6 replies to this topic

[CaptBogdanowich]

Very very long time ago, I catched one of the moments when Tekagis was at its peak : the summer of 2006. I was playing Tekagis like 8 hours a day and using Skype as TeamSpeak. Then it took just a few months for me to lose interest in it.

 

Here's how it happened. Don't blame me for what I'm gonna say. It's just the ramblings of a player.

 

Tekagis' top version ever was 5.26. Remember I was flying a Xenon Omega with 3 Rapport shields, 12 Thor Hammers and 4 Photon torpedoes. It was overpowered, but it wasn't a top maneuverable ship. And the server was overlwhelmed by players that created a plethora of clans. Think it had more than 30 active players at the time.

 

5.27 - 5.29:

 

Xenon Omega loses the 3rd shield.

The Ebonhawk powerplant is slightly nerfed (probably in the same attempt to cut down the energy support for Thors).  Wild Fire was also a powerful weapon, but, like Tekagi Alien Laser, unusable due to power requirements.

New shield replaces Rapport.

 

And that would have been enough.

 

The mod had a huge gameplay, because it was fueled by theorycrafting : powerful ships like Xenon Omega or impossible to catch ships like Pirate Zephyr ? Lightning strike weapons like Thor Hammer or slow, costless weapons like the Arclight Cannon ?

 

This was what fueled the server, but the modders - Ringy and Uni (RIP) decided a fatal approach, almost governmental.

 

And what governments do ? Governments do the opposite of what people want.

 

Should Tekagis be frozen at 5.26 - 5.27, would have never died. And those players that loved such an "unbalanced" mod like Tekagis were on the site,

generating traffic, clicking on ads, etc.

 

1. Government decided to take the theorycrafting controversy away

 

They came with unique, master blaster weapons: "one weapon to rule them all". And we remember the Eliminator, Aquamag, Protector Trader Turret (and few in the same generation). They had better range, damage and energy consumption than the previous two competing classes - Thor and Arclight. Even Arclight suffered, as "government" ruined the Arclight/Silver Fire ratio found by our clan used to equalize shield/hull damage.

One major element of gameplay was thrown to trash. Also not to be discarded that Protector and its gun counterparts had crappy visuals compared to previous top weapons.

 

2. Hike in repair costs

 

That would have been decent, unless coupled with 3.

 

3. Introduction of Phantom

 

Randomly appearing, great damage dealing, and ginormously shielded. Fighting the Phantom meant decreasing equity as a result of huge bills. Killing the Phantom with lots of Silver Fire rendered ships unable to face other enemies due to lowered hull damage. So, you were either equipped to deal with Phantom OR with anything else.

 

Phantom bribe came late, but the game was still lacking theorycrafting. As a result, players that tried to come back to the mod, expecting that "perhaps this time they made it well", were getting out fast.

 

New ships were introduced - but the "freighter issue" was never solved. You can't have a huge WhiteStar that has less armor than a pesky fighter just because it's *not allowed* to have Ultra Hull.

 

People left server, as citizens that leave their country because of the government. Think by 2010 Tekagis was completely dead.

 

Moral of the story : If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

 

To me the modders' policy was impossible to understand. This type of approach: "if they like that, let's kill it"! In this pursuit of "balancing". No, it doesn't have to be balanced! Life is not balanced! What kind of gameplay can be in a mod where the best choice is common to everyone ? And they implemented this rapid succession kill even without regarding the popularity of the server.

 

And I would bet, that if you run two Tekagis servers, a 5.26 versus any other version, 5.26 will get more players.

 

I've been looking for a "Xenon Omega" feeling ever since, and played a lot of mods. But something lacked, each time. And it added to the overall and gradual decrease of Freelancer's popularity. I can't even explain to myself how the greatest mods have vanished, only to leave room to boring mods.

But perhaps Star Citizen will reignite that great feeling of flying and fighting in a ship that you love!

