[IceFire]

Well about...oh....5-6 years ago there was the RPG genre which had died a solid death.  No new significant games were coming out and people legitimately through that the genre had died.  It came back with a vengance...now I suspect that the space-sim genre will never come back quite like that but I am hoping for a small rennaisance.

There has been mention of EA "going back to its roots" and that could mean another Wing Commander game.  The other point is that no significant space combat has come out since 1999 with the release of FreeSpace 2.  StarLancer came out at the same time and FreeLancer is not what I'd call a space combat game (not to mention the fact that the mouse thing is still somewhat annoying in comparison).

Anyone who thinks that the joystick and buttons are too complex is kidding themselves and cheating themselves out of a game.  Simple fact is that IL-2 Forgotten Battles and LOMAC have tons of buttons, radar modes, convergence settings, jammers, warning recievers, manual and automatic landing gear settings, radiator/cowl flap settings, supercharger settings....need I go on.  FreeSpace 2 feels simple in comparison when I come back to it.  All you need to know for controls is: Fire guns, Fire missiles, afterburner, target, change gun and change missile.  The rest is superflouous and something you can learn later on.  Its easy and accessible and it died because stupid marketing by people at Interplay killed it and the genre.  They were worried about a conflict between the mediocre Trek combat game they had coming out and FreeSpace of all things...

But hey...we got our revenge.  It took a little while but they have faded from the face of the gaming industry.  I think we can all guess that its the same practicies that killed FreeSpace 2 and the best space-sim on the market that ultimately destroyed the company.  Too bad we still have to suffer for it...

[Ghostavo]

Of course there are people who enjoyed both games without joystick

I hate people who say space sims are too complicated, and then go play flight simultators which are by far the most complicated games ever to be released, and even those you just need to learn for a while longer.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

We are suffering Ice?  While i would like to see our community grow, i tend to think of the people here as more the Elite Lucky.  We've been privledged to own a copy of FS2, and for pleasure we expand on something we know.  We do this because we love it, even if i tell you i hate fredding, i must love it, or i wouldn't keep doing it.  Look at everything that we have accomplished in this community.  We won't even discuss the SCP.  If this is suffering, keep me in torture for a while, cause i am loving it.  

In a way it's good that FS3 was never released i think, because as castor said, there is nothing left to ignite the imagination.  Rediscovering our home planet has truly opened the doors of imagination for us, and i think that once we had all of the answers that FS3 represented, it would have closed many possibilities as being infeasible.

I like this suffering.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Masochism is a strange thing, no?

I agree wholeheartedly, ShadowWolf

[Gloriano]

I agree with ShadowWolf

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by IceFire
Well about...oh....5-6 years ago there was the RPG genre which had died a solid death.  No new significant games were coming out and people legitimately through that the genre had died.  It came back with a vengance...now I suspect that the space-sim genre will never come back quite like that but I am hoping for a small rennaisance.

There has been mention of EA "going back to its roots" and that could mean another Wing Commander game.  The other point is that no significant space combat has come out since 1999 with the release of FreeSpace 2.  StarLancer came out at the same time and FreeLancer is not what I'd call a space combat game (not to mention the fact that the mouse thing is still somewhat annoying in comparison).

Anyone who thinks that the joystick and buttons are too complex is kidding themselves and cheating themselves out of a game.  Simple fact is that IL-2 Forgotten Battles and LOMAC have tons of buttons, radar modes, convergence settings, jammers, warning recievers, manual and automatic landing gear settings, radiator/cowl flap settings, supercharger settings....need I go on.  FreeSpace 2 feels simple in comparison when I come back to it.  All you need to know for controls is: Fire guns, Fire missiles, afterburner, target, change gun and change missile.  The rest is superflouous and something you can learn later on.  Its easy and accessible and it died because stupid marketing by people at Interplay killed it and the genre.  They were worried about a conflict between the mediocre Trek combat game they had coming out and FreeSpace of all things...

But hey...we got our revenge.  It took a little while but they have faded from the face of the gaming industry.  I think we can all guess that its the same practicies that killed FreeSpace 2 and the best space-sim on the market that ultimately destroyed the company.  Too bad we still have to suffer for it...

I always regarded FS as an arcade game, not a sim.  That's why I bought it in the first place (based on a demo) - it was simple to play, yet fun.  As such, it would easily work on a console - just look at the Starfox/Starwing games for proof of the basic concept.

At the mo, the only hope I can see is if there are Star Wars tie-ins that are both good and popular - that'd do a big job in opening up the genre again.

[Turnsky]

Originally posted by IceFire
(not to mention the fact that the mouse thing is still somewhat annoying in comparison).

you want to know hard?.. try playing freelancer with a wacom graphics tablet, it's a wee bit sensitive, but fun nonetheless.

[Zarax]

About the demographic stuff...
It's more an excuse for saving money... Developing an interesting story and quality games costs more... I've seen stats claiming that the average gamer is over 20 years old, not exactly an adolescent (in theory, as the coefficent of maturity is falling down and in average today's 16yo boys are quite more moronic than they were some years ago, at least IMO)... FS Community is a wonderful user elite of mature gamers (where maturity is not directly correlated to age) that i personally take as shiny example of how an user community should be...

[ShadowWolf_IH]

anyone remember using the mouse to torso twist in mechwarrior 2?  now let's talk sensitive.

