[Mongoose]

HLP is definitely losing steam, it may not be on the brink of having a cardiac arrest yet but its not exactly looking up right now. Mods in general are slowly becoming a thing of the past, with all the time and effort you need to put into a mod to make yourself stand out, you might as well go indie now a days.

See, I don't really think this is necessarily the case.  There's been an absolute ****load of new content released over the past year or two, most of which I sadly haven't even managed to play yet.  I mean, we've had two huge long-term TCs based on established universes drop within a few months of each other.  Add to that the few complete projects and add-ons of original universes, plus the handful of FS-related stuff, and people have been pretty damn busy recently.  There have been a few older projects that have thrown in the towel during that time, but as you noted, most of those were already dead for all intents and purposes long before the final announcement was made.  All things considered, I think we're doing okay.

I'd like to believe this but a lot of the big content creators who've been around forever do not agree.

What part of that is actually being disagreed with, though?  Quality can always be debated, but in terms of sheer release quantity, that's just a matter of counting.  If you're talking more along the lines of certain projects being dropped, I think that's more of a function of the "content creators who've been around forever" that you mentioned.  Interests and motivations wane with time, and for someone who's sunk the better part of a decade into an unfinished project or two, it's certainly natural that they might decide to finally call it quits.  However, it isn't as though we haven't seen some fairly new members working on their own projects recently, either.  I haven't seen any sort of real fundamental shift in the way the community's been operating.

[Klaustrophobia]

before i knew HLP existed, i DID see the death of freespace as i hung out in the retail only sector, coming in right at the last gasp of teamwars, the failed fleetwars, the last big squad burning to death in an epic flame war, and not long after the loss of PXO.  after losing the teamwars board for some reason or other, when it came back up only like 10 people or so re-registered.  my old squad's board is probably still floating in cyberspace, and about 3 years after it had been forgotton one of the admins found it again and sent out a message.  myself and one other showed up to post one last time.

so to me, this place is vibrant, overcrowded, and moving all ahead flank.

[General Battuta]

Respectfully, but I don't think any of you have been involved in the FS community as long as I have. I think the change of late is most apparent in the total death of Gen FS.

e: talking to mongoose and kara

[MatthTheGeek]

I didn't know Gen FS was producing mods. The only thing a lack of activity in Gen FS means is that after 13 years we've run out of stuff to say about retail FS2. Sounds like about right to me.

[wistler]

And theres no doubt been a rise in traffic to the BP forums and such. If Gen FS is dead it's because there's nothing interesting left to say about at 12 year old game. People's attention will go to the active mods with their own universes.

[karajorma]

Respectfully, but I don't think any of you have been involved in the FS community as long as I have. I think the change of late is most apparent in the total death of Gen FS.

e: talking to mongoose and kara

I'm not quite sure I follow you, I've been here for bloody ages! And I was pretty involved in the FS community even before I joined HLP.

I'll agree that Gen FS is quieter than it used to be, but I still don't think that's a sign the community is on the way out. As the others are saying, the discussion has simply moved to the mods, cause there is something new to say about those.

[Colonol Dekker]

The arguments over who gets what split of the cash would be pretty legendary too.

Dekker likes this  +1

[wistler]

I can imagine Kara being an old man in the corner of HLP on a rocking chair with a big beard, and all the kids sitting by his feet:
"Tell us a a story about HLP pappa Kara"
"Well kids, a long time ago there was this mod.."
 

[General Battuta]

I can imagine Kara being an old man in the corner of HLP on a rocking chair with a big beard, and all the kids sitting by his feet:
"Tell us a a story about HLP pappa Kara"
"Well kids, a long time ago there was this mod.."

I was postin back on the VBB :colbert:

[Spoon]

Active FS2 projects:
BP
BtA
Inferno (sorta FS2)
JAD (sorta FS2)

Active non-FS2 projects:
Dimensional Eclipse (Not sure what kind of future plans Droid has, but I assume he has them)
Fringespace? (No real clue actually)
WoD
Fate of the galaxy (At least I think its not dead)
Diaspora

Dead projects:
Everything in the Hosted Projects - Work In Progress board that wasn't mentioned above. (The Apocalypse Project, Casualties of War, Earth Defence, The Scroll of Atankharzim, Stellar Assault, Syrk)
The Unification War
Alcibiades' Gamble
The 158th Banshee Squadron
Homeworld: Blue Planet
Ancient shivan war
Orph3u5
Star fox

New projects:
I guess BtA can sort of count as semi new?
SHMUPSpace maybe?
Eos: The Coward's Blade with the disclaimer that "I may never finish this."
SHADOW GENESIS

I can imagine Kara being an old man in the corner of HLP on a rocking chair with a big beard, and all the kids sitting by his feet:
"Tell us a a story about HLP pappa Kara"
"Well kids, a long time ago there was this mod.."

