[General Battuta]

Redsniper upgraded the Hard Light Facebook group and a bunch of old/out of the loop FreeSpace players are now rumbling about, trying to figure out what's happened. They're old school! They still think Derelict is undisputed king of the hill! They probably think that flying a capship isn't fun and that 3.6.10 wasn't ****ty!

But seriously folks, there are some pretty awesome people over there (I recognized mikhail) and we should, uh, make them welcome if they decide to check back in and see what they've missed.

By 'make them welcome' I mean 'absorb them.'

[Veers]

I like that picture...

and my inbox is loaded with quite a few Hard Light messages now, quite a nice change actually.

 

[chief1983]

These guys didn't know there was a 3.6.10, or probably a 3.6.9 for that matter.

[Rodo]

I hate cats.

[Ypoknons]

I wanna see the old people.

[Mr. Vega]

I was the one who said Derelict is still the best user made campaign ever. It's true. The bad rep about mission design is wildly overblown. There were only a few clunkers (An Advancement in Learning) and there were plenty of brilliant missions (A Paper Wall). Also, the style was truer to FS than any other fan campaign (even had the clever mission names that would make Volition proud). And people have *****ed about how the missions served the story and not vise versa - THAT WAS WHY IT WAS SO GOOD. It was actually immersive! Like it or not, FS' success revolves around atmosphere. Oh, and it had Mackie. No other campaign can claim him

[General Battuta]

I was the one who said Derelict is still the best user made campaign ever. It's true. What's your point?

'Best user made campaign' ever is a matter of opinion, and while it may be your favorite user made campaign ever, you'd no longer get a broad consensus on that opinion like you could back in the day.

ed: really it's because back in the day Derelict was basically the only campaign that came near Volition's quality, but today we have so much work that has either matched or wildly exceeded Volition's design that people say 'wow, look at all this amazing stuff, it is all great' rather than 'THAT ONE IS BEST'.

ed2: that thing you edited in makes it sound like you haven't played many recent campaigns

[Mr. Vega]

Has that consensus eroded because there are better campaigns now or because nobody's played it in years? You wanna call me an old fogey, fine. I think it's a bad thing that the pendulum has swung too far toward design over storytelling now. Derelict had its frustrating moments, but I always looked forward to the next mission. Even with later masterpieces like Homesick that wasn't always the case.

[The E]

Umm.

Have you played BP: War in Heaven? Or Silent Threat: Reborn? Or Vassago's Dirge? Because those are very heavily story-driven, and they definitely are all contenders for "Best campaign".

[Mr. Vega]

Weren't as good as Derelict. I can have that opinion if I damn well want to.

[General Battuta]

Reread my last post before continuing, I edited stuff in.

okay

The consensus has eroded because of exactly the opposite of what you said. The pendulum has swung far, far away from design and towards storytelling. All major campaigns today (Blue Planet, Wings of Dawn, Vassago's Dirge) do what Derelict did: focus on immersion and storytelling foremost.

Now you can dislike all these campaigns, that's perfectly fine, but what you're saying just makes it sound like you haven't played recent stuff or paid much attention to the community's feelings. And it's absolutely not due to a dropoff in people playing Derelict, in fact it's probably the opposite.

For example, today I ran into this exchange on another forum:

The_White_Crane posted:

    I just have to recommend Derelict.
    A complete (very long) user made semi-sequel campaign, of a quality largely comparable to the original game. It also includes full voice acting which is (shock horror) actually not completely ****!
    Some voice acting may be a little ****.

Does, uh, Derelict get better after the first set of missions? Because so far, Blue Planet has blown it away in every category, from quality of voice acting to mission pacing to the right balance of difficulty

Yes but you're also pretty much comparing one of the first big campaigns to be made (and then updated to SCP) to Blue Planet which, really, I would suggest is one of the best FS2 campaigns made. I also think Derelict was the first big attempt at the HLP forums to voice act an entire campaign. There's literally ten years of innovation and improvement between the two of them.

Now it's unfortunate that exchange was about BP, since I'm not here to claim that the campaign I'm involved in is 'the best'.

Rather I'm arguing that there is no longer a best campaign, that there are instead a vast number of high-quality campaigns which can satisfy just about every desire, whether it's traditional FreeSpace-style gameplay and storytelling or crazy Star Control meets anime action fests with quicktime events. You can love Vassago's Dirge and hate Blue Planet, or you can love them both, but the best litmus test we have - opinions of new players - simply suggests that Derelict is no longer the sacred cow it once was.

Weren't as good as Derelict. I can have that opinion if I damn well want to.

See, you're no longer making the same argument, now you're just saying 'I like Derelict best'. Which is fine, go ahead, though I suspect you haven't actually played much since.

Derelict has been part of the recommended campaign bundle for first-time players for years. Recently I dropped it, because new players weren't as excited about it as the other campaigns in the bundle. I personally think it's wonderful, but it doesn't seem to be connecting with people the way some of the newer work has.

[Deadly in a Shadow]

Uh uhm Derelict was epic but Blue Planet...was even more epic.
Derelict has a really nice story full of unexpected events *cough*MT*cough* but Blue Planet does nearly everything BETTER.
Despite that, Derelict and Blue Planet are both great campaigns, you want to hug such masterpieces.(My opinion)

[General Battuta]

I just don't think there's a point in declaring high-quality campaigns better than each other.

We should be grateful and overjoyed we get to play Derelict and Blue Planet. Declaring one of them king and looking down snootily on others is discouraging to everyone working on new campaigns and divisive to the community as a whole.

