What is keeping you from playing?

[Wesker]

It's been a while since I've posted a thread in this subforum, its been a looooong time.

But now I feel the need to, after all this time. I have played the game for a while now, I'm not old enough here to be considered an old timer, but I'm also not young enough to be ignorant of the drama this community has gone through.

I'm closing in on 8 years in this community, I still love to play this game in all its aspects. But the thing that keeps me coming back to this game is the amount of people playing it. We're coming to a close in the summer, I'm confident maybe some people will return to play the game once again, but I think now is the best time to ask this question so we can see the issues before discovery's peak timeline hits.

What is keeping you from playing the game?


I have seen lots of people leave over grudges, I have completely stepped away from anything involving Rheinland again. I'm still the 1ic of my faction but I hardly do anything. A while ago, I figured maybe the region needed me to step back. I was being vilified over a lot of stuff in the region, but now that I've stepped back I've still seen nothing change in the area at all. Interest there is pretty much kaputt. But there is still hope for other regions.

People leaving over development-related issues is probably the thing that makes the least sense to me at all. It takes nothing to step back and be an average player, I'd argue it's more fun to be an average player. There are so many people that have complained about development in the game and then have rooted themselves in it fighting over change like it's the end of the world rather than just playing the game. I can appreciate Freelancer no matter what state it's in, I played when heavy decision hit, I played when Justin was the lead developer, I played when the Admins and devs were at their most polar, and I'm playing now. I think if you really appreciate Freelancer, you can enjoy it regardless of where it is. You just need to play the game.

The lack of people online is starting to get to me too, this weekend in particular I was so bored. It kinda made me sad.

I have tried new things in this game, I made two new characters, let go of old ones. I've shifted the RP avenue of my experience here completely.


The drama is past us, if everyone really left over Justin, then why aren't people coming back? The Balance end of this game has improved a lot since I first came here, I don't agree with everything - but it's still fun. The game isn't on a 100% level playing field, there are guns that are (in my opinion) significantly better than others, there are ships that (also in my opinion) are significantly better than others.


So what is it? Why aren't people coming back?

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[Kanzler Niemann]

So what is it? Why aren't people coming back?

People have simply settled somewhere else and probably have other things to do (in terms of gaming). People simply do not appreciate the game and simply don't want to play it.

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[monmarfori]

Let me summarize:
- The game is very old (2003)
- People choose newer games or are preoccupied by real life
- Poor staff management
- Lack of interest, mainly because people quit after they find the game unfun
- Not having an active war (like Liberty vs Rheinland and Sirius vs Gallia) or event to encourage people to log often
Been here since the early 2010s, came back fully last year, yet I only find lolwuts on Core chars farming everything. Plus the general ingame toxicity doesn't warrant quality experience here.

While there have been improvements compared to the early 2010s, where the RP quality was somewhat mediocre at best, the loss of the old playerbase is truly saddening.

For me I find nothing that keeps me from playing, but it's hard to interact when all you get are people who behave like lolwuts.

The 2020 one is an exception because of the lockdowns, which prompted people to play Disco again. It remained until May 2021 when the player count dropped significantly, because of summer and exams.

2012-2013 was way more active, you got a minimum of 40 players and a maximum of 180 players. Now, it's just 10-20 players most of the time spiking up to 30-40 (50 in the weekends) during peak server hours.

[Toaster]

I imagine that a lot of people who left over not agreeing with how the game was being managed and developed simply haven't kept it on their radar. They won't know that Justin™ has left, that development has improved, that balance has been worked on significantly, etc. Hell, they might think the game's finally died for good since they left.

Hence, why Hidamari's idea with the email newsletter should be seriously considered.

As for what keeps me from logging most days is also, simply, the lacking activity. I, like many of the really old vets here, have very fond memories of the golden days, when the server was at a constant 200/200 and then even 225/225 during afternoons and evenings. When I look at the player list now and see numbers ranging from 10 to 50 (on a good day), it's just very disheartening. Odds are, I won't find any meaningful interaction organically and will have to go out of my way to contrive a reason to meet people "by coincidence."

Add to that that, now that the community has shrunken considerably, I can't help but notice that I not only keep running into the same few characters again and again, but that it's also just the same small group of players between them. It gets old fast and when, despite my best efforts not to get particularly involved with players ooRPly, I do form a grudge against a player, it really drains the fun out of logging.

Technically, the game is in a better state than it has ever been. We just really need to let people - old players and potential new ones - know about it. And those of us who are still here need to do our best to be welcoming to new and returning players and provide as pleasant an environment as possible.

Edit: I do still log almost every day. But some days it's just really hard to get myself to do so.

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Olivia Sable
On hiatus

[Haste]

Kind of worried this thread is going to be a long, repeating list of the main reason I don't play much personally: the low playercount. I enjoyed Discovery most when I could log in an unlawful, pick a lane and pirate a transport every few minutes. It wasn't fun because of the transports - it was fun because I knew there were half a dozen or more lawfuls online looking for me sooner rather than later. Similarly, you could log in a police character and just patrol, and you'd either bump into unlawfuls naturally or get PMs from "traders in distress".

This doesn't work nowadays. You have to - in order to get a decent amount of interaction for your "time investment" - refresh the heck out of the player list and actively seek out clusters of players. This just isn't anywhere near as fun for me (not to mention that most of the time even doing that might not get you any meaningful gameplay) so I end up not bothering.

