The decision about the end of FL Online Gaming already has been made. An employee at Microsoft Games confirmed that Freelancers Global List Server will shut down in the beginning of 2008. Microsoft keeps following its 5 year support policy no matter what the players will think.
This will leave thousands of players without possibility to connect to Freelancer servers.
Of course there is still a way to connect to servers via tools or command line parameters but it will be harder for players to find new servers.
New players which buy Freelancer from one of the various publisher such as Ubisoft (which does sell the game for just a few $) will have the biggest problem. They don't know of any tools or other possibilities to connect to a server. All they will get is a blank screen as soon they want to play Freelancer in Multiplayer.
Indeed sad news.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel.
There are various projects running to bypass or replace the official MS Global List Server and the SWAT Portal already started talks in order to get Freelancer hosted in a different way.
, I hope we will be able to play again in CF MP somehow if the Global Server got shuted down.
