Freelancer, the future?
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The problem’s always the same: manpower. We don’t have enough skilled artists and programmers who aren’t already busy with other projects they care more about. “Freshening up” Freelancer is quite the task and what that word even means is entirely arbitrary and depends on who you ask. Some would be fine just upresing the textures, while others like myself would like to just completely redesign every single model keeping the inspiration behind them but throwing away the dated and ugly early 2000s aesthetic.
If you just want to package the game neatly, all you need to do is bundle a few of Adoxa’s plugins into an installer. Anything more becomes a matter of taste, and I don’t expect people to agree on what to do exactly looking at how wildly different the main mods are aesthetically.
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And I agree with you on that front, this is why I said the only conflict would come from peoples approach, I don’t mind rebuilds of existing assets, to improve them. Our CMP and SUR knowledge has come a long way, wrapping SURs to the shape of the CMP for example (I believe that was done anyways). Which wasn’t done with the original work. Unused hard points etc, there is plenty of work to be done.
I will admit yes I can patch the game all neatly into a portable folder that can be copied and pasted into multiple separate “installations” with ease. My proof of concept on Portable FL has demonstrated this.
I can even just put all the relevant patches together.
I’m not even talking dedication here. It could be as simple as a random person finds fault with a particular ini, puts up a fix and gets their name in the credits of the project. As little or as much as anyone wants to contribute.
No demands, it’s just that before the work is merged in, it needs to be examined before it’s put in. The project itself would be visible to the world via something like Github (or a custom/hosted alternative). Completely open.
As far as visual and aesthetics go, yes I agree it’s highly subjective, which is why I think I’d be going for add-on patches that people can apply to it instead of it being merged into the main project, unless it’s voted in by majority.
EDIT:
The only thing I am concerned about, is if ship models are to even be touched, the commitment would need to be made to do all of them, as every artist and modeller has their own style, they would have to match across the board. As long as that is agreed, then people can re-design all they want, keeping the same general design/theme as vanilla.Does that sound fair to you?
All I’m after here is discussing this, I’m not asking anything of anyone just yet.
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What I’m telling you is that you’ll have trouble finding people for this. There’s no bug left in the game that’s easily fixed. The INIs have been parsed and reparsed and reviewed countless times, the fixes are already all done.
The only novel work to be done is to package it all, or to build an HD version, and that HD version can’t exist because everyone who could contribute to it has a different idea on what it should be.
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I get that, and the first in roads can be done by just me technically.
Appreciate the feedback.
What about some form of consensus on what is added, a vote basically.
Provide the options for inclusion, and then let community decide on what looks best to get the general opinion, and then merge? Yes, I am sure everyone has a different opinion on what it should be, but surely they can all agree on what looks Freelancer like, and what looks different/unfitting?
As far as ini errors go, the last I checked (maybe the version of error checking was old at the time) there were still some errors present, any pointers on what the remaining issues are?
Are we talking as of Quickfix 1.0c the INIs are clean?
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Adoxa’s JFLP is the final iteration of all that, it’s got way more than Quickfix.
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Hey! I’m currently redo an old project. Making high res vanilla hud could be quite nice, I am using kHED, I already have done equipment icon.
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Here is the model :
And in game it looks great and I have to create UHD ready files, like that FL would be saved for this part.
And I forget to say that FL beta sounds are really high quality so I’ve started a rip but the files are encrypted and have a weird wet sound. Sadly, I can’t play the beta…
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I’ve installed it but can’t play…
Here is a screenshot of the hud update :
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Ive to agree with FriendlyFire.
The problems are to find people that would be willing to work on such a project and get the people to agree on something.I can only speak for myself.
I certainly have everything needed to contribute but my problem is a bit the motivation and also my responsibilty to the players of my mod.
I have to decide if I invest time here into vanilla FL (who almost nobody plays) or if I use that time contributing to further improvements on Crossfire (where at least the player I know have a benefit from my work).
You of course could say “the HD stuff could also be used on mods” but since my mod is HD already there is very little benefit for me and the members of my community.There of course is the possiblity of further improvements in quality… especially on 3d models. I totally agree with that.
Im just not convinced that more complex 3d models would make FL any better, especially since the OpenGL stuff that currently is in development probably could cause similar improvements without the need to touch every 3d model.As you can see, right now i am struggling with conflicts of interest and the question “what is worth being spend time on?”.
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That’s OK.
I’m working on this patch currently, that will both allow FL to be portable (in the sense that multiple copies of it can exist on the same drive, with separate save files and configuration settings, no install needed).
I would like to create a patch that includes everything needed to get the game working, right now it’s not always hit play and then jump in the game when you first download it/install it. You have to go looking for stuff, tweak this, tweak that a lot of the time. Hopefully I can package this in a way that allows us to get a little player growth.
I also am rekindling my extension of Arghs XML toolkit, where I will standardise and template scripts for ships, shields, engines etc in their own individual files. The step after that is to webify them so they can be generated via a form.
It’ll make it easier for folk to develop in FLMM at least, when they can just drop in a file, and change a few path elements and tweak existing stats. Takes at least some of the work out of it, and may improve quality of work, reduce errors etc.
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Interesting. A couple of months ago I decided to play Freelancer with Trinus VR. The cutscenes were incredibly immersive, but the gameplay was utterly disorienting. I played it 100% vanilla.
It made me wonder what could make my favorite game more relevant nowadays, so I came back to check whether the community is still kicking and stumbled upon this post.I’ve had that idea for quite a while, a few good years actually; to one day claim the rights for Freelancer, remaster it with all engine improvements the community created and new shiny models, then redistribute it on Steam along with the original game as a bundle.
FF and R8R have already said it all, the lack of motivation prematurely buries the idea. Money doesn’t seem like an option, we can barely even maintain the forum’s host with donation. Crowdfunding just won’t work because the game is far too unknown to attract enough people, especially with all the competition at hand.
I’d definitely be glad to spare some time and contribute to such a project any way I could, and later maybe start an actual remaster project with friends once they finish their studies. Hopefully, the community will remain active, or at least keep its data archived till then.
