HardWar ROCKS !
If we could combine the best of HardWar with the Best of FreeLancer...*DROOLS*


As for everything else you said...
Uh-huh!

Fly well,

Pyrate Dredd

Yea, I wish I could get HardWar to run properly on this Geforce 3.. I think that's the problem anyway. I keep getting Z-buffer errors. :-/ Buildings disappear "behind" slopes, but they're still there to fly into. U3.00 beta1 patch didn't work either.

Oh well. At least I have Frontier and Frontier: First Encounters in windows. They're freeware now, thanks to David Braben:

Frontier / Frontier: First Encounters
First Encounters directX exe replacement

Edited by - piotrr on 07-03-2003 02:39:02

On the piracy part, perhaps it doesn't totally invalidate their opinion, but frankly it's hard to respect the opinion of a person that steals the hard work of other people (and I'm not just talking about DA) and then says that its crap. Maybe they're not wrong, but how would you feel if you spent years producing a product and then some random person steals it from you, then tells you that its crap? IMO, you really don't have the right to judge a game that you stole. Hell, if you were entertained at all you got a huge bang for your money, considering you didn't pay at all. Of course, this is just my opinion, and whether it actually diminishes the opinion of pirates is defined by your stance on piracy. I know where I'm coming from, because I used to pirate games. I don't anymore... I hope to get into the industry one day, and I don't want some cheap bastard stealing my game, so I don't want to be one either...

Anyway, the mileage one gets from FL will definitely vary. To be honest, I've had well over ten characters, and most of them have gotten up to the advanced ships (Eagles, Titans, etc) and I'm still not bored. During the beta process it was often required to restart over when a new patch or whatever came out, and a lot of times I would go a different path, do something different to succeed. People who supposedly blow through the game in twenty hours (and blowing through a game in twenty hours is something rare as of recently) and have found "everything" and have millions of credits, well good for them. Now, why don't they delete their character, start over, and try pirating this time? It's definitely more challenging. At one point I decided to be a pirate when I had a Starflier, and I actually had to abandon the character a mere two days later, because I simply wasn't ready for how challenging it turned out to be. Yeah, getting a freighter and making a million credits in a couple of hours is easy. Why don't you try another career path? Go illegal from the start or something. Get a good ship and fly around with a group of friends and do stuff. Some of the best times I had were joining formation with somebody and watching TV while the lead pilot flew us around to a bunch of cool stuff.

The last time I played through the SP campaign, I did it in about twenty hours. That is from the time I arrived at Manhattan, to the very end of the campaign. I hadn't even explored anything past what the game requires, and certainly didn't have the best ship. I had went through maybe 30% of the game, so assuming I take the same amount of time to explore the rest, I've gotten around sixty hours out of it. On ONE career path. I might choose to go back to the end of the campaign and become a pirate or something. That's not shabby at all. Some people will get hundreds of hours out of it - some already have, and some won't. That's fine... At the end of the day, FL is just a game, and TLR is just a fansite for the game. If somebody enjoys it, then great, and we encourage them to stick around. If not, then that's fine as well. Just staying around to point out flaws, and rub them in... Doesn't make a lot of sense. It can be done, and the threads focusing on the flaws actually do have quite a lot of posts. The problem is they tend to get personal, sometimes by both sides.

Hmm, well I digress, and I don't really know how to end... Hope I've made my point

Some people get bored with a freeform world, others prefer it. Some want a linear storyline that leads them around, some want to be able to explore freely.

Nobody's wrong here......but some people do seem to have a problem with differing opinions. Admittedly, hearing what you want to hear is always best but being tolerant of other people's opinions is very necessary.

It kind of goes along with this whole X2 versus Freelancer thing. How about this: you can like BOTH games for what they are. Why do you have to be either/or? That's kind of limited don't you think?

I got on the X2 boards yesterday and it seems all they were talking about was how Freelancer sucked, how the Freelancer fans suck etc and congratulating "ex-Freelancers" to their site. Maybe I'm not dork enough to understand that, but these are GAMES......how about you buy BOTH and enjoy BOTH. Plus it's such a nerdy thing to do, get off your computer and go participate in a sporting event if you want competition like that......

Tach,

---

Maybe they're not wrong, but how would you feel if you spent years producing a product and then some random person steals it from you, then tells you that its crap?

---

When it first happened to me, I asked him to tell me more. Someone just saying "crap" tells me nothing, and I was seriously interested in what we could have done better. I actually got some good points out of that guy, but seriously, he should have been better off some command & conquer clone rather than Ground Control, which was admittedly more about TACTICS than strategy.

Besides, I already got my paycheck. He was stealing from Sierra, not me personally and he DID play the game. I didn't HAVE to feel insulted. For people who didn't even create the game themselves there's even less of a reason to feel angered.

