Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: CT27 on September 12, 2016, 01:53:58 pm
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I've seen a number of threads here on what people would have liked to see in a hypothetical Freespace 3 plot.
On a slightly different track, what would you have liked to see if an expansion/add-on campaign for Freespace 2 had been made (like Silent Threat was made for FS1)? What do you think Volition would have done?
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Expansion would add to the package in much the way FSO has. More ships. More weapons. Enhanced graphics. Improved FRED. And at least one campaign, but I could see two. One could be FS2 from a Vasudan perspective and starting around when FS2 did. The Psamtik got up to a lot off screen, that would be a good place to go. Or it could just be another Terran, there was so much going on besides what the player participated in. And another could detail the rise of Aken Bosch with you on his side. Which would bring more of those much-loved Bosch monolgues and tell us more about the man and his motivations.
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I've seen a number of threads here on what people would have liked to see in a hypothetical Freespace 3 plot.
On a slightly different track, what would you have liked to see if an expansion/add-on campaign for Freespace 2 had been made (like Silent Threat was made for FS1)?
It would've been return to Sol and I think that's exactly the right choice.
Probably a new mini-faction like GTI (presumably Sol ships), maybe one new cutscene, hopefully they could've had the same voice cast (maybe minus Petrarch).
They had plans to bring the Ancients back, in what capacity I don't know.
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The more I think about it, the more it feels like the two SOC loops during the main FS2 campaign were an attempt to do Silent Threat for FS2. I mean, the SOC command briefing even includes the "tactics, technologies, activities, and strategic objectives" speech. Plus, come to think of it, the Artemis D.H. and the Ares are your two bonus playable ships. So in that sense, one could think of the SOC missions as FS2's mission disk expansion pack.
If a mission disk pack had been made for FS2, it would have included a couple new ships, a dozen new missions, and probably a new game engine feature. The :v: interview said that the story discussion was only in its early stages, but it might have involved a return to earth. I'm skeptical that you could have fit such a story into a mere 12 missions though.
As for what I would have liked to see... I'm hard pressed to name anything that the FreeSpace community hasn't already come up with itself. :nervous:
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I would've liked to see the other campaign efforts during the FS2 events--i.e. the campaign against the NTF in Sirius or Polaris, that sort of thing. That wouldn't necessarily have been any different than what we were doing during the main campaign, but there's potential for other stories there.
"I'd rather be fighting the Shivans--I never signed on to fight the NTF!"
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It's interesting. In a sense, you have a very similar situation at the end of FS2 as you did at the end of FS1. The GT(V)A barely beat the Shivans, but the Shivans aren't completely "defeated" yet (didn't some/many Shivans escape Capella?). The terran and vasudan fleets are weak and rife for rebellion. Maybe the Hammer of Light resurfaces and causes havoc. It isn't a new/original idea, but it does form some sort of symmetry.
On the other hand, I'd love to see a return to Sol. Maybe, like Lorric said, there could be two campaigns. One has very few, if any, new weapons/ships. The second has many more as it's several years in the future.
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As for what I would have liked to see... I'm hard pressed to name anything that the FreeSpace community hasn't already come up with itself. :nervous:
Pretty much this. For me, Blue Planet is Freespace 3, even if it takes some liberties with the Shivans and demystifies them a bit. It's all so well done.
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I would suggest something akin to "Destiny of Peace", in which there is a crisis of refugees immediately following the Capella incident. Command plans to relocate evacuees from Capella to a system which saw minimal impact from the NTF rebellion and from the 2nd Incursion. The local government doesn't want to strain its resources with the massive increase in population, so it forms a splinter group from the GTVA. The local military elements support the local government, betting that the GTVA is too battered from recent engagements, and doesn't have the will or the strength to fight a military campaign against them. A loose task force is assembled around the Aquitaine which is sent to overthrow this local coup and try to prevent another rebellion from taking hold that threatens to split the GTVA apart. If this system can successfully secede, than surely others will follow, leading to a similar state of the Terran and Vasudan systems as existed prior to the Reconstruction. It is also revealed that the GTVA forces that are supporting the splinter faction, had been in contact with the Neo Terrans during the rebellion. Bosch was negotiating their defection when the war turned against the NTF. This shows that these forces were not entirely loyal to the GTVA, so were more willing to support the local split than try to quash it. I'd also like to involve the GTVI, showing that it has interests in the system, and had been secretly supporting the local government with state of the art weapons and ships.
New models bundled in the expansion pack could include civilian ships to carry the refugees, and perhaps a few prototype fighters for the GTVI elements to be flying.
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I like one re-discovering Earth with the help of the Vasudens. Say....like a Vasuden expedition through a recent undiscovered jump node that was made stable enough for ship travel. On the other side, a star system with two planets in the habitable zone with two weak nodes. One planet's condition gives the Vasuden's a possible new home planet. A probe designed for passing through unstable, weak nodes discovered a unknown link to back to Earth. A combined Vasuden/Terran SOC operation takes place with specially designed Reconnaissance space craft along with a new, unknown fighter type used for SOC ops for protection.
