Multiverse Team Seasons: Season 1 Beta ends, preparing for the next steps

[Vicis]

And to those complaining that Ego spends company resources on that: Tough luck, guess their surveys showed that youre the minority not wanting ventures.

Ahh yes, the good old fan favorite - selection bias.

Could it perhaps be that the people who are active on the X4 communities are more likely to both see these surveys, and participate in them? Is there perhaps a chance that the people who are more actively participating in the online communities would have any sort of biases with regards to the feature's they're looking for... Perhaps more... I don't know... Community related online features?

It's appalling how little actual progress has been made on the franchise since X3 - a game that launched 18 years ago. And now this? Half-baked online functionality in a single-player franchise, tacked onto a game that launched with 0 online features - this is where Egosoft chooses to spend its resources?

I bought this game when it was a practically unplayable mess so I could support Egosoft in actually doing something decent. It still barely passes for fun, and the only reason I play it is because X3 is now so dated I can't stomach to launch it. Goodwill from nearly two decades ago can only go so far. All of the developers making space sims seem to be stuck in some bygone era. They're unable to merge the good ideas they had decades ago with the innovations of the modern gaming industry, and always somehow manage to make these quasi-modern games that feel like they were developed a decade or two ago using more modern engines and hardware. All this does is ensure the good ideas they had all that time ago aren't iterated upon, and are poorly meshed layered with some more modern ideas that absolutely don't synergize with the strengths of the titles.

I felt this at launch, but seeing this new direction, I'm almost more certain than ever that this will likely be my last X title as I'm all out of good will after the last two. Beyond that, perhaps this will be the last title overall... Machine learning is going to make some big splashes in game development within the next few years. It'll empower smaller teams to put out bigger and better games for cheaper than ever. Sooner or later this will translate to more competition in niche genres that have traditionally been dominated by a handful of companies. I don't exactly expect Frontier or Egosoft to be able to adapt all that well based on their track record, and Starfield will probably inject a good amount of interest in the genre to boot, assuming it doesn't flop.

[Nanook]

..... It'll empower smaller teams to put out bigger and better games for cheaper than ever. ...

In case you haven't been paying attention the last 18 years or so, Egosoft is one of those "smaller teams". It's why the X games don't seem to have all those 'AAA features' that some seem to miss.

[RedFlashyKitten]

And to those complaining that Ego spends company resources on that: Tough luck, guess their surveys showed that youre the minority not wanting ventures.

Is there perhaps a chance that the people who are more actively participating in the online communities would have any sort of biases with regards to the feature's they're looking for... Perhaps more... I don't know... Community related online features?

I took the survey on steam. Everyone who owns the game on steam got the survey. Your logic is flawed. You cant just scream bias whenever youre in the minority.

[Nanook]

And to those complaining that Ego spends company resources on that: Tough luck, guess their surveys showed that youre the minority not wanting ventures.

Is there perhaps a chance that the people who are more actively participating in the online communities would have any sort of biases with regards to the feature's they're looking for... Perhaps more... I don't know... Community related online features?

I took the survey on steam. Everyone who owns the game on steam got the survey. Your logic is flawed. You cant just scream bias whenever youre in the minority.

And what leads you to believe that everyone who got the survey took it? In my experience, most surveys get ignored by most people. And most gamers are on Steam because that's where most of the games are sold, so you can't assume they're 'actively participating in online communities', other than buying games.

[Vicis]

..... It'll empower smaller teams to put out bigger and better games for cheaper than ever. ...

In case you haven't been paying attention the last 18 years or so, Egosoft is one of those "smaller teams". It's why the X games don't seem to have all those 'AAA features' that some seem to miss.

Certainly, and if the studio demonstrated an ability to pivot, innovate, and adapt I would be very excited for what these new technologies would enable Egosoft to do. Yet what X4 is missing most of all aren't 'AAA' features that require massive teams and resources, but many of the overall learnings we've seen across the industry over the last few decades.

What the studio has once again demonstrated with this announcement is that they have no idea what to do in today's gaming industry other than randomly grasp at straws.

[mrwuggles]

..... It'll empower smaller teams to put out bigger and better games for cheaper than ever. ...

In case you haven't been paying attention the last 18 years or so, Egosoft is one of those "smaller teams". It's why the X games don't seem to have all those 'AAA features' that some seem to miss.

