Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Aardwolf on March 09, 2010, 03:03:05 pm
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I'd post this as a poll, but there aren't enough options in the world, so...
Let this be a place to tell the story of how you discovered and got your hands on FreeSpace / FreeSpace 2 / FS2_Open. Note, if your means of acquiring it were "less than legitimate" you probably shouldn't mention how you acquired it... but the story of how you got interested in it is still welcome!
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GOG. Which, for the record, is probably the best method to date to get FS. I bought both FS1 & 2 from that location.
I was introduced to FS/FSO through BtRL. I'd have probably never gotten into the sim if it weren't for that wonderful demo. :D
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Played the demo, bought the game in '99.
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Short story long:
A friend of mine brough the CDs of Freespace along back in 1999. Said that the game was cool and I should give it a try... I jumped on the offer - next month I saved my money and got myself my own copy form the store ;)
That way started a long on-and-off relationship
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Got the OEM CD with my joystick, played it for years, then got the full game for Christmas last year. Best Christmas present ever.
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Demo was on a PC gaming mag disc back in '98 (FS1), bought it immediately with money from a gaming championship actually xD
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I bought the set ( white box with FS1+ST+Fs2 ) along time ago to be able to play the TBP project ( was a demo with a couple of missions ), which required FS2. After a while i forgot about that, since i prefer RPG over action games, and FS never seemed ... interressting enough. What a big mistake!
Years later, after finished playing the missions in TBP 3.2, i was looking for something new and i found some sceenshots of BtRL.
My first thought was, looks cool, but it has to be a fake ( C+C anyone? :P ).
While downloading the BtRL demo, i prepared a mail to the DEVs of the game, just in case i was right and the game is a...PoS.
After playing it, i was amazed by the quality, so i joined the GW community.
I started Fredding, joined HLP, found by "accident" the old game cds while looking for something different, and then DLed FSO, was amazed and started recently a FS campaign.
EDIT: typos, you gotta love 'em. It was supposed to be ST, not ST:R.
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I first saw the box for Descent: FreeSpace sitting on the shelf of a neighbor who had introduced me to the Descent series, but I thought it was just some weird spin-off thing and didn't really ask questions. (Not having the Internets at the time meant that I couldn't look it up myself...ah, youth.) I didn't think much more of it until I bought Descent 3, which had an ad for FS2 on its fold-out disk sleeve. The little blurb about huge warships and these strange "Terrans/Vasudans Shivans" sounded interesting, so I kept it in mind. I guess I eventually wound up picking up FS1 when I came across it in a store, and I was obviously immediately hooked. (My younger brother used to be my "copilot" while I played, watching me and yelling out updates on things like hull integrity. :D) I later wound up re-buying the game just to get the included Silent Threat expansion...maybe not the best money I ever spent, but whatever.
Due to the ridiculously-high eBay prices, it took me a very long time before I was able to get my hands on FS2; all I had to tide me over was re-watching the trailer (can't remember which game that was included on...Descent 3: Mercenary, maybe?), playing the demo (must have gone through that several times), and gleaning random info from posts here on the forums, which I was lurking by that time. It wasn't until Interplay announced their 20th anniversary re-release that I was finally able to get my hands on it...for $50, compared to the current $6, but that was cheap then. :p Needless to say again, I was hooked even harder than I had been with FS1. It took me a lot of waffling before I plunged in and attempted to get FS2_Open up and running, since the installation process wasn't nearly so well-documented as it is now, but that eventually worked itself out too. (Good old 3.6.7...you crashed so often.) Obviously enough, I've been hanging out here ever since.
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A long time ago I regularly loaned PC games I had to people from my church, who in turn loaned me their PC games. One of the games I was loaned was Freespace 2. Played and was hooked. The guy who loaned it to me let me keep the game in the end.
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My father and I
were are both avid Descent players, and he bought FS1 when it first came out thinking it was another Descent title. He never got into FS's style of gameplay and abandoned it early, but I picked it up and enjoyed it immensely.
Didn't play FS2 until years later. Like so many others, I didn't even know a sequel had been made. I think it was the ad in Descent 3 that eventually tipped me off. Got it off of eBay for a ridiculous price (GOG wasn't stocking it back then), and found my way here a few months later after hearing about Inferno.
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Got the OEM CD with my joystick, played it for years, then got the full game.
That way for me too. The joystick is broke now (Logitech), but I am eternally grateful to them :D
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Heh, I still use that same joystick to play FS, even
ten eleven years after the fact.
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I wrote a Biography on the subject (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/User:Snail).
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Read reviews, looked awesome
Played the demo a long long long time ago but I was still young and filled with fanboy feelings 'Wingcommander was better!' also, I didn't had money to buy each game I liked back then.
Fastforward a few years, saw the package of FS1+silent threat in stores in a foreign country, had my dad buy it for me. Could never get it to play. Lost the CD somewhere along the way.
Fastforward again to about a year ago. Saw a thread on 4chan's /m/ about freespace and how it was 'freeware'. Downloaded it from here and loved it to death. Then got into modding. Finally bought the game from GoG a short while back (didn't even downloaded it from there)
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Vasudan Commander told me about it, then showed the FS2 ending cutscene :( and gave me the FSO installer link, which, at that time, allowed downloading the full game. :D Played retail FS2 at first though, not FSO.
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I played Descent as a wee lad and somehow became aware of FS with this new magical internet. I thought it seemed like a dumb knock-off of Tie Fighter (aliens with five legs?! That's just silly) and just wrote it off.
Years later (2000, I think) a friend of mine from school came over with a newly purchased copy of FS1. I still thought it was dumb, but he seemed excited, so I didn't want to burst his bubble. We installed it on my family computer at the time and HOLY **** THIS IS AWESOME! We ended up playing to around the Taranis missions.
A little while later my mom took me to pick out a game for my birthday. I was pretty set on MW3: Pirate's Moon, but decided to check all the aisles... and there I saw FS2. I was torn, then saw I could make my own missions (like with Half-Life!) and that was that.
Made for a ridiculously awesome summer. :D
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Played the original demo from the PC Gamer disc, got the full game for Christmas, played the FS2 demo soon as it was released, then got the full game for my birthday. So, literally, I've been playing FS since I was ten.
