Top 100 mods of 2009

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rgriffin9219

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Do you guys remember a game called "Freelancer"? It is a Chris Roberts game that is a successor to Elite and Privateer. Excellent game, all space genre people need to give it a shot.

Anyways, several years ago, my friends and I began working on a little mod for Freelancer to use on a clan server. Originally it consisted of a comprehensive rebalancing just to fix all of the flaws in the vanilla game and to make it more balanced in multiplayer. Little did I know, it would turn into a 3+ year obsession resulting in a 500meg mod (the size of the current version in dev) which basically overhauled and improved the game in all aspects such as graphics, FX, NPC AI, Economy, multiplayer balance, game mechanics and much more.

Recently we were nominated for ModDB's Mod of the Year contest and have made it into the Top 100 mods of 2009. Which is a pretty huge accomplishment considering we're a bunch of amateurs working on an older game with no publisher support or mod tools (all of our tools had to be created within our community from scratch).

While there are more popular games out with more established mods, I'd like to make a good showing. This is where I need your help.

Click here for a Youtube video of the mod. You'll find it looks MUCH improved over the original game

Click here for the screenshot Gallery located on our community website

If you liked what you see, please vote for my mod in the MOTY contest. You're allowed to vote for as many mods as you'd like, but I'd be great if one of those votes could go to my mod as a fellow [H] forum member.

Here is how you vote...

  • Register on ModDB (its fast, easy, and risk free as it gets because they don't spam your email with crap)
  • Click on the "Vote Now" button
  • In "Released Mods" click on the "Freelancer" icon and vote for Shattered Worlds::War-Torn

It just takes a few minutes of your time and would be greatly appreciated! Hopefully a few of you former Freelancer players will get a dose of nostalgia and decide to install and join us on the server too! :p I'd be great to have you.

@ moderators: Hopefully you guys don't have an issue with this... hopefully this post isn't interpreted as advertising, I just need help on votes. I'd be nice to prove to my wife that the endless hours spent modding actually proved worthwhile and my little hobby is actually pretty cool. :D
 
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Best of luck, I have to tell my friend about this mod as Freelancer is one of his favorite games.

The mods should have no problem, in fact if you contact Steve he should be able to get this up on the front page, I know they have helped out H members with stuff like this in the past.

Agai, congrats on the nomination and best of luck!
 
Where does one get Freelancer from though? I don't see any DD sites that sell it.
 
Wow, I loved Freelancer. I'll have to see if I can find it somewhere and give your mod a try.
 
Udo said:
Where does one get Freelancer from though? I don't see any DD sites that sell it.
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Freelancer is a Microsoft game, and apparently no Microsoft game is on Steam or other DD sites. I saw some on amazon for $12 new, $9 used (and also some selling for over $100, huh?).
 
Thanks guys. I really appreciate the support.

You can pick up FL on Amazon... I haven't checked the price tho. The last time I was at Target, they had several copies for like 10 bucks a piece.
 
Can be had on ebay for a few bucks. Im going to check into it again. I got really turned off to the game when I got a widescreen monitor and had tons of trouble setting up widescreen :(

I really miss the game tho. i tried out X3 but it seemed so overly complicated for what I was after.
 
With the new version of the mod that is almost out... we've introduced a widescreen fix which is really easy to for users to set their resolution.
 
I guess I need to reinstall my copy and replay with your new mod.

Man, I remember some really great times in the first year owning this game, the small persistent servers meant you got to know a cozy little community. I spent my first 6 months playing on just one server - Browclops.
 
Vashypooh said:
I got really turned off to the game when I got a widescreen monitor and had tons of trouble setting up widescreen :(
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The vanilla version of Freelancer does indeed not play nice with widescreen, but the ever-useful WSGF describes a hack to make it work properly here. As the author of this mod mentions above, the mod incorporates a widescreen fix.

I really miss the game tho. i tried out X3 but it seemed so overly complicated for what I was after.
Click to expand...

I tried X3:Reunion long after having played Freelancer, and found it to be very annoying and not fun. So many of the things they made complicated had no need to be.
 
evilsofa said:
The vanilla version of Freelancer does indeed not play nice with widescreen, but the ever-useful WSGF describes a hack to make it work properly here. As the author of this mod mentions above, the mod incorporates a widescreen fix.



I tried X3:Reunion long after having played Freelancer, and found it to be very annoying and not fun. So many of the things they made complicated had no need to be.
Click to expand...

