Poll Archive

Action Vault has posted their E3 story about Freelancer. Here is a small piece of it:

Although it's an aspect incessantly highlighted at the show in general terms, the graphics of FreeLancer are certainly deserving of the praise it has received over the years. Despite the fact that the game has been in development for quite a while, its visuals never seem to become any less spectacular.

And a little more:

The handling of the ship I piloted felt very smooth and natural, and its gentle humming contributed to the credible experience of space flight. The cockpit presents players with a detailed internal view of their ship, but does not hinder the action on the main game screen.

For full story click HERE.

I didn't have time to update the site so I missed a lot of news. I'll try to catch up. First there are some new screenshots. Look at them HERE.

Then go to TLR and check out their interview with Phil Wattenbarger, Producer and Project Lead at Digital Anvil Studios and Jörg Neumann, the Lead Designer on Freelancer. Here is a small piece of the interwiev:

TLR: How do the controls work - how does it work if you insist on using the joystick - what are the maneuvers pr. ship? And how about joystick support?
A: We haven't set the number of maneuvers yet, and are still working and refining the mouse/keyboard combination. Our focus is, and will continue to be so, on the mouse/keyboard interface. I was very critical of this feature before joining the team, but now I'm convinced. It works well, and we might still need to tune and tweak it some to get it to perfection. Joystick support is here very much secondary, and we design the game and the mission towards the mouse-interface. We are for instance working on a mission where you race through an asteroid field. This mission is tuned and balanced towards that interface, not using the joystick, where it might get a bit too easy. Anyhow, the deal with the joystick is that it is very, very easy to add joystick support in the end and it is very, very hard to get the mouse/keyboard combo just perfect. So we force ourselves to design towards the mouse/keyboard combo.

To read the full interview click HERE.

Also, there is a new poll. results of the last one can be found in Poll Archive.

And for the end: I have compiled five system polls and from the results it turns out that my average readers have the following system:

Now lets see what MS says the minimum system for FL needs to be:

TLR: What are the system requirements looking like when you want to play FL in all its glory?
A: The installed user base of PC hardware has changed a lot since a few years back. Today you have to target a tremendously broad range of processing power, graphic cards and memory. Our hope is to be able to perform nicely from a Pentium II 450MHz with 64 MB of RAM and an ATI Rage 128 graphics card. Also our nebula-effects use a lot of full-screen alpha-blending and real-time fogging, and this is very strenuous on the graphic card.

It seems we are barely OK :)...

Microsoft is preparing to show Freelancer on upcoming E3 show. In the press release Microsoft says:

Adventure, intrigue and opportunity await in this intensely epic and fascinating universe. Set in the dawn of the 30th Century, the game provides an environment in which humanity focuses its efforts on expansion into frontier worlds. Four houses vie for territory and control of frontier worlds, each seeking survival as the ultimate prize. Billed as an action and space simulation game, "Freelancer" combines a fully immersive, 3-D space flight system with real-time 3-D interaction, giving players complete control over buying and selling of commodities, accepting missions for hire, and customizing spacecraft. Scheduled availability is spring 2002.

You can see Microsoft E3 page by clicking HERE.Also, there is a new 12Mb trailer online which can be downloaded HERE. It contains mostly old footage but with some interesting new stuff added.

Gamespot posted a new article about Freelancer. Here is a small piece of it:

The most impressive feature of Freelancer is how much goes on in the universe, even if you're not directly involved in things. When trade routes open up and there's money to be made, you'll see ships traveling between planets. This isn't mere window dressing; each computer-controlled ship really is transporting items. Their actions, as well as your involvement (or lack thereof), affect the overall economy unfolding throughout the Freelancer universe.

This is what the article says about graphics in the game:

Freelancer's real-time graphics approach the quality of prerendered CG effects seen in a modern science-fiction TV series. But the things you see here are more than just superficial: Debris gets blown away from the body of a spacecraft being attacked by the enemy's weapons. Beautiful gaseous clouds can muck up your ship's control panel readouts and weapons, but going through them can also help in evading a pursuer.

To read the whole article click HERE.

There is also a new poll. Results of the last one can be found in Poll Archive.