[Zarax]

I was a Mechwarrior 2 and 3 player and still occasionally i try a few shots there...
I used mouse torso twist but in most games i'm a keyb fanatic

[ShadowWolf_IH]

you played mech3 online?  We played at MSN, mostly in clans.  Iron Horde, we were mercs, thus my IH.

[Cabbie]

Anyone who thinks that the joystick and buttons are too complex is kidding themselves and cheating themselves out of a game. Simple fact is that IL-2 Forgotten Battles and LOMAC have tons of buttons, radar modes, convergence settings, jammers, warning recievers, manual and automatic landing gear settings, radiator/cowl flap settings, supercharger settings....need I go on. FreeSpace 2 feels simple in comparison when I come back to it. All you need to know for controls is: Fire guns, Fire missiles, afterburner, target, change gun and change missile. The rest is superflouous and something you can learn later on. Its easy and accessible and it died because stupid marketing by people at Interplay killed it and the genre. They were worried about a conflict between the mediocre Trek combat game they had coming out and FreeSpace of all things...

[Knight Templar]

Me thinks we should remind Gamespot of our existance.

Of course by saying that outloud, it automatically means no one will do anything about it.

[.::Tin Can::.]

Why dont people at my age play space sims? (14 to 15 to 15, or anywhere in high school. for that matter)

Because:

a) The idiots of the gaming industry play crappy sports game, Wal Mart titles, or anything that just "looks cool".

b) All the extremely deep nerds and geeks play RPG's and FPS titles. No one ever bothers with Sim's anymore.

c) People just dont have a thing for sci-fi. Halo didnt feel sci-fi to kids because the ring you played on look surprisingly like Earth, and you have human buddies who just fight aliens. That was the only difference were aliens.

So, I come to the sad conclusion that all the older people play FS2 and all the younger ones dont. I only know one friend, he is 15 now, who actually bought FS1 when it came out, he friggin loved it, and then eagerly bought the expansion, which sucked, and almost didn't buy FS2 becuase of the crappy expansion, but when he bought it he just went "OMG" and bought a 70 dollar joystick. That thing has buttons coming out the wazoo.

So, there you have it. The only way to make a quality space sim, is to do it ourselves!

[Zarax]

Bah, the real RPGs died shortly after FS2...
What you have now is mostly arcade/rpg "hybrids" and sloppy CRPGs...
The big hitters are sport games and FPS plus some arcade racing sims like NfS...
The RTS genre is going on replicating the same old mix with new graphics and with that we've covered most of the gaming industry...
And oh, i almost forgot the worst of them all: Movie "inspired" games... There's nothing as bad as them...

@ShadowWolf_IH: I played MW3 before getting broadband... Anyways, abandonware rulez!

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by ShadowWolf_IH
anyone remember using the mouse to torso twist in mechwarrior 2?  now let's talk sensitive.

I used my joystick POV hat to do that, actually........

[Kazan]

I just emailed that gamespot employee.. he responded in under 10 minutes

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by ShadowWolf_IH
i think of it has to do with multiplayability.  lag shooting is a ***** in space.  Look at M$, they delved into mechwarrior and took a great series and trashed it, then freelancer, which is a good game, but not a great game.  Star wars is star wars, and we were all riding high on the legend of star wars when we started playing these games, but the newer movies are lacking in the magic, and i think that is carrying over into the entire genre.  The two big names are faltering, those being star wars and wing commander.  Even then think about M$ venture before freelancer....starlancer.  To be honest i found it to be a second rate rip off of fs1.  It came out same time as fs2 iirc, and let's face it, fs2 smokes it.  So what are your choices.....choose a sucky game from a company you know, or take a chance with a company you don't know?  Not many people are willing to take a chance with 50 bucks.  The only reason i own starlancer is that i bought it used for $1.99, at that price it's not so bad, but would i ever pay as much for it as i would for fs1?  not in a million years.  

The genre of the space combat sim is dying, We need a good game with a good advertising campaign.  Freespace never got the billing it deserved.  If it had, we might be playing fs3, instead of having our guys make it for us.   Wait a minute...i like the fact that they are doing what we want them to do.

I think that in the end a number of factors can be counted as reasons for the decline of the space sim, not least of all is what i call the Post Millenial Freefall.  Think about it, the year 2000 was always an invisible barrier between science fiction and science fact.  We could always look to that barrier as the future, and dream of that future.  We are now on this side of it, and nothing has changed.  We were supposed to cross into sci fi, and we haven't.  Space sim fans in today's world are probably the closest to "The Lost Generation" that there has been.  We have no war to fight, save that war that we create ourselves.

Dude. You should be a writer.

Hmmm....  http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/gamespotting/gamespottingfaq.html

[Kosh]

I remember another great game that got "freespaced" (ie, the parent company buried it) back in 1992. It was called Star Control 2. The sound was WAY, WAY ahead of it's time (it used MOD's instead of crappy synthesized sound).

I think that the space-sim industry really needs a savior. I think FSO might just be that savior.

The RTS genre is going on replicating the same old mix with new graphics and with that we've covered most of the gaming industry...

The FPS genre is doing that a lot too. Doom 3 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein are two good examples.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

I would normally think about it, but i need to feel something for my subject, i feel a great deal for the future combat sims...ie mechwarrior type games, and space combat sims, most notably star wars and fs.  Most games just don't inspire me.  On the other hand, i also deal mostly with my opinion, and not fact.