What do you expect from Egosoft? (next game)

[Patholos]

A miracle...

XR is full of misconceptions from Egosoft regarding their customerbase that that I think their next game will fall flat on its face, pleasing neither X3 fans or present XR fans.

I want a game where I can sit back, slowly build up my industrial capacity, manage an empire, send off a fleet to get blown away because I feel like it, rebuild the fleet and send it to be blown up once again all while i sit on my flagship and sip some terran wine then build the mother of all fleets and nuke those Argon traitors down to atoms. All done through a well thoughtout and efficent user interface. Yeah yeah, I'm spouting heresy here.

I don't want a second job as a g*****mn babysitter who's constantly pestered by obnoxious employees who must be handheld by me until I can dump their over to a r******* manager whom again needs babysitting due to their inability to perform anything of value.... All done in a UI that makes going to the dentist a pleasure.

If Egosoft are charging AAA price on their next game, they better f******g deliver AAA quality!!!


Note: I had to blow out some steam since I've been playing XR with the CWIR again, and while I'm trying to like it, it's so hard when I find vanilla design choices that are glaringly bad gameplaywise...
Note 2: CWIR on the other hand rocks, now there's class AAA+ design there. Blackrain and Rubini are my senpais

[Eriodas]

... if Egosoft do not get the game on XBox and other game consoles and tablets, then it is dead as may be the PC for gaming...

You haven't heard of Star Citizen do you?.

Mine has survived 2 generations of consoles (with some improvements) and i can play more games in it than any console in the market (of course not all are worth playing, same on consoles xD), there are more game periferials compatible with PCs than any console.

That been said, i would totally erase the X-rebirth timeline, story, characters and ships and pretend that never happened. Of course that means i would like the X4 approach.

I think they should stay true to their roots and just improve the things from there. I like the station construction thing in X-rebirth but that's it. If they wanted to do things easier to the player, they should have stayed with the concept of one station dedicated to certain products and give the chance to build CUSTOMIZED STATION COMPLEXES from the start (via some building interface), so we can do what we want (that of course would allow us to build self sufficient stations like in X3).

[XenonSurf]

Sorry guys but I have to throw out this:
The adequate gaming is still a good gaming computer with adequate material, and not these holycrap consoles like xbox or ps4, sorry, there are toys and the things for real men and women...Do not confuse the 2 leagues...

XenonS

[Graaf]

Problem is that the poll is skewed quite a bit....Those that would want a more (for the want of a better description) X3 type Simulation have long since departed .... sadly.

And even without them the vote is slightly more leaning towards X4, but that is probably my vote as one of the few remaining old fans.

[Skeeter]

Sadly none of the options listed and you should have put a "other" option in.

X is done to death the last good x game was x2. Move on to a different universe set in space please. Dont be defined by one good game and ride on its merits till the end of time egosoft. Im sure you can do something even better if you stepped away from x and did something new. Theres only so much u can do in a rehash of the same game every few year so why not go ahead and take the brave step and pull out another winning game but dont make the same mistake as in doing the same game with updates here and there. One or two sequels is fine but dont milk it.

From a player thats been around since 1999 and loved xbtf for its music and setting and characters then x2 for the diff ships ui and story even if it wasnt great its better than x3 and whats gone ahead of them. No interest in building stations or running them now its done to death in x games. If you want to do more of that just replay any of the x games. Its time to move on to something that isnt mainly about station building and running now.

Imo. I know some of you still want x4 or whatever but if ur from xbtf era and played all the games then surely some of you want the same by now. New players will want probably another game set in x.

[Nosscar]

.........
Fleet command should be a must, with the glut of space games on the market Egosoft will have to seize that niche of commanding a vast empire but also being able to be hands on. But they also must really develop a substantial late game, it is one thing that has really been lacking from all their titles, they've never really cracked it..............

