Mon Apr 28, 2003 2:48 am
I talked to one of the developers of FreeLancer during GenCon 2002, incidently he was also one of the developers of both of the classic games (for which I prayed Freelancer was a remake of) Privateer and Privateer 2. He told me he loved how Privateer had turned out and certain staff changes and such destroyed Privateer. Almost all of the original developing team for Privateer worked on FreeLancer and tried to make ir Privateer 3.
So, what happened? Well, it is Privateer, some small things are missing, the comunication isn't very advanced, the story is worse and trade missions are missing. The pros, trade lanes, NPCs, traffic, more bad guys, more planets, systems and commoditees (not enough friggin' contraban, what about illegal weaponry? Weapons Grade Plutonium? Slaves? More than one kind of mind altering drug?).
Don't get me wrong I loved FreeLancer, until I bought a Sabre, 2 GUARDIANs, 5 SkyBlast Bs, those 260k shields, you know all the best stuff, explored the galaxy became pirate, then good guy, then pirate again with merchants in the middle flew every ship in the game, have 2 million credits in the pocket and absolutely nothing to do with it. What do I do now? What can I do now? Nothing. I'm stuck. I want to blow up everything in Liberty space I wanna buy a battleship and have more than 1 ship. What went wrong? FreeLancer was to easy. The bad guys had bad AI didn't use shield batteries or nanobots for some reason, there was a SUPER trade (Boron to LD-14 don't do it, the game goes to fast). It would have been worth and extra ten bucks on the game if it was 20% better. One more step would have improved it so much.
You should include the ability to purchase a "garage" of some sort on a planet and own as many ships as you want. There should be inflation, after a while LD-14 does not need 250 more tons of Boron! I'd like to be able to hire wingmen and extra freighters maybe even start my own intergalactic gang of bad dudes. FreeLancer is not truly "open ended" but merely non-linear. If it were open ended the possiblilities would be nesr endless. Non-linear means you don't have to do any one thing. Hey, if it were up to me I'd buy a bunch of those BIG transports that carry 80000 cargo and make some runs, make multi-millions, buy more ships hire pilots for them and make artifact runs from Freeport 9 to Planet Manhattan. Buy a few battleships, a space station (come on intergalactic real estate agents and corporations isn't that far out of an idea, you go to the Real Estate store on Los Angeles, pick a location pay 20 million and wait an hour for it to be built) and I'd start my own faction declare war on Liberty, take it over rename it to Antarctica and eventually take over all of space, THEN the game would end, but wait! Someone could start a rebelion against me in the south pole sector and overthrow me! Multiplayer could go so far and not be an "pay by the month" deal. Lets gather 100 willing intelligent individuals and turn this lemon into a road hog! IT'S possible! Imagine the possiblities!
Cool game, cooler idea, let's make it a reality!
So, what happened? Well, it is Privateer, some small things are missing, the comunication isn't very advanced, the story is worse and trade missions are missing. The pros, trade lanes, NPCs, traffic, more bad guys, more planets, systems and commoditees (not enough friggin' contraban, what about illegal weaponry? Weapons Grade Plutonium? Slaves? More than one kind of mind altering drug?).
Don't get me wrong I loved FreeLancer, until I bought a Sabre, 2 GUARDIANs, 5 SkyBlast Bs, those 260k shields, you know all the best stuff, explored the galaxy became pirate, then good guy, then pirate again with merchants in the middle flew every ship in the game, have 2 million credits in the pocket and absolutely nothing to do with it. What do I do now? What can I do now? Nothing. I'm stuck. I want to blow up everything in Liberty space I wanna buy a battleship and have more than 1 ship. What went wrong? FreeLancer was to easy. The bad guys had bad AI didn't use shield batteries or nanobots for some reason, there was a SUPER trade (Boron to LD-14 don't do it, the game goes to fast). It would have been worth and extra ten bucks on the game if it was 20% better. One more step would have improved it so much.
You should include the ability to purchase a "garage" of some sort on a planet and own as many ships as you want. There should be inflation, after a while LD-14 does not need 250 more tons of Boron! I'd like to be able to hire wingmen and extra freighters maybe even start my own intergalactic gang of bad dudes. FreeLancer is not truly "open ended" but merely non-linear. If it were open ended the possiblilities would be nesr endless. Non-linear means you don't have to do any one thing. Hey, if it were up to me I'd buy a bunch of those BIG transports that carry 80000 cargo and make some runs, make multi-millions, buy more ships hire pilots for them and make artifact runs from Freeport 9 to Planet Manhattan. Buy a few battleships, a space station (come on intergalactic real estate agents and corporations isn't that far out of an idea, you go to the Real Estate store on Los Angeles, pick a location pay 20 million and wait an hour for it to be built) and I'd start my own faction declare war on Liberty, take it over rename it to Antarctica and eventually take over all of space, THEN the game would end, but wait! Someone could start a rebelion against me in the south pole sector and overthrow me! Multiplayer could go so far and not be an "pay by the month" deal. Lets gather 100 willing intelligent individuals and turn this lemon into a road hog! IT'S possible! Imagine the possiblities!
Cool game, cooler idea, let's make it a reality!