Did Egosoft miss what the fans wanted?

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Did Egosoft miss what fans wanted?

Yes.
45
13%
No.
142
40%
Too soon to tell.
168
47%
 
Total votes: 355

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Nikola515
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Post by Nikola515 » Mon, 19. Feb 18, 05:39

We already known that there will be only one ship and we did complain that game will be limited(wow fans wore actually right). We known so little that our expectations wore high based on previous titles.... XR was bad from the start and I'm not just talking about bugs.... Single ship, limited universe, indestructible stations, highway+highway mini game (glad they removed that),limited sinks and economy..... Even after being fixed (3 years later) rating is bad for it. I actually think XR is ok now and I somewhat like it but my opinion alone don't matter. Im sure Ego realized this too and that is why we probably wont see XR2 in future. Or if they do they should make it stand alone game (don't tie it to X series).

Unlike others I actually staid with the game and helped it fix it trough beta testing until HoL was out of beta.

I do agree with you 100% there. They wanted to keep it as secret so bad that it actually backfired on them. It also made it worse that fans and community felt left out of it. Well if anything XR was one big surprise in the end :P
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Post by Skeeter » Mon, 19. Feb 18, 12:23

I wouldn't have minded the 1 ship if it was say like the dragon m6 from x2 or something similar but we got a bit of a boring designed ship and called a stupid name the skunk. As didn't mind the X shuttle from xbtf cos it was at least expandable.
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 19. Feb 18, 12:49

Let's discuss the woes of XR in the XR forum shall we? Although I think it may already have been done to death there too! :wink:
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Post by Gazz » Wed, 21. Feb 18, 07:33

As far as jump gates go - they are simply a good idea when it comes to space games.

The big problem in space is that it is big.
In order to get anything done/protected you need choke points - otherwise you need "realistic" scanners with hundreds of thousands of km range and/or a huge fleet to physically patrol a ginormous amount of space.

That leads to the other major issue with X3-style jumpdrives.
You cannot just control entry points into "your space". There is no defense in depth. You have to lock down every single jump gate with an equal force.
Strategically that is dumb gameplay.

Of course it was convenient as hell for the player. It just wasn't great gameplay design. =)
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Post by Killjaeden » Wed, 21. Feb 18, 11:54

You cannot just control entry points into "your space". There is no defense in depth. You have to lock down every single jump gate with an equal force.
Strategically that is dumb gameplay.
Which is easily solved, if the gates where set to require "jumping permission" to plot a route through them. This means, if you are hostile or not popular enough you will be stopped at the first gate in the chain that does not allow you to pass. If you have some high rank, you can jump to the desired target without getting interrupted. The instant nature of jumps (Instantly from A to B, no waiting time) can also easily be adjusted to have some transit time, dependant on distance between gates.
Of course it was convenient as hell for the player. It just wasn't great gameplay design. =)
And also convenient as hell for mission creators for the purpose of safely spawning or despawning actors (enemies, friendlies, ...)
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Post by DJC » Wed, 21. Feb 18, 15:10

So far from what I have seen I think it is shaping up well. Not perfect mind you but there is still time to iron out the rough edges :). The one BIG issue for me is ship steering. It does not look like they have gone back to the previous model (X3) in this area :(. This one thing may just be a game breaker for me, I truly hated the steering in XR. I hope there will at least be an option to allow, as I will call it, "classic steering". I am speaking as a mouse and keyboard user. I have no idea how it worked otherwise.
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Post by RodentofDoom » Fri, 23. Feb 18, 12:59

Nikola515 wrote: And that's how X Rebirth was born..... I assume you also love and approve Destiny 2 and Star Wars Battlefront 2 as well ?
Never played either of those franchises..
Graaf wrote: I take it you will not buy this new "X4" then and stick with Rebirth.
I'll probably buy it.
Yes, my opinion is a little extreme and apparently a little on the solitary side
but i think X3 was the worst version of the game ..

I've been playing the series since BTF launched and I judge all version in the series against it. I'm not saying X:R was without it's flaws ... But for me it was more X'ey than 3 was.

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Post by Toramo » Fri, 23. Feb 18, 17:08

RodentofDoom wrote:
Nikola515 wrote: And that's how X Rebirth was born..... I assume you also love and approve Destiny 2 and Star Wars Battlefront 2 as well ?
Never played either of those franchises..
Graaf wrote: I take it you will not buy this new "X4" then and stick with Rebirth.
I'll probably buy it.
Yes, my opinion is a little extreme and apparently a little on the solitary side
but i think X3 was the worst version of the game ..