Certainly, and if the studio demonstrated an ability to pivot, innovate, and adapt I would be very excited for what these new technologies would enable Egosoft to do. Yet what X4 is missing most of all aren't 'AAA' features that require massive teams and resources, but many of the overall learnings we've seen across the industry over the last few decades.

What the studio has once again demonstrated with this announcement is that they have no idea what to do in today's gaming industry other than randomly grasp at straws.

I agree completely with your perspective, they really haven't been doing things that are to the modern standard, their ux and UI design is inadequate, there are clear instences of proper use case not being observed. Quests are not programmed around what the player might be doing, an example during The Terran mission to steal data there is a security guard that blacks your path and the station is said to be heavily monitored and secure, so why can I just zip upstairs to the empty security room and deactivate all the weapons and steal all their cargo, it would be logical to have guards here, and it was done once, but not accounted for in other areas that the player might visit, accounting for these occurences is literally a core component of good game design and yet it is not observed, and I can go on at length about how these little things and small details are conspicuously absent from almost every quest in the game.

And now instead of hearing that they are looking at these issues, they present us with a bizzare mobile game system, that we are essentially forced to use because the original implementation of these systems lacks very basic things that, had they done proper user flow analysis they would have caught, and it's absolutely maddening to see these extremly smart and talented people, who are able to do the complex things in this game soo dam well that it can create a scifi space experience without peer, and then moments later some other small detail that should have been accounted for is missing.

[THE_TrashMan]

Hmm...no way I'm playing this without mods. So imma have to skip on the multiverse thing.

[Witzzard]

(...)
If you have an alternative proposal as to how to incite people to play ventures, go right ahead. Otherwise its as Ive laid it out - and I know youve read that, so I dont need to repeat myself. Go press a button, thats how tall the wall is.
(...)

I mean, let me ask you what your incentive is, other than getting unieque stuff for trhe acutal game. Because the basic complaint is that there's no incentive for a lot of people. But that line makes it sound to me as if you're even agreeing with that notion.
Even as someon who dislikes the current iteration of the venture system, i generally speaking like visitors, seeing how other equip those ships and that and i like that the new iteration brought us actual missions to get items to use in ventures. Not to mention i generally speaking like the idea of cooperating with other players, being able to send them items and such. Heck i'd like to be able to do a general "selling equipped and modded ships to others" kinda deal for the future.
Whereas i dislike the heavy focus on forced repetition, competition, time management and lastly how it's all season based/timed events and thereby some missable content.

[Kozagar]

Hi Devs
I have played the multiverse beta for a few hours now, unfortunately I have already lost interest in it. I prefer my x universe to remain single player to be honest. What I am really hoping to see for the future is planetary landings and expeditions. If Egosoft can achieve that they will blow so many other space games right out of the universe.
Thanks for creating such a great game

[TechLibre]

Any system that includes content that cannot be achieved in the full offline singleplayer experience is nothing short of a failure.

I assume the intention is to eventually monetise this.

If Egosoft can launch a -new- game from this evolution that is one cent cheaper than EVE Online, I'd pay for it.
When it comes to monetization & microtransactions, NFTs are coming to gaming, players will get permanent ownership of in-game items, and be able to trade them.
Don't pretend you won't be selling station designs, and ship load outs to newcomers if there's money and clout in it.
I 100% support everybody at Egosoft getting rich and would love to ride along.

[alt3rn1ty]

Any system that includes content that cannot be achieved in the full offline singleplayer experience is nothing short of a failure.

I assume the intention is to eventually monetise this.

If Egosoft can launch a -new- game from this evolution that is one cent cheaper than EVE Online, I'd pay for it.
When it comes to monetization & microtransactions, NFTs are coming to gaming, players will get permanent ownership of in-game items, and be able to trade them.
Don't pretend you won't be selling station designs, and ship load outs to newcomers if there's money and clout in it.
I 100% support everybody at Egosoft getting rich and would love to ride along.

Erm, well, I support Egosoft for their long term support of this single player game which has recently included a sort of pseudo online multiplayer thing which is not real-time (and never can be), but I cant see them introducing microtransactions and nft's, its just not Egosoft and goes against everything they have previously stated.

[oni222]

I like to play on my laptop and two desktops.

So I started playing on my primary desktop and played the game for a while using the latest public beta. Steam updated the save so I went to play on my laptop and secondary desktop (with the beta enabled on all three computers) and it wont let me use the save. It says the version for the save is 6.10 but the beta version I am on is 6.0.

