"The reason we're playing is because this reminds us of elite ..."

praxis22 is right. I played FL because I expected to get more than another stupid game with nice graphics. Unfortunately I was wrong there ...

btw ... I'm 35.

My view is that developers are doing gamers a great disservice by dumbing down their games. As a teenager, I started out on a TRS-80. From that point on, games were full of in-depth content. It wasn't considered laborious to have all these features, it was cool. Turn based games like Civilization remain favorites to this day. Many games taught you something along the way. Even a simple game like Scorched Earth was all about angles, velocity, gravity, and wind direction/strength. We wanted more, more, more. Why then, have developers taken to giving us less, less, less?

With each "simplification," I feel like I'm losing more content from my games. I'm having options stolen away from me. Look at Freelancer and compare it to a game like X-Wing. Who remembers adjusting your shield strength? The simple joy of opening/closing your wings? Waiting for a missile lock before launching? Were they hassles? Heck no. They added atmosphere to the game.

It's my opinion that game developers are getting just plain lazy. They've tried to sell us on the idea that less MEANS more. "We're making it 'easier' for you," they say. I don't buy it. I think that a game like Freelancer should offer an infinite number of little ship tweaking options, while allowing some useable default settings for anyone who isn't interested in delving deeper. The way things are going, game developers will have us clicking a single button while staring at pretty lights on a monitor as they target an ever more "dumbed-down" audience.

Quit trying to dumb people down and start trying to inspire. The programmers I knew growing up wanted to show off their talent and wow their peers by pushing the envelope.

I wonder if any of you will actually believe me, but this is true:

The first game I played was on one of those table-top arcade games, that my Grandparents had in their den in Ontario. It was this really cool game where you used a little joystick to move a bar back and forth, trying to deflect this while box across the screen to another player...

Yup, I'm talking about Pong. I can't remember how old I was, but I am only 27 now, so I must have been REALLY young. Since then, I have been addicted to computer games. Had an Atari ST and a 286 when I was in grade 7 or 8. Actually, in Elementary school (do Americans call it Grade school?) I remember we got to use these take home "computers" for a couple of weeks. I think they were Tandy's or something, and they looked kind of like laptops, but without the screen. Just a big keyboard with a tiny LCD display, like a calculator.

Anyway, I digress. I love computer games, and I think I will be playing computer games with my grandkids one day (God only knows what computer games will look like then). The first big game I played on my 286 was Wing Commander. I have played pretty much every Wing Commander game there is (except IV) since then, but I and II are still my classic favorites. That's the reason I bought Freelancer and I am not a bit dissappointed.

I think that most of us started gaming at about the same time that computer gaming actually came into existence. It's going to be interesting to see a new generation of gamers who only just know starting to get hooked. It's kind of a nice feeling knowing that we've been gaming since it all began (close enough, anyway). Kinda historic...

Oh dear, something in my eye...<sniff>...



Those are my thoughts, not yours, I'm WapCaplet[!

Only 39 here, reading all these posts from all them old timers. hehe. I also was much inspired by Elite, Frontier, First Encounters. Getting a teary eye thinking back to cassette tape loading drives. FL for me is a fun game, I have 3 main branching chars. that cover it for me, Pirate, Lawful, and Mr. shoot everything on sight. While visuals have gone a long way, Elite gave me a much more free feeling. 200 systems within a universe and 8 universes to explore, some random missions. Frontier brought out the physics of space flight, better missions, and more ships. If I remember correctly was also mouse flight. First Encounters had everything Frontier had, along with a mission line you could follow.(If you could get past all the bugs). I am very easy to please. For me FL's main drawback is limited space combined with limited level. Heck if they put the max level to 100 and made the money needed exponential, some ppl would play however long it took to get there. Actually join a faction and gain rank within that group. Anything that would keep me looking forward.

That said, I might just go load up Temple of Apshai again, hehe. Oops, almost forgot, they are working on an Elite 4 with Brabben, but still some time off.

---

The first game I played was on one of those table-top arcade games, that my Grandparents had in their den in Ontario. It was this really cool game where you used a little joystick to move a bar back and forth, trying to deflect this while box across the screen to another player...

Yup, I'm talking about Pong

---

I had that too... it was a silvery thing with two analog wheel controllers that sat left and right in the box and which you could remove to play with them. If i recall correctly it even had different gamemodes like tennis and handball. It was a nice little thing.

