Mon Mar 17, 2003 5:44 pm
Ideas for a mod / missing elements
Hail,
IMHO, I think the objective of every game developer is to hit the market with a title that would make people play it for months / years, like Counter-Strike or Ultima Online.
I started playing CS in 1999. I started playing Ultima in 2000. I still play both. I started playing Freelancer less than a week ago, and I already visited 44 systems.
I do think that Freelancer is a wonderful game. It is a game that made me play the entire weekend, like Wing Commander 3 and 4, Tie-Fighter, Half-Life, UO etc. But I also think that some key elements are missing. The game is based on the fact that you must discover it's universe. Once you get to know every single planet, base and secret, the interest in it will continuously fade out.
I think these elements are:
1. no massive multiplayer
FL does give the base idea behind a massive multiplayer game, but it does not have the complete environment or software support. The FL Server is power hungry, and running it with more than 8 players will need a decent hardware configuration. This fact limits the muliplayer to discovering the world and fighting against other players. Once you get your hands on a Titan with nomad canons, you make a $ 1.000.000 and there is nothing left to do.
2. no trade missions / complex missions
There are only hunting missions. No trade. So you trade only if you want to earn lots of money. Get a humpback and you hit the $ 1.000.000 easily. A huge addition to multiplayer would be trade missions (you would have to transport a cargo from point A to point
. This idea would be further developed with contracts (works like this: you must supply a base with a commodity every X minutes / hours if you are connected). But I don't think that the server has a timer engine built in.
I also miss complex missions. All missions are "get to the waypoint and kill everything" or "get to the waypoint and kill everything and hit b". I used to play a nice game in the past, called Tie-Fighter. I don't know if anyone here played it, but the missions were nice because they were not only "kill everything": to tell the truth, there were missions where you would avoid the combat and disable a ship, scan a ship or retrive a specific cargo. If you would engage combat, you wouldn't have the time to complete it.
3. no home base
The player does not have the option of "renting" a place to keep goods (commodities or weaponry). It would be nice to pay a rent to have a container, a space of some sort in a space station or planet, where you would keep cargo, weaponry and whatever you want. This feature would be timer based (paying the rent) or it would cost initialy lots of money (like $500.000 or more).
4. only one ship
You don't have the option of buying more than one ship. It would be great to have the option of buying at least two ships (a fighter and a freighter) so you would have the chance to play as a fighter or as a trader without having to sell the ship you are currently using. The secondary ship would be left in your home base, and you must get there to change it.
I don't know if these points can be addressed by a mod. I hope so!
IMHO, I think the objective of every game developer is to hit the market with a title that would make people play it for months / years, like Counter-Strike or Ultima Online.
I started playing CS in 1999. I started playing Ultima in 2000. I still play both. I started playing Freelancer less than a week ago, and I already visited 44 systems.
I do think that Freelancer is a wonderful game. It is a game that made me play the entire weekend, like Wing Commander 3 and 4, Tie-Fighter, Half-Life, UO etc. But I also think that some key elements are missing. The game is based on the fact that you must discover it's universe. Once you get to know every single planet, base and secret, the interest in it will continuously fade out.
I think these elements are:
1. no massive multiplayer
FL does give the base idea behind a massive multiplayer game, but it does not have the complete environment or software support. The FL Server is power hungry, and running it with more than 8 players will need a decent hardware configuration. This fact limits the muliplayer to discovering the world and fighting against other players. Once you get your hands on a Titan with nomad canons, you make a $ 1.000.000 and there is nothing left to do.
2. no trade missions / complex missions
There are only hunting missions. No trade. So you trade only if you want to earn lots of money. Get a humpback and you hit the $ 1.000.000 easily. A huge addition to multiplayer would be trade missions (you would have to transport a cargo from point A to point
. This idea would be further developed with contracts (works like this: you must supply a base with a commodity every X minutes / hours if you are connected). But I don't think that the server has a timer engine built in.
I also miss complex missions. All missions are "get to the waypoint and kill everything" or "get to the waypoint and kill everything and hit b". I used to play a nice game in the past, called Tie-Fighter. I don't know if anyone here played it, but the missions were nice because they were not only "kill everything": to tell the truth, there were missions where you would avoid the combat and disable a ship, scan a ship or retrive a specific cargo. If you would engage combat, you wouldn't have the time to complete it.
3. no home base
The player does not have the option of "renting" a place to keep goods (commodities or weaponry). It would be nice to pay a rent to have a container, a space of some sort in a space station or planet, where you would keep cargo, weaponry and whatever you want. This feature would be timer based (paying the rent) or it would cost initialy lots of money (like $500.000 or more).
4. only one ship
You don't have the option of buying more than one ship. It would be great to have the option of buying at least two ships (a fighter and a freighter) so you would have the chance to play as a fighter or as a trader without having to sell the ship you are currently using. The secondary ship would be left in your home base, and you must get there to change it.
I don't know if these points can be addressed by a mod. I hope so!