Since ive done no modding in the past weeks ill at least use the chance to loose a few words about the mod.
How sick are we? thats what i wrote in the topic
the answer is pretty simple... we are maniacs when it comes to creating a good mod.
Lets start with the story.
The crossfire story originaly got told via the chapters that you can find in FLMM and the CF readme.
Thats how everything started.
Every mod version has its own chapter. For CF1.8 of course we added a new one.
The chapters are actually the red line through the mod showing the most important changes from one version to the next. Often they are the hint where to start looking for something inside the game.
With Crossfire 1.4 a 2nd story element got added. The quests. These tell an ingame story based on rumours, data disks, wreck informations and news. The quests are directly linked with the story main plot that is being told by the crossfire chapters. So it comes as example that one of the CF chapters tells you where to start a quest. Of course Crossfire 1.8 will have new exciting quests leading the player through the Crossfire story.
During the development of CF1.8 I thought "hey thats not enough". The Crossfire chapters show what has happened, the quests show how that stuff has happened but we dont have something yet that explains why everything happens. We of course explained the "why" here on the forum several times but you know how hard it is to find something if you dont know that it does exist.
So we created the 3rd story element of Crossfire which covers all open questions... a story elements which completes the story to the point that the mod is developed.
12 high quality short stories and a developers prequel have been written. But we are not talking about ordinary short stories telling a bit bla bla here and a bit bla bla there. We are talking about short stories that are being told in the original Freelancer style. Reading through those stories is not like reading a story of a mod. Its like reading an extended story of the original game that makes FL even more epic.
And again this new story element is directly linked with the Crossfire story chapters and the ingame quests.
Yesterday I was thinking about releasing a few short stories as a sneak preview but i dropped this idea pretty soon because already the first stories contain too much information that i can release them now. You simply have to wait until the mod gets released.
The Crossfire story chapters aswell as the short stories will then be available on the new CF launcher.
The forth story element:
The 4th is a real story mode... a singleplayer storyline extension.
But before you cry hurrey... it wont be part of CF1.8.
This work is pretty time consuming and will not make it to be released with the next version. Probably there will be an update that intruduces this feature.
The storyline mode will simply link the already existing quests and deal as a red line through the ingame story.
Next to the direct story elements descibed above we also have our indirect elements. Hundreds of new rumours, thousands of new infocards with side stories, tenthousands of new infocards in total.
Every object in CF has its own story.
Even nebulas and asteroid fields got their own names and descriptions.
Ever missed that?
"This is Neutro Station, where are you heading?"
"This is GMG Transport Alpha-1, we are heading to the Crossfire system"
Yep CF1.8 will come with new voice samples that complete the feeling of fantastic game atmosphere.
Thousands of new textures, hundreds of new effects, tenthousands of infocards, high quality ships and stations, detailed systems that give a very dynamic feeling and a very interesting storyline... thats CF 1.8.
Many mods out their get presented with flashy screenshots, good textures maybe a few new effects. I believe that is not enough. I believe CF1.8 is going to offer what others can not offer. Details and a round concept based on FREELANCER.
2 years of development for CF1.8... 2 years of development for 2,5-3GB... yeah and?
It took Digital Anvil 6 years to code the original game and that has only 700mb.
like a constantanius vois wich is reading the rulls of the server in a god like voices 
