X-Suspended.... for the time being at-least

Saturday 10th December, 2011 · Posted by Roguey · 5 comments

I've been a big fan of Egosoft over many years. I started playing egosoft games from X-BTF right up-to X3TC (and every game in-between). I had many great moments whilst playing, exploring new systems, talking to races and learning new things. However over time ive felt a bit unvalued by Egosoft. Please let me explain more..

As you may know or not, these sites have been running for many, many years: developing and expanding to what they are now. Most of code has changed so much, it bares no relevance to what it was. I learnt a lot of PHP/MySQL skills here from writing my own forum, to my own arcade. This was only done by time consuming re-writes of the site(s).

When X3 was in its element, egosoft featured XTM over any other mod in the whole community. This felt a bit biased and should of been handled better - maybe a community round-up as their were at-least 3 or 4 big mods at the time. Shortly after followed X3TC which used content from that mod. At one point I asked egosoft if they could add support for patching of custom galaxies (it wouldnt take long, as its already done their patches). The reply I got was: "No, the project is ended". They said it would be okay to hack their obj file, but that's not simple to do by even the most skilled programmers. A while later X3 was patched with Uplink support.

Now X3TC has been drifting off course somewhat to me. In X3 we saw 8 guns on a M3's (like the Nova). This meant we could take another similar ship out in mere seconds (shields more or less become rather pointless). I always thought that this was a bug and just something they had missed out fixing - ie. a gun cap. Capping the guns would of made bank switching much more useful but in X3TC this wasn't changed. If anything we blew up even quicker with even higher damage weapons (like missiles with warheads of 1.25GJ damage). Even money seem no object (getting rewards of millions for a few kills), boarding large capital ships etc. There is even a glitch inside X3TC that allows you clone massive amount items in seconds, without cheating.

For many years, lots of people in the community have been asking for certain features in the series. If anything egosoft have been removing them. Things such as the BBS (which I miss a lot), planet landing (we keep getting closer and closer to surface), online coop (so many people ask for this, all the time), shield effects (hitting the hull looks wrong), sub-systems and more. We might see some features like this in Rebirth but probably not. Sub-systems are, planet landing and online aren't.

Now Rebirth - what a mess its been already! - and its not even out yet! It got launched many, many months ago with some pictures and a small trailer. I bet we all felt *yippe*. However months of waiting and nothing else, just a few posts which to be honest sound worrying. I understand that some features might need dropping/changing (SETA was a bit of cop-out) however with such a large changes, very few of them have been explained in detail so far. Even the videos from the alpha were not supposed to be on the internet. I really dont understand the lack of news on Rebirth either. Egosoft haven't even officially confirmed Rebirth has been delayed - which it has to 2012. This information should be posted on the main site!

Now Albion Prelude. A great idea, bridging the two stories and hyping the fans... Surely this should be the job of Rebirth and not another game? However I was really happy to read and at-least something to do whilst we wait until Rebirth... however ego havnt made it easy:

Albion Prelude is free to all superbox customers only, great if your a superbox owner. However I never got it because I didnt need it. This leaves me with two options: register my copy of X3TC (on steam) and then enter credit details (so I can get it an reduced rate of £10)... no thanks, I dont want my credit details on steam!... or wait 2012 for a disc release (in-which I have to pay more than the superbox in the shops now). So not only will not be able to play until next year (usually the xmas period is a good time for most), the lowest I can get it for is £15 via the superbox. It also looks like egosoft are aligning themselves with steam now, and giving GOTY owners rewards. So who's to say there wont give bonuses to select members when Rebirth comes out?

Its not the thing of the price, its that certain people are getting something for free. I bet no-where on the box it states your get access to Albion Prelude. This mostly effects the loyal fans as they brought each disc release, rather than the superbox. I know some loyal fans brought the superbox as your discs have seen better days or you want them all together. I must give Egosoft extra credit for singly out superbox members on xmas too - the time of good will and all. I wouldnt of minded if Superbox members got it cheaper, just not free.

Over the years ive felt a bit left out of the x-community, as its not the biggest of communities out there. I was once asked at one point to submit content to the superbox which didnt make it (although no mods did as im told). I may of brought the superbox if I had a mod on there, but once again disappointed.

What does this mean? well, basically im abit unhappy with things. I am not sure if im going to expand the rebirth site any-more, and there are no plans to create a fan-site for Albion Prelude. I have spent countless hours writing guides, help, statistics, web-pages and tips for people and brought all egosoft releases par the superbox (not sure where my X2 although). I dont do much PC gaming any-more (apart from Guild wars) because of my PS3 and the harsh copy protection that is used on pc nowadays. All this is a shame, as I used to enjoy the x-games and enjoy creating content such as mods, guides and help. I know the games will supported by other people and thats good you guys are out there.

In inclusion... I cant see myself returning to X-Galaxy for awhile. None of the sites will be shut-down nor am I going anywhere. If I do play any more x-games it will be probably for my own pleasure only, when I get around to it (that way I can pick them up at bundle price or something). Maybe you disagree with me, thats fine - that's your decision. So go enjoy Albion Prelude and Rebirth guys but I wont be helping for the time being. Well... Happy xmas.

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