Just to add some detail to my earlier (i'l admit) overly concise summary...
I think the mod has gotten too fragmented and too carried away with itself. Don't get me wrong, what the development team have managed to accomplish is phenomenal, but the discovery mod now is just a shadow of what freelancer was all about to begin with. I could hazard a guess that most new players don't know what the hell is going on, it's a lot to take in to fit in here. I pop onto the forums every few months or so and for me too it's hard to keep up with the changes that occur. New players are frowned upon if they don't follow the cascade of rules that are now in place which start from day one. So in a sense, the margin of players who have the time to play at least a few times a week and that have been here for at least a year are the ones still having any fun. As a result it's these players who (within their rights) tend to influence many of the decisions made to change the mod, and it's usually to introduce something new. The latest discovery mod has lost nearly all the sense of the sort of originality that came with it's predecessors. There's more new factions than i can count on all my fingers and toes. Playing together was what made this mod a brilliant multiplayer feature to an already brilliant computer game. But now everyone has their ideal faction and RP implemented into the game, everyone is left almost alone in their own niche, which i'm sure you'l agree...gets kind of boring.
If this mod is ever to survive I think people have got to admit their mistakes and stop listening to the minority just because they play more frequently.
Many will disagree, but in my opinion:
Gallia in general was a bad idea
The Exiles was also a pretty bad idea
The Liberty - Rheinland war shouldn't have happened
Mining sucked as a concept and in practice to begin with, attempts to improve it should never have been made
Nomad RP should never have got to the stage it's at now
The LSF should have stayed the only lawfully covert faction
Players should never have been given the power to declare wars
Admins shouldn't have been recruited from the most popular/active community members
But then that's just my opinion. We're all dying to see how our factions will progress as each new mod release is prepared, but it simply comes down to a matter of - if it aint broke, don't fix it. Whoever it was calling the shots after .85, to me, fixed many things that weren't broken.
It's easy to put the population decline down to something that the leadership screwed up in the short term. But to be honest, it's been a long time coming.
Frankly it's something of a surprise that so many people are still here. Lookit this thread. Lots of replies. Lots of views. Lots of people passionate about the state of the game and its future.
In the broadest terms I feel it's safe to divide the community into two groups. Those who are here for the experience and those who are here for the game. I'll both concede and stress that there is a great deal of overlap in priority. My own emphasis has always been on gameplay over experience, both as a player and with my own feeble contributions to server structure and development.
In terms of gameplay Freelancer has the merit of retaining its unique characteristics. Even a decade down the road there are still very few games that exist in the realm between single player and mmo. None that involve both space and modability. Space offers the opportunity for nearly unlimited modaility in ones sense of self in addition to providing some decent FPS combat.
But, man, it gets stale after a bit. A few years ago there wasn't that much competition. Nowadays you can't browse the internet without receiving 18 invitations to another FTP game that offers killer gameplay etc etc. The incentives to push past all of those to hop onto another round of hur dur Saber dwindle.
Discovery's gameplay elements remain relatively unchanged. Capship combat has become somewhat more refined. Mining has become more refined. The environment remains somewhat static. All in all it's still a solid performer, but not one that will draw from the promises of Star Citizen or compete with the slew of contemporary alternatives.
Community. Eh, you know what I mean. That's mostly what appeals to the people who're even bothering to post in these threads. The social mechanisms which allow for our (somewhat shallow and racist XD) group convergences. You carve out a little nitche, get some chums, enjoy butting heads against the other guys. At its simplest.
Sometimes its fun. Sometimes you get a conclave of mean spirited jerks. Whatevs.
That also gets old after a while. Best memories of Freelancer come from the Xeno and Reaver days. Long after the gameplay had become older than that green milk in the fridge it was still fun to man up with my chums and pew pew.
There's nothing new here. It's all common knowledge. More people are heading out than are coming in. It's remarkable that anyone is coming in at all. It's remarkable that so many people have stuck around. No one's going to stick around for the gameplay. So as long as some of you are providing the structure there'll be a body or two to snatch up. Learn 2 spek )))
I have to think it's because of the social constructs. The game itself is pretty damn old and the dev team, bless your hearts, hasn't produced much of note beyond the coding of Cannon in the last two years. When the servers get shut down the first thing you'll delete is Gallia. Or maybe flush is the term. Lord knows its been floating in the bowl for a spell.
Why is the population declining? Hmmm. With time human's attention span detoriates. And if we keep in mind every generation that passes it gets reduced by each of them too.
I've already mentioned a few things, but I'll mention a few more.
Firstly -- The age of freelancer isn't an issue. Yes, every game steadily declines, but there are plenty of equally old, and even older games that I play which are still very active. One such example is Warcraft III, kept alive by all the awesome custom maps, models, icons, textures, and such made by people like myself who work together to keep that game alive. Across the different servers, it usually has a total of 100-200k people on at a time. And the graphics on that game are nowhere near as good as freelancer. Oh, and should I mention Diablo II? Practically an antique, but that won't stop people from playing it.
