Uberlancer & The Future

I would like to get some things straight about this project, I have carefully read the views upon this ill-started initiative and I didn’t act or push the right direction so its at least partly my fault, which I take the blame for in the part I played. However, what happens next regarding this project and your thoughts on it are why I’m here posting today in the wee hours of the night. As such my grammar is a little out of whack so you’ll need to forgive me, or not lol.

My observations from being within the “inner circle” as it were of the Uberlancer project is that the original idea whilst not unique as it has been attempted with previous projects, was sound. It was just poorly executed and spun out of control, which is why I believe the main parties involved went their seperate ways.

There are some perceptions of this project that did hinder some of the enthusiasm of some involved, due to in no small part to the egos displayed in some of the advertisements and discussions involving the nature of the project, i.e; UBER lancer, Freelancer 2, the ultimate project etc.

This was never intended to be percieved as a mod to end all mods or to get players from other servers or to even compete with other servers, and won’t be from now on. I have my own goals and the general premise of where I want things to go from here is listed in my Intentions post over at www.uberlancer.com

I am aware interest in this project has declined somewhat, but I want to get us back on track and I would like to let you guys know where I intend to take things next, if you wish to counter point or challenge it please feel free to comment.

I believe the idea of a mod team, is sort of defeating to the reason this project started, I mean this is supposed to be a community edition of Freelancer, designed by the fans to hopefully, revitalise this dying game and rejuvinate its population of players, this was what I signed on to help create.

So in the future, no mod teams, everyone is as valuable as the next, except me because I am a god of all things (kidding) I understand the importance of co-operation and co-ordination and the difference between the two terms, mod teams are frankly uneccessary.

The second issue is single player modding.

Whilst Tvae has done an excellent job in writing a quite detailed and fleshed out story, we will not be doing any single player edits of any kind, infact it will be removed. It is simply too much work to even hope to have completed whilst any interest remains in this game.

Its not going to be Freelancer 2 nor is it going to pretend to be, it will be Freelancer: Reimagined or Freelancer: Revised, and no it isn’t going to be called that, I’m just putting across a point here lol.

The community over the years has opened up this game to us and we’ve come up with some amazing stuff that enhances this game beyond its original scope, we should show all of our advancements (where possible) in a community based product / mod that enriches the experience we have all had playing this great game. Hopefully to a point where gamers of old pick it back up and play for hours on end like those of us that remain do even when there are quite frankly, a lot more games out there that we play.

So whats next?

We always acted as our own entity, I think its time we joined the rest of our community and got involved with them, to start this we will join the FL community network and maybe it will get some more traffic to this and some interest so we can all pull together and create something fresh.

Personally as I recently suffered quite a hard hitting data loss (not quite as close as Lancer Solaruses 750GB data crash) I have lost everything I had, almost, I have the sandbox mod I created for Uberlancer which I can start again from.

I’m still gathering bits and pieces I need to do my job so over the next few weeks thats what I’ll be doing, getting my feet again

Its not that this project is competing with other mods for players, its that this project should help FREELANCER compete for more players. This is what I want to achieve.

I understand that many people may have conflicting views here, I expect this, and expect it in the future of the project, how can a project bring many to build an ark if they have conflicting ideas about how the ark should be built. It just doesn’t promote organisation, direction or focus.

To be quite honest I have no idea how to push forward without looking like I have all the answers, I don’t. I’m just a humble coder who has picked up a lot of knowledge over the few years I have played this game and would appreciate some positive and negative critique of the project moving into the future, even I need some direction and focus sometimes, everyone needs motivation.

I love this game and I would not be able to sit here and smile when I think about Freelancer if I didn’t try like hell to put my effort into (in at least a small part) attempting to rescue this dying game and bring some life back into it. That would enable me go to bed at night with a smile on my face, especially if in 2015 people are still playing this game because of something I helped to create or had a part in creating.

This is what I want to achieve, some of you may say its impossible, no one man can make that kind of a difference, and to be honest with some of the criticisms I have read (most of them well founded) any ordinary person would give it up as a project with a good idea but no follow through that will go nowhere.

If we all thought like that we would not have reached this stage of advancement!

I don’t intend to give up, I would like to see some heart in this endeavour, I’m making it clear to everyone here that mine is in it, you just can’t see it yet. Like I said I don’t have all the answers, I don’t want credit for doing any part of this project, I’m just trying to do my part in keeping this game alive and the general idea behind this project was and still is a way forward in that respect.

