I finally got around to trying this after however many years. I haven't played Freelancer, so I don't have a point of reference, but I like the lore and the setting.
First thing I did was spend all my money on a picture of Todd Howard, but I'm not sure where the picture went.
I played the first campaign chapter + the drinks with Karbelle scene. I took some mental notes (skipping over the things that seem like placeholders or that obviously need polish):
Perhaps input should be frozen after you click on a fast travel button? It feels funny to select "warp to cargo trader" but to still be able to move your view around. You can also click on another fast travel destination while the screen is fading out, if you're quick enough.
Will the whole game have voiced dialogue? If not, maybe the text should read out typewriter-style instead of appearing all at once. It can be tempting to skip large walls of text when they appear all at once.
For a similar reason, the tutorial for docking is a bit chunky. I don't mind it, but that's because I know it's a demo. I feel like the average person on Steam will skip the tutorials and then get confused.
Design-wise, the game really overloads you with options at the beginning. This could be good or bad, but it's something to be aware of. There's so much to buy and so many menus on the planet that you can get overwhelmed before you even step into the spaceship. Being overwhelmed when flying around is a good thing IMO, but being exposed to all of the shops/upgrades at the very beginning of the game is a bit much.
Dialogue could benefit from some polish to slow things down and help you digest what's happening (eg a sound effect and a pause each time Karbelle pours a drink; otherwise it feels like you're just clicking through text, and you forget that you're hammering down 4 shots of rye in a span of 10 minutes).
Dialogue also needs a bit of editing, but that's something generic I mention to everyone. The big picture seems cool, but on a micro level, just watch out for comma splices and run-on sentences.
And now a few things that stood out to me in a positive way:
The sense of scale when you're flying around is really cool. I like that it actually takes a while to get anywhere. And that the highways are part of one big map, rather than putting the player through a loading screen for each area.
Combat is intuitive and fun.
There's enough content, both in terms of game systems and lore, to keep the player invested. Way more than most indie games that I've played.
Oh wait. I may have missed the simulation? Now that you mention it, I recall some talk about a simulation, but I can't remember when or where.
This was after starting the first campaign quest; I was flying up to one of the warp rings, and there was a large text box talking about docking with the F3 button, but it also mentioned some other stuff that I didn't fully read (I think it was about alternate ways to dock). I figured it out after a minute though.
Very cool game, although left me frustrated at times...
-Controls for spaceflight took some getting used to (which was fine and expected) but having left the planet for the first time I started with the throttle up which had me in a bit of a panic.
-Feel like pressing F2 again to turn off autopilot would be nice or leaving autopilot when I hold the break button... felt like I was stuck moving forward when I didn't want to.
Started with the Main quest, flew around, blew up some ships, having a good time...
got to "Drinks with Karbelle" and had a hard time finding him. >Figured he'd be in the bar >no >check all the fast travel rooms >nowhere to be found
>checked my quest log, said something about a taxi >couldn't find a taxi >go back into space (which started the quest dialogue again) >went back the the planet and started checking all the doors >finally found his room
Easiest fix might just be to mention the 2nd door on the landing pad
2nd problem:
>after completing the quest and leaving the planet, the quest dialogue started once again >new objective "Drinks with Karabelle" >go back to Karabelle's room >gives me the "If you need anything, come talk to me" dialogue >can't complete quest objective anymore
I think what happened is I duplicated the quest when I left the planet for the first time after not finding him, cause I had 2 copies of the objective in my quest log
Might play some more later cause I can tell there's a lot of the game I haven't even seen yet, but I think im soft-locked for the main quest and might have to restart...
Still the scale of it is very impressive, best of luck to you! ^_^
Yeah, the duplicating quest is a known issue, I was an idiot that forgot to add a quest stage check for that to the event that starts it.
The demo's pretty small though, it's only the first main quest and the first star system (plus all quests in there, which is around two or three). Same with the door, in the final version taxis are gonna be a feature on most major homeworlds, for now the door's there as a placeholder.
I did a space mission and had a good time. I can tell a lot of work went into this game, it's a cool universe.
