[noodlezombie]

I want to preface this by saying that I really liked Blue Planet. It has some exceptional missions (my favorite by far is Forced Entry. That one is frakking brilliant). And I especially love the new GTVA ships, they look great and the campaign does a very good job of conveying just how superior they are to the Shivan tech, while still not being invincible.

That being said, the plot was just...stupid. Or rather, it starts off promising. Expeditionary Force back to Sol, state of the art fleet. Awesome. Something happens in transit and you end up in an alternate universe where the Shivans won. Hey, that's fine, it's a bit out of the norm for FreeSpace, but I can still get with it.

Spend a few missions blowing up Shivans with your hilariously superior tech, make contact with a lone ship carrying the last survivors of the human race in this universe, all is well.

And then, out of NOWHERE, comes this 'chosen one' and 'extra dimensional aliens' nonsense. What the hell is this crap? Not only is it retarded and has no place in a fleet action based, military space sim (I will make an exception for the Sync/Transcend campaigns, since they are somewhat similar but do it far, far better than Blue Planet does), but it's not like the plot really needed it.

Why couldn't the story just have been about running through Shivan blockades to rejoin the rest of the GTVA battlegroup, and then clearing a path back to the node, a couple missions where you hold off Shivans while the scientists in the fleet work out how to reproduce the energy fluctuations to get you back to your universe, then an final epic gauntlet mission where the fleet makes a mad dash for the node? That would have been fine, I would have been more than happy with something like that.

And don't get me started on the so called 'character focus'. Not once during the entire campaign did I give a crap about Alpha 1, his Dad, or my wingmen. Awkward in-mission dialog and frankly badly written journal entries =/= good character development.

And then it gets into all this spiritualist garbage. When I got to the part where I'm presented with 5 pages of a speech on the final resting place of the soul I literally, physically facepalmed. Why is this stuff in my FreeSpace campaign? And what about the part where the aliens essentially tell you you're the long foretold chosen one? I couldn't even facepalm, I just ಠ_ಠ for about 5 minutes.

I don't wish to sound overly harsh, but I feel someone has to come forward and say these things. The basic premise of the story was solid, and the missions were great. But the story about a 3rd of the way through just went to hell. It's not like I'm asking for the campaign to be remade or anything (although...I mean you could essentially keep the first several missions the same...well whatever) but please, please don't do this same crap with War in Heaven.

[Mobius]

First of all, welcome to the HLPBB!

Like you, I expected something different from the plot but I have to say that the campaign turned out to be memorable - the community loved it. I complained about a few things and said that WiH should be different from AoA under many points of view.

WiH will be about a completely different situation so we should have the same twists we had in AoA, I trust Darius on this one. I guess he doesn't want to repeat the experience in AoA...

I'd like to add that, well, all character-driven/focused campaigns tend to have weird(no offense) things on them. I'd really like to see a radical change in this tendence because, IMO, it isn't true. I have great hopes on WiH, I want it to be what I'm looking for.

On a side note, you should use the [spoiler][/spoiler] tags. My post was vague on purpose, people reading yours would have full knowledge of certain, focal parts of AoA. Example:

Spoiler:

Did you know what Snail is a weird person?

[/mobius]

[DarthWang]

I liked the Vishnans just because I liked seeing the new ships and weapons and a new race in general

[The E]

Same here. I like Campaigns that do something completely unexpected, just like Blue Planet did.
I, for one, never expected the whole "You're in a different Universe"-Thing, and the way Darius handled it was certainly good enough for me....Better than the average alternate-universe-themed TV-Show, anyway...

[eliex]

Perhaps because I read to many of the "you have a destiny" sort of books, AoA's somewhat awkward aspects really didn't make much of a difference for me.
Although I would hope in WiH that some of the awkward aspects, e.g some the spiritualist writings get altered as a friend of mine who played it got a bit insulted at his beliefs.  (Seriously, don't ask me how it happened.)   

[General Battuta]

It grew on me as I replayed it.

