I dunno about what IOI said regarding item loss years ago, but I do know that “merces” was never written “mercers” at any point during Freelancer’s development until now :x
Damn autocorrect. I didn’t see it.
Now this is where the Mandela Effect is getting to me because I could have sworn that a couple times in development/before release they were called “mercers”, or it was subtitled that way on a video somewhere, or it was written with the R in a description somewhere.
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Pretty sure IOI always called them Merces. I distinctly remember being annoyed when other people kept saying Mercers with the extra R…
apparently I even ran a poll about it back in 22…
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See this is kind of a Nutella situation for me. I know it’s “supposed to” be pronounced “noo-tella” but I’m never going to say that because it sounds dumb as hell :p
Same with “Merces”. It sounds so silly that there’s just no way you’ll get me to say it… unless you let me say that the singular is “Merce” 
One Mercer, many Mercers.
One Merce, many Merces.
simple :]
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That was probably a typo, as “merces” is tied to one of the ICA’s Latin catchphrases (“merces letifer” / “blood money”) while “mercers” would just be a group of cloth sellers :x
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Right, and what I’m telling you is that if that was ever implemented, it was never exposed to members of the public - it’s interesting as a nugget of trivia about IOI’s internal development and playtesting processes and how they explore what’s fun and what isn’t when developing a game.
…But, as much as I’d love to believe it, I need to see some evidence and now you’re trying to put the burden of finding it on me. I’ll politely pass.
I’m not putting the burden on anyone. I’m saying that’s what I remember and I don’t know where to even look for confirmation. If you are so certain that that was never a thing publicly disclosed, which would have been the only way I would have known about it, then you by implication must know where to find all the pre-release communications that IOI did share publicly in order to know that they never said this. So, point me where to look for those communications, and I’ll go through them to find out what the discrepancy is. If you won’t or can’t do that, I’m going to assume that you don’t know where those communications are, are going solely off of memory yourself, and are therefore no more certain than I am of what IOI did or did not say on the matter. In which case, this discussion is pointless.
What I do know to be true is that IOI never implemented Freelancer in the way you described and let the public see it.
When you work on something creative, you will always try things that turn out to be crap and you will undo them and the public never sees it - that’s a core part of the creative process.
So, the crux of the matter is that it’s irrelevant what they tried internally. I’m not going to judge any game by measuring stuff the developers did internally that happened to be intimated to the public, only by what they shipped. That is the only reasonable and fair way to do so.
That’s fine. All I’m saying is that this was the original plan. Maybe I had the timing wrong and it was changed for CTT and not as a result of the CTT. As I’ve said, that was years ago and I don’t remember which was which. But the only relevant part was that the initial plan was a lost campaign would result in a clear out, and then they decided against it.
I know a lot of people said it worked that way during the CTT. It never did for me though. I’m not sure what all that was about. I never heard anything official about it working that way.
This is a contradiction.
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No it’s not. I’m not asking him to do the research, just tell me where the material is. It’s like asking someone to tell them which library you can find a particular book in so you can go through it and answer their question: telling them which library isn’t putting the burden of doing the actual research on them. My words make that very clear.
I don’t suppose these are the articles you’re referring to @Heisenberg? 
https://ioi.dk/hitman/blogs/2023/freelancer-difficulty-and-the-persistency-rules-of-freelancer-tools
https://ioi.dk/hitman/blogs/2023/freelancer-from-ctt-to-launch
These articles talk about changes to Freelancer following feedback from the CTT?
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Yes, those appear to be them, or at least some of them. And in reading those over, it appears that I have indeed remembered incorrectly. I’m not sure if I misinterpreted “tools” as being all items accumulated before actually playing the mode and realizing the difference, or if something was said earlier on in the announcements for the mode that was worded in such a way that it made it sound to me like everything would be lost upon campaign failure.
This does lead me to another conundrum though; what was I thinking of when I misremembered losing all items upon failure, and what was changed after the CTT that I’m misremembering as them changing that?
At first, I personally complained that the penalties for mistakes in Freelancer were too harsh, but after spending more time with this mode, I take it back. I’ve gained so much experience that following most of the guidelines while maintaining SA/SO status isn’t difficult for me anymore. I’m even considering switching to Hardcore because the game no longer offers me a challenge. When someone starts, they’ll probably be disgusted by the high entry threshold, but I think the mode is well-balanced. Losing tools might not seem realistic, but it’s a good motivator to try harder.
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In fairness, not necessarily an incorrect conclusion to draw, albeit not a preferable one.
The two big ones I remember:
- Total number of suspects reduced for late-campaign showdowns.
- All Merces prices and rewards adjusted by a factor of 100x
If I did that, I’d be tense all the time playing Freelancer!! 
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve played Freelancer consistently since launch and I think I could say I’ve mastered it now by how I play and plan my missions, but if I fully switched to Hardcore mode, I don’t think I could relax while playing because I’d be constantly tense! 
I enjoyed my first and only Hardcore run, but I’m in no rush to return just yet.
Do the trinity pistols count towards Prestige reset?
Wrong, they do not. All DLC Weapon.