I got an idea keeping this game alive

Im all in favour to discuss opinions and options public, no doubt about that.

What I ment was the actual coding, and how to acomplish that. If 100 people start to get involved in that there is no end to it, cos everyone has its own idea’s on how to get to a certain point.

Remember its a vast project, if people realy like to get involved they realy need to put dedicated time in it. Its a vast project and needs some sort of management. Im sure there are people around here who know how to lead a project, if not i will happely give support to someone who is willing to do such a job and help him in setting up things and get communications roling.

OPR, no offence but u dont seem interested in the idea,so dont bother posting here, other are however interested and are looking to get this to work. that will require a place for all to talk and discuss on equal ground,no advantages,no disadvantages

what are we talking about now?

i thought the initial idea was only a video?

No the Initial Idea was a mod, than it became a Video, and now it became a mod again … its nothing to get confused about ::)

I see… but you dont need to make a mod for that.

Like stated earlier, every mod community could send in a couple of movie material and in the end, we have a big vote of which clips to put together.

Indeed. I think a video showcasing a rough sum on a mod-by-mod basis would be a great way to show that the Freelancer community is indeed still ticking. I was discussing this with Why485, and one issue he brought up (and a valid one) is how much airtime each submitted mod gets in a community video. YouTube has a max length of 10 minutes, and the human attention span the max length of rougly 1-5 minutes. =P

Also, an issue of which order the mods are displayed comes up as well. I think it could possibly be done on a first-come, first-serve basis, or an alphabetical basis. As for the airtime per mod… Why485 and I came up with perhaps 45 seconds per mod? Sure, it’d be tough to sum up most mods in 45 seconds, but it’d force you to be concise and would be best at keeping the causal passer-by interested in the video. Thoughts?

Or we can do themed videos. Say, one vid is “Combat in FL” and showcases all sorts of combat sequences in all kinds of mods.

Also, I think it’d be a lot more interesting to make short 10 seconds sequence and swap back and forth mods if necessary. It’d make the video far more dynamic and would make mods only show short bursts of their best stuff, instead of long winded sequences of okay stuff.

However, I’d like to see a community mod. I just have no idea how to tackle such a thing.

Well for example, for a “patchwork mod” which is a very successful project if accomplished works like this:

You need a head coder, who, however, is bound to certain “rules” that are aggreement-based, for example:

• Original FL universe must stay, slight altering of systems (defined number of extra bases per system, extra commodities/equipment/ships allowed) allowed
• A mod corresponding to a different-to-FL universe has its systems in one certain group on the navmap (mod-world), may link to the FL systems as it should (to avoid -direct- mixing of for example X-Wings and Starfliers)
• Head coder must not give extra weight to his own contributions
• Must showcase his work every week (or so)

Of course the head coder is free to build up a team around himself, preferably from various mods (this should be made compulsory in my opinion)
Mod development communication on public forum boards as well, that everyone may visit and showcase their ideas (“I want my mod-world linked to northern Omicron Alpha, if possible”)

Naturally certain restrictions should be applied to the mod itself as well to make it look spaceworthy, see the first paragraph for some, but others as well, that are more for the form of the mod, for example:

• Linking to FL Universe: JH in FL Universe, any object in mod-world
• Hiding of mod-world systems from the navmap(?) ==> allows for more systems and a more complex universe, whilst not overwhelming the universe map.

Long story short, putting all my management studies to work, I’d say the safest way of building a patchwork-mod is to keep original FL, and give each mod-developer a mod-world area in space, that is linked to the FL world via 1 connection each. (For example FreeworldsSystem1 to Edinburgh; WTSWorldSystem1 to Dresden; PlasmafireSystem1 to Hokkaido; etc. I just used the names as examples of course) ==> This provides grounds for everyone to work with, and an easy system of travel to navigate for the player. Everyone’s world is as big as the amount he wants to contribute. With the navmap hidden this allows for a fairly discriminationless mod.

