Igiss Q&A Thread

[Igiss]

Thanks for the great questions! I'll answer everything, gradually. So if I haven't got to yours I will later. (I will combine some answers into one though, like the ones about which factions I enjoyed playing for.)

If you were to dive back in Discovery Freelancer, what faction would you play? And another question, what faction you never played?

I'll try to answer this and other faction-related questions here. (Just read the page on Discovery factions here, the new ones are pretty interesting.)

I mostly loved RPing for outlaw and neutral factions. Lane Hackers, Outcasts, Mollys and Junkers have been, in a way, my favourite. I liked the aesthetics of pirate hideouts in asteroid fields in general. Liberty Rogues were fun too, by the way... simple and honest guys, if you ask me. No complicated agenda which other rogues hide behind.

I didn't play for Kusari or Rheinland factions much because I found Kusari and Rheinland spaces less interesting, visually and NPC-wise, then other spaces. Not sure if it affected Discovery priorities in any way, but I probably focused on them less than on other areas...

I loved independent spaces of various sorts. Hispania systems in particular. Lots of hidden mysteries to discover. But I mostly preferred Outcasts over Corsairs, partially because of their cool ship designs.

I also rarely played for police or military factions. Rarely played for corporations, and trading has not usually been a priority for me, other than save some money on a few long routes to buy a better ship.

Where did the idea for disco come from? Where did the inspiration come from?
And I read that you went to university for law and got your barrister's degree.
Why didn't you ever work as a lawyer?

The idea of Discovery appeared when I saw what modders could do with it, and saw some modding tutorials. I thought that it would be great to make a mod that I would enjoy playing myself. Perhaps other people would like that too. There was this IlluminatingDarkness community too, which had some Freelancer presence, though it's hard for me to remember how extensive it was at that point.

As for law: I didn't get a barrister degree (not a thing in Russia anyways), I was specializing in international public law. I was an unexperienced nerdy guy with no skills or wit to communicate with people in a way necessary to secure any descent job. And had few friends back then, in this sphere, if any. I was not very keen to work in government institutions (which turned out to be a good thing, given where Russia is headed now), so I just went into gaming.

I had some regrets because I could've been useful for things like defending political protestors in courts, but it was no chance of coming back at that point.

last but not least

how many eggs do you eat every day

I hate eggs.

[He||oween]

What conclusions have you drawn about polyamorous relationships?
What shouldn't be done, and what is okay to do?
Have you had a MLR coach?
Do you consider it a waste of time?

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Open Sirius

[Igiss]

Okay let's start from the beginning

I would like to inquiry about Normandy, one of the lost things from 4.85-4.86 era that was never elaborated on but Igiss was clearly working on. I always wanted to know original intent and plan for it.

I was planning to make a few systems, including one extremely large system, that would contain certain rebel groups and interesting societal structures which are very different from what Gallia has. Since they are isolated from the rest of the world, they could develop certain tech that would differ a lot from what other sectors have. But apparently those plans never went into fruition. Not sure if anyone would be interested to continue this line of thought. Seems that Gallia is still not very popular and not easily accessible (correct me if I'm wrong), so extending it further may not be the best idea at this point.

If you could go back in time and change anything about Discovery would you?

I was very unexperienced back when I started, and I would probably make some other choices given the admin team conflict resolutions. I often tried to seek solutions that would please everyone, and this did not work out all so well. As for the mod itself, I don't have any regrets on what we were doing. There were some mistakes but they were reverted soon enough.

When you come back to Disco?

(Also answering the same question from Nodoka Hanamura) As an admin and developer, that's hardly possible, but I do want to go flying from time to time.

Did you ever have an "end" to the mod and its story in mind?

No, there weren't any plans for the ending. More like a growing universe with certain developments happening all the time.

Have you ever considered making, instead of Gallia, something like a full introduction of the Coalition house in respect to Freelancer roots?

I didn't consider the Coalition house because the Coalition could have never reached Sirius, and there seemed to be no point in reusing existing plot lines. Gallia was good because it allowed to introduce something completely new to the mix.

How does it feel to see Discovery where it is 20 years later? To see the mod still being alive, kicking and in active development?

It's truly awesome, I love it.

Thankyou for the mod.

Is the mod as expected all this time later?

The mod is as expected and better, yeah.

Can you name any characters you played when you were active?

Character names? I don't remember but I often used my usual nicknames (igiss, silipan, etc). I also sometimes just made up full names based on the culture for which I was playing.

[Igiss]

Okay let's move on.

What were your favorite systems, ships, and memories from the time you were playing Discovery?

As far as systems go, I mainly liked Independent Worlds and Border Worlds, with lots of unexplored space and vast asteroid fields or ice fields. I generally liked to explore the edges of various systems, that's why I've been adding lots of new pathways, rogue stations and wrecks to Discovery when it all began.

