So I have been playing on Discovery for a few months now. Gotta say this is probably the best freelancer server I have played. Most active, fun community, good role-play overall, lots of really cool things are going on for Discovery! I raise my glass in celebration to the developers and the admins who take care of this! Great job!
I sometimes spend a bit of time thinking, what else could be added to the server that would benefit it in some way. Some things I realized or noticed while playing disco over the past few months.
1. Sometimes, I am just in the mood to fight someone. Mostly so I can practice, learn, and improve. I am in a few factions and we have raids and defenses occasionally but you ever feel like just fighting for fighting's sake? You wanna see who's better, you show off maybe?
2. Well going off this idea, I thought well...there is this big system called Connecticut in the middle of Liberty. Hmm...trade lanes, big empty bases. No one here. And hey it is the only system that is purely for PvP. No one uses it though. Good place to go if you wanna hear lots of nothing by yourself for the next couple hours. Almost like Bastille, minus the bars and the feeling of no escape.
3. I've ran into a lot of players who are very good pilots in game. I wonder who would win if we brought them all together. And to make it a little interesting make them all fly one kind of ship with similar loadouts of weapons. Sorta like GP2 racing (Race fans anyone), all the drivers use the same tyres, chassis, and engines so the winners are simply determined by their skill and not the machines.
Idea
So mash these three ideas together and what do you get? Well you create some sort of Space Fighter Tournament League! And with any sort of sports league, you get Teams! Playoffs! Championships! GLORY!
The league could have many different classes and divisions. Light fighters, VHFs, Bomber class, maybe even a Gunship or gunboat class competitions. Tournaments where pilots duel off until the best from the field has finally risen to the top. Team competitions, where you have a roster of 3-4 pilots on several different teams. They compete individually against each other and earn points over the course of a season. At the end of the season the highest scoring team is crowned champion. There could be a team fight class, where you do 2v2 or more with different ships classes or the same ship classes. And whatever else people come up with. Premise...
What do people watch on TV in Freelancer? Assuming that some ancient sports have survived since earth days and new ones have been created, I am sure they are pretty important to people and there is a huge entertainment market in Sirius, especially House space. We've heard of competitive Spaceship racing, which has never really picked up. But what about competitive Spaceship combat? We watch boxing and martial arts competition. Paintball is even getting on TV occasionally. People like people fighting other people.
Now, they decide to create this Space Combat League for entertainment. Now I know you're going to say. No one would do that, fly in spaceships and fight each other and possibly get killed every day! This is like unreal tournament in space. Yes I know this, so for the sake of roleplay, I am just going to assume away that the Space Combat League partnered with some spaceship designers to modify existing ships to be flown remotely by pilots located in a main center. The ships are real, so are the lasers, mines, and missiles, but the people are sitting in simulation cockpits somewhere else (probably in like a Liner or a Yacht which would serve as the announcer box, and seats for live audience). Now that more or less settles the people getting killed every match probably.
Now then I thought. Well this would be a very expensive sport. VHF cost 1.5+ mil Bombers 5+ mil Gunboats and gunships 30+ mil and more for equipment to outfit them. Who would want to play this sport if it costs an arm and a leg. Well, lets look back to competitive racing. All the costs have to be covered by the teams or individuals. Players would be responsible for paying for their own ships and equipment as well as maintenance costs. Now in RP the league would be making money off advertisements and sponsorships as well as each team. I am sure that the big corporations would pay big money to have the "best" starfighters in Sirius flying with their technology on board or their names on the ships. Same reason why big companies have always sponsored sports. I haven't figured out how that would work in game yet really. Perhaps companies could sponsor pilots and create their own teams. But that might just become each faction owning a team and those faction pilots fight against other factions that they would normally anyway. Maybe all the pilots interested in team combat are compiled and teams hold a draft? Shake things up a bit like that. I am sorta drawing a blank on this part really. This is where I could use some people's suggestions.
Another thing, I haven't figured out is how this would make any money. Perhaps charging an entry fee, but it would have to be proportionate to the ship class or the size of the team. And the winners wouldn't make that much for than their entry fee unless a good number of people join in. This isn't such a problem for say individual tournaments than it is for the teams idea (which I dunno will work really). The main thing is though it is likely if you place lower than 3rd place, you take a loss. The losers don't really have much of a way to recoup their losses.
And one of the problems I have thought of with the idea is that this requires A LOT of organization between people. A lot of different players would need to show at specific time windows to compete. In real life this is hard because of things people have to do and time zones mostly.
So what do you guys think of this idea? If something is unclear just ask and I will try and clear it up for you or explain how I think it might work out in the end.
At the very least I think its possible to host one combat tournament event. Players sign up in advance and then they are paired off in a bracket and then make it all the way to the championship.
Its stupid to make everyone fly same layout and ship. For people who are into PvP some of those are grown to their current layouts and ships they are used.
As for tornament idea.. nah. You wont get much support on this server. But perhaps. I dont know. I would like to participate actually. But agian, it would make a lot of fuzz from roleplay only guys.
