Mon Aug 22, 2005 1:04 pm by blackhole
The reason microsoft and DA will NEVER make freelancer 2 is because Freelancer was a finacial failure. Granted, it was thier fault for improperly advertising it, but they aren't going to make a sequal to a finacial failure. It just isn't done.
On the note of freelancer 2, since we probably can't call it freelancer 2 without getting slammed for copyright infringement, what alternate "lancer" names can you think of? SpaceLancer?
IDEAS TIME! While we're waiting for our game engine, i thought that we could start solidifying what we want FL2 or whatever we call it. We can start creating content and decide on what we want FL2 to be like. One major thing is on the topic of randomized system creation. We have 3 options, one, its pure randomization, including the starting system (Of course, all systems have custom boundries and certain required elements according to the systems around it, etc.), Or we can have everything be randomized except the starting system, which can either be static or be chosen from varies seeds (pre-built), Or, thirdly, we can have all our seed systems randomly spread out across our universe, and they can be gradually connected through randomly produced systems. The starting system would be one of those seeds, randomly chosen.
Commodities, i believe, again are randomly generated according to the economics of the system and state or the surrounding systems. This brings up another point: Randomization, we're doing tons and tons of it in order to create a unique gaming experience every single time you play. It is not chaotic however, because it has rules, and it is intelligent. It randomly chooses from sensable possibilities, and you will not end up with an icey planet 50k from a star.
On the note of ship and weapon creation, many would think that this would unbalence the game, but in fact it works in our favor. The way we do it is that you can create any weapon you want...as long as the technology is availible, along with the resources. Because of this, coupled with our randomization, each new game will be completely different. You could even end up with a combination of resources and scientific endouvers that creates extremely powerful weapons. But this doesn't unbalance the game. Why? Because of logic. If someone finds a new weapon, most likely they will share it. At least with their friends and faction. Therefore, the other factions would learn of it and aquire the weapon through espionage. Then everyone has the weapon. If a player has a weapon and is not giving it out (the game detects if it is good or not) then every now and then he will recieve requests from the various factions, asking for the blueprints for huge sums of cash. If these fail, soon he will be hunted and attempted to be forced to give up the gun, and if THAT fails, he will most likely be declared an enemy of the nation and attempted to be destroyed. In this manner, we preserve balance extremely well. Additionally, because of, again, randomness, you cannot count on anything but logic. A station won't always sell the same gun. But if its by the same resources, then there is a higher chance of it selling that gun because it makes SENSE.
On to ship creation. Ship creation is very easy, and very easiely kept from being unbalenced. Because your in space (most of the time, sometimes you can do ground missions, especailly in newly colonized systems) the ship designs don't really matter that much. Except for stuff like weapon placement. You can create a very good design, but creating an ub3r ship is extremely difficult and only possible if you, again, have the resouces to do so. However, you will not be forced to give up your blueprints... usually. Pirate factions are always more likely to do stuff like that. The reason is that if a player sees your ship, they can copy it rather easiely. Having the blueprints wouldn't help much because if you don't have the resources, it wouldn't matter.
As with charecter creation, thats easy. We'll probably end up doing something like EVE.
On to gameplay, Just to make sure, i want to confirm that we all want to preserve the general idea of freelancer's missions, with a few changes (I.E. if you've been employed by the navy, the missions will instead give you a "Bonus" for doing them, therefore preserving their logic). And all those missions that you talked about wanting, we will have. Cargo, espionage, you name it, its in. I want to have a large variation of missions, so each type will have dozens of sub-types and possibilities. Not freelancers sad "Their running!" or there being weapon platforms. That gets old fast. The missions need to seem real, with the enemy doing unpredictable and sensable things. If their in an asteroid field, its possible they were expecting you and blow off your shields with a hidden explosive in a nearby asteroid. Or they have a base close by, and you end up having to blow the base up even though it wasn't in the job description (In cases like that however, they let you run away, since you didn't sign up for something like that. IF you do manage to do it, the appropriatly raise your pay for the increased difficulty). Sometimes the intel is completely wrong. Sometimes it might accidentally be a wild-goose chase (although these should be rare, as they can get frustrating if common). Maybe the guy wasn't ever there and all you did was blow up a clone. Each mission should be a mini-story. Some should take several gaming sessions to complete, with you unravalling the mystery of a dissapearing cardamine shipment, finding a corrupt official was behind it, then finding that you entered a trap, etc. etc. This greatly increases the re-play value because you can't ever be sure of whats going to happen. There are so many possibilities it would take forever to memorize them all.
On the note of stories, we need someone to create a storyline for us, the challenge being to have it hint toward freelancer without ever actually mentioning or including any content that would warrent copyright infringement. Pull out your fanfics!
Additionally, i'm rather certain we want to scrap tradelanes in place of a warp drive, such as EVE did, we can keep cruise for short distances and have a warp drive for longer distances, and then you would have a specail jump station to send you to another system, or discover a jump hole.
Another thing, Realism. We need to figure out just how real we want this game, and whether or not that realism will impede the fun factor.
Long post eh? Bring in the replies!
Edited by - Blackhole2001 on 8/22/2005 2:53:28 PM
One of these days i'll cook a random one up and show you. I promise you'll be blown away.
