[DarthWang]

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

I'm afraid that people who know INFR1 didn't experience that feeling.

I never got any of the Inferno campaigns to work on my PC

[Darius]

Officially they had sent probes in to scout the immediate area. But they could just as well have sent SOC black-ops agents in on an intel mission without anyone knowing about it.

I'm sorry I've had to withhold so many storyline elements from the first chapter. It wouldn't be doing anything for people's patience, and it's clearly upsetting you, Mobius: this is the second time you've become so worked up about the plot. Calm down a little, I don't want to come back to see that someone else has had to lock this thread while I was away.

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

I'm afraid that people who know INFR1 didn't experience that feeling.

I did, when I played it for the first time.

[eliex]

Perhaps you could have a sub-campaign detailing the SOC black-ops agents working in Sol . . . although that probably wouldn't work as fighting is surely required.
In your spare time could you write some more mini-stories about the pre-AoA stage? It'll answer a great deal of questions. 

[Commander Zane]

And give us more time to see sexy ships, fly sexy ships, blow crap up with those sexy ships.

[SpardaSon21]

Well, AoA was nice, although the whole Vishnu/Shiva/Council thing was a major piece of "WTF!?"  Didn't really fit right with the Shivans being the Almighty Destroyers and all.  I also think they could have added a few extra missions near the end so they could spread things out more.  AoA just seemed to move too fast.  More character development in WiH please.  Bei, Corey, and Taylor seem to have backgrounds, but they currently don't.  Its annoying knowing that there are people there, not just Alphas 1, 2, and 3 and yet we don't know who those people are.  They are superficial now, and deserve more than that.

Like the new ships (although 6 primaries is a bit much for a recon vessel like the Aurora, 4 would have made more sense), and I can't wait to see what the UEF will be equipping their pilots with.  From what I have seen in the vids they love ammo-hungry but most likely very destructive primaries focused on Kayser-style assaults where not being able to shoot doesn't matter since their enemies are dead.  My style of combat exactly!

In other words, AoA was good, and WiH looks even better.  Keep up the great work BP team!

[eliex]

I gather that the UEF's arsenal is mainly focused around projectile weaponry. Although will it encompass fighter primary weapons - e.g Maxim. (The tech room descriptions says it fires solid slugs.)

It's kinda funny in a way that it's similar to Halo - projectile weaponry vs GTVA plasma and beams - if my assumptions are correct. 

[Maverick]

After my little debocal of my game crashing on "The Great Preservers" I've just finished this campaign, and I must say i was THOROUGHLY blown away. Back when FS2 was just a demo, i could not stop playing those 2 missions until i finally got the actual FS2 (Game of the year edition no less). With no real character backstory i was still ecstatic about the game especially with the way that one ended. As the game died out and the hopes for an actual sequel to the game rapidly faded, I eventually put the game away for several years. During which time i had no idea the SCP was actually started up until i decided to see how Darkwing (my online squadron) was doing. Needless to say I found the SPC and once again, with the updated graphics and such, i blew my way through the main campaign on Insane difficulty just for fun. (ended up getting slammed by the super nova as i was jumping inside the jump node.. again) As fun as it was, it felt like it was lacking something.

Once I started my research on how to update and get more campaigns, I started looking through to see which ones would be the most interesting and tried going in chronological order via their discriptions. I had tried some of the other campaigns that came with the SCP but i just didn't like the idea of being a pilot fighting against pirates, although i will try them again even though they still seemed to be lacking something. The BWO demo was very entertaining and i enjoyed that thoroughly, but was saddened at the fact that it hasnt been completed yet. By the time i was on the last mission, I discovered what was missing...

The fact that you're thrown into the missions as "a generic pilot" was fun, it generally felt a bit stale and such. However, once i noticed that you've become a pilot with story to follow it through, thats what hooked me once again.... Its the same reasons why I fell in love with Wing Commander 1-3 (never got to play 4) and the Original Descent 1-3. Aside from the missions it also focused on an actual story of the pilot you're playing as. Thats what i felt the original FS2 campaign was lacking (SOC missions aside of course). Enough rambling about this though, onto BP

At the first load of BP, (the description alone got me interested as it was not only 18 years later but actually touching something that i had been itching to play for, the journey back to Earth. From the first cutscene, i was blown away.... The new ships alone made me wonder what other surprises were in store. Even though it took a while to start getting into the action, just playing through the initial storyline gave me goosebumps and the new Balor cannon made me drool... (it was my #1 cannon for each mission that i was able to use it in). Oh man i'm rambling again...

