The silence from the devs is making things worse

[linolafett]

People will hope there will be will be whole bunch of ships and when game come out they will buy it. After they play for some time there is only 3 ships that player can fly (only fighters) and it is too late because you already bought game. Ego got money and they didn't lie because there are multiple ships in game.

You will be able to fly small and medium sized vessels More than three, too.

[Ketraar]

Also for the sake of Nopileus, STOP criticising testers, its getting on my nerves. Insulting people by implying they are mindless idiots that cant make their opinion heard is starting to get really annoying tbh.

MFG

Ketraar

[bambikaka]

Also for the sake of Nopileus, STOP criticising testers, its getting on my nerves. Insulting people by implying they are mindless idiots that cant make their opinion heard is starting to get really annoying tbh.

MFG

Ketraar

well, i think all of us know barrenearth and roguey. it not us accusing the testers they werent able to make their opinion heard, its them who say it. the problem is ketraar that only a few handpicked guys who said everything nice and good were listened to and all the rest was ignored... and this is not implied, this is from reliable sources i trust...

[Ketraar]

well, i think all of us know barrenearth and roguey. it not us accusing the testers they werent able to make their opinion heard, its them who say it. the problem is ketraar that only a few handpicked guys who said everything nice and good were listened to and all the rest was ignored... and this is not implied, this is from reliable sources i trust...

You have no clue what you are talking about, neither does roguey, yes he has a prominent site, but his is just an opinion like anyone else's, its not gospel.

Regardless who's suggestions Egosoft decided to listen to, it was THEIR prerogative to do so and not the people handing feedback and reports. Its like with these and other topics, people are free to suggest stuff, but it does not mean anyone (devs) will listen to it or agree. If they do fine, if they dont, well such is life, everyone is a special snowflake.

MFG

Ketraar

[DiArmada]

They lost the "I'm going to buy any Egosoft game blindly" goodwill with X-Rebirth. Personally I'm waiting for reviews, and maybe even 10 bug-fixing patches, the first / second DLC, and the bargain bin price AFTER every review gives it a 10.

Just because they didn't have the success they've had with previous titles?
A lot of people have played X games since XBTF and have enjoyed the series for over a decade.
(including you, I assume)
In my book Egosoft is one of the best software houses.
There's a very active community who know what improvements they want.
In old titles there weren't many modding options, but Egosoft listened and implemented such features in new titles.
That's awesome.

If it weren't for Roguey's site I wouldn't have understood the mechanics behind complex building.
It could've meant that I wouldn't have played further than X2.
He may have said things to certain people which weren't happy about his opinion.
But plz don't underestimate how helpfull he's been in the past

[bambikaka]

well, i think all of us know barrenearth and roguey. it not us accusing the testers they werent able to make their opinion heard, its them who say it. the problem is ketraar that only a few handpicked guys who said everything nice and good were listened to and all the rest was ignored... and this is not implied, this is from reliable sources i trust...

You have no clue what you are talking about, neither does roguey, yes he has a prominent site, but his is just an opinion like anyone else's, its not gospel.

Regardless who's suggestions Egosoft decided to listen to, it was THEIR prerogative to do so and not the people handing feedback and reports. Its like with these and other topics, people are free to suggest stuff, but it does not mean anyone (devs) will listen to it or agree. If they do fine, if they dont, well such is life, everyone is a special snowflake.

MFG

Ketraar

well, i thought they were part of the tester team werent they? so how is that they have no clue? i might dont but i think they had very much...

" it does not mean anyone (devs) will listen to it " thanks, this was exactly what i just said...

[mr.WHO]

People will hope there will be will be whole bunch of ships and when game come out they will buy it. After they play for some time there is only 3 ships that player can fly (only fighters) and it is too late because you already bought game. Ego got money and they didn't lie because there are multiple ships in game.

You will be able to fly small and medium sized vessels More than three, too.

WOW a straight answer from someone from Egosoft, thats rare.
It's still something bewteen 4 ships and All S/M size ships, where:
- 4 is just a diffrent variation of Skunk (...horror...)
- multiple diffrent S/M ship (good choice)


Jokes aside the concept sounds solid:
Fly directly by yourself S/M ships
command bigger ships from ship bridge

As usual the end result will hevily depend on the actual implementation as there are many things that can go wrong:
1 - Will all flyable ships will have cokpit variety of we will rather move toward HUD only like in X3
2 - will all flyable ship have weapon customization similar to X3 (akak multiple mounts for same or mixed weapons, X-R Skunk feels too much like arcade game)
3 - Will all M size ships have interior variety, or no interior at all
4 - Will capship bridge be usable and do not produce much of the FPS drop.

