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Honved wrote:...it might behoove Egosoft to make it clear that highways are not nearly as important to the game as in XR, otherwise some of those players may stampede elsewhere, rather than toward X4.

You think? I'd say good speed.

Honved wrote:... it might behoove Egosoft to make it clear that highways are not nearly as important to the game as in XR, otherwise some of those players may stampede elsewhere, rather than toward X4.

The thing is, they did.

The more frequent stomping/stampede scenario I've seen goes with "I haven't been on the forum in 18 months, logged in, saw a word I don't like, didn't bother looking at either the official info from the dev (like the Q&A thread), nor at the 30+ page thread discussing the point in particular, where ES staff have been active at explaining and discussing the topic to people." Then, stomping happens.

You can't blame Egosoft for not spreading the info if tantrum throwers are not going to read anything beyond the first thing they don't want to see. In this very case, the info is already present in numerous places.

Life's embarrassing moments turning up :

Spitting out the dummy and throwing the toys out of the pram.

Not reading recent posts or any previous discussion of your pet hate.

Personally speaking. I have quite a few things from every X game that I have not liked, made a few of them known on these forums.

But, yes there is always a but.

I fully intend to play the next game in the series.

vexter wrote:The funny part is, I only see a minority of vocal people who defended the highways, most of us dislike it (probably).

The thread itself is just as was already stated, embarrassing "foot stomping", but this right here though... I think this is a very common and very false assumption in a huge number of cases all over games forums. The number one thing posted on forums is complaints, a massively skewed picture is painted in numerous cases simply because those who are displeased with a thing are many times more likely to share their opinion than those who are perfectly happy with the same subject. Then we have the step beyond that: people who actually bother joining their 50th forum just to post about a game are a minority, the overwhelming majority of players don't share their thoughts at all.

Actually that's all of grave importance I wanted to point out, simple stuff but easily slips your mind at times. I very strongly prefer having efficient highways in core sectors and more open space in outskirts, sounds like that's what X4 is like so count me as happy. Well, as long as the highways LOOK good, please not another spinning tube straight out of middle school photoshop class...

My issue with highways in Rebirth was the excessive twists and turns, and the bumper car minigame. As long as they are designed reasonably (mostly straight lines, no constant bumping into other ships), where they provide a faster alternative to get to key areas than boosting alone, I don't see the problem with them.

My problem with highways...

(booming announcer voice)

TUBES IN SPAAAAACE!!!

From Wikipedia.

A wormhole, also called an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, is a concept that represents a non-trivial solution of the Einstein field equations using the Kasner metric: a non-trivial resolution of the Ehrenfest paradox structure linking separate points in spacetime. A wormhole can be visualized as a tunnel with two ends, each at separate points in spacetime (i.e., Different locations and/or different points of time), or by a transcendental bijection of the spacetime continuum. More precisely, it is an asymptotic projection of the Calabi–Yau manifold manifesting itself in Anti-de Sitter space.

Wormholes are consistent with the general theory of relativity, but whether wormholes actually exist remains to be seen.

A wormhole could connect extremely long distances such as a billion light years or more, short distances such as a few meters, different universes, or different points in time.

For a simplified notion of a wormhole, space can be visualized as a two-dimensional (2D) surface. In this case, a wormhole would appear as a hole in that surface, lead into a 3D tube (the inside surface of a cylinder), then re-emerge at another location on the 2D surface with a hole similar to the entrance.

There you go TUBES in SPACE.

I don't like highways either. Not the XR implementation at least. I liked highways in freelancer, 2 way straight lines (more or less.. they were ok-ish, still preferred "cruise drive" or whatever it was called) but this XR spaghetti...? Please don't.

The thing about Freelancer's trade lanes is that not only do they look much better/less ridiculous from a suspension of disbelief point of approach, but they actively add to the gameplay.

Imagine you wanted to cap an Argon flagship, and you were able to plan and set an elaborate ambush between places by disabling a pair of accelerator rings; pulling it out of the 'highway' without adequate protection and into your waiting fleet. Much cooler addition to the game than swirly spaghetti minigames.

To reiterate what I said last time; if you want to have highways in X4, please rip off Freelancer's trade lanes, both in concept and gameplay value.

ZaphodBeeblebrox wrote:From Wikipedia.

