I'm not sure how I feel about this, to be perfectly honest. For once, I have no idea.
Half of me is boiling over. Actually, a lot of me is doing that currently. It's mixed pretty well with depression. The other part is okay with the understanding of why the project was halted.
I already know about the underlying issues as to why the project was halted. Rags wasn't doing too good personally, which I totally understand him taking a long breather to get everything sorted (if it was sortable, some of it wasn't.) I'm cool with that. I can live with it. Sometimes you get dealt a hand you can't do anything with at all and wind up having to fold whether you want to or not.
Now, for the actual meat and potatoes. I would like to start, first off, by saying that this isn't meant to bash anyone. This is how I feel about the matter, so if you take offense at this or take it personally, it's on you. Second, this is me speaking alone, not for any group as a whole. I'll let whoever else talk as they want and express their own points.
We've waited very, very patiently as a group for a solid year and more for something -- anything -- like what we were told to expect since the server was taken offline for use in the testing of the game. That's more than a year of your truly dedicated and interested community members spending their time to see if anything new has occurred. I know I checked in nearly every day, either at work, from my phone, or from my desktop at home, sometimes hanging around for hours on end for anyone who wanted to chat and to wait for a new status update that I fervently maintained a hope would come at some point. This is one of the reasons that I kept writing in the RP section.
After reading this post, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I feel a sense of betrayal. It's that feeling that leading a good portion of my anger. You can argue with me on that as much as you'd like, but I don't think you'd be able to change my mind. I know I've been waiting since the update was first announced around two or more years ago (I've lost track of the time) for something to take place, keeping up hope that we'd become a server for Freelancer like no other. I watched as the server's population dwindled and withered away. The majority of my friends and clanmates dropped one by one as they lost the will to continue waiting or simply refused after a particular incident on the forums. I think we both know which one that was, Jaco. Though I don't generally hold animosity toward others, I don't forget easily. Perhaps one or two have popped up now and again, but rarely have I seen them for more than a brief moment.
I can't count the times I'd offered to assist in the actual coding itself. Ragman can attest to that. I can't say that I have a lot of experience in C#, but I've got a good amount in Visual Basic -- close enough to know what I need in order to be able to adapt to the C# code that Freelancer is built upon. My only problem was that I didn't have and couldn't find the resources I needed to be able to adapt to it and understand how it all functioned. Much of Starport's important tutorial sections were incomplete or too general for me to do much with and Rags wasn't up for teaching me (understandable with his personal goings on.) However, that's not to say that the offer wasn't laid out numerous times. Each time it was rejected. All he or Spirit had to do was ask for help. I would've assisted however I could, just as I did as I dumped numerous hours into chewing through each infocard contained in a mammoth list they'd sent me. I spent time researching, reading, re-reading, elaborating, and getting creative with each of them as they appeared. Hell, I'd even offered to run the server from my desktop if they'd been interested in teaching me how to set it up. I didn't care as long as it meant keeping the community alive. I'm not sure if it would've worked 100%, but I could've at least settled with the fact that I tried.
With no steady flow of updates after I'd asked a few times via threads here, I knew that the project was totaled. Deep down, I didn't want to come to that reality, because I knew that it'd mean the death of my Freelancer home. As Rags had pointed out a number of times, Freelancer is a dying game. Even as I'd been told that again and again, I didn't want to hear it. It was my belief, and still remains as my belief, that one of the main things that was preventing people from joining was the lack of something new in the game. That, and a community that's active and willing to continue to press on, despite the game's age. You already had the community as I'd tried to show you. In my eyes, all we needed was a finished product and a server home. It didn't matter if it was buggy as fuck or not. It was something that we could call home.
The notion that there seems to be no will to do anything with this or to continue with the project is what feels to be the most depressing aspect. The secondmost being the feeling that we were mostly forgotten. I don't want to migrate and call another server home. There was never -- and still there isn't a place -- like Tekagi's. I haven't been on Freelancer to give another server a try since Tekagi's was shut down. After this, I don't believe that I'll be looking for one in the future either. You might say that I'm being overly dramatic, but I mean it when I say that this has broken my will to play Freelancer in general again. I can only liken the feeling to that of losing a closer family member, as I've generally considered the Teks community as an extended family.
We've had loads of great memories and fantastic encounters. I just want to state that this is a painful and disheartening way to part. Should any of you change your mind about finishing this, my offer remains open. If not, then it was fun while it lasted and I'll see you on the field when Star Citizen comes out. Thanks for the time you put into it and for helping to make this community what it was.
Lastly, I'd like to make a specific shoutout to Flea, Nobodie, Deathawk, Dstryr, Pokey, and all of the others. You guys were great and I can't stress how much it fucking sucks to have to part like this. You guys made it all worth while, on and off the field. Thanks so much for being there through the trials and tribulations. And through my killing sprees. If you guys want to do something else, hit me up. My Skype name should be about the same as my display name. Either that, or you can shoot me an email or find me under Steam with the same name or as zero_order.