well your only "forced" into the missions untill you destroy that rouge base in the beginning. after that you can do w/e the **** u want in that dinky "loaner" ship you get...........

-Nuff Said-
-Hell is only a place you visit when your not living, thats why when you meet me your in hell-

Spoon, X2 represents "the opposite extreme" from Freelancer.

Freelancer pushes more toward an interactive movie adventure game.

X2 pushes more toward a realistic flight, economy, and trade game.

I heard many "X" pilots complain that a freighter stuffed full of the same type of cargo they were carrying would dock right in front of them, totally killing the market. You can only experience the heartbreak of a "cargo snipe" if there's a real economic model underneath. On the other hand, find a "sweet spot" in the trade lanes that only you have the diplomatic skills to acquire and your only competiton is yourself.

At the "high end" of the game you can own fleets of ships, build your own factories, and basically play this "space sim" like SimCity if you really want.

If you fancy yourself a Combat Pirate ... err, I mean Combat Pilot, blow up a few freighters for loot, or better yet capture entire ships and sell them at the nearest friendly base. There's faction for everything, though, so wantonly pillaging everything is a bad idea.

The idea that I can do all, some, or none of these things, depending on my mood that day, is very exciting. All of this is available in the predecessor to X2, so there's no telling what more X2 will bring to the table.

Lastly it is always important to note, particularly on a Freelancer board, that there are things a Privateer player might be looking for that are better found in Freelancer than X2. The two games are not really competitors; they represent divergent evolutionary paths.

there techniccly is no market in freelancer sot here for your trade manoploy in one system wont be owned if someone brings a ****load of the same stuff ur carrying to the same system. Hence the freelancer trading motto should be "We can never have enough stuff, and you can never have enough money"

-I trade for a living, rouges piss me off, come get me, catch me if you can, i will leave you in the dust, or you'll die trying, take your pick.-

@Heretic Inc. We trade because we own.@

Lev, I'm sure somwhere there is an evil genius that runs the bad guys. Surely he needs some work done for him, no? The game should be balanced for any life you choose to live... It isnt much fun just buying a ton of goods, flying to another place, and selling them. If someone was giving me missions, and escorts, and sending me through completly hostile areas to achieve it, it would have more substance to it. People looking to be fighter pilots will have thousands of missions to choose from (albeit the same cookie cutter mission for each one... 4 years of development my butt) but a pirate is forced to roleplay his missions.