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Thanks Scimitar101 for informing about the new changes.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/2870/discussions/0/613941122593288671/
X Rebirth 3.0
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X: Rebirth »
X Rebirth 3.0
Orbot
Proguey (12)
Proguey (12)
Posted 9 years ago.
Roguey
Trueguey (22)
Trueguey (22)
Posted 9 years ago.
It seems that Egosoft have made quite a few changes. I didnt realise they changed the station placing until a few days ago. I guess its cos I havnt really been following the game much at all.
Orbot
Proguey (12)
Proguey (12)
Posted 9 years ago.
It is great to see Egosoft pushing X:R forward. It will never be a game everyone likes but personally I'm happy that Egosoft made a new kind of X game. Sure, it has its weaknesses but it is fresheshing to have new ideas for series. This must have been quite a ride for Egosoft as well and I'm convinced they learned a lot what to do and what not to do in future.
My biggest fear what happens to PC games is streamlining. I hope Star Citizen will show a way for PC developers and Egosoft would keep target on PC.
Hopefully X series is not totally dead for you just because one misstep. You have done great work with this website which has been/is a great help for X players.
My biggest fear what happens to PC games is streamlining. I hope Star Citizen will show a way for PC developers and Egosoft would keep target on PC.
Hopefully X series is not totally dead for you just because one misstep. You have done great work with this website which has been/is a great help for X players.
Roguey
Trueguey (22)
Trueguey (22)
Posted 9 years ago.
It is great to see Egosoft pushing X:R forward. It will never be a game everyone likes but personally I'm happy that Egosoft made a new kind of X game. Sure, it has its weaknesses but it is fresheshing to have new ideas for series.
- edqe
- edqe
Unfortunately I dont see it like that. During the alpha and beta stages many testers (including myself) gave egosoft a lot of feedback. However none of it was acknowledged/acted on. So many of the testers either left or stop posting content (at one stage around 80% of testers left). I knew this because I was team-leader a couple of times. I posted 10+ pages directly to CBJ about what I think needs fixing/changing. I knew it was read by CBJ, as some of it was sent to CBJ. I think this is why I listed in the credits like twice.
I have nothing against CBJ, if anything he's a great bloke and was a big part of why I stayed around. I did feel even CBJ was ultimately powerless to shape to the game (at-least during the 6-12 months I was there). Content was added/bug fixed (yes it had more bugs before the release) but none of the dynamics of the game were changed since my first alpha. There was a strong dislike of many things (drones, trading, fighting etc.). However the people in EgosoftHQ were unapproachable in their ivory towers. I thought it was just because they were busy, but even after release this carried on. I even got it acknowledged by ego that there was a lack of communication, and could of been dealt with better.
For me this was one of Egosoft's biggest mistakes. In the past a lot of the games were heavily community based, relying on fans to support the game, either via code, testing or creating content. Without those people X3TC and X3AP would of been completely different games. In a small way I even helped the team with X3AP v3.0, giving them forum space here. X3TC was basically XTM with a few mods. I joined the NDA process to be finally part of the inner workings, as I was constantly on the outside.
A few months after XR release, egosoft bypassed the loyal DNA fans and started talking to the public what they wanted, and opened up public testing. This felt like another kick in the teeth. The testers had already been telling ego what needed to be changed/done like 6 months ago! There was something like 1,000+ unread bug-reports and countless suggestions!
So unfortunately egosoft have lost any rep with me. For the 6-12 months I was there, all I ended up doing was moderating bug-reports (I bet most of them still havnt been read). I wouldnt be surprised if they just deleted them all.
Its a big shame, as all I wanted to do was help egosoft. I felt I owed them something, so I wanted to help them make a better game - I didnt know how but I knew I could do something.. but all it led to me leaving the x-community. In some ways it was so frustrating as im sure I could of done a better job with their resources. As I said in the past, X3AP with XML would of been a major step forward.
I deal with a community as such, and they couldnt of dealt with the public and NDA any worse. Egosoft never say sorry, just plod along releasing patches now-and-then, thinking people will forgive them. I can only blame Bernd, as egosoft do have some talented people. I knew my handing of some things wasnt great but I was fairly new at being a community pillar (as I was told).
Star-Citizen worries me a bit, as do the opposite of Egosoft - a lot of talk. I really hope they can pull-off the game because it will be ground-braking if they do. I havnt been following too well, as I like to see actual game-play content - videos only excite me somewhat. It does worry me how much money people are investing into a game that they have never played. I wouldnt be surprised if falls short a bit to be honest. Elite Dangerous is looking a bit bare-bones for the 16th December. Maybe there is more, but I was thinking this about XR until it released in that state. However with ED they do have a good core which just needs to be built on. Slap on some content and Elite is what XR should of been; fun with depth. The lack of planet landing is a bit of downer although - as this was in the other elites, and the removal of off-line mode is a killer for some. I do think the ED servers will die on release day.
Star-Citizen on the other hand, could be biggest successes or the biggest failures... if it fails I cant imagine what back-lash will be like. It wasnt pretty for XR. Chris will have to move planets.
Oh... and with Limit Theory, Josh looks like he is going an amazing job. However everything from ships, stations, universe are procedural - which I feel is a bit worrying. Random number generators can come up with some silly results. So basing a game around that does sound troubling. Also, how much can one guy do?
Orbot
Proguey (12)
Proguey (12)
Posted 9 years ago.
