[Axem]

Well political discussions have been moved out of Gen Disc, so if that's why people were avoiding Gen Disc, then they no longer have any reason to. I don't think its a good idea to divide up too finely off topic discussions areas. If tech discussion threads began to overwhelm Gen Disc then perhaps it might be an idea, but at the present time I think they could fit in with General Discussion. In fact, it might be a good way to draw people back.

[Mongoose]

Given that all of the political commentary has been moved out of GenDisc to its own folder, there's not really any reason for anyone to actively avoid it anymore.  Plus I don't think we get enough specifically tech-related topics to warrant their own exclusive folder.  Hell, as it stands, the Programming folder could be folded back into GenDisc without anyone noticing the difference.

(Sniper no sniping!)

[deathspeed]

Well political discussions have been moved out of Gen Disc, so if that's why people were avoiding Gen Disc, then they no longer have any reason to. I don't think its a good idea to divide up too finely off topic discussions areas. If tech discussion threads began to overwhelm Gen Disc then perhaps it might be an idea, but at the present time I think they could fit in with General Discussion. In fact, it might be a good way to draw people back.

Given that all of the political commentary has been moved out of GenDisc to its own folder, there's not really any reason for anyone to actively avoid it anymore.  Plus I don't think we get enough specifically tech-related topics to warrant their own exclusive folder.  Hell, as it stands, the Programming folder could be folded back into GenDisc without anyone noticing the difference.

(Sniper no sniping!)

I'm cool with that; thanks for considering and responding.

[Wet Orange Ostrich Toilet]

While I am not familiar with the social media crowd of today, I am trying to pull attention on a site I am far more familiar with...


...that site being /v/....

[Goober5000]

on /v/.  I like it.

[Wet Orange Ostrich Toilet]

Alright. I did a bit of research, not sure if it will be useful or not.
Here's what I found out about the interest in space games

-People are indeed regaining interest for space games

-People are NOT interested in arcade based shooters.

-The most popular tags within space games are 'MMO' 'Open-World' 'Strategy' and 'Sandbox'

So I concluded that, under the assumption that such a thing is possible, a viable strategy would be to scramble every skilled coder and modder and have them create some sort of 'Open World RPG' version of either original Freespace or one of the full conversions. Have someone gather attention to it on Steam Greenlight and the hype should be coming by itself.

Please keep in mind, I have no idea about the extent to which the source code can be modified, nor do I know if something like that is possible. It's just a small idea really.

[FrikgFeek]

The engine could be capable of doing Open-world right now and it still wouldn't make sense to chase that goal. An open world only makes sense if its populated enough to be interesting, and nothing short of a medium-large game studio has the resources to produce that much content.

No matter what you do to the engine Freespace won't become a better open-world space sim than Elite: Dangerous. There's just no reason to compete for that market. Both the engine and the people making content for Freespace are much better suited for finely crafted mission-based SP campaigns than open worlds and FSO might still be the best mission-based space shooter.

You can make non-linear campaigns with JAD's campaign map and BtA's system viewer, essentially letting the player jump anywhere in the system to take on missions but that's not really 'open world', that's just some very elaborate masking of a 'choose mission' menu. You wouldn't really call MW4: Mercenaries an open-world game just because you can go to multiple systems and take on missions, it's still a mission-based game that just lets you play missions in any order you like.

[deathspeed]

-People are NOT interested in arcade based shooters.

-The most popular tags within space games are 'MMO' 'Open-World' 'Strategy' and 'Sandbox'

I'm in trouble; i avoid 3 of those 4 tags!  I don't do well when games are too open - i need more structure.  Even when there is a mission path, I get too bogged down in side quests and never get to "the good parts."  Mass Effect, Fallout 3, GTA: San Andreas are a few that I looked forward to and started multiple times but never go far into them.  For sim aspects, I like a little complexity, but I don't want running my ship to get in the way of having fun blowing things up.

I keep looking at Elite: Dangerous whenever it's on sale, but then I remind myself that I won't actually play it much, and I go back to FreeSpace or a mod or some other mission-based, arcade-oriented action game (or C&C3: Kane's Wrath skirmishes).

[Phantom Hoover]

get house of the dying sun! play it! it's fantastic and structured!

[xenocartographer]

You can make non-linear campaigns with JAD's campaign map and BtA's system viewer, essentially letting the player jump anywhere in the system to take on missions but that's not really 'open world', that's just some very elaborate masking of a 'choose mission' menu. You wouldn't really call MW4: Mercenaries an open-world game just because you can go to multiple systems and take on missions, it's still a mission-based game that just lets you play missions in any order you like.

I don't quite agree. I mean, granted, the ability to play missions in different orders doesn't mean open-world (off the top of my head, Advance Wars does that and no one whose brain wasn't a demented weasel would call that open-world), but if the player's actions at one area can affect what happens at other areas, then you're on to something - especially if you can revisit the same area repeatedly.

[FrikgFeek]

The amount of branching and campaign-persistent variables needed to do that would be... excessive. Even if the engine could handle it to really take advantage of that kind of continuity you'd need to write so many :words: and actually design all those branching paths that are changed by your previous actions. It's simply just too much work.

Look at the MW4:Mercs example, that game didn't really change missions much no matter what order you played them in. You'd have new mechs available and more money to buy those mechs but all the missions stayed pretty much the same.

[The E]

This task is made much easier with the upcoming custom SEXP feature. That can be used to easily expand variable storage as much as necessary. But yeah, the amount of content that would need to be generated is enormous.

[jr2]

Unless there was a way to make it semi-trivial for users to create their own content in a meaningful way  (yeah, probably an impossibly monumental task, I was just throwing it out there because it would be nice and I can dream)

Something like a co-op dynamic FS universe that has episodes that take place over certain time periods repetitively, but are changed by user / group action enough to make it different every time, and also have custom MOD support for user-made seasons and scenarios... Yeah, I'll go back to my corner now  *retreats from coders horrified at the mountain of work such a project would require*

[JSRNerdo]

Alright. I did a bit of research, not sure if it will be useful or not.
Here's what I found out about the interest in space games

-People are indeed regaining interest for space games

-People are NOT interested in arcade based shooters.

-The most popular tags within space games are 'MMO' 'Open-World' 'Strategy' and 'Sandbox'

So I concluded that, under the assumption that such a thing is possible, a viable strategy would be to scramble every skilled coder and modder and have them create some sort of 'Open World RPG' version of either original Freespace or one of the full conversions. Have someone gather attention to it on Steam Greenlight and the hype should be coming by itself.

Please keep in mind, I have no idea about the extent to which the source code can be modified, nor do I know if something like that is possible. It's just a small idea really.

I had an experiment like that, Grand Theft Freespace, where you had a persistent world with missions you could do in any order and you had a shop to buy upgrades/weapons/ships/etc. Never quite got around to doing it, but it's definitely doable with a large dose of variables and other hacks.

[deathspeed]

get house of the dying sun! play it! it's fantastic and structured!

Yep, i enjoy that game!  I need to pick up playing it again.  The first time I tried it I was like "meh", but a couple of months later i tried again and the "This is awesome!"  I don't recall why I stopped playing after that, but I hadn't gotten very far into it.