[CommanderDJ]

Dear HLP,
Today I am proud to present to you a short demo release of the first two missions of my current work-in-progress campaign, titled The Pirates of Yore. Now, before you all balk at the unusual title, let me explain a little about the backstory and the RL reasons as to how this campaign came about.
If you just want to play it, then scroll down.

RL backstory
It all started after I played Vassago’s Dirge. That campaign inspired me to finally begin FREDding the ideas I had down in my head about a post-Capella campaign. I started doing so, on and off, for about two months. Some of you may have seen the thread about Project: Awakening wanting beta testers; that was my old campaign (and its real name was Resurgence). Resurgence did get almost completed (read: all the missions got FREDded) but when putting it together and looking at it as a whole after a break, I was simply unhappy with it. It had cliché concepts and as it was my first FREDding endeavour in a long time (more than two years), it wasn’t exactly spectacular. So I scrapped it.
One night, many weeks later, I had a dream in the form of a FreeSpace mission, where a group of happy-go-lucky freelancers were mucking around, not taking things too seriously, just doing things for the hell of it (the mission I dreamed of is not in this release, but will be depicted later in the campaign. You’ll know it when you see it). Throughout that day I realized I didn’t want to make another oh-so-serious campaign that had been done many times before. I started to brainstorm ideas, and gradually, The Pirates of Yore began to form. This is not a completely srs bsns campaign, but with that said, it is NOT a parody. It simply tries to incorporate some fun and amusement into the post-Capella setting. Also, I wish you to keep in mind that this demo is more of a teaser than anything else, as it has almost no combat. Its main purpose is to raise awareness of this campaign and to basically set the scene. So, I hope you enjoy the demo and get an idea of where I’m headed with this.

In-universe backstory
It is one and a half years post-Capella. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Capellans are still roaming the stars searching for a second home. Enter Lieutenant Graham Helix: a fighter pilot who served in the Second Shivan Incursion, but has been stationed on the backwater Ymir installation in Vega for the past year. Many refugees continue to pass through Vega and fall victim to pirate attacks. All the while, Helix and the rest of those stationed on the Ymir are too far away to do anything about it. But when Helix hears about a slightly unusual group of pirates operating in Vega, his interest is sparked.

Installation instructions

1.   Create a folder for the demo in your root FreeSpace2 folder (you can call the folder whatever you want).
2.   Download the demo files. Right now you can only get them from MediaFire. I’m waiting for approval from FSMods. Approved //Swantz
3.   Extract the files to the folder you created.
4.   Select your folder as your mod in the launcher.
5.   Play the demo!

The demo was tested using the 3.6.12 release build and MediaVPs. Also, don’t run debug. One of the models (which I did not make) triggers errors using debug builds, but works fine using release builds.

I’d love to hear your initial impressions, so post them here or send me a PM. Enjoy.

CommanderDJ

[Mustang19]

Interesting idea, CommanderDJ. Every campaign has pirates but noone has done this before. I'm looking forward to the full thing.

[CommanderDJ]

Thanks! I'm looking forward to the full thing also! Haha.

[achtung]

Approved.

http://freespacemods.net/download.php?view.659

I was naughty and took the liberty of adding it to your post.

[Spoon]

There isn't really much to give feedback on...
It's interesting but over in 5 minutes

[AndrewofDoom]

Where's the explody?

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Always dreamt of having an insight on the pirates point of view, but I never came up with a good story/setting idea to FRED it.

Downloading now ...

[Vidmaster]

May I point all the people talking about never before done pirate campaigns to my very own Fortune Hunters Trilogy? 
I also remember another pirate campaign for FS2 but it was rather old and not that good.

Anyway, trying this thing out now. Hoping for the best 

[-Sara-]

Yarrrr! Well.. Yore. I just played it and were slightly disappointed at how short this demo was. I will give some pointers rather than a review for it's lack of duration not allowing a proper review yet (maybe in a second demo).

First, I found some of the decisions the player makes in the campaign to be strange, if not plain unlikely. For example:

• the destruction of my wingman. I'm assuming here Alpha 2 is a buddy who I as Alpha 1 know for a long time. So I'm joining these pirates and am forced to shoot him down. I do so without blinking, so right now I expect Graham Helix (Alpha 1) is a mean guy with no morals. If he has few morals, it might be hard to get into the character. Unlike charismatic badguys, dirty badguys are hard to sympathise for and generally they never make a 'round character' (a person who developes in a story). When flying together, I'd expect pilots get a close bond. Maybe it is a better idea the pirates take Alpha 2 out, Graham Helix is very angry and the pirates telling him he's stuck with them now whether he likes it or not. Or if they are a sort of Robin Hood and the merry men, maybe they just disable Alpha 2.
• the reaction of my wingman. Now, I'd expect Alpha 2 to be totally shocked, maybe trying to talk me out of my decision and Alpha 2 being too startled to change IFF's and go 'John Wayne' on me all alone against 4 fighters. Why did he not flee and call in reinforcements? Theta wing was back at base, he could have called them in. I found his reaction not too natural.
• the motivation of the player. Was he just bored? Was he offered money? It's a bit unclear why he makes his decisions. Maybe he has family from Capella who are now refugees and disagrees with how the GTVA handles their problems. Or perhaps a better intro is Alpha 1 defending a refugee convoy and the mysterious pirates of Yore appearing and helping out to protect the innocent. The player gets interested on their intentions and gets caught in their web of recruitment when he asks too much.
• the duration of the demo. This demo is short and more of a storytelling mechanism. It might be a good idea to make the first 2 missions a cinematic instead.

