But, getting back to the roots of this thread, we still haven't determined why people would be more likely to download an addon to run around and shoot dirt on desert island, when they could download the same addon for use in a mission that has a storyline and good action. Isn't it plain as day that this is a better way to respect the addon- and mission-makers' time and effort?
I don't know if there is any logical explaination to this one. For some reason, that is just how the community, in general, is. It doesn't make sense, but that is the way it is. It doesn't help that most 'news' sites only consider pictures of addons to be news, and nothing else (scripts, missions, etc).
This is not the case of ALL of the community, of course. In general, the people of OFPEC are WAY more interested in actual missions than, say, the peeps on the official forums or ofp.info. So I'd say, just stick around here, because you are in good company
. Another really exceptional site is
www.mapfact.net. That is my favorite non-OFPEC site. Why? Because it is focused on MISSIONS. On that site, you see things like news posts about missions, which you generally can't find anywhere else (ofpec included, unfortunately).
Personally, I spend WAY too much time in the editor or script editor myself (only I actually make missions and scripts, not look at addons). I don't play missions nearly as much as I should, but then again, I never download addons just to look at. But whenever I do get to playing some missions or playing online, I fall in love with OFP all over again. And then it makes me think that I shouldn't be so stingy in my downloading: I should download and play every mission that looks interesting; even if they require addons.
I just got done playing "Outlaws" by Nik & Kublai. It is perhaps the only SP mission for the Civil War mod, and I finally installed that mod for this mission. Even though it wasn't the most spectacular mission editing-wise (it was about a 5 IMO), it was a ton of fun, and it was a great way to actually PLAY with the mod. It makes me want to play more missions like it, and even make my own mission with the mod. I doubt that someone who just downloads the CW mod to look at in the editor has the same feelings about it.
Perhaps if the addon-players out there would just somehow start playing missions, they would see that there is so much more to OFP. Perhaps then addon makers, and the community, would start seeing addons as a
tool to be used in missions, like scripts; not as a complete product in and of itself. Then we might start getting quality addons again, complete with MISSIONS in the download.
How could this be done? I'm not sure; after all, you can't force another person to change. News sites could help, however, by posting as much about missions and editing as they do about addons. OFPEC could do this a bit more as well.
Currently OFPEC only makes posts announcing the names of the latest missions reviewed (once every couple weeks or so), and perhaps a special post for a high-scoring mission. I would suggest that they make an individual news post for every new mission reviewed, the day it is reviewed, instead of batching them all into one post every so often.
They also could make posts about interesting projects that people have started, or interesting missions that are up for beta. They do that for addons, but not for missions, for some reason. Addons really only need to be posted in the 'news' section when they are RELEASED, not when only a screenshot is published. I'll point to mapfact.net as an example: they post news and screenshots about upcoming missions made by their community.
Other sites might hopefully begin to follow OFPEC's lead. Check out this thread here, as I am trying to convince Placebo that there are other newsworthy things out there besides just addons, which he should include in the weekly FlashNews:
http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard311/ikonboard.cgi?s=c3bf4bbaefe0dc30c035fb0cea3e771e;act=ST;f=60;t=40000;st=135