After I did the first campaign mission, I decided to dock at the trainyard to evaluate my current situation. When I got there, I had a bug where my on-foot character was constantly sliding backwards. I manually saved and then tried to load that save to see if it would fix it. But the save (and the autosave) wouldn't load even when I waited a while. I would hear music and sometimes blasters firing but it never gave me more than a black screen.
Also, I always play in first-person when possible.. can that bar in the middle of the cockpit be removed? :)
I mean my whole virtual machine froze after the loading screen froze. Like I had to restart it. Maybe it'll work if I try again.
Edit: I'm not going to use a Virtual Machine for running games anymore, it causes too many issues. Started it normally and it worked. I explored the on-foot parts but haven't gotten into a ship yet.
Comments
I finally got around to trying this after however many years. I haven't played Freelancer, so I don't have a point of reference, but I like the lore and the setting.
First thing I did was spend all my money on a picture of Todd Howard, but I'm not sure where the picture went.
I played the first campaign chapter + the drinks with Karbelle scene. I took some mental notes (skipping over the things that seem like placeholders or that obviously need polish):
And now a few things that stood out to me in a positive way:
Good work!
Which docking tutorial, the one in the simulation, or the one in the main quest?
Oh wait. I may have missed the simulation? Now that you mention it, I recall some talk about a simulation, but I can't remember when or where.
This was after starting the first campaign quest; I was flying up to one of the warp rings, and there was a large text box talking about docking with the F3 button, but it also mentioned some other stuff that I didn't fully read (I think it was about alternate ways to dock). I figured it out after a minute though.
Amazing just amazing.
Very cool game, although left me frustrated at times...
-Controls for spaceflight took some getting used to (which was fine and expected) but having left the planet for the first time I started with the throttle up which had me in a bit of a panic.
-Feel like pressing F2 again to turn off autopilot would be nice or leaving autopilot when I hold the break button... felt like I was stuck moving forward when I didn't want to.
Started with the Main quest, flew around, blew up some ships, having a good time...
got to "Drinks with Karbelle" and had a hard time finding him.
>Figured he'd be in the bar
>no
>check all the fast travel rooms
>nowhere to be found
>checked my quest log, said something about a taxi
>couldn't find a taxi
>go back into space (which started the quest dialogue again)
>went back the the planet and started checking all the doors
>finally found his room
Easiest fix might just be to mention the 2nd door on the landing pad
2nd problem:
>after completing the quest and leaving the planet, the quest dialogue started once again
>new objective "Drinks with Karabelle"
>go back to Karabelle's room
>gives me the "If you need anything, come talk to me" dialogue
>can't complete quest objective anymore
I think what happened is I duplicated the quest when I left the planet for the first time after not finding him, cause I had 2 copies of the objective in my quest log
Might play some more later cause I can tell there's a lot of the game I haven't even seen yet, but I think im soft-locked for the main quest and might have to restart...
Still the scale of it is very impressive, best of luck to you! ^_^
Yeah, the duplicating quest is a known issue, I was an idiot that forgot to add a quest stage check for that to the event that starts it.
The demo's pretty small though, it's only the first main quest and the first star system (plus all quests in there, which is around two or three). Same with the door, in the final version taxis are gonna be a feature on most major homeworlds, for now the door's there as a placeholder.
I did a space mission and had a good time. I can tell a lot of work went into this game, it's a cool universe.
After I did the first campaign mission, I decided to dock at the trainyard to evaluate my current situation. When I got there, I had a bug where my on-foot character was constantly sliding backwards. I manually saved and then tried to load that save to see if it would fix it. But the save (and the autosave) wouldn't load even when I waited a while. I would hear music and sometimes blasters firing but it never gave me more than a black screen.
Also, I always play in first-person when possible.. can that bar in the middle of the cockpit be removed? :)
Looking forward to seeing the game progress more!
For cockpits, you can customize them at shipyards, and disable their graphics completely in the options menu.
My virtual machine froze on the loading screen :(
It'll freeze, as many big Unity games (Subnautica for example) are wont to do. Just let it load, it'll get there.
I mean my whole virtual machine froze after the loading screen froze. Like I had to restart it. Maybe it'll work if I try again.
Edit: I'm not going to use a Virtual Machine for running games anymore, it causes too many issues. Started it normally and it worked. I explored the on-foot parts but haven't gotten into a ship yet.