Somewhat related to the topic at hand, does anyone know if they plan to release a patch that allows Geforce 4s to play? Or is it still a no-go for us?

Just wondering. Thanks in advance

Hey, just adding my voice to the choir - I've got a Ti4600 and it isn't working for me either. Add me to the cancelled preorders list =\

You know, maybe I'm missing it from somewhere, but they still haven't announced an official price plan for the game, have they? This is the first MMO I'm seriously contemplating playing, but I still haven't seen any definite subscription plans. I'd heard rumours of a "family plan" before, but otherwise, no info. Anyone know if I've missed it somewhere, or have they just not bothered to release that info yet? If not, any idea what this might mean about pricing, if anything?

Just curious.

Cheers

"everyone who preorders the game get's to play the closed beta"

Well, sort of. Everyone who preorders gets to play the closed beta ONE weekend per month. I'm REALLY looking forward to Guild Wars (MMORPG fun for 1/4th the price? Hell yes!) and I was really hoping for an open beta (or at least a decent closed beta), but all they're willing to give us is heavily restricted access to the closed beta.

Mr. Smart,

Clearly in your haste you missed the part of my response where I stated that "if you developed Freespace 3, I almost certainly would not purchase the game." If that doesn't register with you as a "no" answer, allow me to state clearly, for the record, that if you produced Freespace 3, I would not purchase the game. I don't believe I can make myself much clearer than that.

Also, Mr. Smart, I regret to inform you that my mother and father died in a house fire 6 years ago while I was off at college. However, if they were still alive today I believe you are correct - my parents would most likely have advised against me spending 60 of my hard-earned dollars on a game produced by an individual such as yourself.

Thank you for your thoughtful correspondence,

-A gamer.

Thank you for having the decency to respond to my post in an intelligent and thoughtful manner. Your contribution to this discussion is greatly appreciated.

Dear Mr. Smart,

In response to your question, would I purchase Freespace 3? In a word: maybe. If it was produced by a competent, proven developer, on a reasonable timeframe, and respected the style and content of the Freespace universe, yes, I would purchase Freespace 3. However, if you developed Freespace 3, I almost certainly would not purchase the game. I have nothing personal against you; it is a simple matter of history.

Mr. Smart, your personal history in the games industry has consistently confirmed your complete lack of talent as a game developer. As a designer, you are unparalleled in your sense of grandeur and scale, but you have never, in your multi-decade career, proven that you have the capability to produce an even mediocre product. You have consistently produced inferior, incomplete products that are broken on multiple levels and have never garnered more than "merely adequate" ratings. You describe a potential Freespace 3 title as "totally BELOW my current skill levels and experience," but a quick glance at the overall reception of the Freespace Games by the gaming community ( http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/197099.asp?q=freespace ) ( http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/188670.asp?q=freespace ) will reveal that your own "talents" are actually far below the talents of the developers of the original Freespace games ( http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/561677.asp?q=universal%20combat ) ( http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/468719.asp?q=battlecruiser ) ( http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/196719.asp?q=battlecruiser ).

Despite your inability to actually produce anything near as grand as you concieve of, you are undeniably a dreamer, and in that regard you are an artist. I loved the concepts behind BC:3K, BC:M, and UC, but the horrendous problems that have plagued your entire developmental career are too many and too prolific to ignore. Speaking to you as a fellow artist (I'm an animator) I believe that your single greatest problem is that you absolutely lack the ability to accept criticism of your work, especially when it is well-founded, and this had led to the constant repitition of problems with every single game you have ever released. The same problems keep rearing their heads in every game you produce: awkward interfaces, broken and missing features, dated graphics, low production values in general, fatal bugs, and generally too much vision and too little realization.

Every time criticism is leveled at you, rather than acknowledge the criticism and adapt your product to it, you ignore, discredit, or belittle the individual criticising you. In fact, as recently as in your UC:EtE press release you seek to discredit your critics' understanding of "the way things work" with your statement: "A lot of people criticized the graphics engine in our previous game, not realizing that with a game of such size and scope, several sacrifices have to be made or the game would be unplayable." Rather than acknowledging that "yes, our graphics are dated, we're going to update them," you attempt to paint your critics as people who "don't get it."

