I got an idea keeping this game alive
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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.
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my idea is 2 first make a mod and then make a VIDEO of the mod, also linking it to alot of searches
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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.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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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!
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That’s been attempted repeatedly with flat out zero success, unfortunately.
If anybody wants to volunteer to become “project leader” for the movie, feel free to tell. I can set you up as moderator of the Save FL forum and give you the rights to move other people in, plus provide you with whatever else you may need.
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I’m a little hesitent to take command of the project, simply because my dependability for the project, time-wise, is iffy at best. I’d love to do it, I just don’t know how much time I’ll have (I was planning on taking a vacation with family over the break, so I’d probably only have a week or so, and this would take much longer to get everything going)
That all said, I think before any clips of movies started getting put together, we’d need a list of probable places to post this around - YouTube, ModDB etc. is obvious, but that alone won’t have much of an impact (though it’d certainly be progress).
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Well, a list of game review sites would be nice to have.
Im willing to mail / write / phone them if its needed.
Some game sites also review “older” games, so it might be an option.
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I think the biggest problem is making a high quality trailer, that can blow people away.
No offense, but a mediocre collection of clips for an old game doesnt really convince a lot of people.
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We could make a pool of each mod’s footage and then give everyone the chance to make their all-around video. The best is then voted for and used.
The modders and communities would decide what footage to give out (we can give limits on time and content), everything is pooled together and video makers are asked to do their best stuff while respecting some guidelines (like including an equal share of all mods and such).
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We could make a pool of each mod’s footage and then give everyone the chance to make their all-around video. The best is then voted for and used.
The modders and communities would decide what footage to give out (we can give limits on time and content), everything is pooled together and video makers are asked to do their best stuff while respecting some guidelines (like including an equal share of all mods and such).
Quoted for truth.
Also, w0dk4, that is indeed a huge hurdle. It would probably have to be an action-packed trailer, because let’s face it - nobody cares about pretty system flybys unless they’re into the whole space thing. Also, as much as it irritates me to say it, pretty graphics are a good way to show the casual passer-by that a game is still alive and kicking modding-wise. It would probably be a good idea to start and end the video with a graphics-heavy mod (at the start to draw the user in, and then at the end again to “reassure” the user)
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We could make a pool of each mod’s footage and then give everyone the chance to make their all-around video. The best is then voted for and used.
The modders and communities would decide what footage to give out (we can give limits on time and content), everything is pooled together and video makers are asked to do their best stuff while respecting some guidelines (like including an equal share of all mods and such).
Quoted for truth.
Also, w0dk4, that is indeed a huge hurdle. It would probably have to be an action-packed trailer, because let’s face it - nobody cares about pretty system flybys unless they’re into the whole space thing. Also, as much as it irritates me to say it, pretty graphics are a good way to show the casual passer-by that a game is still alive and kicking modding-wise. It would probably be a good idea to start and end the video with a graphics-heavy mod (at the start to draw the user in, and then at the end again to “reassure” the user)
Absolutely. I see this as a challenge. I would love to do a video. Just send me lots of source clips and I will see what I can do. Over-dramatizing stuff is my specialty. I particularly want footage from Firekiss/Plasmafire as graphic whoring is the way to go when you want to sell something.
Just send clips of the most cinematic things you can think of. This does not necessarily mean battles, as 100% battles for a video is no good. Just send me lots of clips, with descriptions of the videos and plus points to the mod in question.
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Well then… FriendlyFire, you said there was some sort of “Save FL” forum? Looks like this just may get underway after all.
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I think system flybys can be done in a particularly fun way: get your ship moving at good speed (set cruise to say 1000) and record in a straight line (remove your SUR, give yourself green rep, remove all HUD).
Once the video is done, speed it up so the whole system is crossed in about 5 seconds. The effect should be similar to EVE, which many say looks “gorgeous”. Would be worth a try, no?
And I agree; we should mix action-packed, colorful sequences a bit everywhere, particularly at the start and end.
EDIT: fox, you’re in
EDIT2: Why, I’ve added you too.
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Again! The priority is cinematic. Camera work is of utmost importance. If that means you have to cheat to set these up, then so be it. Setting cockpit FOV to much tighter than usual makes for a great camera ship as well.