They discover ruins on both planets, one clearly Ancient in origin. The other, more recent...VERY recent and of unknown species.
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A return to Sol is definitely an interesting idea but it'd be such a big undertaking - the Sol Gate is said to take decades to complete, there'd be a lot of advancements in GTVA technology and you'd have to include a GTA fleet anyway - that I don't see how you could justify it as just an expansion pack. You might as well just make Freespace 3.
I think for an expansion pack realistically you'd be looking at some kind of Terran-Vasudan Civil War post Capella or a campaign exploring uncharted systems. Maybe there's a scramble for habitable worlds due to the refugee crisis, Shivans show up and there's a scramble to seal off the system. Maybe a Shivan fleet based around a Sathanas gets isolated in a system they can't seal off and starts rampaging through GTA space.
As a post-Capella campaign with minimal mods Derelict would be extremely difficult to top, although it does have the advantage of being a full length campaign.
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As for what I would have liked to see... I'm hard pressed to name anything that the FreeSpace community hasn't already come up with itself. :nervous:
Yeah. Although I still have ideas in my brain, but they are my own trademarked ip. Will only sell for bazillion dollars.
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Civil war erupting in GTVA space as the Sol Portal is completed.
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Civil war erupting in GTVA space as the Sol Portal is completed.
Quite original a setup! IF only there was one or two or three or four or five well done campaigns that tackled that idea.
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Civil war erupting in GTVA space as the Sol Portal is completed.
Quite original a setup! IF only there was one or two or three or four or five well done campaigns that tackled that idea.
There weren't nearly that many though at the time we would have got the expansion campaign (early 2000s). I don't see what's wrong with him saying that's what he would have liked to see in an "official" game story.
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A return to Sol with a twist; there is no civil war in the GTVA. There is no massive, hostile power waiting in Sol.
Sol is mess of small warring factions. Earth and Mars are being held hostage by their orbital industries threatening to drop rocks on them, so the provide troops and material for war efforts they want no part of against basically everyone else. The Moon is divided between different factions whose only point of agreement is that if Earth tries to conquer them they put aside their differences and fight back. Jupiter/Saturn are an outsize military power because the relatively low gravity on many of their moons makes construction of spacecraft on the ground possible. The asteroid belt is a massive mess of small mining concerns who solve their differences with violence but if it ever looks like someone is going to assemble momentum and snowball then everyone gangs up on them.
The GTVA has to work out a way to clean this all up, preferably without a war of conquest. The player is tasked with what is basically spaceborne counterinsurgency at first, slowly escalating as the powers take sides reintegration, with a midpoint of the campaign being freeing Earth.
Then at about this point someone notices that Earth's second node works again as well, not just the one the portal fixed, and there's a general scramble to find out where it goes. Through it comes...the Ancients, who in a sublime twist of fate, mistake the GTVA for the Shivans and attack. Now you're fighting to defend Sol against a race that has every reason not to listen to you but whom you could theoretically make peace with while the various Solar powers continue to get up to shenanigans in the background culminating in Titan getting glassed by an Ancients juggernaut, the GTVA pulling out all the stops and deploying every major combat asset it has which scares the crap out of the remaining Solar powers to see so many destroyers since they don't normally build ships that big, and a push into Ancients space and finally a peace treaty when they realize you're not the Shivans.
This would probably take 50 or so missions, too long for an expansion, but is it what I'd like? Yes.
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Totally implausible, any asteroid headed for Earth or Mars would be highlighted by silver brackets and easily destroyed. I bet they could really **** up a Faustus though
Even in the event that the space powers tried to drop an asteroid on someone, we all know the pilots on both sides would unite to push it away :amuro:
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Totally implausible, any asteroid headed for Earth or Mars would be highlighted by silver brackets and easily destroyed. I bet they could really **** up a Faustus though
Even in the event that the space powers tried to drop an asteroid on someone, we all know the pilots on both sides would unite to push it away :amuro:
:lol:
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Even in the event that the space powers tried to drop an asteroid on someone, we all know the pilots on both sides would unite to push it away :amuro:
Only if experimental technology brainhacks them!
Or accidentally broadcasts the collective "oh **** I do not want to die" of the planet.
Or several other possibilities.
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I would have liked more races. Freespace always felt a tiny bit limited in the sorts of stories you could tell with just humans and one other intelligent race. I dont think FS could or should have gone towards Star Wars or Star Trek, with hundreds or thousands of species, but something like Babylon 5 might have opened up a few more options.