I more like imagine Karajorma as a hermit.

See, I don't really think this is necessarily the case.  There's been an absolute ****load of new content released over the past year or two, most of which I sadly haven't even managed to play yet.

You mean there were several big releases in 2010. Then not a whole lot in 2011 and only very recently there were some new releases in 2012. There used to be a time where the highlight bar would move at such a rapid speed that it was knocking off new releases only weeks after. Now a highlight will stay on there for months.

I mean, we've had two huge long-term TCs based on established universes drop within a few months of each other.

Diaspora has long term future potential. Wing commander saga has nothing for the future.

Add to that the few complete projects and add-ons of original universes, plus the handful of FS-related stuff, and people have been pretty damn busy recently.  There have been a few older projects that have thrown in the towel during that time, but as you noted, most of those were already dead for all intents and purposes long before the final announcement was made.  All things considered, I think we're doing okay.

It only seems that way to you because from your perspective you still have like two years worth of releases to catch up with. It sure looks like a ****load when its all piled up infront of you! But for those that have been keeping up with releases, there are months worth of drought inbetween each little oasis.

[Black Wolf]

I was postin back on the VBB :colbert:

Me too, and it was a bloody long time ago. And that, right there, is the critical problem. It's a numbers game, pure and simple. Consider - I was 13 when FS1 came out - in the prime of my sci-fi obsession years - old enough to get immensely excited about blowing up spaceships, but young enough that I could devote hours to said spaceships - at first blowing them up, then messing around in FRED - without the distractions of heavy study, girls, drinkingm whatever. Freespace got into my head in my formative years and became a mild obsession. That's why I'm still here. And I suspect that that story is probably pretty similar for the majority of the community - I don't have the data, of course, but I'd be willing to bet good money that the bell curve of the FS community's age centres somewhere around mid-twenties (since those are the generation in their prime obsession genberating years when the games came out), but, for the really talented, productive members of the community, I'd say that that bell curve skews more towards late twenties, simply because those of us who've been here longer have had longer to learn the skills. Sure, new people have been joining since then - FS maintains a stellar reputation, and the work we've done as a community has added to that - but, obviously, we're never again going to see the kind of community growth that happened in the first few years.

The problem then, is simply demographic. That initial bulge of people have gotten older, and now most of us have left uni, started full time careers, some have families, relationships, responsibilities - I know that, for my part, as much as I'd like to, I can't put in even half the time I could have done a few years ago, it's just not possible. Combine that with the already mentioned increase in quality expectations and resultant increase in the amount of work required per mod/mission/campaign, and it's no wonder that we're slowing down.

I wish I had a solution, but honestly, I don't think there is one. Eventually, we are going to wind up here, it's just inevitable. Nothing lasts forever. But I don't think we're there yet, I don't think we're even close yet. FS Modding has always gone in peaks and troughs, and it will probably continue to do so. Right now, we're in a trough, but there will be a next peak. It might not be as high as the last one, or as soon, but it'll be along. And in the meantime, I'm sticking around. I think a lot of other people are too. So, why exactly are we so down in the dumps about it all of late?

[EDIT]Felt like I should say here - I know that there is still a lot of activity going on in at least some quarters, because, if absolutely nothing else, I know that I'm still active. Today alone I passed a major mission hurdle, setting it up for finalisation in the next few days (well, once I get back from work next week), modelled a new subobject for the modular kit, completed the modelling work on a microcarrier and got in a good two or three hours of texturing on said microcarrier. And I know I'm not the only active person on the forum. **** is happening, whether it's immediately obvious or not.

[Black Wolf]

Oh, and I wanted to put this in as a second post rather than letting it get lost in the wall of text up there:

Does anyone have any ideas about what we can do about this? If not, then the doom and gloom posting seems rather... well, counter-productive, if nothing else. If we're stuck on the Titanic anyway, we might as well dance to the band rather than worrying about the icebergs.