My point is, while every game steadily declines over time, that is not the biggest problem. Even incredibly old games can still be active.
Along with things I've said in previous posts, here are some of the problems:
1: The "here-and-there" enforcing of rules. New players who want to just play and do whatever they want are quickly banned because this is an RP server, not a PVP server. This causes us to lose the PVP community. Then people who go around habitually PVP-abusing people are not dealt with, causing us to lose the RP community. If you're going to have rules, it has to be all-or-nothing. If you do nothing, we keep half the community. If you go all the way, we keep the other half of the community. But if you go halfway, we will gradually lose everyone until there is nothing left as both sides of the table get sick of it.
Here's my idea to satisfy the PVP-lovers who don't want to RP. There are plenty of roles that can be roleplayed with guns. Wars between factions is a great way for PVP-lovers to satisfy their need to pew. The RP-ers can RP a bit, and once they've initiated the fight, everyone else in the groups can have at it in a healthy war where both sides are ready to fight, and won't be upset by the engagement.
It would be a good idea to, every time you see new players attacking, first you tell them it's an RP server, etc etc. And if they sound like they don't want to RP, they just want to PVP... then point them towards gallic royal navy, liberty navy, rheinland military, any police faction, bounty hunters guild, etc, so they aren't attacking miners, civilians and transports who weren't already looking for a fight.
Another problem is the insanely long distance between updates. People like seeing new things in this sort of game. It would be a good idea to have mini-patches on a more regular basis, which would change the v0.0x, and then have your big patches less frequently changing the v0.x0.
Another problem is the lack of funding. I strongly believe that the forums should have advertisements. Anyone who can't stand to see a little bar at the top and bottom to help fund this community doesn't deserve to be part of it anyway. With more funding, the server could be better maintained.
A huge problem is the DDOS attacks. These aren't easy to deal with, and can't be controlled, so there isn't much I can say about them.
There is also the problem of publicity. We need more people to know about the mod. As others have mentioned, the possibility of machinimas. Perhaps offer special rewards to people who can put together good films of the mod and post them on youtube. Have an admin rate them, or something. This could apply to any sort of major contribution, actually.
5/5's would receive 100 "Disco coins". 4/5's would receive 50. 3/5's would receive 10.
Then these coins from contributing could be used to get things like:
Defiler: 1000 coins.
Barge: 500 coins. (Maximum 1 per person, and when the first 5 are won, no more, cuzz we don't want the server getting full of barges)
UAU MkX - 2.75x Hull, 25 cargo: 300 coins. (Yes, I know these don't exist, but it'd be neat.)
Dynamic SRP Request: 200 coins.
$100,000,000 in-game credits: 10 coins.
Explanation of "Dynamic SRP Request":
This would be something where the winner could make SRP requests without the fear of losing 400 million credits every time the admins don't like his idea. With the "Dynamic SRP request" prize, the winner could speak with an administrator until they come to an agreement on an approve-able SRP. Additionally, there would be no starting time, only playtime, requirements on the Dynamic SRP, so players who have been around for a long time, but want the idea on a specific character that they've been playing actively but made less than 6 months ago wouldn't be excluded. This is the big killer, because most people who come up with a roleplay idea and make their character aren't going to want to wait half a year before they can even request the SRP for what they want to roleplay that character as. Some particular ideas aren't properly role-playable without the SRP.
In fact, I'll CnP this post to a new thread, with more detail and better formatting since it'd be a thread rather than a comment.
Sometimes something important happens in everyone's life(love, marriage and etc.) when you understand that the virtual life is nothing more than wasting your time.
For me Disco was the best place,game or community where I could spend my time almost every day... I really enjoyed having interactions with some interesting players.
But now, I know I have to deal with other really important matters in my real life...
I think I can safely say that the bases continually getting turned on and off has done at least some damage. A few cheaters have wrecked many others fun - to the degree that I am keeping my characters alive and barely doing anything else. Right moan over now for constructive stuff - Would be nice to have a little more stuff more often but I would like it if more events were planned - make it so that every so often Gallia and whoever fought or Corsairs and Outcasts had a bout of fisticuffs - anything that I could ether take part in or watch. I have noticed that events are rather erratic - I often don't find out about them till afterwards despite checking the forums regularly.
Many of you talk about helping new players out by giving them credits and ships. Personally I don't think this really helps them much at all. Rather try include them in something.
I don't think this even has to be RolePlay as such. a group of a few people flying around in starfliers (or whatever they are now) trading or mining is fun. you can talk in group chat and use all the smilies and oorp stuff you want.
I feel too much emphasis is placed on success and "winning". Having a good time is something I have always been able to find on discovery, show new players this rather than a ship with a large cargo bay.
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