[General Battuta]

I dunno. The writing in SR2 is agreeably silly and certainly entertaining, but RF:G's writing? Dull.

It wasn't written by the same guy.

Snail, George Lucas' writing was always bad, he just had other people to keep him in check for a while.

[Polpolion]

It's not like FS2 would melt if FS3 were to be released. I'd rather have a completed story and have to do modding on FS2 than not have a completed story and still have to do modding on FS2.

We already have numerous completed stories - The ones the community makes. Sure they're not canon but look at it this way, the completed storyline can be anything you want.


My point is, if FS3 comes out and it's good then it'd be a good thing If FS3 comes out and it's bad, well ****. Not exactly the end of the world **** but certainly ****.

I'll take your post seriously when people stop berating modders that try and make FS3. If I were satisfied with FS3 being any one of several user-made mods barely address the things I want to see wrapped up from FS1,2, then it's very likely that I'd also be satisfied lying in bed all day because I've convinced myself that I'm a successful lawyer. I'm not trying to say that the modding community is bad, but to say that any of the current user-made campaigns finishes the Freespace trilogy is a little ridiculous.

[mxlm]

It wasn't written by the same guy.

My mistake, I'd assumed that if he was around he was involved in all their games.

[General Battuta]

Fair enough. He moved up the totem pole to designer or something.

[deathfun]

http://acegamez.com/012010/news/pc-news/volition-at-work-on-secret-project-x.html

This article doesn't help my not thinking about it.

Though someone probably already posted this, I am just lazy and don't want to look through 7 pages

[Tarvis]

Anyway. Think about this.

If it IS just a Saint's Row or Red Faction sequel, why all the secrecy?

[Blue Lion]

Generate buzz

[Scotty]

Saying that they're working on the sequel straight up would generate more buzz than saying "we might be working on something kinda sorta related in some way or another.  Or not."

[Ace]

Honestly speaking if Volition is doing a game and they want any sort of commercial success from it ... it'll probably be console and PC.  Not many games are just PC these days unless they have to be.  I suppose it could be possible for a purely PC release but Volition does console work now so...  Anyways a little thought experiment:

IF you wanted to play FreeSpace on a 360 or a PS3... how would you assign the controls?  Both systems have basically the same layout and buttons.

I'm just going to start listing them:

Left Analog Stick - Basic X/Y flight controls
Left Analog Stick Push - Select next target
Right Analog Stick - View controls to look around
Right Analog Stick Push - Select target in reticule
Left/Right Bumper - Roll control
Left Trigger - Decelerate throttle
Right Trigger - Accelerate throttle/Afterburn
X - Switch primary (alt/linked)
Y - Switch secondary
A - Primary
B - Secondary
Start
Select - Jumpdrive
D-Pad Left - Guard target
D-Pad Right - Attack target
D-Pad Up - Break formation/engage
D-Pad Down - Reform formation/disengage

What we're missing in my mind is shield and energy management, more subtle wingman commands (disable target, etc.)... stuff like that would have to be scripted into missions.  Hrmmm.... you know that isn't horrible.

EDIT: I'm forgetting a ton of stuff....

How I'd tweak it is right analog stick push is a toggle and the stick is used for context-menus. One being energy (move a triangle between shields, guns, engines), the other being a comm wheel for orders somewhat like Mass Effect's dialog system.

[mxlm]

If it IS just a Saint's Row or Red Faction sequel, why all the secrecy?

Contractual reasons. Developers often can't disclose what they're working on before the publisher gives the go-ahead. Or the prearranged time. Or whatever.

They can, however, reveal that they're working on something

[Vidmaster]

Remember WingCommander on the PS? Every button mapped three times 

[Titan]

Possibly a buttton that pauses the game and brings up a menu. I'm thinking of something remiscent of the little menu i saw pop up when you attack someone in fallout 3.

[Tarvis]

Here's my ideal gamepad layout.

Left Stick X Axis - Rolling
Left Stick Y Axis - Throttle Control (High deadzone, so you don't mess with throttle easily while rolling)
Left Stick Click - Afterburner
Right Stick X Axis - Turn Left/Right
Right Stick Y Axis - Pitch
Right Stick Click - Target Object in Reticle
A / Cross - Next Target
----Hold to target escort
X / Square - Next Hostile
Y / Triangle - Target Subsystem/Weapon
----Hold to toggle whether targeting subsystems or weapons
B / Circle - Match Speed
Right Trigger / R2 - Fire Primary
Right Bumper / R1 - Next Primary Weapon
Left Trigger / L2 - Fire Secondary
Left Bumper/ L1 - Cycle Secondary (hold to toggle dual-firing mode)
D-Pad Up - Fire Countermeasure
D-Pad Down - Start Shield Distribution mode, press the corresponding D-Pad direction to distribute shields, action will end after a few seconds of inactivity.
----Hold to evenly distribute shields.
D-Pad Right - Start Gauge Adjustment mode, use d-pad to select a gauge item, and d-pad up and down to adjust them. Mode will end after a few seconds of inactivity.
----Hold to reset gauges.
D-Pad Left - Communications / Orders menu (When doing this, D-Pad Up / Down select the order, and D-Pad Right gives the selected order, D-Pad Left to go up a menu or cancel.)
Select - Hold for 2 seconds to initiate warpout (Hold used to prevent accidentally warping out during a mission, which would really suck)
Pause - A sort of pause menu, to go to options, quit, etc. Duh.

As far as I know, this gives a fairly large level of control without leaving much out or being too confusing.

Seems quite good to me. The last time I played FS2 with a gamepad, it actually handled somewhat well. Of course changes will have to be made to support all of the above, I think it should work out well.

Anyway. If there was a console port, here would be some things I would like to see:
-Either a re-designed menu or make it more obvious what room you're going into in the mainhall, perhaps you can have target boxes [just like in the game!] around the selected room and draw a text label right under it?
-Multiplayer. Preferably splitscreen, but it might get tough to read text. Would still be nice to have though.
-Online Multiplayer. Well, that's a given. Something like SquadWar would also be nice.
-FS1 and/or 2 ported as either a bonus edition or XBLA/PSN Arcade? If that's too much, then perhaps simply porting the campaigns over might do.

Otherwise, I could see a console port doing fairly well.

[Grizzly]

D-Pad Down - Start Shield Distribution mode, press the corresponding D-Pad direction to distribute shields, action will end after a few seconds of inactivity.
----Hold to evenly distribute shields.

D-Pad Right - Start Gauge Adjustment mode, use d-pad to select a gauge item, and d-pad up and down to adjust them. Mode will end after a few seconds of inactivity.
----Hold to reset gauges

I imagine that they would cut stuff like this out of the console version.

[Galemp]

THQ bought the rights to Duke Nukem Forever and Volition is developing it.

[headdie]

THQ bought the rights to Duke Nukem Forever and Volition is developing it.

how long before Volition dies 

[Bobboau]

you know that's actually not impossible, it's far more likely than FS3 in any event.

[deathfun]

If they were to put FS on console, I'd ask them personally to make it joystick compatible.

I despise flight sims unless I can use my joystick. I found a way to make it work with Hawx (though I had to use voice to switch weapons and to command). So I would ask for a customizable layout for how you want things to work.

[blackhole]

Freespace 2 just has too many goddamn buttons.

[Pred the Penguin]

Not really, many of the buttons are used for targeting.
A little creative use of the D-pad, etc. would work great for a console game.