Fleet command yes, late game is really needed too.
The thing that drives most people on in a game, even through the grind and chores is to reach that final goal.
Most of the mundane stuff like small talk, highways, station landing ect, should in the later game be allowed to be bypassed by the use of expensive modules when you have lots of cash, because after playing for many hrs, these things you don't want to be still doing.

[mr.WHO]

Hey guys the whole topic is obsolete as we know several facts on the new game:

- the game will be based on XR engine and most of it's mechanics
- they want to bring back flying multiple ships (I think it's easy - Skunk already has several cokpits, so you only need some interiors and landing bay models - fighter don't even need interirors, only cokpits)
- they want to improve GUI commands (probably even as a patch to XR - functions like select multiple ships via map, select empty space to give command, function to use action menu on the map screen)

These are what we know for sure.



If they also would tune the rough edges here and there like:
- better NPC management (not having to personally ferry them to their destination)
- player HQ/Shipyard
- some old races (Paranids and Terrans would be the easiest ones as Borons/new races would require too much work)
- 1 or 2 new developed systems
- 4 or 5 new "anarchy" systems with pirates and xenons - kinda like Pirate and Xenon alleys in X3
- more ships and weapons (more Frigates are badly needed and more Xenons - give me back the dreadful Qs and Ls)
- something like a Bridge mod
- something like carrier mod
- something CWIR mod
- better moddability (tools to add custom ship models)


Then I'd buy that game right away. I'm not a fan of XR, but with constant pathing I see a lot of unused potential in this engine.

[Gligli]

I agree with XenonS and Skeeter.
I didn't vote. Cause I expect nothing. The better way not to be disappointed...

Nevertheless, I preview a melt of the old and new concept of XUniverse... An extrapolation of what we have now. The "When?" is far away...

Don't forget that the job of Egosoft is Engine an Plot related only (basically). They can't or want not "afford" the rest.

[Nosscar]

With a new x game, i think after the mess that was the x rebirth release, pre order will not go down well, as most will wait for youtube vids and ratings first.
So i hope they take the line of free beta testing, or at least demo's to try before buying.
Get the community involved in the game from the start, be open and show the development cycle, this is needed to earn back the trust that was lost.

[mr.WHO]

Sadly none of the options listed and you should have put a "other" option in.

From a player thats been around since 1999 and loved xbtf for its music and setting and characters then x2 for the diff ships ui and story even if it wasnt great its better than x3 and whats gone ahead of them. No interest in building stations or running them now its done to death in x games. If you want to do more of that just replay any of the x games. Its time to move on to something that isnt mainly about station building and running now.

Sorry, but are you out of your mind? If you take out station building and running the trade empire then you basically end up with Elite Dangerous - why would you bother with Egosoft game if you don't want to own your own stations/fleets/empire?

The fact that there is almost no other single player Space Sim game that allow you to own multiple stations/warships SINCE X-BTF clearly show that the niche Egosoft picked is the right one. If they would try to crawl out of it it would be a total failure because other studios have much more experience and resources to pull out the AAA quality crap for casuals.

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Of course I want a XR-derivate game.
Why would I want X4? I played the previous titles for more than ten years. Why would I want to play it AGAIN?

Besides, Rebirth is moving towards the direction which I always wanted X to go to - immersion, cockpits, epic stations etc. etc.
Returning back to X3 feels like chopping off half of a game, demolishing visuals and immersion, making it raw and spread-sheet-ish again, and dropping a chunk of fun. Egosoft proved to me with X Rebirth that they can do much better than that.

[Nosscar]

Of course I want a XR-derivate game.
Why would I want X4? I played the previous titles for more than ten years. Why would I want to play it AGAIN?

Besides, Rebirth is moving towards the direction which I always wanted X to go to - immersion, cockpits, epic stations etc. etc.
Returning back to X3 feels like chopping off half of a game, demolishing visuals and immersion, making it raw and spread-sheet-ish again, and dropping a chunk of fun. Egosoft proved to me with X Rebirth that they can do much better than that.

