Okay Midaus, I've read what is your opinion and theme in this entire post. Unlike many others who read it, I don't get lost in the words you've used to express this opinion you have of the game. I suppose it should be mentioned at this point I simply do not agree with the points your making because they are not being backed up by facts, only your opinions. I can respect your different opinion but I just don't agree with your assessment of the facts.

Without definitions being spelled out here (and taken from a dictionary) isn't that just boiling down to nothing less that an interpretation which reeks of subjectivity? I'm more reality based, I think that is why I disagreee with the opinions you've expressed.

You use of adjectives to improve your stance are only icing on a cake. But the truth is Digital Anvil (or Microsoft for that matter) didn't mislead me one bit simply because I did not read between the lines. What they advertised was prety much black and white to me. I got out of this game what was advertised, period. You did not and I have no way of comprehending why. You're doing a fine job of stating one side of an opinion while ignoring another side. Interesting stance you take in thsi discussion, THAT I'll give you. I can honestly say if you can't acknowledge a differing opinion it sure makes for dull reading for others that don't agree with your stance.

Again the dynamic universe (not dynamic according to you) yyou still are taking a blind eye to some obvious examles. You mentioned we sell smuggled items to the SAME person at the same place and in fact that is true. But the prices of different item do in fact fluctualite from place to place and do not sell for the same price everywhere. It's like anything in the real world. I can buy a bannana for one price from one place, but can go down the street and get a different prce for the same item right? Now the prices do fluctuate if were talking about the same bannana shop due to the law of supply and demand and I'll be the first to admit that isn't in FL. BUt you seemed upset about the shop owners don't change, well the local supermarket owner hasn't changed in years around here and I'm not upset about that. In fact I like that because I get to know them perosnally after a while, and still consider the local bannana market dynamic even though the faces sledom change. Again, the game advertises a dynamic universe, NOT a dynamic commdities universe. To me the random encounters EVERYONE experiences in the game are enough to prove to me the FL universe is dynamic. It will be unlikely I see the same faces on he way to buy a bannana from the SAME shop keeper. That alone would make my world dynamic and every changing. Can you image seeing the same people all the time every where you went? That's kind of scary actually.

Sure words and phases have meaning beyond the dictionary but facts are facts my friend. Digital Anvil and Microsoft did NOT "expect" people to read between the lines, in fact they expected the opposite to be true. Too bad you don't still have the box so you could read it again and see if you really were seeing something that wasn't there. It might go a long way towards answering your questions.

Look, you're entitled to your opions just like everyone else and those are always welcomed here. But when you take a different stance that I do about something I am passionate about you shouldn't be surprised when I refute your testimony with facts. Problem is when you go on about stating your opinion and jazz it up enough to read like it's fact thats suually where I'll stop in here and extract the truth from the opinion and make sure the difference is revealed. State facts, and back them up and I'm on board with you. State opinions loosely based on your interpretation of facts and it going to be hard for me to sit back and just absorb it and not have a counter for it.

Before this gets out of hand, it's not too late for us to simply agree to disagree on our opinion...but we'll never be able to disagree on the facts.

Edited by - Stinger on 2/22/2004 1:11:57 AM

I don't know how many times or how many different ways I can say I appreciate your point of view about it all. I'm glad your happy and content with everything offered by FL. Seems to me I've supported my opinion of the game well enough and I'm certainly not surprized that someone has a differing opinion. Folks in a debate can always start to knit pick over the meaning of this word or that. I've stated why I don't think it's all that dynamic of a universe and how it could be more so. The game plays the way it does and the adjectives and verbage I use to describe it aren't unfactual. It's simply the way it plays.

The whole commodities trip is merely one aspect you can add to the rest of it.

I don't know how many times or how many different ways I can say I appreciate your point of view about it all. I'm glad your happy and content with everything offered by FL. Seems to me I've supported my opinion of the game well enough and I'm certainly not surprized that someone has a differing opinion. Folks in a debate can always start to knit pick over the meaning of this word or that. I've stated why I don't think it's all that dynamic of a universe and how it could be more so. The game plays the way it does and the adjectives and verbage I use to describe it aren't unfactual. It's simply the way it plays.

