Upcoming releases

Board Index » X: Rebirth » Upcoming releases

Proguey (12)

Posted 8 years ago.

Additionally to X3 and XR patches Egosoft is working with something totally new.

CBJ: "Everyone's idea of what an "X4" would be like is likely to be different, but most people would interpret it either as a new game using the X3 engine, or as a game using the XR engine but with all the features of X3 and more. Neither of those accurately describes what we are doing.

We are using the XR engine, yes, and we are working on adding features, such as flying different ships, that will take various aspects of the gameplay more in the direction of the previous series. We have taken on board the feedback we've had since the release of XR and we hope that the new game will appeal both to those who enjoy XR and to those who preferred the previous series. That's what we mean by working "towards" a more X4-like game."

Sinxar

Cruguey (18)

Posted 8 years ago.

TNBT already? As usual i'll take the 'wait and see' approach to this. It would be nice to have an X4 but i'm not getting my hopes up until it is actually released. If X:R taught me anything about Egosoft, it is they cannot be trusted to do what they say they are doing.

Orbot

Proguey (12)

Posted 8 years ago.

"Wait and see" is definitely a good approach with most of the games Smile

I hope they will use Early Access if possible. It would great way to get people testing the game and give feedback. Unfortunately as we have seen there are lots of gamers who are unable to behave like adults and give constructive feedback.

It is interesting to see what kind of decisions they are going make, like is the game going to be published for consoles as well. It may have a huge impact how complex the game can be.

Roguey

Trueguey (22)

Posted 8 years ago.

Well hopefully egosoft have learnt from their mistakes; one of the largest I felt was the lack of communication in the design/development stage. They need to listen to their community and design a game what they want this time (if they are working on X4). I felt like a lot of XR designs didnt make sense. Way-back I felt they need a community relation manager able to talk to their public and tell the devs what needs working on, posting news and generally making people feel valued. I know CBJ is supposed to do some of that but he's just one person, who doesnt really talk to the public. They cant have their hands tied like before.. talk to the public, post news, pictures, etc. Get people excited for a good reason! When you get the public on your side, then its a win-win for both sides. The handling of XR was just terrible, even Bernd had to hide for a couple of weeks.

As for their new engine (XR), well im a little sceptical. Whatever performance gain they got from multi-processor, they seem to have wasted it. X3AP/TC ran with just one processor and yet it ran at 60fps (sync). In my case, four times the cpu power and yet lower frame-rate. Im pretty sure its down to how the universe is done and all the background ships... Maybe egosoft have improved the performance now but for a long time the frame-rate was fairly poor. The 64bit exe was late and should of been there at the start, seeing as it required 4gb of ram. However if its still based on DirectX 9, then that needs changing. Selling a 2015+ game which is only DX9 is just a bad idea. Egosoft games used to be some of the best looking - XR looked dated before it was released.

As for myself, I dont know what to say. Hopefully it wont simply be XR with changeable ships (ie. XBTF -> XT). I wonder what kind-of damaged they have done to their community. I definitely think that having community support on release day is something which is required. Maybe im a bit up myself by saying this, but I felt when I opened up my XR site on one-day, that it helped a lot of people. A new game without any help will put-off a lot of people. Egosoft need the next title to go the best they can.

Orbot

Proguey (12)

Posted 8 years ago.

They need to listen to their community and design a game what they want this time (if they are working on X4).
- Roguey

Just to be sure ... do you want they will take advice and hints from community or pretty much 100% how community wants the game be?

There are some problems with the community like people tends to disagree with each other. Some amount of community will always be unhappy. Additionally X community has always been small so to me it sounds impossible for company size of Egosoft to make a game for niche audience these days.

I know CBJ is supposed to do some of that but he's just one person, who doesnt really talk to the public.
- Roguey

CBJ told recently that Egosoft has been taking notes from the very beginning of the XR release - not a surprise but he mentioned it anyways Smile

. linolafett has collaborated with the community quite nicely and I have to say that Linux/OSX developers has been very responsive.

Do you think Early Access would be a good idea?

However if its still based on DirectX 9, then that needs changing. Selling a 2015+ game which is only DX9 is just a bad idea. Egosoft games used to be some of the best looking - XR looked dated before it was released.
- Roguey

They are working on OpenGL engine at the moment. If things goes fine all platforms will use it in the future.

Roguey

Trueguey (22)

Posted 8 years ago.