IMO point 2 and 4 are very important, while 1 and 3 are just a flavor

They lost the "I'm going to buy any Egosoft game blindly" goodwill with X-Rebirth. Personally I'm waiting for reviews, and maybe even 10 bug-fixing patches, the first / second DLC, and the bargain bin price AFTER every review gives it a 10.

As bad as it might sounds it's a very good thing for Egosoft.
Now they will have to deliver the good product from the start as it will be cautiously check by a few first day buyes.
Most people will wait for initial review and only if they will be good they will buy the game.

Its straight life and death case for Egosoft as I doubt that they would be able to recover from two failures in the row.

P.S Additionally I think it's not only Egosoft, but whole gaming industry is loosing customer trust with first day pathes, false advertising and pathetic pre-order bonuses.
There is rarely any reason to buy any game on pre-order or first day these days.

[BigBANGtheory]

Well it may have simply been that they could not act on the feedback, where ES I think gets caught out is misalignment with what is or is not fundamentally popular amongst its market. He said, she said isn't particularly useful its how it sits with 250k customers that matters.

This is why imho you need to split functional testing away from QA & UX, because there is a time and a place for both with QA & UX needing more of a focus group than experience or commitment to ES objectives that other types of testing does. You don't have to agree with the findings of such a group but to proceed without that insight is a commercial risk a gamble in effect.

Maybe that wouldn't have worked with XR, its in the past now that opportunity has gone forever. Would it help this time though? Maybe I don't know its not my call, but the offer to help is there. Its not the testers at fault it is the testing process and permeation of change arising from it. It maybe that ES has just bitten off more than it can comfortably chew but again as a consumer that isn't the consumers problem no matter how true or how much effort goes in, its what comes out that matters to the customer. You either get it very right, very wrong or somewhere in between I'd just like to see things shifted up a bit if possible that's all.

[MegaJohnny]

WOW a straight answer from someone from Egosoft, thats rare.
It's still something bewteen 4 ships and All S/M size ships, where:
- 4 is just a diffrent variation of Skunk (...horror...)
- multiple diffrent S/M ship (good choice)

Even if the player-ships are very different, I would rather be able to fly every ship the NPCs do rather than have the Albion Scout, Albion Fighter, Albion Freighter etc... I didn't know I would miss that so much, playing by the same rules as the NPC pilots using the same ships. It made me feel like a citizen of the universe. Obviously there were exceptions like the UFO, but you get the idea.

I'm guessing this is what Ego meant by "flying multiple ships" so far, but I wish I could have it spelled out for me. I would take the post and frame it on the wall.

[Ketraar]

But plz don't underestimate how helpfull he's been in the past

He did not invent nor research the knowledge that is put on his site, its part of a "global" community, MANY players contributed bits and bytes to information and we all made things based on other peoples findings. Just because some one wrote it down does not mean it was not some one else's effort too. Now dont get me wrong, I'm far from saying anyone's contributions are more or less valid, but I dislike this worship of single individuals as its unfair to others that (arguably) have contributed far more to the overall success of the X community. But I digress...

well, i thought they were part of the tester team werent they?

Many users signed up for testing, that does not mean much though. I wont go into detail as its a moot point, the idea was that people contributed, some more some less. Some had expectations that weren't met, but most decided not to go whine about it.

You either get it very right, very wrong or somewhere in between I'd just like to see things shifted up a bit if possible that's all.

Dont we all/most? But I think some people could do with some humble pie given the professionals, aka the people with most stakes on the project, are on the "other side", I think they want it to be good more than anyone else.

MFG

Ketraar

[Nikola515]

@Lino

Thanks for info


@Ketraar

What are you talking about ???? Nobody is blaming/attacking testers on a first place

My point was to get as many as testers possible in early stages of development. And my point is that testers should have bigger role than just testing if something work. For example almost everybody agrees that UI is not how it should be. Testers shouldn't be like this is awesome and it works perfectly. All though it works it sucks when you have large empires and in end game. Ego should actually take in account what testers are saying and work with them how it would be better in a long run. Not sure if you played 7 Days to Die ? They changed their crafting UI multiple time and even HUD during their development until it got easy to use. But this happened because game was early in development and it needed less time to change it. My point is that they wore paying more attention to testers and community and it one of best games in my opinion. I have a lot of hours on it and did a lot of testing as well (devs actually wore communicating with players). Also some of people from here went there as well especially mods....

[Ketraar]

What are you talking about ???? Nobody is blaming/attacking testers on a first place

Well your wording was off then.

Also they should have people testing game who wont just agree with everything they do. Sometimes it is critical for tester to say what they don't like and how they think it would be better .

