Freelancer as I Saw It

[Warhawk]

Hello everyone. Not many of you know me, or knew me back in the day. Perhaps that’s for the best; a lot happens in 10 years if you’re willing to accept changes in your life. I know I’m not the only one here who feels that way.

With 10 years of distance, some professional management experience under my belt, as well as having pursued game design and development for tabletop (the bread and butter of RPGs in the day), and with a healthy dose of humility, I want to share my thoughts on what Freelancer mod development could have looked like had the chips fallen differently. I speak as someone who was both inside, at Discovery’s height, and outside, as of right now. If “new blood” is of any value to any of you at all, perhaps these thoughts would be worth something to you. If you are pursuing your own mod, or games of your own making, or are even just a daydreamer like me, maybe you’ll get a kick out of it, too.

That said, I realize that Discovery’s culture has been one of the Status Quo. Very little has changed since I was more actively, dare I say “aggressively,” a part of what happened here on a day to day basis. The personal investment of time and energy that every “veteran” player feels is fundamentally at odds with everything I’m going to share here, and I fully expect either being completely ignored or facing serious backlash for daring to say anything at all. I get it. I was “there.” The more I play here and now, the more “there” I am again.

But life is a lot bigger than you, me and this game. There are things I’ve learned about project management and game design that came from sources I never could have anticipated ten years ago, let alone accepted as valuable or reliable. Maybe this thread can do a bit of that for you as well.

This thread will be an ongoing post, almost stream of consciousness. Were I a project lead, I’d have codified it into a design document, but as it stands that’s unnecessary. In the meantime, feel free to comment, even if it’s hostile. I’ve never been one for mincing words, and if the content of my posts contrast sharply with the criticisms they receive, then the sum total is worthy of study for anyone who reads it afterwards. All I ask is that you don’t push it to the point of being kicked from the forums. I’m not going to go out of my way to counter your posts, either. Ideas stand on their merits, or they don’t, and it’s for the reader to decide in the end.

Consider this a personal exorcism of everything I ever wanted for this game, after years of adding to its problems instead. By putting these ideas down once and for all, I’ll also be putting them to bed.

I’ll link to new posts here as they are written:

> First Principles
> The Vision
> The Talent
> The Plan

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