I would like to thank all of the people involved that helped me with the, let's face it, experiment that was Dawson. After running the shtick for around three months, Dawson has proven for the most part, that overambition only works when it is shared by everyone involved.

While a group with an RP focus and not shying away from outright demanding effort and dedication of its players sounded good on paper, Discovery Freelancer is perhaps a bit too gone at this point for that sort of approach. While the group readily attracted RPers that are known within the community for their work, it was hard to put aside the notion that the reason said people are known as such - is because they are already involved in their own active ambitions and are either the leaders of factions or are involved in their operation.

Dawson, even upon its conception, had a glaring fault which had the potential to ruin the project if if wasn't addressed and outright made clear to any player joining: that the group's success depended on the effort and continuous dedication of its members. Seeing as though Dawson was set as a replacement for the now disbanded LR- and I will not hide that I had hoped that working to acquire officialdom with this idea should have generated enough motivation, it is clear that if official factions that ask as little as one hour of ingame time from their members are having trouble these days, then perhaps this project was rather doomed from the outset.

On a more personal note, the - going to admit it here - outright failure of this group has only helped me come to terms what was that magical ''old days were better'' feeling of 4.84 Discovery had. While we are quick enough to say that there was no difference in quality of RP, it only takes me one moment to look at, say, the old LR- message dump to see that members had a much more different attitude towards their factions.

This is rather ironic coming from me, a person who has built ''lol'' groups that bore the banner of ''factions should be for fun and not a second job'' on the front lines such as the Torpedoes - probably the most successful projects I've personally saw to. Having fun in Disco these days is the ability to hold 6 accounts full of ships, some tagged, some not, and logging them whenever you feel like it and something interesting is going on. Where all the groups you are in share the same people and where the interconnectivity of the whole community via Skype and Teamspeak has a direct impact on pretty much everything related to ingame.


Again, it seems that the amount of people interested in such playstyles is finite in Disco and there are too many factions already trying to catch the attention of said people. In the end, Dawson was a fun enough idea which will no doubt not be wasted experience by a long shot. It helped me learn something new about what Disco is today and how it operates, if anything else.

Oh well, see you guys on my next project. ~Spazzy








The reason for this thread is to also notify groups such as LH~, Congress and others of the current status of the whole thing. A huge thank you to the Lane Hackers in specific for helping getting the ball rolling.

The Project has been shelved for now, but may re-emerge or can be re-booted in the near future.