Your links to the site are not working on my end, Anyone else have the same problem?


Edited by - Lancer Rex on 12/3/2005 1:16:15 PM

Finalday, I stand abashed. As to a business decision, well, get caught in a couple of those "decisions", and you might feel a little negativity. Still, with the Openlancer project, all IS NOT lost - and someone else might pick it up and run with it(FL2). It would also seem to suggest that the sourcecode might be available - probably for a price......

"Peace through Superior Firepower"

I guess this is it for Freelancer and the space arcade genre. Games like X2 play like MS Flight Simulator in space.

___Corsair~MMV

---

Are new games aimed at a lazier group who can't be bothered imagining what a space adventure is like? Are newer games more a reflection of reality than an escape from it?

---

Short answer: yes.

I wouldn't call it “laziness”, though. People want games that reflect their own fantasy and sense of whimsy, and for most people that means real life. Dreams of being a super(wo)man or running wild without  fear of consequences are simply more universal than that of being a top-notch space fighter pilot.

Also, you have to realize that we're probably never going to see the golden age of space that started with the original Wing Commander in the early '90s and ended with StarLancer and Freespace 2. Times were different in 1990. Top Gun was still fresh in people's minds, graphics were a lot more primitive than they were today, and joysticks were everywhere. Wing Commander offered a rare degree of immersiveness for the era - I think of it as the prototypal first-person shooter of its day. It was a lot easier to pretend you were really flying through space than it was to imagine you were really the Wolfenstein guy running through a one-level maze.

Once FPSes came around, the focus shifted. Suddenly, instead of flying around in empty space, you could actually experience the world we live in, which has a lot more to offer to the average person - namely terrain and architecture. And while the leaps in computer power meant that virtual world could become more realistic, all it meant for virtual space was that you could have bigger ships and more colorful backgrounds. Which is going to appeal more to the average gamer?

I still think the genre is far from dead. If anything, more and more FPSes are adding space to the agenda, re: Unreal Tournament, Star Wars Battlefront. If space games are going to become commercially viable again, though, they need to take advantage of space's unique properties - what can you do in space that you can't do on Earth? Certainly not simply blowing things up, which is what the emphasis seemed to be on towards the end. FPSes have made tremendous leaps in storytelling and cinematic quality since Wolfenstein - if the space game is going to have a prayer, it needs to remember what made the original games so great and revolutionary, and not just live off nostalgia for the past.

Solid multiplayer certainly won't hurt, either.

@Bob: Good point, well made.

I think an area which you touched upon is the future for and indeed the reason I personally love space sims. Namely the departure from reality. The "what can you get away with in a space game that you cannot in an earth bound sim". In the past on TLR we have discussed the fact that although FL gives an air or realism the actual physics behind it's flight control and methods of propulsion are far from "real". If you allow yourself to susped belief and immerse yourself into a space sim then you can play a game where the constraints of real life do not apply. First person shooter/sims are indded a form of escape where the story line is concerned (at least for the average non-super human non-hitman-car jacking-power upping--haunted mansion trekking-vampire hunters among us) but the more realistic the FPS becomes with regard to replicating actual human anatomy and physical ability then the less escapist it is, at least for me who admittedly holds an obvious space sim bias, and the further it goes from the very reason for gaming, escape.

(--As an aside, I actually have Freespace 2 sitting on my desk waiting to be loaded, unbelievably my joystick was mothballed some months back and I have not had the chance, or could not be arsed, to retrieve it.--)

EDIT: Damb Speling

Edited by - Druid on 12/4/2005 1:48:10 PM

It is my opinion the what the community should do now is crack everything FL One we can understand how it ticks completely the given some time, It would be possible to make a fanbased fl2. But what the current nodding comunity does(adding systems to the sector) would not work. Rather a new sector needs to be introduced. This would, of course require total knowledge of the game, but as alcander has prooved with freelimits, anything given time can be accomplished.

Bob McDob said:

---

I still think the genre is far from dead. If anything, more and more FPSes are adding space to the agenda, re: Unreal Tournament, Star Wars Battlefront. If space games are going to become commercially viable again, though, they need to take advantage of space's unique properties - what can you do in space that you can't do on Earth?

---

Excellent point. Others in older threads about space sims also have equated space sims to being FPSes anyway and, in a way, they are. It's just that it is a human inside a machine that needs to be piloted.

To belabor what may be obvious already: The "pure" FPSes already have stepped over to piloting by providing a means to fight in various mechanized battle craft. Why not have space sims in which players are able to go out into the void suited up and self-propelled and armed as well as in spacecraft? And why can't they go planetside and wage war on foot or in mechs or tanks, etc?

The game may end up being huge but it would be a more "complete" simulation and today's PC hardware seems up to the task.

that's what i was going to say!

*fumes at the Insurance Man getting a good point in before the Mullah*

Well, you could have expounded some more. After all, Bob McDob broached the subject.


PS -

Please note oh tasselled one that I have refrained from entering into the fray on that other front. Of course the BSCVND is not averse to doing business with anyone if there is a buck to be made.

i wrote several paragraphs but my gefunkenstunkenmunken NTL broadband was so pachangweyed that I couldn't post it

In that case, I'll add a smidge more:

Maybe, for starters, a game could have a space sim that involves piloting craft that are fully space, atmospherically AND aquatically flyable. Something that FL shows you but never actually lets you do.

The craft you fly changes in maneuvering characteristics and response, of course, between the three environments and the pilot needs to be mindful of those parameters. And choice of weapons are altered as well. Might be fun to strafe enemy ground elements, etc.

Edited by - Indy11 on 12/5/2005 12:32:42 PM

Why don't we get together and buy the rights ourselves? That's really the only major impediment holding back an open source freelancer sequel. Whats more, even if microsoft refused to sell, it might make them take a second look at the viability of a freelancer sequel.

I would think you'd be talking MAJOR cash, here- but you're right, it's a possibility
- and with the openlancer project it might not be neccessary

Edited by - fred the dead on 12/5/2005 3:32:04 PM

@Indy: Yup!


Seriously though, if Edison Trent were to land on a planet and take on a mission where he had to bring a BattleMech into NooDworkia and perhaps escape in a sooped up tank...well...WOW! Why not bring the space sim on a step? Of course, plot lines still need to be something you enjoy rather than something you "get past" before you start to enjoy the game.

*Ignores suggestion to buy FL rights--even Swissdruland's economy does not go that deep*