Freelancer Facebook Group

There are 27 replies in this Thread. The last Post () by Blake00.

    Hey guys,


    I've tried hunting a few times over the years for a Freelancer Facebook group as it seems wrong that such a great classic of a game doesn't have a proper presence on social media. Doesn't help that the word 'freelancer' brings up a gazillion other unrelated groups in the fb search box lol!


    I found a post at the starport mentioning 2 groups but the link is dead and I can't find any trace of the other one they mention.
    The Starport - A Freelancer Game Fansite :: Freelancer joins Facebook... again! - Freelancer Community News - News


    So in the end I decided to make my own as over the years I've created groups for other ageing classic like Starflight, Master of Magic, and Sid Meier's Colonization which have been going quite well and have grown into nice little communities. You can find it here:
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/freelancergame/


    If there are indeed some existing Freelancer FB groups please let me know where they are so I can join. If there's some really big good ones out there that I've failed to find then I'll get rid of mine as they'll be no need for it!


    IBbxSnz.png

    BGx3xEC.gif
    Blake's Sanctum:
    - Total Conversion mods: Star Trek Doom 2, Quest for Glory IV-3D Hexen, & Star Wars Civilization 2
    - Game Shrines: Age of Wonders, Babylon 5 Games, Command & Conquer, Elder Scrolls, Dune Games, Final Fantasy, Freelancer , Heroes of Might & Magic, Master of Magic, Quest for Glory Series, Starflight, & Star Trek Games

    Edited once, last by Blake00 ().

    Ok, not only its a nice idea, but... on that FB page you added your original Freelancer tour videos, watching them felt so melancholic and beautiful in its own way, it really touched me... reminded me a bit of why its the only game I actually bought twice (mostly because I thought I lost the original, but still worth getting it again). Pic of it's spanish cover version included xD


    And a tip, the FB banner image seems a bit streched and out of bounds (for me at least), would be nice to fix for its size.


    PS: I actually discovered a game I never heard of in the Freelancer related and similar games file you added there!

    Files

    Chars: [CFPD]Michael~something (x25), [CFPD]~SQMS~{[(store)]} (x3), [CFPD]xfer, Event~Manager~Michael, StarfIier~EM~Michael, Event_Team_2, [GR]Michael[SP] and a blueprint of [CFPD]Sephirothis

    Edited once, last by Michael ().

    werent we told to delete facebook recently?

    signew.jpg


    cfmoddblogo.png5904.png5904.png
    http://www.moddb.com/scripts/topsite.php?ts=4766


    Only dead fish swim with the stream.
    Don't discuss with idiots. They only drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience there.


    This is ten percent luck,
    Twenty percent skill,
    Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
    Five percent pleasure,
    Fifty percent pain,
    And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!

    You mean copyright related ? Hope its not related to bantering caused by a third party group on FB... FB already changed policy n privacy stuff for that.

    Chars: [CFPD]Michael~something (x25), [CFPD]~SQMS~{[(store)]} (x3), [CFPD]xfer, Event~Manager~Michael, StarfIier~EM~Michael, Event_Team_2, [GR]Michael[SP] and a blueprint of [CFPD]Sephirothis

    Quote from Michael

    Ok, not only its a nice idea, but... on that FB page you added your original Freelancer tour videos, watching them felt so melancholic and beautiful in its own way, it really touched me... reminded me a bit of why its the only game I actually bought twice (mostly because I thought I lost the original, but still worth getting it again). Pic of it's spanish cover version included xD


    And a tip, the FB banner image seems a bit streched and out of bounds (for me at least), would be nice to fix for its size.


    PS: I actually discovered a game I never heard of in the Freelancer related and similar games file you added there!


    Thanks man, yeah I had to fill the group with 'something' and being Freelancer addict I've already got a website full of pictures and videos so I figured it was better to rip myself off instead of someone else to 'sex up' the group page a bit hahaha! :P And yeah I made those videos for people to enjoy but also for myself to enjoy for years to come. I just love putting them up on a big screen tv and just watching all the landings. I enjoyed the space combat but for me my favourite part of the game was visiting planets and space bars etc. Made you feel like you were part of an amazing universe. I'd been meaning to post the videos here but keep forgetting haha.


    Oh and yeah I recently bought myself a nice boxed copy of the game off ebay too haha! Couldn't find my old early 2000s disc and I think it may have been a pirate copy anyway (whoopsie!). I also managed to get my hands on the collectors disc 2 that came with some copies of the game which has that cool extended intro and a making of the game video which is pretty cool to have. :)


    Yup I just rushed that banner in there.. I'll fix it up soon. :)


    Quote from AZ09

    Interesting, makes me wonder what we would need to do with CF's page on there.