So do not get discouraged, but I think the campaign is not entirely there yet. It may need a lot of detailing, storywise. You'll get there and that road is getting shorter if you get people to test for you to receive feedback. The campaign is not bad! But it needs work.

Some bugs I noticed, which you may be interested in fixing:

• I could take Alpha 2 off my wing, which I did to not have to kill him. I can then not destroy Alpha 2 and thus not complete my mission. Please force him on my wing, or make it so that if I leave my wingman behind I do not have to leave him behind.
• If I change my weapons, they are miraculously changed back to the suggested equipment in mission 2. They are also suddenly refilled.
• The convoy at the first buoy does not jump out if I wait.
• There were a few choices of words which did not fully fit, making for one or two strange sentences. I can't exactly recall which.

[CommanderDJ]

Thanks for the feedback, -Sara-.
As I said in the first post, this is more of a teaser than anything else. I should also add that anything depicted in this demo is subject to change in the final release.

With regards to your first point, Alpha 1 is forced to destroy Alpha 2 because Alpha 2 attacks him first. It's an act of self-defense, not murder.
However, I do concede that Alpha 2's reaction is unnatural given the situation, and will rework this for the final release.

Yes, Graham's motivation was intentionally left vague in this demo. I wanted you guys to get an idea of the initial setting and what's happening, not why. This will obviously be fully revealed in the final release.

And yes, I will deal with the bugs you found. Thanks again!

[Rodo]

I liked it, waiting for some more then

[swamper123]

I have finished the demo , I liked it a lot , a different point of view of a campaign ,one question ,are you going to put it voice acting? 

[CommanderDJ]

I'm going to focus on getting all the missions done first before even thinking about voice acting. It all depends on the community's reaction to the final release. If they like it and there is a strong call for voice acting, then it's quite possible. But to make it clear, voice acting will not be included in the final release.

[ION3]

I liked it so far. Especially the dialogue in mission 2, and the message between mission 1 and 2. Mainly because the caracters spoke exactly about the things i wanted to know at that point. And the fact, that you need to wait for your jumpdrive to recharge in mision 1. So the little things, that immerse me are there so far. Just to add something that stood out as positive to me. (and where many campaigns fail)

I had one (or two?) bug: The ship which I come from in mission 1 seems to be partly invisible and I hear a collision sound just after the mission start. (propably from my wingman)

EDIT: OK I checked it again and I can't reproduce the invisibility bug. The wingman collision problem is because my wingman tries to go in a formation with me, but i'm still in the hangar. (no initial velocity)

[-Sara-]

Maybe the wingman can slowly fly to a waypoint until the player is # metres away from the station.

[CommanderDJ]

Ah, I see. I'd never run into the collision bug because I would always afterburn out of the fighterbay as soon as the mission started. The bug has been rectified.

[Unknown Target]

Glad someone else decided to make a non srs bsns campaign. I'll try it if I get a chance.

[bigchunk1]

Downloaded and played.

Positive:
The idea of changing IFF in the middle of a mission, very nice.
Nice implementation of the mid-mission subspace jump.
Nice attention to atmosphere. Missions had a nice feel.
 

Negative:
Demo was quite short, story was over before it began.
Very talky, hardly any gameplay at all.
Maybe a cutscene or another in mission event to supplement all that dialogue?

Overall:
There's potential here for something innovative and fun. I suspect some kind of twist or added depth would make the campaign intriguing.

[peterv]

Downloaded and played.

Positive:
The idea of changing IFF in the middle of a mission, very nice.
Nice implementation of the mid-mission subspace jump.
Nice attention to atmosphere. Missions had a nice feel.
 

Negative:
Demo was quite short, story was over before it began.
Very talky, hardly any gameplay at all.
Maybe a cutscene or another in mission event to supplement all that dialogue?

Overall:
There's potential here for something innovative and fun. I suspect some kind of twist or added depth would make the campaign intriguing.

This  and especially ".... Very talky, hardly any gameplay at all.
Maybe a cutscene or another in mission event to supplement all that dialogue?"

The brilliance of the retail is that it could tell a super story in the backround of a super space combat simulator.

[Mobius]

I played it today. I have to say that it looks promising. Here are my opinions/reports:

- When I read the CB, I thought this was going to be yet another character driven campaign most people tend to like nowadays. The writing was nice, and even if I had to play the role of a specific character, the overall gaming experience turned out to be acceptable. However, I'd like to know why the protagonist decided to join the pirates, so you may wish to add an extra CB stage explaining that.
- "Chamelion" should be named "Chameleon" instead.
- Glad you used in-mission subspace jumps, but I believe you need to work a bit on the effect. At the moment, jumps are immediate, so you need to play the Rev1 sound and increase the delay. You may also wish to change planet bitmaps between jumps to give that particular feeling of travelling through subspace. (Basically, it's what we're doing in Inferno.)
- Ymir Station's cargo depot is set up to carry "Nothing". You may wish to change that as well.
- I see you mentioned the Amazon Advanced as an example of old ship still being used. Why don't you call it the Chronos, instead? It'd be better IMHO.


To be sincere, I thought the Demo would have been longer, but now I'm so looking forward to Pirates of Yore. Keep it up!