[aceofbase]

 is this great game genre that made us love pcs and buy them back in the 90s dead ?
 i dont see 100s of multi player   ships lunching from a mother ship to attack
 the invading fleets .. on new high resolution graphics engine ..

 while 100s of car racing and fps games are being made every year
 were did the amazing space combat sim games  went to ? and why?
 just because free lancer game failed?  F.E.A.R failed to sell online
 but they didnt stop and made the game free 

[Asteroth]

Yes, I'm afraid they are.

[Solatar]

I know it's not REALLY a modern space sim, but I really consider the SCP to be the modern continuation of the genre. I mean, it has the graphics and performance to fit the bill.

[dragonsniper]

I think they're all to afraid to try to beat FS/FS2. But seriously, I agree with you. I'm hoping for more space movies and games to be released. It's not what the larger portion of the public want at the moment I guess. Also, the Wii, Xbox360 and PS3 are rocking the electronic world, and all people want are FPS, racing games and horror related junk. It comes in waves with movies, so I hope it's the same with games. For now, FSO will do the job just fine for me.

[Blue Lion]

I think PC games that aren't MMOs are pretty much dead.

Almost any game shop is walls and walls of console games and like a small rusted shelf of PC games. Sad really.

[dragonsniper]

Sad indeed... Only thing to do is support the games and hope that more better ones will come out.

[Rodo]

there are some new space shooters from 2008 IIRC... anyways they are like 


and what happened with freelancer 2?? I read somewhere it is a dead project now..

[dragonsniper]

Quote from another site about Freelancer 2:

Pistol reports that a neat site called Such Things That Never Was has run an article about the long-cancelled FreeLancer 2 project. Development on FL2 went on for quite a while, and included several Wing Commander veterans. We actually get regular e-mails asking for information about this game, thanks to what we thought was an obvious April Fools joke update. They say:

Quote:
At the time of Digital Anvil's closing, the company was working on two Xbox 360 titles, one of which was dubbed with the codename Project Lonestar (the other, Project Enwor, I'll go into at length at a later date) but also known by the name of Freelancer 2. I have not played much of the original, so forgive me that I cannot compare the sequel to the original. The player would have again been in the shoes of Edison Trent as he attempted to find out the truth about the mystery of the space station disaster that Trent survived whilst alluding some shadowy groups.

[Spoon]

I'd rather see Starlancer 2 then Freelancer 2...
Freelancer 1 bored me to death.

edit: derp

[General Battuta]

Um. What.

Freespace 2 is already out.

This is a forum for it.

I think you probably meant Freelancer?

[Titan]

I'd rather see Starlancer 2 then Freespace 2...
Freespace 1 bored me to death.

Um. What.

Freespace 2 is already out.

This is a forum for it.

I think you probably meant Freelancer?

Dem's fightin' wurds 'round here, spewn!

[Spoon]

Blargh, I meant Freelancer of course.
I've been typing the word Freespace so much these days that it's become muscle memory.

[Mikes]

The "commercial" space-sim is pretty much dead. ("Pretty much" meaning you still get the occasional fluke release like X3, but mostly only rare low quality shooter style games in space)

The "genre" however is pretty much more alive than it ever was, if you take just a moment to look at the site you are on

Been playing more Freespace this year so far than any other game... and i'm anticipating FS campaigns like BWO or Blue Planet:War in Heaven much more than any commercial game as well lol.

[jkalltheway]

on the downside of that... If new space sims came out perhaps the beauty that is the FSO will die out. :[

[Mikes]

on the downside of that... If new space sims came out perhaps the beauty that is the FSO will die out. :[

At this point it's rather likely that they won't be able to compete.

Just look at all the other game "remakes" that have come out lately... pretty much across the board gameplay was dumbed for the console crowd lol.

Along these lines... i am really glad that we won't see "Freespace 3 for XBox360 and PS3... oh yeah we'll port it to the PC too - maybe -  but you better have a gamepad! ".

[Flipside]

There's also the fact the FSO already has a wealth of material available for it in the form of Mods and Upgrades. As Will Wright once said, something that will keep a fan-base interested in a game for a long period of time is the ability to create their own content, so whilst other games may flare into existence, the obsession with protecting IP in many companies means that flexibility is limited, also the tools available to console oriented games tend to also be limited.

This gives FSO a longevity that will be difficult to match from a company perspective, so whilst it may be outshined from time to time, after that game has faded, FSO will still be there, evolving and changing to suit the times.

[paul1290]

It's not completely dead.

There's still MMO's like Eve Online, though I guess those might not count as space sims for some people.

There's also the Egosoft and their X series of space trading and combat sims, even if they do suffer from a bit of "jack of all trades master of none" syndrome.

[Flipside]

Build.Trade.Fight.Think.Sit in the middle of nowhere at 10x acceleration for hours on end

[Blue Lion]

EVE Online is middle management that just happens to occur in space.

[paul1290]

Build.Trade.Fight.Think.Sit in the middle of nowhere at 10x acceleration for hours on end

Hey, you become thankful for all that idle flying time later on.

Heck, in my old X3 Reunion save I barely even used time acceleration anymore. I had so many assets all around the universe I spent much of my flying time flying in autopilot doing all the micro-management needed to keep everything running at peak efficiency.

That and I spent a lot of it blowing up people I didn't like with really big ships.