Why is the community population declining?

[Ingenious]

How player bases had negatively changed the game he didn't elaborate on. As I've never built or maintained one, I can only speculate. Maybe the amount of time and energy needed to build, maintain and protect a pb somehow detracts from other forms of RP that we've seen more of in the past.

Actually, I think player bases give people a reason to cooperate (instead of just trade solo) and allows players to advance roleplay using an ingame mechanic rather than relying upon forum powergaming.

[AeternusDoleo]

Things are getting old real fast.
The admins/devs ignore experianced players, and cater to the new.
They introduce new items that un-balance game.
They change rep ninja's because "Official factions" say to, and screw all indies.

I can go on and on, but i am sure you get it.

Really now. Let's go point by point here. Seeing as I'm both an admin and a dev, I feel qualified to answer this.
- Ignoring experienced players and catering to the new.
It's true that we try to make this game as accessible as possible to newer players, and we've still got quite a ways to go in that. Discovery uses several unique mechanics that other Freelancer servers will not have. Mainly, because they were developed by us (read: Coded by Cannon). As for experienced players being ignored, I don't really see that. Players who approach the admins and devs in a disrespectful manner do tend to get ignored (at least by me) because frankly, if you can't ask me nicely, you don't deserve an answer.

- Introducing new items that imbalance the game.
I'm assuming you mean the new toys like cloaks, jumpdrives and playerbases? True, they change the mechanics of the game quite a bit, and I'm willing to admit that they do have their problems. The issue with fixing them is that there's never a concensus about how to do it. Jump drive range limit? How do you code that... Jump drive failure rate? What's the penalty effect - what's the failure rate. Cloak countermeasure code? How do those get made, for which ships, for which slot? How does it get coded? You get my point. Issue being mainly, that when you add new toys to the game -someone- is bound to find a way to abuse it in ways we didn't predict on the admin/dev side. And then you're left with needing to figure a way to patch it up. The only alternative is to never add new things again. Which frankly, would make the game kinda stuffy in the end.

- Updates taking a long time
Yes, it takes a long while to bring updates out since the mod is so big that it's hard for an all-volunteer team to stay on top of things. Some folk moving on means you lose some experienced devvers - FrozenBallz, Adoxa, Doom... to call a few. There's few people both skilled and willing to pick up the gap guys like that leave, so yea, things take time. Right now I'm working, almost alone, on balancing out the relative NPC strength between the houses. So you're not stuck with fighting Starflies in one house and Eagles in the other. Equal-ish NPC strength that varies with where you're at in the game (Capitol, house world, border world, edgeworld, warzone, guard system). This requires updating virtually all system files (done), all faction NPC templates (todo still), and for missions, all base entries in MBases (working on this). It's a bit of a job - but we're probably call 4.87 the last -major- update and then focus on smaller, more frequent ones involving minor changes to a system here or there.

- Changing reps because official factions say so
This is a nonissue, as one of the faction rights basically gives them the right to. That rule has been as old as the official factions themselves. Don't like it? Use the Freelancer ID. I'm assuming you're pissed that your Interspace transport couldn't dock in Rheinland for a while or something similar. Roleplaying game. Things happen to your faction. Be glad we don't have Game Masters like most RP servers do or you'd see a whole lot more of that.


Also, Ingenious: SRP and Official Faction request costs? For an Official Faction this tends to be relatively minor as the cost is spread over all people. You can make 50M inside an hour easily - doing it with a group of say, 5 people means you need to play 2 hours to get that amount together (10 hours total playing time dedicated to the faction's creation). And, if the faction succeeds, you can request a CAU8 armor once it's established (see faction rules) - so you actually end up in the plus.
SRPs carry this cost because a lot of folk fired off a "gimme battleship on pirate ID" kind of requests, and frankly, the admins have better things to waste their time on then half-serious requests. Most of the SRPs I've seen passing the list can easily be handled with a standard ID, or a slightly different ship.

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Wide awake in a world that sleeps, enduring thoughts, enduring scenes. The knowledge of what is yet to come.
From a time when all seems lost, from a dead man to a world, without restraint, unafraid and free.

Mostly retired Discovery member. May still visit from time to time.

[NebulaCloud]

I played on an RP server that allowed PvP, but their system was a very good setup in my opinion. Perhaps something like this could improve the environment:

When a player wants to PvP (outside of Conn), there must first be roleplay, which is already a rule, regardless of what kind or how much. Before ANY shots are fired, both players must agree to the PvP. The "aggressor" (in most cases, the pirate) would initiate a request. The "defender" can then either 1) agree to the PvP, and the fight commences, or 2) deny the PvP request, and immediately leave the area. I'm not completely sure how to totally translate this to Freelancer, but here are my thoughts on how to handle a player who refuses a PvP challenge:

1) If the player is being pirated, they MUST pay what the pirate is demanding to continue (within reason). This should be the case in almost every civilian ship, as most sane freighter captain would never turn his guns on a heavily armed pirate ship over losing his shipment or a meager portion of his credits.
2) In the case that PvP is refused, the player MUST leave the area and not return to the same system for 4 hours, similar to PvP death.