A wormhole, also called an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, is a concept that represents a non-trivial solution of the Einstein field equations using the Kasner metric: a non-trivial resolution of the Ehrenfest paradox structure linking separate points in spacetime. A wormhole can be visualized as a tunnel with two ends, each at separate points in spacetime (i.e., Different locations and/or different points of time), or by a transcendental bijection of the spacetime continuum. More precisely, it is an asymptotic projection of the Calabi–Yau manifold manifesting itself in Anti-de Sitter space.

Wormholes are consistent with the general theory of relativity, but whether wormholes actually exist remains to be seen.

A wormhole could connect extremely long distances such as a billion light years or more, short distances such as a few meters, different universes, or different points in time.

For a simplified notion of a wormhole, space can be visualized as a two-dimensional (2D) surface. In this case, a wormhole would appear as a hole in that surface, lead into a 3D tube (the inside surface of a cylinder), then re-emerge at another location on the 2D surface with a hole similar to the entrance.

There you go TUBES in SPACE.

I would be fine with wormholes. Because you don't see the tube/tunnel. But that would be a gate by another name. My issue with highways is that I find them horribly unsightly. When you add mini-game like travel, it gets worse(though that might be mitigated or removed before release).

Even in Freelancer I never liked the trade lanes. For one, they where in a fixed position going from planet to planet ignoring the fact that planets have an orbit and distances will vary greatly. And two, it was really annoying to get pulled out of trade lanes by an attack from ships that stood no chance of winning. It was like getting attacked by gnats that you had to constantly swat away.

I'm not thrilled with jump drives being taken out of the game, they actually make more sense to me than teleportation. I can take a living organism and teleport it halfway across the galaxy (or however far the game allows), but not a giant hunk of machinery. But for game reasons, plots, missions, and reasons of creating tactical situations I can at least understand why the devs would want to remove them.

And honestly, highways in well developed areas of space and trade hubs do make sense. With that much traffic in the area you would want some kind of control over the traffic for safety and security concerns. And they have stated several times that highways will not be like the highways in XR.

But making a decision on whether to buy X4 based on highways being implemented is premature as the game is not even in a playable by the general public state yet. And I do have faith in egosoft, I believe they have learned from XR and previous X games, what works and what doesn't, what the fans want and what the fans hate. I have been involved in and played at least a dozen games in development (pre-alpha, alpha, beta, early access, etc.) and so far egosoft has been the best at communicating with fans, with the devs constantly checking and replying to forum threads. In short, I believe this will probably be the best X game yet and I wont let a single element break it for me. And I wont be running to the forums on day 1 of playing looking for a jump drive mod, I'll at leat give the game 150 hours or so before deciding if I want mods.

vexter wrote:Just read about the inclusion of highways in x4 and I'm crushed. Ive bought some of your games twice just to support the development of x4. What a waste.

Its really unfortunate that you have taken the advice of forum warriors. I was having too much fun in x3 and AP with mods to spend much time here.

So, farewell to you Egosoft. I will delete your game and company from my radar for a few years. Maybe you will be alive to get this right next time......

While MANY of us agree that we do not like the highways, apparently you missed the part where Egosoft said they heard and highways are not as in use as before and that a lot of the old ways of travel have been brought back into the game...

You might want to get all the information before making a decision you might regret.

Malakie wrote:

vexter wrote:Just read about the inclusion of highways in x4 and I'm crushed. Ive bought some of your games twice just to support the development of x4. What a waste.

Its really unfortunate that you have taken the advice of forum warriors. I was having too much fun in x3 and AP with mods to spend much time here.

So, farewell to you Egosoft. I will delete your game and company from my radar for a few years. Maybe you will be alive to get this right next time......

While MANY of us agree that we do not like the highways, apparently you missed the part where Egosoft said they heard and highways are not as in use as before and that a lot of the old ways of travel have been brought back into the game...

You might want to get all the information before making a decision you might regret.

I will go ahead and say that you are probaby talking to a brick wall at this point.

repatomonor wrote:

Malakie wrote:

vexter wrote:Just read about the inclusion of highways in x4 and I'm crushed. Ive bought some of your games twice just to support the development of x4. What a waste.

Its really unfortunate that you have taken the advice of forum warriors. I was having too much fun in x3 and AP with mods to spend much time here.

So, farewell to you Egosoft. I will delete your game and company from my radar for a few years. Maybe you will be alive to get this right next time......

While MANY of us agree that we do not like the highways, apparently you missed the part where Egosoft said they heard and highways are not as in use as before and that a lot of the old ways of travel have been brought back into the game...

