Repose

Freelancer

Now, Freelancer is a space combat/trading game like any other.  It has some rules, it has various styles and modes of play.  It was made by Microsoft which means it's quite happy alt-tabbing back to the desktop, say if you want to check your MSN messages that have been racking up, auto-replied to by Plus! with the optimistic "I'll get back to you when I dock", but the downside of being strange and slightly wrong in places.

Gripes first.  All ships have the same speed ratings.  80 m/s for standard.  180 with thrusters and engines to full.  300 at cruise.  The only differences come in maneuvering.  They count, that's true, but there are no fast ships and no slow ships, just ships that turn better or worse.  No rapid couriers to take high-value cargoes across the Sirius Sector in the time it takes a bulk transport to cross the New York system.  No Bounty Hunter ships with the slight edge of speed to catch up with Rogues, or light freighters that can hold pace with heavy fighters.  It's a shame.

Next up is class, which relates to weapons and defences.  If one is higher than the other, that's either a dangerous attack or a strong defence.  I'm not saying that classes are bad.  I like being able to get an idea of someone's tactical strength by scanning their weapon mounts and shield system and having it expressed as a simple number, 1-10.  But in multiplayer an awful lot of people play fighters and those that bothered to finish the singleplayer story know where the wrecks and deralicts are that hold classified, class 10 armaments.

Now, you're new to the game on multi, but you've finished SP a time or two.  You want to even the odds?  What do you do?  Trade for cash?  Pirate?  Or rip off a couple of abandoned ships for high-power guns, selling what you can't use to other players and investing the rest in a similarly high-power ship?

The net result of this is a very stratified society in the multiplayer environment.  Freighters are always at high risk from the upper class, and newcomers who choose a violent life will almost always lose in combat against their elders and betters.  Not due to lack of experience, but simply due to the fact a ship with class 10 weapons and shields can only count another class 10 as a fair fight.

But anyway.

Freelancer, in a way, encourages law-abiding behaviour.  It's honestly easier and safer to make cash trading than by taking on missions or turning pirate.  All the jumpgates are owned by someone in authority, and not that many trade lines run through jumpholes (the common presence of pirate bases near them may have something to do with it).  Also, under the unmodded setup, your reputation favours Liberty Police and Naval forces, while Rogues and Outcasts treat you as a KOS (Kill On Sight) hostile.

When you add in the factor of high-power fighters in the hands of players who will recognise and remember you, and who may attack without warning, starting out as an outlaw is a tricky game.

But the worst thing about it is the balancing factor the game tries to add in.  Fly a Rhineland Humpback class freighter with a cargo capacity of something like 250 CU and blow up a heavy transport, and you'll get about 150 CU to loot.  Do so in a fighter with a capacity of 20 and you're lucky to get 5.  Now I'm not entirely sure, maybe I just didn't do enough damage to rupture the haulage pods before the ship exploded, but I found going pirate against the computer-generated NPCs to be a crapshoot of a scavenger hunt most often played with Microsoft loaded dice.

On the other hand, having a multiplayer environment adds more than one extra dimension of play.  You're not just looking after your visible rep, your scorecard of ticks and crosses the computer keeps track of you with to determine NPC reactions, you're looking after your intangible reputation, your standing among other players.  Maybe you help newbies with a loan and security for their first decent cargo run.  Do others start to view you as a soft touch?  What about if you mouth off to the local player pirates?  You can pretty much bet they'll remember your callsign, and will be less likely to ask for you to dump cargo or pay tax next time you enter their system. 

When you factor in clans as well the whole thing escalates.  Perhaps you catch someone who's just joined a clan and is therefore in a new character before they can meet up with their comrades and get the resources for a more powerful craft, and use them as target practice.  Congratulations, you've not just made one enemy, you've made 8, and chances are 7 of them are already armed to the teeth.  But that's ok, surely, because you have allies?  Or maybe you had allies, who now view you as a newb-hunter and deserve a slow and painful death.

It's a good game in spite of the flaws though, and if you ever get bored of the factions, the clans and the politics, you can always go sightseeing.  There's a lot to see, and who knows?  You might just find something new.