[sigtau]

Perhaps someone could squeeze a price for the Freespace rights out of Interplay's legal department?

[Spicious]

(And if they could manage the kind of leap they did from FS1 to FS2 it'd clearly be better than what we've done with FSOpen.)

Huh?

[General Battuta]

(And if they could manage the kind of leap they did from FS1 to FS2 it'd clearly be better than what we've done with FSOpen.)

Huh?

Compare FS1 to FS2. Flak guns, beam weapons, engine wash, TAG, supernova - these were novel, meaningful new gameplay concepts that required some overhaul of the engine (well, the last two were more one-hit wonders, but you see where I'm going). FSOpen hasn't made strides like that, per se, if only because new gameplay elements aren't necessarily a huge priority. FSOpen is a gorgeous, sprawling refinement and expansion of an existing game, but it's not supposed to be an FS3.

[Aurora Paradox]

If anything of value was to be obtained from e-mailing Volition... it would be asking for something actually insightful... say, a brief interview on the HLP, perhaps. In which, perhaps we might manage to get Mr. Kulas to sit down and have a conversation with a good interviewer/interviewers. I'd be curious to know what the original prompt for FS would say about our endeavors. An interview between Dan Wentz and Darius about "the music and times of FreeSpace" would be a good read, too.

-Thaeris

I wouldn't mind seeing something like this happen.  Though the chances of it happening are probably small.  One can dream I guess.

I still wouldn't mind knowing how Volition planned on ending the FreeSpace Trilogy.

[Javito1986]

Listen, Shivans are unstoppable. Anything less than ending with the complete destruction of the GTVA would lessen them! I'm actually quite content with the way things end in FS2. It's not really necessary to know why the Shivans do what they do, the unknown is infinitely better. I've thought about it for ten years now and I can't think of a truly satisfactory explanation, and I'm a pretty creative guy.

[Dark Hunter]

I still wouldn't mind knowing how Volition planned on ending the FreeSpace Trilogy.

They didn't.

They had vague ideas about the story, but no definitive conclusion. Anything they do have they are not telling, I suppose on the off-chance that FS3 actually happens. They've been asked, and they've given all the info they're likely to give.

Perhaps someone could squeeze a price for the Freespace rights out of Interplay's legal department?

A helluva lot more than you (or even this entire community put together) would be able to pay. Again, it's been discussed to death.

[NGTM-1R]

I'm not hearing any information in this thread that wasn't already known.

[bahijal74]

I want some wine..and  a hookah..i am depressed now

[karajorma]

Interplay own the Intellectual Property of FreeSpace, the very universe belongs to them. If another company came up with a space sim with Terrans, Vasudans and Shivans and similar ships, they could very well find themselves at the wrong end of a lawsuit from Interplay.

I don't think so. As far as I can tell Volition own that.

What Interplay probably own is the rights to publish anything made in the Freespace universe. A good analogy is to imagine that Volition signed a three record deal with Interplay and have now released two albums. They still would own the rights to all their own songs, but they couldn't just go to another record company and release a 3rd album with them.

[sigtau]

So either Interplay relinquishes the rights or they buy back Volition from THQ?

[Mongoose]

Listen, Shivans are unstoppable. Anything less than ending with the complete destruction of the GTVA would lessen them! I'm actually quite content with the way things end in FS2. It's not really necessary to know why the Shivans do what they do, the unknown is infinitely better. I've thought about it for ten years now and I can't think of a truly satisfactory explanation, and I'm a pretty creative guy.

We're human beings.  We drive other species to extinction for breakfast.  We're certainly not about to let a bunch of five-legged xenophobes push us around forever.

I want a conclusion to the FS2 story, and until it comes from :V:, it hasn't happened.

This, pretty much.  As much as this community consistently continues to amaze me with its creativity and craftsmanship, and as much as I've enjoyed playing through any number of fan-made continuations and additions to the FS storyline, the truth at the end of the day is that none of them can ever be FS3.  The only thing that can is a story crafted by the original creators of the series, whether or not they had a conclusion mapped out at the time FS2 was released.  Until such time as that story is revealed, if it ever is, I'll continue to wonder what if and silently wish for that sequel.

[NGTM-1R]

Listen, Shivans are unstoppable. Anything less than ending with the complete destruction of the GTVA would lessen them!

As a signature I saw once put it:

"We put poisons in our water and air to weed out the weak! We detonate fission bombs in our only biosphere! We nailed our god to a stick! Don't **** with the human race!"