That sounded a lot like an insult. Maybe I read it wrong, maybe you worded it badly, maybe its a translation thing.

I get defensive when people poke at testers/volunteers... batman-syndrome

MFG

Ketraar

[ajax34i]

Linolafett: Thanks for the info. Like Mr. Who, I have tons of follow-up questions, but I think that that's just about as much information as you're willing to reveal at this point in time, so I won't ask.

Nikola515: More testers doesn't necessarily mean fewer bugs. Testers find bugs, they don't fix them. Credits are presented at the end of the X-Rebirth plot, and I took the time to read through; thanks were given to testers and their forum handles were listed, and there were A LOT of testers, probably as many as Egosoft could handle.

[Alan Phipps]

@bambikaka: Your quoted Rebirth insider Barrenearth was never a tester and indeed was very proud of his stated fact that he only ever played early release version Rebirth for 20 hours during the one-off free play weekend and subsequently did not buy it or play it again. I am unsure how that makes him such an expert on testing, but each to their own opinions.

[Nikola515]

@Ketraar

All though I was not in early XR testing I did spent a lot of time testing betas and even DLC. So insulting testers would be like insulting my self I assume patch beta testing was much different than original testing (that you did). But I did notice some of testers wore agreeing with everything that ego was doing and that was bad for game it self. They got their free DLC copy and they wore kissing ass for it without realizing damage that they are doing. That is why I said that but I didn't not want to offend other testers for it. But I still think getting involved right testers that can criticize and praise ego at same time.

@ajax34i

I don't think testers should be there just to get bugs. They should influence how game should be played and what would make game better in long run. But it is up to Ego to decide what would be best in the end. It would help Ego get some more fresh ideas and get player prospective in to development. We used to have some of best community before XR was out (I hope ego can bring them back). Also if you look what mods did from XR vanilla it is awesome. If I was Ego I would have them in my team helping

[bambikaka]

@Ketraar

All though I was not in early XR testing I did spent a lot of time testing betas and even DLS. So insulting testers would be like insulting my self I assume patch beta testing was much different than original testing (that you did). But I did notice some of testers wore agreeing with everything that ego was doing and that was bad for game it self. They got their free DLC copy and they wore kissing ass for it without realizing damage that they are doing. That is why I said that but I didn't not want to offend other testers for it. But I still think getting involved right testers that can criticize and praise ego at same time.

wholeheartedly agree with this... sadly the harm is already done and im afraid it will happen again. the problem is, this time it wont be so easy to fool ppl into buying

[Ketraar]

@Nikola515
I'm aware of your (and other people's) efforts. But you cant say that you dont want to insult testers, then go in the same sentence accusing them to kissing ass.

People may agree with you or they dont, its unfair to say they are mindless sell-out just because you have a different opinion. They are not professional testers, they are people like you and me, some have better grasp, some dont. Which result in many different ways you will get feedback, some will be useful, some (a lot) is not. But even then its NOT up to testers to sort it out as they are presented with a platform. Finding a balance between having enough people providing (varied and valid) feedback and filter all the "spam" is a formula in constant evolution, still to be perfected.

Anyway I think all has been said and I just hope people would avoid making broad statements based on little fact, even if its now fashion to confuse facts with "feelings".

MFG

Ketraar

[Graaf]

People will hope there will be will be whole bunch of ships and when game come out they will buy it. After they play for some time there is only 3 ships that player can fly (only fighters) and it is too late because you already bought game. Ego got money and they didn't lie because there are multiple ships in game.

You will be able to fly small and medium sized vessels More than three, too.

Well, it is an improvement on Rebirth. But with the gameplay changes made in Rebirth compared to X3 it still is a step back.

[BigBANGtheory]

You either get it very right, very wrong or somewhere in between I'd just like to see things shifted up a bit if possible that's all.

Dont we all/most? But I think some people could do with some humble pie given the professionals, aka the people with most stakes on the project, are on the "other side", I think they want it to be good more than anyone else.

Yes I could agree with that position, ES (its creditors/investors) and DevNet have the greatest interest and motivation for goodness due to their skills and commitment. Humble pie will be consumed when one is proven, or measured (since you'll always get one or two awkward tossers), to be right.

I'll wager a large slice of humble pie if ES 'gets the balance and recipe right' for the next game having not involved a community focus group relying solely on feedback received to date + DevNet + their internal processes.

[Ketraar]

I'll wager a large slice of humble pie if ES 'gets the balance and recipe right' for the next game having not involved a community focus group relying solely on feedback received to date + DevNet + their internal processes.

Change pie to pizza and I'm in.

MFG

Ketraar