Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Mobius on May 31, 2014, 11:20:59 am
-
...what would you ask :v: to change in FreeSpace? In poor words, what are the cons of the series? The pros are well known and we all love them, but I'm pretty sure there are people around here who can point out one or more things in FS that just don't match their tastes.
Personally - but it's just my opinion - I believe :v: should have done a better job at handling the universe and continuity they created. Both games are enjoyable (otherwise we wouldn't be here! ;)) but there are too many inconsistencies and major changes left unexplained for my tastes. Many user-made campaign series have done a much better job at providing players with a single and consistent continuity to play around with.
I would have loved to see more official campaigns other than the main campaigns from FS1 and FS2, Silent Threat and Operation Templar. Speaking of the main campaigns, some multibranching a la Colony Wars 1&2 would have been awesome. Any thoughts?
-
Needs more (Vasudan) fanservice.
-
...what would you ask :v: to change in FreeSpace?
-Capital ships behavior (AI which torment us ever since) and gameplay - would like to see volition full professional implemented capship command system. (i know there is one made by modders)
But that's me, I am a capship freak.
-
The capship AI is exactly right for FreeSpace 2's design. It only becomes a task when you try to do more than what FS2 wanted to do.
-
We turn a blind eye but it kind of doesn't make sense. Any good destroyer is obsolete since you can slap a Maxim on a couple of Herc Mark II's(powerful yet not that advanced or expensive I assume), disable it from a distance and destroy it in any way imaginable. Or just destroy beams from a distance if in a pinch. So actually a Hecate type ship makes a lot of sense, as a small base and a way of moving stuff safely. Maybe a Collosus could be the same just bigger, but it can't justify its cost I think. Cruisers are even more useless. Gunship would be a realistic ship of choice for FS2, with interceptors with developed trebuchets and kaysers to guard them.
-
Cruisers are pretty good anti-fighter platforms as long as they have AAA beams (and you play on insane to turn off your magical damage resistance). Maxims are ludicrously overpowered but they are fun lategame guns and that's what Volition wanted.
-
Personally - but it's just my opinion - I believe :v: should have done a better job at handling the universe and continuity they created. Both games are enjoyable (otherwise we wouldn't be here! ;)) but there are too many inconsistencies and major changes left unexplained for my tastes. Many user-made campaign series have done a much better job at providing players with a single and consistent continuity to play around with.
I guess I'm along similar lines... fix all the inconsistent jump nodes (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Node_Inconsistencies). Sol having three jump nodes? Why do we care about the Lucifer sealing one, again? :P
-
Cruisers are pretty good anti-fighter platforms as long as they have AAA beams (and you play on insane to turn off your magical damage resistance). Maxims are ludicrously overpowered but they are fun lategame guns and that's what Volition wanted.
They're great and the gameplay is excellent, however I was commenting on realism only. You're right I guess, I never played on insane. Hard is...hard enough for me. :D But still, you'd have to deploy them very carefully and imaginatively or they're gonna get maxim'd to bits. I guess you can kill maxims altogether or put a basic, thin shield on capships to solve these issues. However, you're then still susceptible to bomber attacks, as in, one pilot effectively killing Sathanas. :D
WiH gets this and a lot of other stuff very right. Like jumping out when you're obviously gonna get killed. Also, flak works the way it's supposed to.
-
im going for prevent the Interplay person/people from getting into work who decided to divert the FS2 marketing budget into other places
-
im going for prevent the Interplay person/people from getting into work who decided to divert the FS2 marketing budget into other places
I don't know about that. Maybe the source code wouldn't have gotten released and the game would have died off instead of being improved. How many other games are still around and have been constantly improved over the last 16 years?
-
swing and roundabouts, the upshot would be that FS2 might have been a financial success and the series continued, perhaps with longer lifespan on the genre
-
This reminds me of the old "What would you like to see in FS3?" thread. :)
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=19737.20
Honestly I play these games more for the action, immersion, and prettiness than for the stories, but I am learning to appreciate story more and more. I'd like to see more of a branching rather than linear campaign, but I want to be able to pick up from a branch without starting over from the beginning. I think I could do this on Wing Commander on my SNES, but since it's been almost 20 years since I played that, so my memory may be off.
-
I'd have liked to see a couple missions where fighters move through tunnels/structures/etc. like in Descent along with the requisite AI improvements to help them not run into the walls while doing so. Having all that free space to fly around in would be all the more appreciable if there were short contrasting claustrophobic interludes. Also there's nothing more immersion breaking for me than seeing AI ships run into stuff for no apparent reason.
-
That's highly realistic behavior! Pilots often fly into the ground for no apparent reason.
-
im going for prevent the Interplay person/people from getting into work who decided to divert the FS2 marketing budget into other places
I don't know about that. Maybe the source code wouldn't have gotten released and the game would have died off instead of being improved. How many other games are still around and have been constantly improved over the last 16 years?
QFT
and:
better AI would be nice indeed ... all those fighters constantly slamming into everything gets kinda anoying over time
oh, and better scaling collision detection code, so we can have bigger asteroid fields and everything...
-
I would have loved more love for civilian craft and an explanation for why it takes a long time for destroyers to transit systems.
-
more of a feeling that cap ships are relevant instead of bomber targets. huge improvement from fs1 to fs2 but still lacking IMO.
fluff-to-gameplay-to-cutscene consistency.
fighters that felt distinctly different to fly beyond simply turning faster/slower. cockpits, or at least different huds would have helped immensely.