[Akalabeth Angel]

If anything of value was to be obtained from e-mailing Volition... it would be asking for something actually insightful... say, a brief interview on the HLP, perhaps. In which, perhaps we might manage to get Mr. Kulas to sit down and have a conversation with a good interviewer/interviewers. I'd be curious to know what the original prompt for FS would say about our endeavors. An interview between Dan Wentz and Darius about "the music and times of FreeSpace" would be a good read, too.

Eh. Personally I don't see much point for an interview with those guys. They wouldn't reveal anything about FS3. And if they talked about HLP it's just like, fanwank or whatever the term is. We can all read about how the HLP is so great yadda yadda. Maybe if the interview was about what type of story they wanted to tell, etcetera. As in backstory, what motivated them, from what did they draw inspiration and so on.

and once again... we already have FS3. It is also known as all the great mods here. Blue Planet, Derelict, Transcend, Sync (off the top of my mind....).

All of these mods could stand side-by-side with the "new" FS3 if its ever made.


All the love and care that goes into modding FS makes it more of an FS3 than an actual FS3 might ever be. Its not Volition made.  Its better than what Volition has made.

Eh I'm sorry but I don't agree here. Don't get me wrong I love the mods and many of the campaigns that have been made but they're not FS3. Blue Planet, Derelict, Transcend and Sync are all very divergent from Freespace for different reasons. The closest thing to Freespace I've played in terms of mission structure and in-mission dialogue is probably Procryon Insurgency. Flames of War isn't too far off either. But BP, Transcend and Sync? No.

The campaign structure is different. The emphasis on characters is different. Etcetera. And no campaign I've played has done what Volition has done but better, partly because of the fact that very few campaigns follow Volition's style in the first place. Most campaigns lack voice acting for a start.

Oh maybe ST:R was better than ST (though ST was crap in the first place). I'll give it that. But it's a rare exception.

[NGTM-1R]

The closest thing to Freespace I've played in terms of mission structure and in-mission dialogue is probably Procryon Insurgency. Flames of War isn't too far off either. But BP, Transcend and Sync? No.

The campaign structure is different. The emphasis on characters is different. Etcetera. And no campaign I've played has done what Volition has done but better, partly because of the fact that very few campaigns follow Volition's style in the first place. Most campaigns lack voice acting for a start.

Oh maybe ST:R was better than ST (though ST was crap in the first place). I'll give it that. But it's a rare exception.

The fact you compared Flames of War to the offical campaigns is about as insulting to as anyone's ever gotten. So allow me to top that.

You're absolutely right.

We didn't follow their format. We made a new one. A better one. Transcend, as a storytelling mechanism, beats the canonical campaigns all to hell. Blue Planet has the variety of the original FS2 campaign (if not the length, perhaps its only problem), tells as interesting a story, and has a greater degree of characterization. Other mods I've worked on basically beat FS1/FS2 to hell in all possible categories.

FS3, I submit, cannot catch up. It will never be as good as the work the community does/has done if it follows the formula of the previous two games. It cannot be, because we have gone beyond that.

[Akalabeth Angel]

The fact you compared Flames of War to the offical campaigns is about as insulting to as anyone's ever gotten. So allow me to top that.

You're absolutely right.

I'm talking about format not mission quality. A lot of the FoW missions are hit and miss but the general tone of the campaign is somewhat consistent with FS2.

We didn't follow their format. We made a new one. A better one. Transcend, as a storytelling mechanism, beats the canonical campaigns all to hell. Blue Planet has the variety of the original FS2 campaign (if not the length, perhaps its only problem), tells as interesting a story, and has a greater degree of characterization. Other mods I've worked on basically beat FS1/FS2 to hell in all possible categories.

Hmmn, I still disagree. The format is certainly different and the campaigns produced under those formats are good but its like apples and oranges. I don't consider one format better than the other. Transcend in my opinion is certainly nowhere as good as FS2, but that's personal taste. Some people love it, I do not.  Blue Planet is a very enjoyable campaign, but it's not in the spirit of Freespace. Both are "good campaigns" by many standards but they're both so different in their approach to FS2 that I wouldn't compare them.

The thing is, no mod, no fanmade campaign has ever given me the wonder and awe of some FS2 missions like Into the Lions Den for example. That's unmatched by anything. The dream in BP came close, but . . . then it turned out to be just a dream which is a colossal cop-out. They haven't given me the same sense of desperation. I think voice acting is a huge part of it but it's not the only thing.