I have got to agree with you there, i would not want to go back to x3, i enjoyed X rebirth, even with problems to begin with.
But i think the game has a lot of scope for a great game, some Mods are showing the way now, with some planning, and community views taken into account, the game and present mods, could be expanded upon to create a truly great game.
I think also maybe speeding the whole game up a bit is needed too, sometimes things take far too long and the player ends up twiddling thumbs waiting, more excitement in the next one please, but fine to keep a lot of what we have, just improve the UI, more shortcut keys, less menu navigation.With all the buttons available these days with advanced Hotas, Roccat power grid, and other tools such as headtracking, incorporate all these in stead of layered menu's.

[MegaJohnny]

- they want to improve GUI commands (probably even as a patch to XR - functions like select multiple ships via map, select empty space to give command, function to use action menu on the map screen)

Please, let it be so... I'm so desperate for that interface in X I'd pay money for it.

not that they should charge for it alone, obviously

[mr.WHO]

In XR I really like the simplification and changes in a few areas that I totally despised in X2/3 series:

- you don't have to gear up every single fighter you own from guns to pilot seats. If not the lack of carrier script and command I'd use fighters like crazy in XR.

- you don't have to make a huge personal production line to arm you capship anymore - finally in entire X-series I was able to field more than one destroyer (now I own like 20 of them) without going into logistical nightmare.

- you don't have to pay a fortune for broken paint job on your warships as engies and repair drones will automatically repair the ship for you.

- you can target waships subsystems (if only you could make NPC orders to target specific subsystems - I hope that for XR2). Making much more tactical posibilities.

- boarding is now quite intresting (for XR2 I'd only hope that you could make boarding action not only from player ship but your NPC ships too, so you could spam more than 50 marines)

- station building and expanding is now much more fun. In X3 I was never into station building apart from Player HQ (which isn't in XR to my despair....hope for XR2). In XR I build like a dozen stations with no sweat.

- "trade reservations" system was a bit confusing at first, but now I think it's greate comparing to X2/3 "who get to the station first" system. If only they could put buy and sell menus as two half of the same screen (not having to constantly jump between buy and sell menu) it would be perfect in XR2.





If not the few VERY painful GUI design choices and one flyable ship (with suprisingly low number of upgrades and customizations) I would say that right now XR is greate game.

[Skeeter]

I wonder if because of THQ as a publisher they had to do certain things in xbtf which i really liked because it seemed ever since they left THQ their games have been more meh instead of amazing like xbtf was. The intro, the setting the species, the "ship". The music too.

Also i dunno about you but i want the teladi back from xbtf. Do you remember how they looked like and sounded like in xbtf in the intro when they met the teladi when he jumped into the strange new universe. I want that back. The teladi as small fat lumps of lizard that sound NOTHING like how they sounded back then when i played x rebirth was a pure insult to the teladi imo. They nerfed them so bad that is another big reason for me at least to want them to move away. They keep messing up their own games cos they have no new ideas and cant really go forward anymore.

I know im the minority it seems but meh ive been around long enough and played the games to voice my opinion. I still fondly remember seeing xbtf on the shelf in electronic boutique in 1998 or 1999 and buying it soly on the coolness of the box and on the back of the box. Getting home starting it and omg the intro to the game. Then x2, i really liked the game tho i didnt like the khaak bit but the rest was ok tho they wont win awards for animation i dunno why they never just outsourced that to a company that could do it better or hire a pro to do it instead of doing it themselves, anyhow. The ui was really nice it was intergrated into the game instead of what x3 ended up like (like windows ui lol or eve or somit, crap.) Not fun not colorful and engaging. It was full screen too so was easy to use.

Soon as x3 came with no internal docking that was it, and the ui put me right off it wasnt a game using it it felt more like work using the ui to play.

I really wished they did the x2 expansion instead of x3 at the time but nah it got cancelled even tho they seemed to have done alot of work. I dunno why they couldnt have just released what they had as a free patch or unofficial mod instead of wasting it with not releasing it.

