Nightmare uni semester for me.
I've barely had time for anything else, so even the way overdue Hades is moving slowly. Haven't heard from BW in a while either, so I don't know if anything's happening on the Fredding front.

So when's this bad boy going to get released? Would be nice to try out one of these "atmospheric" missions that some MODs are promising.

Don't think I've played one yet unless I've missed something

We all got Universitied and Jobbed at the moment, so things are on hold. I don't think anyone's given up as such, but there's going to be a bit of a delay until people are more settled in their lives/jobs etc I think.

One thing I would like to do, once the main people are able to get back to TI, is to start hiring again, but there's no point doing that until we can be sure that we are committed to progressing with the Mod.

I'm... making a refinery so I can use it in my gas mining mission because I got sick of waiting for blowfish to finish his. It's 90% UVed, only interuppted because I had to go away to work.

Speaking of work, I also spent my evenings on my that last job to write all the briefings, debriefings and dialogue for the mission so I just have to copy and paste into the various editors when the time comes. I couldn't FRED or anything since I had no sompetent computer for FS2 or internet (I spent 5 days on a minesite about 80 kms south of Mount Magnet - for those not familiar with Westerrn Australian geography, just assume "The Outback" and leave it at that )

I look forward to ragging up on your mod.

'cuz one way or another, you know I will.

Watch out - we might ignore you to death.

Seriously though - and this is a question to you in general I've been wondering for a while - why would you bother writing big reviews of the free mods that people make in their free time as a hobby?

Game reviews normally are there for the purpose of potential customers figuring out whether to buy a game. If the game is free as in the cases of a mod then they have no purpose and are essentially little more than 'professional community gossip'.

If you're doing it for, as I recall seeing you say somewhere else, the benefit of future campaign writers so they can see how to do theirs better, then that's even less practical than professional community gossip.

If you really do intend to be useful for the community then write up all your advice on what makes a good campaign in one big document on the wiki and have a related discussion thread. You could also offer practical advice to the campaign developers that they might be able to put into a patch or whatever.

Or, you could set yourself up as a widely respected beta tester so you can give all that advice before the campaign is released.

As you're doing at the moment though I'm not particularly worried about TI getting a bad review from you because I think by the time TI does get released you'll have probably built up so much resentment in the community that no one will take you all that seriously.

Well, actually I seem to have already set myself up as a respected beta tester. I didn't exactly intend to, but it happened judging from Battuta's reaction to my offering to test for someone.

...I also have done something like that with several threads on the nature of the Shivans, subspace tactics, how you build a GTVA warship, etc. I even wrote up and added to the wiki an article about the concept of FS piracy. I can be intensely analytic about that sort of thing when I want.

And mind you, I do give praise where it's due. I did for BP and PI (once I was done swearing at PI, anyways). I could blame Sturgeon's Law I suppose.

But mainly, I think it has something to do with my fascination with bad movies. The same sort of impulse that drives people to create websites like Agony Booth or Primary Error's "Atrocities" section before it went down, drives me to write long-winded reviews of crappy campaigns, because...well damned if I know. Just because.

I'd love to see you do a tongue-in-cheek "serious" review of Great War II Part II, just for kicks.

This was an edit but it works better as a follow up post:
I should probably just add that this is just from the perspective of a ship builder and engine modder here rather than a fredder - I dunno if fredders think differently, but if a ship builder more experienced than I were to begin simply nitpicking my ships to death after release 'for my own good' then they would get in my bad books very quickly no matter how good their advice was.

I can see that you don't intend your reviews purely big nitpick sessions, (though to be honest I have only read like 2) but I think also that there's a very fine line between good natured constructive criticism and nitpicking.

From my own experience I know that when it comes to anything someone does as a hobby, the best way to help them improve is positive reinforcement of those aspects of their work that are good, and gentle advice for the aspects that are not so good. Beating them with a stick will anger and upset normal modders, or if they're just of that personality type will do absolutely nothing anyway. (Yeah there are 2 particular examples of that type on HLP who frustrate me no end. >:[ )

When I started out ship building I was absolutely crap, but being a wide eyed noob back then I am sure I would have taken strong criticism of my crap quite badly. I was fortunate enough to have replies from level headed people who gave just that sort of positive reinforcement, and it played a big part in developed my own ability to tell what worked and what didn't.

Err anyway sorry for getting all preachy. My impression from your first post and your sig text was that you're wanting to be a kind of campaign boogeyman/judge that makes fredders improve through fear of a harsh review, rather than because their own desire to be better at what they do kicks in.

I'd love to see you do a tongue-in-cheek "serious" review of Great War II Part II, just for kicks.

That's actually one of the ones I considered expanding from a mere review to something like an SA-esque "Let's Play".

The other was Derelict. I actually started writing the Derelict one.

VA: Actually, the upper part of the sig was a joke on myself more or less, after the site Television Without Pity. (Which I regard somewhat sadly as having turned on things they actually liked.)

EDIT: And the lower is, well, Terry Prachett's Death. Who I sincerely hope is the real death, because then I could get his autograph before my eternal rest.