First of all. I've played all types of Space sims rpgs .. From Elite to Freelancer

This is my favorite genre periot. I played Elite 1 Frontier Elite, Frontier Elite 2 First Encounters, Wing Commander Privater I and II, I-WAR, all Wing Commanders other than space rpgs, Freespace I and II, X - Tension, Allegiance
I've beta tested Earth and Beyound , and Eve Online.

One thing I keep asking myself is this. How come a Popular game like Freelancer doesnt get good support from the developer?

First of all I would like to propose to the community to create a petition to Microsoft ,to at least provide the info or tools so that the community can have a less harder time developing things for the game. Some things are hardcoded and we really would apreciate if Microsoft helped a little . The number of sales of a game also depend on the support of its community. If it wasnt for the community Half-Life wouldnt have Counter Strike thus not sell so much.
And if Microsoft wants to protect its rights well there are agreements for something.

Now a sugestion to the community . There are preety good community developers around. Now most are doing their own projects, with their unique points. Some already can use capital ships, others have more customizable ships, others build on factions, some want to extend the game with new ships from other universes , some want to extend the original universe.

Now even thought I realize that the members of the community try to help each other, I have noticed , that there really isnt some kind of "basic mod sharing" ... I mean ...
Lets say X mod lets players use battleships. Why not share mini mods, with the basic popular features, say a better market system, and so on . So that players could download a sort of core module. As well developers could interchange features, and provide know - how to each other.

Now for the features that can be added to freelancer:

New ships of all types (capital ships, etc etc) maintaining the original freelancer look.
Beam cannons...a la Freespace I read the tutorial...What if the beam cannon drains energy very very quickly . Also it could be made a say level 12 weapon. And capital ships would be able to mount only say one or two level 12 weapons)
Beam cannons are really neat stuff. Thats why they are used in so many popular sci-fi series and movies, that use capital ships.
Mining could be more "natural" ...One could buy a mining tool or even a mining ship to really be able to mine.
New mission types. Specially for higher level players, and missions that REALLY require other players to finish. Could be escort missions, could be, total war campaing like missions. Take Ideas from Freespace, Elite Frontier had some really original ones. Like taking certain person to certain place.

-- Please post other ideas that can already be added to freelancer --

The cooler features are unfortunatly those that are indeed yet not able to add to freelancer or that we need Microsoft support to make them...Some may too much for this game. But perhaps in the future

- DYNAMIC MARKET FOR GOD SAKE. Look at Eve type of market system. Ok thats very hard...Well at least make it so that what i sell in a station is available to others.
- Post news Ingame, and mission in game. Sort of bulletin board . Also Eve had some good ideas around this. Like placing, bountys, notify events, and so on.
- Several type of newspapers. Could be player created to reflect a clan or something like that.
- Corporations and station owning. A la Eve and X - Tension. A player could Buy NPC Ships to protect it when no corp members are online.
- Better in game chat and squad support. (for example joining a squad, wouldnt need to be in the same system)
- God a simple basic feature .. LET ONE HAVE A CLAN TAG.
- Station can create new products, like weapons and stuff.
- MORE AND MORE types of enviroments, like black holes(There was a screenshot with one...What happened to it?), systems with huge wormholes a la Star Trek - Deep Space 9 ... More and more enviroments. Planets with animated textures like what appears when we start the game. And so on.

David Braben (Elite) made on its own Frontier Elite 2. It had a dynamic economy, Planet orbiting. IT emulated several galaxys( Yes galaxys) . You could ENTER planets really enter. And watch day/night cycles. The universe was all connected . No Jump holes . All same huuuggee universe . It had ingame newspapers that you could subescribe to. It had factions too, that could give u metals and stuff. All types of missions.. Like take Metal scrap from certain station to certain station. Freespace II had THE best space fights. Really great. With capital ships fighting for life . With captain chat like "we cant hold her" and so on. All types of ships with its own good points.. A good Figher ship couldnt be a good bomber. It couldnt have Torpedo Missiles for example. It created a great dynamic in multiplayer campaign battles (YES MULTIPLAYER CAMPAIGN TYPE BATTLES) ..It gave medals, for special missions, and it kept all your stats online, and you had titles. You could see who really was the best in Freespace 2. It had a mission editor. (freespace 2 is free for download right now and is one of the BEST if not the BEST campaing like Space sim)...X - Tension brought station creation, and develop, Eve brought the best player driven universe, with player driven economys (with npc to balance things if needed), and complete player corporations with really HUGE wars alliances and so one between them . Great avatar creation, players can create all types of things throught blueprints that can have "excelent" market value . And Freelancer brought a really Wonderfull universe with all types of "terrains" that smoothly change between. Never before could we be in a nebula and next moment be in a complete different envoirment. Never before we had such a lively online universe with real-time space flight (not turn based), that one can interact in.

For me the Developer who follows a path similiar to what Freelancer followed (the dynamic universe enviroment), and puts the dynamic player driven economy with the station owning and player corporations, as well as a universe that responds to it with huge territorial campaing like missions. A game that provides modders and server admins the tools to create dynamic enviroments that can be unpredicable. Like to be able to trigger dynamic events, like the explosion of a star (Freespace 2 had this in one mission), or NPC Corporations that due to different things decide to conquer a certain system, This Developer will have a HUGE success at its hands. Its not the space sim genre that has problems ... It is the developers that arent giving us what we need.
(by the way Eve is a best seller... Freelancer even thought Microsoft shifted its attentions to other games(and consoles), sold well) .

So, knowing that the last Elite got out in about 1995, X-Tension in 1999, Wing Commander dont remember, Freespace 2 in 1999, and so on, why oh why we still dont have that all time space sim of our dreams ?

Please post your ideas. Likes and dislikes. And what do You want the space sim developers to give us.



Edited by - Comet on 28-07-2003 22:59:21