X2 Vs Freelancer.

General discussions about the games by Egosoft including X-BTF, XT, X², X³: Reunion, X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

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Gnavpot
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Post by Gnavpot » Sun, 24. Oct 04, 17:59

duriel wrote:Freelancer is the first game in the series
No, the second. Starlancer was the first.

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giskard
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Post by giskard » Mon, 25. Oct 04, 02:17

Ever noticed how old CDs dont break but lots of new CDs do break ?

Could be the faster CD rom drives to blame here or cheap materials or something.

Anyway Freelancer is a different game from X2, I totally agree with that but like X it does have its own problems. However unlike X2 it never recieved support after release other than a patch the official site them selfs only recommended for people who had problems in multiplayer.

To recommend a patch only for a small group just shows how much support microsoft were willing to give it during their rush to support the Xbox.

If you think Freelancer must have been bad because of the lack of support consider this...

The Mechwarrior series got dropped too, as did several other games by microsoft. Yet the freelancer community not only exists but I still find my self answering freelancer mod maker questions that new fans ask me.

Fans that have to track down my email address or website first because I dont read the freelancer forums anymore.

Believe me, the freelancer community is thriving dispite never recieving any support from the devteam. That one fact alone says more about that game than anybodys words in this thread ever could say.

Players just dont remember a game if its that bad.

Still, for me im here and playing X2 so you know I prefer X2, but I am not about to say Freelancer was a bad game because in my opinion its a good game.

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Post by darkmaster » Mon, 25. Oct 04, 13:14

rustamk wrote:With the technology avialable today, especially to the leading game designers
That's where the shoe pinches (I hope it is the current idiomatic expression, I have found it in the dictionary....)
The latest games releases require always hardware you don't have.
X2 is one of the more hardware requesting (or advanced, we could say) games I ever seen.

If I want to play it well I have to change at least Motherboard and Video Card :cry:
Ram doesn't matters, I have 512 and seem to be nothing.
Ok, I'm going OT, ending here... :roll:

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Post by Myo » Mon, 25. Oct 04, 13:29

Could be the faster CD rom drives to blame here or cheap materials or something.
Cheap materials, I think. A lot of companies try to keep production costs as low as possible now, that means using the cheapest materials from the cheapest supplier.

And yeah, I wanna know what the h*** Microsoft are thinking, the PC games section of their site hardly EVER gets updated now, they're totally obssessed with supporting the X-Box. Freelancer was unlucky enough to come out at a time when the X-Box was taking over Microsoft's focus.

Despite the fact that Freelancer is around 1 and a half years old now, lacking support, etc, etc, there are still new people coming on the forums periodically. I still get new people applying for my clan.

The FL community will keep going until the day of FL2, or whatever the sequel will turn out to be, such a good game will not die.
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Post by carran » Mon, 25. Oct 04, 13:45

FL may survive long term without the support of either DA or MS, Battlezone II has been unofficially patched a few times which surprised me as it's a *really* old game.

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Post by rustamk » Mon, 25. Oct 04, 15:40

You missed my point a bit. What I meant was not as much graphics or super-AI, but more in the lines of key-remaps, factories making more money, easier interface, tutorials (X2 and FL are OK on this), goodies like sector map posters that I could look at, patches and updates (X2 is good on this), an interesting storyline, a challenging enviroment and so on. Things that are not "hardware-hungry".

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Post by Maranno » Mon, 25. Oct 04, 16:09

Myo wrote:And yeah, I wanna know what the h*** Microsoft are thinking, the PC games section of their site hardly EVER gets updated now, they're totally obssessed with supporting the X-Box. Freelancer was unlucky enough to come out at a time when the X-Box was taking over Microsoft's focus.
Bad enough I agree, I used to play a real lot of Mechwarrior when 4 and the datapacks came out, but it's completely whacked out by MS. It's a real shame though.
Myo wrote:Despite the fact that Freelancer is around 1 and a half years old now, lacking support, etc, etc, there are still new people coming on the forums periodically. I still get new people applying for my clan.

The FL community will keep going until the day of FL2, or whatever the sequel will turn out to be, such a good game will not die.
Same here, I quit playing freelancer when X2 came out, since X2 absorbed huge ammounts of my spare time, but after having been through X2 for 5 times it got boring and i'd wished to play with and against people in a MP game again, so I dusted off my Freelancer disk to play again.

