Discovery Gaming Community

Greetings,

I don't know what the policy is here, although I'm honestly expecting only one answer;

I'm going south for the summer and as such I will not have access to Freelancer (I could use the local library, but I wouldn't be able to modify the registry, in other words FLAM would not work). Unless I happen to find somewhere to install FL, run it and, most importantly, be able to modify the multi-player account in order to access my Discovery accounts, then I will have no way to keep my accounts active.

In a nutshell, I am not willing to go through the motions of trading or mining for a half-billion's worth of assets again. It would be the second time and it's no fun having to recreate the lost characters. I am certainly not alone here, many others have lost and could lose far more than myself, and with that I feel their pain. Ultimately, if I lose all my assets again then I may not be coming back. Please don't take this the wrong way as it's not a demand or threat, I'm just putting bluntly how I feel about the situation. Obviously it's my choice to go south for the summer, I just hope that I can come back to Discovery when the time comes.

I hereby request some mechanism in which we can freeze our accounts for a maximum term, maybe six months or possibly a year. It can't be hard to do, several tools can use FL Codec to read the player files so a quick scan of specified player-names might be relatively simple. All matching files could be compressed to save disk-space (a good compression rate should achieve a maximum of 100kb, maybe more for armouries with high exploration) and such archives would be then exempt from the periodic cull. This could have a flat charge applied or a rate per the size of the resulting archive (maybe 500k per kilobyte) and per character. All of this could be automated as long as a relevant application can use FL Codec. It would be as simple as scan, find and de/compress. If the cost of such a feature would be proportionate to the value of the characters then it wouldn't be overly used, it wouldn't be worthwhile freezing a character that is worth very little as the cost of doing so would outweigh its value. For people that have well established characters with a maximum-potential load-out, appropriate relations and good exploration, it might be worth spending 25m on a house-specific VHF or 50m on a well-ventured Yacht.

Anyway, I have things to do so I can't really discuss this any further for the time being.

EDIT: I must note is that I know it's unlikely anything like what I proposed here would come into effect within the next two months, so I really have to take it on the chin. Still, it's worth considering for the future nonetheless.

I didn't read it at all, but if you need someone to look after your characters, I can do so, if you wish.

EDIT: Read it now, and really, all it takes is some effort and\or someone to look after them for you.

Well I suppose putting faith in somebody to look after them is better than losing them entirely. It's an option.

Definately. There's plenty of well known people around the forums that would probably hold them for you.

Best Idea if you're worried, give the accounts to two or three people, that way someone always knows what's going on.

I'm not overly concerned to be honest. I've got a few days anyway before I leave and I'll still have access to the internet next week and thereafter, so as long as I have the FLAM file then I can send them.

Alrighty, well, if you till need someone to look after them when you do leave, shoot me a PM.
I'm looking after some others already, so a few more characters won't be a problem.

All your characters are belong to us ! Bwahahah!


In all seriousness, I think Bob qualify for this!

Technically it is not possible to freeze the accounts. You need to trust them to someone

Alright Bob, your kind offer is greatly appreciated. I'll keep it in mind and if necessary I'll PM you my hashes.

Of course it's possible, Blaze, it's just hassle to sort out in the first place and then deal with it on a per-case basis. I'd have thought the existing process is a simple case of deleting files that have a modified date beyond the given time-frame, thus exempting specific files from the search will keep them safe.

Is there by any chance a command-line option that can change the account ID without having to modify it via the registry? If this is possible then I could simply copy the unpacked game to disk (so that an install is not necessary, and if that's illegal then I don't care because I have a valid license to use the software) and then run it from the library's computers, if their systems' hardware is sufficient (they probably do not have dedicated VRAM so there could be a problem). As soon as it comes to doing so directly or by using a third-party application (such as FLAM) that modifies the registry, things either won't happen or everything will go completely kaput.

' Wrote:Technically it is not possible to freeze the accounts. You need to trust them to someone

Actually, yes it is possible. You can ban the account. It "freezes" it from the auto purge on the server software. But the admins have stopped doing that a very long time ago. Bob is a trustful person. Have fun on your summer vacation!

~Leo

EDIT: My mistake. Didn't realize we'd switched server platforms. Disregard my previous post then. I is misinformed.