I really don't understand all the negativity here.
Yes, Binski's ideas are far-fetched. Yes, most of them wouldn't work. Yes, most of his arguments are not very convincing.
But there is no need to belittle a man who's just trying to make the game more interesting. You know, the game, the one thing that started it all. The one thing that has mesmerized anyone who played single-player and said: "wow this universe is pretty cool, I wonder if there are other people who like it".
The fact is, the game has been pretty stale compared to all the other stuff that has evolved around it. Yes the core gameplay is the casual, arcade space shooter. Did it stop being a casual, arcade space shooter when factions were conceived ? How about when caps were introduced? Or POBs?
The answer is, no, it's still a casual, arcade space shooter at its core. And it would still be, even if some of these changes were to be introduced. There would still be nothing preventing you from logging any time of the day, picking a ship, finding some friends and RPing to your heart's desire.
The fact is gameplay is the activity booster. The people who only log for RP-ing spend 80 percent of the time on the forums. And that is fine, as the game is limited in terms of how much effective RP it can foster. But everyone forgets that for every RP-er there are on average as much as 3 or 4 other people logged on.
The people who haul stuff, traders, POB owners, PVE mission addicts, Conn PVP specialists, or simply, explorers.
They are the silent majority that have been made irrelevant due to this mod's focus on the vocal, and arguably the most visible part of community, the RP crowd.
That said, the people who actually log to do stuff are the lifeblood of the game. Who are you going to RP with if nobody is logged on? Why do you even need the game or the server at that point ? Just cut the costs and shut it down.
Discovery has basically already started to introduce RTS-like elements into the gameplay. But they have always been optional, additional content to enjoy. I would even argue they are necessary because if this place was only down to the people who log for the casual arcade space shooter it would be as dead as other Freelancer servers.
So why can't we strive to introduce more of them, completely optional, of course, in an attempt to draw in more people from other communities ?
