Blogs Adventures and Adventuring

just started playing again online using the discovery mod, such a good game

 

I've never played Freelancer, but I've heard it has much in common with Wing Commander: Privateer. Even though it is a DOS game that preceded Freelancer by many years, Privateer should allow for an an experience like the author described.

It's on GOG now, so it should run on modern systems.

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/wing_commander_privateer

 

the multiplayer early on in freelancer was great.. I used to be out of control- I'd shoot out trade lanes and stalk freighters using the overview (show which sector they were in xD)

shoot out a lane depending on where I predicted they were going.. they'd drop out in the middle of the trade lane xD then I'd be sitting there in my eagle telling them to give me 50k or I'd blow the nuts off the sides of the ship along with the cargo

remember extorting tons of money out people like that =] the sysops used to put a big bounty on my head in servers- so you'd have a bunch of noobies in titans looking for you in a certain sector.. I'd take them all out easy- the eagle outturned that ship everytime

you could even launch afterburner and cut the engine turn around and usually catch a guy with a couple of cannonballs while they were trying to shoot hornets up your tailpipe

was awesome game.. still no other space game as good imo as far as dogfighting goes- love to hang out in corsair space.. the carebears would get ganged (I was always friendly with corsair and outcasts in the pubs)

been banned quite a few servers cause I'd lay mines out in new york for fun.. poor guys coming off the planet would explode coming out the dock xD used to get accused of cheating too- found a way to have a fully stocked eagle in around 3 hours time.. sometimes quicker if the salvaged guns weren't taken in the stock game with no mods

think have pictures somewhere.. just to show I wasn't talking **** loved that game

 

Hippoz, I know you played the game a lot on the PVP side, but did servers ever patch out the fact that you could just ignore the space customs when hauling illicit materials, and dock without clicking their message?

 

Last time I felt that sense of adventure, honestly, was probably in Diablo....

....and ditto to the hill climbing sentiment. I know exactly what you mean

 

that's how I play near the end of my Freelancing period. It throws off the aiming crosshairs for tour ship so much they wont be able to hit you.

X3, as suggested by people here, had a pretty steep learning curve. My housemate tried to get into it, but couldn't due to it felt like a flight simulator rather than an arcade space adventure game.

 

remember there was a lot of cheating going on within maybe a month of the games release.. I didn't haul freight in multiplayer ever, I just did high paying missions to build up so fast.. I know what your talking about though

you could only dock if you were friendly with the station though.. usually a zoner station was fine.. the police was kind of an annoyance if anything

I'd keep the starter ship and go strait to colorado to farm those ships in missions around the station.. there was one really good gun they dropped.. go back to new york, buy the defender and head out to hudson to take missions off the ship orbiting the planet there

you'd get some really good easy missions if you didn't die.. remember one mission paying 50k to blow up a space station (easiest mission ever), it was enough to buy that ship that looked like the eagle (think called the falcon) in new berlin and fit it with certain guns

then go out using the hidden portals through to frankfurt and start hitting the wrecks looking for the prototype guns to sell off.. end up around freeport 7 in omincron theta and take missions against the corsair until I could afford the eagle on that station

from there.. go into the unknown portal and kill aliens for the cannons- take missions in omnicron gamma until you were rich (quick they pay so well) plus you could become friendly with corsairs, enemy to bounty hunter you had to go into outcast space sigma 17 to get the ripper mines

from that end of space it was a good base to conduct extortion on frieghters.. I rarely went into kusari space unless I was chasing a freighter or someone who needed a good spanking

yeah in multiplayer things were a lot of fun.. I liked the single player too- pretty much a bug though

 

Although I also loved this game, for me the greatest adventure I ever had was on Sea Dogs. That game was immense!

 

Despite it's flaws it was simply a fantastic game... we certainly need more

 

The only game that has given me this sense of freedom and of a random adventure recently has been Dwarf Fortress... Once you get past the learning curve and start really understanding it it offers some increbible experiences.

 

All I remember from Frrelancer was the storyline was too short, then ditched you in a Galaxy with no more missions.
Sure you could go and explore the rest of the universe, but there wasn't anything there but more of the same.
A bit stronger pirates, a bit more trade, some more pirates...
It felt like a MMO without a Multiplayer, and without Online.

I'd do a replay anytime though...

 

Freelancer, Multiplayer... I remember it taking over an entire LAN party. Small parties were forming up and taking control of an entire systems, if you wanted to pass you paid the bounty (in realworld beer or ingame goods). Anyhows, fond memories, of exploring remote systems and finding hidden wormholes.

Sadly, Eve does nothing for me, I'm sure it's good but it's too much. I dobut there will ever be a game like Freelancer again.

 

I haven't heard of anyone else ever playing this game! Loved it so much, spent hours and hours forming an identity (I wanna be a pirate!).

The SP mods that allowed you to buy and fly the capital ships was epic, you would just cruise into a hostile system with a battleship and annihilate an entire flotilla of ships.

X3:TC is the closest game to this, but as others have said there is a huge learning curve. Very rewarding once you start building an empire, but I haven't gone back to that game once as there is just too much going on to casually drop in and play.

 

Agreed. Lots of people hated the long treks to and from mission locations, and the endless hostile checkpoints along the way. But I saw it all as an adventure, where what happened at a specific mission location was the least of my problems in that forsaken land. Brilliant when my plans worked well, brilliant when my plans went bad and I had to improvise, and brilliant when I had to flee cross-country to a safehouse with only a smidgen of health and a damaged flare gun. While I immersed myself in the game for a week, I had crazy dreams about it almost every night because of its affect on me.

 

wonder what joe thinks of this

http://blackprophecy.com/

the beta is out.. might give it a try

 

Totally agree with this. That's what I like so much about games like Stalker, Alpha Centauri, Xcom - in all cases you are being drawn towards a particular destination, but the way you get there is up to you, and the best moments generally come out of your own decisions and mistakes, rather than COD-style on rails "action" sequences.