No info?

[Nikola515]

Reviews are in my opinion for new players that dont have much experience with X games(potential buyers). Average X fan dont care about those (at least I dont) I already know what to expect do to videos they provided. We don't know about some new features but that is charm of finding out when we buy game. My only concern is will they work ? But what interests me is how stable game is and how buggy will it be when it is out... So I would say I'm 3 on Alan's scale.

[LittleBird]

3. Others are waiting to see published peer reviews and gameplay footage after release and before deciding whether to purchase or not - and will pay Egosoft a bit more if they do. They rather distrust 'official' statements of intent and prepared footage.

You are close.
They impatiently wait for (more) 'official' statements and prepared footage.

[bl3ek]

To be honest, I've pre-ordered on Steam but even so I'd like to see more video footage. Just to keep the hype train rolling.

It seems pretty standard these days to see videos on YouTube to help build interest.

I appreciate we had the two videos last month, which were solid, but another cheeky peek before launch would help.

[nerdtron]

It would be nice to see non-trailer-esque gameplay with the latest build this close to release. Meaning, not edited, but starting a new game, going through the initial gameplay experience, etc. Showing how the game plays and feels in those first parts of a new game without being edited down to only show certain aspects.

In lieu of that, if you're worried about the risk of pre-order, you can do the following.

• Pre-order from Steam, they allow refunds with no questions asked as long as you haven't played more than 2 hours and I think there's a 2 week limit. This is a good way to minimize risk as you can verify it runs on your system and spend an hour seeing if you like the feel of the early game.

• OR, wait until release and check out some live streams on twitch and see people actually playing the game. Then use this info to order on Steam if you like what you see and you still then have the possibility of a refund.

So while it may be nice to see more footage, the risk isn't really very large given the options available.

[bl3ek]

It would be nice to see non-trailer-esque gameplay with the latest build this close to release. Meaning, not edited, but starting a new game, going through the initial gameplay experience, etc. Showing how the game plays and feels in those first parts of a new game without being edited down to only show certain aspects.

That's the sort of thing you see and would be very welcome a few weeks before release.

For me it's about verification, it's about getting the excitement going... a nice build-up for launch.

[Vandragorax]

It would be nice to see non-trailer-esque gameplay with the latest build this close to release. Meaning, not edited, but starting a new game, going through the initial gameplay experience, etc. Showing how the game plays and feels in those first parts of a new game without being edited down to only show certain aspects.

That's the sort of thing you see and would be very welcome a few weeks before release.

For me it's about verification, it's about getting the excitement going... a nice build-up for launch.

I really don't get why so many people expect this to happen... are you guys getting confused with "early access" games compared to non-early access games? I can't honestly think of a single example of a non-early access game that I saw on Steam where they released a "let's play" or pre-release full gameplay videos. It's ALWAYS trailers, hand picked and selected trailers. We won't get anything else, so stop trying to get your hopes up lol

If you want actual gameplay, you'll just have to wait until after release when you can watch people all over YouTube or Twitch playing it. I don't know what else to say other than wondering where this idea has come from that people are expecting a game that isn't even released yet to have the devs come online and do a whole playthrough, spoiling the entire new game experience for anyone who might be interested in playing it.

Not everyone enjoys watching other people playing games in a video, some of us actually enjoy playing games ourselves without knowing 100% of everything that's going to happen when we play it lol

[bl3ek]

It would be nice to see non-trailer-esque gameplay with the latest build this close to release. Meaning, not edited, but starting a new game, going through the initial gameplay experience, etc. Showing how the game plays and feels in those first parts of a new game without being edited down to only show certain aspects.

That's the sort of thing you see and would be very welcome a few weeks before release.

For me it's about verification, it's about getting the excitement going... a nice build-up for launch.