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I found FS1 and FS2 on my father's shelf and decided to play (my father said it was medicore, but he prefers elite-style games like X3 or Freelancer).
I liked it, but didn't considered it state of art and forgot about it quickly (I was playing many games then).
Then, I encouncered Inferno and started to tweak it, and while I heard about Inferno SCP (it was actually an SCP path) I decided to try out what this "SCP" is.
After that, I started trying out mods, at first mainly to get new models to play with, but I got interested later.
I never really liked FS that :v: made (partilly thanks to Polish translation), too much (I consider Wing Commander to be better), but the vast number of mods, new possiblities, constant engine improvememnt and simpleness of the modding system made me stick with FSO engine.
Blue Planet, Sync and Transcend were also a major factor which convinced me that mods based on FS story and using it's shipset could also be interesting (though I got bored with Derelict).
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( white box with FS1+ST:R+Fs2 )
wat
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I too first heard from Descent FreeSpace (or rather "Conflict. FreeSpace" as it was called in Germany and Austria for some reason) from a gaming magazine. Not sure wether it was Gamestar or PC games....
Played the demo and then bought the game. Actually it was the first game I ever bought myself, all the others up to then I got for christmas or birthday.
FS2 I bought on the first day it hit the stores and it also was the very first game I ever palyed online. Ahh the momories.... never played anything like Squadwar ever since.
Anyway because I'm a big Babylon 5 fan I found TBP and got hooked up with it back when it was still on Volition Watch. When they moved over here, I naturelly moved over with them and that was the first time I ever learned of SCP (3.6.7 times if I remember correctly).
And I've been a fan ever since, even did some very minor voice acting for Blue Planet (3 lines).
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( white box with FS1+ST:R+Fs2 )
wat
oops, i meant of course Silent Threat, not Silent Threat: Reborn.
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( white box with FS1+ST:R+Fs2 )
wat
NO U
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Just shows that people are subconsciously retconning the original out of their minds, entirely. :lol:
The Descent name. I could tell it wasn't 'really' Descent, but I saw it in a store and gave it a shot, anyway. Feels so long ago, but I still do remember holding that box with the fold-out Lucifer flap on it. Found ST a bit later at another store.
I really don't remember when I got FS2, though; I think I just happened to be browsing through the games section of CompUSA, and lo and behold, there be a sequel! :P
I found 'here' quite some time ago, thanks to I think either morris or Corsair(114?), who I met on another forum; I lurked and played a campaign or two that was hosted here(the Port, and Technological Superiority are the ones that leap to mind), but was confused about what this 'FSOpen' stuff was about, until, I believe, 3.6.8 or 9. I found one of the offline installers and went from there.
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As for myself...
I had gone through D1, 2, and 3. Once, I had seen (on the jacket for a demo CD for Klingon Academy) an ad for FS2... but I had no idea what it was, and it didn't seem related to Descent. Then I saw FS1 and ST in a "Dual Jewel" box on sale at Best Buy for $14, and seeing "Descent" on it made me get it. Obviously it wasn't Descent, but it was fun regardless. Then I discovered the demo for FS2 in the ST extras, played that, and asked (and received) for FS2 my birthday ($68 on amazon... in retrospect, I feel like my parents got gypped, paying for that).
I discovered FS2_Open either in my junior or senior year of high school (2005-6), and HLP.
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Played the freespace one demo, I still own the CD it's on. Fell in love with the Apollos and Orffs design, was keen to see these '2K long' caps mentioned on the blurb. Thought it'd match the colouring scheme of the two aforementioned. Conjured up images of what an Orion might look like.
Bought the game week of release, thought the Orion was ugly as sin. A week later and i'm swearing at the Lucifer as the Galatae goes boom so loudly I get told off.
The rest is history, also Squadwar, VBB and HLP.
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TrashMan posted some screenshots on some other forum from the Celebration of FS thread (shiny). Read the wikipedia article. I heard it was free. I downloaded it from the FSO installer when it still gave the whole game.
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Oh also, FS1 multi with Hurricane and shockwave.
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My older brother purchased a Logitech joystick that came with a CD called FreeSpace 2: Colossus. It spanned the entire first act of the game, minus the SOC loop and the cutscenes. So my brother thought this all looked very interesting and installed the game on his computer. He was halfway through the first training mission when I happened to walk by (I was probably six or seven yrs old at the time), and for the first time in my life I laid my eyes on the greatest PC game ever. I had no idea what it was, but something about it just drew me like a magnet; I promptly proceeded to kick my older brother off the computer and take the controls. I played the game like a madman for the next few months, but after the completion of the first act and heavy use of the multiplayer, I began using my parentally-allotted PC gaming time for other purposes. Eventually though I came back to the game and decided that I needed the full saga. So I strategically purchased both games for another brother as a Christmas gift (which was a wonderful excuse to basically obtain them for myself), and was soon once again immersed in the wonders of FreeSpace. I don't remember how I found HLP (I probably have Google to thank for that), but a few years ago I stumbled across it and was exhilarated to find a healthy fan-base for a then 9-year old game. Then came FSO, which blew my mind. I'm still recovering from that. And now here I am, all because of a CD that happened to be in an old joystick box.
Oh and I broke the joystick a while back: too many times when I hit the burners and DIVED.
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Played the demo, bought the game in '99.
Still have the demo and all the boxes/disks/manuals
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Back when I was around 8, my dad bought a computer that came with the "half" version of FS2. It had all the missions up to Feint! Parry! Riposte! excluding all SOC missions. Was my favorite game back then, and bought a joystick for it exclusively too. I think I got all the way to Lieutenant twice on Very Easy (lots of play throughs, I know).
Then, one day like 2 years ago, I got bored and started googling images of FS2 ships, because that's how cool people spend their free time. Came across a gorgeous Perseus (the HTL one in the current MVPs), which I thought was a really cool render. Browsed a little more into this search result, and found HLP.
From here, I downloaded all the game files, mediavps, and a couple select campaigns. Although my joystick is no longer supported (it's analog), FS2 is once again one of my top-played games.
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FS1 came with a joystick my dad bought a long time ago.... I wanna say around '98-ish? I didn't immediately play FreeSpace- the first game that got me on flight/space sims was Rogue Squadron (and the first real workout for that joystick, which I still have, by the way). One day, my dad and I were digging through some CDs we had apparently forgotten about and found FreeSpace. Once I figured out how to play, I thought it was pretty much the coolest game ever made. My formative years are quite shaped by FreeSpace- the intro movie still sends chills down my spine.