I just need some inspiration from some of the remaining souls of freelancer who truly love the game and respect its uniqueness to help me wage on with this, I am here to seek your advice and help, there are a lot of people out there more talented than me. I’m not asking you to help me do a mod, I’m asking you to help contribute your bricks to the foundation of this project, aimed at lifting freelancer from its grave into the light, until it becomes a house worthy of holding a community that will strive on into the future and not bicker about what room belongs to who.

Question is where do we go from here?

We tried to gather a community but we closed ourselves off from other sites, that will not happen this time, I wish to get involved with you guys and the first step is to get on the FLCN train, which I am with the updated version of the Uberlancer website.

Seriously, can someone come up with a better name for it than this? Uberlancer sounds big, a little too big for what I wanted to achieve, made it sound a lot bigger than it was, I know its going to be hard to break out of the perceptions that have previously befallen this project, but this is why I am here, to hopefully help steer this towards a more positive, focussed and fruitful route.

The questions I would like to pose to you, ALL of you, is where you would like to have seen and want to see this project go in the future, and if you want to be a part however large or small in some form of future for this game. I’m not asking you to be part of a mod team as they don’t exist now, they never should have!

What I’m asking / wishing / pleading for is for those of you that remain active in our community to come forward and help me / yourselves / everyone, nudge this game back out of the grave its in, even if its an occassional nudge, a small nudge, or a freaking mother nudge. We have a community of people capable of banding together to throw this thing out of its grave, we just need a few to actually start pushing so that others can realise the goal is not quite so impossible, not quite so hard if we could all just work together and hopefully they will join in.

Your comments, critiques, and suggestions will be essential now and in the future to the furthering of this, as you guys are the bread and butter of this game, I won’t please everyone and the thing is? I don’t intend to, if I gain one NEW player to this game I would consider the project successful. If its going to drive players away or further segment the community, tell me now with good and well thought out and logical reasoning, and I’ll nip this in the bud right here.

With that I leave you to get to this part and request the last 2 minutes of your life back, all I can say is “YOINK”

Zyos

@Roo:

Some people went thier seperate ways, others were pushed. Don’t shoot me for the speaking the truth. But that point must remain clear. You speak of Ego’s and indeed that is the truth. One Ego didnt like a decision that was made here on The Starport and because of it I suffered. As long as that is clear, lets move on.

I think with you at the helm of the project, you have a brighter future than before. You seem to have got a grip with what the project needs and needed all along. You seem to be steering it in the right general direction, which is a start.

I have to admit, over the last week or so, I have popped over to the site and view the forums more than I have in the last 7 months. Your plans intrigue me. Enough that I post from time to time.

Your summary of a poorly executed project which spun out of control is accurate. But you have a chance to save that and salvage what is left.

I wish you good luck doing so, I hope you can finish the project.

Roo

From your opinion I’m going down the right direction, I have no malice towards you and I’m mature enough not to resort to petty acts and arguments across communities, I need every person I can get, so you are welcome to help and give advice any time you like Roo, I apologise for the crap you’ve had to put up with, it was completely unnecessary and only served to drive a wedge instead of bring people together which should have been the ultimate goal of the project from the start. Like I said, this is not going to be the case with me being here, nobody should be pushed anywhere, except towards the goal of the project.

@DwnUndr:

Not having been a part of the Uberlancer project, I think I can give you some advice. Year after year I have seen bright, eager people try to start something with ambition. Sometimes it lasted for one post. Sometimes it lasted for months. But once a few left, so did the enthusiasm. Then the project died.

With one person having their heart in it any project can come to fruition. No matter how long it takes.

Never start a large project unless you personally have the desire to finish it alone if need be. If you have dedicated help, even better! ;)  Never start it if you don’t have that ambition.

The thing is, I plan on doing as much as I can, thats just the perfectionist in me, I’m a virgo lol. The aim of the project is to bring the community together, I myself am not a community, I’m every bit as important as the next person in it though, and in some cases one man can make a difference, but I’m not afraid to ask for help when I need it.

To which Friendly Fire, Lancer Solarus, Gibbon, Motah and others can atest when I’ve nagged them on MSN lol.

Thanks for the advice, an impartial and realistic opinion

@OPR8R:

as a person which many critics towards Uberlancer from its begining and as a person which is familar with organizing big projects i need to say that of course mistakes were done but the initial idea had lots of potential

Uberlancer showed many ideas and good concepts but lacked in straight forward comments about the future plans. And still an idea is no concept yet.