I really don't get why so many people expect this to happen... are you guys getting confused with "early access" games compared to non-early access games? I can't honestly think of a single example of a non-early access game that I saw on Steam where they released a "let's play" or pre-release full gameplay videos. It's ALWAYS trailers, hand picked and selected trailers. We won't get anything else, so stop trying to get your hopes up lol

If you want actual gameplay, you'll just have to wait until after release when you can watch people all over YouTube or Twitch playing it. I don't know what else to say other than wondering where this idea has come from that people are expecting a game that isn't even released yet to have the devs come online and do a whole playthrough, spoiling the entire new game experience for anyone who might be interested in playing it.

Not everyone enjoys watching other people playing games in a video, some of us actually enjoy playing games ourselves without knowing 100% of everything that's going to happen when we play it lol

YouTube let's play are big business, hundreds of millions of views each month.

I'm a Paradox fan, I play their grand strategy games and they do regular (weekly) developer diaries that include videos showing features, ideas and well ... development.

Their approach is A+

I don't expect a much smaller team like Egosoft to follow suit, however they could lend a few ideas from the very successful companies such as Paradox.

The numbers don't lie!

[Vandragorax]

YouTube let's play are big business, hundreds of millions of views each month.

I'm a Paradox fan, I play their grand strategy games and they do regular (weekly) developer diaries that include videos showing features, ideas and well ... development.

Their approach is A+

I don't expect a much smaller team like Egosoft to follow suit, however they could lend a few ideas from the very successful companies such as Paradox.

The numbers don't lie!

TL:DR in order to do what you're suggesting, the company needs to work to a specific process. If Egosoft do not follow this type of process in their work ethic (and there are good reasons for or against any specific approach/process) then even if they wanted to, they wouldn't be ABLE to do what you're suggesting. Other companies might work in different ways which support doing what you suggest and that's fine but not every company works in the same way.

-----------

YouTuber "Let's play" is completely different from a developer who is showcasing their updates on a video stream before a release, since the developer can choose specific things to show or not show, they will obviously show you the parts that are more finished and not show the parts that are still being worked on.

Also that's great if Paradox can do that, but in order to do so it requires their entire development lifecycle process to be designed to support it. They need to always ensure that their 'trunk' build (release build) is kept clean and working. This involves a LOT of overheads, devs working on code branches, writing unit tests, having a lot of manual exploratory and automation QA testing and multiple rounds of testing which slows everything down (testing on branches, and then on release build etc.)

It's also a potentially huge shift in mentality to work in this way if their current process is different, since it means breaking up requirements into smaller chunks that can be delivered individually. The current software company I'm a QA manager for works in this way and it makes our releases a lot more stable but take a hell of a lot longer.

If Egosoft do not have a process that supports having a stable release at all times then it's not going to be possible for them to do such a thing, even if they would want to. They may purposely not do this, because of the additional testing and time overheads it adds to the whole cycle and they are a smallish team who want to hit their final release goal on time, they might not want to be held to multiple small release goals every month along the whole way and instead focus on delivery of all functionality up until a month or so before release, and then spend the remaining time on 'hardening' the code by fixing bugs and tidying things up. This saves a lot of time compared to doing mini-'hardening' cleanups throughout all functionality delivery.

[ZombiePotatoSalad]

"YouTube let's play are big business, hundreds of millions of views each month.

I'm a Paradox fan, I play their grand strategy games and they do regular (weekly) developer diaries that include videos showing features, ideas and well ... development.

Their approach is A+

I don't expect a much smaller team like Egosoft to follow suit, however they could lend a few ideas from the very successful companies such as Paradox.

The numbers don't lie!"


If that is too long to not read, then the Internet is getting even lazier than I thought. I always hated TLDR as a concept. If you want to learn something, READ.

Anyway, in the Launch Date Announcement trailer, they did say there would be more to come in the coming weeks. Well... weeks have come and gone. This game could be awesome, and be everything we wanted in an X game. It could have flaws, it could drive some people away. Who knows?

That's what I don't like: the ambiguity. This "wait and see" idea that everyone keeps preaching is what lead to the buyer's remorse people felt when first playing No Man's Sky and X Rebirth at launch.