I knew about FreeSpace 2 pretty much from its beginnings (thank you, PC Gamer), but never actually got it until finding HLP (GoG download). Don't remember much how I ran across HLP- before this, I'd poke around on Volition Watch and play the good missions and campaigns there. Somewhere along the line, I had heard about FreeSpace going open source- some investigation led me here.
So, basically, I'm like a 10-year veteran with the GTA. :p
[Ninja edit]: Almost forgot to mention, I still own those original FS1 disks... so, yeah...
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My favorite gaming magazine (PC Gameplay) had an article on space sims. Freespace was obviously included.`
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Avoided FS like the plague, since it was stealing the thunder of my beloved X-Wing series.
But got REALLY bored one day, popped in a CD with game demos and decided to try FS.
The rest is history.
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One of my friends had just got a PC and invited me around to try it with him. No games so all he had to play was a PC Gamer demo of Freespace.
Played it, liked it, had no PC of my own. A couple of years later when I got one I was looking for games to play to test it out and I came across the big box FS2. I remembered how good the demo was and since it was only a tenner I decided to take a risk and buy a game I'd never read a review of previously.
And I'm still here. :D
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Was looking for some game demos when I ran into an FTP site download of something (can't remember what) so I loaded up FTP since HTTP download kept dropping (dial up). Put in the sites FTP and saw a really big file (it was in German so I had no idea what it was except that it was a demo). Grabbed that while I was there. Turned out to be the FS2 demo which I had never heard of FS2. Played it, went online and played the multi demo and got hooked. Had to order and send the CD's back twice before I got a working set (talk about torture). Been playing it ever since.
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Back in 1998 I read a short review of FreeSpace in a magazine called MikroBitti. The review piqued my curiosity but it took me months to actually get around getting the game. Mostly because I was unsure I'd like it, despite it scoring 90/100 in the review. Well, it was probably late '98 or early '99 when I finally got FS1. Later I got Silent Threat expansion which was a mild disappointment.
When I learned that there will be sequel, I pre-ordered it and visited the shop almost every day asking "is it here yet?". :p
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I got the White Label package of Conflict: FreeSpace The Great War and FreeSpace 2 in one box, in what must have been some time in the early 2000's. 2002 most likely.
Played both games as their original versions, then left them for a while. Some years later, I found some random site with a few mods and tossed them into the retail directory (which, of course, was necessary with Retail anyways but left me wondering why I kept seeing Bosch Beer containers in the original campaign).
Then I discovered The Babylon Project and played through it. However, when I moved out of home and got my own PC in 2005, my beloved TBP didn't work, and the troubleshooting I did for it lead me to discover FS2_Open in greater depth. For a long time, I simply played what I could get my hands on, then I started to slowly get into making content, learning about GIMP and different texture formats as I went.
Been a pretty interesting pastime so far. :p
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Then, one day like 2 years ago, I got bored and started googling images of FS2 ships, because that's how cool people spend their free time.
Hear Hear :P
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My brother got the FS1 demo on a compilation disk he scored from hos work at the time I believe, but s much as I begged him to try installing it (I loved descent), we didn't have a computer capable of playing it at the time. So I basically forgot about it until My parents bought a new computer with the FS2 OEM on it, which both he and I loved, so he bought FS1, ST and FS2 online (I think), and promptly refused to let me play the full version of FS2.
So I installed FS1 and ST on my own computer (no 3d accelerator, so my options were limited) and got hooked on FRED, before finally convincing him to put FRED2 on my parents computer (he still wouldn't let me install the full FS2 at this point BTW). I was part of the community, and FREDding with FRED 2 for literally years before I ever played the full FS2 campaign, so I was well and truly spoiled for things like "DIVE DIVE DIVE" and the like. Actually, come to think of it, I've only ever played all the way through the main FS2 campaign once in my entire life. Must have been half a dozen of the first act though.
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I got FS2:Colossus bundled with some other games when I bought a second hand Righteous Orchid Voodoo 2 Accelerator card (yes my pitiful PC at that time only had a 2mb 2d VGA card :ick: ). I didn't really play it through back then as I only had keyboard and mouse, no gamepad/joystick.
Then about three to four years ago, I was looking through some old demo discs I had looking for something new and different to my usual type of game to play (I was heavily into FPS's), found the FS2 demo, played it through and enjoyed how it played with a gamepad, then I moved heaven and earth to obtain the full game, while looking for patches for the game, I came across Kara's FAQ which in turn directed me here.
Believe it or not I had never heard of game mods before finding this site, so this opened up a whole new world for me. I can now go through my back catalogue of games and look for mods for them. :D
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Played the demo of fs1 from a pc format demo disk age 12, i had to evict my sister off her computer as my graphics card was not up to starting the game and played it whenever i could. got the game + st in one box, played the fs2 demo and bought fs2 in about 01 when one of my mates claimed i nearly had an orgasm when i spotted it
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Descent 1 came with my Windows 95. Purchased and played Descent 2 and 3 in interplay's height. Interplay went down, my copy of descent 3 broke, purchased Freespace 1. Played through FS1, went looking for FS2, (didnt know about HLP at the time) and had to save up $80+ for the sci-fi sim of the year edition. Only for CD1 to be scratched and not install. Purchased a lower quality version, installed, couldnt play. Tried the Sci-fi sim of the year disks. they played. Discovered HLP when i first beat FS2, and wondered about there being a FS3. at first, I was disapointed to find out no, but the alternative being this massive modding community, as well as the SCP made it just as satisfying. Who needs FS3 with all these campaigns and epic visual enhancements? :D
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Got the OEM CD with my joystick, played it for years, then got the full game.
That way for me too. The joystick is broke now (Logitech), but I am eternally grateful to them :D
+1 for this track. Got an OEM CD of FS1, it sat around unused for a while, I finally got bored and tried it out. Wasn't impressed at first, stopped after a couple of missions. Later, happened across a glowing review of FS1, decided to give it another shot. Once the Shivans appeared, I was hooked.
