Oolite Bulletins

I have a fair bit of experience in selling (and buying) in RL, across several product types, and there is such a thing as over-selling. Many punters already know pretty much what they want - the salesman's art is merely to close the deal, to ensure that the cash is incoming. Over-cook the selling, and you may lose the sale - a cardinal sin. I've seen it happen - a punter's eyes begin to glaze over, and an initial interest wanes. I believe this can be applied to 'selling' OXPs for this game. Self-promoting one's work is fine, and expected, but I think it can be over-done at times.

Examples: if you have a new ship model, simply displaying one or two choice pics is preferable to showing every possible external view of said ship - leave a little to the punter's imagination, let him buy it, get out there in it and have a look himself. That 'oh wow, I didn't know the engines looked so cool!' moment. If of course the punter doesn't like what he sees, at least he has already bought the ship – sale closed, no refunds.

With a mission OXP it's even more true – don't go spilling the beans about the juiciest parts of a mission. A few careful hints are better – leave room for that 'wtf!' moment. During the development of Coyote's Run (he said, promoting it - but at least I am not the author of that fine OXP), Leafy put much time and effort into creating a superb menu for L'Auberge de Lago, the finest restaurant in the Eight, and being rightly proud of it, wanted to post the pic. I persuaded him to wait a few weeks after release at least - again to allow the punter that 'wtf!' moment. If I remember correctly, he saw the sense in that. Many players also realise this, and refrain from posting too many details of a mission - most of us do not like spoilers.

I take hundreds of pics in normal game-play, but try only to post the really good ones, and only in ones or occasionly twos. (If several need posting for problem-solving reasons, that is different but thumbnails will do nicely for that.)

This is a very personal opinion of course, and easy for me to say as I don't make OXPs, and I'm sure many will disagree with me.
But understatement often works best, of that I am convinced.

And here I was thinking this was some sort of market/cargo contract OXP!

Some of the OXP names I've seen leave me with doubts as to what the OXP is even for.

New ships? Are they npc only, player only? Include a mini-mission showing off these new ships?
Does it raise or lower the overall difficulty of the game? At least hint of the difficulty of any missions the OXP has.
Some new ships showing up as random pirates are rage-quit worthy.