Thanks, it was a serious question and I got serious answers.
I have to start with the RPing, which I don't mind but not sure if I can handle this unlimited sandbox. I used to be more restricted in games like Eve (which I played a year somewhere in 2008 before it got too addicted grin).
I am a bit fearful of going to other sectors since I have already met and paid pirates in the basic Brit and Liberty space. Or I suddenly see some unknown red player that seems to fly to me with a high velocity so I just try to hit cruise and dock a random tradelane to get away.
I know sometimes over 100 people are online, but in Liberty space I often feel alone (except for the occasional silent meeting with another trader or above mentioned pirate).
I know I can buy a pirate ship and probably be bad with it (I never used engine kill / jousting, I just make circles until the enemy is in my sights) and that makes me think I need more heaps of credits before I want to try that area.
I did a lot of killing missions in Freelancer vanilla single player version and I like those. Here I skipped them except 3 or 4 since the money is meaningless compared to trading (and some AI enemies ARE tough).
Yet owning a Cruiser or something big sounds fun, swatting flies always boosts ones ego (for a while).
The strange thing is that I am more or less 'used' or even 'hooked' to the 'level-up' thing but it isn't here since this is basically a classic game. No nescessary XP points for killing enemies over and over again, no requirements to go on a mission in a sector 6 hours flying away. It's good .. and it's bad. I miss the framework of me growing as a player.
Perhaps it's why I never liked AD&D 'at home' but I loved playing WoW (yeah guilty) since the beta in 2004. (And before that Diablo, Quake, Unreal Tournament).
I love MMO's (The aforementioned WoW, EVE, Warhammer, Age of Conan, several smaller free to play games) so I want to meet humans in space, not stupid scripted AI. I love the sci-fi environment ; being a big fan of Heinlein, Asimov, A.C. Clarke, F. Herbert, having read most iof their books, at young age and still now. Short stories, written in the interbellum up to modern stuff (from '60s to now).
So I know the 'life in space' , the subjects/topics/issues. From politics to the science. Yet I am not really a writer or roleplayer pur sang, but I do want to fit it.
I guess I have to dive a bit deeper into the sub-games in this game, but in a way they're a bit hard to find