Weapons/equipment balancing should be the primary job of the modding team, and NOT changing the work of the contributors. Of course they will need to be consulting with the contributors on a regular basis.
Choosing the head coder should be via a forum poll if possible; and people need to put aside their “if this guy is the coder I’m no way helping you lot” and be proud of being part of this project. This is a serious question as you need someone with good balancing skills to do this job. I, for example, have learnt mostly how FL works, but have made no releases, therefore there is no real trust in me I think. Also, I can’t do anything about FLHook, that is applying functions to it, which is vital in the case of this project.
Whatever the case, the person of the head coder must remain neutral no matter his forum nickname. It is utmost ethic that he does not proclaim himself as the author of the mod and does not modify other people’s contributions, only after consulting with them about balancing requirements. He is only the “nuts and bolts” holding the machinery of all the modders together.
The possibility of mixing equipments from various worlds only makes the mod more fun to play, in my opinion, and is therefore out of the question; balancing, however, requires a mastermind.

Well, FF, I do have a serious idea how can a community mod be tackled, as you can see. My greatest problem is that I personally feel I haven’t the reputation that will encourage others to join in, or the time to sort out the balancing issues. Not to mention FLHook. And the other most critical part: the contributors. Who will add?

angel of death - im very well interested in community projects… if they are not a waste of time

you have to understand that the fl community had several projects like this already…. I was one of those which initiated the openlancer project and pretty soon i realized that it will fail and the same I did say about Uberlancer
in both cases i was right

ideas are no concept yet and a bunch of ideas dont make a good mod yet
every successful modder knows that you cant use every idea… and you cant make everybody happy coz you have to stick with a concept in order to create a successful mod

ive seen too many ppl which wanted to build “THE FL MOD” and ive seen them all failing because the players dont want one mod… they want a good variation of many mods with many themes

Well seeing as some use Hook and some use FLAC you can dismiss the SP mod project for obvious reasons. Unless you decide to go down the free route where servers who use FLAC will not be able to participate.

Keep it simple and get some videos in.

It’s nearly always easier said than done.

As people are probably aware, a joint community mod project is bound to alienate some people, whether intended or not.

This is why I think it’s a bad idea to go into such a thing and call it a ‘Freelancer communty’ mod. It would really be in essence, the Starport’s mod. Simply because it would come from a bunch of people who visit this website. it does not neccessarily include everyone in the Freelancer community. No disrepsect to the Starport.

If a project is embarked upon it needs strong leadership, not just by one person, but by a group of people. You really need to lay out exactly what you want the mod to achieve first, and with very clear guildlines on how to go about doing it.

A video would be a nice start though.

Personally, I don’t think making a single “additive” mod is the best approach.
For one thing, as OPR8R put it, it would be impossible to decide on the features that would make “the” FL mod, especially since many features clash with one-another (you can’t have two different gameplay styles in one mod).
Second, we already have a lot of ace content floating around, and I think the main thing that needs to be done is to somehow showcase it outside of the current Freelancer community - not make even more content (combining mods and making them play well would be a feat in and of itself). This is the main reason I think a community video briefly showcasing participating mods would work, because it could then be posted on general modding sites (like ModDB) and may (or may not) do well to attract some attention back to FL.

@FriendlyFire:

Or we can do themed videos. Say, one vid is “Combat in FL” and showcases all sorts of combat sequences in all kinds of mods.

Also, I think it’d be a lot more interesting to make short 10 seconds sequence and swap back and forth mods if necessary. It’d make the video far more dynamic and would make mods only show short bursts of their best stuff, instead of long winded sequences of okay stuff.

Quoted For Truth. I think this would be a good way in keeping the casual passer-by engaged in the presentation, especially with themed videos. That way, they can view what the want to see - not everyone wants to look at pretty flybys of systems and ships, they just want to see stuff explode (and vice versa).

