Allegience, Freespace 2 and the State of the Spacegenre

Bob McDob

Better Health Through Less Flavor
This is an essay I've compiled based on several posts from other boards - it concerns the release of the Allegience source code as well as the FS2 20th anniversery edition, and what it might mean for the genre as a whole.

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As you all probably know already, Microsoft has released the source code to Allegience. IIRC, Allegience was from 2000 - think Battlezone in Space. It was actually quite a good game from what I've heard, but it suffered from poor timing - the game was released during the height of the "space sims suck" movement, and suffered from poor sales.

Microsoft eventually discontinued its Gaming Zone servers, but private ones continued to run the game and distribute it in hopes of finding new fans - I've had the situation described to me by a longtime fan as "free warez", and similar to distribution of FreeSpace 2 on "abandonwarez" sites before Interplay pulled the plug on that by rereleasing the game. In fact, a lot of the things sound suspiciously like FS2 - a flagship space combat game released by a leading publisher, poor sales that eventually led to its demise, a small but devoted fan base that kept the game alive, and the release of the source code by the publisher.

Speaking of Freespace 2, plans for a re-release were recently announced by Interplay, but the rather exorbiant $50 asking price has left some people suspicious. I don't think this is some sort of EVIL PLOT by Interplay to screw over fans, though - most of the existing FS fans already know about the Source Code Project (a project to "modernize" the FS2 engine, as it were, and a rather successful one at that) and are unlikely to shell out fifty quid for the re-release. And anyway, $100,000 is less than chump change for a MegaCorp like Interplay - there's absolutely no chance of turning a meaningful profit from this (in fact, it's more likely to generate a loss, which if true would be pretty impressive considering Interplay's financial state).

No, it's more likely an attempt to win over new fans (as a promotion for a future Freespace 3? we'll see) who don't know you can buy 20 copies of FS2 for 20 dollars on eBay. The ones who've never played a computer game before (and yes, there are still those) or aren't familiar with PC gaming, and might be tempted to pick it up, not knowing it's five years old. Or are the FS fans saying it can't compete with modern space sims? (which is itself an oxymoron - there have been three space sims in the past three years, not counting Freelancer).

Coupled with X-2: The Threat, the release of the Allegience source code, rumors of a new Wing Commander game and even Derek Smart's Universal Super Desktop Commander 3000 Millenium Edition, it's a good time to be a space sim fan - I can't think of there being this many options in the genre since 1999. Hopefully the space sim slump is nearly finished - we're almost past the age of MMORPGs, and the only ones that'll matter are continuations of existing franchises (Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Everquest II, Ultima Online and Middle Earth Online). The whole multiplayer boom as a whole seems to be slowing down as well - there are few games like Counter-Strike on the horizon, and one of the biggest titles on the horizon, DooM III, is single-player focused.

With all the industry fads dying down, what will the publishers go for? How about space sims? This all could mark a resurgence similar to the RPG renaissance in the early '90s spawned by games like Diablo (and how many times has Freelancer, for instance, been compared with Diablo? :p). Things are most definitely looking up.
 
Hmm, I think the fans are reading too much into the re-release of FS2. I happen to have a special 10th Anniversary Interplay Classic Collection sitting on my shelf - they seem to like special anniversary re-releases. Back then, of course, both the market and Interplay itself were smaller, so perhaps selling a few thousand copies of this collection would have made a greater difference, but it still wouldn't have been the most profitable of products.

The FS2 re-release needs to be looked at in this context - it's just a special release for Interplay's 20th anniversary. Most likely, it's got nothing to do with FS3 (if it did, you'd have heard of FS3 already - this special edition would do absolutely nothing to promote FS3 if the gap between them was longer than a few months). Furthermore, its costs are probably minimal - Interplay probably has a lot of spare copies of FS2 lying around. To repackage them is no problem. And the fact that they're only selling this through their online store is interesting - given that a company gets something like 30% of the revenues from a game sold through ordinary retail stores, one of the reasons for this re-release may be to encourage people to buy more games directly from them. An alternative explanation, of course, would be that ordinary distributors have simply expressed no interest in selling it. Whichever explanation you choose, it still indicates that as far as a space-sim revival goes, this re-release has little meaning.