-
Prerendered cutscene after every mission.
-
Are we doing realistic design changes that could have occurred during FS2's development, or crazy wish lists? ;)
-
Unless the feature is already included, individual turret by turret targetting of ships. That's all I'd want. I could do so much with that without the fire beam sexps.
If this is already in place and there is a method of forcing turrets to just use their normal refire rate on a specific target, let me know!
-
...what would you ask :v: to change in FreeSpace?
Release FS2 on-time, instead of one month early.
That single change would have had a large number of cascading consequences. First, reviewers and gamers would have received FS2 when they expected to receive it, as opposed to surprising everybody and then disappearing when it apparently wasn't selling. Second, FS2 would have been marketed properly and the marketing money wouldn't have disappeared. As a consequence of these two points, FS2 may have sold quite well instead of disappointing everybody. We might have had that FS2 expansion pack (that was begun but then quickly cancelled) and we might even have had FS3.
On the other hand, one could make a strong argument that it is precisely the lack of FS3 that has fueled the FreeSpace community. For example, I doubt Volition would have been willing to release the source code if they were still making games in the series.
-
On the other hand, one could make a strong argument that it is precisely the lack of FS3 that has fueled the FreeSpace community. For example, I doubt Volition would have been willing to release the source code if they were still making games in the series.
Well, then I think the question is: would you trade this community (or at least what you contributed to it) for a really well made FS3 (and FS2 expansion)?
-
I don't think :v: could've managed anything better than BluePlanet, TBH. The only appeal of FS3 seems to be that it'd be "canon", which is essentially meaningless anyway. There's also Inferno, which is more in line with FS style. Also, don't forget that without FS code, we wouldn't have Diaspora, TBP, FoTG, WCS... Those alone are worth not having canon FS3.
-
+1 for blue planet opinion, imho when voice acting comes out for WiH that'll be as perfect as it ever gets.
-
Indeed, though remember that WiH isn't the conclusion of BP's story. At this point, noone knows what BP3 will be like, but I assure you, FREDers will do their darndest to top themselves and WiH. :) BP is better than any FS3 concept I've seen, and it pretty much nailed all the good ideas :v: had for it to boot.
-
I'm obviously not going to argue that BP isn't great - although part of being a creator is hypersensitivity to your own weaknesses, and I don't think we've ever had criticism harsher than some of our own internal thoughts. There's always stuff to be improved. Sometimes those improvements could be dramatic.
More importantly, BP is just one of many possible great stories you can tell, in one of many possible styles. With infinite time and resources I'd love to sit down and do a notional FreeSpace 3 written in :v:'s extremely tight, minimalist style. And there are other styles too, just as different and valuable.
We're always overjoyed to be loved. But I'm not comfortable with the idea that BP is the ubercampaign and that no others need apply. We're in this together.
-
I would ask, why Cruisers are these small ships and the Destroyers the big ones...
Also i would like to know, why the german translation is so bad (in FS1) or incomplete in both games. Why there are no voiced (de)briefing in the german versions ;)
But the most problems i always had with the series is the boring presentation of the story, because it only consists of wall of textes and static screens that are read aloud (in english speaking versions at least)... sure it is good for user made campaigns, which normally does not have any voice-actor... but for an official campaign it was still boring in the time the first game was released. Yes, i know, you can not expect a game that presents a Story in FMVs like Wing Commander: Prophecy did 12 months earlier... but if i see that only a few months after FreeSpace 2 (which changed nothing in the presentation) both Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance or StarLancer were released... FreeSpace2's presentation looks very ancient against them.
During the missions, so to speak during Gameplay, Freespace is still one of the the best games in this genre... but outside of the missions it is maybe one of the worst...
-
Noooo I totally disagree. FreeSpace's presentation is perfectly suited to its narrative and it's extremely sharp.
-
Prerendered cutscene after every mission.
Are we saying "topical" or "Wing Commander 2" or "Starlancer" here?
-
@Deepster. Oh Yes. Lt. Arsch :shaking:
-
Prerendered cutscene after every mission.
Are we saying "topical" or "Wing Commander 2" or "Starlancer" here?
Er WC2 was all drawn art and most of the time used the same loop interposed of different backgrounds.
WC3 was FMV and pre renders but that was a massive game for its era and ran off iirc 4+ CDs as opposed to iirc 2-3 CDs for FS2, about the only other game I can think of that I owned in that era that big was Baldur's Gate 2 at I think 4 cds which in all cases you needed to swap between during gameplay which was annoying as hell. also despite this the install to the HDD was still massive for the era.
cant comment about the others
-
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/back_to_the_future.jpg)
-
Er WC2 was all drawn art and most of the time used the same loop interposed of different backgrounds.
WC3 was FMV and pre renders but that was a massive game for its era and ran off iirc 4+ CDs as opposed to iirc 2-3 CDs for FS2, about the only other game I can think of that I owned in that era that big was Baldur's Gate 2 at I think 4 cds which in all cases you needed to swap between during gameplay which was annoying as hell. also despite this the install to the HDD was still massive for the era.
cant comment about the others
Yes, but WC2 had an end-mission cutscene of your crew-chief commenting on the condition of your craft (and a visual representation of that). Starlancer had a single prerendered launch and singled prerendered landing cutscene that it used for everything. Actually topical would require more work than either of those, something like WC3.