[Grug]

I mentioned this in the campaing thread, will probably link it to this too.

But anyway, the idea was to make an open mod.
So everyone has access, and everyone can contribute.

It could be placed in any potential universe, but for the sake of loyalty I was thinking keep it to the Freespace universe, but maybe push it a couple of centuries in the future.
So it could be open ended. Possibly another bunch of newly discovered nodes etc as well, opening up a whole bunch of new systems, maybe even another species?
Setting could be different in that the GTVA is no longer strongly united. In that most regions are still friendly, but have seperated resource and culture wise.
Thus creating a GTVA more like a unified banner aka to UN yet it actually works to an extent or something.

Anyway, main concept is that everyone from the community can contribute, and because of the new open ended setting, near any concept or ship design goes.
With multiple newely formed cultures and maybe one or more newly discovered species / factions there would be many different settings for campaigns etc.

So:
- Open Mod / Universe with contributions from all in the community
- More colourful setting yet still in the Freespace universe
- Should be fun for everyone

Similar to the Freespace Upgrade Project, yet different in that:
- Little to no Restrictions
- Its more of a new Universe than a campaign / single mod
- Completely open to the community so technically more stuff would be accomplished

Maybe the two could be linked or whatever but this is just a concept at the moment.
So would anyone find this interesting?
And/or would there be enough interest to support the development of it?

[DaBrain]

I think a small number of members can work more organized.


The organization of this project will be the real chaos I fear.


It's an interesting project tough. So show me I'm wrong.

[Grug]

Yeah I thought about the organization for a bit. Needless to say I think it can be done.
There may need to be some way of determining things like Polls or something. But being such a large open ended universe, I would think that it would be rare that conflicts would occur.

I was leaning towards a Warhammer40k type universe. But so near anyone could come along, make up their own faction and ships and say it exists and done. Or you could pick an existing faction and expand it with a few ships or whatever.

More than likely though, it would be set a base template for x amount of factions, and then enough ppl could suggest a new species / faction and push it through to the official side.
I'm just seeing if people would be interested at all. Because it would be community dependent on survival...

[aldo_14]

Whoah.... I never saw this, actually.  Hence the late-ish reply.

Might I suggest an alternative, though?  Set in a Starlancer-ish near-future universe, possibly divided along national/alliance lines.  IMO this is more interesting because;
a) you can employ a bit of national pride - i.e. RAF, USAF, RAAF, Luftwaffe, etc markings on ships - to attract interest
b) lot of existing 'sol' resources; models for the planets & backgrounds.
c) you can use things like 'primitive sensors', etc, to add variety & interest; you also have freedom to take away abilities like afterburner / shields / etc to emphasise differences (because in FS2 & beyond it's not logical for them to not have these abilities)
d)no need to make those irritating alien designs
e)machine guns! *cough* - you have a bit more weapons freedom, again from not having to worry about FS2 weapons conventions.
f) funky retro ships

And yeah, I realise this is sort of covered by the TVWP.  But I've always wanted to do it, in a retro-lower-tech way.  But I wouldn't have the time to do it justnow, hence I suggest it here.

(it's also possibly a little smaller in scope compared to what you suggest)

Perhaps for this sort of thing you simply need to have a vote on the best 'universe' from the willing contributors.

[Kie99]

What DaBrain said.

[Grug]

Aye, I've now commited myself to of other projects, and time becomes an issue for such a project.
Still it would be an interesting thing to set up. Maybe with a smaller scope yes, but it could be implemented with the likes of Fred academy.

[Unknown Target]

I think it'd be neat if we did this, catalouging an collossal forum flame war...

[Ghost]

If you're going to do this, someone should recode the multiplayer so it's like a flight-sim World of Warcraft.

[Grug]

Lol.
Flight sim world of warcraft? Like Freelancer?

Now that would certainly be a giant step for FSO.

[Solatar]

A Universe set a few years after fs1 where the Shivans never showed up might be cool...If you set it a few years later, you have some freedom for the GTA and PVE making peace and/or rebel factions as well.

[Ransom]

But that's not a new universe then, is it? I think the initial century or two after FS2 idea would be more interesting. If it was only a couple years after FS1 there wouldn't be a huge difference in technology so there wouldn't be the kind of freedom that is necessary for this kind of project.

An entirely new universe sounds good too, though I'm not a fan of lower tech SF.

Anyway this concept sounds very cool to me

[Ghost]

Originally posted by Grug
Lol.
Flight sim world of warcraft? Like Freelancer?

Now that would certainly be a giant step for FSO.

That's kind of what I was getting at, but I don't like how Freelancer plays. I'd want this to be more combat based... Pirate raids, mercenary missions for the government, etc... And having this in the FS world would be okay, but no Shivans; they screw stuff up too much.

And yes, that'd be a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig-ass step for FSO.


But wouldn't that be awesome? Someone makes a comment you think is stupid on HLP, and then you see if they're online and you ambush them.


Subspace would have to work like jumps do in Starlancer: you make a jump to a system and it takes like 3 seconds, so no waiting around inside the tunnel. The exception would be when you jump, you select the option of waiting inside for someone to come in,  and you jump them, so to speak.



This won't happen for a long time... hence I said Ferrium and not FSO. Ferrium would have a better chance for it.

[Goober5000]

Au contraire...
Freespacelancer

[Jake101]

Yeeaaah, I'd wait like 3 years for all the big mods to be finished and stuff and teams to be freed up..of course, the second people are done with stuff they move to something else...

[Ghost]

Originally posted by Goober5000
Au contraire...
Freespacelancer

Oh. Is that multiplayer?


Anywho... I was talking with a fellow Freespacer about it not too long ago.. my other idea would be to have preset 'universes' where one team has a mission, another team has a seperate mission, and maybe even more teams with more missions. These missions should coincide.. screwing up one team's ability to complete their mission. Countless things can happen; you can track ships through subspace, you can lie in wait for ships while in subspace, etc...

If all this stuff is in your Freespacelancer, I apologize for wasting time.

Thanks for the link, too...

[StratComm]

It's a proof-of-concept, built directly out of the Freespace engine.  What you're describing is a persistant-world MMO, which this engine couldn't handle in a million years.  The structure is too drastically different.

[Ghost]

Well, yeah, but what about Ferrium? If they started now, they might be able to implement it... eh.. I suppose I ought to just look for a Freelancer FS2 mod. Ah well, a man can dream, can't he?

[Grug]

lol. Ferrium has got a long way to go though. With most of the work required by the coders who are busy with SCP stuff, yeah. I would class Ferrium as a 'long term project'.

I think concentrating on Freespace as it is now, and perfecting it is the better way to go. While new ideas always sound good and exciting at first. One must remember that current projects were new and exciting ideas once too. Better to have a few finished projects than a billion unfinished ones.

[Goober5000]

Neither Freespace or Ferrium (AFAIK) is oriented to any sort of MMOG system.  However Freespacelancer demonstrates the concept in single-player.  All that's needed is to add persistent variables to multiplayer, and you've got your very own online Freespace universe.

[Ghost]

Alright, I'll check it out...  And yes, I know that Ferrium has a longass way to go... and I agree that SCP takes priority, because you're actually getting somewhere.  But anyway, that was just my two cents.