I’ll do a little homework if I have some free time and see what general-modding sites may be good to reach out to. ModDB is an obvious choice (Discovery already proved this), but I’d like to be able to reach more than that.

this will be short and ill expand on it when i get back(School)
we dont need to make a mod,it would mainly cause chaos.
if you were gonna go with a video,
then ur gonna want advertisement
the big game sites(gamespot,ign blah blah)
they got forums etc u could easily post a announcement on, have a link to the videop or just rely upon the announcement alon and see what happens

Hers’s a thought – the head of Stardock is talking about resurrecting some of the old games like master of orion – how about someone from the Modding community with " Gravitas " approach them and show them the great things the community has done and see if it interests them – at very least try to get some press coverage –
heres a link to the article on ars technica –
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/11/17/stardock-wants-to-bring-you-star-control-master-of-orion

its still hard for new players to find the threads where its explained how they can connect to FL even if its written on so many forums

True, but why should ppl register at TSP if they dont know that FL MP is still alive? (Yeah there are some but very few - How many new players came to SP till yet??)
Like I wrote in the other topic; -> SEO seems to be the key.

At the moment, and deadly serious, the FL community is seperating into little groups, some go with mod 1,others with mod 2 etc etc.

Not only, but also the modding, but also the players who still stand in FL.

This is indeed a problem IMHO. 80% of all FL players are located at HC or Discovery server, and (IMHO) this is bad, both servers have more players than they can handle while the rest is dying because of user numbers. (Dont wanna blame HC or Discovery for this, isnt their fault)

However, I’d like to see a community mod. I just have no idea how to tackle such a thing.

I thought also about the same thing, but more like a general addition, maybe an addon - But if you look at the FL comm it might happen already. In how many mods you find the ships like Blooddragon, train, claoking ships etc.? Even in nearly every opt. mod

But yeah there are something which would be nice to have in a general mod like improved graphics, chat-logging option, GLS Workaround, changing HUD color/BG, etc. (I already thinking about to create a “player mod” or “player mod and tools package” but I know myself good enough that I will never do this >_<)

Personally, I am not a fan of new systems, ships and weapons in Freelancer. However, I dont believe in that such a mod would get released in the next time.

I know I’m resurrecting an old-ish topic, but part of the problem I see with designing a “community mod” is that it’s impossible to suit everyone’s taste. In my opinion, that’s half the reason mods are created in the first place - to give the user variety, which is why I think it’s so silly that Freelancer mods compete so much.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that I still get a general feeling of partisanship within the community. I mean, even past the whole LR mess, there isn’t a real feeling of cohesive unity. Maybe it’s the sense that any discussion of combining efforts immediately devolves into a discussion of who-does-what-and-why, or the fact that newly discovered modding knowledge is, at times, shared with only a select few members to advance their own projects - why can’t we just share all knowledge? Again, how do we push Freelancer’s agenda forward across the internet if we’re still bickering amongst ourselves?

Of course, maybe it is just me - after all, I only check a few pages once and a while, as my time put foward towards Freelancer is limited, so perhaps my viewpoint is just skewed.

A community mod will never happen, it will always be a project of a few individuals… there is no way you can please everyone.

So, I still do not understand why there has not been an advance by someone to actually make a Freelancer mod-show-off trailer…?

Its always pages and pages of talk talk TALK but nothing ever happens on that regard.

Sure, Uberlancer happened (in regard to somebody just going for it), but as mentioned above, I think the concept/desing goal is heavily flawed.
Everybody always wants to make the ultimate FL mod, which is understandable. Still few actually understand how much work is involved in such a project, both on the programming and the art creation side. Also, even more important, is a theme, a design lead for any given mod.
A mod doesnt become great simply by throwing in good parts of other mods.

So, back to the point.
What can really be done and who is up for the challenge to actually coordinate/contribute?

I think the FL mod show-off trailer idea is great and very doable. We only need somebody with time on his hands and video editing skills.

Since I have winter break coming up, I would not mind contributing to or helping to organize this effort in the slightest. I have discussed this with both Why485 and M0tah on a few occaisions (brainstorming mostly), and I think they would be happy to contribute as well provided they had the time.

You think it’d be a good idea to write a formal news post + thread about this, appealing to modders to submit clips of their project to the effort, as well as providing necessary details?

I think that in order to extend the lifetime of FL we should sign some kind of an e-petition and send it to microsoft and digital anvil to release the source code of the best game ever!