New House?

[Igiss]

So many rumors, so many speculations. Just as I expected:)

Anyway, I'll provide more info in some forseeable future. Now will just answer questions that concern most people here.

1) - Will there be a player wipe? - I see no necessity for it as of now, but situation might change if we discover some problems while testing. To conclude, player wipe is possible but very unlikely.

2) - Why French and not another nation?

First, in the dev commentaries placed on an extended Freelancer edition (don't remember how precisely it was named), devs declared that extended into is part of the story. So, it's part of Discovery story as well.

And since the only survivor of the explosion in Sol was on the dark side of Pluto, it's very unlikely that anything closer to the Sun has survived, don't you think?

This is why we don't have China, Russia etc.

Now, to the Alliance. Scandinavian countries didn't even have their own fleet. France and Italy had, and Starlancer intro says that their fleets were destroyed (I watched the SL intro before writing the story, and reviewed many other materials available). It doesn't mean, however, that nations were destroyed. Also, we've got information that 8 sleeper ships were launched, but 3 of them (French, Italian and Australian) didn't break through Coalition blockade. What happened back in Sol will not be revealed in this version (except for some hints). However, the French managed to build a second sleeper ship independently from their allies, in a remote hidden location.

Hispania... well, having Outcast Navy and Corsair Police would be a bit strange. If the nations would unite, which is very unlikely in the Discovery time frame, than it would be possible. But now I don't see a way how this can be achieved, since both Outcasts and Corsairs are more pirate groups than Houses.

3) - Does this mean that other Houses and other systems won't be updated? - No. Actually, a massive update is being prepared for many previously empty systems. This will affect Liberty and Bretonia systems most, and Kusari and Rheinland to a less extent. Also, several Edge Worlds systems will get an update.

4) - What about the weapon balance, bug fixing and other mod design issues? - First of all, if your name change is delayed, this has nothing to do with the mod... I don't do name changes, and other admins don't participate in mod development. Very simple.

Next, of course there will be changes for balance and other stuff you are worried about. This will take some time though, cause I had a chance to begin development much later than I initially planned.

5) - And what about release date? - When it's ready, and not soon.