Cabbie, with Derek Smart's track record, I'm thinking ANYTHING would be better than what he produces.
Look, Derek, if you're even reading this thread anymore (and if you're not, someone please post this at Avault).
Derek, I don't mean to flame you, but do you seriously expect such a dedicated community such as ours to go quietly into the night while you butcher our favorite game? I'm sorry about what you think about your work. I'm an artist as well, and although I'm not a programmer, I do do game work. But there is a fundamental difference between, say, me and you, or in fact, anyone in this community and you. We make games and mods to show off not only our skills, but also to make other people have fun. You do not. While you may think you do, your games, to most people that I've talked to at least, are not engineered towards fun. They are made to your personal tastes, and you damn all who disagree with you. Unfortunately, that is the majority of the gaming public. Why? Because your control systems are hard to learn? Partly. Is it cause your programs are buggy? A little, but not really that much, after all, most games are these days.
You know what the real reason is? Mostly because they're not fun. And guess what Freespace is? Pure, mindless fun.
And, excuse me, but isn't every game, or at least almost every game you've developed so far been freeform? Um...Freespace is all about the storyline. I'm pretty sure you're going to try and add a whole bunch of stuff to Freespace, like crew management, character selection, planetary landings, and what have you. Don't get me wrong, character creation would be a good addition. But You have a tendency to go overboard on everything, and forget why people play games: to have fun, not to see the fancy graphics and marvel at the vast concepts in the game.
Derek, don't trifle with this community. We are the last people who truly play Freespace 2, and guess what? We're the bulk of your gaming audience, and if you screw us over, and treat us with the same contempt that you treat your own fans, then guess what? You're out a lot of time and money, because we can completely ignore your game. After all, to us, anything that's not developed by [V] doesn't count as canon, and you're not [V], I'm sorry.