Maybe both ideas work as alternative paths you can follow - putting your money into one massive cap ship which becomes your mobile base and has it's own tarding function bult in, or putting less money into a static base but then investing in a fleet of ships which becomes your trading platform.

Either way, I think the essentila point is that both the game and the universe already created can accomadate further development of what your character can do with his money and there really are lots of options DA could pursue. I relly hope thy do decide to pursue some of these options if they do an FL 2.

dmwnz and Rikaelus, I sure hope so... The game does show the potential as you say. And it'd be especially nice if these aspects can be implemented and edited via modding, which I'm sure they can be. It'd be cool to see mods that integrate those kinds of expansions.

here's a different thought on Improvements.

If you haven't finished the SP, then you won't understand this completely, but based on how the story ends, I suspect DA has been planning all along to either have a serious expansion or more likely a huge FL2. There's a map of a super gate system (this isn't really a spoiler btw, just something you see) the original aliens created, ala Stargate's stargate system . The way it was presented, and the way the story ends, all I could think was wow, they so setup the next part of the story.

I would think that as long as this game sells well, and we show MS we want more, DA should get the go ahead to do another, more complex FL to make us all happy.

I would add that as much as the new interface with the mouse control is wonderful, I'd still love to have the ability to use a Stick so I can pretend I'm a stick jockey


regards,

RogueOne

I agree with many suggestions. Just a couple of my own...

1. Able to buy a station. Where you can put more than one ship. Also have to manage resources, have the game decide what resources your base needs to stay operational then go get it.

2. Mining Guns. Guns that give you a high percentage chance to get resources from mining.

3. Better break down of kills. Right now its just FIghter, Freighter, Battleship so on. I'd like to see kills broken down by specific ship type.

Kills broken down by ship type and faction could be useful.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this yet:

Secondary Rep

This would mean you have a personal sort of reputation as well as your factional one. Suppose you'd once taken down an entire squadron of 12 rogues (yeah, that would be nice too, bigger squadrons); well, after than any rogues who encounter you would be much less likely to engage you unless there were at least ten or so. This would also "encourage" NPC's to sell you info (you could have a "threaten" button) and would occasionally try to bribe you to be more friendly with them .

Other Freelancers

I know it's already been said, but it does seem awfully odd that you're the only freelancer around. I'd sure love to see other guys cooperating or even competing with me on the same missions. Additionally, if you've discovered jump holes or derelicts (and haven't looted them) or visited a system that the other FL hasn't found/visited, you could sell him the location/info for your own credits, or trade info. This could potentially make such things far more valuable.

Harder Missions

We all want more diverse missions, but it would be nice if you could acutally fail them from time to time. Sure you can die, but I mean actually fail. Like on an assassination mission, if your target goes out of scanner range for more than 60 seconds, you fail the mission and lose rep. If this already exists, please let me know, but I've never failed a mission yet.

Real Quests

By this I mean other "story-like" missions, with full scripting, possibly voicing, and everything else like a story mission, but not essential to the story. However, they would perhaps increase you one level, give you a unique item, give you a system map, give you a unique ship, or some other non-money reward. Perhaps you could even choose your reward from a list.

Character Choosing in MP

They did it for NPC's, why can't you choose your own character head, body, hands, etc?

Hehe, I've mostly spent this thread just agreeing with other people's ideas rather than coming up with my own...

But admittedly, I did think of one similar to yours, DataDroid. After killing so many dozens of Rogues in Liberty, it started to make little sense for them to continue to come after me - at least in such repeatedly piddle squadrons. It would make em seem far less stupid if they knew when to run away. They should either upgrade the level of their attacks with bigger squadrons, improved ships, or weaponry (or all), or they should just plain face it that they're no match and leave me be. It'd be pretty rewarding to know that I'm feared amongst factions. And being the receipent of bribes...Well shoot, I'm more than sold on that one, DataDroid.

And, uh, I've actually failed a mission without dying once....I, er, sorta neglected to tractor a necessary object, and while fighting remaining enemies, I accidentally smashed it with my ship. So...provided you're stupid enough, it IS possible.

A player stash for a ship or two like every other Role-Play game has. This allows the player some minor control over how to play the game, even when that idea differs from the game creator's ideas.

The game is more enjoyable from Turret view, but fighters don't have enough turrets to employ this fighting style effectively. Why can't the SP game be completed in a freighter? Or why can't the player have a turreted corvette class ship?

I won't say the "J" word.

Belter John

* More ships

* More weapons

* More "device" type items you can add to your ship for various enhancements. You would have 1 device slot and you'd have to pick what you installed: more speed, more scanner, etc.

* More mission types.

* Epic battles in MP

* Random attacks by NPC fleets on planets and bases. You could choose to help or defend.