It was more a “tell us your ideas and we will see what we can do”, while i think it would have been better to think about what the entire project should look like and include ideas just as “measurement” to create the project.

Im project leader of currently 5 FL mods and one new game. I wouldnt have took care of those project if the main modder wouldnt have a presented a working concept. That the different modding teams of those 5 projects currently stopped working on their projects for a while to help me with CF is a different topic (but was neccessary).

That im also involved in countless other mods helping these modding teams atm also is neccessary but the most important thing is those modding teams have concepts which keep them working and which keep the community interested in their work.

Uberlancer might be a good project… a good mod but you need to rethink the ideas behind it in order to make it attractive to the community again and to get the neccessary people which have enough experience to help you

From what I can discern from your experience there needs to be a working concept as opposed to a laid back and tell us what you want approach.

Could you elaborate on this because if I create a concept, then it is just me setting the tone and direction of the project which is counter productive to a community collaboration, it then just becomes a mod like any other to compete with the rest, thats not what the project is about.

So if you can elaborate on your point that would be great, thanks for the input

@Roo:

That’s really good to hear Zyos. I am really pleased to know you are serious about this. You gathered together a small but loyal and keen community, and I hope they continue to support you.

I think its safe to say we all support your efforts and if I can ever be of help, please let me know.

Roo.

I’ll be sure to ask for it, I believe I was away when all that stuff happened, was a bit of a surprise when I got back and found you’d been removed from admin, these conflicts will be absent from now on, theres no point to them and no place for them in the future of this game.

The original way I had planned to code this was with the use of FFs FLDev and have every item or individual component template based to avoid errors, originally in individual and isolated xml scripts (basically would include all the relevant elements, weapons would have all ini entries including effect related entries) not only simplifying things for me and others with troubleshooting but allowing for a plug and play approach with items with minimal editing and or adding required.

System addons would be packaged in a similiar way, where possible to segment the code enough to almost drop scripts in some way to add extra items to a system, anything unique would just be an adjustment of whats there.

Any additions of new things was planned to be an enhancement over the multiplayer, features everyone has come up with such as the player docking for battleships, graphical enhancements, subtle gameplay enhancements like proximity dock to jump gates and planets, long distance docking would also work without dropping you out of cruise with the whole out of range thing along with many many other tweaks.

Some of the extra features I had planned were things to promote roleplay, such as the whole idea of the hypergates I had.

Just as an example, I had planned to have battleships and some high end freighters have a jump drive (just a piece of equipment) that allows access to hypergates, these hypergates would take you to “hyperspace” which is simply a system with slow radiation damage, in this system are exit points (invisible wormholes) positioned relative to the systems in the universe map.

This allows battleships or freighters to travel across a few systems at once wherever there are hypergates (obviously these will be sparse). In conjunction with a fully working player docking feature you could technically have a clan battleship with a bunch of fighters on it, travel through hyperspace and drop them off to fight another clan.

You could hide systems in hyperspace where it would require teamwork to find, say for example a secret system is quite a distance away from the central clump of exits, you could use a battleship, have a friend pilot another, give you his nanobots once yours are low, so when he blows up you can continue and get to that secret system.

Or in the case of roleplay, pirates would naturally hang at these hypergates to catch freighters, police would be there to help protect them, and theres an element of risk for all, especially with battleships involved.

With the above features you could say have non violent roleplay where say for example you have the cruise liner ships, you could theoretically get a newbie taking a trip to some remote system onboard a cruise liner and pay for this service.

There are also opportunities for clans to have private bases where no other clan or player can dock by using the dock limiting feature to restrict access to players with a clan license equipment mounted on their hull.

To access one particular base you would need a security pass you obtained from some mission where it was dropped in a different region of space, allowing you access to say higher level weapons or ships you can only buy via this method.

These are just a few of the ideas I had at the beginning

All of which I think add a twist of gameplay and some strategy along with some extra roleplay that enhances the game, I’m sure others will point out flaws, and thats why I’m here anyways, so point away

Not in the original freelancer, and thats the point, as a game it has progressed with our modding capabilities, and we just need to update the original freelancer to the point where it shows off our skills.

I’m not using normal FL as a reference I’m using todays mods as a reference to update Freelancer to be more than it was originally, true as in other mods, but where did I say it wasn’t going to be a mod? It is a mod unless I have the source code which I do not, the major difference is it will have a lot of features everyone has come up with, along with some twists, packaged in a way that allows people to customise it in a general sense without too much fuss.

Only difference is providing the submissions are sound, others will be able to contribute without the need of a dedicated mod team.