I wasn't actually too concerned about FS2 when it came out: at the time, I was too obsessed with Descent 3. At some point, though, I found out about FRED and the possibility of custom campaigns, then went looking for some, then noticed that all of the discussion and new campaigns were for FS2... so I ordered FS2, played through it once, and dived into the modding scene.
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Found a PC magazine with BtRL in it, at the same time that I found an article on FS2 from another website. After trying BtRL, I was blown away, stumbled on Turey's downloader, downloaded everything, played through FS2, and was instantly hooked. Then I found this place... that was nearly 2 years ago. About 5 months ago I stumbled on a $2 copy of FS1 at a pawn shop, bought it and am immensely enjoying it also.
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I heard the game in 98/99 within a PC magazine call Joystick or it was PC Force. And since, in the past, the only games I played was all kind of modern Simulator (space, modern air combat, etc...), I could only be interested about Conflict: Freespace.
However, in the same time, there was Wing Commander V: Prophecy, another space opera with better graphics, with a lot of cutscenes. It was pretty hard to choose between those 2 games. And finally, I choose Conflict: Freespace. :) However, it was pretty hard to find this game to the retailer.
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My joystick that I had used for Microsoft CFS and a couple of arcade emulators broke I got the OEM version with that Logitech joystick that I never use, played it for a few years. Back when I was around 9 or 10, I got home one day, and my dad was on the computer, and when I went to say hi to him, I saw that he was installing FS2 for me. Finished installing after dinner. I remember, I stayed up until 10 playing. Got up to the chess/artemis missions. That was about two hours later then any other time I've stayed up playing video games.
I also remember the OEM version would get all screwy when I tried to use the joystick it came packaged with. :lol:
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I read the FS1 strategy guide.
Years later, they had the game by the checkout at Fry's Electronics.
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Why did you have the strategy guide and not the game? :confused:
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Why did you have the strategy guide and not the game? :confused:
I said I read it. I didn't say I bought it. I remember reading the mission description for saving the Plato in the store and a picture of a couple of Apollos.
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My parents bought it (FS2) for me (I was 9-10). In 2004 I was bored in computer class and decided to "see if anyone else knew about FS2".
I discovered the main SCP site.
I wondered what this "Source Code Project" meant.
I also found a wiki (what's a wiki?) that "seemed to be called Hard Light Productions".
I think the first new ship I downloaded was the Orion Mk II, which led me on a huge search for VPView after it didn't work due to lack of tables.
After it finally worked and I had learned to activate beams in FRED2, I HAD to get more ships, and so things went on...
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FS:2 Colossus came with that Logitech joystick, which I received when I was about 4. Played it for probably about 6 years and then realized there might be more to this thing that I could get a hold of. Then I found the SCP. I still find bits of my shattered jaw on the floor to this day.
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;-)
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Well, I've played X-Wing and Descent ever since they made computers with CD-ROM drives.
I'm not sure how I obtained a copy, but I got FS1+ST mostly because of the "Descent" name. I found it was an excellent game, so I beat it a few times and forgot about it. Some time later ('02-'04?) I learned that there was a Freespace2! I decided I had to have it so I eBayed it for a song. Beat that a few times and forgot about it.
Around '07, I stumbled upon Shadows of Lylat and Fate of the Galaxy and started following. A little while after that, I found out that they were built on a super upgraded FS2 engine, so I downloaded it, played through the main campaign, and forgot about it.
Then I remembered about it, upgraded late to 3.6.10, and just beat it again a few months ago. After that I decided to play a mod for the first time ever. It happened to be Blue Planet. That made me decide that I wanted to be a part of the whole community, which is why it seems like I've only recently arrived on the forum at large.
P.S. I have the FS1 and FS2 CDs still, I've gone through about 5 joysticks all together (now I'm using a Wingman Force 3D), and have between one and three demo discs.
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;-)
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I stole my brother's copy when I was in third grade. Played it all the way to CotT II and thought to myself "this game is way too long," stopped playing, and gave back the CDs. Five years later, I downloaded the HOTU version (hell yeah!) and had a blast with it.
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;-)
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One of the first flight combat sims I remember playing was this game called "Starfighter 3000." My dad and I would play it together before I was even large enough to operate the space bar and the arrow keys at the same time. So I got to do gunnery while he did navigation (I was more than a little trigger happy. There are hundreds of blown-up powerups and allied craft littered throughout that game thanks to me). When we had to upgrade our computer, SF broke. I felt like I would never forgive my parents for murdering my game. But then Descent popped up, and that satisfied me for a while. I was still pissed as hell about SF3000 going down. One Christmas I open a present and there's Descent: FreeSpace - TGW. I thought "huh... it's got Descent in the name... can't be all that bad... it's kinda like SF, might be good, but I doubt it." And then I installed it on our PC, watched the intro and was
:jaw:
I forgave my parents for upgrading our computer and doing in SF.
Needless to say, I spent the next several years FSing out with a keyboard. Tried joystick, but found it was too strange. Went back to keyboard until my private computer went and crapped itself and I realized I had lost the install CDs. Not happy. Then, coming out of my youthful naivete, I thought "I wonder if there ever was a FS website." Found it. Just hearing the in-game mission-launch sound used on the website was like an eargasm. Then I learned there had been a FS2 and was really really happy, but by that time they had stopped selling it :(. I got it from a friend who was something of a program ninja, and was pleased. When going through and packing up old toys, I found my old FS1 CDs and flipped several *****es. Did not get any homework done that weekend. Discovered SCP and HLP a little later while doing some background research on the whole FS franchise in general.
Still have the original FS1 disks in the Typhon folding case, and still fly with a keyboard.
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Back in the days I... .. err... now how was it. I guess it was like this.
Right.
I've been a fan of space shooters/sims since X-Wing (and Wing Commander, I played that on my friends pc. I think I also had Elite too... not sure anymore though).
Then my friend got the FS1 (Conflict: FreeSpace) and of course since it was a space sim I had to try it out... and hoo boy did I get hooked. Of course I had to get it myself too and when FS2 came (so did I) I didn't take long to get that one aswell. I also found out about VBB when FS2 was quite new and registered, and I'm still here.
I even made a short campaign for FS2 (that did suffer a minor issue of Battle of Endor Syndroma in some missions) but it did have a full voice acting :p (thanks to my friends).