I know that Egosoft isn't Paradox, and is a small company with not many people. They can't always devote the time to make videos or livestreams. How about a few seconds-long video showing some humorous bugs while playtesting? I'd like to see Teladi eyes spinning around in their sockets, ships docking upside down, stuff like that. Bugs don't always ruin a game, sometimes they make the experience that much better. I don't want to be sold a perfect product at launch. Rockstar and Bethesda did well to say "expect bugs." CIG even has a show dedicated to showing them fixing these bugs, as well as their humorous effects. All I had to do was press the record button, play for a bit, and then press the stop button, and I had a crappy playthrough of Robot Alchemic Drive on YouTube.

[Vandragorax]

It's just the sheer arrogance and ignorance of it that is infuriating.

Did Red Dead Redemption 2 have "live gameplay" from the devs before release? Nope. There were what, 3 trailers was it? And they were just pointless non-gameplay videos. But did everyone go crazy complaining that the game was going to be a huge flop because EMEGERDS they didn't show real gameplay of someone playing from the title screen through the first chapter?

Honestly.... NOT that many games show LIVE gameplay footage BEFORE release. There is nothing special about the way Egosoft have done things, but some people here seem to think it's some kind of omen depicting horrible things for the game.

I just don't get it!

People have been spoiled by "early access" titles without realising that a huge reason so many "early access" games end up taking so long to make is that once the game is out the devs have to be SUPER CAREFUL not to break the working game build. Their processes bloat in order to accommodate this methodology of development and testing so everything takes way longer for even adding a tiny small feature.

[bl3ek]

It's just the sheer arrogance and ignorance of it that is infuriating.

Did Red Dead Redemption 2 have "live gameplay" from the devs before release? Nope. There were what, 3 trailers was it? And they were just pointless non-gameplay videos. But did everyone go crazy complaining that the game was going to be a huge flop because EMEGERDS they didn't show real gameplay of someone playing from the title screen through the first chapter?

Honestly.... NOT that many games show LIVE gameplay footage BEFORE release. There is nothing special about the way Egosoft have done things, but some people here seem to think it's some kind of omen depicting horrible things for the game.

I just don't get it!

I hope that wasn't aimed at me, because I didn't say that and it's not my attitude.

I've pre-ordered because I liked X3.

I want Egosoft to be successful because it means we get more X games and continued improvements to the current catalogue. My comments are related to them stacking the deck in their favour. They don't need to throw huge money at marketing, their greatest asset is their passion for their product which can be demonstrated relatively easily in video form. That is - in context - cheap marketing.

Lifting a few good ideas from companies like Paradox is not a bad thing. If it's simply not possible for Egosoft then fair enough. But if there's a chance they can improve their situation, success and reputation with the wider gaming community by doing so, they should grab the opportunity with both hands.

Is Paradox the exception? Yes.

Are they a really good example with millions of die-hard fans as a result? Absolutely yes!

I'd wager their games wouldn't be anywhere near as popular without their community building processes.

For me this isn't demanding or entitled - in fact, consider it a wish - as there's nothing more innocent than a simple wish.

[Vandragorax]

It wasn't aimed at you in particular, more generically at the hundreds of comments and threads over the last few months with the same sentiment.

It isn't going to happen because Egosoft don't have the capacity to do it for whatever reason, be it a staffing issue, time issue, or an issue with their development process not enabling this to happen (as I mentioned in my previous posts about the software development lifecycle needing to support that style of development).

Thousands of other games get released without the wished for 'show it all before release' footage. I don't get why the demand for it here, besides a few people getting impatient or desperately wanting to justify pre-ordering when their brains are telling them not to because they felt bad about the state of Rebirth after that release didn't go as expected.

Wish everyone would just take a chill pill, and I think I'm gonna have to take the rest of the time until release away from these forums just to stay sane... since it's the same old stuff being rinsed and repeated over and over right now

[ZombiePotatoSalad]

It's just the sheer arrogance and ignorance of it that is infuriating.