That was extremely interesting read. Very nice to know in more detail what happened behind the scene but unfortunately it was very sad read as well.
It is very interesting to see how Egosoft is going to do in the future. They seem
to be in quite bad position at the moment. CBJ is not able to keep fans trust high just by himself so Egosoft should change their behaviour to keep them on business at all. What they did to huge fans like you sounds unfixable. Apologies should have already happen. They are making games for niche market. I don't see games like X could ever have a huge amount of gamers these days. Of course that doesn't mean there couldn't be a lot of fans to keep game relevant as they have done so far. Slap fans (spine) to face as you described was very risky and bad move.
There are some changes that makes it feel they try to make X series more easier for "casual gamers" (sorry for sounding elitist). That worries me quite a bit. I still want to believe that silly minigames are just placeholders for the real solution. I'm fine with station walking -module but it definitely requires a better justification to be in the game. At the moment it feels weird extra feature that make game just more cumbersome to play. I wouldn't mind if stations would be used for making X-lore more stronger and interesting; discuss with people, visiting libraries reading books, politics, etc. I think they should forget expensive and restricting voice overs and hire for example Helge Kautz to write deep stories and complex plots.
... that would be just extra of course. The main emphasis should still be on economics and building an imperium - making it more versatile and "complex". I prefer games that requires tens of hours just to learn game mechanism (Europa Universalis) and having a spreadsheet-feeling.
Just for interest. What kind of X game you would like to see in future?
What comes to openess I believe that is something that would help Egosoft a lot. I have open source background where openess is naturally the requirement. Of course projects that has their own vision and can't fulfill all users wished. I personally believe that users has to give projects freedom to try something new. Just like Egosoft did with X:Rebirth but unfortunately they did other huge mistakes as you described. Of course in open source world it is easier because users can always use the old versions and keep developing them by themselves as it has happened in numerous of times.
Just an example project why I like open source:
Planning - https://wiki.gnome.org/ThreePointThirteen/Features/
Discussion - https://wiki.gnome.org/Community/GettingInTouch/
Design - https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups
Implementation - https://git.gnome.org/browse/
GNOME project went through a huge changes during version 3.0 but keeping discussion open despite lots of Internet hate and cr*p the project is in very strong condition again. And because their efforts there now more excellent desktop choices for users than ever before.
-----
Star Citizen is quite a monster and I'm would be very surprised if they manage to make "MMO" game balanced and work as planned. The amount of details and complexity is something never seen in games before.
I do believe that "Wing Commander"-style Squadron 42 campaign will work fine. The flight module is already in quite good condition and there is still time to polish it more. Even walking in the hangar feels good already. There are no many games you actually feel you have a body and you are not just a floating camera. FPS and planetside demos looked very nice as well.
I think they is enough room for many types of space games in the market. Personally I don't want to consider them as competitors since in the end they are quite different and have their own feeling. Fortunately there are many promising games coming. Seldon Crisis was one I was looking forward but the future of the game seems to be a bit uncertain.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=262876062
Edit: Just a mail a got reminded me about one thing ... communication between fans and SC developers is extremely good. The amount of letters, videos and other material they publish is quite amazing. It is expected especially from crowdfunded project and I think they do very good work on that.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link
It is very interesting to see how Egosoft is going to do in the future. They seem
to be in quite bad position at the moment. CBJ is not able to keep fans trust high just by himself so Egosoft should change their behaviour to keep them on business at all. What they did to huge fans like you sounds unfixable. Apologies should have already happen. They are making games for niche market. I don't see games like X could ever have a huge amount of gamers these days. Of course that doesn't mean there couldn't be a lot of fans to keep game relevant as they have done so far. Slap fans (spine) to face as you described was very risky and bad move.
There are some changes that makes it feel they try to make X series more easier for "casual gamers" (sorry for sounding elitist). That worries me quite a bit. I still want to believe that silly minigames are just placeholders for the real solution. I'm fine with station walking -module but it definitely requires a better justification to be in the game. At the moment it feels weird extra feature that make game just more cumbersome to play. I wouldn't mind if stations would be used for making X-lore more stronger and interesting; discuss with people, visiting libraries reading books, politics, etc. I think they should forget expensive and restricting voice overs and hire for example Helge Kautz to write deep stories and complex plots.
... that would be just extra of course. The main emphasis should still be on economics and building an imperium - making it more versatile and "complex". I prefer games that requires tens of hours just to learn game mechanism (Europa Universalis) and having a spreadsheet-feeling.
Just for interest. What kind of X game you would like to see in future?
What comes to openess I believe that is something that would help Egosoft a lot. I have open source background where openess is naturally the requirement. Of course projects that has their own vision and can't fulfill all users wished. I personally believe that users has to give projects freedom to try something new. Just like Egosoft did with X:Rebirth but unfortunately they did other huge mistakes as you described. Of course in open source world it is easier because users can always use the old versions and keep developing them by themselves as it has happened in numerous of times.
Just an example project why I like open source:
Planning - https://wiki.gnome.org/ThreePointThirteen/Features/
Discussion - https://wiki.gnome.org/Community/GettingInTouch/
Design - https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups
Implementation - https://git.gnome.org/browse/
GNOME project went through a huge changes during version 3.0 but keeping discussion open despite lots of Internet hate and cr*p the project is in very strong condition again. And because their efforts there now more excellent desktop choices for users than ever before.
