Man, it had action. Much of it and in many different places all around.
The reasons which have killed the overall activity were listed thousand times already.
If I would be in devs' shoes, I would try rolling it all back to .85 and see what happens. Optionally apply some newer features (exc. PoBs!), replace the models with the newer ones, etc.
Maybe it sounds crazy, but I know that it would make people play with more pleasure.
I'm very nostalgic about all this stuff, yea.
Posts: 3,061
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Staff roles: Balance Dev
It's very naive to assume to believe that a mod version that is, frankly, in many ways inferior to the current one (and perhaps in some, superior) will suddenly return all the people that were present at the time (and that, if we're honest, made that mod version so good in 'our minds').
I'll be honest I miss the import ships we had back in 4.85. Sure they were outside the FL universe in terms of design but they were just nostalgic for me.