You may not have the right to "judge" a game that you stole, but you can still have valid points of criticism. If you don't agree, you still don't have to take that criticism as an insult to your personal tastes.

(Then there are games I have worked on that really WERE crap, heh. Even got me fired once for saying so even when I said it very carefully. Some people just can't take criticism, I guess.)

---

Now, why don't they delete their character, start over, and try pirating this time?

---

I've suggested this to a couple of people, but personally I understand if you don't want to do that. Freelancer is ALMOST an RPG in that you do build up a reputation, a set of equipment you like, a playing style.. these things represent an investment in time that some people are not prone to drop or lose. You obviously came from the background that encouraged, nay DEMANDED that you restart the game frequently so you are used to that. Right for you, not for everyone, I'm afraid.

I can't really see myself throwing away my Morrowind character for example, even though he IS hideously powerful. I was planning on going on a rampage killing everyone on Vvardenfell, but in Freelancer you can't kill anything permanently. With my background I naturally understand why they chose not to allow that, but it still takes away from some of the wealth.

---

Just staying around to point out flaws, and rub them in... Doesn't make a lot of sense.

---

While I agree that that wouldn't make a lot of sense, I don't agree that I have seen that specific behavior much. I've seen members and moderators ACCUSING OTHERS of doing this, but I have mostly seen people who were displeased with the game and saying so. If you look at that kind of statement from a wider perspective, it's really no different from saying that you LIKE the game. Especially not if you say WHY you like or dislike it. If one of them is pointless, so is the other. I don't think it's pointless to say I like the game, because I like the exchange of opinions, ideas and, heh.. dreams.

But what I've seen so far has been people who immediately interpret it as, like you say, "personal". In a way it is, it's a personal opinion. Just because it's different, that doesn't mean yours is wrong. Just different.

Astral,

---

Some people get bored with a freeform world, others prefer it. Some want a linear storyline that leads them around, some want to be able to explore freely.

---

I am definately all for the freeform. Elite, Dungeon Master, Galactic Pirate, Frontier, Civilization, X-com, GTA, Daggerfall, Morrowind.. all those are games that have storylines but you don't HAVE to focus on it. I love that. In fact, ever since I managed to setup a server, I have been playing No Story mode because I don't want the restrictions. It's cool that Freelancer offers both (though I wish they'd kept the "No Story" mode in Singleplayer also) but that also means that some people will have a much shorter mileage with Freelancer than those who know how to appreciate the free form. They'll play the missions and have 70% of the game that doesn't really draw them in.

That's .. sad. I hope there'll be modding capabilities eventually. I want to add more pieces of equipment for myself, and maybe a few missions into the unknown 70% for the SP buffs.

Heya Per, welcome to the forums. By the way, quite a few mods are in developement, with new systems and missions not too far off.

i have been assimilated. Freelancer is an excellent game.

---

It's cool that Freelancer offers both (though I wish they'd kept the "No Story" mode in Singleplayer also

---

Actually, I think it's possible to mod this option - by changing things in the initialworld.ini files and in freelancer.ini (most important, by commenting out the "DLL = Content.dll, StoryLauncher, BELOW_NORMAL" line) you can get into an unrestricted single player mode without any story missions. However it needs some tweaking/playing around because you're shot into the final system you go to in the story when you start up the game like this. I'm sure though that if you dedicate some time to those files (and possibly a couple of others) you might find a solution to this as I didn't have much time to tinker.

What does this save? Well, resources, if you're not running FL on a strong system running both the server and the game kind of hogs things.

Astr Knight

Quote..
Some people get bored with a freeform world, others prefer it. Some want a linear storyline that leads them around, some want to be able to explore freely.

Nobody's wrong here......but some people do seem to have a problem with differing opinions. Admittedly, hearing what you want to hear is always best but being tolerant of other people's opinions is very necessary.

It kind of goes along with this whole X2 versus Freelancer thing. How about this: you can like BOTH games for what they are. Why do you have to be either/or? That's kind of limited don't you think?

I got on the X2 boards yesterday and it seems all they were talking about was how Freelancer sucked, how the Freelancer fans suck etc and congratulating "ex-Freelancers" to their site. Maybe I'm not dork enough to understand that, but these are GAMES......how about you buy BOTH and enjoy BOTH. Plus it's such a nerdy thing to do, get off your computer and go participate in a sporting event if you want competition like that......EndQuote

No, i'm sorry, but that is simply not true and is simply inflammatory to state. FL is discussed at length on the X board and a variety of opinions expressed, the vast majority in cogent, reasonable terms. In fact forum search on Freelancer AND Sucks reveals precisely 6 posts out of the hundreds on FL in the last three months, excluding those that say "XT sucks" in the 1st 200 characters which were turned up in the search and assuming all those which did not say FL sucks in the 1st 200 characters did.