-----
Star Citizen is quite a monster and I'm would be very surprised if they manage to make "MMO" game balanced and work as planned. The amount of details and complexity is something never seen in games before.
I do believe that "Wing Commander"-style Squadron 42 campaign will work fine. The flight module is already in quite good condition and there is still time to polish it more. Even walking in the hangar feels good already. There are no many games you actually feel you have a body and you are not just a floating camera. FPS and planetside demos looked very nice as well.
I think they is enough room for many types of space games in the market. Personally I don't want to consider them as competitors since in the end they are quite different and have their own feeling. Fortunately there are many promising games coming. Seldon Crisis was one I was looking forward but the future of the game seems to be a bit uncertain.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=262876062
Edit: Just a mail a got reminded me about one thing ... communication between fans and SC developers is extremely good. The amount of letters, videos and other material they publish is quite amazing. It is expected especially from crowdfunded project and I think they do very good work on that.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link
Roguey
Trueguey (22)
Trueguey (22)
Posted 9 years ago.
I agree that im not sure what target XR was aimed at, as you said probably the casual gamer. I also thought those mini-games were just place-holders too, but they been in the game for too long.
As for what x-game I would of like to seen... well, X3TC/AP could of done with a modern engine (DX11, 64bit, multi-threaded), that lifted a lot of the hard-coded limits too (ie. 6 turrets, 12 guns/slot etc.) with a re-designed interface. There wasnt much wrong with the gate system (SG1 used it for 10 years), so that could of stayed. I feel it was such a wasted opportunity; what it would it been like seeing a high-detailed, 50 turret capital ship fighting another, with fighters and bombers attacking each other. Then falling back to core-mechanics, of trade, build, fight, think. Maybe it could of been based in another universe? new races? new ships? sectors could of been like 4 times bigger? Maybe sectors could have land-able planets? just land-able planets would of been ground-breaking (pun intended).
People like the x-games for what they were, not because of Rebirth. Egosoft built up their reputation based on the x-games. Rebirth shouldnt really have the X in the title, heck.. X:BTF was better. I agree that the x-series needed some work to it, but they basically started again with a shaky footings.
I feel that open source is a great idea for something's but not for gaming. Sometimes a game only comes together near its development. You have to trust the developer has made the right decisions. However that doesnt mean that the developers shouldnt be avoiding the fans/public wants/needs.
btw, isnt GNOME a GUI for linux?
as for Seldon Crisis, it does look interesting. However space-games need to feel right; screen-shots only tell you so much with a space-sim. Other games (like MMO/FPS etc.) then a screen-shot tells you a lot more.
As for what x-game I would of like to seen... well, X3TC/AP could of done with a modern engine (DX11, 64bit, multi-threaded), that lifted a lot of the hard-coded limits too (ie. 6 turrets, 12 guns/slot etc.) with a re-designed interface. There wasnt much wrong with the gate system (SG1 used it for 10 years), so that could of stayed. I feel it was such a wasted opportunity; what it would it been like seeing a high-detailed, 50 turret capital ship fighting another, with fighters and bombers attacking each other. Then falling back to core-mechanics, of trade, build, fight, think. Maybe it could of been based in another universe? new races? new ships? sectors could of been like 4 times bigger? Maybe sectors could have land-able planets? just land-able planets would of been ground-breaking (pun intended).
People like the x-games for what they were, not because of Rebirth. Egosoft built up their reputation based on the x-games. Rebirth shouldnt really have the X in the title, heck.. X:BTF was better. I agree that the x-series needed some work to it, but they basically started again with a shaky footings.
I feel that open source is a great idea for something's but not for gaming. Sometimes a game only comes together near its development. You have to trust the developer has made the right decisions. However that doesnt mean that the developers shouldnt be avoiding the fans/public wants/needs.
btw, isnt GNOME a GUI for linux?
as for Seldon Crisis, it does look interesting. However space-games need to feel right; screen-shots only tell you so much with a space-sim. Other games (like MMO/FPS etc.) then a screen-shot tells you a lot more.
Orbot
Proguey (12)
Proguey (12)
Posted 9 years ago.
I guess minigames are going to stay in X:Rebirth but I hope Egosoft is not going to use them in upcoming new X games anymore. I doubt that Egosoft has got any good feedback about them.
Despite the bad start and some weak spots in the game mechanism I still believe they are able to make X:Rebirth much better game. DLCs and extensions can make a big difference. They have more work on getting reputation and trust back which will take a long time.
Your vision about X-game sounds good. There would have been many other ways to build a new X-game but it seems they wanted to do something different this time. They should have be more clear about differences between "old" X-games and X:Rebirth.
Personally I think that they shouldn't use Direct3D but OpenGL. I believe using multiplatform and open technologies is way to go. I'm very glad that Egosoft has made X3 series for Linux using OpenGL and they are working on Linux version of X:Rebirth as well.
It is possible that open source model doesn't fit well to gaming industry. There are some open source games already but naturally no one is going to make money selling them.
http://play0ad.com/
https://openmw.org/en/
GNOME is one of the most used desktop on Linux (and BSD) systems. I took GNOME into discussion because they kind of went through the same kind of path than Egosoft did. What they did differently was that they started to communicate with the users, testers, etc. after stuggling in the beginning. If I understood right the lack of communication and listening testers/users was a huge problem with Egosoft.
http://www.gnome.org/
https://www.kde.org/
http://elementaryos.org/
...
