Split from ' .. good at!' thread.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

And yes XR was a giant failure

Sorry I have to disagree. What is it that you are implying here?
That I must be some kind of idiot to have enjoyed playing the game?

I have no idea if you own the game or how many hours of X:Rebirth you have played, and are therefore speaking from experience.

When i see collision avoidance issues i saw already in X3, except 10 times amplified in the "successor"

This I think is disingenuous, you pluck a number like 10 out of thin air.

Now if recall correctly CBJ once posted that certain areas of the AI could not be improved upon in X:3 as the engine was single threaded.
That now they had a multi-threaded engine that was a lot that could now
be done to improve the AI.

As a software developer, I am going to make a big assumption here, that
with Rebirth they did not throw away the original AI code from X:3 but used
that as the basis for the AI in Rebirth. Maybe what you are seeing is the
old AI code being shown off in all of its glory!

but the game design is just plain bad in many areas

There is some stuff in Rebirth that I think could have been done a whole lot
better.
The is also a whole load of stuff in X:3 that I think could have been done better. X:3 also has a huge amount of (what was originally) modded stuff added to it to improve over the Egosoft original.

So from my perspective we could apply the quote above to both X:3 and X:Rebirth.

[Crellion]

Zaphod m8 honestly you are discussing this with people who clocked 000's of hours in X3 variants then PREpaid XR and despite trying it at various stages of its post production improvement over the years have gone back to playing the X3 series.

Have you played X3 variants? Have you tried some of the total conversion mods? It seems odd to me that our perspectives can be so much at odds.

Anyways I am not implying I know the answers to these questions - they are not rhetorical - it's just plain old bafflement on my part.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

I am not sure of the exact number of hours I have clocked up.

X3:AP just short of 500 hours, previous versions including X2 several thousand.

Yes I have also tried total conversion mods. I have not tried Litcubes Universe as I had already stopped playing X3 by the time that was available. I don't want to go back to X3 I want to move forward.

[Beermachine]

And yes XR was a giant failure

Sorry I have to disagree. What is it that you are implying here?
That I must be some kind of idiot to have enjoyed playing the game?

I have no idea if you own the game or how many hours of X:Rebirth you have played, and are therefore speaking from experience.

Statistically, X:Rebirth has to be classed as a failure in advancing the series.

Steam stats average for last 30 days:

X3:TC - 117.1 players
X3:AP - 208.1 players
X:Rebirth - 163.7 players.

As Rebirth was supposed to be a more accessible X game then it should have way higher numbers, with all the new people it was intended to introduce to the X Series.

Also, given that X3:TC and AP are not steam exclusives and so not tracked (I play via a bought CD, and many others do as well) these figures are even more damning. It's a very good indication that the majority of players prefer the X3 series over the more technically advanced X:Rebirth, even after all the patching X:Rebirth has received.

[Crimsonraziel]

Also, given that X3:TC and AP are not steam exclusives and so not tracked

Not to mention egosoft provides 'noSteam.exe' for these games (including X:Rebirth).

So your numbers already lost their significance.

[Beermachine]

Also, given that X3:TC and AP are not steam exclusives and so not tracked

Not to mention egosoft provides 'noSteam.exe' for these games (including X:Rebirth).

So your numbers already lost their significance.

Was not aware of a nosteam.exe, which does muddy the water considerably.

Still, I'd bet good money on the probability that the X3 Series has a lot more concurrent players than X:Rebirth currently. Mainly because X3 TC/AP were originally sold and only launched via CD, with no steam option available.

The stats do show that of the users who launch via steam 33.5% are X:Rebirth and 66.5% the X3 Series.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

@Beermachine

I was going to do a detailed refutation of your post on the statistics.

I did do statistics to degree level, specifically in the analysis of experimental data.

However I just going to say this, your data is at "variance" with your conclusions.

[edit] Sorry to say, but there are too many unknown variables to do a proper
analysis of the data. What about the VR edition?

I can't resist adding this.

In probability theory and statistics, variance is the expectation of the squared deviation of a random variable from its mean. Informally, it measures how far a set of numbers are spread out from their average value.

[Beermachine]

@Beermachine

I was going to do a detailed refutation of your post on the statistics.

I did do statistics to degree level, specifically in the analysis of experimental data.

However I just going to say this, your data is at "variance" with your conclusions.

[edit] Sorry to say, but there are too many unknown variables to do a proper
analysis of the data. What about the VR edition?

I can't resist adding this.