Anyways, I thought the use of cutscenes  was extreamly inventive and it really seemed to push the SCP to the edge (I had just missed what it was like to actually fly a fighter into the docking bay to end a mission!). Just in the first missions of playing BP made me think 'This is what Freespace should have been!". The story, though questionable in some points was extreamly well thought out and planned and even when there was no actual cutscenes, the use of the command briefings to make them into them was very clever. The music was absolutely stunning as well, not just because i'm a Trance junky, its the fact that it set the tones for each mission so well! ("The Forced Entry"... just.. wow.... I had gotten up to that mission extreamly late at night, dead tired, it immediately woke me back up) Just to touch on the end of the middle of the campaign, I was deeply moved as to how that was played out and i could not help but feel what Bei was feeling as was scripted at that point...  As for the ending, my heart just sank and i literally sat there at the controls for 5 minutes in shock before i actually ended the mission.

In a nutshell, Darius, i would like to personally thank you for an extreamly well thought out campaign and a rather touching story that you had expressed through it. To leave it on a cliffhanger like you did was cruel, but very well done... I for one am definitely looking toward to WiH and i hope that its just as well planned as AoA was. I just hope it doesn't take so long like how 24 took almost 2 years to come back... Darius, I salute you and your staff.

[-Norbert-]

Those are pure assumptions.

Exactly!
Good to see that you know what the word "maybe" means

Joking aside:
My post was intended to show that there could have been a lot going on we simply know nothing about.
And considering that AoA was told entirely by Bai junior, that only makes sense, since he's not high enough up in the hierarchy to get such information.

[Darius]

Thanks for your review Maverick, glad you enjoyed it.

My post was intended to show that there could have been a lot going on we simply know nothing about.

Well, the sign of good storytelling is to give enough information in the narrator's limited point of view that the audience/player doesn't feel there's too many loose ends at the end of the story. In the end the story became too big for 22 missions It's something that's being improved on for the next chapter.

[-Norbert-]

Since the story continues after AoA, I don't mind there being a few loose ends in AoA, see my earlier comment about cliffhanger

Besides, as I said, Bai (whom per personify in the campaign) wouldn't have any way of knowing about the behind the scenes stuff beforehand.
Thus it is only logical that he learns of the events that led to the war only afterwars.

[azile0]

I'm actually REALLY exited to be fighting the GTVA for a good reason. Playing a Neo-Terran just didn't sit well with me. Besides, I am so SICK AND TIRED of blowing up another wave of Basilisks, Seraphims, Dragons, and Nephilms. I want to fight some of those excellent ships that I've seen! Shivan conflict needs some SERIOUS revamping if it wants to sit well with me. GTVA strikes me as a very expansionist- type faction, and Earth is just their lost capital planet. The religious influence likely has little to do with it. I'm sure there is some religious influence high up in GTVA Command.

I hope that WiH has a nice, lengthy campaign, longer than AoA. He did a stupendous job at the storytelling in AoA, and WiH needs to match the storytelling element, and it needs at least 30 missions to tell a good story. I loved Homesick, because it really made me feel like I was being chased, and when you finally leave the Custodian, I was almost in tears. Same in Transcend, when the Raven chases you, driven by insanity, I felt pity for the guy. I just hope we don't go Vinshan again.Those were boring missions, because you just hit so damn hard. Except when you had to prune the Ravana's cannons. That was intense.

The music also attested for the game's brilliance. I LOVE AIM. Aim is the song that plays during Forced Entry, right? I love it. It really gets you pshyched to shoot down your 1,000th Shivan fighter. Or in the case of many of you, your 10,000th.

[Snail]

I agree with the above post. Including the bit about the Vishnan missions, those seemed strangely unrefined to me compared to the rest.

