What is Freelancer?
Freelancer is an space flight-sim. Based in the dawn of the 30th century, humankind has explored and colonized the space surrounding the Sirius sector, where humankind fled months before a powerful alien vessel destroyed the Solar system. In Freelancer, you will trade commodities to make money, upgrade your ship, earn a reputation among the hundreds of characters in the game and ultimately will discover the secret behind the Nomads who destroyed the Solar system eight-hundred years ago!
What are the system requirements?
500 MHz Processor
128 MB RAM
16 MB RAM 3D accelerated Video Card
Mouse (Wheel for speed control)
Keyboard
Sound card
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Will Freelancer have multiplayer support?
It has been said by Digital Anvil and numerous previews that Freelancer will indeed support multiplayer. Fortunately, they are placing emphasis on co-op multiplayer, which will allow players to fly within the same universe and trade, fight, explore, and complete missions. DA has said that they multiplayer would basically be one persistant world (like a small MMO game), it could be run off of a dedicated server all the time, or saved and played when the players felt like logging on and playing. It would play like most games today, using one computer as the host of the game. Players could hook up using simple LAN-type play, or it is expected you could find games through Microsoft's own Zone online gaming service. Other types of games are being considered by Digital Anvil, such as deathmatch, but so far they appear to be focusing on co-op as far as multiplayer goes.
What kind of missions are available?
This is the exciting part! According to Digital Anvil, they design missions based on their sixteen mission "templates" (think "Escort," "Destroy," "Explore," and so on) that allows for up to forty different types of missions in the story line! Here is what Digital Anvil had to say:
The main consideration is that the missions need to be fun (obviously) - but they also have to make fictional sense. Freelancer features a total of 13 story chapters, which could each be seen as a single mission, but in reality are conglomerations of as many as 10 mission objectives. A given mission can take well over two hours to complete. But the real "meat" of the mission system lies in what we sometimes call "random missions." The universe supports about 3,000 different trade routes that are offered to the player as cargo missions and are used by transports and convoys to deliver their goods from base to base. Other mission types include patrols, assassination missions, and destroy missions. All in all, Freelancer will have more than 5,000 different missions that can all be adjusted for various difficulty levels.
So with nearly unlimited missions, Freelancer will surely have very good replayability!
How many ships will we be able to fly?
According to Digital Anvil last year, there are about twelve flyable spacecraft in the game, ranging from light fighters to small freighters (think Millenium Falcon). Each house is expected to have three classes of craft, with one type each: Standard, Elite, and Freighter. In addition, there are pirate ships, and civilian ships that you can fly. There are some ships where only one or two exist in the whole game!
However, according to more recent previews based on the recent demo at Microsoft's Internation Games Festival and GenCon 2002, there are up to twenty ships you are able to purchase. The game actually features around a total of 40-45 different ships, all of them you'll encounter at some point in the game. It's just that not all of them are flyable. In terms of larger capitol ships you can land on some of them.
In addition to actual craft you can purchase, there are many upgrades you can purchase, from weapons, engines, shield generators, to neuronets. All this will make each craft unique, and the addition of upgradable components will make every ship almost one of a kind!
How many characters are in the game?
The exact figure of storyline characters in the game is not known. In fact, no word has been given at all! A recent preview from Computer Gaming World gave the number 1,200, but as of more recently Digital Anvil is now saying that 2,000 different NPCs, all with their own stories, prejudices, desires, and reputations that shape how they interact with you. If one character dislikes you enough, he may even become threatening! Using some credits to bribe him may convince him to like you a little more, though!
That where some Informations out of the FAQ website, now to some personall Experience:
About the MP Aspect from the Game, its more a coop Game, sure you have to fight vs some other Players from time to time but its way more interesting to work in a large group together, like for example one or 2 Freighters and the Escort Ships to protect them on the way to trade your cargo.
Newest Rumors says that in the first Patch the Problem with the "you can play only on one server with a charackter" Problem will be fixed so that you are able to play with your charackter on every Server you login.
about the Playercount on a server, its different depending on the host comp and bandwith, but the most common are servers with place for 32 players. There are larger Servers out there with Place for 64 or even 128 but the chance to get lag in them is good when more then 30 player are online. Side Note about lag, it depends also on the host comp, but the Server i use gets only sometimes lag and the host is still working on the setups to fix the last little lag what would appear.
Besides this, the Gameplay is very smooth and the Graphic exciting as you will see in the Screenshoots
Even after exploring the whole Universe the Game has still new things for me when i play, cause you never know when you can get attacked suddenly or which trade route is better to make the most money compared to the danger.
But the best is, you download the playable Demo and decide for yourself what you think about it after playing.
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