We welcome any discussion of space games on our board. I've posted at length on FL, which I enjoyed enough in the demo to order an import version. We are an extremely tolerant board and our mods rarely close threads and certainly do not indulge in deciding whether threads have "run their course."

About software piracy. Some of you make it sound like people copying games somehow manage to steal the only functional prototype of the game from the creators and thus effectively stealing "the game". What they did was create a copy at zero cost for the company. It only becomes a cost (loss) for the company if the person intended to buy the product, but didn't because they already had the "warez version". Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that it is a crime, and it most certainly should be, but perhaps we should look at it for what it actually is instead of screaming murder because someone got a nose bleed.

Please don't take this as a "I support piracy" post. What I do support is discussion that deals with facts or theories in a logical manner, instead of throwing around exaggerations and over reacting.

As for open ended worlds and people finding them boring. Well, I think it's perfectly possible to create a very open ended world, while still catering to both tastes. Take a look at Morrowind. It's a very open ended game that basically tells you to do what you want and when (if) you feel like it, go see this character at that location. Very much like Freelancer in fact.

The main differance is that progress in Freelancer is locked unless I go see this character at that location (in single player). This is what I see as a small mistake. Calling the game open ended and then forcing game content upon the player seems strange IMHO. The reason is most likely (I'm speculating here) difficulty level control. They want the game to be challanging, and have control over how challanging it is. If you were allowed to roam freely and then, at the highest level and equipped with death incarnate, start the single player game, it would have been very easy without dynamic altering of scripts etc.

Bottom line: I don't think open ended games have to appear as being open ended to people that doesn't want them to be.

Just a couple of Questions @Piotrr

1. Considering you can't afford a new ship and you have to take the first mission with Juni to get one, how do you repair your rep enough to join with the pirates and use their bases?

2. Given that you can't get out of the manhatten system because the jump gates are locked out to you, what is the point of starting your career as a pirate if you are stuck in one system?

To be a game that is truly freeform, you have to start with a ship and then choose your own path from there.

Frontier and First Encounters got it right in that respect but FL seems to have forgotten that you anger someone by reneging after accepting a mission. It's not a good way to start since you may want to go off and explore, get some credibility with various factions and advance in levels before starting the story. Oh but wait, you said to Juni "Thanks for the ship now ark off" and there's not much chance of her asking you to do the mission later.

Also, there's this little problem with levels.
Level advancement: Mission
Hmmm. It appears you can't even get to level 1 unless you accept Juni's first mission. That's a bummer, you can't even gain any levels to get a nice big ship and some decent weapons, so what happened to freeform? No wonder you didn't make it as a pirate. B-)

A friend in the US bought the game and spoke to me on MSN last night. He's put me off the game now. He said there's a mission where you have to race against someone and it's almost impossible. He's tried it nearly 100 times and has not won yet. He's now stuck since the autosave still launches you into space at the start of the race so he can't go off and do something else instead. You can't shoot him, you can't disrupt his cruise engines and to top it all, you (a human) are flying a race around a twisting course with a computer controlled pilot in a ship with exactly the same capabilities as his (cruise = 300). It puts you at a disadvantage by forcing you to click on an OK button on a screen before starting, locking you into auto flight so you have to press space and then fire up the cruise motors while he whizzes off into the distance. If it let you organise the controls and make ready before you start the race, it would give you more of a fighting chance. He says that it's the end of the missions for him and he's only on level 9 (I think he said it was 9). Well, he'll never get to see the final outcome of the misison based game. So, as far as he's concerend, he may as well go back to playing Elite Frontier with trading, local missions and fighting off pirates.

If I wanted a spaceship racing game, I would have bought one.

He also said that while he was trying to fight off several pirates, some Bounty Hunters joined in and started to get in the way, complaining about being shot at when it was them who flew across his line of fire. He very soon became enemies of the Bounty Hunters because they didn't have the sense to keep away from a stream of plasma coming from his weapons while he shot at pirates.

I'm not really keen on the mouse flight (being a joystick jockey myself), it's too sensitive but if I turn the sensitivity down, it's hell trying to work on the menus for trading and equipment etc and it only slows down the mouse movement and not the ship movement, it's still like trying to control a bar of soap on a wet slide. you can't even use 'match speed' like you could in SL while you worry about where you are pointing your guns.

This news last night has really put a downer on my buying the game. If I'd gone out and bought the game, I would have been more than a little p****ed off with DA and MS when I got to that racing part, i don't like racing games and never will. I'm not a great pilot at best, I am the first to admit it but this would stop me dead in my tracks since:
POOR PILOT+UNFAMILIAR CONTROLS+SENSITIVE HANDLING = NOT A HOPE IN HELL OF GETTING FURTHER.
I may as well play First Encounters as well, I bought it years ago and still play it purely because it is a freeform and open ended game but it also had a storyline and I have played both the freeform and storyline.