    Thanks man. I didn't know CF had a page but I've just managed to find it. I was just talking about this exact issue with another fellow who joined last night. Looks like there's a bunch of Freelancer pages on fb but not groups.


    The best one is this one which I've followed for years..
    https://www.facebook.com/FreelancerGame/


    Discovery appear to have one too.
    https://www.facebook.com/discoverygc/


    However they're all dead as they all have the same problem in that they're a 'fb news page' instead a 'fb group' which means its just 1 or 2 dudes posting news to subscribers, and their fans can only make posts that are hidden away and not seen by other fans (due to no notifications & you have to go to a separate community wall section that nearly no one bothers to look at). Groups are so much better as you can actually create a lasting community. The page admin can still post news about their respective project (if the group is about that) but the fans can post out in the open too leading to lots of good discussions. Even if the admin goes inactive the group lives on. You just can't do that on a news page and as a result they just die out...


    Also found that groups makes a handy backup for ageing forums too. For example I'm a big Starflight fan and in 2015 the SF forum community was in bad shape (thankfully the Freelancer community is in MUCH better shape). 3 of the big 5 forums from the 2000s were gone and the 2 left weren't looking too good either. As a passionate SF fan I didn't want what was left of the community to die off especially as they were working on the Starflight 3 fan game (a pipe dream but a good one) so I created a Starflight facebook group and invited all to drop by and sign up as a backup. Naturally there were several people who said they didn't have fb or that it was evil etc lol. Well.. those guys are gone now.. lost forever.. we don't know where they are.. as last year the last of the SF forums went down and the fb group was all we had left. Fortunately most of the community had signed up by then. Just recently we hit the 170 members mark and were able to get together as a community on there ti track down and get in contact with the admin of the old SF3 site to get him to bring the forums back online and even get the SF3 project going again. Without the fb group, that probably wouldn't have happened and the forum would have just disappeared into oblivion along with the other SF forums. Sadly these days fan game forums come and go all the time but fortunately facebook (love it or hate it) is not going anywhere and its a cool tool for keeping game fan communities going. The other cool thing that happened was new people or old members who hadn't visted the SF forums in years found the facebook group just by doing a fb or google search for starflight and then used my forums links on the fb group page to go and sign up at the forums or return to their ancient forum accounts when they saw some life back there. We had one guy appear who no one had seen on the forums in 10years show up at the fb page lol!


    Needless to say I've put links to the Starport, Crossfire & Discovery forums in a pinned group post lol! Oh and if any of the admin here wanna join, pm me who you are and I'll make you an admin there. That way if I get hit by a bus you guys can keep it going lol!

    BGx3xEC.gif
    Blake's Sanctum:
    - Total Conversion mods: Star Trek Doom 2, Quest for Glory IV-3D Hexen, & Star Wars Civilization 2
    - Game Shrines: Age of Wonders, Babylon 5 Games, Command & Conquer, Elder Scrolls, Dune Games, Final Fantasy, Freelancer , Heroes of Might & Magic, Master of Magic, Quest for Glory Series, Starflight, & Star Trek Games

    Edited 2 times, last by Blake00 ().

    Quote from SWAT_OP-R8R

    werent we told to delete facebook recently?


    No, i don't speak sheep. I try to think for myself when possible. I know these days it seems like a crime to be an independent thinker. George Orwell must be rolling in his grave...


    [Insert rant about the devilry of social media and it's direct link to the decline of our current society]


    There's also nothing wrong with transitioning the entire Swat Portal to Discord. I won't judge but moving 10+ years of content is no simple task. That said there HAVE been attempts at a Crossfire Teamspeak and I know that Gunny and a few others waaaaaayyy back when would group chat in Skype.


    Gunny...

    i am on discord

    signew.jpg


    cfmoddblogo.png5904.png5904.png
    http://www.moddb.com/scripts/topsite.php?ts=4766


    Only dead fish swim with the stream.
    Don't discuss with idiots. They only drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience there.


    This is ten percent luck,
    Twenty percent skill,
    Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
    Five percent pleasure,
    Fifty percent pain,
    And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!