 

 

 

P.S. I'm trying to collect the older great mods of Freelancer. Does someone have 5.26 or 5.27 client version ? Also the old Solurus Systems, the one with beam weapons before it was ruined by Lancer ?

[S31-Zero-Order]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that the shutting down of the servers, the broken promises of brand new updates, and a newly-revamped mod that never came was what killed it. But that's just me. I'll elaborate on what you're talking about when I get a free moment. Some of it I agree with and some of it I don't, but a lot of this sounds like it was before my time.

 

I started playing around the beginning of 5.31 or one of the other early 5.3x variants if I recall. Maybe -- and it's a big MAYBE -- I started playing around the end of 5.27. I don't really remember, to be honest.

[S31-Zero-Order]

I disagree that the modding team would've added or removed items while purposefully ignoring the community. I think that they tried to make a lot of changes that sounded great in theory, but when put into practice, left everyone scratching their heads. For example, see the creation of the Aquamag. It was meant to be a new, more powerful weapon, but in the end wound up being the only thing that anyone ever used, because there was absolutely nothing that could compare to its damage rates. They were expensive, but with the rampant inflation on the server, everyone could get a full set and absolutely murder anyone they wanted in a matter of seconds. Then the Aquamags got nerfed and were both expensive AND worthless because of the suddenly underpowered damage compared to all of the previous weapons, the extremely high power draw, and the rediculously high price.

 

A lot could have been added to the mod by removing a lot of useless ships and systems, balancing the economy and costs, and offering more variety in terms of equipment and ship specialties. For example, you should be able to pick a ship based on speed, firepower, power generation, or defensive points like hull and shields. Instead, we wound up with modding all ships to behave exactly the same, but you picking the one you like based on how it looks.

 

While I agree with you that these changes sucked compared to the alternatives, the modding team did try to put their best foot forward to add more and more to the game and server. A lot of those changes just happened to knock everything out of the balance that we already knew. We still played through them, though. With each added change, I still loved exploring uncharted territory, beating new information out of other players, and finding new ways to change my strategy to better my performance in the field.

 

I completely disagree that these changes are what killed the community. If anything, they got people to come back on for a while to explore, fight, interact with others, and have some fun together. It got them thinking and working together to succeed through the new changes.

 

 

From my point of view, shutting down the server and promising -- but never delivering -- a new mod was what killed the community. Years of waiting after the server shut down were rewarded only with a "Sorry guys, the mod's been cancelled", which, in my opinion, was a betrayal of our trust and a stab in the back to the community. I explained why I feel that way in my Farewell to Teks post if you care to read it. I'd rather not revisit it, if it's all the same to you. The bottom line is, people stopped playing because they expected a new mod. They waited on the next version to come out. And waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually, everyone was so busy waiting or lost interest that hardly anyone (if anyone) was on the server. That's what killed the community, not the changes the modding team made.

 

 

The fact that people are back on the forums after years and asking about the progress Ellis has made has revived my hope in bringing Tekagi's back to life. That tells me that people are still interested, and proves what I've said all along: bring the server and mod back, and the community will return. If the interest continues to grow, I'll be absolutely ecstatic.

[CaptBogdanowich]

I didn't choose Omega based on looks. It was based on shielding and power. One of my friends at the time, that was also in my clan, told me that my choice was astrological. I am a Cancer, therefore crazy for security, so I flew that three-shielded monster full of weapons, while he is a Scorpion and flew an agile Pirate Zephyr. And indeed I once did try such a ship in Underverse and results were amazing. But I still like to feel powerful. Now, I play an online called Firefall and even there I enjoy the powerful Dreadnaught battleframes. And I never knew actually how many weapons or how powerful were the originals (Xenon L in X3 Reunion), as I didn't play it, to my shame.

 

Tekagis wasn't the only mod that deliver a cancel. For those of us heavy into space sims, there was also the promised Jumpgate Evolution. And by the success of Star Citizen, I would say NetDevil failed in what could have become their greatest success.