The question remains - was Freelancer successful? How is X2 doing? So far, I've seen little evidence of Freelancer's success (especially given its pathetically long development time). To compare it to Diablo, which sold something like a million copies, is a bit of an exaggeration.

Meanwhile, if we are going to assume that these other "industry fads" must die before space-sims can reappear (why?), then an important issue will be the success of the current wave of MMORPGs. So, how is Star Wars Galaxies doing? World of Warcraft, certainly, has a very good chance of success, as does Warhammer Online - all three of these games are targetting well-established fanbases. If these turn out to be bigger successes, than, say, The Sims Online (which wasn't actually a failure, just not a stand-out success), that will indicate that the MMORPG wave is far from over. Then, of course, there's Ultima X - not quite UO, but not a single-player game either, as I understand. And Counter-Strike... consider that Counter-Strike was a fanmade mod. There wasn't really anything particularly revolutionary about Half-Life's multiplayer capabilities - the game was very much oriented towards the single-player experience. So, both Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 have a good chance of continuing this multiplayer boom that you mentioned, simply because both will almost certainly be mod-friendly (HL2 in particular).

The conclusion seems to be that all these "industry fads" are far from dead. Maybe that's bad news - but then again, I don't think so. You mentioned that Allegiance failed because it was released at a bad time. Well, Diablo was released at a very bad time, and somehow managed to become a best-seller.
 
Quarto said:
Hmm, I think the fans are reading too much into the re-release of FS2. I happen to have a special 10th Anniversary Interplay Classic Collection sitting on my shelf -
Would that ORIGIN/EA would "get into" these sorta releases; then we might have a snowball's chance in hell of obtaining a copy of WC: KS at a reasonable price...

::sighs::

:(
 
Quarto said:
...I happen to have a special 10th Anniversary Interplay Classic Collection sitting on my shelf - they seem to like special anniversary re-releases...
Would that ORIGIN/EA would "get into" these sorta releases; then we might have a snowball's chance in hell of obtaining a copy of WC: KS at a reasonable price...

::sighs::

:(
 
Personally, I don't care too much about a KS re-release, maybe a "Wing Commander: Collectors Edition" containing all the games up to Secret Ops would be nicer.

I mean, KS contains Wing Commander 1, my favorite game of all time, but I would like something more, something that tells me Wing Commander is alive as a whole Universe in stores all aorund the world.

I swear that I am still waiting for the day when EA says: "A new Wing Commander is in the works to be released in christmas of 2007".
 
Actually, I'd still be happy if they just re-released like a budget CDs-only KS. After all, it might be hard for them to justify creating a new compilation, seeing how they're ignoring the WC series as a whole. Then again, it probably wouldn't be that hard. They could even stick it on a few DVD-ROMs to save on manufacturing costs (unlikely, though, since you'd have to finagle the market segmentation).

Also, I don't think the "space sims suck" movement was the real reason for Allegiance's demise. At least during the beta test, it was fairly popular. A lot of those people evaporated when the game was finished and went commercial (as folks tend to do). After that, it had trouble regaining its momentum.

I think it would have been a smarter move on Microsoft's part to make the online component free (besides the free mini-zones), since they were selling the client for like $50 anyway (or alternately, offered the client as a free download, along with a 1 month trial period or something). As far as I can tell, though, Microsoft (as a publisher) doesn't really "get" gaming. They just publish a product, sell some copies, and then forget about it and move on; there seems to be very little after market support. I can't think of many Microsoft-published expansion packs, for example.

I suppose the business model they were aiming for (with Allegiance) was a sort of Warbirds/Air Warrior-type thing (like they were doing with Fighter Ace and their other online properties). When the dedicated fan base with the $$$ failed to materialize fast enough, they pulled the plug. Really, Allegiance had a lot of positive buzz, but it was hard to convince other people to get into it, due to the up front cost and the monthly fees. It's the sort of money sink that MMORPG players seem to be willing to put up with, but for all of its touting as a 'massively multiplayer space sim', it really didn't have the level of content or player base to draw people in over the price barrier.

What people are paying $10/month for is the opportunity to lead an alternate, virtual life, not to hack and slash zombies/spaceships/what-have-you. Combat is something to allow people to socialize (oddly enough), but it can be only taken so far. I would argue the popularity of online WW2 fighter sims is based more on the activities of clans looking to relive history than on your individual gamer. There isn't that historical backdrop in a futuristic sci-fi theme (arguably a problem with a lot of sci-fi properties; with a historical setting, even fantastical, if you leave out a few details somebody can always check an encyclopedia for how a 'mace' works, for example, and incorporate it into their imaginings; it's kinda hard to do the same thing with a 'neutron accelerator', or even more exotically, alien species).