    Quote from AZ09

    New Mission: To find OP



    lol sorry man I only just saw your chat msg. This forums a bit 'fancier' than most forums so I'm still getting used to where I need to look for alerts. Didn't even know there was a chat mode hahaha

    BGx3xEC.gif
    Blake's Sanctum:
    - Total Conversion mods: Star Trek Doom 2, Quest for Glory IV-3D Hexen, & Star Wars Civilization 2
    - Game Shrines: Age of Wonders, Babylon 5 Games, Command & Conquer, Elder Scrolls, Dune Games, Final Fantasy, Freelancer , Heroes of Might & Magic, Master of Magic, Quest for Glory Series, Starflight, & Star Trek Games

    And now that I've finally noticed that feature, its gone haha. AZ09 if you sent me any more chat msgs I'm afraid I din't see them lol!

    BGx3xEC.gif
    Blake's Sanctum:
    - Total Conversion mods: Star Trek Doom 2, Quest for Glory IV-3D Hexen, & Star Wars Civilization 2
    - Game Shrines: Age of Wonders, Babylon 5 Games, Command & Conquer, Elder Scrolls, Dune Games, Final Fantasy, Freelancer , Heroes of Might & Magic, Master of Magic, Quest for Glory Series, Starflight, & Star Trek Games

    Figured I may as well post this here..


    It's been slow going but the old Freelancer Facebook Group is finally closing in on 100 members mark which is nice. Got me thinking about whether Freelancer was properly represented on other big social media platforms like Reddit and Discord too. Figured if I couldn't find any I'd make my own, however I was pleased to see that I didn't have to worry as there's some pretty healthy groups out there on them these days.


    Here's the links if it's of interest to anyone...


    Freelancer Reddit: Freelancer Subreddit

    Freelancer Discord: Discord


    Nice to see Freelancer preserved and having a presence on all major social media platforms now.


    .

    BGx3xEC.gif
    Blake's Sanctum:
    - Total Conversion mods: Star Trek Doom 2, Quest for Glory IV-3D Hexen, & Star Wars Civilization 2
    - Game Shrines: Age of Wonders, Babylon 5 Games, Command & Conquer, Elder Scrolls, Dune Games, Final Fantasy, Freelancer , Heroes of Might & Magic, Master of Magic, Quest for Glory Series, Starflight, & Star Trek Games

    Im not that much into Facebook at all and I left that Discord channel after just one week because I see huge issues on that channel. I voiced my concerns to the owner of the channel... these concerns more or less were confirmed and since I didn't want to be involved in something that is distracting and potentially harmful at the same time, I requested the removal of all links to our websites and the CF discord server and then left.


    Discord can be a useful tool when done correctly.

    It can be damaging when done wrong. In that one week I have seen an extreme high amount of false information. Stuff that even caused problems when a guy from a different server made wrong claims about how stuff in CF works. People with the lack of proper knowledge easily spread false information on such chats while the correct information would be available either on server related forums or on the established modding websites. But the people on such chats are way too fast typing what they believe to be true instead of guiding people to the place where the real information is written.

    And it does not help the real modding communities problems and ideas are only discussed on a chat. Everything written on a chat is doomed to be lost after a few days. Nobody scrolls through days/weeks/months of chat logs. And every information that is lost on the chat is also lost for the next visitors.

    The existence of such Discord channels distract from the places where the real information can be found and where discussions about important topics should take place with the result that the real sources of knowledge are visited less frequently and the amount of false information people share starts to increase.

    Just a few days ago I was informed that one FL modding community with extremely valuable content would shut down in a few weeks (• View topic - Forums going down?). Much important information would be lost. Fortunately a solution was found. It is more important than ever before that such sources of knowledge are supported. Facebook, Reddit and Discord in my eyes should only serve to guide people to the correct websites/forums/communities instead of trying to replace those. Unfortunately people prefer fast and easy answers over correct ones.


    Server related Discord channels on the other hand can be useful because people will encounter people with detailed knowledge about that specific environment. But a community wide channel in my eyes will never work unless it is very well structured (something I did not experience).

    Another issue that bothers me is the spam on such Discord servers. Id prefer if people that use such channels for their non-sense discussions were on the servers instead, playing the game. That would be way more constructive.

    signew.jpg


    cfmoddblogo.png5904.png5904.png
    http://www.moddb.com/scripts/topsite.php?ts=4766


    Only dead fish swim with the stream.
    Don't discuss with idiots. They only drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience there.


    This is ten percent luck,
    Twenty percent skill,
    Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
    Five percent pleasure,
    Fifty percent pain,
    And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!

    Ha... I wasn't aware of that group too, I only knew of this one -> crossfire1.82

    As for Discord, I think they just have it as their regular chat, as in to 'hang around', but if they discuss CF topics, why don't they discuss them here on the forum, that's what I don't get as well.

    And why was it about to shut down? Inactivity? The game getting way too old by now?

    But really good to hear that a solution was found!

    Edited once, last by ILIYAN ().