The presentation was good, the writing was good (don't know what your issue with it was -- it wasn't always perfect but it was far from awkward in terms of FRED dialogue), the ideas weren't original but they were original in a Freespace context. I found the whole destiny/chosen one thing pretty effective; it was foreshadowed from very early on in the campaign.

War in Heaven looks to be at least partly a more gritty and grounded experience. So you might like it better.

Anyway, if you didn't like the characters (which I thought were well-written and convincing), it sounds like something in the campaign just didn't work for you. It's a matter of taste and opinion, as are all things. You can go play Procyon Insurgency or something if you want a purely military experience.

If by 'this sort of crap' you mean character development and that brilliant flashback mission to the death of Eriana and Sam's mother, then I have to register a vote against noodlezombie and ask for more excellent emotion and character exploration in WiH.

Also, careful not to troll -- 'this kind of crap' and 'frankly retarded' isn't constructive criticism.

[eliex]

War in Heaven looks to be at least partly a more gritty and grounded experience. So you might like it better

Although you can certainly bet that the Vishnans will be back. Not sure about the Shivans though as the conflict is more Terran orientated than anything . . .

[General Battuta]

War in Heaven looks to be at least partly a more gritty and grounded experience. So you might like it better

Although you can certainly bet that the Vishnans will be back. Not sure about the Shivans though as the conflict is more Terran orientated than anything . . .

Maybe. It's suggested that the Vishnans are watching and judging.

Spoiler:

Also, we don't know if Shiva's banishment from the Council is permanent across all universes or only applies to that single universe.

Out of curiosity, how'd your friend who played AoA get insulted?

[eliex]

(Seriously, don't ask me how it happened.)   

I have no idea. Although . . . perhaps he was overreacting. He's quite . . . uh, religiously sensitive. No one else I know shared his opinion.

[Droid803]

Uhm...alright...
"Lesson: Don't take fictional religions seriously?"

Then again...
I barely take anything seriously...

[Dilmah G]

noodlezombie

BP is the best piece of FRED-ing I.Have.Ever.Seen. (in league with ST:R, Transcend etc)

If you didn't give a **** about Alpha One, you obviously weren't playing it properly, that mission where you dock with the Vishnan ship, I actually felt really saddened to leave Corey and Taylor. I have to concur the Command Briefing for that seemed a bit awkward, but Darius created a piece of art with that campaign. IMO, he's akin to Picasso with mouse and keyboard in terms of campaign writing and FRED-ing. ST:R was good, but it took a whole team, Darius was like a one man army, those 5 pages of CB about the final resting place of my soul, I leaned in on my moniter and read it through like my life depended on it, I motherfrakking loved it. If you want spacesims to stick to combat and combat only, be my guest, but campaigns like BP opened up doors for future campaigns, he pretty much FRED-ed Samuel Bei's biography, he gave a REASON to fight!

[noodlezombie]

noodlezombie

BP is the best piece of FRED-ing I.Have.Ever.Seen. (in league with ST:R, Transcend etc)

If you didn't give a **** about Alpha One, you obviously weren't playing it properly, that mission where you dock with the Vishnan ship, I actually felt really saddened to leave Corey and Taylor.

All I felt at that point was 'oh god, not another mission where I don't do much of anything' and then I hit the time compression button.

If by 'this sort of crap' you mean character development and that brilliant flashback mission to the death of Eriana and Sam's mother, then I have to register a vote against noodlezombie and ask for more excellent emotion and character exploration in WiH.

It wasn't that brilliant. I see what he was trying to go for, but the characters had no, well, character. There was basically no development about them at all. All there is really is a few journal entries, some lines of dialog about 'he's not my father!' a couple random visions in the nebula and then suddenly it's 'no, I must save the fathers! no Samuel, you are the spaceships' and a bunch of awkward, out of place stuff about Alpha 1's supposed destiny.

Oh, also, during that flashback mission I couldn't help thinking 'oh come on, those Shivan warheads were in flight for a good 20 seconds, Alpha wing you idiots, you could easily have shot them down well clear of the shuttle'.

