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**Haste** · 08-31-2023, 07:52 PM,

Discovery Freelancer: Fire and Fortune - Update

As some of you might have guessed by the cancelled feature showcase stream a few days ago, the upcoming patch is not quite finished yet. Since the announcement of the patch earlier this month all of us have been hard and work and progress has been good. The amount of work we put in over the last few weeks could probably have qualified as a fully fledged patch back in the day, but that's not what we're trying to do. We announced one of the most extensive new feature lists in the history of Discovery Freelancer and we don't intend to take shortcuts or cross anything off that list.

What this means however, is that we won't be able to finish everything by the 1st of September. Now that we worked on the planned additions to the game for a while, many of us got a more realistic view of the work that still has to be done in order to bring you a complete patch. Based on that we sat down a few days ago and came up with a date that everything can be finished by, and which also provides us some leeway, to avoid having to postpone the release again when that date approaches.

The new release date is the 29th of September.

In order to bridge the gap until then, we prepared some small teasers of things the team is working on:

Preview image (click for larger version) -- Model by @Treewyrm

An ancient weapon designed to keep out unwelcome guests. Do you dare delve this deep?

Preview image (click for larger version)

Doing away with the old system of a flash of light magically teleporting a fleet, our new Kishiro Jumpdrives™ now grant you the ability to tunnel through space using artificial jumpholes. Two minutes remaining until jumphole collapse!

We thank you for your understanding and your patience. See you in space!

Spectre · 08-31-2023, 08:20 PM,

Considering the amount of hype and RP people have done over the last month revolving around this patch being released tonight, I feel like this is just the beginning of another delay train, or really the continuation of it.

Is it not possible to hold off on development enough to get a full patch out so people don't have to keep waiting? I'll remind you, it's been over a year.

#BringBackTheCommonwealth

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TheSauron · 08-31-2023, 08:26 PM,

This should've been announced earlier, or it should've been the planned release date from the start. Doing this on the eve with the smallest of teasers known to man kind of slightly perhaps sorta dampens the interest.

One MD Admiral

Megaera · 08-31-2023, 08:29 PM,

Rule number one of procrastination: As soon as someone keeps repeating how hard they are working on something, you know it won't arrive for a while.

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~~DrengrCo~~ · (This post was last modified: 08-31-2023, 08:38 PM by DrengrCo.)

Having been involved in FL modding in the past, I understand the enormity of the task which has been taken on here, and hope for the best in regards to this patch.

One question though.
Is this "patch" going to be released as a patch only? Or are there plans to integrate this into a full Disco update where we won't have to download and apply the last 6 years of patches first when we re-install FL & Disco?

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Doria · 08-31-2023, 08:38 PM,

If they release the patch on time, but full of bugs, you guys complain it's full of bugs.
If they postpone the date to deliver a better quality less-buggy release, you guys complain it was postponed.
In any case you get what you want: the opportunity to complain.

Even with the anxiety of wanting the new patch to arrive soon, I don't mind waiting a little more time for a better quality release...

Czechmate · 08-31-2023, 08:43 PM,

Nobody expects no bugs, we expect many hotfixes, but this really is embarrassing after that announcement with firm date.

**Haste** · 08-31-2023, 08:43 PM,

(08-31-2023, 08:36 PM)DrengrCo Wrote:
Is this "patch" going to be released as a patch only? Or are there plans to integrate this into a full Disco update where we won't have to download and apply the last 6 years of patches first when we re-install FL & Disco?

I think setting up a new installer, at the very least, would be a good idea. I've done quite a lot of "moving files around" that the current launcher isn't great at handling and which will result in duplicate files in existing installs. That's not the end of the world, but it's not optimal either. A new installer could help deal with that problem.

Treewyrm has been working on a new launcher for quite a while but I'm not entirely sure about its state and whether or not it could be done for the set release date. It'd be lovely if it were, of course.

Spectre · 08-31-2023, 08:49 PM,

(08-31-2023, 08:38 PM)Doria Wrote: If they release the patch on time, but full of bugs, you guys complain it's full of bugs.
If they postpone the date to deliver a better quality less-buggy release, you guys complain it was postponed.
In any case you get what you want: the opportunity to complain.

Even with the anxiety of wanting the new patch to arrive soon, I don't mind waiting a little more time for a better quality release...

A high quality release would really be the ideal here, but considering the last year+ of development has just been minor developments using the server alone without proper updates, I think everyone is pretty tired at this point of hearing empty promises. I have no doubt that they intend for it to be good, and I'm sure they planned for it to be done by now, but you know how the road to hell is paved.

If the team wasn't finished with development for the patch, then honestly why give a release date? I'd expected that the time between when they announced it and now would've been spent ironing out the kinks and removing any bugs or oversights before releasing to the community.
Again, it's been over a year.