Did Red Dead Redemption 2 have "live gameplay" from the devs before release? Nope. There were what, 3 trailers was it? And they were just pointless non-gameplay videos. But did everyone go crazy complaining that the game was going to be a huge flop because EMEGERDS they didn't show real gameplay of someone playing from the title screen through the first chapter?

Honestly.... NOT that many games show LIVE gameplay footage BEFORE release. There is nothing special about the way Egosoft have done things, but some people here seem to think it's some kind of omen depicting horrible things for the game.

I just don't get it!

People have been spoiled by "early access" titles without realising that a huge reason so many "early access" games end up taking so long to make is that once the game is out the devs have to be SUPER CAREFUL not to break the working game build. Their processes bloat in order to accommodate this methodology of development and testing so everything takes way longer for even adding a tiny small feature.

However, they still came out with more videos showing new segments of gameplay. Egosoft hasn't released a video showing footage that wasn't Alpha. All we have are the livestreams from a year ago, and the Gamescom video, and a trailer set to music somewhere in there. I don't want them to play from the start of the game, I'd just like to see the game at work. I don't care if it's more narrated videos, as long as it's new footage. I'd like to see hilarious bugs, mining, capital ship fights, stress tests (how many ships can be on screen at once), that sort of stuff.

We also had people go and play the game, and tell us of their experiences. They had press events, Red Dead Redemption 2 o'clock, and a Twitter feed. Not to mention, you know, they actually put the game out there with lots of advertisements (but that's Rockstar, they can do that because they're a huge company). Still, the point remains. They put their product out in the public eye. I was in Discord in a room of 20 people in my Star Citizen Org, and I asked if they had heard of X4 Foundations. Only one replied yes.

Egosoft is playing this one strangely close to the vest this time around, whereas I think it would behoove them to put it out there, show how they learned a lesson and want to improve. Second time lucky, right?

[Alci]

I can't honestly think of a single example of a non-early access game that I saw on Steam where they released a "let's play" or pre-release full gameplay videos.

DeusEx previewed the first mission played several times to demonstrate different approaches

[CBJ]

Egosoft is playing this one strangely close to the vest this time around, whereas I think it would behoove them to put it out there, show how they learned a lesson and want to improve. Second time lucky, right?

Here we go again. No, we are not being secretive, and especially not "this time around". We have talked about, and shown, far more about this game than we have ever done with any previous game, and we continue to do what we can, when we can. However, as has been explained on several occasions, the reason you're not seeing new information now is that we are a small team, and right now we're in full "crunch mode" doing all the things that have to be done in the last few weeks before release. Repeatedly saying that we ought to be doing X or Y because some other larger company does it isn't going to change that, nor is there a "lesson" that can be learnt that will magically free up resources to create, or even just review and edit, appropriate new material to show people. We would love to be able to do and show more, because we are not as oblivious to the benefits of marketing as some people seem to think, but we simply don't have that luxury.

[Nikola515]

@ CBJ or anyone in Egosoft

All though I don't care about videos or Q&A or anything like that.... My only concern is stability of the game ? Can we at least be reassured that X4 wont be unstable/buggy as XR ?

[ZombiePotatoSalad]

Egosoft is playing this one strangely close to the vest this time around, whereas I think it would behoove them to put it out there, show how they learned a lesson and want to improve. Second time lucky, right?

Here we go again. No, we are not being secretive, and especially not "this time around". We have talked about, and shown, far more about this game than we have ever done with any previous game, and we continue to do what we can, when we can. However, as has been explained on several occasions, the reason you're not seeing new information now is that we are a small team, and right now we're in full "crunch mode" doing all the things that have to be done in the last few weeks before release. Repeatedly saying that we ought to be doing X or Y because some other larger company does it isn't going to change that, nor is there a "lesson" that can be learnt that will magically free up resources to create, or even just review and edit, appropriate new material to show people. We would love to be able to do and show more, because we are not as oblivious to the benefits of marketing as some people seem to think, but we simply don't have that luxury.