* Ability to destroy bases, capital ships, etc, in MP (they would repop of course).

* Have your actions APPEAR in the news, along with your name. If you play a key role in destroying a base or something, it should be in the news for everyone to read!

* For huge cost, the ability to build (or buy!) your own base and then customize it (hire people to work there, etc).

THINGS NOT TO CHANGE:

* Keep mouse control! It rocks!

* Keep the fixed economy! Don't listen to the small but vocal minority who want a dynamic economy. There are so many products and so many bases, it would be a HUGE PAIN IN THE BUTT if prices fluctuated. Furthermore, the NPC freighters carry 800,000+ units of each item. How can one guy's 60 cargo hold ship affect prices.

* Forget hireable wingmen. After SP, I have friends to be my wingman!

This is something I thought might be interesting but I dunno if it would work.

In some missions you have to capture people. What if when you blew up a ship there was a certain percentage chance of someone escaping in an escape pod which you could then tracter in and maybe hold him/her hostage and ask for a ransom, which would lower your rep with that faction or maybe deliver him/her unto his/her enemies to get a better rep with them. Or if you owned a capital ship, you could interrogate people for information on certain things. Or perhaps in MP you could capture other players and demand money for their release or something.

Their illogical pride is a handicap on their life expectancy

Edited by - fish4198 on 12-03-2003 10:43:42

1. Avatar customization.
This doesn't seem to be much of an issue for the rest of the community (at least, I've seen no discussion of the topic), but since this game uses the 3D engine for all its cutscenes this really is a feature that should have been considered. The option to choose from a variety of hair and clothes styles and colors. At the very least, let players pick from the variety of models already used in the game.

2. More Interactivity On-World or On-Base.
ESPECIALLY in multiplayer. If another player and I go to the bar area on the same world/station, I'd like to be able to see the other player, sitting at a table or something. Clicking on him sends him a chat request, and upon accepting a two-way chat window and trading screen is opened or something. This would really work nicely with custom avatars (even a choice of genders). Fact is, the world areas are fully-built 3D environments pretending to be FMV cutscenes, and I think that's a hideous waste. Let me walk around the bar! Let me pace the hanger! Let me at least look around a single STREET on the planet! And let me see other players who are doing the same!

3. A Frellin' RADAR.
I don't think this is an unreasonable request. And I don't care how simplified DA wants the game to be, a space fighter game with no radar is a BAD idea! I do not and never will trust the computer to decide what contacts should and shouldn't go in my targeting queue. It kills my situation awareness; how am I supposed to keep track of the battle when I can't see what all the other ships are doing..? I want to be able to see every ship around me, just like in every other space sim EVER MADE.

4. Multiple Ships and Real Estate
Like just about everyone else, I think that it was fairly short-sighted to include no option to own more than one ship, or to purchase a hanger of some sort for yourself to keep them in. Hardwar was doing that and doing it well FIVE YEARS AGO, why would it be so hard to do now? If we were to get REALLY derivative, we could even set our hangers to sell goods to NPCs who dock there, and charge money for repairs. I simply don't believe that this would hurt gameplay or the game's "simplified" style.

5. No More "Nanos"
This one's just a pet peeve. Nanites are the most pervasive sci-fi cliche to appear in the last decade and I'm just sick of them. They're the latest deus ex machina of science fiction, able to do everything from instantly healing a terminally ill patient with half his mass blow away, to constructing an entire space station in a matter of minutes out of nothing more tangible than "space dust." I'm thoroughly sick of them. Lead character died? Revive him with NANITES! Space ship crashed and burned and you're stranded on a hostile world? Just make some NANITES whip you up a new ship! Midlife pains got you down? Girlfriend leave you? Just get fired? NANITES will cure all your ails!! NANITES take a dull party and make it better! NANITES make you popular and heal all social wounds! WHY did the DA crew think we needed nanites to fix our space ships? What was wrong with more traditional and conventional "Modular Repair Systems" or "Maintenance Robots" or something classy like that? I could go on into a full 10-page discertation of why nanites will never be able to eat ships into dust, magically recreate whole limbs or instantly rebuild entire mechanical components, or (most importantly) repair spacecraft, but I'll spare you my extended soapbox. Suffice to say, nanotechnology will one day be an invaluable MEDICAL tool in the field of celular surgery, but will never be the amazing catch-all-be-all godslayer technology games like Deus Ex and crappy scifi shows like Star Trek make it out to be. So DEAL with it! And to all you scifi writers and game makers: suck it up and find a better explanation for why your lead character has sooper-powers than "well, he's got them NANITES in him!"