One of the biggest problems with fan made campaigns is that they just don't feel real. A lot of them for example like to have the same ships throughout for character development. But this leads to fundamental problems of believability. Look at the FS2 campaigns. There are what, 13 Sobeks which are named or appear in missions. But very few if any of them appear more than once. Why? Because when a ship gets hit down to 47% damage it goes home and sits in drydock for 4 months. It doesn't get repaired in two days. And it doesn't show up in the next mission back up to 100%. And honestly a lot of this character development isn't even necessary. Like in the main FS2 campaign, the second or third to last mission. I think the first Blue Lion mission the player is helping some convoy and a Sobek is defending and gets scragged in like 60 seconds, but for that 60 seconds, I care about that ship. It only has like 2-3 lines of dialogue but it's one of the best openings for a FS2 mission. A lot of campaigns, my own included have like 2 minutes of chit chat between pilots and one wonders if a lot of it is really necessary.

Or another personal peeve of mine is how some campaigns have turned the Lucifer into a self-healing organic ship like something out of Babylon 5. Whenever that comes to mind I think "oh, so we're not playing Freespace then are we?".

I've got my own campaign in the works, well on the back burner, but it's there. And I'd like to introduce new things and push the limits of the campaign too but I'd never consider it to be in the same calibre of the original campaigns. I only hope it's different and enjoyable.

In summary all I'm saying is that yes I recognize that mods have pushed the limits of story telling and that FSO has improved the engine greatly and so on but I've never seen or played anything that was a true successor to FS2 in all respects. And quite honestly I don't think anyone's trying to. People don't release a campaign and think "this is FS3." it's more like "this is my take on Freespace, or my tribute to Freespace, or my universe which is not really related to Freespace but I think is fun and exciting."

[Snail]

I'm talking about format not mission quality. A lot of the FoW missions are hit and miss but the general tone of the campaign is somewhat consistent with FS2.

Format? So if I create an excellent campaign but decide to actually add characters with real personalities into the story, Flames of War beats me to it by default?

[Akalabeth Angel]

I'm talking about format not mission quality. A lot of the FoW missions are hit and miss but the general tone of the campaign is somewhat consistent with FS2.

Format? So if I create an excellent campaign but decide to actually add characters with real personalities into the story, Flames of War beats me to it by default?

It's not about saying one campaign is better than another. Just that some campaigns are more akin to Freespace than others.

I mean really Freespace 2 has maybe three to four prominent characters. Bosch, Petrarch, Psamtik's Admiral and Snipes (Command is less a character than a voice box). The idea that many campaigns (my own included) use in giving the player permanent and identifiable wingmen is pretty dissimilar from FS2.


The main difference is that FS2 is story-driven.
Whereas a lot of new mod campaigns are character-driven.

They're not the same. They can be both good, or bad, but they're different techniques.
Character driven campaigns typically have mission time devoted to displaying the character of each individual pilot with the intent of buiding upon that base. While FS2 at best will give you snippets of unnamed characters who give insight into the universe and/or the attitude of some pilots.

And yes many people think that Snipes is one of the best parts about FS2 and as such try to better incorporate that idea into their own campaigns. But, focusing on character development and introductions can slow the story and if handled poorly can be a nuisance to the player (ie when a difficult mission is preceeded by lengthy dialogue). Personally, Snipes was enjoyable but in terms of memorable missions from the main campaign the SOC missions comprise only an average percentage for me. Which to me at least suggests that characters, or at least well developed characters aren't always necessary for a good experience. As with the Sobek mentioned in my last post a ship's character can come across in very little screen time and can represent not only the ship but the gtva as a whole. That's another prolbem. If you give a character a face and a name what they say is limited to them. If you simply give a line of dialogue to an unnamed pilot, what they say has the potential to represent more than just them.

[Snail]

How close, stylistically, they are to FS2 is frankly completely irrelevant.

[Akalabeth Angel]

How close, stylistically, they are to FS2 is frankly completely irrelevant.

It's relevant if you make the claim that "this is FS3, we made it" which prompted my original reply.
I simply don't agree that campaigns so dissimilar in their story telling style to the original games can be thought of as true sequels.

[Snail]

I simply don't agree that any user-made campaign can be thought of as a true sequel.

Whoever claims that their campaign is FS3 is a twat.