*edit*
I think Earth and Beyond suffered a similar fate. While you might draw the parallel between Allegiance and E&B in that they're both space games, while E&B is more of a traditional MMORPG, and thus proving the point that they both suffered from the "space sims suck" factor, rather than something else... I would disagree. Admittedly, the "space sims suck" factor reduced the potential market, but I don't think it's a problem that couldn't have been overcome with some aggressive early growth. The folks who market MMORPGs need to realize that they're sources of long term revenue, but that their attractiveness long term depends almost exclusively on attracting a large, self-propagating player community; thus, in the short term, they have to be willing to take an early loss to rapidly ramp up the player base. Later on, the E&B folks have introduced all sorts of special deals in a somewhat desperate attempt to pull people in, but by this time nobody is really interested in E&B enough to take them up on it.

I think the early E&B marketing suffered from the 'it's an MMORPG, we'll attract 50,000 subscribers overnight and make billions!' perception of the time. It was about the time that a number of other hyped MMORPG projects started doing poorly, too; before them, people only saw the glittering dollar signs of the successful Ultima Online and EverQuest games. Of course, how much of a "failure" E&B and other MMORPG games of its generation really are is somewhat debatable, since they continue to generate revenue streams that probably more than pay for the monthly maintenance cost. Still, they haven't really fulfilled their promise of being the next blockbuster MMORPG.
 
The death of the 'space sim market' is just a microcosm of PC gaming in general. The era of big budget mass market PC games is coming to an end. In the early nineties PC gaming went from being a niche to mass market... companies were suddenly willing to pay hundred person development teams to produce million selling games.

This is, largely, no longer profitable. In the publics eye, the PC no longer holds a significant advantage over the next generation console. Why pay to upgrade my PC each year when I can spend $200 on an X-Box that will let me do almost all of the same things?

Now, I'd be very, very hard pressed to call a solid half decade of huge sales failures as "definately looking up"... but I do have some hopes.

For PC gaming in general, I hope that this means a return to the innovative "hobbyist" development of the late eighties. That means no more massively multiplayer servers and no more full motion video... but I, personally, think we'd be better off. The gaming industry needs to earn our respect again, and innovation instead of flash is the only way to do that.

For Wing Commander... I think the console market is the only way to resurrect the series. EA assosciates Wing Commander (with good reason) as being symbolic of the 'FMV' market dud of the late nineties. Given the shot, a well done PS2/X-Box Wing Commander story can eliminate these fears. If EA can get behind this, we can bring the series back.
 
Hey, is Allegiance a MMOG only, or did it allow for just the user to play it on his own PC against the AI?...
 
Whoa...Bob...Im an old FS2 fan, but I havent heard anything bout FS3. I remember the HAL squadron was trying to create one but it went south. Can you update me on some of the info and such? LIke the source code proj and the fs3 ness?
 
Well, everyone knows that the Freespace series was originally supposed to be a trilogy; the ending of the 2nd game clearly implied a 3rd game. However, FS2 sales and the general market mood apparently didn't justify FS3, and the development studio moved on to Red Faction; that's about as far as I know what happened to Volition, but Interplay seems to be one of the losers in the game industry consolidation dance. Anyway, Bob was just speculating; there's no reason to believe anyone is working on a FS3, but it's not impossible.

Allegiance didn't have an AI, as far as I know. I think there was supposed to be a training mode, but that was more in the line of fly around and learn how to push buttons. Wouldn't really make much sense to have an AI, really, because the main draw of the game is the endless combat against your fellow human beings.

I disagree that the PC game market is necessarily dying; perhaps it's stagnant, compared to growth in the console business, but I still think games on the PC just play better than your average console game (although one improvement I would suggest would be a keyboard where I could push all the keys at once and have them register).

The reason why consoles are so popular with publishers is that there's a larger installed base, and that base is homogenous, thus it's easier to program for and sell to, and thus the publisher recoups its costs faster. It's a simple equation of money, not whether or not you can make a great game that runs on a console. Consoles will always fall behind the curve of the latest and greatest on the PC, simply because they aren't updated as often (this is both their greatest strength and weakness).

