While on one hand, I see the JH rework possibly working, on the other, I don't see it working and allow me to explain why. Freelancer, the game itself, is no longer being sold on the market (save most likely in some rare stores on the planet) and even more so, there are less players looking for mods for the game.
While I can see the jump system rework idea you had, which is to tighten pathways for more interactions, I also want to say that theres not that many players for it anymore. I'm not saying its impossible or a pointless plan, on EVE JH and JG connects are changed sometimes daily or weekly or whenever, but thats also okay because of their large player base in turn.
While you are correct Karlotta that the system would work, and as others have said, the second problem is established lore, while yes, alot of people might not read most of those things out there, its hard to justify and change an entire system and/or its connections and keep it flowing in lore. Not only would that take more time, but each time connections are changed, so are the trade routes and whatnot.
A simple fact of the matter is, we could change these passageways to make them tighter and have a chance to maybe get players to interact, but the fact still stands it has a 50% chance of not actually doing anything for that due to the low player base and the even higher chance of official factions refusing to alter lore.
An example is the Caymen system, which would have only one connection, yet Corsairs and SCRA have been RPing and fighting over it for a long time now, removing the connections also means the alteration and changing of the official lore the two factions put into it.
As others have said in the past, this is not 2010 anymore, and this mod is apart of a dying game that the original devs themselves (Not disco devs, Microsoft and them I mean) have abandoned long ago. Another driving point is the people that lack the ability to RP well, yes there are alot who CAN RP well, but there is a larger chuck of the players that can't/won't/whatever.
Its honestly not about activity spots at this point, its just the fact that nothing usually big happens unless its during events, and even these days I don't see any major player driven RP's save perhaps Nodika and his RP stuff. The rules were loosened, the player base is smaller and there's less people worth RPing with then there was in the last few years, and changing connections to force players into systems won't help the situation, if anything if would give less locations for people to go to and even retcon a ton of lore factions have already put out.
I know the other causes leading to inactivity, but something not being the only cause is no reason to not fix it.
It's possible that some of the changes conflict lore. Although since the Cayman system is still there and jump hole connections have changed massively before, I don't see this as a sufficient reason to keep from changing things for the better. If you see problems, I would wish that you'd propose suggestions that would fix or mitigate them.
I proposed this as a quick and easy solution to address one glaring problem of the many problems (some fixable, some not) the mod has. I've proposed several other solutions to other problems before, but it's no use proposing 10 more solution at the same time as long as non of them are ever addressed because "oh its only one problem in 20".
Yup. The idea of squeezing activity zones through more streamlined hole/gate connections while keeping the redundant, already unpopular systems purposefully on the sidelines is not to create activity, but to force the current activity we have to play more often in a smaller area so that there is more interaction between this already small group of players.
Jump connections is not useful for conjuring nonexisting activity either way, but some of us think the game will be more fun with people using same few systems, as there are less players to fill everywhere by now. So we could only hope that such a change could help the general activity indirectly, as people could hopefully play more if they knew they could find something fun more often and without spending a lot of time to find any. It is a lot of hoping, though what is sure in this world? Nobody wrote a book titled “How to Make Your Dying Game More Fun and Active Again 101”.
The challenges of implementing such a change has always been a concern for me and, since I do not know any deving work, I did not know the extent of these challenges to be able to decide if the amount of work is worth it for a dying game with volunteer devs. Good to finally know that it is not worth it.
I didn’t consider ‘jump drives 4 everyone’ as a possible thing until now so I dunno. It sounds fun somewhat.
(01-24-2018, 11:41 PM)Karlotta Wrote: Sol, what exactly is the point of your post?
Probably as few other mentioned that your "solution" is not an answer to a problem. Jump Holes have very little to do with bottlenecking activity as they are meant for convenience more than directing people.
(01-24-2018, 11:42 PM)SnakThree Wrote: Probably as few other mentioned that your "solution" is not an answer to a problem. Jump Holes have very little to do with bottlenecking activity as they are meant for convenience more than directing people.
Thank you for your post, SnakThree.
You've already stated what you said there before and I've already explained how jump holes are currently too convenient for avoiding interactions, and how they can be made more convenient to encourage interactions and speed up long range travel.
I was therefor asking Sol to explain what he means with his post, not you.
Please re-read my explanation in the OP and tell me if you were still not able to understand how jumpholes can be made more convenient for faster travel as well as for bottlenecking activity. I'd be happy to try to explain it again, and then edit an explanation that you're also able to understand into the OP, for the benefit of people who experience similar difficulties.