It's still a great game, as is X2 and both will definately be played a lot by me, but again there's no telling which game is better since they both have good and bad things, as everyone has already gone through in lenght.

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Post by giskard » Mon, 25. Oct 04, 17:47

Well for me it really makes me appricate Egosoft and the way they maintain control over their own game.

Too many small companies make great games and get brought out or hand control over to a bigger company when releasing it, who end up not supporting them.

For me it sends a big message where players money should be spent.

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Post by duriel » Mon, 25. Oct 04, 19:22

Microsoft has far more customers but cares less about them. People will buy the games because they will give it the best advertising money can buy and screw the support once people have bought it. They can afford to do that. The smaller games companys like Ego can't afford to forget after sale support and this is one of thing Ego excell in.

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Post by rustamk » Mon, 25. Oct 04, 19:43

Yes, I must admit, egosoft is great with patches, and there has been a lot of suport set up for X2, the forums, the FAQ collection, a lot of things. MS is rubbish with these things.

I know because I also play Flight Simulator, and the subsequent editions are full of annoying things that never get fired.

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Post by Golden_Gonads » Tue, 26. Oct 04, 00:36

I used to play Freelancer about a year ago, and after completing the plot, found that I couldn't be bothered to continue playing - there was it seemed, little left to do, sure you could fly about and discover the secrets such as the wreck of The Hispania', but other than a mild interest, there wasn't any point. Also, as I don't play multiplayer (I've only ever played one game on MP - Diablo 2) there was much point to carry on, so within three to four weeks, it was shelved and the box never opened again

X2 has a similar problem, not much to do except the main plot, and yet I've spent months playing it. Whilst there are no secrets to speak of, the empire building is much more...... Capturing... I mean on my restart for 1.4 I decided to do the plot until I had to see the Goners, then go and get a few bucks together, get an M3, then wander back to the plot for a bit. Well, I got myself a Barracuda and fully equipped it by the end of July, yet have played on freeform since. Due to my play style, I haven't actually got much further, I only have around 10 mill in the bank & about 6 stations, but still...

Anyway, the point is, that to me, other than the plot theres nothing to do in Freelancer, and other than free-form, theres nothing to do in X2, and as free-form is a lot longer lasting, having no definite end X2 is to me, the far superior game.

Now, on to another couple of points that struck me whilst I was musing above, the atmosphere in combat in X2 is far inferior to that of any other space game I've played..... I'm not sure what it is about it, but its lacking that 'Seat of your pants' excitement... I know that part of the reason for this, is that X2 is built as a trading game first & a fighting game second (It better be at least - I flew around for an hour earlier mapping sectors, & all I saw, was ONE pirate ship and not a single khaak), maybe X3 will improve this feeling, at least, I hope it will.

As for people wanting to land on planets, like the mod earlier, I can't see the point of it, though I do want to be able to do more on stations, like visit the bar and talk to people... or something...

Though, if Freelancer had played more like StarLancer, control and ship wise, it may have kept my attention for months longer.

Finally having mentioned StarLancer, I wouldn't mind a mission based Space Combat Sim set in the X universe, maybe during the Terraformer War or Boron Campaign...


(Sorry for the rambling... Just got distracted by the fact I was thinking)

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Post by dmf » Tue, 26. Oct 04, 02:50

it seems like no-one has mentioned this already.
The FL shield and weapons were a very nice touch. i wish they were in X2.
certain weapons are stronger against certain shields.
say the argons and borons use one type of weapon and shield design. the teladi use a different design. xenon use another.
it would make loading up a battleship in X2 much harder. depending on which sector you were in depends on what shields and weapons you would need.

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giskard
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Post by giskard » Tue, 26. Oct 04, 02:54

Talking of life after the plot.

The thing about games that continue after the main plot has ended is they attract the type of player who can make his own goals and create missions for him selve where none exist.

Now Golden_Gonads, it sounds like you where not able to do that in freelancer which is a shame because freelancer was great once the plot ended.

But you could do it with X2.

So my question (a leading question I admit) is why is that the case ?

The answer to that question highlights the differenced between the two games.

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Post by Golden_Gonads » Tue, 26. Oct 04, 05:52

giskard wrote: Now Golden_Gonads, it sounds like you where not able to do that in freelancer which is a shame because freelancer was great once the plot ended.

But you could do it with X2.

So my question (a leading question I admit) is why is that the case ?

