X3 - The Return

I remember trying to run Doom on a 386...had enough time to have a coffee,shower,smoke,have another coffee before it loaded up!lol Didn´t like X2..but this looks promising,still waiting on F.E.A.R though -edit- that ok now FF <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Edited by - DS9Phoenix on 10/2/2005 2:58:11 AM

smoke another coffee? O_o

well, After reading the posts by Chips and others I was reminded of a rumour about FL2 going subsciption based as is Eve.. apparently Microsoft are rumoured to be building one based on Freelancer1 but pay-to-play.. similar to Eve.. an ´evolving´ universe.. after all 17,000 players cant be wrong .. can they? Would Fl´ers go this way? Harrier

I think that if MS builds a MMO, I will skip it. I think that they and Egosoft have totally missed out on the fact that... like Total Annihilation... FL is still selling copies almost exclusively because it has a mod scene that´s alive and kicking. Dunno why it hasn´t occured to MS that if they simply gave FL´s sourcecode a revamp, supporting more modern rendering techniques, open-sourced animations, and an opened-up ALE system... and got rid of all of the inconsistant/buggy/weird/kludged things that make it harder to mod than it could be, and pretty much just re-released the same old game with gentle improvements to make it more flexible for modders and a more varied experience for players... that the mod community would keep slow-but-steady sales going for years and years to come. My current development project is going to take us about as close as we´re ever going to get, I think, to what can be done without having the source code at hand, but I´m still not nearly satisfied(and yes, I´m being egotistical for a moment, please forgive me but what I just got done is <i>sooo kewl </i>)... because in the end, even after gutting large portions of the INIs, I´m still being blocked by areas of the engine that I must work around, because the flaws are hard-coded <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> The Alchemy game engine was a brilliant, robust and error-proof engine in many ways, and almost perfect for modders- almost, but not quite. With very minor changes, it could support a lot of very interesting game designs, from first-person shooters to driving games. Really. If I had the source and a small budget, I´d basically just update the engine... and then make a single-player campaign using the same easy-to-use tools I´d give to modders. DA/MS, post-release, really stumbled by not realising that they, like VaLvE, had released a game engine that was very interesting to modders... FL missed out on having an equivalent to CS, and that was mainly because it was virtually abandoned post-release. Somebody way up the food chain then compounded their error by failing to come back and see what we´ve been doing here <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> As for the money side of things... again, somebody was short-sighted. I don´t think it even <i>matters </i> whether FL paid its dev. costs now. I am sure that the bean-counters and/or some exec. at MS who got burned are a major reason why this title hasn´t gotten boosted like it deserves. I mean... this game has name-recognition and a very broad audience. A FL2 that was basically just a cleaned up FL1 with better modding support and minor feature upgrades would attract a very large crowd- imagine the excitement of &quot;early screenshots show how Freeworlds 2.0 will look in the brand-new Alchemy2 engine&quot;, etc., etc. FL just needs minor fixes to become more modern and more modder-friendly. Not a huge overhaul. The NN_Voices code needs to be eliminated, going to single-file access like the rest of the sound code, for example. The rendering engine needs to support some basic shaders, bumpmaps and shadows, and better dynamic lights. The animations should be based off of the Gmax file format, so that modders can use it right away. And the physics engine requires some minor features added, such as gravity and a few new types of object interaction that would allow designers to make fully-interactive planets. The SUR format needs to be re-defined to allow for detection cubes instead of detection spheres, so that objects can hinder spawning and steering behaviors less readily. All of this is pretty minor stuff, folks. The rendering engine upgrades are all old hat, at this point - DX8 stuff that´s easy to find sourcecode for. And the rest of it´s pretty minor- we´re still talking static animations, no convoluted FPS muscular-sim stuff. I think a MMO, if it´s really being built, is a complete waste of money. Why? Because I won´t buy it, that´s why. I don´t like MMOs. And I know that there is a very large percentage of people who, every time I put out a mod, check to see if it is SP or MP-only ... and that is a very big part of their decision on whether to bother. So... MS, if your people still read our maunderings... please... get a clue before it´s too late. Give <i>me </i> a million dollars for a dev. budget, and FL´s sourcecode and tools, and I´ll make your money back and make modders and players around the world very, very happy <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