Despite the bad start and some weak spots in the game mechanism I still believe they are able to make X:Rebirth much better game. DLCs and extensions can make a big difference. They have more work on getting reputation and trust back which will take a long time.
Your vision about X-game sounds good. There would have been many other ways to build a new X-game but it seems they wanted to do something different this time. They should have be more clear about differences between "old" X-games and X:Rebirth.
Personally I think that they shouldn't use Direct3D but OpenGL. I believe using multiplatform and open technologies is way to go. I'm very glad that Egosoft has made X3 series for Linux using OpenGL and they are working on Linux version of X:Rebirth as well.
It is possible that open source model doesn't fit well to gaming industry. There are some open source games already but naturally no one is going to make money selling them.
http://play0ad.com/
https://openmw.org/en/
GNOME is one of the most used desktop on Linux (and BSD) systems. I took GNOME into discussion because they kind of went through the same kind of path than Egosoft did. What they did differently was that they started to communicate with the users, testers, etc. after stuggling in the beginning. If I understood right the lack of communication and listening testers/users was a huge problem with Egosoft.
http://www.gnome.org/
https://www.kde.org/
http://elementaryos.org/
...
Roguey
Trueguey (22)
Trueguey (22)
Posted 9 years ago.
Well thats the thing which confuses me - Egosoft. I know the past X3 games were heavily community based, but before then they created most stuff themselves (or to my knowledge). So around X2/3 era, something changed. Its like who ever ran EgoHQ kind-of gave-up, and let the community tell them what to do. Maybe XR was an tempt to regain control from the community? but who-ever was in charge (bernd?) had no idea what gamers wanted - being out of touch (and not gamers). They thought the idea of large flying station was cool? Even said its like GTA in space?
During XR development I found myself doubting ES technical skills. Sometimes feeling like they dont have the technical skills to do a game. This was reforced with the slow progress, and the fact Bernd said the game took 7 years to make. Surely a skilled bunch of 20 people would of knocked out a game like XR within a year, maybe 6 months? If your proud of your company/products would you try and make it the best you could? Why release youre pride 'n enjoy in such a bad state? I wouldnt release something I was working for 7 years without it being the best I could do. I thought the German's were a bit like that.
I did make me wonder if Egosoft may employ part-time or something? and hence why their heart wasnt in it. If I remmeber Bernd was a programmer at one stage, then changed to a company director?
Maybe im completely wrong, but I have felt like that a few times. Something doesnt add up with Egosoft.
During XR development I found myself doubting ES technical skills. Sometimes feeling like they dont have the technical skills to do a game. This was reforced with the slow progress, and the fact Bernd said the game took 7 years to make. Surely a skilled bunch of 20 people would of knocked out a game like XR within a year, maybe 6 months? If your proud of your company/products would you try and make it the best you could? Why release youre pride 'n enjoy in such a bad state? I wouldnt release something I was working for 7 years without it being the best I could do. I thought the German's were a bit like that.
I did make me wonder if Egosoft may employ part-time or something? and hence why their heart wasnt in it. If I remmeber Bernd was a programmer at one stage, then changed to a company director?
Maybe im completely wrong, but I have felt like that a few times. Something doesnt add up with Egosoft.
Orbot
Proguey (12)
Proguey (12)
Posted 9 years ago.
When following IT industry it seems to be quite common that new ideas has to be forced to the users and for example Microsoft and Apple do that all the time. It kind of happens in Linux world as well expect no one can force users to do anything since they have full access to source code. Decision may still have big affect indirectly.
Big changes seems to happen much less in big AAA game series - maybe one of the reasons is that publishers doesn't want to take risks and keep "making the same game" over and over again until fans gets tired. GTA, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Batman, COD, etc.
As a outsider it is quite hard to say why it took 7 years to make X:Rebirth. Multi-platform game engine from scratch, QA, testing different ideas, money problems, staff problems, etc. It is good to keep in mind that software development doesn't scale linearly according to amount of staff is working on it. 20 team members does't necessary make a game in half time compared to 10 members. Usually it takes at least two years at minimum to make a game even if you are using game engine/framework like Unity. Instead, two years of development time should raise a concern that the game is very rushed.
X:Rebirth was released way too early for sure. It would be very interesting to know why; publisher required to do so? Lack of money and they had to release it or go bankrupt? etc. In the end I think it was better to release unfinished game instead of not having the game at all and even loose Egosoft forever. Publishing unfinished and rushed games happens in big scale as well as we have seen with Battlefield 4, Assassin's Creed: Unity, Driveclub, Dragon Age 2, etc. I don't believe companies publishes unfinished games without _very_ good reasons.
I think losing Egosoft would be a huge loss for the genre and PC gaming overall. There are no many companies that are working "spreadsheet" games these days and especially space games. Games like Elite, X-series, SC, LT, EVE, SPG2, etc. are all different and can't replace each other. Something for everyone.
The problems you described sounds very worrying. It is interesting to see what happens after next DLC is out this month. How X:Rebirth will evolve and what kind of news we will get from Egosoft.
What Egosoft does right and well is that they keep improving their games. Most of the games gets some critical bug fixes, some funny DLCs and then they are left to die and rot. Egosoft makes big changes to their games which is quite risky and time consuming considering how easily changes can break the game; new bugs and balancing problems. Adding some new game mechanism like hacking, crafting, etc. are not small changes. This is one of the reasons I still have faith for Egosoft's future and X:Rebirth.