Just to be sure ... do you want they will take advice and hints from community or pretty much 100% how community wants the game be?
- edqe

Well people have their own ideas what they would and wouldnt like. However I feel there are lot of common things everyone would like to see... with what I saying above; Egosoft needs a community manager - a person who talks to the public and liaise the needs/wants to the devs (so they can develop a better game). Simply whacking out a title with no input from the public isnt the way to go. True, you wont please everyone but pleasing some is always a good idea. It needs to be managed, to be turned into something useful. Hopefully Egosoft have learnt from their mistakes and since should be avoiding the same thing from happening.

Do you think Early Access would be a good idea?
- edqe

It depends how its handled. If Egosoft were much more transparent then it maybe a good idea. However im not really a fan of those kind-of things, as the game should only be released when ready. As you said above, this also encourages too many suggestions / ideas - which can be a bad idea. However posting news, information, pictures, videos etc. is always a good idea... keeping people interested. Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalalala, isnt the way to go for modern releases.

CBJ told recently that Egosoft has been taking notes from the very beginning of the XR release - not a surprise but he mentioned it anyways. linolafett has collaborated with the community quite nicely and I have to say that Linux/OSX developers has been very responsive.
- edqe

Well unfortunately a lot of these things were said a few years back but never really got acknowledged. The only way they did listen was to have the whole general public moaning at them. I think someone at Egosoft HQ had to do something, so it fell on linolafett to do that job. He's a talented graphic designer but I wouldnt make a graphic engineer be a community manager. I guess after the design stage, there isnt much for him to do - so it fell on him to do. Myself id get him designing more stuff, for future updates - were he is much more useful.

They are working on OpenGL engine at the moment. If things goes fine all platforms will use it in the future.
- edqe

Well, I dont know how I feel about that. OpenGL isnt used for many of the big AAA releases, its usually dominated by DirectX (for good reason). OpenGL would allow them to cross-platform easier (like for mac/linux). Although how much it would effect the average pc gamer is a big question. I would be very careful of working on anything which could effect the general audience. Too many developers are working on cross-platforming rather than build a better game, which I feel the content suffers.

Soon, with Windows 10 we will be moving onto DirectX 12. So API's like OpenGL could look fairly dated. So taking up OpenGL now maybe a really bad idea in the next few years.

Orbot

Proguey (12)

Posted 8 years ago.

Hopefully Egosoft have learnt from their mistakes and since should be avoiding the same thing from happening.
- Roguey

I certainly hope that as well. It is hard to imagine small company like Egosoft to survive very long if they don't learn from the mistakes.

It depends how its handled. If Egosoft were much more transparent then it maybe a good idea.
- Roguey

Yeah, it really would. Some games clearly gets lots of advantages from Early Access but for some games it doesn't suit at all. It depends on community as well. If the community is able to give constructive feedback the Early Access can be very effective.

Yep, too little too late for X:R. Upcoming releases will show if they learned anything. It's unfortunate that your and many others hard work went for vain.
I'm not sure if linolafett is doing this all because the task was given for him or if he just like to collaborate with the gamers/community.

The idea of having a community managers sounds very good. Not only for Egosoft but in gaming industry in general. Maybe things are going to change because of Kickstarter and Early Access. Smaller indie developers are getting stronger and doing great work at the moment. Many of them are very good collaborating with gamers.

OpenGL API can be more complicated to master but in the other hand they say is still superset of DirectX. OpenGL will be used in the future as well but it will not compete with DirectX directly. Vulkan is a new API that will "compete" with Direct X. It has been great to see big gaming companies to be interested about Vulkan (Blizzard, DICE, etc.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan_%28API%29

Times has changed a lots - it's not about Windows anymore. People are complaining about DRM and Steam but for some reason they are all good with Windows, OSX and others which restrict much more how they can play games and use their computers.

Personally I think that cross-platform technologies are way to go. It is sad to see companies struggling because they decided to lock them to some proprietary technologies in the beginning. For example CD Project RED and Larian paid a huge price for that. I guess Frontier Developments are using resources to port DirectX code to OpenGL (OSX vesion). It is good to see Egosoft is trying to avoid stepping to that trap.

PC world is very broken. I hope it will get better in the future:
http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03020.pdf
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/34542.html
...

Unity3D, Unreal Engine, etc. has really made a big difference. Game developers are able to concentrate to their games and release them for multiple platform - from mobile devices to PC.

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