[Nuke]

so long as the fs2 codebase keeps evolving there is still life left. when it slows down (and not like it did during the 3.6.14 rc phase, that was due to not doing proper code freezes and not because lack of progress, at least as far as i understood it) mods are soon to follow and then finally the players will leave due to lack of new content. you can also gauge the community activities by the number of new modders/coders/etc that join up. so i dont think its dead. far from it.

[Spoon]

nvm, don't feel like it anymore.

[karajorma]

I was postin back on the VBB :colbert:

And?

It's not like I wasn't.

I wouldn't say I am one of the oldest members of the community since there are guys who have been here longer than me. But I've been a member for long enough to remember the VBB and I've seen any number of people predict the end of HLP. It was always nonsense back then and so far no one has presented anything that doesn't make me think it's nonsense now.

Quite frankly, about the only thing I see doing any serious damage to the FS community is Chris Robert's new project. And that's only a danger if it's better!

You mean there were several big releases in 2010. Then not a whole lot in 2011 and only very recently there were some new releases in 2012. There used to be a time where the highlight bar would move at such a rapid speed that it was knocking off new releases only weeks after. Now a highlight will stay on there for months.

Nonsense.

Take a look at the Highlight forum. For me I get 7 pages of highlights each covering a period of roughly one year each (+- a month or two). The only ones that don't are page 2 (which is closer to 6 months starting at the start of 2011 - bizarrely enough the time you claimed HLP wasn't busy) and page 3 (6 months till the end of 2010 - almost entirely made up of releases).

The main reason the speed of highlights appears to have slowed down is because now we only really highlight mod releases as opposed to before when plenty of other things made the highlights. Even with this change, the first page of the highlights forum still only covers a 1 year 3-4 month period. Not really that different to before. The highlights forum stretches back to 2006 and with the exception of mid 2010 until mid 2011 it was never much busier than it is now, so I have to ask exactly when this golden age of modding was?

I won't deny that perhaps we had a few more actual releases in the past, but so what? I suspect the issue is more quantity vs quality than anything else. Mod teams tend to be larger now and people make fewer individual projects.

Diaspora has long term future potential. Wing commander saga has nothing for the future.

Except for at least two large and ambitious mods. Hell, in terms of 3rd party modding, they're actually doing better than Diaspora. Probably because the WCS team have decided to go out on a high and turn it over to the fans, while Diaspora continues to recruit anyone promising.

Way to go on the support for the guys modding WCS I'm sure saying that their hard work basically amounts to nothing is the kick in the teeth pants people need to start modding.



Sorry but I'm simply not buying the argument that the community is dying. I've heard this tune far too many times in the past. That said, it doesn't mean there aren't things we could do to get more attention. But getting people to stay in a community full of people complaining about how it's dying is certainly going to be harder than getting them to come to one full of people who can see it does have a future.

[General Battuta]

I wouldn't be worried about people complaining in general, but I am worried about the specific people complaining - the creators now rather than the consumers.

[Colonol Dekker]

I was postin back on the VBB :colbert:

And me :LOA--JK47:
 

[General Battuta]

VBB fo lyfe *hides from zylonbane*

[MatthTheGeek]

Quite frankly, about the only thing I see doing any serious damage to the FS community is Chris Robert's new project. And that's only a danger if it's better!

Unless they manage to pull a FRED off their ass, FSO will remain superior in storytelling aspects to SC. For all the optimism I have in SC (and I have a lot), I don't see it replace FSO unless they do even more than all the stuff they promised.

[Mongoose]

Dead projects:
Everything in the Hosted Projects - Work In Progress board that wasn't mentioned above. (The Apocalypse Project, Casualties of War, Earth Defence, The Scroll of Atankharzim, Stellar Assault, Syrk)

The majority of those are very much alive, albeit not necessarily externally active.  CoW, ED, SoA, and Stellar Assault have all had at least some general indications of progress.  Pece's trying to track down some new staff for TAP, but he hasn't thrown in the towel yet.  You're also not counting a few other active projects.  Kara has said himself that he was planning on putting some work into MindGames after Diaspora R1 got out the door.  And I'd imagine the stuff Black Wolf said he's been working on is for Twisted Infinities.

Not to belabor disagreeing with Battman or anything, but most of the content creators who have spoken up in here seem to be expressing the exact opposite of the original sentiment.  Are there some other prominent opinions out there that haven't been shared in here?

(And just to clarify, the WCS thing Kara quoted was Spoon, not me. )