Has anybody seen this issue before?

[LameFox]

If Egosoft can launch a -new- game from this evolution that is one cent cheaper than EVE Online, I'd pay for it.
When it comes to monetization & microtransactions, NFTs are coming to gaming, players will get permanent ownership of in-game items, and be able to trade them.
Don't pretend you won't be selling station designs, and ship load outs to newcomers if there's money and clout in it.
I 100% support everybody at Egosoft getting rich and would love to ride along.

The trouble with selling ship loadouts and station designs is that you need to make a game that:

-is so complex and arcane you even need to buy them at all
-provides enough benefit to building well that you would spend money on it
-somehow keeps people from just posting tutorials for free
-and is actually still worth playing

I wouldn't go expecting these riches any time soon if I were you.

[TechLibre]

If Egosoft can launch a -new- game from this evolution that is one cent cheaper than EVE Online, I'd pay for it.
When it comes to monetization & microtransactions, NFTs are coming to gaming, players will get permanent ownership of in-game items, and be able to trade them.
Don't pretend you won't be selling station designs, and ship load outs to newcomers if there's money and clout in it.
I 100% support everybody at Egosoft getting rich and would love to ride along.

The trouble with selling ship loadouts and station designs is that you need to make a game that:

-is so complex and arcane you even need to buy them at all
-provides enough benefit to building well that you would spend money on it
-somehow keeps people from just posting tutorials for free
-and is actually still worth playing

I wouldn't go expecting these riches any time soon if I were you.

I think you have good points. Keep in mind the average X4 player is probably older, more experienced and better at critical thinking than the average gamer, and doesn't -need- social approval & clout. However there are millions who do exactly those things. They're stacking pixel blocks & buying MMO FPS items right now. I'm okay with Egosoft testing those waters even if Ventures won't be a major focus of how I play X4.

[TechLibre]

Any system that includes content that cannot be achieved in the full offline singleplayer experience is nothing short of a failure.

I assume the intention is to eventually monetise this.

If Egosoft can launch a -new- game from this evolution that is one cent cheaper than EVE Online, I'd pay for it.
When it comes to monetization & microtransactions, NFTs are coming to gaming, players will get permanent ownership of in-game items, and be able to trade them.
Don't pretend you won't be selling station designs, and ship load outs to newcomers if there's money and clout in it.
I 100% support everybody at Egosoft getting rich and would love to ride along.

Erm, well, I support Egosoft for their long term support of this single player game which has recently included a sort of pseudo online multiplayer thing which is not real-time (and never can be), but I cant see them introducing microtransactions and nft's, its just not Egosoft and goes against everything they have previously stated.

I can only infer the deeper principles and inner workings of Egosoft. I can see they have design and game theory principles that are uniform through the whole X series. My point is that as a company if Ventures helps them test ideas for future projects, I'm happy to participate and kick ideas around. While we may never see X-NFTs, those concepts are going to affect the whole gaming market. It worth us as the player base thinking about what that means for the X Universe and what elements of Axie Infinity or Gods Unchained we might like or hate.

[Rogueci5]

The Multiverse is a complete waste of time, my ships are being destroyed by other player ships, yet I seem to be unable to destroy the offending ship.

STICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW!

Single player content.

[SimB]

Please go back to singleplayer focus. You’re on the right track with the stories and cutscenes style.
Just give us more DLC like that.

[mr.WHO]

Exactly - yearly DLC expansion format is much more acceptable monetization practice, since Egosoft seem to figure proper DLC price/content formula.

...and if you struggle to reconcile with multiple DLCs you can always start fresh with X4 analog of X3TC/AP/FL.

[fade7]

i am having a lot of fun so far in the Multiverse .. thanks Egosoft and Bernd for making a great game ... each expansion and addition just makes this game simply the best space game out there for me. keep up the good works!

[rExil]

Not sure if this is the right place to report this, hopefully the devs can see it nonetheless.

Now that the first part of the season operations have ended and a new part started a bug seems to have cropped up. I had a venture ongoing before the first part ended and I cannot start a new venture. It's telling me to review the already completed one before I can start a new one but there is no venture for me to review. Restarting the game did not fix it, saw someone else of the Steam forums saying that deleting the venture platform and remaking it also does not fix it.