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[Sowelu]

Bribe him?  See, all you have to do is write a really compelling story all on your own, then hand him the script and say "If you give me permission to make this game, I'll let you crap all over this script and then take credit for the whole thing".  He would love you forever.

[Chaoswizkid]

That's right, finally, in 2011, a massive 9 years after the copyright print suggests my rerelease was made...

So, just in case you where wondering if you can play the game or not, I will restate that the game was released (I do believe) before the millenium.

Just to make a point, 2011-9 = 2002. That's three years after the technical "before the millenium."
Not trying to sound like a dick, just poking fun. =P
Now to be helpful:

The game was initially announced by Chris Roberts in 1999, and following many production schedule mishaps and a buyout of Digital Anvil by Microsoft, it was eventually released in March 2003.

At this point, I'd put up links of a few places you could buy it, but I don't have any I'm afraid since my girlfriend ordered it for me. And I think that was from Ebay. However, if anyone has any online shops that sell this game, it'd be nice to have the reference.

I'm sure Amazon carries some. A quick Google search I did show an Amazon hit I believe.

Does anyone here have this game, and if so, still play it?

I used to, but I no longer have it in my possession. Without the Discovery team to carry it's torch, it just kinda burns me out after a while personally. Missions got really competitive, cargo routes were nice and all but when there was no promise for *more* I just fell out of it. I have tried the Disco mod, but didn't have the internet to play online. I'm pretty sure the RP servers are very strict about their rules. Other than that, haven't met anyone. If I can secure myself another copy, I'll probably try and see if there's any more fun to be had on the multiplayer servers.

Certainly a great game, good storyline (although the interim money-gaining mandatory sessions were not that great). It suffered from a lack of having more to do planet-side, which I'm pretty sure not even the Disco mod could really help. Definitely worth $10 if you can pick it up for that price, especially with Disco, but not much replayability unless you can fall in love with multiplayer and the mod development scene that's still ongoing.

[Rakonas]

Still, the long singleplayer campaign is remarkably enjoyable. I didn't even know multiplayer existed for the game until 2009, after I beat it three times over the years.

[Charmander]

This will be the next game on my "play through again" list.

[Tellemurius]

Still, the long singleplayer campaign is remarkably enjoyable. I didn't even know multiplayer existed for the game until 2009, after I beat it three times over the years.

Shit i just remembered that Tabula Rasa went free 2 play last year.

[Tilla]

Still, the long singleplayer campaign is remarkably enjoyable. I didn't even know multiplayer existed for the game until 2009, after I beat it three times over the years.

Shit i just remembered that Tabula Rasa went free 2 play last year.

Uh no, Tabula Rasa went away forever.

[Rex_Nex]

I haz this. I YARRR MATEYS this game. I felt bad for half a second, then started playing and all my emotional boo-boo's were covered in <3 print bandaids.

Discovery Mod is nice Havent done much on single player, is it worth a few days playing around with?

[Twistshock]

The fact that you can kill your engines at a high velocity, turn around and shoot makes sense. What doesn't make sense is how ridiculously quickly you lose your momentum when you stop thrusting. You're pretty much only supposed to lose speed when you reverse thrust.

But yeah, it's a decent game, and there are some servers with 150+ players at some times.

I still prefer X3:TC and X3 because it feels more to scale in my mind.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

I remember being rather disappointed by this game.  The story was entertaining enough, but the "Free" aspect of it was basically non-existant.  It was like a single player MMORPG where you had to follow the main plot missions to the tee with almost no variation.  Also, the mouse control was just really weird.  The voice acting varied from quite good to absolutely terrible.  Try talking to the supposedly Japanese characters and you'll see what I mean about the terrible.  Thankfully the main characters were all pretty good.

The whole game felt really unfinished though.  You beat the single player campaign, and then you get to wander but there really isn't anything more to do except kill stuff in the dozens of systems that weren't used in the campaign.  They also apparently changed the plot quite heavily from it's initial concept if the huge alteration to the intro movie is any indication.  And I wouldn't be surprised if that contributes to the overall unfinished feeling of the game.

[Miggy]

I have this. And I loved this.

I don't think I ever tried any of the mods though. I did try a brief bit of multiplayer, where I discovered...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The outcast and corsair systems, each with their kickass brief backstories, Very Heavy fighters, nomad nebulas with jump holes to unknown systems and ship wrecks with legendary weapons

Which was awesome. I'd have never found that if I had simply just played by myself.

[Ultimuh]

Hmm.. I got this game lying around somewhere..
Do we have a bay12 server for this then?

[Fayrik]

That's right, finally, in 2011, a massive 9 years after the copyright print suggests my rerelease was made...

So, just in case you where wondering if you can play the game or not, I will restate that the game was released (I do believe) before the millenium.

Just to make a point, 2011-9 = 2002. That's three years after the technical "before the millenium."
Not trying to sound like a dick, just poking fun. =P
Now to be helpful:

The game was initially announced by Chris Roberts in 1999, and following many production schedule mishaps and a buyout of Digital Anvil by Microsoft, it was eventually released in March 2003.

Well, as I said, I only got it recently, so I wasn't all too sure when it was released, but I can say without a doubt that my re-release still bears a "©2002" on it. But then it's never too accurate to go by Copyrights...

Sounds really neat. Where can I get this?

Well, as Chaoswizkid said, it's available on Amazon, and I've just found it here on Play.com (UK/EU only I'm afraid).

Do we have a bay12 server for this then?

Not seen one anywhere. I'm quite happy to post the details to my server here, but I need to test how many players can log in at once. Since it's on my home connection, usually I can only get 4 people on Source, but I'm hoping that Freelancer should be a little less connection-demanding.
And, of course, I'll be running the Discovery Mod.

[Weird Guy]

Good times...

Though i'm just happy that the community is still alive. At least the discovery community, though i found it rather hard trying to digging myself into all the RP factions and such. Smuggling still get's my blood pumping

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

There's a massive Star Wars persistant world mod/server for this.  I tried it a bit.  Still wasn't that fond of the gameplay, but if you are, and you like star wars, you might want to check it out.  Here's a link to the mod DB page. http://www.moddb.com/mods/fwtow

[Deon]

...The only (hilarious) flaw was the slide button that let you keep your velocity while turning around or something.  You could afterburn + slide to go fast for longer than normal.

That's not a flaw, that's a feature!
... Well, okay I'll admit it makes running from combat pretty easy, but that said button means that your velocity doesn't change at all. Once you've turned around, you're doing about -200...Great for hairpin turns, not so great for missile evasions.

That's totally a feature. Nobody fights with an engine on, you turn too slow. Everybody uses the engine kill button like 200 times during a fight, and cruise disruptors are DAMN DEADLY because they turn the engine on, which breaks the free flight.

I was in a pirate clan on a Void server, and I was a decent combatant (not too great, but quite good in comparison to tons of noobs who were using their engine to fly and dodge during the combat, and then calling me a hacker because I was always facing and shooting in their direction :3).

Also yeah. That's the best game ever. Custom systems can be really great. It also has a few cool mods and battleships which are used online!

Also there's an awesome mod where each system is a single planet (HUGE!) and you dock to various stations, moons and asteroids.