[Mobius]

Yeah, Axem, I knew it. No problem here.

As for TrashMan's opinion... well, it's just that Battuta's words were a bit out of place, IMHO:

One of the most compelling, atmospheric, artistic mods the community has seen, delivered by an auteur and a peerless FREDder. Like the titular dirge, it is both beautiful and funereal - a desaturated journey into the most compelling and unearthly parts of the FreeSpace universe.

There are moments in this campaign that will shock, and others - more disturbing yet - that will chill you with their unsettling, eerie familiarity.

And there are ridiculously, ridiculously cool moments, masterstrokes of honed FREDcraft. Perfect, invisible control in some missions; in others feats of modding I didn't believe feasible.

Also, the use of music is just something else.
 
Play it.

Battuta's intent when posting that was noble, but too many expectations risk damaging a campaign. Dirge of Vassago probably is one of the most intense and enjoyable campaigns in circulation (for the record, I recommend it), but I'd rather let community members find it out themselves. No offense here, of course.

[General Battuta]

Go **** yourself. 

[The E]

Believe it or not, Mobius, but Battuta has a right to post his review of Vassago's Dirge just like you did.

As with ANY review, it is subjective, and really all it tells you is that if you have the same taste in campaigns as Battuta, you might like it as well as he did.

What was the bloody point of this last post, Mobius? What are you trying to say? That we shouldn't post complimentary reviews?

[Spoon]

Go **** yourself. 

 

[Mobius]

What was the bloody point of this last post, Mobius? What are you trying to say? That we shouldn't post complimentary reviews?

Quite the contrary. I'm not against compliments and never will: it's just that Axem has always been very modest about his campaigns and too many expectations on his work risk damaging it. Dunno, Battuta's compliments seemed a bit forced and innatural, but probably it's just me. That is all.

[General Battuta]

What was the bloody point of this last post, Mobius? What are you trying to say? That we shouldn't post complimentary reviews?

Quite the contrary. I'm not against compliments and never will: it's just that Axem has always been very modest about his campaigns and too many expectations on his work risk damaging it. Dunno, Battuta's compliments seemed a bit forced and innatural, but probably it's just me. That is all.

I tell you what, Mobius. I'll review your campaigns the way you like, and review Axem's campaigns the way he likes.

Not only do I work with Axem every day, so I'm quite sure he loved the review, but I was overjoyed to see people passing my review around and telling others to download Vassago's Dirge because of it.

For INFASA I'll be sure to be a little less enthusiastic in spite of my own excitement about stuff like OCPs, okay? Wouldn't want to damage anyone's experience by telling them they were in for something special, even if it is something special.

[Mobius]

Seriously, that really isn't the point... you're making things up here...

EDIT: I'll no longer post here, if that's what you want.

[General Battuta]

Edited. Though for the sake of your reply I'll summarize - previous version of my post was just pointing out that Mobius was probably feeling a few pangs of jealousy that he hadn't released anything drawing that kind of praise.

And I let him know that I'd actually been excited to write just such a review for him, but hey, if he didn't want it...

[Mobius]

I'm not jealous, and I don't understand what led you to suspect that. If you take a look at my comments here and on ModDB (like the flood of comments on TopAce's DoS page), you'd realize that I usually tend to post compliments and motivate people.

EDIT: If you want to discuss it any further, do it via PM. I don't like hijacking Axem's thread. 

[General Battuta]

So do you or do you not want me to lie about your campaign if I like it a lot?

I mean, I can pretend not to like it. I had the pleasant experience of watching my Vassago's Dirge review being passed around and used to encourage more downloads, and I know Axem liked it, so I think your concerns are groundless.

[General Battuta]

No, I'd rather keep this public. How about we split this thread off and you can address the topic without worrying about that?

Because really, if you want people to avoid saying good things about your campaign, I think everyone should know so we can all help out, right?

(I think TrashMan didn't like the campaign because TrashMan doesn't like this type of story. Which is perfectly okay, he's welcome to his tastes, they're no better or worse than anyone else's.)

[Mobius]

Ok, if you want to keep it public I'll reply. Glad we're no longer derailing Axem's thread.

Let me put it this way: your post was rather generic, and you haven't mentioned any specific events occurring in the campaign (not even with spoiler tags). It kind of... gave the impression that you forced yourself to post it. You know, when a new campaign is released, the first posts can be summarized with "I'm downloading it now!", "Was waiting for this one!" and other similar comments. Community members who test campaigns before official releases (I assume you playtested VD, because you already knew what it was about) usually don't post so early on release threads. That's probably why your post looked a bit innatural to me... I felt as if it was out of place, as if it should have been poster later on. This is hardly a relevant thing, though... it's just my reaction.