You might want to get all the information before making a decision you might regret.

I will go ahead and say that you are probaby talking to a brick wall at this point.

I agree. It is more probable that vexter clicked the wrong "New Topic" button instead of "Reply"

Honved wrote:

spankahontis wrote:I feel like this is stomp feet behaviour, doesn't help in discussion.

One person stomping their foot is a tantrum. 1000 people stamping their feet is a stampede. I suspect that there are a lot of players who strongly disliked highways, and it might behoove Egosoft to make it clear that highways are not nearly as important to the game as in XR, otherwise some of those players may stampede elsewhere, rather than toward X4.

I don't like the mini-games of rebirth, but I still like the game overall.
Not going to stomp my feet and threaten quitting over a feature of many that I don't like.. Cause i'm a grown up and I've never played a game and liked every feature.

ZaphodBeeblebrox wrote:Life's embarrassing moments turning up :

Spitting out the dummy and throwing the toys out of the pram.

Not reading recent posts or any previous discussion of your pet hate.

Personally speaking. I have quite a few things from every X game that I have not liked, made a few of them known on these forums.

But, yes there is always a but.

I fully intend to play the next game in the series.

+1

we won't miss you if you don't.

I dislike when people's reasoning goes along the lines of: "Highways in XR were awful, therefore if they add highways into any future X game it will also be awful".

There is such a thing as hindsight, and the possibility to change a feature. That's what a new game is good for... iteration and innovation.

Egosoft have CLEARLY stated that they also were not happy with how highways were received in XR, and are changing the way highways function for X4. We can only wait and see but hopefully this iteration will be more acceptable and interesting from a gameplay perspective.

Personally I didn't think the highways in XR were the spawn of the devil, like some do, but I do think they had a lot of areas for potential improvement, which is exactly what I am expecting to see in X4. I am glad to see them try to improve the highways (as they are doing) instead of throwing them out of the window just because people don't think they worked well in XR, which is the first time they tried such a concept.

Highways only have to be bidirectional and the tubes be invisible from greater distances, repeaters look much less ugly as far distance position markers.

Vandragorax wrote:I dislike when people's reasoning goes along the lines of: "Highways in XR were awful, therefore if they add highways into any future X game it will also be awful".

There is such a thing as hindsight, and the possibility to change a feature. That's what a new game is good for... iteration and innovation.

Egosoft have CLEARLY stated that they also were not happy with how highways were received in XR, and are changing the way highways function for X4. We can only wait and see but hopefully this iteration will be more acceptable and interesting from a gameplay perspective.

Personally I didn't think the highways in XR were the spawn of the devil, like some do, but I do think they had a lot of areas for potential improvement, which is exactly what I am expecting to see in X4. I am glad to see them try to improve the highways (as they are doing) instead of throwing them out of the window just because people don't think they worked well in XR, which is the first time they tried such a concept.

Personally, I'd like to discover a section of space and make it my own territory and be able to build my own Highway to connect it to the other zones.
That would be interesting, to find an area of space you haven't explored in a while and found new Highways are built connecting to new areas of space.
Maintains Exploration for a little bit longer when new regions pop up.

spankahontis wrote:
Personally, I'd like to discover a section of space and make it my own territory and be able to build my own Highway to connect it to the other zones.
That would be interesting, to find an area of space you haven't explored in a while and found new Highways are built connecting to new areas of space.
Maintains Exploration for a little bit longer when new regions pop up.

I believe, from what has been revealed so far, that there will still be an aspect of discovery in X4 because the highways will only be used now to travel through major arteries of space. As soon as you want to go "off the beaten track" you will break away from highway travel and there will be a need for exploration, using radars/satellites and visual elements to explore and find new things.

I doubt we will be able to build our own highways, which could be kind of interesting but not sure how much I'd actually want to use such a feature. It's nice, though, that we will have an option to construct a station either close to a highway and civilised areas, or far away from highways in the middle of 'deep space' thus giving us the option of a more out-of-the-way base location if desired.

I don't believe that 'claiming' space has been mentioned so far from Egosoft, although now that stations will be fully destroyable it's clearly possible to wipe out a faction from an already established place and take it over outselves should we have the desire and firepower to do so. The only thing I recall hearing about 'claming' space has been that building plots will be cheaper further into deep-space, and more expensive closer to already populated areas.