i'm guessing that those are the people that wanted freelancer to be thier patron saint of gaming. as if this one game could entertain them for months if not years on end. the fact of the matter is, no matter how great a game may be, one eventually tires of it. it goes from obsession to once-in-a-while to hardly-ever to dust-collector... along with countless other games bought in the past.
when was the last time any of you played Elite, or Starlancer, or tachon, or privateer.. etc. sure you may dust them off and play them every now and then, but they aren't the forefront in gaming they once were.

however, we now have the modding work to look forward to. even half life is still played in a modified form. Counter Strike (right EB? ) or Team Fortress, and half life was released in.. what 1998?

the freelancer universe is already alive with basic modding. you can fly battleships, transports, even make your own system and name it! all in all not bad for having less than a month to work with!

SO to all those out there complaining that they're bored of the game already.. that's ok. it's a natural progression. go play unreal 2 or moo3 or c&c generals or whatever game strikes your fancy, just don't give up on freelancer quite yet. check back in a month and see what we can do to revitalize what you now see as a waste of time and money
we may just surprise you

...Just a random thought from a random mind

Well, bully for you if you're happy with 16 hours gaming. The opinions of those who believe this isn't value for money are also valid. I've played more than that w/o finishing the story and anticipate many more hours but after all these years in development I expected a bigger story and a more interactive and dynamic universe to give it open-ended longevity.

It's a fun little game though and i'm happy with it, I just could have been happier.

I've been playing the game for a week, spent about 12 hours so far... and I'm just at mission 7. The thing is, I'm 26, employed and I have a fiancee. I can't play more than 2 hours/day and I don't even want to. I don't want to rush it or spoil it. I actually read the news, hear the tips, explore the space...

It's not the end that's important, but how you get there!

I love the story so far, I love the game and its universe, I love the attention to detail. Too bad people will bitch and moan no matter what. Freelancer (for me) is the best game since Deus Ex. The only other recent games I cared for were NOLF 1&2 and GTA3.

I am an old Elite player who was expecting this to be the 21st century version of that classic game. It is very good, but it simply doesnt match the hundreds if not thousands of playing hours you could get out of the original.

Also, given 4 years to produce, you would hope for considerably more plot. What I would like to know is what was the hold up for 4 years ?
It hardly uses 50% CPU on my machine, so its not a matter of having to churn out mind boggling bleeding edge code.
Graphics dont take that long to do.
Cut scenes are nice, but they filmed Lord of the Rings trilogy in 3 years.
In 4 years they could and should have done an awe inspiring character driven branching plot.

to me...the single player is too short and too linear...all you gotta do is to fly to waypoint, do what they as you to do ...repeat again and again and again and again..and you finish single player...

*yawn*

<< has completed his SP in less than 13 hours

@PurpleGerbil

I actually think it was 5 years. Anyway, the reason the game might not seem to have "5 years worth" of content in it, is probably that there seem to have been quite a bit of turbulence with the development. Key personel leaving the team, ownership changes, all this resulting in design changes etc.

If the current design had been the original one, I'm guessing they would have released this game one or two years ago.

What annoys me about stories like this isn't the length (I don't always want a 200 hour story), it's the linearity. I'm getting a little tired of games feeling like Choose-Your-Own-Adventure movies where you don't get to choose your own adventure.

I had fun with the s/p part. Think I finished at about 16 hours. Now I'm having fun with the multiplayer portion, finding stuff and doing stuff I didnt do in Single Player.

The game was basicly based around 18 Missions only. You did'nt even start with a ship for gods sake!

They could have at least give you that much! Then you could have gone and Explored, Traded, and bought a better Ship before choosing to start the missions at your time. When you felt you was ready! The game gave you no choice in the matter because you could'nt have a Ship unless you did the first mission. If you also wanted better Ships after starting the Story missions. You had to do the next mission to progress in the game further. Thus giving you access to better Ships. Until you found you had completed the game very quickly indeed!

Were was the Freedom to Explore, Expand, Grow. And basicly make the game last a hell of a lot longer.

Edited by - Gary Bolton on 17-03-2003 17:21:10

It sounds like you don't have finished the story line Gary....
They gave you a ship dude. Make it last longer? You can decide wether or not you want to play it longer.

Wizard, you got a ship before you talked to Juni?

He's just having a laugh! I know you got the ship before that. I may be wrong about the 18 missions. It might have been 24 instead.

The only thing I disliked about the story portion is that you're locked in it and it doesn't let you screw up or go your own way. I think it would have been seriously cool if you could just abandon a story mission and the reprecussion would be the Nomads eating away at available space until you have nowhere left to run. In other words, you chose not to save the colonies so you're stuck watching them die.

I remember one point where I just got absolutely ticked off. On my second time through I was on the mission where you go in to rescue the president. I was fighting around the jumpgate that Juni was cracking into and, even once she had it unlocked, I chose to kill as many bad guys as possible. I killed and killed and killed then *bang* mission failure. Apparently because I didn't stick to the game's time table, I lost. It isn't as though the jumpgate wasn't there anymore.

THANKFULLY, http://www.egosoft.com/x2/ will be coming out, and from everything I have read/seen, it looks to be what Freelancer should have been. Dynamic economy, missions, more ships, and truley open ended with graphics to match if not beat that in Freelancer. Mind you, this is out of the box and they are not relying on the community generate for them. Of course, I am basing this on beta reviews and such so alot remains to be seen. But it even varied missions would IMHO give it a major leg up from Freelancer.

Complain? Well, yes, a movie would be ~96 dollars if it lasted 16 hours, but for the money, there are ALOT of games that offer ALOT more playtime and are much more open ended. Elder scrolls for example, I spent weeks getting through the main storyline because I could go back to the main line at anytime. Furthermore, there were huge amounts of side missions that varied in type, complexity, duty, etc. Freelancer is a good start, but I'd say in its current state, its only $10 worth of game. I finished the main story, and had about 3 days of *open ended* play which included trying the 3 main very heavy fighters. After I tried those, there were only a few systems that even offered a little bit of a challenge.
Last, if I didn't have a laptop, I wouldn't have had any post storyline play, I mean scouting a system is a very long boring undertaking. I'd set a waypoint, put the computer on the table, and watch TV and go back to check progress hear and there. I mean, wow, thats a great time lemme tell ya.