Also, careful not to troll -- 'this kind of crap' and 'frankly retarded' isn't constructive criticism.

I'm not trolling. When something is bad and/or stupid, I'm going to call it out as such. I have no problem with someone making a campaign that goes outside the norm. I again cite the Sync/Transcend campaigns. Those are incredibly unique, and I actually started to care about some of the characters in those. And Transcend especially had a bunch of alternate universe and 'chosen one' stuff in it, but that was fine because it was done with more, I don't know, tact? Style? Logic maybe?

Something anyway, it felt natural, the plot gradually escalated in Sync and Transcend, as opposed to AoA where the plot abruptly changes tone and style, and not in my opinion for the better.

I do realize he did most, if not all, of the work on Blue Planet himself, and as I've said, most of the missions are great. I'm not putting down his ability to FRED. But maybe he should just get someone else to do the writing next time around...

Uhm...alright...
"Lesson: Don't take fictional religions seriously?"

I'll refrain from making the obvious joke.

[Darius]

BP was pretty out there with its story premise (which inevitably means it's not going to sit well with some people) and most people seemed to think the execution was good enough. Noodlezombie's welcome to express his ills with the campaign so long as it's constructive (Here's a hint: "stupid" and "crap" is the wrong way in going about it and just makes one look like a troll).

Besides, if the story was simply about running a gauntlet through Shivan-held space and saving humanity, it wouldn't have got nearly as strong a reaction as it would have

But I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the mission design and other aspects of the storyline.

When I got to the part where I'm presented with 5 pages of a speech on the final resting place of the soul I literally, physically facepalmed. Why is this stuff in my FreeSpace campaign?

Your FreeSpace campaign? Dude, srsly.

It's not like I'm asking for the campaign to be remade or anything (although...I mean you could essentially keep the first several missions the same...well whatever) but please, please don't do this same crap with War in Heaven.

Out of the question. Just warning you now.

[noodlezombie]

When I got to the part where I'm presented with 5 pages of a speech on the final resting place of the soul I literally, physically facepalmed. Why is this stuff in my FreeSpace campaign?

Your FreeSpace campaign? Dude, srsly.

It's a figure of speech.

[General Battuta]

As a general rule of thumb on the Internet it's a good idea to phrase things as 'in my opinion' or 'as I see it'. There aren't many objective facts that everyone in such a diverse population can agree on.

Anyway, you've made it clear that (in your opinion) Blue Planet's plot is bad/stupid. That probably means it's just not right for you, since a great many very intelligent people liked it, as Darius pointed out.

It's not a problem with either side, just a difference in perception, so we should all just live and let live.

Also, just want to second all the stuff Dilmah G said. I'm a pretty damn good writer and I was impressed by the religious text. The only place I found serious flaws in the writing was the very end of the last mission -- there were some obvious grammar problems.

Doing the VA work for Blue Planet, I've read over or listened to most of the lines in the game more times than I count, and really, they're pretty good (and sometimes brilliant.)

[Dilmah G]

Noodlezombie

If breaking the trigger on your joystick is the only thing that concerns you when playing a freespace campaign, then BP obviously isn't right for you.

noodlezombie

BP is the best piece of FRED-ing I.Have.Ever.Seen. (in league with ST:R, Transcend etc)

If you didn't give a **** about Alpha One, you obviously weren't playing it properly, that mission where you dock with the Vishnan ship, I actually felt really saddened to leave Corey and Taylor.

All I felt at that point was 'oh god, not another mission where I don't do much of anything' and then I hit the time compression button.

If you don't have the patience (or some would say the Intelligence) to listen to dialogue in a narrative, then the best thing for you to do now is to head down to your local arcade and amuse yourself with something less 'demanding' such as Time Crisis 4, and break the trigger on their light guns (I think that's the term), and don't worry about a storyline, as long as there are pixels on the screen, you can keep on developing carpal tunnel in your index finger, which I'm sure will occupy you.