The whole commodities trip is merely one aspect you can add to the rest of it.

ooops hit the wrong button

I'm not upset about the fact that dealers don't change, merely pointing out the shortcut the DEVS use to faciltate the buying and selling of goods. I don't need to see the box. For that matter I don't need to remember 'exactly' what it said. I know I'm not the only person who feels a bit mislead and I'm sure there are others that will agree with your stance.

It's clear we disagree and I don't see any reason for things to be "out of hand' or sense they are headed that way. It's a discussion Nothing more. No harm no foul.

i dont know about you guys but i bought my freelancer since the first day it was realeased here, cant exactly remember when, but up to now im still playing it, not bored with it, and in fact its still the greatest game ive ever played, i might have played some other games like KOTR, Neverwinter and other new games but still i came back to this game, muti play, mods, ive enjoyed it to the last bit of cash ive paid for it. and well i dont want to start it but i guess it was because of the mouse control, i hate targetting with joystick - it sucks, but this game i could aim quite well. and before i was not a space sim/rpg fan, it was just a favor to a friend but now i am.

Now that it's not 4:00 AM and I've had some rest I'd like to just clarify something before this post goes Way off topic and gives the wrong impression. I have a bad habit of replying when I'm dead on my feet and cranky as hell. I like this game a great deal. I know I've mentioned it before, but this seems to be lost when it's surrounded by my howling of the aspects I'm disappointed with.

The action aspects of the game are incredible. From the environments to the ships to the music to the dog fighting , weaponry and special effects. I've spent as much time with this game as any other of the great games I've played. I suppose I have a bias when it comes to the role playing and social elements of games like this. I'm an ole pencil / paper n dice RPG player and guess I expect too much. When I see illogical relationships in the role playing elements I do chaff. I know the game was classified as an 'action' game, but there's no denying it makes a stab at role playing.

I've been trying out several of the MODS, which I hadn't tried when I first started this thread. I have to say some of them are very impressive and go a great distance in spicing some things up. The 'real space 2' has been fantastic and the evolutions and Privateer mods look interesting, but I've had trouble getting the evolutions mods to load.

Anyway...if folks have made their way this far in the thread I have to take my hat off to em, because as a reader I'd of probably given up on it after the first page.

@ Midaus - you can email me about the evo mod if you wish with help on loading issues, but please make sure you delete autosave and save game folder (use FLMM tools option and delete autosave, then under same option "open save game folder" where you can select all the folders/files and delete). After that either install the SDK or delete your FL folder and reinstall the game.


if you see errors with FLMM that say something is missing - reinstall game

You need latest version of FLMM and also download the mod from my site (sig link) as we had problems with downloads from TLR of evo....it was fixed with a fresh version - BUT i haven't tried it out to make sure (mind you - i have never had a problem either ).

Click on sig link to go to website.

Reason its different? You really can be a bounty hunter- all ships carry pilots, and all drop pilots (pirates drop different ones). Furthermore - pirates sell for more at bounty hunter bases than elsewhere, passengers can go to capital planets for money, but you can also sell them for "slavery" to outcasts for more money. Navy and police pilots "sell" well to pirates for torture. Tourists like going to luxury liners. In fact, all pilots sell where you would expect them (pirates to BH for most, or to prisons for good value, or back to pirates as "liberation". Police do pay for them - just not too much. BH pilots are loved by Pirates, as are cops and navy. Corp pilots aren't worth much unless you sell to outcasts. However, trade items like pets can be sold to rich on planets, or sold to outcasts to smuggle cardamine without law enforcement detecting them (they stuff them instead - and you can carry pets stuffed with cardamine instead). Also - there are lots more things - like slaves, child slaves, prisoners, stowaways and more. There are some mining only commodities (3 of them) so you can become a miner - and mining is alot easier as loot rates are up. Basically that is a real quick quick run through of just one small aspect of the mod. I won't go into 2nd hand stuff and all the physics changes and stuff.