An MMO of Freelancer.... An interesting proposition, however, (me being broke the first reason) I will not be interested in such an endevour, and Argh has a point, that the sales of Freelancer keep going up due to the mod scene, making it more a ´sleeper hit´ than the big ´bang and bust´ video games that are out there, where all that is involved is an sp campaign and that´s it. No chance of modification, no multiplayer, and the game sells massively and then dies, relegated to a bargain bin. Every time I see Freelancer on the shelves, it´s still around the 30-50 AUD mark. I am yet to even see it in a bargain bin, even though I barely see it anywhere. There are games which are the pinnicale of their genre, Argh mentioned Total Annihilation, an RTS only rivalled by Starcraft in my opinion, (C&amp;C has nothing on TA) but sadly Freelancer, due to MS´s inflexibility with modders, the awkward rendering engine, and the lack of support for modern rendering tech, is really not the pinnicle of the space sim. I´m yet to see the true pinnicle of the space sim, but I never played any of the Wing Commander series, and only played X-Wing when I was younger. X2 is to complex for a lot of players, and while Freelancer makes up on this, there really is a lacking in graphics and realism in the game. There are very few ´perfect´ games, I have listed the ones that I feel are ´perfect´ in other threads, so I won´t go into those here. In the games industry, there are usually two versions of the same thing, and in the recent rise of street racing games, there are two that stand out as the major contenders: Midnight Club 1, 2 &amp; 3DUB - Open city racing, arcade feel, but with adequate challenges and now a decent customisation section, (and the ability to tune muscle cars) MC3 is a true challenger to the more commercially exploited, Need For Speed Underground 1 &amp; 2 - Closed city tracks, more accurate physics and crisper graphics. Marred by the lack of open city racing, but has other features that seem to redeem it. If you were to combine the positives of these two games together you would get a damn good street racer, but no one ever will. The same happens in every other genre of game, theres something wrong, but it also happens in movies, in music, in all other forms of creative expression. Argh seems to be on the money with the idea of ´revamping´ Freelancer, but then comes the question of where the story will go. And whether a small FPS or 3PS area will be implimented, or even an RPG style of control when the main character is on board a station or planet, to increase the immersion. If MS does make a MMOG, I just pray that it will be like Guild War: one off pay, free afterwards. That would be awsome. So until then, I might have to look into Eve. Or maybe not. -:- You Wanna Revolution?

Well, if they fix up the controls and stop forcing people to register on their website in order to download patches, I´ll consider it <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>.

i would pay to play an official MMO of FL if it was very hard on cheaters, updated the engine like Argh says, brought in some of the best mod elements (plain old Fl wouldnt cut it) and had an improved ranking system with a persitent universe and realistic economy. and the combat would need to be harder. but I wouldn´t automatically dismiss the idea at all at all.

You have to register to post on any website, Egosoft make it so that you have to prove you legally own the game before you can download offical patches (by using your registration key) - the downloads include fixes and no cd patches, so of course they don´t want to make it simple for people to have illegal copies - makes sense! I don´t see the problem with that personally, and support the idea. If you won´t play a game because you have to register on a site, then its your loss.... As for controls, its easy enough once you get used to it. Many people have preconceptions about controls, what they should be, and are unwilling to accept differing methods. So X2 is a bit more complex, but then again - it has soooo much stuff to do that it was bound to be fairly complex. As long as you put the time in on learning shortcuts, you won´t notice within a week because you´ll be hotkeying around like a legend. I personally think the only way better would have been to make it like FL´s - a point and click interface. Not too good when flying <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> If you haven´t played it yet though, you are basing it off other peoples ideas and reports. The ships handling controls are the same as FL (mouse, some keys), its the menus people dislike, but with those shortcuts... no problem. Of course, X3 should be addressing this fact quite heavily, it was one of the major things they worked upon - the interface. I look forward to seeing it, but I never really found the old one that bad <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Eve certainly deserves a look when it has free trials, their graphics look fantastic, take a peek at that video! The gameplay was interesting, just slow to start, but definately absorbing. Coming to FL´s defence, it´s old, and when released - the graphics looked great. They tried to keep it on playable old platforms (so 16mb cards had no issue at all) due to how many people probabily still had 16Mb cards, but I just don´t see what incentive their is for a games company to assign people to work on updating graphics abilities for a game for &quot;free&quot;. If they did what Argh said and sold it as FL2 - everyone would be going nutts about it, not in a nice way - but ranting about how cheap and a rip off it is. If they did it for free, then it would cost them money to update graphics for a game that doesn´t make them money (unless the sales are fresh printed, then surely they are selling off old pre-printed stock only!). If there was going to be an MMO, then I would expect it to be massively updated, and overhauled drastically. Infact, the universe, ships and factions would be all that survived. Control, economy, AI, options, variety, co-ordinated play and more would have to be vastly improved to make any impact upon Eve and X3, otherwise it would be a limp fish. Maybe the Ubisoft version will catch MS´s attention if it sells well for a &quot;classic´s collection&quot; game. Edited by - Mike G on 10/2/2005 4:08:09 AM