After you've understood the concept, you may even propose better jumphole connections than the existing ones, unless you think the current connection or my proposed connections are in a perfect state. Because that is in fact what I asked for in the OP, not endless re-iterations of whether you think my proposed solution is good or not.
You call it condescending, I call it being extremely patient towards people who are flooding a thread with non-constructive posts with the pretty clear intention of being the opposite of constructive.
(01-24-2018, 07:26 PM)Sol Wrote: Yup. The idea of squeezing activity zones through more streamlined hole/gate connections while keeping the redundant, already unpopular systems purposefully on the sidelines is not to create activity, but to force the current activity we have to play more often in a smaller area so that there is more interaction between this already small group of players.
Jump connections is not useful for conjuring nonexisting activity either way, but some of us think the game will be more fun with people using same few systems, as there are less players to fill everywhere by now. So we could only hope that such a change could help the general activity indirectly, as people could hopefully play more if they knew they could find something fun more often and without spending a lot of time to find any. It is a lot of hoping, though what is sure in this world? Nobody wrote a book titled “How to Make Your Dying Game More Fun and Active Again 101”.
I read a couple people in this thread and they said your, mine and a few other's suggestions over this month on this topic would not actually create activity. It was to reply to them and I agree with them that it indeed won't create activity, but squeeze it, and which is what is needed right now to adapt to our lower player count, which will probably remain that way no matter what we do. And I also explained that squeezing could help in an indirect way to create more activity. A few posts above wrote that "there's a 50% chance of it not doing anything", I also replied that here.
(01-24-2018, 07:26 PM)Sol Wrote: The challenges of implementing such a change has always been a concern for me and, since I do not know any deving work, I did not know the extent of these challenges to be able to decide if the amount of work is worth it for a dying game with volunteer devs. Good to finally know that it is not worth it.
This is the first thread I read with a dev replying and another member confirming that they do not think this idea is worth working on. I had asked in the earlier thread, but a dev only said they'd talk about it in a stream, though I did not have the time to watch that stream at that time, and I've seen no other posts from a dev regarding this matter. And since I did not know the amount of work that needs to go into this, I could not judge the worth of it. Another point I make now is that I don't think very simple jump hole connection adjustments could work. A lot of the connections need to be worked on if we want this to have a proper effect, jumpgates too, and most of the clutter needs to be removed to bring back the amount of intensity of interaction we had a few years ago. That is my opinion. /edit: forgot to mention that trade balance needs to be worked on too. They should remove most of the existing routes and put emphasis on a few to squeeze trader activity inside our focused zones.
(01-24-2018, 07:26 PM)Sol Wrote: I didn’t consider ‘jump drives 4 everyone’ as a possible thing until now so I dunno. It sounds fun somewhat.
What I wrote is my point. I mean, it could be fun. Better than nothing. I don't get why you make me write the same things twice.
I even suggested increasing ship speeds further on earlier, because I really hate flying 20 minutes to get to a place where MAYBE I could have some interaction before my limited free time is over. It's even worse when there's nothing going on anywhere on the server and I'd have to check several places out.
After all, there's actually less interaction than there's players online. Most seem to just not be interested in me one bit. Those that say "hello" only zip past me to continue whatever the hell they might be in a hurry for in an old as hell game. I am bored as hell with this game and I welcome any change that will help me see a few more people a little easier.
Thank you Sol, the reason I asked was because I wasn't sure if you were being sarcastic or not, especially due to your last sentence.
I agree that this alone is not certain to catapult server activity through the roof, but that it's one step towards making people who want to find player interaction become more likely to find them. Success in finding activity through this may be one contributing factor towards people logging more for fun. There are many more things that could be done, and should be done, to achieve both. But you have to start somewhere.
I disagree when it comes to the "its not worth it" part, obviously. In this thread one dev (who seems to have understood the intent of the thread) said he's for 3 changes, while another dev said changing systems is much work (seemingly not understanding that I wasnt asking for any system removal or changes other than jump holes). Changing jump holes alone requires comparatively little work but can speed up travel and focus activity fairly easily. From the stream you mentioned and some other threads, I also have the impression that most devs are completely oblivious to obvious solutions and problems that affect gameplay today because they havent played much in years.
That's why I think this should be worked on fast, and it can be made faster if people contribute concrete suggestions for jump hole changes instead of derailing the effort with general statements about how jumping would be cool and how Freelancer cant be found in stores anymore. But I do realize that people will tend to do the latter because it's much easier than sitting down to think about the map for 10 to 30 minutes before posting.
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