[Mobius]

If they know about Inferno they surely know about the Installer. Seems quite obvious.

EDIT: Carl the Shivan just logged in on MSN. Too many strange things are happening today!

[Hellstryker]

Sorry, but I needed to do that. And they haven't busted our asses yet for distributing the retail VPs.. so

[Inquisitor]

They know about the installer.

[Dark Hunter]

Then I suppose it's a good sign we haven't gotten a cease-and-desist...

[Aardwolf]

Maybe they're actually smart, and as such they realize that telling us to stop would destroy their fanbase and cause us all to boycott anything else they make in the future?

[ShadowGorrath]

We wouldn't be that mean, now would we? Besides, we could always just smugle the game silently.

Hey, let's all invade Interplay forums and beg for FS3.

[Aardwolf]

We wouldn't be that mean, now would we? Besides, we could always just smugle the game silently.

Hey, let's all invade Interplay forums and beg for FS3.

I'm not against the idea of a or Interplay made FS3, but it's not something to be taken lightly. It would probably mean a big decrease in FS2 modding, a slowdown in the work that's being done with the SCP, the mediavps, etc. While most of the people on HLP who play FS2 but don't do anything more might move on smoothly, it might be harder for the long-time modders to adapt, and those who stuck with FS2 would be faced with the prospects of making mods/campaigns for a dwindling audience. Furthermore, FS3 would probably not go open source for several years, if ever.

However, I imagine they could make up for the fact that it wouldn't be open-source by taking community input and making engine updates every so often, sort of like what we have on the Recent Builds and (K)nightly Builds boards, but probably not as frequent. That would, however, be a significant investment and it might not work out for them to do so.

[ShadowGorrath]

They can always use FSOpen, after cleaning and fixing. Or if they do make a new exe with a new source code, the FS2 SCP still wouldn't die so easily. In fact, FS2 being open source and an Interplay FS3 being not-open source, would mean FS2 SCP still being used widely. Maybe even more widely than a FS3.

Though I'd miss the Volition logo over the intro.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

At the moment, it seems that Earthworm Jim's their main focus in creating sequels to old games.

Let's hope that they do one for Descent and FreeSpace eventually.

* Androgeos Exeunt crawls through Interplay.com

I like their Descent page. The header looks quite cool. However, it is factually inaccurate. They're selling Descent and Descent II there, but they've got screenshots from Descent 3.

Ah geez, some people over at the forums are asking for a sequel to FreeSpace 2 already...

[Mobius]

May I know why an eventual FS3 should kill FS2 modding? FS1 was ported to FS2, why wouldn't both FS1 and FS2 be ported to FS3?

[Spicious]

Any sensible modern engine be built from scratch, pretty much throwing out any sort of backwards compatibility.

They can always use FSOpen, after cleaning and fixing. Or if they do make a new exe with a new source code, the FS2 SCP still wouldn't die so easily. In fact, FS2 being open source and an Interplay FS3 being not-open source, would mean FS2 SCP still being used widely. Maybe even more widely than a FS3.

So you want FS3 to basically be a campaign for FS2 or to fail miserably compared to FS2_Open?

[ShadowGorrath]

No. I'm just saying that a FS3 would have a normal exe, while FS2 is open source, so always expandable. While a FS3 wouldn't be expandable.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

The other question is whether Interplay allows outsiders like us to modify the source for FS3 if it's ever released.

[Hellstryker]

  That's the point of releasing source in the first place

[Herra Tohtori]

They can always use FSOpen, after cleaning and fixing. Or if they do make a new exe with a new source code, the FS2 SCP still wouldn't die so easily. In fact, FS2 being open source and an Interplay FS3 being not-open source, would mean FS2 SCP still being used widely. Maybe even more widely than a FS3.

Though I'd miss the Volition logo over the intro.

No, they can't use FS2_Open because

a. it's based on Volition's source code and
b. it's open source licenced so it's commercial usage would be a copyright/licence infringement.

Furthermore like was already said, any new engine would most likely be written from scratch... and adding compatibility to FS2 file formats (FS2-style POF's, VP's interface etc. etc.) would not be commercially viable, it'd take way too much time to get everything in the new game engine work with old data as well as all the new stuff. Also I doubt they would invest as much as volition did to moddability - though if they were really smart, they would, because that's essentially what kept FS2 alive in my opinion.

I agree that FS2_Open likely wouldn't die, and even moreso it likely wouldn't even compete with FS3. Why? Because of all the community stuff going on based on FS2_Open, not all is even FreeSpace related (total conversions anyone?) and not all of the campaigns are post-capellan histories contradicting any official FS3 storyline (not that people would care all that much, seeing how popular fanfiction is anyway ).

I see two possibilities; if FS3 were moddable and exandable (if they opened the source to that one too at some point), it would probably take a parallel position with FS2_Open as a bleeding edge engine, but FS2_Open would retain all it's good points - low system requirements for a game that looks so good, for instance. And all the content made for it. And all the coders who know the ins and outs of it's inner workings, and of course the community built around it.

If FS3 weren't easily moddable and not open-sourced, it would probably cause an influx of newbies to FreeSpace scene, take some months of people's time to ogle at new graphics and play the game through a couple times, then people would get back to making new stuff for FS2_Open...

[Galemp]

A hypothetical FS3 wouldn't kill FS2 modding any more than Quake 3 killed Q2 modding. It opens new possibilities. With editing tools as powerful as FRED, and tables as easily modified as they are now, development would be similar to FS1 modding. There were some great campaigns from that era (Cardinal Spear.) Whatever new engine wouldn't have all the capabilities of the current FSOpen engine, but it would have new ones to explore.

Probably the best move for would actually be to open the engine at the start and license it out, like id does with their technology. They could take in more in licensing fees from LucasArts than they probably would from Freespace itself.

[Al Tarket]

fs3?! it would defiantly put an end of this post Capella incident fanbase campaigns, but i see the potential for at least fs3 and maybe another expansion on that. im not sure if volition is alive or dead, but even if volition is dead, the crew here are more then capable of helping interplay construct another fs3 related title.

i might want to point out that all major modders even casual modders will be filtered elsewhere and all projects would cease if these new fan made campaigns for hard-light haven't completed or even started on theirs yet. scripters would be needed also to create the base and the walls for this fs3 game with the use of of maybe mac computers as i hear they are very powerful and the best in the business for designing and use of graphics of any kind.

If interplay was to ask for fs3 to be drawn up and i was the boss of interplay i would ask for a completely new engine for the game to use. so just this alone means hard-light campaigns will be few-and-far between.

[CP5670]

I don't see any indication that an FS3 will be made, especially given that the Freespace games were never commercial successes (and would probably be even less so today, given the direction that games in general are going). Also, even if they did produce such a game, it would be done by a completely different development team. Volition would not have anything to do with it.

Descent 4 seems a more likely possibility. If anyone remembers their press release from a few months ago, they had said that they intended to make sequels for some of their series if they got funding and Descent was specifically mentioned there, but FS was not. Descent 1 and 2 did very well financially for their time, so it would make more sense.

[ShadowGorrath]

Should FS3 be actually made, I don't see myself dropping FS2 SCP. Neither would it actually kill the post-Capella mods. I'd buy FS3 if it was ever made, but I wouldn't drop FS2 SCP for it.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I think I like FS2_Open enough to not drop it if an FS3 is released from Interplay.