[azile0]

Finally someone agrees. 

I can't wait for WiH, it'd bee nice over Spring Break. IF I CAN GET A COMPUTER TO PLAY IT. 

[Phoenova]

I think that the story telling in this campaign was excellent, and personally I would also like to see some character development for your wingmen.  For basically the whole time I was wondering what happened in Capella to make Bei Jr and Sr split apart (I forgot their first names).  The ships were all awesome too, they all seemed uniform in terms of material and a little bit in the way of design, which makes sense.  They all seemed to take a Deimos design, since it was such a successful ship.  I loved almost all of the missions, and my favorite was definitely the one where the two fleets reunited again to take down the Sathanas.  The epic music when the other half of the fleet arrived to help each other out, taking down a monster was beyond cool.  Forced entry was probably a close second.  Oh, and the first time I saw the environmental suit I laughed for a minute straight (in a good way, it was just strange to be playing as basically a human in space )

Now, I said I loved almost all of the missions, and the exception was when the Vishnans got involved.  Mind you, they weren't BAD missions, but every single mission involving them made me go wtf to myself, and it kind of felt out of place.  I think part of my confusion was due to the fact that Ive seen the models before (in Inferno), and they were Ancient ships when I saw them first.  I know that this doesn't make them the OFFICIAL Ancient ships, but getting rid of that association is hard.  Trying to figure out if these Vishnans are Ancients, another dimensions Ancients, or only related in ship models was pretty confusing. 

It would have been cool to JUST see the Ancient remnants (Vishnans I know ) get involved to save the last bit of humanity in that dimension, saving another species from their fate, but the part about Bei getting involved and becoming a ship (and also the part about the Shivans getting a slap on the hand by getting kicked off the council and then leaving, and after never communicating with the Shivans we understand what they are saying perfectly?) could have been left out.

The story telling was suburb other than that, and the last mission made me  while I watched the future war start.  Hopefully at the very least the Temaire (I think thats its name) comes with us in WiH.  At least we have Bei Sr. escape pod on our side!

The one weird thing about the story was that I swore it said the Gate was completed 50 years after Capella, which made me wonder how the father and son could have been there (I'm 99% certain I misread this).  Also, it seemed like all these officers came to the different dimension conclusion just a LITTLE too quickly, without any other explanations 

[CKid]

The one weird thing about the story was that I swore it said the Gate was completed 50 years after Capella, which made me wonder how the father and son could have been there (I'm 99% certain I misread this).  Also, it seemed like all these officers came to the different dimension conclusion just a LITTLE too quickly, without any other explanations 

I believe the gate was build 18 years after Capella.

[eliex]

The subtitles read

Delta Serpentis 2385
50 Years after the Great War

So CKid is correct - it should only be 20 years from the Capella incident since the Great War is FS1 era, not the Second Shivan Incursion.

[Phoenova]

Yeah, I would have noticed that had I not skim read it  I assumed that a campaign taking place after FS2 would use Capella as the base time, but I guess considering the events that take place in alternate earth universe it makes sense.

[Renegade Paladin]

I loved Homesick, because it really made me feel like I was being chased, and when you finally leave the Custodian, I was almost in tears.

You know, as long as we're spoiling Homesick, can we spoil how to get the campaign to not crash the game after the seventh (? I think so, it's been so long...) mission?   

[eliex]

It's the one where a Vasudan destroyer mistakenly accuses the Custodian and its pilots that it is carrying contraband then a red-alert? It was due to the infamous 3.6.9 red-alert bug. With a 3.6.10 build, you should be able to play it just fine. 

[Locutus of Borg]

I have to agree with the thread author on this.

I really felt nothing for the protagonist, and by the time the Vishans came into the picture I thought the plot was getting a little ridiculous.

I would've liked to have been eased into the whole idea of the 'chosen one' and the 'Vishans' but it seemed like it came out of nowhere.

I'd also like to say that I do have poor vision, so I was forced to read a lot of the stuff at an uncomfortably close distance to my screen. If the campaign was voice acted, I may have been more into it.

I did love the first part of ti though, I played it in one sitting.