I really have to say that X3 and FL´s audience´s really aren´t the same. They overlap, to some extent, but... they´re not really the same. X3, much like X2, is meant to appeal to everybody who bought the Battlecruiser series, and then struggled with the darn thing, trying to wring some <i>fun </i> out of the buggy mess. It´s a technocrat´s game, really. I mean, look at the lengthy descriptions posted here about X2- people are talking about it mainly in guns-and-butter terms. The whole game is about money, really- money is power. Nobody talks about <i>flying </i> or <i>combat tactics. </i> Because, in the end, they´re not very important. You can probably control a vast empire without ever firing a shot, at least directly. Such game has little appeal to me. I want to blow things up and have a good time. I want to feel like I´m in a movie, not in another version of the cubicle where I earn my keep. I don´t want an Empire of Many. I want an Empire of One. I don´t want to be Stalin- I want to be Conan. It´s a very important distinction- these two games look similar, but they´re not. The quibbles about controls aren´t minor, either- FL´s controls are crisp, arcade-like, and responsive. The physics are deliberately unrealistic, even cartoony. And it works, because FL´s main audience wants an experience involving a rush. As for whether or not FL would sell with &quot;minor&quot; revamps... yeah, I think so. The &quot;minor&quot; stuff I referred to is on the code side, and would allow for very major changes on the content side. If MS gave me that million dollars, most of it would get spent on the content side of the production. Because, on the content side, I would have to agree that the game would need a major facelift. Things like the Stations, especially, look rather poor by comparision with X3. But... as the next version of Toolkit Mod will show... the FL engine is capable of far better graphical quality than people give it credit for. Polycount is not a problem- really, it´s not. Texture size is not a problem- I´ve <i>tested </i> 4096/4096 DDS textures, and with a modern video card, it´s still just fine. I dunno about going to the next square, but that´s mainly because I haven´t tested it... and based on screens from X3, they´re using 4096 at max, anyhow. The only things lacking from FL, really... are a few <i>minor </i> graphics engine enhancements... and all of the file formats that we still can´t touch. Things like graduated glowmaps via alpha-channel. True-to-point specularity. Bumpmaps. Shadows. These aren´t some gee-whiz thing that nobody´s ever pioneered... and they´re about the only things seperating FL from X3. Sure, it´d be nice if FL had a &quot;better economic sim&quot;, which one of the areas that seems to be a major comment with people who´ve played both. But, in the end, I think that FL´s core audience would be much more pleased if Missions were a lot more interesting, and perhaps had specific, MP-specific variants for multiple people to engage in. And in this area, I didn´t find X2 to be all that impressive, really. They had very long, boring sweeps through empty space doing missions that seemed to make very little sense. that was about when I just gave up on the whole game- I´d been playing for 2 hours, hadn´t gotten into any fun fights... had recieved almost zero meaningful hand-holding to get me involved in the storyline, and found the interface got in my way. So I tried a Mission, hoping things would get exciting, and found out that it basically consisted of using my hyper-drive-whatsit to go from abstract point to abstract point, whereupon, assuming I did it right, I´d get paid. Whoo hoo... not. So... um... I guess I´d have to hope that X3 was more like FL, and less like X2. I sincerely doubt it, though, because Egosoft knows very well that its audience is different, and wants more of what they were buying last time- only better-looking. Those of us who thought Freespace II had one of the finest single-player experiences ever made... who really enjoyed the Wing Commander series, except for the awful Privateer II... who played X-Wing... who found Battlecruiser wasn´t worth bothering with even after we got it working... we´re just not the same people. I dunno... maybe I´m just a minority of one here. But I don´t think so. People mod FL, in large part, because they can share a personal concept of high adventure with other people. Most of the X2 mods seem to deal with economics... or fixing the issues of control that the developers didn´t get around to. It´s two different worlds. Here, if you released a mod that mainly altered the FL &quot;economy&quot;, it would be greeted with yawns... think about it.