However, to keep this "on topic" as well. I think that to be honest, many points brought up are valid. However, programming difficulties were probabily VAST to make dynamic trading a possiblty (where prices change with supply) as think about all the bases. One thing FL HAS had done, was enabled it to be played on fan servers. For this, systems ONLY load up WHEN a player enters that space. Until then the server doesn't have it loaded - to save resources. If you had the dynamic trading, i think that it would need to be running MORE processes to keep track of how much of what was sold where and how. There would need to be more processing power and more for all this. I think that they had to really balance things up, and this would have been a factor, otherwise it would be EVE-esque by the nature of needing dedicated servers that you "pay to play" on. Think about how this was made to enable fans to play. It has potential to be resource heavy on the server comp - BUT they had to minimise this somehow - so systems load when you enter them. Same with encouters - AI ONLY spawns when you are within 2k of a zone.........no point wasting processor power populating those zones UNTIL you arrive there......

The way the missions are done is another thing. It is a basic parameter. It just loads a different thing for it. Basically it sets a "spawn" from a bank. It loads the ship per faction basically (as set out in loadouts.ini) and assigns a name. Then it knows where its going to put it (vignettes in systems) and tells you with standard text to go there. I can tell you that there are several hundred or thousand entries for those few lines you see in missions.

Now - IF they had "go escort this" - it would have to make routes, waypoints via actual solar references, compute route, compute a "encounter" to arrive at certain points along the way as well. It would have to load up other systems to enable this, and at the same time control several more NPC's - might sound easy, but its getting "storyline esque" with the freighter having to "push on" and talk to you instead. I think it would take about the computational power of around 9 normal missions. The ohters basically spawn them with a few parameters as to what is to be said when the one guy is dead. The rest are literally normal encounter NPC's - BUT for the escort mission, they would need instructions on whom to attack......also the trains and stuff would die to quick....i mean think abuot it, you woudl have to kill the NPCs very quickly to be honest .

Anyways - just my two cents. its not only for time constraints that you don't get some things, but i think it would have been for this to be able to be run on fans computers as servers. It would be majorly resources heavy to do both dynamic trading, and also the missions idea. BUT - that is just what i think

just replying to the first page of this thread..some things I noticed, and some of my own opinions.

I find the missions a bit tedious and monotoneous, but I feel the trading and such kind of evens that out. Though I must say, until I finally read somewhere that there are no escort missions and such, I thought it was just the places I was going that were giving me bum deals.
Why would a FreeLancer only be hired for those few kinds of missions?

One of the few problems I, personally, have with the game is that..it's really not open-ended. Sure, you can spend forever trucking stuff back and forth, but the storyline is there and you can't get away from it. You can't even get a ship without it, and the first mission automatically puts you in bad with the criminals.

Not to mention, you're stuck with Trent. Sure, change the .dfm files around and you can get different clothes and such, but who really wants to spend time sorting through that? (though, if someone wants to tell me what trent's head file is, i'll be happy ).
I think it'd be nice if one could change clothes, maybe even have a couple of predefined characters to choose from.
Maybe you want to play as Trent, freeport 7 survivor and follow the storyline. Or, maybe you want to play as (name), pirate, with his/her own storyline.
Multiple storylines wouldn't be that difficult, and it would sure be nice to have some to follow.

When the story missions start, I feel very tied down and annoyed. Maybe I don't want to go out and do what they're telling me, but I can't progress otherwise. Maybe next time the lane is hacked, I want to blitz the train next to me and join in with the pirates who hacked the lane, but I still get shot up..

Well... I don't know, Dynamic, not dynamic, whatever. But I must say that the idea of factions putting out bountys on my head sounds awesome as hell. Like if somebody took a 500,000$ mission from Liberty Navy to assasinate Chibi, we belive hes in the New York System. LMFAO! That my freinds would kick royal ass! But... possible to do with just modding tools? Not likely. I mean we cant remake the game in all literal terms, right? But thats mind boggling to think about.. like if you could make that a patchable mod to combine with other mods. Lets say rebalance 3.3 or something. So like theres me in my Leviathan just randomly blowing up here, destroying there. Then These three Sabres come up with some backup UPC's, errr.. no that wouldnt work unless they could pinpoint your position and you didnt move for like an hour so nevermind the NPC's... but anyways these Sabres or something are all like trying desperatly to take me down and they are doing it for a bounty because I happened to blow up West Point earlier! That would really be something. But then again, you could just administer a server of your own... and offer bountys in such a manor. So theres the solution to that I geuss. But If factions actually chased you sometimes through trade lanes that would be an easy thing to setup in a mod but it wouldnt change much so its a waste of time. So your ideas are good. But it is all kinda farfetch'ed. Anyways so I dont remember why I was posting this so peace!