Hope you got what I mean, because it has absolutely nothing to do with me supposedly being against complimentary posts. I fail to see the connection.

[The E]

I am amazed at how much you are able to misread posts.

And if you fail to see the connection, Let me give you a hint. Let's look at this post:

One of the most compelling, atmospheric, artistic mods the community has seen, delivered by an auteur and a peerless FREDder. Like the titular dirge, it is both beautiful and funereal - a desaturated journey into the most compelling and unearthly parts of the FreeSpace universe.

There are moments in this campaign that will shock, and others - more disturbing yet - that will chill you with their unsettling, eerie familiarity.

And there are ridiculously, ridiculously cool moments, masterstrokes of honed FREDcraft. Perfect, invisible control in some missions; in others feats of modding I didn't believe feasible.

Also, the use of music is just something else.
 
Play it.

Battuta's intent when posting that was noble, but too many expectations risk damaging a campaign. Dirge of Vassago probably is one of the most intense and enjoyable campaigns in circulation (for the record, I recommend it), but I'd rather let community members find it out themselves. No offense here, of course.

Nowhere in this post did you mention ANYTHING about why you felt Battuta's post to be damaging. NOWHERE did you mention that you felt it was forced. NOWHERE. You just posted, and I quote, "Battuta's intent when posting that was noble, but too many expectations risk damaging a campaign.", WITHOUT offering proof for that statement, WITHOUT going into detail about it. I am frankly astonished at the degree of (hopefully unintentional) misunderstanding on your part.

That you come out with this "Well, I thought it was forced" justification only after being called on it does not help your case. At all.

[General Battuta]

What you just said makes more sense than your first post on this topic. I appreciate your willingness to clarify.

I was a tester. I wanted to post how I felt about the campaign without spoiling anything at all about the experience, even in tags. I wanted people to want to play this campaign without spoiling anything about what actually made the campaign great.

I'll be happy to put specific plot points or moments in my reviews for your campaigns, but given the nature of Vassago's Dirge, which is built on these virtuoso moments of 'oh wow' excellence, I didn't want to wreck anything.

I am not going to play coy about how I feel about a campaign. As I've said before, I was pleased to see that my enthusiasm and respect for the campaign were a) shared by others, b) led to more downloads and c) were meaningful and gratifying to the campaign's creator.

If Axem wanted that review taken down he'd have told me. We work together.

[Mobius]

The E: What I described in my latest post was my reaction when I first read Battuta's review. What you've just quoted occurred later, after reading TrashMan's comment and wondering a bit about the situation.

TBH, I don't see the problem in saying that too many expectations can be "dangerous", if you pardon the term. If your expectations on a campaign are high, small glitches are more likely to compromise your opinion about that campaign. If you don't expect anything from it and DL it with skepticism, glitches will be hardly noticeable. No surprises here, really, because it happens with films, books, games, etc. etc.

General Battuta: Nice clarification, thanks. 

[General Battuta]

The E: What I described in my latest post was my reaction when I first read Battuta's review. What you've just quoted occurred later, after reading TrashMan's comment and wondering a bit about the situation.

TBH, I don't see the problem in saying that too many expectations can be "dangerous", if you pardon the term. If your expectations on a campaign are high, small glitches are more likely to compromise your opinion about that campaign. If you don't expect anything from it and DL it with skepticism, glitches will be hardly noticeable. No surprises here, really, because it happens with films, books, games, etc. etc.

That's not a reason to dissemble in reviews. Do you want your campaigns intentionally underreviewed? If so I'm sure we can arrange it.

If a good campaign has problems, point them out so they can be fixed.

[NGTM-1R]

This is from the man who believed I was being unnecessarily harsh on people when I reviewed campaigns, back when I could still bring myself to play the game.

And so I say unto thee: what.

[QuantumDelta]

People who don't care about reviews shouldn't read them.
People who care about reviews should always take them with a pinch of salt.

If Battuta wants to give the campaign 5 stars and a hearty recommendation then that's his prerogative, if trashman wants to give the campaign 0 stars and complain about it, then that's his prerogative.

If people care about reviews they're likely to read most/all of them, not just the first one, so that they gain a decent perspective on the subject.

I for one, tend to agree with Battuta.
I haven't finished VD but so far I'm nothing but impressed.

[Snail]

I only had one complaint about Vassago, that is the minijumps mission was of a lesser standard than the other missions (technically brilliant like the rest, but blardy annoying)

[Commander Zane]

I think Battuta's review fits perfectly, Vassago's Dirge blew my mind away in every aspect.