[Japong]

A while ago I was on the Penny Arcade forums, and someone made a thread about whether or not they should buy the original Freespace.  Being a HLPer as well, I left a post (I'm Rolo over on the PA forums)  and some links about FS2open and how to get here.

Unfortunately, a bunch of people there are now trying to find and install the game, and are having a bunch of problems getting things to work. I know when I was getting into FS2open for the first time, it took me two or three days to get all of the VP files downloaded and installed, and I don't think everyone has quite that much patience.  

You can see a new thread about that  here.

These guys are pretty comupter savvy I'm sure, but most people who come here are expecting a simple download link for the full game, and having to download the full ISOs off of emule, or get the crippled HOTU version patched up, and then get the SCP additions as well.

So it's time for a bit of forum community bridge building...  it would be best if the really knowledgeable people here registered on the PA forums and helped the guys there out with some step-by-step "how to install" guides, but if that's not happening then please post helpful information here, and I'll relay it to them.

EDIT: I just noticed MatthewPapa's link to the full game download (bless you for that, MP). I'm not going to post it outside of the HLP, as that could proliferate very quickly and leech out his bandwidth.

[WMCoolmon]

http://fs2source.warpcore.org/install.html

I've been locked out of the site so I can't get at the "Installing FS2" article, I'm not sure if that one exists or not.

[Sticks]

I'd love to help, but I'm getting some SQL error when I try and register over there. Please direct them over to this:

http://scp.indiegames.us/e107_plugins/custompages/scpinstallation.php

[Japong]

Okay, one of the problems seems to be which set of instructions we're deciding to use here. So far I've found:

http://scp.indiegames.us/e107_plugins/custompages/scpinstallation.php
http://fs2source.warpcore.org/install.html
http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/fsdoc/index.php?pagename=Downloading%20and%20Installing

The information on all three isn't *quite* the same.


The other problem is the download links for the actual FS2 original files.

Does the FTP work?  I've tried connecting to it before and was unable to get on.  Swooh also seems to be dead.

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,16047.0.html

Should I direct people to that?
Is it any less legal than the ED2k links?  Or should I move people to MatthewPapa's recent hosting?

EDIT: ah, thank you whichever smart person merged these threads together.

[Goober5000]

Threads merged.

I would advise pointing people to this one as it's the most recent:
http://fs2source.warpcore.org/install.html

3.6.7 will be out soon and we're trying to make it as bug-free as possible.  We're also going to try improving the documentation a bit.  In the meantime, tell them to install 3.6.5 but patch it with this build.

[Goober5000]

As far as where to get FS2, I would suggest the following, in order of priority:

1) BitTorrent
2) ED2k
3) MatthewPapa's link

But don't post MP's link anywhere.  Just reply that you have a last-ditch option that should work, but that anyone wanting to try it should try the first two options first.  If they must have MP's links, tell them only via PM and say that it must not be posted anywhere.

Hopefully this should preserve MP's precious bandwidth.

[karajorma]

I tried to register over there but I'm getting a "cannot inset user" error at the moment.

If you point people at my FAQ I've got links to 3 Freesapace torrents and the eDonkey files too.

At the moment its a little hard to get FS2_Open up and running but I'm going to make sure the next official release has as much info from me as I can give so that I can avoid having to answer questions on the forum about it all the time

[Japong]

Ack, okay I added some links to Kara's FAQ and the "Is this legal?" info,  which is important for the Penny Arcade Forums.

Next little issue: Should I just point people to the zpack? I know that just blindly installing all of it isn't good for performance and might miss a few models...

[karajorma]

The current zPack is a big zip with all the other VPs in it if I've understood correctly. So you can always tell people to install all of it except mv_adveffects.vp and see what their performace is like before addiing the final VP file.

EDIT : Looks like my account's working now so I'll try to answer any questions I see.