless, voiceless player character who's meant to provide a blank slate for the player sitting in front of the monitor. And obviously, that's a proven model, seeing as how it worked just fine in retail. But if a campaign designer decides to go for a more story-driven approach with a defined main character and manages to do it right...that's something truly unique, and I think that's what Darius was able to accomplish. I can understand someone criticizing such a campaign because it was legitimately bad, or because the person didn't feel like the main character was handled well enough, but criticizing a campaign just because it tries something different doesn't make any sense at all to me. If all you're looking for is that same old experience, just go and play one of the dozens of other campaigns that replicates it.
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I think the real joy in playing a campaign with a fleshed-out Alpha 1 persona, particularly a campaign like Blue Planet that pulls off the concept so well, is simply that it's different. Nearly every user-created campaign out there follows the retail model of the faceless, voiceless player character who's meant to provide a blank slate for the player sitting in front of the monitor. And obviously, that's a proven model, seeing as how it worked just fine in retail. But if a campaign designer decides to go for a more story-driven approach with a defined main character and manages to do it right...that's something truly unique, and I think that's what Darius was able to accomplish. I can understand someone criticizing such a campaign because it was legitimately bad, or because the person didn't feel like the main character was handled well enough, but criticizing a campaign just because it tries something different doesn't make any sense at all to me. If all you're looking for is that same old experience, just go and play one of the dozens of other campaigns that replicates it.
QFT
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Yup, Mongoose has the idea. Exactly true.
I wonder how a campaign with only small lines for the character, like in that game; Drake's Fortune would work.
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Ok, Finally fnished the campaign. Awesome. Just awesome. Thanks goes out to Darius, and all those who helped with my issues.
Now that I've seen the ending, im pumped up for part 2 and can't wait for it. Wish I could help with it, but i've got no Fred skills. Just looking at it confuses the hell outta me.
Darius, your a genius. Cant wait for part 2.
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Just finished, adding my reaction. I'll keep it short.
AWESOME!!!
Seriously, after playing through ST:R, I was thinking "that's going to be a tough act to follow." Age of Aquarius did not disappoint. I still can't get over how beautiful the new ships are, as well as how well-done the epic battle sequences are. My only complaint about the missions is that I got a bit tired of taking out beam cannons... other than that, just plain amazing. I played on Medium, and I think I only had to restart a couple of times... none of the missions felt frustrating, but all were challenging (exactly appropriate for medium).
For the record, played with FSOpen and MediaVPs both at 3.6.10. The only "problem" I encountered was that in the epilogue mission, my ship had mysteriously changed and my (now-dead) wingmen spoke with the voice of Command. Kind of weird.
I'm looking forward to the next installment. :D