Oh and to fix x rebirth so i want to play would mean overhauling the interiors of stations, there too big and practically empty, they need to be alot more npcs and ones walking about and doing things and more variety. Not just npcs with buying and selling but npcs with stories like u see in rpg otherwise why bother going in stations to land if u cant explore and find interesting ppl or unique npcs with special things to talk about or sell or buy. They should shrink the station interiors if u want them to be more filled without adding more npcs, maybe just land directly in the bar or the exchange room. The navigation system, i still have no idea how to know where i am or where anything is, its too strange and needs normal names and easy to know a direction to locations etc. The old navigation may have been basic as in a box in sensors view with a north east south and west games displaying stations but it worked well. I cant find out anything in x rebirth i dunno whats in the system i dunno how to get to places like other systems i just wing it visually which is hard when i barely play it. I think the most i have played it is about (goes to check steam) 25 hours. Dunno how anyone can navigate with that system. Bring back the old or somit more similar to the old system but with nice gfx ui.

And defo they need to remove all teladi, remake them as they appeared in xbtf basically humanoid with reptilian faces in military clothes. Not short stumpy things with a big tail. And they NEED the old voices back.

[mr.WHO]

I see that people who played X2/X3 actually have much bigger problems with XR GUI than the newcomers.

As for integrated menus in X2 and window GUI in X3 you have both in XR and from the moment they released a patch than gives you sidebar and X3 style menus I went for them right away. The integrated menu (the one with animation that turn your "pilot head" to the screen to your right) literaly make me dizzy and almost puke after 15 minutes of playing.


GUI has to be clean and easy to read over the fancy/immersive but impractical.

That's one of the nice things introduced by pathes is a choice:
- you don't want to land on stations - path gave space-to-station comms
- you don't want animated menus - path gives you X3 style menus
- you don't like Skunk cokpit - path let you choose a few others
- you don't like flying to shipyard zone - 3.60 path will fix this for you.


I think that almost everything (apart from flying something else than Skunk) that we complain in XR can be fixed by pathes. The only thing that I could complain is that they do not make pathes fast enough lately.
If they would do all of this like in 6 months after the release the statistics would be much better and people would actually wait for XR2 or DLC.

Right now even if they would release XR2 like tomorrow and if it would be every fan dream game I'm aftraid that many previous customers would not even care. From marketing point of view XR was even greater disaster than from gamer point of view.

[Skeeter]

Not to be a nitpick but i think you meant to say patches instead of path or pathes in that post.

[XenonSurf]

I'm happy to hear that the GUI will be upgraded with better commands in the next game.

If I think about Fleet Command, what should most urgently be done IMO, is:

The 'Retreat' or 'Withdraw from attack' command should be visible immediately in the menu when double-clicking on a ship or calling it.
The Broadcast command for all your squad ships should be available in the map. It should contain the option to 'Leave my squad - all ships'.

There are other things to improve in this regard, the whole design maybe, but with only these above fleet command would be way easier in XR.

XenonS

[A5PECT]

For me, the command interface in XR is just as comfortable (or uncomfortable) as X3's. The things missing are the commands themselves. I really want the ability to issue "move to position," "defend position," and "protect" orders back.

I like many of the changes to the zone/sector/galaxy map. You can move between each tier fluidly, it's rendered in all three dimensions, and the search filter is an extremely welcome addition. 3.60 grants the ability to select targets by clicking on them in the map screen, which is something to look forward to. If I could issue certain orders to my ships directly from the map without leaving it it would alleviate many, many issues I currently have with the XR interface in general.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

I
- you can target waships subsystems (if only you could make NPC orders to target specific subsystems - I hope that for XR2). Making much more tactical posibilities.

Although it isn't a default setting for capitals (probably what you mean), we can do it on a small scale. The double-click in-space broadcast attack can be initiated on surface elements. Sorry if you were aware.