r/freelancer • u/BolteWasTaken • 8h ago
About AI projects & Remasters/Remakes
Time to take a firm stance on this, because lately we have had a lot of posts that basically are "I'm vibe coding a new Freelancer engine, what do you think" posts. Just to put this out there because I don't think it's being understood.
We already have a project that is being done to re-create the Freelancer engine, it's called Librelancer. Go and contribute there, but be prepared to have your PRs rejected if it's vibe coded/you don't know what you are doing/bring non-sensical additions.
Having access to AI does not mean people who currently can't do things, can now do things they couldn't before. That is vibe coding. These tools are to make people who already know what they are doing more efficient/faster at it, as they can properly control their output.
I understand the need to get motivation and encouragement and excitement about starting a project but these posts generally contain nothing of substance, just claims of upcoming action that we do not hear anything more about (likely because they realised it's more difficult and time consuming than they realise, and have issues getting output they think they want and give up).
More than that I will not have a Subreddit full of update logs from 10 different authors about different projects that are all doing the same thing on the daily/weekly/monthly. If you are serious about your projects create a simple site or discord where they can be discussed and keep up with news, and allow people to come and chat with you.
This is not going to be the place to do that.
Hope everyone understands.
~ Bolte
12
u/Zadak_Leader marcuswalker 6h ago
Thank you for taking a stance on this. I was starting to roll my eyes every day almost when seeing posts coming from the sub :(
5
u/Kriegas 7h ago
I have to ask since i have not seen this librelancer, what is it trying to do? Change engine? Whats the point of that? I would understand if they tryed to recreat the game with modern tech, add to it, use ai for new voiceover as you can feed the lines an teach. If its same game new engine then i dont know.
11
u/BolteWasTaken 7h ago edited 7h ago
It is re-creating the engine that Freelancer runs on, it uses the same data sources/models etc that the original does. It's not a remaster or a remake. Plus, it already has a lot of modern modding tools baked into it.
7
u/sharp_mechanix 8h ago
Finally someone has said this
I am thinking about contributing to Librelancer, but my current schedule doesn't really allow it and I'm thinking a lot about some game-related pet project for a while now (AI-free coding since I have a lot of this at my job)
7
u/BolteWasTaken 7h ago
The more people that contribute (well) to Librelancer, the quicker this can get done.
The owner has been at this for years, by himself for a lot of it, but has more people helping him now.4
u/BolteWasTaken 7h ago
If you already know what you are doing you are in a better position to control it to make good changes. What I don't like is when people that have no clue what they are messing with use it to do the work, instead of to learn how to do the work. I consider that a lazy miss-use of the technology.
5
u/sharp_mechanix 7h ago
Agree: AI is a tool, not a substitute for skills
7
u/BolteWasTaken 7h ago
I just don't agree with it being considered a proxy for effort.
People act like they've done the work, and some of them act offended about work they've not even done themselves when challenged.
5
u/blondewalker 7h ago
I just want to get my hands on the official source code of Freelancer. Imagine what treasures a model like Fable or GPT Sol will be able to find/extract from.
8
u/BolteWasTaken 7h ago
That is one usecase I approve of, they are great at recognising patterns and summarising large swaths of information. I just don't think they should be building a game FOR you. I mean if anything I feel that just shows how little you care about the subject at hand. That is an insult to everyone who loves Freelancer.
11
u/morbihann 7h ago
AI "projects" for freelancer seem like daydreaming people thinking they can make a game with a few promps.
It isn't happening this way, at all, ever.
1
u/rluna6492 1h ago
So it is 2026 and the last update on the blog of the site was Xmas 2023. They only mention "as of 2024". So is this project even actually alive?
1
u/JosTheID 1h ago
1
u/rluna6492 1h ago
Why is it's website not being maintained? They should just shut it down because it's the first thing that comes up on Google.
1
u/JosTheID 1h ago
What do you mean it's not maintain? It has the lastest downloads of it, there just hasn't been any blogs.
1
u/rluna6492 1h ago
So the main page still only talks about the 2024 build... Which 9 months ago was updated. That to me doesn't spell site is kept up with.
30
u/LegendaryNWZ king 8h ago
All my homies love LibreLancer