nbohr1more on 17/5/2011 at 02:04

---

If we exclude the notion of an "official campaign" we still have:

Fidcal's "Thief's Den" series

NHAT (obviously)

Sotha's "Thomas Porter" series

Grayman's upcoming multi-map mission

Melan's "Talbot" series

Jesps "Selis Woderose" series

Bikerdude's "St Alban" series

And I presume that Springheel's upcoming mission will be the start of a story arc, no?

If these authors keep building these "series missions" then we have at least 7 campaigns instead of just one "official" one. Not a bad result at all. Worst case scenario, there is no consensus about which one is the best to recommend. With the quality of the above authors, how is that a bad thing... :cheeky:

So there is no shortage of existing or upcoming multi-mission content. When campaign support is added in v1.06, authors that wish to bookend their series into one collection can do so.

Maybe someday a collection of authors will form-up as Demagogue proposed. Until then, we have a rich diversity of extended story lines.

Melan on 17/5/2011 at 07:46

---

12 large missions would push any campaign that attempted that target into "4 years from now" territory, so it is not going to happen. Something about half that size would be a realistic expectation -- although still a lot of work.

If people want a campaign sooner, I'd recommend that a bunch of new people get together, start editing now (hint, hint), and create a mission series based on small and medium levels strung together with a simple but interesting plot. That would be doable in a nine-months-to-one-year timeframe, and even allow time to polish up entries with weaker architecture. The results would be less epic and more episodic, but give people a sense of continuity.

STiFU on 21/5/2011 at 19:38

---

Exactly. Check out "The Cabal" mini campaign for TDS for instance. It took the team almost five years to get it done, although every mapper had been working on just a single map.

I wildly prefer having a regular dosis of FMs than having to wait five years until I can play the next missions. Especially so, if the dev team was not able to do it's actual job in order to do mapping instead.

At this point, the best thing a FM author can do is to plan far ahead. Get a storyline down that stretches over a couple of missions, but design the story in such a fashion that each FM can be enjoyed on its own and is solely dependent on its predecessors, so no cliffhangers et cetera. This way, you've got the chance to create a decent campaign, or if you lose interest in mapping, you can just stop, because the missions on their own won't be ruined, due to the story design. It's probably hard to come up with a good story fulfilling these requirements. It definitely needs a lot of thought...

nbohr1more on 22/5/2011 at 15:51

---

That was a good zing...

To be fair, many of the TDM folk played "The Cabal" to see what the competition was up to...

So maybe 2x the player to author ratio...

(zing ruined :( )

Judith on 25/5/2011 at 17:58

---

To clarify a few things a bit: the building time was hardly 5 years. I finished my part 2 years before final release and I had some breaks in between. It was the lack of general direction/sense of urgency and breaks/burnouts that made it so long. I think that campaign took about 2 years of honest hard work. So, you can probably imagine my frustration ;)

And you're absolutely right, campaigns are baad ;) Don't start working on one unless you're 100% sure your co-builders are as committed and focused on the goal as you. I guess it's better to have your own idea for a set of missions, release them one by one and cooperate with others when it comes to models, music, voice-overs and such. It's more healthy for everyone.

And heh, I wouldn't argue about number of people playing: thiefmissions.com stats for Cabal missions are pretty nice, while most of TDM missions have like 60-70 downloads :)