 

I would like to see Tekagis back to life. Because I think for us, that spent some time there, like me, you, Odin, NegativeHero, or the admins, Ragman, Jacobite, Madcat, Outlander. Hell, there's some time, I barely remember... Tekagis really meant something. Even if Star Citizen comes along the way. Some easy play space sim like Freelancer will still be there. I didn't find the same joy in other mods, for real. Solurus Systems was nice, but it lacked people to actually play it; it was quite a PVE mod. Asgard was vanilla-ish, but fun, however collapsed. WTS is one of the best, but it has an aggressive community. Been banned there twice. Plus, it has anti-theorycrafting tweaks (for instance if you put two shield regens, NPC precision increases so much that it feels worse). TNG might have been something, but it has impossible requirements for repping. Crossfire is beautiful, but it lacks...salt and pepper. Same goes for Discovery. Frontierspace is one of the few interesting ones. It benefits great story, multiple alien factions at war. Rebirth is entirely russian. Beautiful mod, I would say similar to Crossfire in quality of the quality of graphics, it has great potential, but is entirely russian and has fatal bugs (several systems where client crashes to desktop; no alternate routes). As for Underverse, that's still played by some people. Very mature players, but once you get to the end of it there's nothing else waiting...

 

But Freelancer died out. All we can do is collect mods and try to revive them, because it's a pity to see so much work thrown away. Freelancer was our nerve pill, our moment to relax on board of our ships. And that's something no other game can give. Probably Star Citizen + Oculus Rift. And I'm gonna buy a totally new computer, a small fortune, to replace my 7 year old rig. Freelancer gave us so much joy, we will probably never forget it.

 

I think the community can return. We are still very much the same people that we've been when playing Tekagis. There are still archives of the forums and email lists. When it's ready Ellis can just notify people that Tekagis is back.

[S31-Zero-Order]

Ellis doesn't actually have the ability to post to the Server News or send mass emails yet and I don't think I have the ability to grant him access. I can post for him for the time being, though. I'll see what I can do in that respect.

 

As to what you mentioned earlier, the Xenon L wasn't nearly as good in X3:R, X3:TC, or X3:AP as it was in Tekagi's. The ship could only carry 6 weapons as opposed to the 10 or 12 in Tekagi's, and two lower-end medium shields. It was cheap to construct from the player HQ, but it's a fighter you use in swarms and expect to die in combat. And that's exactly the point I made earlier. Choosing a ship only because of how it looks is stupid.

 

I've got Star Citizen right now. I own a Super Hornet and have a link to my group in the Server News of this forum. I had to do a lot of upgrades to get it to function correctly. I think it'll eventually replace Freelancer, but I think you have a point about Freelancer being a game for people to chill out on. Personally, I haven't been really active in Freelancer since Tekagi's was shut down. I jumped on Ellis's FLAK server for a bit while it was going, though.

[CaptBogdanowich]

My computer can't run anything from that game, not even that Arena Commander or how it is called. Do you also have the numbers for ship maneuverability ? Something that can be assessed, like degrees/second of the roll, pitch and yaw ? I remember Chris issued some sort of maneuverability numbers that are rank-like,  but that doesn't tell me anything.

[S31-Zero-Order]

I don't believe that there are numbers out for that type of thing yet. Engines are not yet completely described stat-wise, but I can tell you this: the smaller the ship, the faster it moves and reacts. Heavier ships, like the Hornet, are about average for maneuverability, but with those ships, the more combat-oriented they are, they better they handle and perform. For instance, I've used the standard Hornet and I've flown my Super Hornet. The Super Hornet is much better equipped, faster, more heavily armored, carries a second person, and comes with a stock jump drive, but it pays the price by having absolutely no room for cargo, which makes it solely spec'ed for combat. Right now, the only thing I know to use is trial and error when figuring out a ship's capabilities with maneuvering. Maneuvering thrusters and the mass of the ship also affect how it handles.