[Lorric]

I also tend to start at the bottom and savour the best for last in things. But Freespace is too big. I can't wait that long. On the other hand I can comfortably wait for something like Blue Planet to be completed while there are other things to play. I kind of admire the way you're doing it though Sarkoth. In theory it should just get better and better for you all the time.

In theory? No, dear sir, it effectively and truthfully makes me love Freespace, FSO, the whole SCP and HLP more and more, the farther I get. It just becomes more and more amazing. Strangely enough, every time when I feel like having a few weeks of FS marathons, happening once a year or every other year, something mayor gets released during that period. It's really like christmas. And every 5 years or so, I start from scratch again. But everytime, when I play anything that hasn't been rehauled, it gets less and less fun. When I played Transcend for the first time, it blew my mind. Now, so many years later, when I finished it again just yesterday, it had lost quite a bit of its magic. Just because I knew what could have been better. And I only knew that because I had seen someone else doing certain things better a couple of years later. I'm not saying playing blue planet right off the bat would ruin any experience. But for me, personally, it would leave a faint and bitter aftertaste when trying to play "all the old stuff". I notice this in small details like the radar icons already. Every time I can't get the radar ship icons to work, I will get heavily annoyed and irritated in a dogfight. When playing "What If" last week, sometimes I felt like throwing my monitor out of the window because of small things like that. Probably I just have spent way too much time with this game in the last decade. I believe my last pilot profile before 3.7.0 had over 14000 kills. And that was after bricking it twice because I would never heed the warning that I should use a new or separate pilot file with certain mods.

I'll better stop rambling now.

Don't worry, I liked reading that. Seeing such happiness and enthusiasm. You made me smile. Oh, I've never liked the look of those ship icons with the radar, get a few capital ships and they cover all the fighter dots. Oh and I always get a new pilot. I wonder how many pilots I'd have with your amount of campaigns...

You'd be perfect to highlight some good, obscure campaigns. Mind if I pick your brain sometime?

Anyway, you can never spend too much time on something if you enjoy it and it doesn't get in the way of your life!

[Killer Whale]

So I take a bite out of everything, and then start eating what I dislike the most first. I'll always grab a bite of the good stuff in between, but when the meal nears its extinction, I always save a really big chunk of whatever is best for last, so that I can enjoy the aftertaste of it as much and long as possible

And then the GF/wife asks whether she can have a bite of your's.

[Sarkoth]

You'd be perfect to highlight some good, obscure campaigns. Mind if I pick your brain sometime?

Yeah sure, go ahead. And I'm always good for replaying some of the more unknown campaigns and hidden gems. Although there's a handful of little jewels that I'd have to look for again. I usually play so many different campaigns, that I'll always remember certain situations and missions, but I will very likely forget which campaign there missions were actually in after a while. That happens when your overall pool of missions nears a quite high three digit figure. Might be a thousand already. I'm not going to spend hours to count them. ^^

And then the GF/wife asks whether she can have a bite of your's.

There has never been an instance where I said "Go away, this is Freespace." There WERE quite a lot instances were I sat 8-10 hours straight on it on weekends and unknowingly ignored anything around me though. Including a naked and dancing fiance who tried to prove a point. She obviously succeeded in doing so. I probably would'nt even notice if my house was burning, while I am playing Freespace. But that's offtopic.

[Lorric]

You'd be perfect to highlight some good, obscure campaigns. Mind if I pick your brain sometime?

Yeah sure, go ahead. And I'm always good for replaying some of the more unknown campaigns and hidden gems. Although there's a handful of little jewels that I'd have to look for again. I usually play so many different campaigns, that I'll always remember certain situations and missions, but I will very likely forget which campaign there missions were actually in after a while. That happens when your overall pool of missions nears a quite high three digit figure. Might be a thousand already. I'm not going to spend hours to count them. ^^

And then the GF/wife asks whether she can have a bite of your's.

There has never been an instance where I said "Go away, this is Freespace." There WERE quite a lot instances were I sat 8-10 hours straight on it on weekends and unknowingly ignored anything around me though. Including a naked and dancing fiance who tried to prove a point. She obviously succeeded in doing so. I probably would'nt even notice if my house was burning, while I am playing Freespace. But that's offtopic.

Thank you. I'll keep you in mind. I have plenty to play right now. I'll pm you sometime I think.

The naked, dancing, ignored fiance thing is hilarious.

You've done it now. Everyone with a partner will want to see if extended freespace play can make them strip and dance for them!

[Sarkoth]

You've done it now. Everyone with a partner will want to see if extended freespace play can make them strip and dance for them!

Either that, or it will utterly ruin relationships. And people will be blaming me and me alone. ;__;

What I actually could do at some point is helping to update the campaign lists. Both the thread and the wiki entries. Quite some campaigns have wrong and or missing mission numbers or are left out completely. Also, there is quite a bit of broken links lurking in there. We're missing a list of which campaigns are compatible to which mediavps as well as a list of campaigns that are utterly broken or unplayable by current builds. It'll probably take months do to all of that though.

[Lorric]

You've done it now. Everyone with a partner will want to see if extended freespace play can make them strip and dance for them!

Either that, or it will utterly ruin relationships. And people will be blaming me and me alone. ;__;

What I actually could do at some point is helping to update the campaign lists. Both the thread and the wiki entries. Quite some campaigns have wrong and or missing mission numbers or are left out completely. Also, there is quite a bit of broken links lurking in there. We're missing a list of which campaigns are compatible to which mediavps as well as a list of campaigns that are utterly broken or unplayable by current builds. It'll probably take months do to all of that though.