It would have been interesting to see how a weakened, post -Capella GTVA dealt with the discovery of, say, an aggressive but technologically inferior species. Would we steamroll them? Try to integrate them into the alliance as cannon fodder vs the Shivans? Would we help them technologically so they'd be more effective in a fight against the Shivans, or hold back our knowledge in case they turned it against us one day? Would the Terrans and Vasudans agree about how beat to deal with any of these issues?
I think that would have had a lot of great elements for cool conflict and storytelling - a fragile status quo, an alliance with conflicting desires, and a potentially high risk, high reward element inserted into that environment. Lots of directions it could have been taken.
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An aftermath expansion, play in the events following the Capellan star destruction. Your main baddies would be pirates trying to capitalize on the recent events thinking the GTVA's guard is down during their celebration and left over shivan craft. "New" ships would be re-introductions of old Freespace 1 era craft refitted and updated visual and stat wise. New weapons could be an energy type that causes a damage over time effect, a torpedo that would pull enemy craft to the center doing moderate damage, a spread fire energy cannon, and a ammunition type miniature flak cannon mountable on bomber craft. And a new species ally, mostly interested in trade and exploration with their ships built around that role, they would also have an interesting lineage that would be of great interest to the GTVA.
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This is the difficult question.
Because some topics have already a campaign.
Actually i am not very interested into a Aftermath story. Without the NTF and Shivans, but with countless refugees.
I would like to see more a NTF campaign that plays next to the main campaign. Just because, the actions of the NTF and Aken Bosch are still a mystery.
So i would like to play a NTF Pilot that get transferred to the NTF Iceni under Aken Bosch himself, to get involved to know more about his plans :).
New ships would be more something like old ships and weapons, FS1 era types. GTF Valkyrie with Banshee.
Even this campaign lacks an epic boss fight at the end, but that was one of the main problems of Silent Threat at all :D.
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It's an interesting issue you guys have brought up. If the expansion campaign was released today it would probably have similar ideas to at least one of the user made campaigns that has already been released over the years.
However, if the expansion campaign had been released soon after FS2 (like expansion campaigns usually are released soon after a 'main' game) in say 2000 or 2001 then this wouldn't have been a problem.
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There's plenty of room to expand the Vasudan side of things. A campaign that follows the campaign from a Vasudan perspective (as a imperfect mirror of the main campaign, including being briefly transferred to the Aquitane as part of the exchange program) or expanding upon the NTF and the 18 months preceding the campaign would offer quite a bit of room for addition. And in the same vein that Silent Threat added only a few new craft, the Vasudan campaign could give the Vasudan's equivalent of the top-end fighters you get at the end of the campaign.
And, with a bit of luck, you could tie it in with BP continuity as it delves so deep into Vasudan stuff.
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There's plenty of room to expand the Vasudan side of things. A campaign that follows the campaign from a Vasudan perspective (as a imperfect mirror of the main campaign, including being briefly transferred to the Aquitane as part of the exchange program)
Haha, that's literally how I conceptualized my mod many years ago, except you don't get tranferred on the Aquitaine, but another Terran destroyer that also gets destroyed (not by the Sath though). Heck, it's even called "A Vasudan Point of View".
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I started writing a campaign about three years ago. Maybe it is closer now to fan fiction than a campaign ever could be, but I visualized Freespace 3 being drastically different from the first two. Namely because FS3 will probably never be made, but also because I feel the rules of combat have drastically changed since 20 years ago. The F35 fighter, for instance, need not compromise its stealth because it can launch missiles from nearby warships, and the navy's new cruiser can hit a target over the horizon with more muzzle velocity that the old rounds had leaving the barrel. Coupled with lasers and the ridiculously high rate of fire anti-missile guns, well there is a reason game flight sims are modeled mentally after WW2 dogfights, that's what people want because it's interactive.
So in my reimagining, the player felt very disconnected from the game. In fact, the game part was pretty much broken because the missions i wrote were more like interactive cutscenes and the player filled a mostly non-combat/observer role, because any real fighting would be carried out by high visible automated warships/drones, thus removing the player from danger as much as possible. The actual missions that the player DOES fight in, for training purposes, are actually simulator missions using UEF style ships vs ONLY freespace 1 shivans. Thus it's sort of a TV tribute with reruns, reliving the glory of yesterday while having no idea what the next war really would be like...
Sol is alone as the GTVA has already been wiped out and the jump node never reopened. Earth waits, listening anxiously, but all it hears is silence...
...and then they return. Black as the night, silent as the moon and ready to welcome us into the void.
So If anyone is interested and i will try to dig it up and finish it.
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Commanding capships, FPS options for boarding enemy ships.
EDIT: Oh, and GeoMod.
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EDIT: Oh, and GeoMod.
Man, I haven't heard that suggestion in years. Perhaps we might have it by the time we reach FSO 5.0?