I tried the WSGF stuff but it never worked quite right for me, I am certainly digging out my CD and such to play this :)
 
I wish I had time to play through this. In any case, it looks like an awesome mod and it seems that you put a tremendous amount of effort into it. You've got my vote.
 
Cool thanks, I REALLY appreciate your votes, it means a lot for you to take the time to do this for me. Once you guys get on the Forums pm me. I go by the alias "Forsaken" I'll send you guys the widescreen fix currently under test by the DevTeam and answer any questions or discuss any suggestions or complaints you might have.

Right now the mod is purely multiplayer, but we're almost done with our new version which adds a TON of new features and content along with full single-player campaign compatibility. Here are some screenshots for those interested. In there you will see we give tribute to a number of games such as Privateer, EveOnline, and Fallout (lol our livestock icon is a brahmin... I plan on adding Nuka-Cola too... yunno, just for humor).



 
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I don't have it installed right now, but I've been meaning to play it again. In the next few weeks I'll find some time - hopefully I'll see you online. Good luck in the contest!
 
I've reinstalled Freelancer, and unlike my previous experience with Nvidia cards, the game doesn't stutter when digital audio is played (despite having an unrecognized video card). My experience since buying the game:

Radeon 8500: played fine, but also was recognized natively.
GeForce 6600GT: stuttered no matter what I did
GeForce 7900GT: stuttered until I found and installed the video card definition updates.
Radeon 4850: plays fine despite being unrecognized.

Anyway, I was expecting stutter and didn't encounter it, so I'm ready to try out your mod (as soon as I get a free moment).
 
I vote for Oldie and MajorDomo. They're the ones that hand out my infractions. :) /thread
 
I'm giving up. Do you know how may goddamned hoops I stepped through to install FLMM, then your damn mod?

I signed-up for a stupid account on your forums, read the multiple pages of the RP rules, downloaded and installed the mod, messed with the permissions on the folder so it could actually modify the files, dealt with the teething problems of FLMM constantly setting and unsetting the read-only attribute on freelancer.ini, etc.

Once I finally got things configured, and was about ready to throw my computer at a wall , I try to use the instructions in your PDF to create a direct connection - but I can't get it to work. I also can't find your server anywhere in the server browser.

And then when I disabled your stupid mod, it left my main menu hijacked, so I had to reinstall the whole fucking game. Thanks for wasting my entire evening, I hope your mod loses this competition, if this is any sign of the level of quality you put into it. It's too bad, because the promo video and page really looked awesome.
 
Sorry to hear that you had difficulty installing the mod. TBH, I really don't know what to say... I mean thousands of players have successfully installed the mod and have characters on the server. I wish there was an easier way to implement the mod, however Microsoft refused to give us any modding support and the Freelancer modding community had to make FLMM in-house. Furthermore Microsoft turned off the global server list a few years ago and the Freelancer modding community had to do workarounds to make the game search for our "replacement" server matchmaker.

If we "did" package the entire game up into one installer (which included the mod already implemented), we would be in violation with Microsoft's rules. That's one demon I'm unwilling to fight for obvious reasons.

Having said that, if you want to give it another shot check THIS THREAD out. Most people who have difficulty installing the mod usually have success once they follow these steps verbatim. I would also recommend to anyone else having issues installing the mod to post on the forums, the community is really helpful and has good success working out technical issues others may have.
 
rgriffin9219 said:
Having said that, if you want to give it another shot check THIS THREAD out.
Click to expand...

Very interesting thread; I'll definitely be trying out the Freelancer Hardware Update and the Quickfix when I try this game again. I notice that the Quickfix link on that post is now dead, but the Freelancer Quickfix Patch V1.0c can be found on the same page as the Freelancer Hardware Update link goes to.

Hmm, this page seems to imply that the Hardware Update is included in the Quickfix. Is that true? (I'm trying to get an idea of what current mods assume the user has installed.)
 
Ahh, thanks for pointing that out. I was unaware our Quickfix link is dead. I'll ask one of the staff to host it on our resources instead of relying on hosts elsewhere. :)

In regards to the Hardware Update, you are correct. It is included with the Quickfix patch. That is the reason the Quickfix patch is "FACULTATIVE but RECOMMENDED".
 
If the Hardware Update is included in the Quickfix, why mention the Hardware Update at all? I even looked up the definition of facultative and it didn't make any sense, and it will only confuse readers.
 
evilsofa said:
Freelancer is a Microsoft game, and apparently no Microsoft game is on Steam or other DD sites. I saw some on amazon for $12 new, $9 used (and also some selling for over $100, huh?).
Click to expand...

Microsoft have their own DD service coming so maybe they will sell it.
 
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