I am not an advocate of piracy but I will tend to dl warez to find out if a game suits my preferences. If I don't like it, I'll delete it. If I do like it, I'll buy it. I am annoyed that the US got a release date over a month before Europe and I was planning to dl the warez version to play until it was released here and I could buy it but with the latest news, I don't think I'll bother with the warez version or buying it.



--
My idea of an OS is one that operates the system, not a self contained package of every piece of software ever invented.

Hey Wheatevo . Fancy seeing you here, but you ARE a little space jockey, just like me. Good to hear about mods, but I'll hold off the enthusiasm until I see, play and enjpy one.


taquinvol,

---

Actually, I think it's possible to mod this option - by changing things in the initialworld.ini files and in freelancer.ini (most important, by commenting out the "DLL = Content.dll, StoryLauncher, BELOW_NORMAL" line) you can get into an unrestricted single player mode without any story missions.

---

Very interesting. For the time being, I'm using the "No Story" savegames that were shipped to me with the PR Beta from Microsoft when I reviewed the game for a magazine. It would be cool if I could make my own savegame at the beginning of the campaign that had no story. At the moment I'm making do with playing against a Multiplayer server, because the "No Story" savegames are INSANELY unstable on the PR Beta release.

Tryst,

---

1. Considering you can't afford a new ship and you have to take the first mission with Juni to get one, how do you repair your rep enough to join with the pirates and use their bases?

---

Take the mission with Juni (because without a ship you can't go anywhere) and THEN turn bad. In order to repair your rep with pirate factions you need to first repair your rep with their associates, perhaps attack some of their enemies, although I'm not sure this helps. It's more important to up the rep with allies of those you eventually want to ally with.

---

2. Given that you can't get out of the manhatten system because the jump gates are locked out to you, what is the point of starting your career as a pirate if you are stuck in one system?

---

Personally, I find the storyline mode too restrictive, so I wouldn't go Pirate that soon in the game.. but can't you even use warp holes before the warp gates are unlocked? I don't personally know. Just because there are RESTRAINTS doesn't mean it isn't FREEFORM.

---

Level advancement: Mission

---

Yep, that's even worse. LEVELS decide what ships and equipment you can buy. In multiplayer this limitation is gone, even playing multiplayer with yourself. In "No Story" mode the restriction is still there, but you can take ANY mission, and then it's all based on how much money you have left to go until the next level, so that you can "level up" by getting money, sort of like in Multiplayer, but the equipment and ship restrictions are still in place.

---

He also said that while he was trying to fight off several pirates, some Bounty Hunters joined in and started to get in the way, complaining about being shot at when it was them who flew across his line of fire. He very soon became enemies of the Bounty Hunters

---

This is.. odd. I have NEVER accidentally become hostile with another ship in a dogfight. Never. It's even difficult to just get factions you hate (but who are neutral to you) to go hostile against you in a fight. But then again, I am very used to playing "friendy fire" games and I guess I might not even shoot if there's a chance I'll hit a friendly. I wouldn't judge the game by your friend's aiming skills here.

---

I'm not really keen on the mouse flight

---

Before I got the game, I thought the same thing.. but when I HAD the game, I realized how similar it is to Elite / Frontier / First Encounters, only instead of holding down the right mouse button to steer and firing on the left, you fire on the right and steer holding down the left. THAT did make me some hostiles in the game though.

What I disliked the most was that I can't inverse mouse. I ALWAYS inverse mouse. I'm a joystick lover, I'm a sim player, I even inverse mouse in 3D RTSs, 3D RPGs, FPSs and 3PSs. Now after playing Freelancer, I've been forced to NOT use inverse mouse in some first person shooters because my hand-eye coordination gets screwed up otherwise.

---

POOR PILOT+UNFAMILIAR CONTROLS+SENSITIVE HANDLING = NOT A HOPE IN HELL OF GETTING FURTHER.

---

Sounds like an excellent starting point for some practice to me. How do you know about the handling, by the way? I can't see in your post that you tried it yourself yet?

---

I may as well play First Encounters as well,

---

The JJFFE Exe replacement introduces joystick support and thruster control on the keypad. You can now fire up/down/left/right and retro thrusters independently.

---

I am not an advocate of piracy but I will tend to dl warez to find out if a game suits my preferences. If I don't like it, I'll delete it. If I do like it, I'll buy it.

---

This is what demos are for, and you don't have to break the law.

Wait a second Tach. First you say that people shouldn't pirate games and that it is illegal. Then you advocate being a pirate in the SP story mode? What's up with that??!!