Thats because there is no real economy in FL, it caters for arcade fighters instead of any real trading. Within a day, you have no variety in trading, so all you are left with is the combat... which itself is also incredibly stale too. No variety either! X2´s combat is fine for me, I personally like it - its alot more difficult to combat well in X2 than FL - and when taking on a fleet of M2´s with an M6, it is a real challenge. The diversity of the community shows that combat and trade are equal focuses for its players alike - many people do focus on combat more than trade (its how they make their money). However, against combat, there is a severe lack in choice of weaponry or shielding (bog standards only). From what I have read about X3 though, this will be addressed to a certain extent (I doubt we will see FL volumes of weapons!). The main issue for X2 that I found was the simple fact that its universe was unengaging. It was fine if you were just tradeing and shooting, but not if your exploring... because all the stations show on the sectors as you fly within radar range (large radar ranges), leaving nothing to discover (but discovering stations aren´t that exciting either!). There are no wrecks, no hidden treasures - and although they have pirates in the game, they don´t act or behave like pirates. There have been mods to address the this aspect (pirates behaviour) - and some for genral action and fighting. There is one reason why a majority of scripts focus on the trading though - instead of combat. When you are not in sector, the game engine uses a forumlaic calculation of the stats of your ships to decide the outcome etc. When in sector, it plays it out in &quot;real time&quot; - with the AI trying to outdo itself. However, most of the combat that is undertaken is in the first person - it is you, flying your ship - and attacking. There are no scripts to improve your own fighting, just like there are no scripts to improve your own trading. The scripts are nearly all aimed at your items that work independantly of your commands - such as your trading ships. There is nothing they can do script wise to make your OOS combat better, its the way its done - but there is one heck of a large amount of improvements that can be made to your traders - both OOS, and insector. They were dumb AI until the scripts came along and basically implemented player like decisions to be made. It was awkward to manage large amounts of stations, it was awkward to mine, it was awkward to make loops and trade route specifics (something I still find). If you didn´t have a station, then you had to get your AI Trader ship to go where you told it to go, then when it arrived, you had to buy the commodities, then tell it where to sell it - and wait for it to get there before selling it. The commands for your traders lacked any real AI about it, it required your input near always - which meant you could do little else. The scripts made for the economy in X2 were made to release the player from having to tell each ship what to do when it landed somewhere - what to buy, to find out if the price was still the best in the sector, or whether it had risen. Now you can have a huge empire where you do nothing, but before all of this - after you had 20 ships you would be going insane by constantly trying to get them to buy/sell items, check all the prices manually and more. The scripts didn´t address the trade because it was a trading game - but because the AI was so hopeless in the trading, that it cocked up all you wanted it to do! IMO that is why you find the concentration of scripts on trading, because it addressed that issue to make playing more pleasurable, and less of a hair pulling out experience. moving forward though, I really hope (although the beta teams are being rightly tight lipped <img src=smilies/icon_smile_sad.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>) that they have expanded upon the factions, increasing the diversity -, because the pirates on offer were merely cannon fodder only, and meek cannon fodder at that. I do know that there are more ships, more variety of weapons and improved AI - so they are also addressing the combat side of things where it was lacking. I also think that they maybe adding a little more substance to the space itself - so its not just stations and ships, but hidden items an treasures, jumpholes, gates not in predictable places etc. Whether it lives up to my hopes I don´t know, there is alot of effort on the interface, graphics and improved AI. Here is hoping that they didn´t miss the small details too <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Edited by - Mike G on 10/2/2005 6:01:10 AM