Uh oh...

You don't happen to know where I could get a good copy of Transcend do you? The link is broken in the Transcend thread, and there seems to be more than one version floating around out there, so I want the best one.

[Sarkoth]

I'll upload mine when I am back from work today. It seems to work with 2014, so I don't think there would be any better one.

[Lorric]

I'll upload mine when I am back from work today. It seems to work with 2014, so I don't think there would be any better one.

Thank you!

[OverDhill]

Well comparing these three lists I came up with the following Campaigns based upon polish and timeline order.  Any changes or suggestions?


http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=58358.msg1177882#msg1177882
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Campaign_List
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=80688.msg1603310#msg1603310

Updated list



FSPort
Silent Threat: Reborn
Destiny of Peace (won Interplay's 1998 Mission Design Contest - was included in the Silent Threat expansion disc)
Operation Templar (released in the Game of the Year edition - FSPort team released an improved version)
FreeSpace 2


Blue Planet: Age of Aquarius
Blue Planet: War in Heaven

Cardinal Spear
Awakenings
Warzone
Vassago's Dirge
Incursion

Oh and this new one that I just saw  Incursion and Return to SOL

[Sarkoth]

I would also recommend Flames of War, Casualties of War, TitanRebellion, Ghost Revenants, Homesick, Into the Halls of Valhalla, Transcend, Derelict, Sync, WhatIf : Another Great War and The Lightning Marshall. Most of these are some of the older works that get forgotten more often than they should be. They are just the tip of the iceberg though. As for the order to play them with ... no idea.

I'll upload mine when I am back from work today. It seems to work with 2014, so I don't think there would be any better one.

Thank you!

Oh and Lorric (and anyone else wanting this), here's a link to my Transcend folder: http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/486390/Transcend-rar.html

[General Battuta]

Play your current list, then worry about adding more campaigns.

[Lorric]

I would also recommend Flames of War, Casualties of War, TitanRebellion, Ghost Revenants, Homesick, Into the Halls of Valhalla, Transcend, Derelict, Sync, WhatIf : Another Great War and The Lightning Marshall. Most of these are some of the older works that get forgotten more often than they should be. They are just the tip of the iceberg though. As for the order to play them with ... no idea.

I'll upload mine when I am back from work today. It seems to work with 2014, so I don't think there would be any better one.

Thank you!

Oh and Lorric (and anyone else wanting this), here's a link to my Transcend folder: http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/486390/Transcend-rar.html

Mixed bag you've got there, some I've played, some I've downloaded and are yet to play, and some I haven't heard of. Will have to look into those that fall into that last category.

I've got Transcend now. I loaded it up and it seems to work okay. Thank you!

[Sarkoth]

Mixed bag you've got there, some I've played, some I've downloaded and are yet to play, and some I haven't heard of. Will have to look into those that fall into that last category.

I've got Transcend now. I loaded it up and it seems to work okay. Thank you!

Well there wasn't any point in recommending any campaigns everybody knows, was there? Some of them might not be polished, but all of them were interesting and fun. But I have no clue how they'll fare with mediavps_2014. 1-2 of them probably do not even work with 3612.

[OverDhill]

I prefer the ones that have voice acting which seem to have been polished. Most if not all of the ones on my final list are I believe.

[Lorric]

Mixed bag you've got there, some I've played, some I've downloaded and are yet to play, and some I haven't heard of. Will have to look into those that fall into that last category.

I've got Transcend now. I loaded it up and it seems to work okay. Thank you!

Well there wasn't any point in recommending any campaigns everybody knows, was there? Some of them might not be polished, but all of them were interesting and fun. But I have no clue how they'll fare with mediavps_2014. 1-2 of them probably do not even work with 3612.

Indeed. That's why I might want to pick your brain sometime about such campaigns. I thought about asking you for some recommendations, but decided to leave it for now, and then you went and gave me some anyway.

I prefer the ones that have voice acting which seem to have been polished. Most if not all of the ones on my final list are I believe.

The Incursion_Return campaign doesn't have voice acting, but don't let that stop you.

Don't let non-voice acted campaigns stop you from playing them in the future either. It's a nice luxury to have voice-acting, and may take a bit of getting used to having to read that in-mission text if you're not used to having voice acting around, but don't let it stop you, as there's tons of stuff to enjoy, most campaigns don't have voice acting.

EDIT: I'm pretty sure there is at least one other on the list that isn't voice-acted.

[OverDhill]

I believe the last two are not.. but have been highly recommended. Who knows by the time I get to them maybe they will be   

[Adderbane]

I'd recommend moving Vassago's Dirge up before Age of Aquarius.  It's pretty short, has some relevance to War in Heaven, and Blue Planet is so good, you probably will want to jump straight from one to the other.

Also, don't let lack of voice acting dissuade you.  It's a huge undertaking and therefore not every campaign can manage it.  War in Heaven doesn't have it...yet, but it's still one of the best campaigns.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Wings of Dawn yet...it's not nearly as detailed as other mods, but one person literally made EVERYTHING from scratch, ships, weapons...everything.  And it's a bit more light-hearted than most campaigns, which is a nice change.

[yuezhi]

My sig, for Reconstruction carnage.

[Lorric]

Maybe putting Blue Planet on ice, or at least War in Heaven on ice for awhile might be a good idea. Battuta seems to have quite a lot of momentum going in his quest to voice act the thing. Wait and see if he pulls it off...

[General Battuta]

No, there's no point waiting. There are tens of thousands of words of dialogue to go in very challenging roles.