I guess the next X game will show what kind of games the serie will have in future - if any. Personally I hope it will be towards PC spreadsheet kind of game. Deep strategy and economy with big space battles. Minigames being replaced with real conversation and skill systems. Voice-over replaced with plain text to make game more flexible for conversations and stories. It could include RPG and lore elements. Target audience for that kind of games nowadays is very tiny so there risk that the direction is pretty much opposite. If there will be any indications that the upcoming releases will be published for consoles as well, I think the series has no much future for me.
Big changes seems to happen much less in big AAA game series - maybe one of the reasons is that publishers doesn't want to take risks and keep "making the same game" over and over again until fans gets tired. GTA, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Batman, COD, etc.
As a outsider it is quite hard to say why it took 7 years to make X:Rebirth. Multi-platform game engine from scratch, QA, testing different ideas, money problems, staff problems, etc. It is good to keep in mind that software development doesn't scale linearly according to amount of staff is working on it. 20 team members does't necessary make a game in half time compared to 10 members. Usually it takes at least two years at minimum to make a game even if you are using game engine/framework like Unity. Instead, two years of development time should raise a concern that the game is very rushed.
X:Rebirth was released way too early for sure. It would be very interesting to know why; publisher required to do so? Lack of money and they had to release it or go bankrupt? etc. In the end I think it was better to release unfinished game instead of not having the game at all and even loose Egosoft forever. Publishing unfinished and rushed games happens in big scale as well as we have seen with Battlefield 4, Assassin's Creed: Unity, Driveclub, Dragon Age 2, etc. I don't believe companies publishes unfinished games without _very_ good reasons.
I think losing Egosoft would be a huge loss for the genre and PC gaming overall. There are no many companies that are working "spreadsheet" games these days and especially space games. Games like Elite, X-series, SC, LT, EVE, SPG2, etc. are all different and can't replace each other. Something for everyone.
The problems you described sounds very worrying. It is interesting to see what happens after next DLC is out this month. How X:Rebirth will evolve and what kind of news we will get from Egosoft.
What Egosoft does right and well is that they keep improving their games. Most of the games gets some critical bug fixes, some funny DLCs and then they are left to die and rot. Egosoft makes big changes to their games which is quite risky and time consuming considering how easily changes can break the game; new bugs and balancing problems. Adding some new game mechanism like hacking, crafting, etc. are not small changes. This is one of the reasons I still have faith for Egosoft's future and X:Rebirth.
I guess the next X game will show what kind of games the serie will have in future - if any. Personally I hope it will be towards PC spreadsheet kind of game. Deep strategy and economy with big space battles. Minigames being replaced with real conversation and skill systems. Voice-over replaced with plain text to make game more flexible for conversations and stories. It could include RPG and lore elements. Target audience for that kind of games nowadays is very tiny so there risk that the direction is pretty much opposite. If there will be any indications that the upcoming releases will be published for consoles as well, I think the series has no much future for me.
jack775544
Skillguey (7)
Skillguey (7)
Posted 9 years ago.
I hate to draw the comparison but I can respect why Egosoft decided to reimagine the series with X-R. The way I see it, Egosoft knew that they could create X4 where everything was bigger, better and had similar mechanics to the previous games, however they don't really want to do that or they could end up falling into the same rut that some series like Call of Duty or Battlefield are in right now. That being, each game is similar to the last with only a limited space for creativity, or otherwise you will face the wrath of the dedicated fans. Even though X3 was different to X2, it basically was the exact same game with a new coat of paint (albeit a very shiny one).
And reiterating on what edqe said, I would be very worried if X-R took any less than 5 years to make, and considering the size of the team, 7 years is perfectly reasonable. One reason behind the extended development time would be making a fully moddable engine from scratch. It is always quicker to hardcode things into the game engine, so the fact that Egosoft made it not only as the engine for X-R but also as there framework for games for the next several years, taking such a long time to create it is expected (for example Team Fortress 2 was first shown off at E3 in 1999 and it came out in 2007, and Valve is MUCH larger than EGOSOFT).
The way I see it X-R wasn't that good, however if it is taken in the right direction it has alot of potential. From what I have seen, I am believe that Egosoft are starting to take the series in the correct direction, but only time will tell if they can actually follow through.
And reiterating on what edqe said, I would be very worried if X-R took any less than 5 years to make, and considering the size of the team, 7 years is perfectly reasonable. One reason behind the extended development time would be making a fully moddable engine from scratch. It is always quicker to hardcode things into the game engine, so the fact that Egosoft made it not only as the engine for X-R but also as there framework for games for the next several years, taking such a long time to create it is expected (for example Team Fortress 2 was first shown off at E3 in 1999 and it came out in 2007, and Valve is MUCH larger than EGOSOFT).
The way I see it X-R wasn't that good, however if it is taken in the right direction it has alot of potential. From what I have seen, I am believe that Egosoft are starting to take the series in the correct direction, but only time will tell if they can actually follow through.
Orbot
Proguey (12)
Proguey (12)
Posted 9 years ago.
The way I see it X-R wasn't that good, however if it is taken in the right direction it has alot of potential. From what I have seen, I am believe that Egosoft are starting to take the series in the correct direction, but only time will tell if they can actually follow through.