EDIT: if some of the youngsters who never heard of it want to give it a try: here's a web based version of the game that you can play in your browser. click me! It's fun... for 5 minutes (talking of repetitive)

-------------

"Sorry for offending your delicate sensibilities. Perhaps my next film will be about a talking dog who braves the harsh realities of the world in a heart warming attempt to find his rightful owners, who mistakenly thought he was dead. That way you could watch it and get a fuzzy feeling inside and when it was over you could all go f*ck yourselves." - Troy Duffy, director of The Boondock Saints

Edited by - Lev Arris on 27-03-2003 17:15:46

i am just a dutch boy of 14 years

I'll be 43 in April...

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
The Next Thing I Say To You Will Be True
The Last Thing I Said Was False

I'm only 19, but I've been gaming for at least ten years. My love of 3D flight sims began with Red Baron in 1990 or 1991 (don't remember which) on my dad's 386/16 with 1MB RAM and a 40MB hdd. That was when I didn't even realize the difference between 2D and 3D, and I had to play using the mouse, since I didn't have a joystick.
I've played every X-Wing game but (sadly) none of the WC ones. I've also played Freespace and Tachyon, both of which I like a lot. Anyway, I hope that one day I'll be teaching ownage to my grandkids and carrying on the tradition

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world:
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Middle aged gamers are playing freelancer because they were the only ones around when it was announced

At 53 U guess I'm one of those middle aged gamers. Got my first computer, an Apple [+, when I got a vasectomy and I whimpered and whined so much that my wife took pity on me. Have played almost all the space games - my early favorite was one nobody mentions, "Universe". Made by a couple of guys in, as I recall, Mass. Came in a three ring binder with 5 floppies and cost $100. Great game. Have played all the Chris Roberts games; my favorite of all time is Privateer, which I played through with the expansion packs twice. I know FL is a great game because I find myself reviewing last night's action and planning for tonight in the shower as I am waking up in the morning.

Edited by - mikiedog on 27-03-2003 18:23:35

I'm definitely middle-aged (45). Anyone remember Privateer ?. I played it on a state-of-the-art Pentium 100Mhz, and enjoyed it a lot. Very much alike FL in its theme and gameplay.

The last few years, I've been unto Combat Flight simulators, but my son remembered how much I enjoyed Privateer and gave me Freelancer to try.

I'm 44 and have been gaming since writing my own programs on punch cards before most of the members of the forum were born, but what does it really matter about your physical age?

Gamers are gamers and we should all be happy that we continue a tradition that has no foreseeable end. Whether you're 12 or 62, we all love to play and play we will!

My wife thinks I'm nuts and has no interest in computer-based games, but my teenage daughters love to play and have great times trying to put the hurt on "the old man" on our household LAN. Recently, we mostly had been doing the Age of Empires/Mythology and/or Dungeon Seige, but they love FL as much as me and are getting pretty good. When they team up and try to PK me, it's getting harder and harder to escape/PK them. I Love it!!

So let's not worry about when a player's birthdate was, lets just keep playing and hopefully the developers will continue to provide us with worthy diversions

im not old at 36 but have been gaming since my heady days of building my zx 80 then 81 and thinking the spectrum was the best thing ever invented......its good to see so many old devotees of elite i played it on every format starting on the bbc model b and lost sevral girlfriends to it lol....freelancer is an evolution of elite yes but still seems to lack the addictivness of elite and im hoping eve will rectify this hell even the eve logo has a look of the old elite logo...................................

bring back the thargoids thats what i say

ive just realised ive been gaming since 1980 just think of how many hours of my life ive wasted

Middle aged my SON! The cheek of it!

Please remember that people who played the famous "ELITE" space game that started it all off for the other Space games that followed eons later. This means it's a fact of life we will now all be middle aged! Unless they know something I don't !

Yes we have stood the test of time, and still keep faith in the Space game genre eons later! So don't be to surprised to see all us middle aged people still playing Space Games years later. Space has no limits in every sence of the word, and you are only as old as you feel!

Take Captain Picard of the Star Trek Enterprise. He's not exactly 14 years old is he! For that matter show me any Star Trek captain who's under 30 years old!

By the way I'm 38. And it's all downhill from here on.

Edited by - Gary Bolton on 27-03-2003 20:47:54