This is no "again." I was saying something entirely different. I'm on the outside looking into a dark room. I'm only calling it as I see it. Could I be wrong? Absolutely.

I'm saying it seems like you're playing this one close because releasing too much information can also be a detriment. I remember watching a developer walkthrough of a section of ELEX before it launched. All the viewers immediately launched into criticisms about how the main character sounded bland, no female character was available, and everything under the sun.
People would immediately set upon any new material and dissect it, pointing out flaws and flooding you with "I thought this would be X, and Y looks terrible." I'm not saying there is a lesson to be learned to free up resources, I'm saying that you learned from X Rebirth, being both a new engine and a relatively new experience, and these helped you better shape X4. Remember, I haven't been with Egosoft much. I only found X3AP years after launch because I was looking for space games and found a playthrough on Youtube. I saw a bit of X Rebirth development videos, which showed more behind the scenes, and even some demonstrations. However, I only saw a couple videos, as I didn't have a gaming PC at the time, and thought I would never play it. Plus, that was years ago. That's why it seems there hasn't been much information about X4 compared to X Rebirth, at least to me.

[bl3ek]

Egosoft is playing this one strangely close to the vest this time around, whereas I think it would behoove them to put it out there, show how they learned a lesson and want to improve. Second time lucky, right?

Here we go again. No, we are not being secretive, and especially not "this time around". We have talked about, and shown, far more about this game than we have ever done with any previous game, and we continue to do what we can, when we can. However, as has been explained on several occasions, the reason you're not seeing new information now is that we are a small team, and right now we're in full "crunch mode" doing all the things that have to be done in the last few weeks before release. Repeatedly saying that we ought to be doing X or Y because some other larger company does it isn't going to change that, nor is there a "lesson" that can be learnt that will magically free up resources to create, or even just review and edit, appropriate new material to show people. We would love to be able to do and show more, because we are not as oblivious to the benefits of marketing as some people seem to think, but we simply don't have that luxury.

I can literally hear you pounding the keys in frustration.

Don't fret about our comments, I think most of us are coming from a good place i.e. we're fans and want you to succeed.

Keep your chin up, don't take it personally and understand that yes 'we're the customer and so we're always right' ...aka a pain in the arse at times. It's always easier being the critic looking in and making observations, because us lot don't have to do the actual doing!

Good luck with the crunch.

[Quando]

They are scared now. The last game was hyped, raised expectations and failed hard.
Now they remain silent and if it failes, it will fail quietly.

Better make use of early access next time. Community will help to fix the game

[Alci]

They are scared now. The last game was hyped, raised expectations and failed hard.
Now they remain silent and if it failes, it will fail quietly.

I don't remember any "hype". Before release almost all were concerned from what they've seen. A lot of questionable changes. So it was anticipated, yes, as any new X game, but hyped, no.

I don't remember anyone "looking forward" to or being "hyped" about only one ship. There we two groups here, one saying it's doomed and it will fail if EGOSoft won't listen and the other just "concerned" but giving it benefit of doubt until release. People asked them for showing a lot of things (like what to do in FPS mode and how "seamless" the walking will be) that were never shown and were never in the game.

Noone* had high "expectations" or been "hyped". Just expected somewhat similar X gameplay they were used to. But the damage to X core gameplay was too much to ignore (one ship, lack of fleets, broken the only controllable trading ships, annoying other parts like scanning, talking, no exploration really, that only few people could find something - anything - good to focus on), that's all.

Overall I feel a LOT more optimism about X4 then there was about Rebirth. Some people can't move on, their bad. But the "hype" is much larger now. Not sure about crowd size, but I'm certain about magnitude. What was shown is all Rebirth was missing and was asked for before release. And a lot more. Almost all "concerns" now are from people talking about Rebirth release (not even about Rebirth now).