In probability theory and statistics, variance is the expectation of the squared deviation of a random variable from its mean. Informally, it measures how far a set of numbers are spread out from their average value.

Given that VR is a relatively new technology (or rather decent quality in an affordable range for the home market is), a niche market and has a very limited selection of games currently it can be virtually discounted. What makes a good VR game is often fundamentally different to what makes a good conventional game. Egosoft understands this, and is one of the reasons X4 is not VR in it's initial release (and may never be, strategy genre elements and VR generally don't mix well due to gameplay considerations, UI, input devices, etc). In essence, XR VR Edition is a different game and experience to XR, and is being sold as such by Egosoft.

As for statistical analysis and probability theory, given that I only have a layman's understanding it was a perfunctory analysis. I could cite Metacritic score comparisons between XR and X3, reviews, steam scores, reception on this forum, etc. While logically and mathematically they can all be picked apart in some shape or form, they do paint a general overall picture of the success of XR when compared to the same for the X3 series (which also had major bugs at release). Obviously financial success is a completely different ball game.

I'd still bet a substantial amount of money on X3 currently being played much more than XR (not VR, so a like for like comparison). Would you take that bet?

Most importantly of all though, if XR was a success, from a purely business and marketing perspective it would be far more logical for Egosoft's next game within the same genre to be named XR:2, rather than X4.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

@Beermachine
Well lets take some of your arguments and see how that goes then.

Should we consider total conversion mods as a different game?

So we could then have.

X3 Reunion

X3 TC

X3 AP

X3 XRM

X3 Litcubes Universe

X Rebirth

X Rebirth Conquest and War

Plus any other very extensive mods that alter the game-play to a large extent.

Now I know that mods that extensively alter the game mechanics / gameplay
will extend the life of the original game. I have used them myself and added
a large number of hours to the enjoyment I got from playing X3 games.

I get the feeling that when people here say that X3 is the better game, they are actually
talking about a Mod, not the base game.

As for you original data you supplied a single sample.
X3:TC - 117
X3:AP - 208
X:Rebirth - 164

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that Terran Conflict had the least number of players and
Albion Prelude the most. This does not include owners of the DVD, whether purchased from Egosoft
directly or from other sources such as GOG. These are only those that recorded time on Steam.
It also does not include those that play in offline mode. As I said previously there are too many
unknowns to make any kind of analysis possible.

On top of this, these numbers look extremely small. So from the total population of X game players
(or people that own an X game) they may not have any statistical significance anyway.

[Beermachine]

@ZaphodBeeblebrox

While it would be unfair to compare a vanilla game with an extensive total conversion. It is definitely another indication of a games popularity and longevity. Modders generally don't spend years of their free time on creating extensive mods for games that in their vanilla state don't hold their interest. So, more extensive mods = better game. Yes, it's another generalisation, but from my 30 years in gaming it's true much more often than not (especially for games in the strategy genre).

I've already stated the statistics were a precursory analysis, please stop beating a dead horse! What about metacritic, reviews, the forums response on release of XR, how abandoned these forums seem to be when compared to before XR, the fact the next game is X4 and not XR2, etc?

While enjoyment of a game is completely subjective, I, like RAVEN.myst find X3 to be the more enjoyable, for many of the same reasons (no mini-games or station walking being big ones).

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Right we'll stop the flagellation, necrophilia and bestiality (flogging a dead horse.)

I have enjoyed playing both X3 and Rebirth. I am also hoping to have a great time in X4.

As for metacritic well the last review that makes up that score is from early 2014.

There is no metacritic score for the Home of Light DLC which has a very positive Steam rating, 90% of reviews are +ve.

So they must have got something right them old Egosoft boys.

[Gnorog]

...
There is no metacritic score for the Home of Light DLC which has a very positive Steam rating, 90% of reviews are +ve.

So they must have got something right them old Egosoft boys.

Hmmmh, statistics

XR has 4347 reviews,
HoL has 72 reviews.

It could be interpreted in a way, that only the hardcore fans of XR remained and if you liked XR you´ll like HoL too.

I wouldn´t say that the positive reviews of HoL are an indicator, that the majority of the old X-crowd liked HoL.

I just hope that the whole walking and "immersion" part is really optional and that egosoft has enough ressources to get the old X-parts in a good working order (e.g. economy, station building (modular stations sounds really great), AI).

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

@Gnorog

Yes, statistics again.

I went through each and every review over the last year for X:Rebirth.

Quite a number of negative reviews where by people claiming that X3 was better than Rebirth.

