[Creash]

Hey folks,

Wasn't sure what forum this would fit best on, but I thought since you guys work so closely with Volition material and have to consider the legal aspects of using their work and such, you'd be the best.

Anyway, I constantly boast to my friends in guilds I'm members of in various MMROPGs of how Freespace 2 is by far the best space flight-simulator in gaming history to come since the epic arrival of Wing Commander III (which defiantly set the standards for a new age).  However, problem is it's been out of circulation so long you can't find it anywhere accept on 'less-than-legit' looking website who have a stand-alone version, but say it runs like crap compared to the original.

I was curious that if somewhere out there one can find a legal and high-quality FS2 downloadable version that I could forward on to my friends to show em' how great it really is.  I am going to direct them to 'The Babylon Project' and 'Wing Commander Saga Prologue' for now since those they can snag without problems, but it's best to see the original first to get a true feeling of where those games came from.

If you have any thoughts, feelings, or potential leads, just post em' below.  "Good hunting pilots." 

[karajorma]

Legal, no. For reasons I explain here.

Non-shady looking. Well there's plenty of links on this thread

[Turey]

I can vouch for the quality of the Online Installer mentioned on that thread.

[Kaine]

i'm sure you vouch for it, considering you wrote it.

its fine if you don't have a problem running .jar files and you are working from a base retail install. otherwise it is rather flawed. alternatives are in the works. If you want to actually understand whats going on and not waste a crapload of time downloading stuff you dont want/need see here.

[Creash]

 Thanks for the feedback folks.  I am really eager to get some of my guildies into Freespace 2 and then maybe some of the stand-alone games made via Hard-Light.  Hell, I could make some amazing online missions to bring them into the fold with a bang 

[Turey]

i'm sure you vouch for it, considering you wrote it.

True, but I also know it works, and it's just the files off of the original CDs.

its fine if you don't have a problem running .jar files and you are working from a base retail install. otherwise it is rather flawed.

1. We're talking about different Installers here. I'm talking about the FS2 Installer(which is an exe and installs retail FS2), whereas you are talking about the FSO Installer(which installs FSO).
2. the FSO Installer is no longer is .jar only. It also comes in .exe now.

[chief1983]

You tell 'em Turey.  And keep up the good work.

[Huggybaby]

If the CD links on karajorma's otherwise fine page were any good I wouldn't have started my own collection.

For the many people who haven't checked:

Swantz's : DOWN

Freespace Zone : DOWN

Game Warden: DOWN

and another one I don't think is listed there,

NukeLOL: DOWN

[karajorma]

That's a pretty bad tally. I was expecting most of those to simply be bandwidth issues as no one has commented here to tell me that they were taking them down.

[Huggybaby]

I don't know if they're bandwidth related, but the error messages I get seem to indicate otherwise, and I've been checking for some time. FS1 should be back up tomorrow on MediaFire. It's a fantastic hosting site, but so was FileHo (I've given up on them). Hopefully it will last a while.

[Turey]

That's a pretty bad tally. I was expecting most of those to simply be bandwidth issues as no one has commented here to tell me that they were taking them down.

mine should still be up,assuming mydatabus hasn't capped my secondary account as well.

[Huggybaby]

Excellent.

Question, that's 2+GB , so it looks like the iso's weren't compressed at all, but you said you used 7zip. My three FS1 iso's compressed to less than 1GB using 7zip, and FS2 should do likewise.

So did you compress, or just use 7zip to break the iso's into pieces?

[Turey]

Excellent.

Question, that's 2+GB , so it looks like the iso's weren't compressed at all, but you said you used 7zip. My three FS1 iso's compressed to less than 1GB using 7zip, and FS2 should do likewise.

So did you compress, or just use 7zip to break the iso's into pieces?

I honestly don't remember. I put those up a while ago.

[Huggybaby]

I added your link to my guide, thanks!

<edit> Turey, I just compressed the iso of disc 1 of FS2, and the results were dramatically different from FS1. The iso was 607 MB and the 7zip was 615MB! Yikes!

No compression at all!

They must have changed to a completely different scheme. Sorry if I casted doubt.

[Taristin]

it's not always possible to compress ISO's. Remember that a great majority of the files in the .cab file are already compressed to take up as little space as possible.

[Darth Sparky]

If I am not mistaken Creash was trying to ask if there is a way to play FS2 Open without having a copy of the original FS2.  I know the answer is no for now but is that planned to change?

[Turey]

If I am not mistaken Creash was trying to ask if there is a way to play FS2 Open without having a copy of the original FS2.  I know the answer is no for now but is that planned to change?

FreeSpace Open needs the files in FreeSpace 2. things like the Retail Installer above let you get the files needed by FreeSpace Open and FreeSpace Open itself, all at once. That's as close as you're going to get to not needing FreeSpace 2 (with the exception of Total Conversions which don't use any of the retail files.)

[achtung]

If the CD links on karajorma's otherwise fine page were any good I wouldn't have started my own collection.

For the many people who haven't checked:

Swantz's : DOWN

Freespace Zone : DOWN

Game Warden: DOWN

and another one I don't think is listed there,

NukeLOL: DOWN

Mine's down? o.o

Also, nukelol=me.

[Huggybaby]

Well, what I meant to say was, all the sites are up, but the CD links they contain are all down.

FS1 iso's are now available in my sig, FS2 iso's will be tomorrow.

[achtung]

Well, what I meant to say was, all the sites are up, but the CD links they contain are all down.

FS1 iso's are now available in my sig, FS2 iso's will be tomorrow.

No, my CD links work just fine...

EDIT:  Or maybe not...  Fixing....

EDIT2: Fixed