1) I've been playing Freelancer online since 2003. I want to do more than a 15 year old locked engine is capable of.
2) I play for a couple of weeks, then I go do something else for a couple of months. By the time I return, my ships are gone and I just can't be bothered with the time investment anymore.
3) I have seen everything, explored everything, traded everything and bought nearly every ship at some point. New content is released too slowly and there's too little of it to keep me interested.
4) I like flying around in new systems that have new art. There hasn't really been anything new to see in years; in fact stuff has disappeared.
5) There is no character progression other than more monies. What little ship equipment customisation that exists is not enough to keep it interesting.
6) There is a massive time investment gap between "regular" equipment and "special" equipment (jump drives, cloaks, etc) that just can't be bridged with casual play sessions, which is enormously off-putting. There should be something to make the curve less steep.
7) The drive to make each faction "unique" has in fact resulted in every faction being pretty much the same, which the same types of ships universally available with a different model/skin for "flavour". Every faction feels like every other faction and it has destroyed my enjoyment of the lore.
8) Roleplay seems to primarily happen on the forum and third party chat groups that I'm not a part of and have no way of knowing about. Roleplay is dead on the server unless you camp Planet Manhattan.
9) I like making flawed, throwaway characters with one or more screws loose in the head to brighten up people's roleplay, but the time investment needed to get the right ship and equipment for them just isn't worth it.
10) Since changes to Sirius to reflect evolving roleplay have to go through a long and boring submission process, there isn't really any motivation to even try to have an impact on server lore or build anything that can last. Server lore feels like it's something done by Other People in a Faraway Galaxy with very strict ideas about what's possible and what's not. I get more enjoyment out of just sketching system stuff on a piece of paper.
11) I don't even know what the point of factions is anymore. Most of them can do everything to the same degree without negative consequences, nor is there really any advantage to levelling up reputation with other factions beyond neutral/friendly other than not getting shot at. All for the sake of "balance".
12) The same applies to trading, which is just a case of everything going everywhere in the most nonsensical ways because of, again, perceived faction balance. And with every system essentially leading everywhere to the same degree, the structure of the Sirius sector is just gone, with there being no difference between being in core space or border world space or edge space. It's all the same thing, and I can go everywhere equally.
13) There's not really anything left to achieve, and whatever there is to do isn't very interesting because it's essentially just throwing credits at stuff.
