Also speaking of weird things in the demo, how in the world do you adjust the ship's roll? I notice that whenver you turn, a little bit of "roll" is introduced into the ship's motion. However, I can't find any keys or control settings that let the user adjust the ship's roll manually. This is disconcerting to me, as in space sims I often like to adjust my approach to match the plane that the action is in. Any ideas?

I think the repetitive NPC talk wouldn't be so annyoing if they had used a less distinctive phrase. This "we have an understanding with the people who run this place" is just too specific and that's why it's so disturbing after a very short while. If they had used a shorter and much more common phrase it would have taken much more time until somone would have noticed that they actually say the same stuff again and again.

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"In all likelihood you're going to die out there. We're all going to die out there, but none of us needs to be reminded of that fact. So you die, you never existed." - Lt. Cmdr. 'Angel' Devereaux

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However, I can't find any keys or control settings that let the user adjust the ship's roll manually.

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Just hit the space bar and the ship will right itself, there is no way to do it manually though.

I personally don't find the repetetiveness of the voice acting all that annoying, it's a bit cheesy but not really that bad. I can certainly see that implementing it this way saved them a heap of time and money though. However one really neat feature I find with it, is that each individual charector remembers speaking with you and if you did a mission for them. Very cool.

Guys, don't foget that these are THEIR FORUMS, and they can do whatever they want to. Pesronally I'd be running around banning people if they were my forums, but that's just me.

whilst it's their forums, and indeed they could moderate it to high hell and still would be sorta acceptable LR is probably one of the biggest fan sites out there, and as such should give anyone who wants to find out about the game both sides of the argument, these boards seem to be more of a noticeboard than a discussion board, my point here being that once something has been considered in one topic the mods seem to consider that topic done with and look poorly on repetition of it at a later date.
locking all the negative reviews, even if some seem a little trollish (and if you think they are trollish go read VN boards for any game, the horror) seems to e closing down the one side of the argument simply because its the one you disagree with, people are allowed to dislike various parts of the game, and should be allowed to state this, you can then talk about it, and try and persuade em around to your view and visa verser, and ideally (ha!) one or two of the devs read this forum and may even notice this
progress cannot be made without some critiscism

At the risk of being accused of toady-ism or wotnot (I assure you I am not) I can honestly say I have only seen threads closed due to the obvious deterioration (sp?) of the topic, or have gone off topic completely.

I had a thread of my own closed yesterday because it was hijacked by a numpty who had also hijacked other threads with almost the exact same responses.

He may have had a case considering some of the 'quick' responses he received, but he didn't go about expressing himself very well unfortunately, and things went downhill pretty quickly. The mods here appear well versed in this type of downhill crap race, and they have managed to maintain a friendly atmosphere, no mean feat considering how little people consider others feelings when posting.

The geezer who hijacked my thread started throwing insults at me, for what reason I have no idea, and I'm glad the thread was locked. But I can guarantee that he would not have made those claims to my face.

These forums offer a great deal of anonymity and it's easy to get carried away, but there are people (yes REAL people) on the other end of that computer screen, with REAL feelings. They aren't just a bunch of
"Call me Trent"'s

<sig deleted by automatic censor>

Edited by - Chillum on 25-02-2003 15:56:54

I agree with Vagabond and disagree with the logic that a fan site forum should disallow criticism of the game it supports. While I say go nuts and lock posts that slam the game in an inflammatory manner, I don't see the harm in intelligent, constructive criticism.

Otherwise, you get the equivalent of two guys saying to each other, "You rock!" "No, you rock, man!!" "No way, you definite rock more!!!"

As Bargib said, this is a fan site. Fans come here because the like the game. If you hate the game or wanna bash it, go make a freelancer hate site.

It is a fan site, but they've offered this site as a place of information for a game they want to support, I assume to help get the word out about Freelancer. So people are coming here looking to get some info about Freelancer, possibly to make a purchasing decision.

