X3-Terran Conflict...
It's pretty damn boring. Despite all of its complexity, the most interesting thing I did was manage a fleet of trading ships, and trust me, that's not even half as cool as it sounds.
Buying my first station turned out to being a ho-hum experience, since all it ever did was generate more money so I could continue my single-minded bacterial-infection takeover of the sector.
The worst part is that there is absolutely no character to the game at all.
Not one NPC has a personality, and this is made worse by the fact that every single NPC is a clone of someone else in both dialogue and mission. The only differences being what random Enemy/Destination/Cargo is involved, and the Prefix-Suffix-generated name.
Very few sectors are distinct-looking or feeling, despite having dazzling graphics and amazing detail. I never thought I'd miss planets in a space-combat sim, but there you go.
I'd gladly trim down the size of the galaxy to even a quarter of its original size if it meant getting access to planets, or being able to interact in some other fashion than via my ship.
X3 looks fantastic, and there is the skeleton of a potentially amazing game in place.
But getting around to doing anything in it takes forever.
OT: If they made a "Freespace 3", they really should adopt a GTA/"Sandbox" model to the game.
You start out small, play through the story and build up your faction. Switch up the gameplay between research, upgrades and combat. Maybe add in some planetary attack/defense missions.
Emphasize the exploration part of the game without drowning the player in the constant mire of grind (like how X3 does).
If that isn't feasible, even episodic/mission oriented gameplay would work as long as it was good enough, and not terribly repetitive.
