I have to say I have always suspected that the folk who religiously download every addon to play with it rarely download missions. Many people do it occasionally of course, but my feeling is that there are different consitutencies in the community: some go for addons, some missions. Consequently it is NOT the case that people will download an addon for toying but not for a mission: they are different groups of people. That's my theory anyway.
I agree that missions and scripts don't get a fair crack of the whip on Flashnews and I have posted to that effect on the thread at the official forums.
*Puts on Intel Depot Admin hat*
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.
It is unlikely that we will have an individual news post for every single mission because, lets face it, a few of them are crap. However I agree with your general point and we will endeavor to improve.
They also could make posts about interesting projects that people have started, or interesting missions that are up for beta.
Ahead of you there pal - we are already thinking of the best way to do this. It's not quite as straightforward as it sounds and we haven't come to any conclusions yet.
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.
It is a general principle of news at OFPEC that there should be something to download, even if its only a beta. However, it is true (sadly) that we do post screenies of unreleased addons.
We do it in three circumstances.
Firstly, when people submit them to us - we like to encourage people who have taken the trouble to submit news. It's a bit deflating if you go to all the trouble of sending something in and then we say no sorry, not important enough. Secondly, when the news is quiet, there isn't much going on, and the top item of news on the homepage is beginning to get stale. And thirdly, when the pics are of something that hasn't really been seen before.
There is a fundamental difference between posting pics of unreleased addons and posting pics of unreleased missions. An addon unit is something you have never seen before. An addon is a thing that can be photographed. Consequently such photographs make for an interesting and entertaining OFPEC homepage. Missions are not "things": they are dynamic experiences and consequently virtually impossible to photograph. A screenie from a mission doesn't show you anything you haven't seen before and, more importantly, rarely conveys the experience of playing the mission.
We're not going to start publishing screenies of forthcoming missions, not least because we're trying to stop that particular rot, not spread it.