- jack775544
- jack775544
Just for interest. What kind of direction you would like to see X-R and X-series to go? What kind of features you would like to see?
Orbot
Proguey (12)
Proguey (12)
Posted 9 years ago.
• Beta 6 Added localisations and voice recordings for new texts (new text in 3.0).
• Beta 6 Added Broadcast order button to property owned menu.
• Beta 6 Added new order 'Withdraw from Battle' to stop firing, fly away from enemies and wait for new orders.
• Beta 6 Added support for expanding/collapsing the map menu list with right/left keys.
• Beta 6 Added support for targeting surface elements using Shift-F with Mk 2 software installed (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Beta 6 Added feedback when player property is attacked out of sector.
• Beta 6 Added pancakes.
• Beta 6 Improved sound levels to muffle outside sounds when on a platform.
• Beta 6 Improved Defending/Attacking reaction time of the Defence Officer's configuration.
• Beta 6 Improved 'Attack Object' to not trigger negative reputation before start shooting.
• Beta 6 Improved AI combat movement to use the correct maximum combat range.
• Beta 6 Improved balancing of Teladi XL combat ships.
• Beta 6 Improved Smart Defence/Recall Drones buttons to make them always selectable (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Beta 6 Fixed shield values not being maintained over savegames (only applies to new savegames).
• Beta 6 Fixed mining order being available for CVs when it shouldn't.
• Beta 6 Fixed map mode showing ships in construction when it shouldn't.
• Beta 6 Fixed inventory menu not selecting the correct line after crafting.
• Beta 6 Fixed non-fighter small ships engaging fights even if they don't have fire-power.
• Beta 6 Fixed stations not becoming enemies when attacked by player-owned ships.
• Beta 6 Fixed price calculations for stations with build modules.
• Beta 6 Fixed stations not removing ammo offers if they no longer have any operational ammo-users.
• Beta 6 Fixed missing temporary reputation loss notification.
• Beta 6 Fixed command info on 'Attack Object' order.
• Beta 6 Fixed 'Attack Object' not attacking the target in several situations.
• Beta 6 Fixed stations/ships in different zones not being selectable for attack order
• Beta 6 Fixed small fighters not moving when player is not present.
• Beta 6 Fixed damage applied when player is not present.
• Beta 6 Fixed incorrect hull percentage display for ships when player not present.
• Beta 6 Fixed some cases of lights "popping" when player turns while close to an object.
• Beta 6 Fixed fight ability drone shooting after being recalled (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Beta 6 Fixed looping ability menu sound when pressing Alt-Tab in fullscreen.
• Beta 6 Fixed UI animation issues when capturing videos with fixed framerates.
• Beta 6 Fixed missing M-sized docks on various stations.
• Beta 6 Fixed infopoint location on xenon station.
• Beta 6 Fixed excessively bright lights in Albion interiors.
• Beta 6 Fixed missing engine descriptions on Teladi ships.
• Beta 6 Fixed missing explosion/schield effects on several engines.
• Beta 6 Fixed texture seam in local highways.
• Beta 6 Fixed mirrored text on several ships.
• Beta 6 Fixed several more causes of crashes and improved crash reporting.
• Beta 6 Optimisations resulting in performance improvements in fog regions (improves new feature in 3.0).
http://steamcommunity.com/app/2870/discussions/0/613941122593288671/
• Beta 6 Added Broadcast order button to property owned menu.
• Beta 6 Added new order 'Withdraw from Battle' to stop firing, fly away from enemies and wait for new orders.
• Beta 6 Added support for expanding/collapsing the map menu list with right/left keys.
• Beta 6 Added support for targeting surface elements using Shift-F with Mk 2 software installed (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Beta 6 Added feedback when player property is attacked out of sector.
• Beta 6 Added pancakes.
• Beta 6 Improved sound levels to muffle outside sounds when on a platform.
• Beta 6 Improved Defending/Attacking reaction time of the Defence Officer's configuration.
• Beta 6 Improved 'Attack Object' to not trigger negative reputation before start shooting.
• Beta 6 Improved AI combat movement to use the correct maximum combat range.
• Beta 6 Improved balancing of Teladi XL combat ships.
• Beta 6 Improved Smart Defence/Recall Drones buttons to make them always selectable (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Beta 6 Fixed shield values not being maintained over savegames (only applies to new savegames).
• Beta 6 Fixed mining order being available for CVs when it shouldn't.
• Beta 6 Fixed map mode showing ships in construction when it shouldn't.
• Beta 6 Fixed inventory menu not selecting the correct line after crafting.
• Beta 6 Fixed non-fighter small ships engaging fights even if they don't have fire-power.
• Beta 6 Fixed stations not becoming enemies when attacked by player-owned ships.
• Beta 6 Fixed price calculations for stations with build modules.
• Beta 6 Fixed stations not removing ammo offers if they no longer have any operational ammo-users.
• Beta 6 Fixed missing temporary reputation loss notification.
• Beta 6 Fixed command info on 'Attack Object' order.
• Beta 6 Fixed 'Attack Object' not attacking the target in several situations.
• Beta 6 Fixed stations/ships in different zones not being selectable for attack order
• Beta 6 Fixed small fighters not moving when player is not present.
• Beta 6 Fixed damage applied when player is not present.
• Beta 6 Fixed incorrect hull percentage display for ships when player not present.
