10 years of Freelancer

[Curios]

Nostalgic topic.

Curios this year celebrates his 10th anniversary since first playing Freelancer online and this made me go into retrospective. To remember. And I'd like to share this, indeed.

I mentioned it's 10th anniversary since exactly my online experience began as I actually playing Freelancer since 2004 but it was Vanilla and moded SP so this is kind of another experience.

My first server was V... and there I went full of excitement to see how my beloved game would work out - and I wasn't expecting the result which was interesting in double. That server wasn't actually RP once - there existed few main 'branches' of factions.

1. Pirates
2. Navy
3. Nomads

Money were easy and there wasn't any rules regarding pvp death or anything like that. But were some regulations about piracy, for example Pirate could ask trader only for 200k credits for 2 hour of 'protection'. Money were much easier and it was pure RP element for Pirates. Yes I did joined them. Back them my English was as bad as tourist trying to figure out where he is in China knowing just Hello and F U. Anyway I found a Russian clan which I would remember forever as they were real bros. The clan was called NETSPHERE and they were real capital P Pirates, hell yea. We were fighting navy and taxing traders all day and it was really wonderful time. Yet everything that comes goes away with time - the server broke down for some time because of global server list death and administration took some time for fixing this up for players. Online dropped dramatically as even after the fix not many managed to make it work so server got deserted and I went on searching for another server.

That second part is quiet short as I found some M.. U.. server which didn't attracted me for much and I abandoned it for good. Maybe it's actually was worth it, who knows, just I didn't found what I wanted.

So I returned back to V... and played there for some time - but most of my clanmates were gone and I couldn't establish there. Yes, I was pvping and all that stuff, it was fun and all - but just not that. Also after some modding they changed this too much from gunfights to torp\missile\mine spam and it wasn't exactly pvp I like.

So here comes a halt for few years on my Freelancer experience. After some time, when I was in Uni already, I decided to return into big Freelancer. I took serious approach on finding server which would give me the game I love. I was deciding between H... C... and Discovery as they were two most populated servers at this moment. My decision is known - I'm here. It was the end of 4.84 where I was complete noob getting basics and it's mostly 4.85 where I went full speed.

At start I went on forums yet I didn't had any forum accounts to learn the server rules as my experience in V... was telling it an RP server must have some more advanced ruleset - which turned to be true. But rules were quiet simple in fact and I went into the game prepared, at most.

I began as Freelancer trader and once I had cash for my first freighter (no restarts were back then or I didn't knew of them and starting ship was Starflea) I went on known to me from Vanilla route of trading Lux Food to Manhattan from New London. Was fun! Well, I believe restarts are bad - it's a whole part of the game where you was setting up, flying around, watching others play. It was completely taken away from the game by veterans who were too lazy to set up they 1000001 ship. It's mistake I believe.

Then I went to Gull and got pirated in glorious lane in Cali by Outcasts and Rogues, they had a gunboat and I didn't yet knew what to expect from it. That time I learned that BR is cool and GB are stronk and can't be taken by Gull But we actually had a kind of PVP with since there was no turret controls and I could out-manuever that GB somehow for some time, I had a feeling that I'm winning and then BAM - double razor returns me back to Penny. I was all WAT but it was fun as hell. TS\TZ ruined a lot for gameplay since then. But my carrier as Freelancer was coming to its end as I became a smuggler. There was a lot of Smugglers around and there was special ID for Smugglers that was generating crapload of fun moments with Police and Navy. Pirates were 50\50 on Smugglers and were letting you go with contraband sometimes which was also quiet cool. Then I discovered a completely retarded route of trading Wildlife from Gaians to Crete and Artifacts back to Edinburg. Wow, good think I wasn't stopped by Gaians

And it's a nice moment I remember still. I was going through Omega 5 when Corsair ship [OPG]Gentle stopped my Pirate Transport and changed my life on the server. So I joined [OPG] and had a lot of fun with it. Back then it was a golden age of skill and PVP which I really, REALLY miss novadays. RHA was wonderful, Smokeone were fearful and OC\Sair raids were badass. People didn't cared for anything then - we were PVPing with everyone around and didn't had any bad feellings since loosing was nothing. Old Malexa's RM, Tony's RHA and Doc's 101st - those were times. But as I said - all that comes must go at some point and Discovery slowly became the must-win ground were everyone was holding his life like it's something real to loose. Also CAU 8 caps began to be an issue as it was a nice expensive toy at start and you could count CAU8 once by fingers on one hand. But this is gone as well.

Now I'm sometimes playing my characters that are well developed like Remilia Scarlet or KPT once. But mostly just flying some nameless Freelancers\Pirates and Navy. I miss the days, indeed. And I honestly love the game and the server but I don't like the way it went and decisions that were made through the last year.

I hold my hope to see this server being less minded and open hearted as it used to be one day but, we'll see. 92% hitting 100 wont change it since it's problem mostly in our minds, not in mod itself.

I hope this text is interesting, enjoy, share your own experience!

P.S. a lot of typos I'm not fixing since zz

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