I've been playing the series since BTF launched and I judge all version in the series against it. I'm not saying X:R was without it's flaws ... But for me it was more X'ey than 3 was.
Don't worry, fortunately, you are not the only one to like XR and not the only one hyped by X4.
Personnaly I do not like XR and I'm very suspicious about X4.

We're talking here about a game series which, from X to X3AP, continuously keep improving features and adding some step by step.
XR was a stop in this process since core features were removed or simplified.

Also in my opinion, ES never wanted to told it clearly, but XR was X4... They used communication to turn around this fact and they said it was an another type of game when they realized how different it was.

The proof is, X4 (from what we know until now), is built on XR skeleton, not on the older games one.

As said above, X series is half a space sim and half a management game. For me, it is more 20/80 % (80% of management). Since you'll spent 80% of your time to manage things on a run.

A 4x game is about massive trading, large armada, territory control etc... Exactly what wasn't XR.
And X4 do not look like this for now in my eyes, it looks like an XR with an improved interface thanks to the map, and some features that come back from the old game (multiship, ability to build your station where you want etc...)

So to answer the OP, I answered "Yes". Even if I think they didn't forgot what the fan wants (because it's pointless since you can't answer everyone), but they definitely forget the essence of what X, previous to XR, was.

But well, even if I'm worried about that, gamers on today ar not the same than yesterday. I can understand they want to adapt their games to this new 'market'.
Definitely, I wish the best to ES with this new game. Even if I think I'll not buy it.

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Post by mib666007 » Sun, 25. Feb 18, 08:06

Coming from X3 : Terran Conflict, a game I randomly picked up back when Best Buy used to actually sell PC games, I fell in love with the series. I spent a bit of time on TC vanilla, albion prelude and then with mods like the amazing improved wars(and all those mods that existed). I never played the stories or cared about the plots. I have never played X1-2 or X3 Reunion, and I skipped X:R after reading about the game's plans and subsequent reviews on Steam.

All that said - For me it's going to have to be comparable to X3 : Albion Prelude with LU/Mayhem mods. That to me, right now, is the most definitive experience I've had and even now.

I feel like it will face the same struggles Sims 4 faced in comparison to Sims 3. Buying the new version sure had better graphics and some new features but we were losing so much content and polish that was already existing in our games.

The most important thing will be, the initial splash and getting positive reviews. The interface could really be something that alone could make this an instant buy for me if it kept the core of a very developed X3's experience/depth.

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Nikola515
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Post by Nikola515 » Sun, 25. Feb 18, 17:10

@RodentofDoom

Me neither but we wore not talking about playing them but rather dev development practices ;)

@ All

Back on topic... X3 was far from perfect game but it had that charm of sandbox and freedom that some other titles didn't have. On the other hand X4 got some of X3 features and adding scale of XR. Traveling is improved (compared to X3 and XR) stations building is similar to XR as well as mining. We can now pilot all ships like in X3 and i just wish they could add manual turret targeting. We can now destroy stations and truly influence universe (I hope). But my buying point for this game will be AI. I don't want to see capital ships running around in circles like chicken without head (at least we can pilot them now).
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Post by Kasabian » Thu, 1. Mar 18, 05:29

Nothing has managed to interest me yet and all the released material looks like X Rebirth with a few bells and whistles added on.

It is still early days, but I seriously doubt they have a game that captures that old X3 spirit. I have not given up hope, but I am not optimistic that this game is aimed for old fans like me but rather the Rebirth crowd.

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Observe
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Post by Observe » Thu, 1. Mar 18, 05:53

X4 is not so much missing what I want, as it is containing what I don't want:

1. I don't want local highways.

2. Removing jumpdrives in favor of teleportation will remove the "favorite ship" element. In X3, I developed almost a personal relationship with certain ships that I had a history with. It seems this RPG aspect will be removed, because when traveling between systems, we will have to leave our ships behind and materialize into different ones.

What remains to be seen, is whether the negatives will outweigh the positives. Who knows, I might even like teleportation. I doubt I'll ever appreciate highways though. :)

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Post by DJC » Thu, 1. Mar 18, 14:05

Observe wrote:X4 is not so much missing what I want, as it is containing what I don't want:

1. I don't want local highways.

2. Removing jumpdrives in favor of teleportation will remove the "favorite ship" element. In X3, I developed almost a personal relationship with certain ships that I had a history with. It seems this RPG aspect will be removed, because when traveling between systems, we will have to leave our ships behind and materialize into different ones.
Please explain where you got this info from.

"Removing jumpdrives in favor of teleportation will remove the "favorite ship" element"

"because when traveling between systems, we will have to leave our ships behind and materialize into different ones."