Now technically it's still a fansite that owes non-fans absolutely nothing. But why not allow constructive, intelligent criticism? It creates, hopefully, a more well-informed and potentially more satisfied fanbase while possibly offering feedback to DA for future titles.

That being said, I played the demo for while last night and feel that we finally have a worthy successor to privateer.

Simple. As with all sites there is a bias. Majority wins, hell majority always wins even if they are wrong, especialy if mods agree with the majority. This happens on every forum, and every disccusion all over the world. All you can do is say I told you so later when they are proven wrong. Spam Microsoft/DA with you comments untill they ban your email., oh and don't buy the product. See not so hard( lol bet you buy it anyway). Everybody here knows there is a hell of a lot to hate about this game, but becuase they are die heart fans (shown by the years of waiting) they will say everything produced by the D.A. gods is gold, and anybody who says "thats wrong" will be shot, or in this case flamed..

Edited by - razar on 25-02-2003 17:19:45

No, I ROCK more!.....errr, sorry.

I've not seen any threads locked that hadn't run it's constructive course. There has been no attempt to supress negative VALID points in any of TLR forums, but what I have seen is a complete lack of tact and ability to debate by many of the threads that were closed. Stating your opinion as if it is FACT basicly just points you out as a possible A-Hole canidate.

Please don't act so surprised when a thread is being closed which had such content that it couldn't be more obvious and clear that it HAD to be closed. Whining and bickering about it isn't going to bring back your thread, nor will it help anyone.

Edited by - Eraser on 25-02-2003 17:24:26

The reason I've locked threads recently are these:
Trolls plugging other games
General comments of "Freelancer Sucks" with no redeeming arguments
flaming and bashing
Topic lost or played out and thread became spam

I've also moved many threads to more appropriate forums, espcecially spoilers. I keep a close eye on spoilers because the game hasn't been released and I don't want people to inadvertantly hit a spoiler without going to the spoiler forum.

There have been several games I've bought in the last year or so which haven't exactly turned me on. I'll go to the fansites and forums for those games maybe to see what I'm missing, and see if others are having the same issues. It's not appropriate for me to give a scathing negative review because, frankly, noboby will really give a damn about it, and it just provokes anger. I guess it's like going to someone's house for the first time and telling the owners the furniture is ugly and the dog smells. Maybe it's true, but common courtesy says don't do that.

In reading through the forums today (I have a cold so I'm home from work) I've seen equally negative thoughts about the story being too long, too short, too involving, not involving enough, not enough to do, too much stuff to find, not enough places to land, too many places to find, not enough NPC interaction, too much NPC dialogue, ad infinito. Simple fact is that this, as just about any wide release game, is made for a large market, and won't have everyone's particular peeve covered. There was more user testing in this game's production than any I've known. I know this because I went to Austin and talked with the developers, and while sitting in the multiplayer test lab next to Phil and across from Jorg, we discussed how many types and times of testing had been done. And, what was I doing there? Helping to test gameplay. A simple quote from the devs is that more of this game is on "the cutting room floor" than in the game. This was done to promote user experience, often at the expense of some dramatic enhancement that for some reason just "didn't work".

So, when the kiddies come in and troll the boards here, we're going to lock the threads, and Bargib will eventually give them the heave-ho. Well worded, intelligent posts expressing some sort of dissatisfaction will be address with well worded, intelligent answers. So, we're not locking every thread that isn't a glowing review of the game, just the stupid ones. Often a thread will deteriorate from original poster's thoughts, and I always feel bad on those, but running a tight ship here isn't about suppression, it's about keeping the site informative and friendly.


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

Edited by - Boscoe on 25-02-2003 17:40:41

Well said Boscoe

The fact is no opinions are being suppressed, to do that the threads would be deleted not locked. All I see is a thoughtful and conscientious administration doing what they feel is best for everyone (which is of course their prerogative).