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TYPHON FOLDING CASE OMG HIGH-RES SCANS NAO
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TYPHON FOLDING CASE OMG HIGH-RES SCANS NAO
You mean one of these?
(http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/3701/flipboxcdssmall.jpg)
(http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/8938/flipboxfrontssmall.jpg)
(http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/3935/flipboxfrontsfsbackt.jpg)
(http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/7319/flipboxfrontsstbackq.jpg)
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I wonder what banimation is.
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IT'S A TYPO LOL
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Aw, I don't think I have my original box any more :(
And I never had the box for FS2, 'cuz I got it on Amazon.
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Typhon? Is that why the 'Lucifer' didn't look very much like a Lucifer? :lol: I guess I just figured it was deformed concept art or something.
I believe I have both my FS2 and FS1 boxes squirreled away.
EDIT: Or I may have noticed, and then forgotten that I had noticed.
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I played the demo for FS1 but I don't think my parent's PC was really up to handling it so I never got into it until I got my own PC and Freespace 2 came out. I played the demo for Freespace 2 over and over for a few days and it offered a different experience to the X-wing games, which I'd been playing since 1993, big ships with big beam cannons. I was sold and bought a copy. I didn't play Freespace 1 until picking up FSPort 3.1 last year after having a copy of FS1 sitting on my hard drive which I had downloaded when it was up as freeware for a short period before GoG happened.
I think Freespace has always had a grander scale of warfare than the X-wing series ever did, yeah it had both the Death Stars and the Endor battle but larger battles just didn't seem to match the impact that you got from Freespace (FS2 especially). It's a shame LucasArts won't release the code for any of their games expecially after seeing what Volition has enabled this community to achieve.
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I got the Gold Games 4 edition (I think it was 4, I don't have the packaging anymore) as a present, I think for Xmas '98.
Played FS1 and loved it.
Bought FS2 immediately when it came out.
... many years passed, lost interest in PC games for a while...
I then discovered FS2 Open when searching for Battlestar Galactica games last year and stumbling upon Diaspora. Reinstalling FS2 and playing the mods with the new eyecandy was a real treat, I was hooked immediately.
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A friend told me about FS2. He told me that it was a good space simulator and that it had a great story. Then after i played Freespace 2, a few mounths later i bought FS1 and i realized that it was a masterpiece like it's sequel.
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...I'm not sure anyone has said this yet, but...
WELCOME TO THE HLP!!!
Good to see you back around, arjuna 1.
:D
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...I'm not sure anyone has said this yet, but...
WELCOME TO THE HLP!!!
Good to see you back around, arjuna 1.
:D
Do you mean............
:welcome:
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Silence!
I don't have beamz...
:nervous:
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Hey, some guys here have never been beamed.
Not that I'm bitter or anything....
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Hey, some guys here have never been beamed.
Not that I'm bitter or anything....
I only got a half assed beam after I asked for it.
Not that I'm bitter or anything....
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Hey, some guys here have never been beamed.
Not that I'm bitter or anything....
:welcome:
Please proceed to the support forum where you will ask people to post log files for the next three years.
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Hey, some guys here have never been beamed.
Not that I'm bitter or anything....
that sounds like a personal problem to me.....
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As you can see in the post above yours, I have been beamed now, and everything is OK in the world.
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I remember buying Fs1 at Fred Meyers for $10. I have no idea what happened to the discs.
There's no going back. FSPort is brilliant, but it doesn't capture the feel of the original.
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;-)
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I have my original FS2 CD's with the quick-start guide, but the box and rest-of-manual got chucked out :(
Maybe I can make a box...or maybe I can't be bothered...
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;-)
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I started playing Descent 3 back in 2002. At that time, I went to have a look inside CD 2 and found the old self-executing FreeSpace 2 Trailer. I played that trailer at least 20 times in one sitting, because I thought it was awesome. However, I was on dial-up back then; getting the 62.x MB demo was out of the question.
Eventually, when I got a fast enough connection in 2005, I managed to try out the demo, and I liked it.
I don't have beamz...
Okay.
/me fires his LRABeam.
(http://public.blu.livefilestore.com/y1p3bnkqMZTB51vwCJTUo-ifFNxReAzlAXx6YqHpqWd2PdYvilvBp8fB-zeJDPfI2JBcf5Zog9VGNBX8Q94qP6q2g/LRAYeah.png)
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I started playing Descent 3 back in 2002. At that time, I went to have a look inside CD 2 and found the old self-executing FreeSpace 2 Trailer. I played that trailer at least 20 times in one sitting, because I thought it was awesome. However, I was on dial-up back then; getting the 62.x MB demo was out of the question.
Oh, that's where the trailer was. D3 automatically plays a trailer for Planescape: Torment when you install it, but I'd forgotten that they tucked the FS2 trailer onto the second disk.
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Yeah. Funny, isn't it? When you install FS2, they play the trailer for D3, but when you install D3, they don't play the FS2 trailer.
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Another part of Interplay's bull**** advertising strategy that ruined Freespace's popularity. :(
Ah, I remember the first time in like '99 where I got the Freespace 2: Colussus Demo disk that came with my Microsoft force feedback joystick. I played that demo for at least a year and a half, over and over again, until it FINALLY came in the mail after waiting six months for it to get here from Interplay (apparently they had stock issues or something).
And that's when I started the campaign over and over again for years while playing squadwar back in the days of the PXO network...
It took me a year of playing that campaign over and over again until I realized just exactly the story to FS2 was about and got hyped to play FS1 after realizing that Interplay still had it for sale. :P
and then the days came of playing multiplayer online. DarkWing was a good squadron while it lasted...
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Thread split.
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How I got into FreeSpace...hmmm...kinda long story actually...but in the order that it finally grabbed me and has never let go...