Yeah, I totally see what you´re saying there. I couldn´t even get past the early parts, before trade´s really an option, because it just didn´t hook me like FL. The sad (or maybe scary) thing is that ever since I got past the SP campaign in FL, I´ve been wanting to rebuild all of the Stations and many other things, to add <i>more </i> uniqueness to locations and really give FL a much more &quot;finished&quot; feel. X2 seemed, by comparision, much more empty and generic than FL did, which is part of why I didn´t stick with it- I got X2 for free with my video card after playing FL mods for months, and it just didn´t compare, especially since I could give a hoot about trading- and I can always go play Free Worlds, Evo., or something other than what I´m building. The &quot;what I´m building&quot; is a reeeeeally big point with me. Yes, I know... I´m a modder... but not just a FL modder... I mod any game that lets me mod <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Egosoft´s blurbs say absolutely nothing about making their engine easy to work with, so I have to assume that it´s a pain in the rear. Which is too bad... because between their surface shaders, normal maps, particle lights, reflectivity and other nice effects, I´ll be the first to admit that it looks like the visuals will be drool-worthy. But, if I can´t sit down and mod it, without taking months of near-insanity... the long-term appeal is very limited. I dunno... call me weird... but at this point in my life, I buy very few games at full price unless they promise to support modders. I bought HL2. I bought BF2. I bought FL. If Egosoft wants my money, they can talk about how to make content for their engine, so that I can inflict <i>my version </i> of their game design on unsuspecting users <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

Yeah, although FL´s stations look a bit, erm, naff these days - at least you can land and <i>do </i> something - even if its walking to a bar and getting the same old voice files playing <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> There is only a menu to interact with on X2, a big let down for an overall and complete game feel IMO (one which I am sure they <i>aren´t </i> changing!). Its not high on my wish list, but it would add to the finished product in a positive way. Adding functionality to the stations would be a nice bonus, but I suppose it doesn´t really add anything to the gameplay - probabily why they didn´t bother (that and modelling, I kind of feel that they didn´t have a team like DA did!). Now if FL could be made to have nicer graphics (which you hint at <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>), then it will be a bonus, but only a superficial bonus, but still a bonus. As for modding further, well - Accushot is soooooooooo far in advance of my knowledge, that he knows what he is doing when it comes to the game. He also said indicated that X2 shouldn´t be to tough to do either, and I would imagine that if there was no extension or expansion - that people would undertake a more adventureous stance.

clearly there´s no big mystery about having visitable locations on bases/stations, they´ve been standard space-sim fare since way back when. for x2 I think it was either an oversight, maybe they didn´t have the time, or they deliberately left them out, trying to concentrate on a more cerebral experience. initially you don´t really notice because the structures themselves are so massive and impressive, but after a while docking just to use a menu is indeed rather dull. who said Privateer 2 was pants? &lt;shakes fist&gt;

Mike - Maybe, but the thing that annoys me is why should I have to prove that I own a game in order to download patches? Patches are released to address problems (and/or to add content), and if problems are present in a piece of software, then I would argue that the company in question has an obligation to provide of the patches to all and sundry through the traditional channels. As for EgoSoft´s &quot;copy protection&quot; method, it is fundamentally flawed because it only requires one person to download a copy of the patch and then place it on &quot;BitTorrent&quot; or similar which would allow anyone with a pirated copy to obtain it. Unless of course, they use personalised patches which is most unlikely. I do not find such a system very ethical.... Hang on. Haven´t we had this discussion before? I feel like we have. Odd <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>.

i remember the early screens of FL, and some rather loud speculation about it being an mmo

Yup, as I have said before - I disagree simply because I don´t actually see what issue (ethical) it raises... The patches are non critical updates (the game plays without the updates just fine, they refine gameplay - not allow it to happen) - the game will play fine without them, you don´t need patches to play. It doesn´t make your system vulnerable to anything, it doesn´t cause system instablity either - and since you can uninstall and ask for a refund under your consumer rights (within reason) - I further don´t see where there are moral obligations to make every service or improvement for your customers freely available to those whom aren´t actually customers . Entering that number is no different from telephoning customer support for any other product. Companies are the same, for example: Orange won´t offer assistance or sim updates for those that aren´t customers, and you require an account with them to obtain it. I just don´t see where they have moral obligations to do that, which is what ethics are - a moral obligation. If its just the need to prove you own the game part, well - you have to do that for every game to even play it... if you have no problem with that, then I do not see how entering a code on a site just once to receive unlimited help and patches/improvements etc is any different. Now companies like Microsoft <i>do </i> have a moral obligation, because if they release a patch to address a vulnerability that either makes operating systems unstable, or vulnerable to hacking/viruses - then they are morally obliged to allow all users to download it (whether registered or illegal) - because otherwise it will aid the propogation of viruses and hackers to cause damage to work and computers worldwide. There is where I can accept they have ethical responsiblities towards both registered, and unregistered (or illegal) users. MS do this by allowing unregistered people to download security and critical updates - therefore fulfilling their moral obligation. Edited by - Mike G on 10/3/2005 12:38:54 AM

