[Thorn]

He's the Messenger Bearing Good News from that Rowan Atkinson sketch. Smart would be the Messenger Bearing Bad News Who Thinks It's Good News.

[Flipside]

Well, I'll grudgingly admit, obviously his stubborness does get him somewhere if he is 'living his dream' as a programmer, that, to me, would be worth more than making massive profits

But yes, he's...unorthodox at times

Just thinking, I was watching MIB2 tonight, and this is just like the moment when they open the railway locker

[daveb]

Well, I don't know that I'm necessarily bearing good news, so much as I'm not bearing not-good news      Don't really know what'll happen.  

Personally, I think it'd be cool if they could dust off all us old FS developers, give us a shot of oil in the joints and let us ride. But we're spread pretty thin across a (MUCH bigger) Volition these days.

[Flipside]

Well, it's a shot in the dark, but I'd be glad to see the Bravos sail again

[Rictor]

this is probably a "do not under any circumstances answer this question" type of question, but what exactly is the relationship between THQ and Volition. You guys are, as far as I know, now a wholly owned subsidiary of THQ, right? I mean, as far as calling the shots regarding the games Volition develops, what the atmosphere like?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by daveb
Well, I don't know that I'm necessarily bearing good news, so much as I'm not bearing not-good news      Don't really know what'll happen.  

Personally, I think it'd be cool if they could dust off all us old FS developers, give us a shot of oil in the joints and let us ride. But we're spread pretty thin across a (MUCH bigger) Volition these days.

From a purely theoretical point of view, if V were to develop FS3 would it be a PS2/3* game, a PC game or a dual platform game?  

(I don't actually have the same objection to a console FS game as some other people do, h'actually.)

*wasn;t there a story about Volition working with the next-gen technology for reasearch purposes or soemthing similar?  Could be completely wrong here.....

EDIT; actually I could see this developing into a big "bombard daveb with questions" type thread.  So feel free to ignore me

EDIT2: plues it's probably a stupid question, now I think of it.

[daveb]

Well yes, Volition is totally and wholly owned by THQ.  We're a true 'internal' studio (THQ has way more external studios than they do internal).

As far as what games get developed, there's a good give-and-take. They respect our abilities/opinions quite a bit, but they're also a publically traded company so they have to make decisions that aren't going to be huge disasters.

(I keep saying 'they' and 'we' because they let us operate very much as if we were independant, which is great)

If you think about it : games aren't getting any more expensive in terms of sale price. Still roughly $50.  On the other hand, top end games are easily 10x as expensive as they were, say, 10 years ago. I believe the original FS budget was something in the 2-3 million range - which was a LOT for the time. These days, more and more games are having whopper budgets of $15 million+.  If you do the math - that means you have to sell a ton more copies. Every project committed to is a massive gamble. Sure, the ones that strike it really big (like GTA) make unprecedented amounts of cash, but the ones that fizzle lose huge investments.

[Thorn]

Originally posted by daveb
Well, I don't know that I'm necessarily bearing good news, so much as I'm not bearing not-good news    

There was one of those in the skit too Just the Bearer Of News.

[Taristin]

But couldn't they advertise FreeSpace better than Interplay did? There are of people who have played hte game, I'd imagine that if it was on more shelves, and advertised just a wee bit more there'd be more people buying it. Without a doubt, if it's made (by anyone other than Dr. Smart) I'll purchase it. First day on the shelves, even.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Raa
But couldn't they advertise FreeSpace better than Interplay did? There are of people who have played hte game, I'd imagine that if it was on more shelves, and advertised just a wee bit more there'd be more people buying it. Without a doubt, if it's made (by anyone other than Dr. Smart) I'll purchase it. First day on the shelves, even.

Didn't Interplay skimp on the advertising because they were releasing a 'competing' Star Trek game?

Which seems monumentally stupid, to me......

[Rictor]

Yeah, the thing with Freespace 2 is, even if it didn't sell all that well, it has an amazing reputation among the gaming community. Very few games get praised as consistantly as Freespace 2, so if a sequel were to come along, the hype-level would probably be up there with Fallout 3, Doom 3 and so worth. And hopefully, if something comes of this, THQ will be Smart enough  to do some actual marketing for the title.

[Flipside]

Well, alas, us 60 odd posters, are not really going to influence THQ in this, as much as we would like to, the mathmatics of the situation do make it unlikely


Hah, I can't resist the temptation....I suppose I were doing it, the first step would be to release a Free version of Freespace 1 or 2 in most PC magazines as a Bonus CD set. That'd wind up interest in the market

Edit : Oh and give a nice tester into just how much interest IS generated

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Flipside
Well, alas, us 60 odd posters, are not really going to influence THQ in this, as much as we would like to, the mathmatics of the situation do make it unlikely


Hah, I can't resist the temptation....I suppose I were doing it, the first step would be to release a Free version of Freespace 1 or 2 in most PC magazines as a Bonus CD set. That'd wind up interest in the market

Edit : Oh and give a nice tester into just how much interest IS generated

It's worked for Sierra with Ground Control and Tribes, hasn't it?  (has it?)

Hell of a good idea - releasing old prequels.  Although, doesn't someone already have FS1&2 budget rights in that regard (White Label in the UK)

[an0n]

Virgin released Freespace 1 + 2 as a White Label bundle pack in the UK.

I know, because it's the one I've got.

[vyper]

Special editions too.

[mitac]

Originally posted by an0n
Virgin released Freespace 1 + 2 as a White Label bundle pack in the UK.

I know, because it's the one I've got.

Same for Germany, i.e. the german language version.

[Bobboau]

one advantage that THQ would have over interplay of FS2's time would be that THQ isn't developing another space sim game that it would consiter FS3 to be competition against. wich is what Interplay had IIRC.

[StratComm]

For that matter, I don't think anyone is.  They got oversaturated for a while, but I can't actually think of anything out right now that even could make use of a joystick, aside from a couple of realish looking sims.  In my biased opinion, the market is ripe for a new space sim title that doesn't have any kind of persistant world/mmo quality to it.  The storytelling aspect is what makes FS2 so good, and that's a quality desperately lacking in the current generation of games.

[Rictor]

Yeah, all the PC market seems good for these days is MMORPGS and FPS shooters. Seriously, the market is so oversaturated with MMO games, thats become the PC "thing" now, but the trouble is, I don't like any of them, which just gets rid of a whole half of the game market for me. And the one game that was likely to advance the genre and get me interested, namely Mythica, got canceled.

But I digress. The PC industry is ready for a new space-shooter, and I would love for it to be Freespace 3. It could spark a space-sim renaissance, much like Baldur's Gate did for RPGs.

[Nuke]

hey dave im curious about your opinions about fs2open. have you the chance play with it any or take a look at the code?  do you see anthing ithat can mproved? so on and sou fourth