• Beta 6 Fixed some cases of lights "popping" when player turns while close to an object.
• Beta 6 Fixed fight ability drone shooting after being recalled (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Beta 6 Fixed looping ability menu sound when pressing Alt-Tab in fullscreen.
• Beta 6 Fixed UI animation issues when capturing videos with fixed framerates.
• Beta 6 Fixed missing M-sized docks on various stations.
• Beta 6 Fixed infopoint location on xenon station.
• Beta 6 Fixed excessively bright lights in Albion interiors.
• Beta 6 Fixed missing engine descriptions on Teladi ships.
• Beta 6 Fixed missing explosion/schield effects on several engines.
• Beta 6 Fixed texture seam in local highways.
• Beta 6 Fixed mirrored text on several ships.
• Beta 6 Fixed several more causes of crashes and improved crash reporting.
• Beta 6 Optimisations resulting in performance improvements in fog regions (improves new feature in 3.0).
http://steamcommunity.com/app/2870/discussions/0/613941122593288671/
jack775544
Skillguey (7)
Skillguey (7)
Posted 9 years ago.
Personally I would like to see X-R as a game where you can macro manage your empire but still have some form of control of what you are doing. For example in X3 to get a freighter to buy/sell wares off of a station, you had to manually configure the selling price and then manually tell the trader what ware to trade. This was alot of work in micromanagement. In X-R for the same scenario, you would tell the captain of the freighter to work at the station and you would have no further input.
Personally I would like to see a hybrid between the 2 systems where you would tell the captain of the freighter to work at the station, and then you would tell the manager how you want the station to operate (eg. I want 70% of my freighters selling product A, 20% buying resource A and 10% buying resource B).
A system like that where the people in your employ can be commanded around but are still autonomous is what I would like to see happen in X-R.
Personally I would like to see a hybrid between the 2 systems where you would tell the captain of the freighter to work at the station, and then you would tell the manager how you want the station to operate (eg. I want 70% of my freighters selling product A, 20% buying resource A and 10% buying resource B).
A system like that where the people in your employ can be commanded around but are still autonomous is what I would like to see happen in X-R.
Orbot
Proguey (12)
Proguey (12)
Posted 9 years ago.
Beta 7
• Added ability to target docks, info points, trade offers, and mission offers using Shift-F (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Added Attack action to interact menu for non-player-owned ships and objects.
• Added event and reputation loss when player-owned ship is scanned and has to drop illegal cargo.
• Added crafting mission for rare and unique items throughout the universe (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Added voice feedback if Broadcast command wasn't possible (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Added new achievements and statistics.
• Improved effect of game difficulty level on difficulty of opening lockboxes (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Improved flight movement of boosting capital ships.
• Improved fight music so that it now also plays if a nearby player-owned object is attacked or attacks an enemy.
• Improved NPC trade ship distribution to address supply/demand inconsistencies in the default universe
• Improved NPC mining ship behaviour for better resource distribution.
• Improved balancing of ware price ranges for more interesting trade opportunities.
• Improved balancing of resources required for drone and small/medium ship construction.
• Improved balancing of boarding gameplay.
• Fixed engineer repairing first item after a pause almost instantly.
• Fixed stations not attacking enemies in some situations.
• Fixed rare case of player ship being invulnerable after using remote control.
• Fixed "ghost" cargo in storage that is wrecked and later repaired when player not present.
• Fixed boarding sometimes being missing from the interact menu.
• Fixed ability menu showing wrong reason for drones being unavailable during highway flight.
• Fixed UI-animation issues when capturing videos.
• Fixed 'Transfer Wares' command in several situations involving small and capital ships.
• Fixed cancelling intro conversations not cancelling the rest of the intro properly.
• Fixed lipsynch in certain conversations.
• Fixed transport drone arm pickup animation.
• Fixed another case of multiple ship dealers on one platform.
• Fixed stations sometimes offering to buy missiles for their turrets even though their ammo storage is full.
• Fixed possible rare case of some station component rotations not having been corrected in a previous update.
• Fixed NPC distribution on DLC stations when loading savegames from very old versions.
• Fixed case where mass traffic networks could get stuck forever.
• Fixed case where mission could get stuck if the player hit Escape during the mission briefing.
• Fixed case where mission could fail when giving crafted item to client.
• Fixed case of incorrect view after conversation ending.
• Fixed externally triggered music playing over fight music.
• Fixed missing option to clear shopping list.
• Fixed several more causes of crashes and improved crash reporting.
• Added ability to target docks, info points, trade offers, and mission offers using Shift-F (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Added Attack action to interact menu for non-player-owned ships and objects.
• Added event and reputation loss when player-owned ship is scanned and has to drop illegal cargo.
• Added crafting mission for rare and unique items throughout the universe (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Added voice feedback if Broadcast command wasn't possible (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Added new achievements and statistics.
• Improved effect of game difficulty level on difficulty of opening lockboxes (improves new feature in 3.0).
• Improved flight movement of boosting capital ships.
• Improved fight music so that it now also plays if a nearby player-owned object is attacked or attacks an enemy.
• Improved NPC trade ship distribution to address supply/demand inconsistencies in the default universe
• Improved NPC mining ship behaviour for better resource distribution.
• Improved balancing of ware price ranges for more interesting trade opportunities.
• Improved balancing of resources required for drone and small/medium ship construction.
• Improved balancing of boarding gameplay.