I mean, what do you get out of declaring a legendary campaign more legendary? How does it help anyone? If you want the community to prosper, to foster talent which has a chance of producing something even better than [your favorite], it's cooperation, not competition, that'll make that happen.

Tearing people who aren't your favorite down just discourages them. Lending kind words even to campaigns you didn't enjoy helps improve them and encourage their makers. And this community runs on the enthusiasm of the creatives involved in it.

[Mr. Vega]

Derelict was never a sacred cow. Plenty of people bashed it back in the olden days.

Look, I admit that nostalgia has colored my perceptions (though I have played Derelict fairly recently and I think it holds up just fine), and I admit that Derelict doesn't resonate with the younger crowd as it once did (though that may just be a matter of taste). But you can still make a strong case for it still being the best, and my original facebook comment was that I never though that would be possible after MT and BWO pushed it to the wayside. Which is really depressing.

[Mr. Vega]

I just don't think there's a point in declaring high-quality campaigns better than each other.

We should be grateful and overjoyed we get to play Derelict and Blue Planet. Declaring one of them king and looking down snootily on others is discouraging to everyone working on new campaigns and divisive to the community as a whole.

I mean, what do you get out of declaring a legendary campaign more legendary? How does it help anyone? If you want the community to prosper, to foster talent which has a chance of producing something even better than [your favorite], it's cooperation, not competition, that'll make that happen.

Tearing people who aren't your favorite down just discourages them. Lending kind words even to campaigns you didn't enjoy helps improve them and encourage their makers. And this community runs on the enthusiasm of the creatives involved in it.

People are smart. They'll make their own opinions regardless of what a few forumites say in an arguement. If anything, putting way too much effort and thought into silly arguments are what made this forum fun to be a part of in the first place. Being all harmonious and nice all the time doesn't make a community more productive, just more boring.

God, I can't believe I'm STILL posting here. It's been nine years! Feels longer than that!

[General Battuta]

Derelict was never a sacred cow. Plenty of people bashed it back in the olden days.

Look, I admit that nostalgia has colored my perceptions (though I have played Derelict fairly recently and I think it holds up just fine), and I admit that Derelict doesn't resonate with the younger crowd as it once did (though that may just be a matter of taste). But you can still make a strong case for it still being the best, and my original facebook comment was that I never though that would be possible after MT and BWO pushed it to the wayside. Which is really depressing.

MT and BWO never came out. How can they have pushed anything to the wayside?

Actually, maybe you're on to something there. If you're making an argument that HLP used to be much more competitive - bashing Derelict, pushing other campaigns to the wayside - I can agree.

I think that the enormous explosion of creativity we've seen in recent years has been fueled almost entirely by collaboration. Maybe that's something the older mods - Inferno, MT, BWO - never understood. Even on their internal forums they still talk about exclusive assets, holding on to things, beating people.

Meanwhile, the dev teams of today's most popular campaigns release their assets early so everyone can play with them. They hang out on the same IRC channels, share SEXPs and tips, and put their new features directly into the engine instead of maintaining their own development branches. It's a different style. And I think you can see the difference in the forumgoers, too - the Blue Planet and Wings of Dawn boards share a lot of the same fans even though the campaigns are very different.

In a sense these new campaigns owe much more to Derelict than to campaigns like MT or BWO. Not just because of what Derelict was, but because of how it was made: it used public assets, focused on telling its story rather than building a huge new fleetpack, and sold itself through charm and storytelling skill rather than size and scale. That's the model most successful campaigns have followed.

People are smart. They'll make their own opinions regardless of what a few forumites say in an arguement. If anything, putting way too much effort and thought into silly arguments are what made this forum fun to be a part of in the first place. Being all harmonious and nice all the time doesn't make a community more productive, just more boring.

Arguments are fine, but you seem to be ignoring the key part of the chain, the people who make the arguments possible in the first place - the campaign creators.

Do you think Spoon would be as insanely productive as he is if he had to deal with posts constantly bashing his work? What kind of creative would want to work in that atmosphere?

God, I can't believe I'm STILL posting here. It's been nine years! Feels longer than that!

I was active back on the VBB. I'm not saying that to wave my dick around, but to explain that my perspective isn't born of being new.

[Mr. Vega]

They never came out. My point exactly. Hence the depressing thing.

I was talking much more about social than productive competition. You can disagree loudly with someone and still be willing to help each other. Not all of the arguments in the "glory" days of HLP were in the style of an0n. I think open releases have been fantastic, no argument there. In fact, it drives me crazy that it wasn't done years ago.

Your points are all good, I'm just saying that the community (which are mostly non-modders) seems to have suffered a bit as a result of the Pax Kalfiretha. Strong, independent personalities may be a headache if you need cooperation, but they also made things more interesting.

And I get the last comment. I was just making a general statement. Never thought HLP would still be going by now, much less I'd still be posting in it.

[The E]

Personally, I'll take a quietly awesome forum over an argumentative burning monument to the GIF theory.

[Mr. Vega]

How can you argue over that one? That equation is like 2+2=4. It's just true, man.

[General Battuta]

They never came out. My point exactly. Hence the depressing thing.

Having gotten an inside look at some of these projects I frankly think what we've got today is just as good, and better in some respects.

Though I still hope BWO will come out and be awesome, it was developed in an era where much of what we can do today - make tactical jumps, fly capships, customize the HUD on a per-mission basis - just wasn't possible.

There's always room for good, solid, traditional missions. If a project offers those I'm there in a heartbeat. But we've also explored a lot of new ground.