Hellbender Demo (HS Sophomore year would play this on only comp that had it in Computer class...after done with assignments of course)>
Fury 3 Demo (from an old PC Gamer demo disc ... which I still got) >
i forget the year but then got Terminal Velocity in full version freeware (damn that game was kick arse) >
Descent 1 and 2 (my mom had the 2nd one and I didnt have 1 until much later)...I loved the Helix cannon...haven't played either in a LONG time >
in late 1999 or early 2000 got the Freespace Demo though I don't remember where but I think off a demo disc somewhere (I re-played this thing to death) >
then finally in late 2000 got Freespace from Chips N Bits (again...replayed so much the discs I'm surprised can still be read given how covered in fine scratches they are (and still kinda nice 'nostalgic' graphics) >
then in 2001ish got FS Silent Threat again from Chips N Bits (for a time I actually thought the pilot you are in ST was the same one as the Alpha 1 you play in reg FS) >
then in 2002ish Freespace 2 Demo (my first taste of the one-shot-smite-thee beams) >
then at last late 2002 to early 2003 got Freespace 2 again from CnB and played it too until the discs got fine layer of scratches...by this time despite impatient anticipation of FS3...the sequel never came... I had gotten FS2 at the time after 9/11 when there were a number of Anthrax mail scares going around>
Descent 3 ... got it only about 4 years ago but could never get into the game and so haven't touched it in a few years
then at last in 2005 my mom found and told me about the Source Code Project...this was when it was 2.6.9 (i think)...oldest one I clearly remember is 3.6.5...whatever it was in 05 though...that information was lost when the computer I had at the time died
btw Chips N Bits (was ChipsBits.com) used to be seller of games from somewhere in new york...at the time anyway I believe...but they appear to have gone out of business long ago now
NOTE: in reference to IP advertising....I don't ever remember much in the way of any advertising for Freespace...probably because the Descent series had the most hype to begin with (blasting robots...carnage and mayhem)
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I was searching for a good Space combat simulator. was actually looking for a capital ship simulator, but this game was a treasure
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Lets see....
Was given descent 3 by my uncle, also a gamer, when I was 12. I was utterly confused by the story, of course, but the game was very enjoyable. I used an old thrustmaster stick, that creaked when I turned with it.
More interesting than the game itself, though, was the trailer for freespace 2 on it. Must have watched it 50 times.
I hunted down demo's for 1 and 2, and played them both to death.
Year goes by, I get a Logitech stick for christmas, which comes bundled with freespace 1 and the expansion (That I have since lost *shame*).
Year later, I go hunting for fs2, but no stores in my area had it. Wasn't common on ebay, at the time, finally I found this tiny UK website that was hawking copies for 24 bucks (actually, 16 pounds). Came in this transparent 3dvd pack, no box art, no manual, and the paper label that says "freespace 2" on it has another label underneath that says "Smart Stens 1st Grade", so apparently this case has been repurposed. Played it through twice, and then went hunting for MODs, particularly a port of fs1 into the better looking fs2, and that brought me here.
That logitech stick has since died, and I've stored the VPs from fs1 &2 on my various HDs for so long, that I haven't touched the disks in years, but thanks to this place, I've never uninstalled it. Now I play fs2open, widescreen, with my HOTAS X52, and all is right with the world.
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I started playing Descent in DOS with a CGA screen. I think I was playing using 6.22, windows 3.0 or 3.1, Win 95 was later, anyone remember Hercules graphics cards? Then as each Descent labeled game came out I bought it right away. Moved to a VGA and wow what a difference. Been playing all the Descent versions (except D1) on and off ever since.
I think I came across this site while search for any update files and am fascinated by the skill and expertise of the people who have been expanding the game. The marketing at the time for Freespace was never close to the other Descent series and was very poor, that is saying a lot because the marketing for the Decent1,2, and 3 games was also virtually non-existent. At that point in time, people had to be very much into the PC Hardware to be using a PC to play.
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At that point in time, people had to be very much into the PC Hardware to be using a PC to play.
Uh, I wasn't. The only thing about hardware that I'm half-confident of doing is upgrading RAM, and I only learned that last October. :nervous:
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When i was around 8, i somehow installed FS2 or FS1 (i don't remember which one..) as a package on Mandrake.
I didn't understand a single thing :°
Anyway, 2 or 3 years later, someone told me about how cool it was on an irc channel...
And he did again like 6 months ago.
So i installed it again -not as a package though- (thanks to a ubuntu docs walkthrough :p), and played FSport, FSport str, and finally fs2.
(BTW, i have to say i didn't buy the game at first... in fact, there was a link to mediavps and stuff in the walkthrough. i only learned about all the copyright stuff on freespace several months later... i guess i can justify myself by saying there's "free" in the name ._.)
And now, i switched to Windows, installed FS2, then FS_Open and all the stuff, and i keep playing lame & useless (and cool, too !) campaigns <_<' !
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Have you tried BP:AoA:DC, INFR1, PI, Derelict and Warzone yet, Fir? Those are good (well, INFR1 not so much, but it did get a lot of attention when it was brand new).
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Urmmm.. When my dad got a new computer in 1999, it came with a gaming pack of 8 games (descent 3 was in there too, could never get into it tho), with the first half of fs1 It was branded conflict: freespace, darkness rising.. I still have that disk somewhere. Played that to death, completed it wayyy too many times and would go in the mission simulator and just play the 2 tiranus missions.
Then I was at a computer fayre in about 2002 saw some old games (u know the ones in the huge boxes) and asked the guy behind the table if he had a game called freespace 2, cos I had read about it and really wanted it! My jaw hit the basement when he said he had it, i managed to persuade my dad to buy it for me, was £20 which was a lot for a 13 year old lad at the time. Got home, installed it, played that to death aswell for years just playing the main campaign over and over, but felt a little left out because I hadn't completed fs1. so, in about 2005 I went on ebay to try and find it, found the dual-jewel for a tenner.. Bought it then and there.. Arrived a few days later and was completely amazed by the second half. I will agree that st wasn't quite up to the same level but I've not yet played st:r...
I found out about the modding scene and FSO while bored in IT class one day and managed to download 3.6.7 onto a flash drive only to discover my comp wouldn't run it :'(
When I bought a new laptop few years ago and the first thing i did was install 3.6.9 :D fell back in love with the game and have played over 50 user-made campaigns since.
I still have all the original disks and I always get the piss taken out of me by my mates for playing 11/12 year old games but i don't care because they're the ones missing out :D
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At that point in time, people had to be very much into the PC Hardware to be using a PC to play.