• Fixed engineer repairing first item after a pause almost instantly.
• Fixed stations not attacking enemies in some situations.
• Fixed rare case of player ship being invulnerable after using remote control.
• Fixed "ghost" cargo in storage that is wrecked and later repaired when player not present.
• Fixed boarding sometimes being missing from the interact menu.
• Fixed ability menu showing wrong reason for drones being unavailable during highway flight.
• Fixed UI-animation issues when capturing videos.
• Fixed 'Transfer Wares' command in several situations involving small and capital ships.
• Fixed cancelling intro conversations not cancelling the rest of the intro properly.
• Fixed lipsynch in certain conversations.
• Fixed transport drone arm pickup animation.
• Fixed another case of multiple ship dealers on one platform.
• Fixed stations sometimes offering to buy missiles for their turrets even though their ammo storage is full.
• Fixed possible rare case of some station component rotations not having been corrected in a previous update.
• Fixed NPC distribution on DLC stations when loading savegames from very old versions.
• Fixed case where mass traffic networks could get stuck forever.
• Fixed case where mission could get stuck if the player hit Escape during the mission briefing.
• Fixed case where mission could fail when giving crafted item to client.
• Fixed case of incorrect view after conversation ending.
• Fixed externally triggered music playing over fight music.
• Fixed missing option to clear shopping list.
• Fixed several more causes of crashes and improved crash reporting.
Orbot
Proguey (12)
Proguey (12)
Posted 9 years ago.
Personally I would like to see X-R as a game where you can macro manage your empire but still have some form of control of what you are doing.
...
A system like that where the people in your employ can be commanded around but are still autonomous is what I would like to see happen in X-R.
- jack775544
...
A system like that where the people in your employ can be commanded around but are still autonomous is what I would like to see happen in X-R.
- jack775544
I have not check yet what kind of capabilities mods has - do you know if mods could make X:R more how you would like it to be?
Roguey
Trueguey (22)
Trueguey (22)
Posted 9 years ago.
Personally I would like to see a hybrid between the 2 systems where you would tell the captain of the freighter to work at the station, and then you would tell the manager how you want the station to operate (eg. I want 70% of my freighters selling product A, 20% buying resource A and 10% buying resource B).
- jack775544
- jack775544
Kind-of suggesting you want the old system back. As in X3+ you would assign ships to stations, then tell them to buy/sell the goods.
Its good egosoft are still working on the title - seeing all them fixes, but still they dont fix the broken core;
- Why cant ships have a generic cargo bay, that hold wares? instead of prefix cargo-bays?
- Why isnt trade much simper, stick item in bay, take somewhere then sell it? unlocking trade-offer is just bad!
- Why is station building so confusing and unworthy? nice that ego removed set locations although.
- Unlike previous games we cant build massive complexes, build what we like, where we like.
- How come you can be so over powered in combat? and since your size you can exploit large bind-spots on capitals
- Why are capitals basically useless? you can easily over-power them.
- Why wasnt there any mass-weapons on capitals? like giant beam lasers rather than spam weapons?
- Why also was there a real lack in weapon/missile diversity?
- Why is there a big lack on ship diversity?
- What really was the point of drones? basically for the plot as they leave you an sitting-duck normally,
- How come nothing has been improved on platforms? ugly NPC's and no more interiors. Maybe something ego should of deleted.
- Why is every NPC an old granny? cant we have some young people? Do I dare say, sexy people?
- Why isnt there a lot more different areas and larger? ie. more than one bar? with different music playing etc.
- Why cant the playership have a jump-drive of sorts? its fairly boring travelling around tbh,
- Why are upgrades just number changes? ie. shield A has 200 units, whilst shield B has 300 units.
- Silly mini-games which should of skipped, if another person tells me about Xenon AI ill shot them,
- Since this is space, why does mass-traffic follow a set path and fly into a black-texture?
- What is the point of mass-traffic? just to cause lower FPS?
- Why are we limited to one ship? I did a small mod and changed the outside to an Arawn.
- What happened to fleet management? since we are employing NPC's they should be cleaver than AI,
- Why do we simply jump-out-of-door when landing? no landing animation what-so-ever. Doesnt look like it will fit through door anyway,
- Why cant we tell Yisha Tarren to leave? or hire someone else? also why did ego decide to cut-out her chest area of her suit?
- How come deep down, the engine basically does the same as before? no planet landings, advanced weapons procedural ships/stations/universe, shield effects, events, online etc. Last time I checked you could fly through planets,
- Why is the universe so small? 4 clusters? why couldnt it been 100?
- Why do capitals have no shields? an player capital would be useless, as you need to repair it all the time.
- Why are the Xenon so weak? I can fly around a Xenon area and not get attacked.
- Why is the game unsigned? ie. you can modify game-files and still get steam-achievements?
- Why does it use four times CPU power (on my machine) and runs slower?
- How come it feels that you dont effect anything?
- Easy, Medium, hard in a space-sim? I hate that idea, as it just changes some numbers,
- Why wasnt there a lot more community interaction? they have some great ideas!
- and lastly, what is the goal? earn money? for what?
Although I gave-up telling egosoft a long-time ago. Clearly XR is what they want, not like someone like me wants. I know egosft arent gamers, as they clearly told me a few times. Maybe they should of had some during the development and listened to them! If you enjoy XR and disagree with my feelings above, great for you; at-least you are enjoy it.
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