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[Giorgio]

Like for many other people, for me the issue is that there's rarely anything to do. Not having any kind of conflict between houses feels strange. So yeah I just find myself looking at the playerlist instead of actually doing anything, it feels like a chore.

The problem with activity isn't that people are leaving, they might be doing so for different reasons. The problem is that less people are joining to replace them. And contrary to popular opinion I think this game has potential. Space arcades/sims are in a sad state in general, FL has unique controls/mechanics that still haven't been replicated, there's clear demand for something like this, otherwise most people here would have already moved on to a clearly better space simcade. It's even more of a shame that people are around, they log rarely during big server events and that's it.

After being away for years and coming back once every 3-4 years I've realised people here have this negative attitude towards Freelancer and weird self-defeatism, it's an obvious echo chamber.

Frankly speaking, when people talk about why less and less people want to play Disco, many of them are way off. Freelancer was already way old in like 2013 when it still had decent numbers. It is a relatively unknown fact that something like this even exists, so even a few hundred bucks spent on ads/promotions would do wonders in my opinion. I assume plenty of people would be down to chime in for something like that, I know I would be. But for now the idea with the mailing list for previous players seems like a good first step. And then there's also the question of this game becoming a better experience for newcomers and so on.

[Swifty]

First of all hello Wesker, it is good to see you again friend.

Second of all, as you well know, i would still log into the weekends with you people even when i was studying my ass off in college because you were the last to make it fun for me, until some dev lead, and you know very well who im talking about, crossed the red line and decided to edit everything by his liking. It was then that all the fun was just fucked in the ass, and i realized no matter how much time and effort we put into something, the outcome will only be decided by a bunch of power freaks who happen to be good at programming. It was then, i decided to focus more on my life and leave the game, because i for one had enough of the abuse of power, bias, etc, and you could tell by me not logging as often as i did since... the Aland Shipyard annexation event, for example.

What makes me return each and every single time is the nostalgia i get about the game. But somehow i get attracted, then involved into it that i end up caring too much about what is happening then i end up rage quitting again. Not the first time, definitely not the last time. I don't want the game to die out, but the mistakes that were done years ago, letting a certain someone lead the development team, had killed it for me.

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[Chuba]

What is keeping you from playing the game?

Fact that -most- of my friends besides you and at best 2-3 others don't play this game actively and that the players online look like this most days at most hours:


And the fact that we have players with such names:


and the fact that [staff] allow "Backpack5" and other stupid names exist in any capacity in a roleplay environment.


People's fear of pvp is also off-putting. Nothing like seeing departing players when I log in or seeing people log off when I appear, only after shit-talking (Most times it feeling extremely oorp.) from safety, of course.

Game itself is fine, it feels smooth, the pvp is still the best from any space shooter, of course some aspects of this game blow currently but I know that things are being worked on.

i've become a bitter old man and this place makes me sad

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[Binski]

Ah, but, you say we shouldn't care how things go, how development has gone, and should just play...yet acknowledge there is barely anyone playing anymore. Just playing at this point has become extremely monotonous. You can't force people to just log for no reason but the same old joust. The game world is awesome and fun, just no way to do anything within in way that has any measurable purpose or meaning.

Even with the RHA, you would have all been much better off having the ability to siege lawful stations and focus on that as an ongoing purpose. If you grow and form a little empire then you get to defend it, or if you can't you can always keep trying and it keeps the point fresh. Why have more civil wars when there already are internal conflicts in each house that could be used, and pretty much each house would wind up with one or two dominant unlawful factions of choice.

Then if people siege POB's it will be for a reason and not out of boredom, they are rarely what would be priority if other bases weren't off limits. RHA only sieged POB's because there was nothing else to do with a big fleet once you have it. But we should be able to do that here, build your fleet. use it, try to maintain your turf with it. If you wind up with no challengers, you expand a bit and a house loses some safe territory. It will either plateau after some new and interesting times or there will be an ongoing push back and forth indefinitely.

To sum up, what keeps me from playing is that the place was constantly adjusted to compensate for a shrinking population, and no one ever entertained allowing for more freedoms that would open up player involvemnt in the common world. PVP should be just a tool to achieve a goal, we should stop focus on balance for a while. and shift to RP depth and game interactivity. No population, no purpose to work on, many in-game abilities outlawed out of paranoia, all meant for a suppressed and dying game world.

With such low population the place is like a caged animal. End the downward trend by adding a new fair system to allow for some orderly growth, and the other aspects of the game will get better again. There's just no way that if things were different we'd still see people leave out of lack of interest. Remember when people were rushing home after work or school to get online? Or when people would log early in the morning hours to trade a bit before staring their day? Was it cruiser or bomber balance that got people like that, or knowing there was an ongoing battle somewhere to get involved in, and become a real fighter in!

What changed? Constant 'no's' from the staff over allowing more options and fixed outcomes. You can't base a game around RP and immersion and caring about what happens and also fix every outcome of every event and keep it all as neutralized as possible to kill off people's effect on the story, Its always been a contradictory system here. Well it worked for years but we got all the years out of that system that we can, we need something new or it will all go to waste in the end. Plenty still could play here, it just needs to finally get serious about being fair. Make use of this world and we'd see a totally different server within weeks!

[Typrop]

im too lazy to get my accounts back after upgrading my setup

also my mouth hurty and novalogic space sim tachyon the fringe taking up time

please help

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