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I like one re-discovering Earth with the help of the Vasudens. Say....like a Vasuden expedition through a recent undiscovered jump node that was made stable enough for ship travel. On the other side, a star system with two planets in the habitable zone with two weak nodes. One planet's condition gives the Vasuden's a possible new home planet. A probe designed for passing through unstable, weak nodes discovered a unknown link to back to Earth. A combined Vasuden/Terran SOC operation takes place with specially designed Reconnaissance space craft along with a new, unknown fighter type used for SOC ops for protection.
They discover ruins on both planets, one clearly Ancient in origin. The other, more recent...VERY recent and of unknown species.
As a further idea on this, that said newly discovered jump node to a far distant solar system that had a weak but workable jump note to Earth with some help also had, say like two more jump notes to unknown systems. Ever cautious about the Shivans, the additional jump nodes were not investigated yet. But once the new home planet for the Vasudens was thoroughly examined, they discovered a small, but extraordinary ruins that gave the GTVA some promising data on what happened and where the Ancients went. one piece of that data described one of the jump notes in that system.
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It would have been interesting to see how a weakened, post -Capella GTVA dealt with the discovery of, say, an aggressive but technologically inferior species. Would we steamroll them? Try to integrate them into the alliance as cannon fodder vs the Shivans? Would we help them technologically so they'd be more effective in a fight against the Shivans, or hold back our knowledge in case they turned it against us one day?
How about we be that inferior species when some subspace travelers knock on the door and give us this sweet deal?
First war on Shivans, then we figure we've been suckered, then war on our supposedly tech savvy mentors who seem to be busy exploiting the resources of GTVA space while the Terrans and Vasudans are busy being cannon meat in some far away place.
P.S. Oh dear, it's been a while...
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I think a Bosch/Shivan focused story would have been (or could still be!!!!!!) the best route for an expansion to FS2. There were a few HUGE plot holes in FS2 that I can think of: 1) what was Bosch's endgame; 2) what were the Shivan "com nods" in the last SOC mission; and 3) why did the Shivans destroy Capella? I think an expansion could deal with Bosch's plan...to form an "alliance" with the Shivans, but the Shivans flip the script on Bosch. The Shivans use Bosch and the ETAK project to somehow evolve or merge the species....maybe think Star Trek "Best of Both Worlds" meets "Event Horizon."
It is odd that the Shivans never even attempted to wipe out the Terrans and Vasudans...an easy task considering the amount of Sathanas ships they had, so their motivations for destroying Capella must not have been about extermination...perhaps the expansion would delve into the "rebirth by destruction" themes.
It seems like the story really needs an ending...those unresolved cliffhangers in FS2 are going to haunt me for a long time. For as good a game and mythology as the FS universe is...it remains an incomplete one...it really needs an ending.
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I'd have liked in a potential official FS3 circa millennial release:-
Ships;
weapons;
Music;
Epic campaign with branching and multiple endings;
Story conclusion?
New weapon types and engine features.
soooooooo SCP achieves this.
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I'd have liked in a potential official FS3 circa millennial release:-
Ships;
weapons;
Music;
Epic campaign with branching and multiple endings;
Story conclusion?
New weapon types and engine features.
soooooooo SCP achieves this.
What do you mean by SCP achieves this? I don't recall a campaign that has branching and multiple endings today.
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Beyond the Red Line had a lot of alternative endings, as it recognized you trying to keep the people who die off-screen on-screen and protecting them anyway (and if they still die the brass blames you instead!). Diaspora had a lot of contingencies for your performance during previous missions as well, Karajorma might know how many there actually are.
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Also that campaign with a mini carrier lost beyond the nebula. I can't remember it's name though :nervous:
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Also that campaign with a mini carrier lost beyond the nebula. I can't remember it's name though :nervous:
Uncharted Territory
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The one I did some voice acting on yes :nod;
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There was voice acting for that?
I just played it not that long ago and I don't remember it having voice acting.
Where do you download the VA version of it?
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I think a Bosch/Shivan focused story would have been (or could still be!!!!!!) the best route for an expansion to FS2.
This would be cool. You could have the player be a part of an elite NTF squad during the later half of the FS2 timeline (and maybe after!). It would tell some of the same story - from a different perspective - and it would reveal a bunch of new "top secret" information about the NTF and Bosch's plans. You would be fighting the Shivans for the most part, though the GTVA could be involved as well.
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Freespace 3 would end in fire.....or would it.....
If it or a expansion pack was made, it would have to do a better job of making the player feel like a pilot. It would need plenty of cutscenes of on ship life and interaction with other named pilots so that you actually feel part of your squad and the realities of it.
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Why?
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Let me translate, General. He wants FS3 to be a Wing Commander style game.
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There was voice acting for that?
I just played it not that long ago and I don't remember it having voice acting.
Where do you download the VA version of it?
I thought there easy, but I appear to be mistaken. ...