Uh, I wasn't. The only thing about hardware that I'm half-confident of doing is upgrading RAM, and I only learned that last October. :nervous:
Hi. Most of the people that I knew when FS2 came out were and had been; building their own PC's, only a few purchased them prebuilt. If you were able to afford them, good job! Generally the people I worked with and many others were constantly tweaking the hardware configurations to get better performance. Around the time of FS2 release I think the P2-450 was the fastest processor around. We used to buy Celerons 300a's, change and resolder the chip resistors and overclock them to around 500MHz. Later it was higher. They were substantially cheaper than a P2 (less cache).
I used to write for a website called AGN.com (All Games Network) and hardware modifications (overclocking, lapping CPU's, heatsink modifications etc) were a large part of the articles. If you have questions on doing an upgrade let me know, I'll help if i can.
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I liked the earlier Descent games and loved Space sims in general so one day I was wondering around Comp USA looking for a new game and happened to notice Descent: Freespace I took a look at it and decided to give it a shot.
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I think it was around summer of 2008. I was searching for any Babylon 5 games, which led me to FreeSpace 2 (I didn't play TBP right away). I saw it was recommended to torrent it, so I downloaded, played, and liked it. When GoG started offering it, I decided to buy FS1 (though I never intended to download it), FS2, and Descent 1-3.
If it weren't offered for download back then, then I can honestly say I would never have played any Descent or FreeSpace. So... I guess let this be a good word for abandonware from a consequentialist viewpoint. :D
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Lets put it this way...FS1/FS2 is the shiznet :pimp: :P FS1 anymore is Nostalgia-ville while FS2 is the Temple of V.
<sigh> Just like Sierra was to make a B5 game but then dumped the idea....Interplay had to go and prevent V from making FS2 like they wanted or do an FS3...
Heil the V gods for making the best space-sim IMO...and who were gracious enough to hand their work down to the FSO team!
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I found the Freespace 2: Colossus disc at my aunt's house. She said she got it with her computer. It was like a demo with all missions up to the appearance of the GTVA Collosus. I forgot about the game but got Tachyon: The Fringe a year later and after beating it, I wanted more space sim so I torrented FS2 retail and then found the FS Open project.
I was also a young idiot (8 years old) so I thought Freespace had to do with the Windows 98 game "Freecell" that comes with windows when I first saw the disc. I also thought Freespace had to do with freeing space. I played Descent III but didnt associate one with the other.
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me and my twin brother got gifts from our big sister she traveled abroad and got us the first freespace .
so we were hooked.
after a year or so a colleegue from my mothers work got to the us and bought us freespace 2 and the rest is known i'm playing this game on and of for the past 12 years now and since freespace2 scp came freespace2 got more intresting.
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Hi! Just registered in order to comment this thread.
Anyway, played the Descent II demo to death when I was a wee kidlett. Spent an entire Saturday in 1998 with my dad babysitting a dialup connection as it downloaded the Descent: Freespace demo (You get to fight outside the mines!!) and proceeded to play *that* demo to death. I think I racked up over 1,000 kills doing three missions over and over... Finally, my dad's friend from work burned copies of the FS1 disks for us. I had the time of my life for a week getting all the way to Failure to Communicate, and hit a brick wall. No matter what I tried, I couldn't protect that darn com station.
So what did I do? I restarted the campaign. Got all the way to Failure to Communicate again, spent a week failing, and restart again. And again. And again. Over the course of two years. Finally I started digging around in the FRED campaign editor, and managed to change the success criteria to basically "Alpha One wins if the com station is destroyed."
What do you think happened? The com station survived. After two years, the only way I could save that stupid science vessel was by leaving it to die.
Eventually I did pass it legitimately, and steamrolled the rest of the campaign. I even played through the incredibly incomplete Silent Threat, and shelved FS.
Flash forward to 2007, when I was reminiscing about Freespace via Wikipedia, and discovered ST:R. I just had to acquire FS2 so i could play the SCP, which kept me busy until my roommate got me hooked on World of Warcraft. I've been lurking HLP ever since... through STR, Blue Planet, FSO.... the list goes on.
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Yay!
You should play Transcend if you haven't.
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Yay!
You should also play Derelict if you haven't. As well as anything Blaise Russel wrote. And a bunch of other stuff.
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I didn't. FreeSpace dragged me kicking and screaming into a locked room that was so dark... so dark ... noises everywhere and nowhere ... it hurts to think about it ...
DON'T MAKE ME REMEMBER IT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
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I saw it in the store shortly after it came out and when I looked at the box I said, "Cool".
Took it home and was glad it was worth the money.
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Well, i heard some friends talking about FS2 at school.
Then I played it at their house and loved it
I borrowed it and copied the discs.
I then bought a mint condition FS1/ST double pack off e-bay
I then discovered the mod-archives on the old :v: archive, sector game and the one that HLP had when it was on 3dactionplanet.
Eventually, I joined HLP and the rest is history :pimp:
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I'm actually working on Transcend right now. Played Derelict a while ago, but I'm thinking about playing it again while I wait for War in Heaven.
Oddly enough, Inferno always seems to break when I try playing it, and then helps itself to everything else. Yay for restore points!
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I found a FS2 demo cd when i was cleaning the room, but i do not remember where i got it :D I bought the game when i finished the demo campaign, it was in 2007. Since then i converted 3 friends from MS flight sim :D
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I was 12 and a X-wing/Tie Fighter addict (with all the subsequent sequels like X-wing vs Tie Fighter + BoP and X-Wing Alliance).
I read about Freespace 2 in the italian edition of PC Gamer but as I saw that required a 3D accelarator I cancelled it from my mind.
After a while I found myself in a computer store in Switzerland and there I found Conflict: Freespace - he Great War (with box, manual and all) at the price of just 20 Swiss Francs, when I saw that it had a software modality I immediatly bought it!
One or two years later, after getting a tnt 2 m64, I bought Freespace 2 too.
I remember I was dissapointed when I came to knew trough the "Giochi per il mio computer" magazine (lit. "Games for my Computer") that Freespace 3 wasn't to come out at all.
I came to know of the SCP project about 4 or 5 years ago through GMC (The italian edition of PC Gamer closed, being just a translation of the original magazine much of the information which contained was outdated), but then I had just a 56k connection.
One or two years ago (meanwhile we got an adsl) I tried to install FS_open but i couldn't spend too much time with it so I coludn't get it to work.
Now I reinstalled it and got it to work (with the help of this forum, of course) and it looks awesome!