Then again, maybe it's just me. I haven't found any need to buy any of the consoles, because the games that are exclusive to the consoles largely hold no appeal for me. Sure, there are those games that it seems like everyone else has played, like Final Fantasy whatever-number-they're-up-to-now, but even if I was really into that genre, I could be happy playing the alternatives on the PC.

For those that must absolutely play every hit game that ever comes out, they'll probably end up buying both a console and a PC, because there will always be titles that only come out for one or the other, or play better on one or the other.

Consoles are becoming more and more PC-like as time goes by, but you'll probably never see a good (emphasis on good) port of 'Civilization' or 'SimCity' or 'Warcraft' for consoles, simply because your average console doesn't target the kind of market where having a keyboard and a high resolution display is really useful. (Though the thing with the high resolution display will probably change in the future as HDTV increases in penetration, I doubt that the console makers will want to support the plethora of output resolutions and video standards you find on a more traditional computer.)

So, in the end, and as always, it's all about profit. Publishers don't pay for 100 man teams any more because a 100 man team for a game is simply unnecessary. The gamers have spoken with their wallets, and those massive productions never received the critical acclaim or market success that justified the cost, with a few rare exceptions (like the WC series) that simply prove the rule. Consoles are even more attractive because of the size of the market and relative simplicity of targeting a fixed hardware base. However, realize that modern console programming isn't like programming for the original NES, for example; instead of a lot of assembly code to work with customized chip sets, development for consoles has become a lot like development for PCs (especially in the case of the Xbox), using standard SDKs and high level languages, to the point where you can cross-develop the same game for PS2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC simultaneously. If you think about how relatively varied all those platforms are, and how rarely you see a game come out on PC and Mac simultaneously, that's a fairly impressive feat, yet it's become routine these days for the really anticipated titles.

So, to conclude, the predictions of the death of PC gaming remain premature. Publishers will never really forfeit the market, because it's still a sizable chunk of cash, and there will always be developers for which the PC is the only platform which is capable of executing their vision (id software currently being one example).
 
An interesting thing to note about this rerelease of FS2 is that I live in a place where I'd need to pay something like $16 just for shipping (using FedEx, thank you Interplay...). I'm NOT buying from Interplay's online shop. Heartwarming to see such concern about trans-atlantic customers...

Personally, I'm still waiting for a game that appeals to me as much as Freespace 2/Neverwinter Nights... (Sure, Freelancer is nice and all, but the replay-value can be estimated with pretty much one finger. Unless you go online, of course.) With Black Isle's demise (firing everyone but two is NOT closing the studio??), Volition's focus on console-titles - thanks to THQ - and Particle Systems'... assimilation, things don't really brighten until the Falcon-series is reinvigorated (G2 Interactive is keeping themselves busy with it).
Sure, PC-gaming isn't dead, it's just... not as satisfying as it was when Grim Fandango came out. All bells and whistles and no brains (not counting RTS)...
 
I didnt know it was originally suppose to be a triolgy, but I knew that there was a cliff hanger at the end of two when they blew up the knossos. Maybe theres a slight chance the FS2 resale will be good enough that fs3 might be taken into consideration. I know when I was talking with half of my squad they were uber enthusiastic...maybe word of it is going around. I hope so. I dont konw if I plan on buying the rerelease because I still have mine...but maybe I might. Who knows. Whats this code project for the FS2 thing on though?
 
freespace.volitionwatch.com , scroll down until you see FS2 Source Code Project (FSSCP). Check out the homepage and/or its HLP-forum. With all the bells and whistles they've added, FS2 Open runs pretty much the same on my newer flashy rig as the retail did on Ye Olde P2 450. :cool: Yarr. Specular lighting and shinemaps completely owns.
 
Lets see here, I never played Allegiance, I played freespace 2 sometimes as single player but not multiplayer.

Parsec is dead after the source code got realeased.

X2 - The threat was Starship Tycoon.

Freelancer was a fun game but it didn't show any realism especially the no joystick flight.

Sometimes I play Jumpgate(space sim mmopg).

This reminds me when there is a customizable space sim(as in adding new content to the game), there seems to be star-trek, star wars, babylon 5 mods all over the place.
 
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