This and your perchant for stretching the truth, your constant generation of excessive hype, your resorting to personal attacks on your critics, and your general lack of humility and acceptance of your limitations as a developer have made you a poor candidate to bear the Freespace torch.

Also, Mr. Smart, in reference to your comment:

"As for the mods, of course they HAVE NO RIGHT to exist and cut from the copyright holders profits. No business would succeed that way."

You are correct in one sense: the mods definately have no right to exist. However, the second half of your statement, the claim that "no buisness would succeed" if mods were widely created and distributed, and that mods "cut from the copyright holders profits" is a blatant falsehood. Given that mods can extend the life of a game far beyond its initial shelf-life and can, in some cases, make a great game far more successful than it ever deserved to be (for example, Desert Combat and Counterstrike). It has never - nor, I believe, will it ever be - proven that mods eat into the revenue of a game.

In summary, Mr. Smart, you are not the right developer for the Freespace franchise, and - based on your history in the industry that you tout so much experience in - any product you produce will be an ambitious but hopelessly flawed piece of garbage.

Respectfully,

-A gamer.

(disclaimer: I am a huge id fan and have been looking forward to D3 since it was announced; recent events have been making me change my mind. the following is rant in the purest sense)

I had long believed that Carmack and company were a "gamer's company," that they made their games as gamers first and developers second. However, this doesn't seem to be the case with Doom 3.

He "favours the trend" in the industry right now towards shorter games? Since when has id ever ben a company about favouring the trend. Doom, Quake, and Quake III were all about NOT following the trend (first FPS with Z-depth, first FPS in a true polygonal world, first online-only FPS) and look how those games turned out for them. What about giving us a longer game rich in content?

On the save-game issue: since when has not allowing players to save whenever they want been a valid crutch for lack of gameplay? My roomate and I both have Splinter Cell -- he for the X-Box, myself on my PC. He has been stuck on the same level for the last 3 weeks now -- he'll get thru the hard part but he has almost no health left and ends up getting shot dead by some stray bullet or another. I breezed past it because I was able to save it as soon as I beat the hard part. So tell me: who do you think is still playing the game? He gave up trying -- he's sick of it now, and frustrated beyond description. I'm still playing. For Carmack and co. to take the road of limited save games is just silly. Let the players decide -- don't force us to play it over and over again because you couldn't make the game long enough.

Which kind-of segways into another point: turning off the lights. This is where Carmack proves himself to be a hypocrite. Why won't players be allowed to save anywhere they want? Because it ruins the tension and the drama of the game. But oh, the most important graphical feature, the one that is "essential in many of the game's dramatic scenes" can go. We won't let the player save anywhere, any time, for dramatic purposes; but we'll let him turn off the most dramatic graphical feature of the game. That suggest (to me, anyway) that the limited save-game feature is just a BS excuse to extend the game. If he's willing to sacrifice one majour feature, he may as well be willing to sacrifice a minor one (don't even try to suggest that the save-game feature is more important than the lighting engine).

This speaks to me as a struggle in Carmack's mind to deal with the mediocre quality his game is shaping up towards. Gamers have spoken up about recent trends (Unreal II, MGS2, Halo, etc) and stated that they don't LIKE the short-game-deep-content ("deep content" meaning lots of eye candy and special effects -- if it was GAMEPLAY content the game would be longer). And with the promise of 40 hours of gameplay in Half-Life 2, and most likely that much for DX2, we don't have to like it. We can just buy another game.

So what, right? Ok, here's the deal. I don't buy short games unless the price is really low. Carmack and co. had better not be planning to sell this game for $50. 15 hours gameplay is not worth $50. 40 hours gameplay is. 80 hours is (any Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale game, Morrowind, other RPGs). But 15 hours? No. I bought Unreal II, beat it, and brought it back to the store to trade it in for another game (CC:Generals -- that took me about 15 hours to beat as well ;P).

Either way, Doom III will come out, and people will buy it. Lots of people, I bet. But with games like Half-Life 2, Thief 3, and Deus Ex 2 coming out shortly, Doom III may go down as the single biggest disappointment in gaming history. Everyone has high expectations for Doom III. I had faith that Carmack would live up to them. Maybe I was wrong.

Peace,
-A.