The answer to that question highlights the differenced between the two games.

Giskard
Honestly? I have no idea... It could just be me subconsciously preferring strategy games to action ones, it could be that X2 remains a challenge, as I'm not that good at it, and Freelancer was just too repetitive and easy... Though saying that, I'm unsure if I'm remembering the difficulty correctly... Ultimately, the only answer to your question I can give, is 'I just do...'


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Post by Some Idiot in PA » Tue, 26. Oct 04, 06:08

I have recently reinstalled Freelancer and loaded up the "Evolutions Mod" for it. It makes the game new again. :)

I forgot how fun that game could be. I even went back to multiplayer, which I swore up and down I would NOT do no matter what. What can I say? I'm STILL addicted to Freelancer.

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Post by Maranno » Tue, 26. Oct 04, 10:07

The best part of both games is outside the storyline, the Freedom you get then and what you can do with it.

Try some mods and a whole new world opens, this goes for both X2 and Freelancer.

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Post by rustamk » Tue, 26. Oct 04, 11:59

It would be cool if one of the species was at war with another, at a constant war, for example the Teladi and the Split over a "trade disssssspute", and there would be "border" sectors between those races raging with Piracy, both sides' battleships, fighters and corvettes duking it out.

That would create many more opportunities for SBB missions. Help out in the army. Do a special mission. Do this or that. Plus it would add life to X-universe. You couldnt get past Omega-17 (or whatever it used to be) without seeing the corsairs and outcasts in a dogfight. Or through badlands without seeing LSF and Rogues in a fight. That gave it a lot of life.

Plus, the universe in Freelancer was a bit nicer I think, by looks, even though X2 has all those bells and whisles, although I cannot compare, my CD is broken, maybe I will get another one. I just looked at screenshots from Freelancer on google, and the world seems more "colourful" and "surprising" than in X2.

I dont know what I like better at this point. :D

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Post by euclid » Tue, 26. Oct 04, 14:34

Never managed to beat Hovis in the race. For some reason my thruster didn't work correctly (went off during the race). :cry:

Cheers Euclid

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giskard
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Post by giskard » Tue, 26. Oct 04, 18:36

Golden_Gonads wrote:and Freelancer was just too repetitive and easy...
In other words it is the late game is not as interesting as the early game in freelancer but in X2 it gets more interesting the longer you play it because more options open up to you. Options you actually want to have and not just the joy of exploration which is what I liked about the late freelancer game.

Freelancers mod scene does go a long way to extending that games life, which is the primary reason people still talk about it today.

I think most people would agree freelancers late game was just combat, trade and exploration and only exploration was truely interesting and fully featured. The lack of player owned battleships was the primary issue mod makers addressed due to public demand. X2 does not suffer in trade or combat like freelancer does but it does suffer in exploration due to its design.

So freelancer gets 1 out 3 right and X2 gets 2 our 3 right. The 2 bits that interest the most players for longest period of time. Explorations only fun until youve explored everything after all. Which is why most players moved on shortly after finishing the plot in freelancer.

Trouble is many players have done the same with X2 assuming wrongly there is nothing after the plot, when in fact the plot is boring bit when you consider what you can do in the late X2 game.

BTW i like a good plot too :)

PS its nice to be able to talk about these differences in an adult enviroment dont you think ?

When X2 first got released this chat would have been impossible here too. Before that the forums where like this and I like them this way.

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Post by Myo » Tue, 26. Oct 04, 21:01

Plus, the universe in Freelancer was a bit nicer I think, by looks, even though X2 has all those bells and whisles, although I cannot compare, my CD is broken, maybe I will get another one. I just looked at screenshots from Freelancer on google, and the world seems more "colourful" and "surprising" than in X2.
exploration was truely interesting
IMO these are both because of the differences in systems. In X2 there are far, far too many systems which are similar, the layout is the same each time. Think about it, gates on the compass points, big clump of factories in the middle, repeat to fade. There is hardly any variation, ever.
In Freelancer, apart from some vague similarities ('ring' structures of trade lanes for main house systems being an example) each and every sector was different, hidden jumpholes to skip sectors whilst trading, and so on.

I still believe that the jumpdrive is what has totally ruined the exploration in X2. Why bother exploring sectors when you can just jump where you want to go and leave automated ships ordered to follow others around to explore for you? And why bother exploring if there is nothing major to explore FOR? :|
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