I tend to agree (more or less), however you are acting under the assumption that the patches are &quot;non-critical&quot;. One could make the argument that if there is a serious flaw in a game then it can be seen as &quot;critical&quot;, even if it may not necessarily make the game unplayable. For example, the PC version of &quot;Fable&quot; does not seem to allow most graphics cards (including mine) to utilise the maximum setting for in-game shadows. The game is still playable, but I see the flaw is nonetheless serious and hence, would like a patch to address this.

It is all about whether the authors intend to exercise their copyrights and police it to their ability to do so. It isn´t an ethical question at all. All Egosoft is saying is that they want proof (no matter how full of holes it may be) that the person seeking patch &quot;paid&quot; for the game ... somehow. It certainly won´t foil those truly intent upon &quot;cheating&quot; the system but it may discourage those who casually engage in &quot;freebies&quot; from trying to take advantage. *Wonders whether there are enough fogies on the site who remembers the days before the internet when copy machines, VCRs and tape recorders caused similar ruckuses in the world of intellectual property*

I remember those days Indy, and I can see both sides of the argument, but one of my main concerns (aside from the moral/ethical issues) is the need to provide an email address. I do not feel that ANYONE should be required to provide personal information of any type to a software company after purchasing a product. Privacy is very important to me, and I feel that such a registration system intrudes upon a consumer´s privacy. Indeed, the issue of privacy was one of the main reasons why I was so &quot;steamed up&quot; when Valve released HL2 <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>.

... The reason why ´net piracy continues to be a non-dead issue is that it combines the utility of all the aforesaid devices, plus several others that weren´t even thought about in the 80´s. I remember hacker BBS´s, before there <i>was </i> an Internet. They weren´t terribly controversial, mainly because getting access to them was rather more complicated and irritating than firing up Limewire, and less likely to score you anything really cool anyhow. I was too young to really get into acoustic-modem nonsense anyhow- I had Bronze Dragon, Prince of Persia, Autoduel and Dark Castle, which was more than enough entertainment for those ancient days. Ah, the joys of 16-color sprites blitting at 15 FPS... analog joysticks and the pure joy of Hellcats Over the Pacific (which, in my mind, still rates as one of the most fun &quot;flight sims&quot; ever made, albeit in 16 shades of gray on a Powerbook 160). ...sigh. Getting old. Getting back to topic ... at least to some extent... X3 vs. a FL2 would be an interesting competition. Sadly, whatever rumors have been floating about from the MS side of things have been completely un-substantiated, last April Fool´s notwithstanding (that was a good hoax, darn Bargib to heck...). I´m not sure <i>what </i> game engine I´m going to mod next. This has been bothering me for quite awhile- I thought for a little bit that I´d try modding BF2, but the development/import/export tools that were much-ballyhooed seem to be mainly vaporware still, and I have very little interest in making guns or skins for a game if I cannot re-write fundamental gameplay. BF2 was looking very promising because of the large support for vehicles, and I´m sure that the mods that get developed will be very cool... eventually. But it´s not looking like something I can just drop into and work with, and I really prefer messing with game engines where I can step in and start making interesting things right off the bat. I´ve been kicking around trying to get some coders to help me build something, but I have a terrible fear of having to deal with people who do things I don´t know how to do myself- having worked on one large, promising project that got abandoned by the only person capable of finishing it, I know how frustrating that is, and I don´t intend to have it happen ever again. But all of the &quot;game-engine-kits-for-people-who-don´t-code-real-well&quot; things I´ve looked at, thus far, seem to have a lot of promises that they don´t keep (such as promising to support modern features like shadows, bumpmaps et al, but not telling people that such support implies you´re a C++ coder who can link DX8-9 features into their SDK, ect.- we´re not talking about an on/off script function), so I´m not sure if I can hack out something all by myself or not. And I´m pretty sure I won´t get over my fear of coders, either- while I have met nice, responsible ones who do what they say around here, I got very badly burned working on TXC <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> At least my current slate of FL stuff will keep me preoccupied for at least another few months, so that I can put off making decisions <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>