Now personally I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories.

But there does seem to be a concerted effort to stop people even trying the game.

This I do not understand. If you like games from Egosoft why would you deliberately try to sabotage the sales of one of their games?

It just seems to me that there are a whole lot of people that want X:Rebirth to fail. Just because its not another X3.

[edited] Should really try not to post after drinking several beers.

[RAVEN.myst]

Overwhelmingly the majority of negative reviews where by people claiming that X3 was better than Rebirth.
...
But there does seem to be a concerted effort to stop people even trying the game.

This I do not understand. If you like games from Egosoft why would you deliberately try to sabotage the sales of one of their games?

It just seems to me that there are a whole lot of people that want X:Rebirth to fail. Just because its not another X3.

It may not be anything so sinister - perhaps it's out of altruism (yeah, right! LOL) as in, if they truly believe a title to be awful, they want to spare other players the potential disappointment (and consequent damage to their opinion of EgoSoft - though the negative review does that too, I guess, just softer, without the bitterness of having spent money on a supposed lemon) - I know that if I have bad experience with a product or service which I believe is representative (that last bit is important, as isolated bad experiences happen with even the best of products/services from time to time), then I'm doing my friends a service by warning them to stay away (and as a professional reviewer of games, films, books, lifestyle tech devices/appliances, and more, it was my job to help my readers to make informed purchasing decisions, but in an unbiased fashion - that last being very important, too.) However, I suspect the truth contains elements of what you suggest, SMALLER elements of this "altruism" I suggest, and mostly is just about the salt of embittered people who were strongly disappointed by their own expectations not being met (though many felt they had been misled, in part again due to unmanaged expectations, but to be fair, ES is not *entirely* blameless here either, in my opinion) and who couldn't let go, instead just lashing out angrily - but of course, this is ALSO just speculation on my part!

[Alan Phipps]

In my experience, threads that go on to try to analyse other posters reasons for doing or saying things or for the content of their reviews will just end up going down bad-tempered rabbit holes.

Please let's get back to discussing X4 gaming content thanks.

[Graaf]

I went through each and every review over the last year for X:Rebirth.

Quite a number of negative reviews where by people claiming that X3 was better than Rebirth.

Now personally I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories.

But there does seem to be a concerted effort to stop people even trying the game.

This I do not understand. If you like games from Egosoft why would you deliberately try to sabotage the sales of one of their games?

It just seems to me that there are a whole lot of people that want X:Rebirth to fail. Just because its not another X3.

Well, you can only make a review if you bought the game. And I doubt people are buying multiple copies of Rebirth just to add a negative review.

So all those people giving a negative review and saying X3 is better might very well be genuine.

Besides, you can't stop people from tying it. There is a demo available.

[Beermachine]

@Gnorog

Yes, statistics again.

I went through each and every review over the last year for X:Rebirth.

Quite a number of negative reviews where by people claiming that X3 was better than Rebirth.

Now personally I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories.

But there does seem to be a concerted effort to stop people even trying the game.

This I do not understand. If you like games from Egosoft why would you deliberately try to sabotage the sales of one of their games?

It just seems to me that there are a whole lot of people that want X:Rebirth to fail. Just because its not another X3.

[edited] Should really try not to post after drinking several beers.

LOL, not sure if serious or baiting.

So now there's an organised conspiracy (among the media and users) to smear the name of Rebirth....

No. I apply the Occum's Razor principle to most things in life. If someone writes that they prefer X3 to Rebirth in a review, then, shock horror, it's probably true.

As to whether they should give it a not recommended, that's a more grey area. The vast majority of individual reviews are subjective, not objective, with it usually based on a comparison to a companies previous games or other games in the same genre. Is it fair, probably not, but it's human nature.

Countless sequels have had far more not recommended reviews than they probably deserve, despite being OK-good games in their own right, purely because the previous games in the series were of exceptional quality. Prominent ones that come to mind are Civ 6, Dragon Age 2, Mass effect 3, etc. It's just psychology 101, not some mass conspiracy, lol.

Edit - Will give the benefit of doubt, beer is a great logic inhibitor!

[Alan Phipps]

I asked nicely three posts up and was ignored. So ...

[Beermachine]

I have split and locked a batch of argumentative X3/XR review and statistics posts from this thread. Please remain on topic and discuss your opinions of the likely game content of X4.

Apologies for the deviation, did not notice your warning until it was too late.

<Noted, but I want to get that thread back on track so merged this here. AP>