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[Tachyon]

Lately the DDOS and server downtime was a major issue, which has driven down server population - It will recover from it.

One suggestion from me, though: Instead of releasing those big updates, just have a constant flow of new stuff and bugfixes, so in my opinion: A new ship is done, or a new model - Note on forums: Stuff just got replaced (or wait until you have two or three -small- things).
And if you run out of stuff to do, poke some threads for quick community input on what could be changed - I am very sure there is always something, that 1) Does not take a lot of effort and/or time 2) Will make a few people happy.

From my view, the (somewhat) stiffness or missing flow, or missing visible flow of development is a big issue.
New players and experienced players both want to see someone, who cares - Not only on Admin level, but mainly on dev level.
Only one small post with a minor bug, two or three small details changed, possibly even a new ship from time to time, every week or two, will make this place -look- FAR more alive and therefore more appealing.

Sounds hard and if I could dev, I'd somehow try to help. But I can't, so ****.

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[Ingenious]

Also, Ingenious: SRP and Official Faction request costs? For an Official Faction this tends to be relatively minor as the cost is spread over all people. You can make 50M inside an hour easily - doing it with a group of say, 5 people means you need to play 2 hours to get that amount together (10 hours total playing time dedicated to the faction's creation). And, if the faction succeeds, you can request a CAU8 armor once it's established (see faction rules) - so you actually end up in the plus.
SRPs carry this cost because a lot of folk fired off a "gimme battleship on pirate ID" kind of requests, and frankly, the admins have better things to waste their time on then half-serious requests. Most of the SRPs I've seen passing the list can easily be handled with a standard ID, or a slightly different ship.

The point is not the cost, the point is the focus on the reward and not the experience. Even in your response, you bring up the CAP8 reward. But what is the reward, really, it is just an unsigned integer in the server database. The important thing is the roleplay experience and fun. Some factions, SRPs, people, etc. think rewards are more important. You admins do a good job filtering it, but still, it's a symptom of the problem.

[Madvillain]

players make their own fun. - sometimes they are handed the tools to even change the enviroment ( like fridays thread when he asked the official factions to submit their storyprogress - which was then assessed based on logic, lore, faction balance and immersion ) - mind you - only very VERY few ppl actually submitted anything at all. <-- which was greatly surprising, since factions often complained not to have an impact on the progression.

Sorry Jinx but this part made my stomach turn.
Lots of people submitted things , people spent a shizload of time on making something good even better.....


and got ignored/ridiculed/flamed etc.

now that's gone and past yeah , and it didn't make anyone happy , just made people care less/not at all anymore.
Not verbally attacking you Jinx , not at all.
but you seem misguided on the story dev you've mentioned.

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Baila Morena | Toilet Trouble | Elder Presidente[TBH] | The Titan Combat Manual | Confession

[The.Wizard]

Sorry Jinx but this part made my stomach turn.
Lots of people submitted things , people spent a shizload of time on making something good even better.....
and got ignored/ridiculed/flamed etc.
now that's gone and past yeah , and it didn't make anyone happy , just made people care less/not at all anymore.
Not verbally attacking you Jinx , not at all.
but you seem misguided on the story dev you've mentioned.

This.
So many things we're suggested by many people and nothing.Ignored.
And the fact that most ppl in dev team doesn't evan play the game...
But saddest thing of all is-nothing's gonna change...

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[Remilia Scarlet]

The game just got boring and gameplay of past is in ruins and decaying. No wonders why people give up and leave to do something more interesting then to watch the bunches of caps ramming each others with the rest sitting and power mining\trading their caps.

The game is old, yes. So we're not likely to recieve a new playerbase. Freelancer have it's fandome that travels from server to server or just gives up if here is nothing to do. Those who didn't played the game in before more likely not to find out it's existance at all.

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Where the end starts | Submergence | Awaken | Scarlet D(a\o)wn | Remilia wiki page
BECAUSE YOU DON'T SAY SLAUGHTER WITHOUT LAUGHTER

[Remilia Scarlet]

Paradox - devs were trying to make the game as easy as it can be by making things to help people to get stuff, to get cash for stuff, etc in order to have it more "player-friendly". They were told not a single time that it's wrong. It was ignored.

Now with everything being easy there is just nothing to achive and people leaving. Victory.

We actually do gather around this topic now and have a good laugh about it.

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Where the end starts | Submergence | Awaken | Scarlet D(a\o)wn | Remilia wiki page
BECAUSE YOU DON'T SAY SLAUGHTER WITHOUT LAUGHTER

[Oorn]

Paradox - devs were trying to make the game as easy as it can be by making things to help people to get stuff, to get cash for stuff, etc in order to have it more "player-friendly". They were told not a single time that it's wrong. It was ignored.

Now with everything being easy there is just nothing to achive and people leaving. Victory.

We actually do gather around this topic now and have a good laugh about it.

.....<cough>...Bases...<cough>...cloaks...<cough>...JDs....

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When "roleplay" around you seems to be diminishing... all you can do is be a new beacon of roleplay to light up everyone else's interactions.