6. Server-Side Mods
This was mentioned before at least once, but the capability to "force" the server's INIs into all connected clients would be really neat. Dedicated, persistent servers sporting their own, original and exclusive systems, for example. And perhaps an Unreal Tournament- or Q3-style method of storing, arranging, and selecting mods. I don't think this is unreasonable. Too many game companies out there don't seem to understand that the rason so many of us PC gamers game on PCs rather than consoles is that PC games can be ADDED TO. I don't want a static game, I want one that will change as time goes on. And don't hand me that "dynamic missions" crap, you know exactly what I mean. Freelancer was made to deliberately discourage modification. That's fine for your latest xBox release, but for a PC game in the new millennium it's irreprehensible as far as I'm concerned.

7. "Revised" Ship Designs
Count me among the dissidents who are less than impressed with the majority of the ships he's so far seen in Freelancer. A select few of them are truly impressive and really evoke that "Oooo, I HAVE to get that ship!!" response, but most of them just leave you scratching your head. If it was really that hard to come up with so many good ship designes perhaps they should have concentrated on quality rather than overwhelming, completely redundant quantity. I'll take a half-dozen really COOL looking ships over three dozen flying cardboard boxes.

8. Wingmen
So you're a Freelancer. It's a given that you can't be the ONLY Freelancer in the galaxy, right? An option to hire a few extra hands would be a boon. At the same time, they'd take a REASONABLE chunk of each paycheck you get, which encourages you to take on missions of higher difficulty in order to turn a profit. Wingmen with their own ships cost more but require nothing from you to function (meaning there's much less to have to micro-manage), while the cheaper, ship-less pilots you hire you'd also have to provide a craft for (giving you complete control over there equipment, and meaning that if your wingman dies you loose one of YOUR ships). Some basic wingman commands will have to be implemented.

9. Different Ships Should ACT Different
I don't care how "simplified" DA wants their console game masquerading as a PC game to be, I just don't think that a low-level freighter should have the same maximum speed, pitch, or yaw that an advanced fighter has. Period. This places more of a burden on squadrons, who will now have to consciously slow themselves down so their slower members can keep up, but that's far from rocket science; anyone who can't figure something that basic out hasn't figured out how to install the game anyway.

10. Better Missions
I should preface this by saying I'm still working on the SP game. But so far the only types of missions I've seen are:
* Kill Everyone at Waypoint
* Kill one guy at waypoint
* Kill one guy at waypoint and swipe his cargo
* Blow up a base (kill a really BIG guy)

That's the best they can do..? What about cargo deliveries? Ferrying sensitive documents? Charter flights? Patrol missions for the police? Retrieving mysterious packages left at secluded drop-sites? It's hard to believe that these would be too difficult to implement...

11. Side-Quests
A term borrowed from Neverwinter Nights. Marco brought this up before: how's about some optional extra quests that you can discover and embark on completely detached from the main story, but with a specialized reward of some sort for finding and completing them?

12. Real-Time Economy
Once upon a time, this was going to be the most important feature in Freelancer, a galaxy-wide dynamic economy dutifully calculated from real-time supply and demand. Deficiencies in one area would cause prices to rise. I see NO evidence of this in the game; prices seem fairly stationary, they just vary from place to place. Again, Hardwar was doing this FIVE YEARS AGO, why can't it be done here?

13. Return of the Cockpit
Can I please have a first-person view? Sometimes I prefer not to have my field of vision obscured by my own ship!

14. Self-Paced Story
The force story system stinks. I don’t like being forced to advance the plot at a given point in time (and punished with annoying flashing messages every ten seconds when I refuse). If I want to spend the next six months earning tons of cash in Bretonia why can’t I?

15. Joystick
What, you though I was going to leave it out?



I actually happen to think that they got weapon variation about right. I also like the mining concept and the turret control system. Heck, even the mouse controls are impressive, though certainly no excuse for the exclusion of joystick support.

Freelancer is a good game. It was supposed to be a GREAT game, though, and after FIVE YEARS of development, some of these omissions and "dumbed down" features really are inexcusable. I certainly hope the industry at large does not decide that this is how space sims should be made from this point forward. This is a CONSOLE GAME, which I have no taste for.

Still, a good game.




---
- S Douglas "Draegos" Thompson, deceased
"Lots of people have died[! Lots of people have died, and then gone on and done really, really well[!"
- David Lister

Draegos, I hate to break this to you, but more people are happy with the MOUSE interface than "die hards" who want a joystick.

Also, the overwhleming majority of folks don't want a dynamic economy as it would be a tremendous pain in the butt. Further, as I already explained, it would make no sense. Have you ever scanned one of the big freighters? They carry 800,000+ units of cargo. Your 60 units is going to have some noticeable effect? That is like saying if you sold 10 shares of MSFT tomorrow, the price would plummet.