If all you wanted is to blast the Shivans back to a jump node and get the hell out of there for no apparent reason...

Great, how 'bout you close firefox, open FRED, and keep your head down for a good few months and show us what you come up with. You see, Blue Planet isn't just a 'Campaign', a series of missions, Darius goes a step further and give us a 'Story' as well, a reason FOR those missions, and a reason for the story. If you refer to BP as 'Crap' and 'Stupid', then you ST:R would suit you more.

[Ashrak]

I want to preface this by saying that I really liked Blue Planet. It has some exceptional missions (my favorite by far is Forced Entry. That one is frakking brilliant). And I especially love the new GTVA ships, they look great and the campaign does a very good job of conveying just how superior they are to the Shivan tech, while still not being invincible.

That being said, the plot was just...stupid. Or rather, it starts off promising. Expeditionary Force back to Sol, state of the art fleet. Awesome. Something happens in transit and you end up in an alternate universe where the Shivans won. Hey, that's fine, it's a bit out of the norm for FreeSpace, but I can still get with it.

Spend a few missions blowing up Shivans with your hilariously superior tech, make contact with a lone ship carrying the last survivors of the human race in this universe, all is well.

And then, out of NOWHERE, comes this 'chosen one' and 'extra dimensional aliens' nonsense. What the hell is this crap? Not only is it retarded and has no place in a fleet action based, military space sim (I will make an exception for the Sync/Transcend campaigns, since they are somewhat similar but do it far, far better than Blue Planet does), but it's not like the plot really needed it.

Why couldn't the story just have been about running through Shivan blockades to rejoin the rest of the GTVA battlegroup, and then clearing a path back to the node, a couple missions where you hold off Shivans while the scientists in the fleet work out how to reproduce the energy fluctuations to get you back to your universe, then an final epic gauntlet mission where the fleet makes a mad dash for the node? That would have been fine, I would have been more than happy with something like that.

And don't get me started on the so called 'character focus'. Not once during the entire campaign did I give a crap about Alpha 1, his Dad, or my wingmen. Awkward in-mission dialog and frankly badly written journal entries =/= good character development.

And then it gets into all this spiritualist garbage. When I got to the part where I'm presented with 5 pages of a speech on the final resting place of the soul I literally, physically facepalmed. Why is this stuff in my FreeSpace campaign? And what about the part where the aliens essentially tell you you're the long foretold chosen one? I couldn't even facepalm, I just ಠ_ಠ for about 5 minutes.

I don't wish to sound overly harsh, but I feel someone has to come forward and say these things. The basic premise of the story was solid, and the missions were great. But the story about a 3rd of the way through just went to hell. It's not like I'm asking for the campaign to be remade or anything (although...I mean you could essentially keep the first several missions the same...well whatever) but please, please don't do this same crap with War in Heaven.

if you want all the same stuff that a billion other campaigns do, then please do play those other campaigns, i for one loved BP cuz running blockades to do the same old bloddy thing gets boring after iv done it a 100 times

BP made me go WTF and i loved it.

[ShadowGorrath]

If you want pure action, just open FRED2Open and make a giant BoE. That should last you for a few hours. You won't even need to make Events/use SEXPs.

Now, if you don't like BP, then either criticise it nicely, or shut up. Since you can't criticise nicely, all you can do is shut up.

[Jeff Vader]

It's not like I'm asking for the campaign to be remade or anything (although...I mean you could essentially keep the first several missions the same...well whatever)

If you don't like it, no one is stopping you from remaking the last missions into blow-things-up parades and being happy with it.

Actually, if emphasis on storytelling isn't your thing, there's always Second Great War Part 2. That has a horrible story, but you don't really need to concern yourself with it since it is mostly handled during briefings and debriefings, whereas during missions you just have to blow things up on a ridiculous scale.

[Dilmah G]

If you want pure action, just open FRED2Open and make a giant BoE.

Hey! I do that sometimes!
If you're in the mood for it, it can be quite entertaining, but a huge BoE and BP are two different things, the two cannot be compared. Period.