As for ships, I liked Molly and Liberty Rogues ships (Bloodhound and such), also Junker ships, Lane Hacker/Outcast ships and some others. Always liked the shapes of Bretonian ships.

Memories are mostly related to how new mod features and new things, notably new systems, came into fruition. When you see the new systems only in the system editor and in the ini file, it's one thing. But when you see them in-game as huge 3D spaces, it's completely different, loads of joy.

Have you been working on any other mods or similar projects since you moved away from Discovery?

I did some student projects when I was studying Unreal Engine and Unity, some Twine games of my own, but nothing as large-scale as Discovery. Nothing I'm really proud of as an achievement of any kind.

How does it feel that your creation can almost drink in the US without your parental supervision?

Can it shoot an AR-15 already?

Also thank you, and thanks to Cannon and others before my time for the awesome mod.

Thanks to you! I guess I've already answered the first part of your question.

do you like cats Igiss?

I do like cats, but I only had a cat as a pet during a very short period in my childhood. I like amphibians and reptiles, and I used to have a cane toad and a chameleon as pets while I lived in Moscow. Having pets as an immigrant is challenging so I don't keep any animals right now.

What surprised you the most in your brief time back today? What did you like seeing the most? Do you have any advice for the staff and dev team, or for the players?

No advices from me, just keep on going. I liked to see that the mod is alive and lots of new things are being added. As for suprises, new features look awesome. I still need to explore more in order to make any conclusions...

I have no questions, Igiss. I am just very grateful because you founded Discovery, thank you, and cheers

Thanks to you!

And thanks for all the questions. I'm probably not as enigmatic as many of you thought, but yeah, I'm just a human with pretty average life.

[Zayne Carrick]

I guess I'm horribly late to the party, but I'll try asking anyway.

Since you've ended up with a career in gamedev-related area, do you list Discovery in your resume?

[TheKusari]

. .Guess I showed up late too. I'll throw this one out to you Igiss! If you had the keys to the castle today, what would you add, change or remove in Discovery Freelancer? . .

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Discovery's Best Faction:  Starfliers
Second Best: Liberty Navy 46th Fleet

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[Serpentis]

Hey hey, Igiss, think I actually got you on Facebook from a long time ago. Think we chatted once or twice too.
Glad to see you here answering questions and just showing up again! It's a blast to read though all your answers from you.
It's been a lot of changes over the years, for good and bad.
I am sure that you have had some fun reading through -some- of all the additional Lore that has been created since you last checked in.

I really only have one question.

Mind telling us one of the best memories you've had from Discovery in the years you were active? As in, an event, an Roleplay situation, personal conversation (no need to mention names) or anything like that?

Thank you again, for creating this lovely mod. I am not nearly an active player right now, but, I always keep an eye on the forums for what is going on.
I can say that your creation is in safe hands.
Both the Staff and (most) of the playerbase just want to have fun in this universe.
Thank you.

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Abadan and the Arcadia | Sergei, The lost | Feedback Thread

[Igiss]

Thanks for the new questions! Haven't answered some of the older ones though.

Will you be rejoining us as a player? That'd be something that'd actually make me giddy.
Have any of those gaming projects released on the android market? Any on steam/PC? I'm curious to what games you've been working on.
You have any questions for us?
It's great hearing from you again.

I think I will play from time to time. I'll need to move my account from laptop to desktop though, since I'm home now and rarely use my laptop.

PC and mobile projects... there are lots of mobile games I worked on while I was part of Glu Mobile. You can search for
Contract Killer
Left to Survive
Heroes of Destiny
on mobile stores, they should be available.

Some interesting ones like Age of Empires 3 Asian Dynasties Mobile remain only on youtube videos, unfortunately, no attempt to re-create them on modern smartphones has been made. (Ah, here's a good reddit thread and you can actually play it on a j2me emulator)

After Glu Mobile I worked on a number of projects which either went unreleased or won't be of much interest. I now work in a studio that makes romantic visual novels, and they're quite interesting as far as story goes, but I'll save that part for later.

Questions for you... I'll think about it! But I'll probably need to query someone to answer, I cannot ask the whole board

I don't remember. Do you know any programming language?

I don't unfortunately (one of the things that prevented me from going deeper into modding). I only know basic scripting for text-based engines like Twine.

What IlluminatingDarkness community was about?

This is actually a very good question. Since without it there wouldn't be Discovery.

It was a community mainly about Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines and some MMOs that I don't even remember clearly (I had to look into Wikipedia's list to find the title, it's not even on mmorpg.com... it was called Shadowbane and run from 2003 to 2009, I don't think many people remember it now). It was also a great community just to be around, lots of friendly people. There was a Freelancer section there and many early Discovery players were somehow involved with IlluminatingDarkness community, or Arwen's forums.

What was Your original end game idea for Gallia?

Do you like the new status quo, where royalists lost, went into exile and now joined council to form a military regime, with Maquis the only opposition?