Chibi

Stinger, the dictionary is not the first and last word on word meaning. If you study semiotics or philosophy of language, you'll realize that your instistence that your interpretation is the 'correct' one is simply misguided. Everything depends on context. Dictionaries only get their definitions from widespread, established usages, usages that must be determined before there is a dictionary to jot them down. Also, any standard dictionary is absolutely not going to include niche meanings that we use in the gamer community. The back of the box is definitely capitalizing on the possibility of misinterpretation.

Consider 'non-linear'. What does it mean to call a game non-linear? After all, if we consult the dictionary, we're going to discover that ALL games are non-linear. They can't be games without being non-linear. But given the context of games, 'non-linear' takes on a different meaning. It refers to a non-linearity of a different kind than is common to all games. For instance, SimCity is a non-linear game, but Medal of Honor is not. Medal of Honor constrains all actions so that you're forced to follow essentially the same path, towards the same goal.

It's similar with 'dynamic'. Quite frankly, if the universe isn't static, then according to the dictionary, it's dynamic. And of course, we've got ships flying around and stuff. They're not just frozen in place. But Freelancer's dynamicness is almost entirely limited to small regions of space. Tiny pockets of the universe are 'dynamic' within themselves, but there's no intersystem dynamicness. You can't severely weaken the dominant power in one system and see another rise in its place. Nothing is transferrable, aside from your ship and reputation, from one system to another. Furthermore, everything that's dynamic WITHIN a system never manages to change the general state of that system. All of this is hardly a dynamicness that you'd want to advertise, as if that separated you from all those other 'undynamic' universes. Advertising it as a feature gives the phrase 'dynamic universe' a meaning above and beyond the typical dynamicness we already see in such games.

So I've got to agree that the advertising is being disingenuous, here. There's no proof of the matter on this question: we can only assess a probability of its being true or not. Given the context, the assumptions that gamers bring with them when reading the language on the back of a game box, I find it quite improbable that the writers were simply drawing upon a dictionary definition, with the belief that most people who would read the phrase 'dynamic universe' would interpret it the way you did.

'Twas a nice spin though, Stinger. You'd make a good lawyer.

Chips- Ty for taking the time to explain exactly why some of what I mentioned would be extremely problematic for the programming and resource management aspect of FL. It makes a good deal of sense to me when you put it in those terms. I just reformatted and haven't reinstalled FL yet but I will soon and will attempt to get the evolutions Mod up n running. Thanks for the offer of email correspondece. I'll definately look you up if I have problems getting it up and running. Your description of the changes made in Evolutions has me excited about playing and appears to be a "GREAT" improvement to the game. Looks like the Evolutions team has been very thoughtful about some realistic relationships between the factions and have put some serious man-hours into this MOD. Big thumbs up mate.

Chibi- Yup, it would be, for lack of a better word, 'awesome' indeed if the bounty system could be revamped and random UBER bounty hunters could be dispatched to hunt us down or Players themselves could also take the contract. It would just be flat out cool if had to seriously look over out shoulders or wonder if a swarm of Neutrals or Friendlies will suddenly turn on us because of an extreme bounty offered for our heads. And the variations of theme that could play off an element like that are enormous.

Bharuk- I'm glad to see someone understands exactly what I'm talkin about!

Despite how boring the game might be, i think its one of the sweetest MOD games out there and has a GREAT engine. Yes I just used all CAPs because I was yelling the world great.

How's the game boring? There's plenty of combat in it, and I doubt the controls could BE any easier to pick up. I'd say it's just a combination of bad luck, the lack of publicity (ever see a Freelancer ad. I have once. Just once mind. Admittedly, the advert was in fact almost the sole reason why I bought the game. I didn't even read any reviews.) and the fact that most people were out buying FPSs at the time and couldn't care less about a "geeky" space game.

I'm making record time!
If only I had someplace to be...

Corsair...please read what was written. It's been well stated why some aspects of the game are boring. There's no sense in rehashing it all. Fact is though, if not for the mods alot less ppl would be playing FL now. The modders have kept this alive.