Forgotten or not?

Skotty. wrote:
But game programming is too complex for a single person.

So true.

Not only is game programming too complex for one person, but there are very few teams who have ever gotten the balance as perfect as Chris Roberts and Digital Anvil did with their games.

We will probably have to wait for Why85 and Friendly Fire and some of the other student aces around here to graduate and form their own company before we will see another game with the magic of Freelancer.

The current game-makers just do not seem to know how to do it.

The current game-makers are interested in the biggest gain the fastest way possible, or the novelty stuff, so you get Gears of War on one end and Braid on the other. Neither bad by themselves, but… Space sims need love

FriendlyFire wrote:
Space sims need love

Exactly.

I think it is cool that a few of you are using Freelancer as a base for academic projects… that gives me hope that, someday, another great space sim may be born.

But I really miss Chris Roberts. He was the god of space sims, although he is only half-good at making movies.

I assume that, as you suggest, money is the primary motivator. Perhaps there is more money in making artistic movies than there is in making the best game ever (heavy sigh).

ACtually, Lancer Solorus is working at Galaxy Empire:
http://galaxyempire.com/

IIRC there is even an pre-alpha version released, I just tried it out for a few minutes but it looks very much like Freelancer.

There are also some other games in developening which are space-sims, such as Miner Wars, Jumpgate: Evolution, Black Prophecy, Naumanchia or how it is called and I am sure I forgot about one or two…

Jumpgate Evolution and Black Prophecy are my favorites!

BTW back to the topic: Freelancer was forgotted by Microsoft, but was never forgotten by us, it’s fans. There are some mods that continiue the story, but most of them are wrong and some are going the other way, forgetting about nomads and going to “lost human factions”. If you wanna continiue the story with the original characters and the Nomad secrets, search for EGF (Elite Games Freelancer). Its a Russian mod (pretty dead in the last few years), so it will require knowledge in the Russian language.
Also my mod “Knowledge of Sirius” will have a storyline which continiues the Nomad story, after they are sucked into the hypergate, and will involve the Dom’Kavash and another sector with aliens (the sector where the Dom’Kavash escaped to… its a long story). Read more at: http://www.moddb.com/mods/freelancer-knowledge-of-sirius

@Bas: All bloody MMOs. Can’t devs see the incredible popularity of moddable games like Half-Life 2 and try to tap into that for their space sims instead?

FriendlyFire wrote:
@Bas: All bloody MMOs. Can’t devs see the incredible popularity of moddable games like Half-Life 2 and try to tap into that for their space sims instead?

Popularity doesn’t pay in the long run, OK maybe at first but give it a year and the only people playing it are modders.

And seeing as modding is free, no one is going to pay a highly skilled team of developers to make an awsome game with amazing gameplay that can be easily modded when they can just spend half the time and money making an MMO which will pay them for the for-see able future.

The people who put these projects together don’t really care for love of the games, they just enjoy counting money, and unless some game developer wins the lottery, thats pretty much how its going to be.

FriendlyFire wrote:
@Bas: All bloody MMOs. Can’t devs see the incredible popularity of moddable games like Half-Life 2 and try to tap into that for their space sims instead?

The games like HL or HL2 is bored me.

You know when you can remember all location of NPC will appear and be activate, you will losing your interest about that game quickly. That is why i don’t want to play HL again when i done the final chapter.

AND, i must say that … After i feel HL is bored me … Actually, i downloaded and installed a mod (that is smod) for keep my interest in a shortly time… So i think that is why HL mod is so popularity LOL

Hehe… HL2… some of my favorite moments in my 32yrs of gaming… (well… 26…) are found in the final stages of that game, the newest SMOD is a work of art, easily letting you create skirmishes of your own that are NEVER the same stage twice (the version that uses CS modes).

Its all one great cashcow now there are only really a handfull of companies left that still (appear to) care more for the game than the overall end $ figure projection… wich they say… is crucial to financing development of any other game… or the next game. The “big” guys are now almost gone… as stated mr roberts wont be coming back, Romero’s making too much $ on phone apps… and carmack’s safely hidden away inside a rocket somewhere… Gabe is around… but he’s busy making the next “big thing” on steam… and his whole world is HL/STEAM, The other guys like (sir)Garriot & Mollunux (think that’s how its spelt) are still in love with Gods/Wizards and general… point and click…

I can go on… but the crux of it is… there’s simply no-one left to do it like they used to. Freelancer can possibly be heralded as an end of an era… with the X type space sim taking firm hold just after, and now EVE pulling massive numbers in, everyone want’s in on the MMO scene too…

As was stated in a previous post GE has the torch now, though still very basic… it’s written by one that knows what it is to be a space sim fan, and has a love for Freelancer possibly greater than myself… that gives me hope for the continuation of the … dare i say… lancer bloodline