This is a complicated question. There was no true endgame, but I was hoping to introduce Normany rebels who would defeat, or significantly weaken, the Royalists who would be in turn weakened by their Sirius ventures. I didn't have any particular plans for it though.

I also had an idea that it would be good to connect Gallia to Kusari and Bretonia by a normal gate system instead of current semi-hidden paths. I tried to reach Gallia from Bretonia while playing recently, and I couldn't find ways without consulting maps! I completely forgot how hard it was.

What are your thought about the broken promises that were made in the description of your mod,
things like wrecks and object wouldn't be hidden off the plain & through system walls,
jump holes moved way out into the corners & edges of navmaps, that sort of thing?

I have no idea about all this unfortunately.

What do you think about the factions added to Discovery that weren't present in vanilla? In the stream you talked about Gallia in terms of new content to vanilla, but I'm curious about your opinion on the following.

I don't know much about most factions you listed, but thanks for the list! I'll have to play more to get a better idea.

I know you've been out of the game for some time. Have you ever logged in secret and poked around during your time away or do you have any plans to play some? What are your general thoughts about playing currently?

Thanks for the kind words. As for logging in in secret, I'm not really into secrecy so I wouldn't try that. In any case, if I'll be logging into the game from time to time (which I plan to do), I'll use my normal names and accounts, and will probably mostly explore the world.

[Igiss]

What conclusions have you drawn about polyamorous relationships?
What shouldn't be done, and what is okay to do?
Have you had a MLR coach?
Do you consider it a waste of time?

I'm no expert in polyamorous relationships really, plenty of better sources and experienced people out there.
I'd say it's better suited for socially active people and better practiced in areas where new partners may be met easily. (Neither is true for me right now, ironically.) You also have to be prepared to certain disdain from others, if you're open about it. Other than that, it's what all those poly bloggers talk about (ethics and honesty mainly). I think issues that arise from poly are pretty much the same as in all other sorts of relationships, adding the necessity of careful time management (and attention management, to some extent).

Not sure what you mean by MLR coaching, google brings me Mid-Life Rehabilitation and Major League Rugby, so you'll need to elaborate...

I guess I'm horribly late to the party, but I'll try asking anyway.

Since you've ended up with a career in gamedev-related area, do you list Discovery in your resume?

I do, yes. I don't think that it affects a lot since it doesn't click with what HRs consider points of interest, but it might've been beneficial for me on some occasions. Can't say for sure though.

If you had the keys to the castle today, what would you add, change or remove in Discovery Freelancer?[/i]

I'd probably invest into building new systems and areas in existing ones.

...
I am sure that you have had some fun reading through -some- of all the additional Lore that has been created since you last checked in.

I really only have one question.

Mind telling us one of the best memories you've had from Discovery in the years you were active? As in, an event, an Roleplay situation, personal conversation (no need to mention names) or anything like that?

Thank you again, for creating this lovely mod. I am not nearly an active player right now, but, I always keep an eye on the forums for what is going on.
I can say that your creation is in safe hands.
Both the Staff and (most) of the playerbase just want to have fun in this universe.
Thank you.

All thanks to you.

As for lore, I only looked through new faction descriptions, not much else, but everything looks logical to me at this point.

Memories... it's a tough question. Unfortunately, I mostly modded, not played, particularly after the first couple of years The most *memorable* memories, for me, are not that good (conflicts in the admin team mainly, which I tried to sort out but did that rather clumsily). As for good memories regarding the game, and other community members, there were lots of great conversations both in-game, on forums and in messengers (and some people I even met personally in Czechia back in 2009). I can't pinpoint any particular one.

Most enjoyment and memorable moments for me were in the modding itself: spending days planning systems and building stations, and then taking a ship and flying to see what went wrong, and what turned out nicely. And then fix, and repeat.

Thanks for the questions! Please give me more

[The_Godslayer]

How, if at all, do you consider your frankly legendary status in the community?

There have been plenty of notorious bad guys over the years, alongside notorious sanctions, and the long running meme of "to be an admin, you have to have been previously permabanned". Being well known for negative aspects is not exactly uncommon here, but in contrast, you're lauded widely as the mythical hero of adding content, and your name was thrown around in a state of relative reverence and/or banner of resistance during times when staff approval was very low, especially for the teams that took to mass culling of systems or the infamous system crunching where assets from two systems would be slammed together with little regard. Even I did it, making fun of what I saw as a conflict between severely overzealous moderation and censorship, and the trolls that such control obsession inevitably spawns.

If we can kill the meme thread, the pob attack dec thread, and the kudos thread all at once, rumor has it that Igiss himself will return to pull the plug once and for all

So, does the recognition of your status as "an almighty saint among the crowd of sinners" ever cross your mind? How does it feel to be an infallible good guy in the eyes of quite a few? There's really only a few names in this community that are widely known for positive reasons, and you sit at the very apex of that list.

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I'll do something about my superiority complex when I cease to be superior.

"Whatever happened to catchin' a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"