[Azrael15]

Recently, I got the idea to do a bit of a retrospective history of FreeSpace 2 and its modding community, primarily looking at the campaigns that have lingered in my mind since playing them over twenty years ago. As a long time lurker of the community who was lucky enough to play Kyle Athanas back in the day, I figured I should give HLP a heads-up. I'm going through them over on the Something Awful forums.

I'm planning on revisiting Derelict, Inferno, Homesick, Sol: A History, Sync, Transcend, BP: Age of Aquarius, Vassago's Dirge, BP: War in Heaven, and BP: Tenebra, in chronological order. I might go through others, but this was the most memorable few to me, and I think you can draw a really interesting through line through to Tenebra's Universal Truth.

I hope this isn't too much of a dumb plug, but I figured there were people here who might find it interesting. I think some of these stories, even back in the early 2000s, were way better than they had any right to be. This was a very talented community, and totally formative to my own journey as a writer. So, I hope you find something to enjoy in my retrospective (and that I don't get too many details wrong!)

[Goober5000]

Mackie FTW.  The original, the classic, the trailblazer.  Mackie was done really, really well - in both the writing and in [both] voice acting incarnations.

That's a really good thread so far, and quite comprehensive!  Looking forward to reading the rest.

[Mongoose]

Great thread! Gotta go with everyone's favorite duct tape aficionado.

[Goober5000]

I see the Inferno post is up.  A good and fair retrospective on that.

The second release of Nostos is imminent, which doesn't necessarily affect the retrospective, but should provide some new material to chew on.

[Kie99]

I don't remember the names or the specifics enough to rank them, but the characters in Homesick and Sync were great.  Homesick really did things with having persistent characters with their own personalities that I don't think anyone had done before.  Sync was very similar.  The campaign was about them as much as the events.

Mackie felt like the main character of Derelict.  IIRC it was Ransom who made Sync that voiced him in the rerelease and really brought him to life.

[Assassin714]

Hey that's pretty cool, can you include Ancient-Shivan War in the list of campaigns you cover?

[Colonol Dekker]

One vote for Orestes tactical.

(I voted Mackie, because duct tape)

[Mobius]

Every HLP poll should have Snuffleupagus among its options. This also counts as a retrospective analysis.

[Azrael15]

Hey that's pretty cool, can you include Ancient-Shivan War in the list of campaigns you cover?

I didn't actually get far into ASW back in the day, but I could see about it! I'm also really tempted to give the new Inferno release a shake, too.

One vote for Orestes tactical.

(I voted Mackie, because duct tape)

I always enjoy hearing your voice in a campaign! You were Rheza Station in WiH, too, right?

[Colonol Dekker]

Ummmm, maybe?   I'm losing track 😅