Thanks for bringing two of the best game ever back to life!
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[offtopic]
Just wanted to chime in about A Failure To Communicate.
there's a very poor design decision [V] made when placing the bomber wings. They always arrive in the same place, instead of a random location around the comm station. Order your wingmen to attack the enemy, not protect the comm station. This way, after destroying the initial wave of bombers, your wingmen will stay where they are with no orders rather than go back to the station. Then, when the next wave jumps in, you'll be much closer to it.
I always hated that mission. It's like they couldn't decide how to make it an interesting mission, so they threw a couple Nephilims at you and made it hard instead.
[/offtopic]
Anyway, my story: My dad got me FS1 around when it first came out, probably thinking it was a Descent sequel, and I was pretty much hooked ever since. I was around 8 back then, I think. I always skipped through the briefings and attacked everything that was hostile, pretty much treating the game like Descent in space. It was a few years until I got FS2, mainly because the only indication I had of its existence was an ad for it as an upcoming game on my Descent 3 cd case.
What I did with FS2 pretty much defines me as a gamer overall: I opened the level editor, before even starting the campaign to see where it went. I had been pretty much addicted to FRED 1, and was amazed to see so many new features and available ships in FRED2. This must have been back in '02 or '03.
Shortly after that, I went looking for new ships for FS2, which led me to the Volition Watch Archives- I pretty much downloaded all the ships there, and a few of the missions- and HLP. I've been lurking here ever since. Got FSO back when it was still 3.6.7, and IIRC the first new campaign I played was Derelict (sadly, not the SCP version).
FS is probably what got me into gaming and modding, since- especially with FSO- there's really a limitless potential to do anything you want with it. Windmills is an excellent testament to that. I hope to release a bunch of campaigns in the years to come... if I can ever motivate myself to finish one before starting another one... :nervous:
;)
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Saw the trailer for Freespace 2 on one of the Descent 3 disks. Thought "Oooh this looks awsum, I'ma buy it". Bought FS2 off ebay for five bucks. Played it, beat it, later found and bought FS1 at a local game store.
To this day I've never played a game series in its proper order and I am DAMN PROUD OF IT. :D
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Uncle had a burned copy of FS1 that he let me play on his computer. Then gave me my own copy. FS2 it was on my xmas wish and I got it :)
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The first PC I ever used in my life was an IBM Aptiva E with a 19" monitor, 12GB HDD, Win 98, Pentium II 400MHz, and nVidia Riva 128ZX graphics. It came with a few game demo discs, but also came with the full DVD version of Freespace 1 (Yes, my comp had a DVD back then for a 1997 comp and above specs...cost $3000 too :D ). Anyway, a couple of thoughts were running through my mind when I held the disc in my hand:-
-What kind of game is this? (only had disc with Volition logo on it and "Freespace", no cover or anything)
-It's a DVD disc, so it must be awesome (back then I thought it was some kinda kids interactive movie thing and maybe I could play it in my TV DVD player) :D
-Maybe it's some hyper-advanced version of FreeCell <--Yes, I thought this
-Is it gonna be like graphically similar to "Popeye The Sailor Man" for DOS that I once saw in the store long time ago
-Isn't my Sega Genesis better because discs can scratch whereas cartridges will survive 3 story drops and direct hits with a jackhammer (Yep, I've tested this personally :cool: )
Then I install it and watch the trailer and I was like "OOOOOOOOOOOOO! THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME!!" and "THIS TOTALLY BEATS MY GENESIS 100x" (talking bout graphics). Then I'm held back by the sheer number of key bindings, because I'm the kind of guy who ALWAYS looks through the options before playing a game. But I binded the keys as I started playing the training missions and the 1st two missions and I was like "NOW THIS IS A GAME! DEFINITELY BEATS MY GENESIS!" and ever since I've loved Freespace games :D
First 3D PC game I've ever played. Definitely beats FreeCell and Solitaire :D Then I got a new PC, played Soldier of Fortune 2, which was included with my Geforce 2 GTS V7700 Deluxe, and then my 3rd game was Freespace 2, bought on the day it came out and paid in full :cool: Never knew Silent Threat existed until 2 years later, but was a welcome surprise.
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-Maybe it's some hyper-advanced version of FreeCell <--Yes, I thought this
I loled so hard.
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Was looking at the "Top Dog" list on the Home of the Underdogs site. Saw FreeSpace 2 and the great review of it. It added it was "freeware" and avalaible for download here... and back then it was.
Played it and loved it a lot. Then, I downloaded the Freespace Port, which I think was just out. That was awesome. The only time I was more surprised and hooked at a game was when I bought Europa Universalis 3 for 3 € at a store - "what is that stuff".
So now, EUIII and FS2 are my favorite games (could not say which one I prefer)... surprise surprise... they both have great modability and strong fan-modding communauties.
I bought it legit since then, BTW.
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I saw the trailer for FS2 on my shiny, new Descent 3 disc, and decided to give the demo a twirl. It took a good three attempts to download, each of which lasted an entire night, on account of my hideously unreliable 28.8kbps dial-up connection at the time. For how trivial a 59MB download might seem today, it was a chore to get the FS2 demo. The wait and frustration were worth it, though. Three missions was just enough to prime me for more, and I got the retail box, within a couple of weeks of release.
Incidentally, FS2 is one of two games that I own that has appreciated in value, since I bought it at full retail price and has clocked more play time than nearly anything else in my library (Baldur's Gate II being the possible exception, requiring 200+ hours for a single, typical play-through).
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Saw a review of FS1 in a computer/gaming magazine, then headed to my favourite video game store to get it. Now FS2, that I simply saw on a shelf (in the same store, in fact) one day and, remembering FS1 as excellent, decided it was worth a shot. That turned out to be a good call :D Hadn't even heard it was out before that.
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OEM came with my first hardware purchase (joystick, Logitech). Still have the broken joystick and OEM disc as memoribilia. Bought FS2 on eBay for $14 a while back. Got FS1 off some kid my friend's cousin knew from his church (I'm Jewish, so I'd have never met the guy otherwise). I played the entire OEM and never understood the story behind the Shivans (always thought they were allies who vanished or something, because I never read the tech room), so FS1 was a HUGE wakeup call to me, 'specially without shields the first couple missions. And now, here I am!