Turning Freelancer into massive online game concept

    Ok, I have been watching this thread for awhile now. Some ideas have been good but some have been unobtainable considering the state of the FL engine. I am putting a realistic view based on nearly 3 decades of programming experience.


    For one, you will need to rework how FL handles the global server. You will need to remove the server selection screen and also make server switching automatic.


    Second, the users will need a way to switch servers. The best option would be to provide an in-game jumphole or gate to go to the next server. Since FL is built on a separate system motto, this would fit in perfectly.


    Third, you will need a way to keep the servers in sync with each other and also keep the players in sync with the latest files.


    If you can manage to program this, then you can make FL massive.


    BTW, just don't throw off my ideas as crazy, I've been programming for nearly 30 years and I can see how massive a project like this would be. My suggestion would be to get one of the free game engines that supports multiplayer and build on that. At least you can modify the source, with FL you are pretty much limited to hex edits.


    The only other solution would be to do something like FLHook and hook your new features into the game.

    oh i'm gonna kick over this hornets nest again. The concept and execution are NOT hard in the least. You divide the solar map into srvr regions as discussed a relatively simple (for a knowledgeable coder) plugin for flhook or shell to handle the hand off of players between the regions and you got the basics. And the worst that may be needed is a f1 reload like some servers that allow p2p docking require when you undock in a different system. The hardest part will be making a mod good enough to entice the majority of the slowly declining playerbase to come to the mod and make enough noise to bring new players to what is frankly a very dated game. This idea would be awesome and doable if MS would release the source code and let us really play with the engine and graphics to modernize it since they don't seem to want to do a sequel.

    I was discussing this very idea just the other day..
    never saw this thread.. lol...


    My idea was smaller though.. a few "shards" uploading info to a master database.. players could only switch shards just after master restart.. ect ect...


    Interested to see where this goes.. few new programs flying around that would make this a breeze if they were worked the right way by ppl with the right ideas :D ..

    also fl was writtten originaly for xp and not vista,this is why there are so many problems with fl working with vista,and thats not even getting into servers after ms pulled the plug,hard not to see fl is the most popular game to come out.fl is still as popular as when it first came only to gain more momentum,i figure ms,it's just a phase fl would eventually die, but has gone the opposite direction.it's a crying shame ms,pulled the plug on the servers,however no matter what they thought when ms pulled it off.ppl have adapted found away to get around it.just my thoughts

    We modders are the constant thorn in MS's side ... hehe ;)
    yes i too feel they thought it would just pass by... then us crazy ppl came along, and fell in love 8-)


    as long as there's a few of us around making new things and extending the gamebase, anythings possible these days
    even if its been tried b4, a fresh team with new ideas can go another way and maybe succeed were 2 years ago.. it was impossible


    I do feel this topic is a big "possible" these days.. we CAN make FL into what it "should" have been.. and i feel this is
    why the rug was pulled from us.. were getting too close.. and making MS look quite silly for not supporting FL, on a daily basis.. lmao ;)


    Iceman .. are u the NQ iceman? we should talk m8 ;) ( i is an old A51 member hehe)

    nq? could u elaborate a wee bit more? :lol: @ shatterstar.ive gone by iceman for about 5 years,it was changed from a different name which im reluctant to say from a previous clan i used to belong to,which is the main reason i dont want to join another for obvious reasons,when i do play certain mods/clan operated i do so on my terms,i tend to read their playing requirements b4 dl their mods,i had a server @ 1 point purely a private server b4 msn pulled the plug,havent dl any mods since last mod which is obviously tie universe 9.1,primarily for the fact of updrading lap top from 160 gb hard drive to a 320 gb hard drive,was told by hp it would work,just havent done it yet,this a new thing to me trying to find out what i need to do first cause i dont want lost data and go thru a hair pulling session.lol