As for all your other ideas- Excellent and I agree almost completely with all of them.

I understand english well, but I speak very bad. Ups!

Dear friends!

Lets talk about potentially Great game - FREELANCER.

My acquaintance with spacesims began in 80s - with Spektrum Elite and on she... ended! Only, Elite caused the feeling - litle bit more - and - "new real world" - on the screen of the computer.
15(!) years passed...and here it is, finally, the game, in which all that was in Elite marketed - endless planets, and burning sun, and pirates, and trade, classes, spaceships and etc. And what music and voices!!!

But here is one trouble. "New real world" has not approached. Why? Elite - ok - short resources, graphics, money. And WHAT PROBLEMS now!?

I have examined all forums - many people likes FREELANCER, but only for a little time. What interest, having 38 level and the best ship to travel in space!? Why?
The Majority discontented (in Russia rating of the play 6.5 from 10). Interactivity? Where it is!???

Carefully, having examined information (dear corporation Microsoft), I have realized - we have single (nearly console) variant of future online-game with active, constantly changing world. Microsoft will go the correct way - they rolling base version and then having made sure in wealths (potention?) of the game - release the extended variant (such as X-tension, remember?). So, do not hurries with estimation...

The Problem of a gamer now - tell the developers WHAT WILL MAKE THE GAME EPIC ! So, I read many opinions (on russian fan forums) and adding them - I offer You - list of the changes and additions, which will allow FREELANCER to leave on really new (and fantastic interesting) level!

If the following information is interesting for you - please tell it to developers! Who knows, maybe we help! And maybe we are near the birth of the masterpiece.

Additions, which possibly go as PATCHES (for single version!!!):

1. docking manually (as in old, good Elite) - not all planets can afford the splendid high-tech modules of the link-up, ye?

2. docking for money (or refer to point 1). Business, my dear pilots, business

3. The Button "SOS" -possible where the button - "hail". (They ask me about help - shall we help?)

4. The Priority System:
A) They attack you and suddenly...going away (more important deal)
They attack you. You link with them (with walkie-talkies) - "hey - lets make love not war" (or something else). Ok!!! Or not ok!!!....

5. Missions in space (not only in bars...)
A) Somebody gives you mission in space (task depends on Your status, level)
Accidentally

6. Interactive change the prices on goods
A) when you bring many goods to the planet
in a case of politic changes (the upheavals, restrictions of the import - "see news!"

7. Possibility to make a team (not only you). I have money and I want to have a team of rangers, ok?

8. Possibility to buy any ship in the game (super battleship)

9. Possibility to destroy any building in game (station, big spaceships etc) It depends on your weapon. OK?

10. In bar:
A) In independence from status some people can offer the cooperation (money solve many problems even with enemy, yes?)
Agent-provocateurs give you the missions (i.e. send you (to the trap)...to death!)

11. Cockpit:
A) Not - "head in space" (where the equipment is?)
Take away laser flashes, overlaying half of the screen!!!

12. Balance of power - strange, when in one space system - all ships - ate move and bad shoot, but in other - monsters-murderers

***
Additions to the second version of the game (FREELANCER2):

1. Different docking modules, depending on the wealth of the planet (now - all dockings SAME (Microsoft monopoly)
2. Possibility to sit to the planet - directly - without any dockings (îîîîî .......well!)
3. Possibility to use Sun Power(for instance, as in Elite - to change your batteries)
4. Possibility to be the member of clan (police or hacker etc)
A) different Ranks (captain, general or mini hacker, super hacker etc)
Their own bases, channels of information

5. Possibility to capture big ship (we get into ship and....its yours my friend)
6. Possibility to destroy(or no!!!!) planet!!!( with weapons of mass destruction)
7. Possibility to escape (with escape pod)
8. Possibility to create your own economic system, control trade ways
9. Possibility to build your base in deep space ..
10. Possibility to take power in all galaxy (AAAA!!!) Im - the KING!
11. Possibility to make something from equipment i have in my baggage(hold) (for instance, weapon, ship?)

***
I think - this changes and additions are not a problem for Microsoft and modern computers. So............ - we have a chance.

Respectfully yours

Prollyalready been said but...

Purchasable Battleships (like those orbital stations that are like half cylinders) and the battle ship weapons, shields, etc.

Maybe purchasable Gunships?

Take over an unclaimed planet?

make ligh fighters the fastest...heavy fighters second fastest, very heavy fighters third fastest....freighters fourth fastest, gun ships, 5th fastest and battleships slowest....(but give them like warp of somethin like that)

Fighter cloaking like in SP (reinland valkyries)

ummm.... thats all i can think of....