This just does not seam logical. If what you say here is true then this could be another game breaker for me.
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Nikola515
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Post by Nikola515 » Thu, 1. Mar 18, 14:18

Observe wrote: 2. Removing jumpdrives in favor of teleportation will remove the "favorite ship" element.
I don't know about that.... With boost and seta we will be able to travel trough sectors pretty fast(we can get where we want pretty fast). This will depend also on how big is universe and how many gates we will need to travel. Only thing I'm worried is if universe is too big we wont be encouraged to explore without jumpdrive.
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Post by X2-Illuminatus » Thu, 1. Mar 18, 20:48

DJC wrote:
Observe wrote:X4 is not so much missing what I want, as it is containing what I don't want:

1. I don't want local highways.

2. Removing jumpdrives in favor of teleportation will remove the "favorite ship" element. In X3, I developed almost a personal relationship with certain ships that I had a history with. It seems this RPG aspect will be removed, because when traveling between systems, we will have to leave our ships behind and materialize into different ones.
Please explain where you got this info from.

"Removing jumpdrives in favor of teleportation will remove the "favorite ship" element"

"because when traveling between systems, we will have to leave our ships behind and materialize into different ones."

This just does not seam logical. If what you say here is true then this could be another game breaker for me.
That the jumpdrive won't be part of X4 was mentioned in the 2nd livestream. As for the other things mentioned by Observe, I guess that's his own interpretation of how this missing feature impacts his own playing style. From the available information there's no reason to believe that you wouldn't be able to use a specific ship to travel between systems. It's probably rather the notion that even with boosters, travel drive and SETA this travel through the universe (from system to system) will cost time, and will no longer be nearly instantaneous, as it was in the X1 to X3 games.
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Post by DJC » Fri, 2. Mar 18, 01:04

X2-Illuminatus wrote:
DJC wrote:
Observe wrote:X4 is not so much missing what I want, as it is containing what I don't want:

1. I don't want local highways.

2. Removing jumpdrives in favor of teleportation will remove the "favorite ship" element. In X3, I developed almost a personal relationship with certain ships that I had a history with. It seems this RPG aspect will be removed, because when traveling between systems, we will have to leave our ships behind and materialize into different ones.
Please explain where you got this info from.

"Removing jumpdrives in favor of teleportation will remove the "favorite ship" element"

"because when traveling between systems, we will have to leave our ships behind and materialize into different ones."

This just does not seam logical. If what you say here is true then this could be another game breaker for me.
That the jumpdrive won't be part of X4 was mentioned in the 2nd livestream. As for the other things mentioned by Observe, I guess that's his own interpretation of how this missing feature impacts his own playing style. From the available information there's no reason to believe that you wouldn't be able to use a specific ship to travel between systems. It's probably rather the notion that even with boosters, travel drive and SETA this travel through the universe (from system to system) will cost time, and will no longer be nearly instantaneous, as it was in the X1 to X3 games.
The removal of jump drives does not bother me so much, it was the rest that bothered me. Thank you for that clarification. It makes a little more sense now.
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Post by CorruptUser » Fri, 2. Mar 18, 03:13

I think we will get enough from X4. It'll be X3 with only the better parts of XR, as far as I can tell. I actually like the idea of walking around stations, just not the implementation and the boring minigames that just amounted to the same reflex challenge over and over...
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Post by Graaf » Fri, 2. Mar 18, 07:15

CorruptUser wrote:It'll be X3 with only the better parts of XR
No. It will just be an improved Rebirth. Having more ships to pilot doesn't make it X3.

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Post by ZaphodBeeblebrox » Fri, 2. Mar 18, 09:40

Well the fact that it is not X3 makes me really happy!

I player 1000's of hours of X2 and several 1000's of hours of X3.

I don't play X3 anymore, I don't want to. I have had enough already.

So I am really happy that the guys at Egosoft are moving on and creating a new game with new possibilities. New gameplay, new features.

That's just want I want. Not some tired boring old rehash of a game.
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Post by Observe » Fri, 2. Mar 18, 19:02

X2-Illuminatus wrote:From the available information there's no reason to believe that you wouldn't be able to use a specific ship to travel between systems.
Its been so long since I played Rebirth. I don't remember the details. As I recall, the universe mechanics don't allow 'manual' seamless travel between systems. Some form of 'magic' transport in the form of gates or jumpdrive is required. Since X4 is using the same basic game engine as Rebirth, I doubt that has changed. Teleportation is the worst possible solution imo, because you have to leave your 'favorite' ship behind.

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