We bring you this interview now in English. We hope you find it interesting.
Many Mac gamers may not know the name 'Egosoft' although this German company had a significant influence in the business for many years and is well established with Mac users with its X-Series. We speak with Bernd Lehahn about the company, the X-Series and future plans.
Mac Gamer: Hello, Bernd, it's great that you can spare a little time. Please briefly introduce yourself to our readers - how long have you been with Egosoft and what are your duties?
Bernd Lehahn: Hi, my name is Bernd Lehahn. I co-founded the company with a buddy in 1989. Egosoft was a lot smaller in the past and I programmed a lot myself but the team size has grown so much with X3: Reunion that I concentrate mostly on gameplay design and management.
Mac Gamer: You have recently concentrated entirely on the X-Series. How would you describe the attraction of the X-Series to someone who has no knowledge of it?
Bernd Lehahn: You get a universe, which is fully simulated and in which you can do what you want. The player has the freedom to decide how to spend time in this universe. We give you incentives and suggestions, but you can ignore all those, start wars or build trading empires and give your imagination free rein.
Mac Gamer: The Mac port of X2: The Threat was fine, the Virtual Programming implementation of X3: Reunion using CIDER technology was, however, a disaster and it was unplayable on many systems. Are you aware of this?
Bernd Lehahn: Yes, unfortunately. I only had a Mac at the time that was clearly too weak to test it privately and I was told that the bad impression I got was because of my system. In the meantime VP, who do the Mac porting, have identified the problem and are working with a new team on a full port, not only of X3: Reunion, but also of X3: Terran Conflict.
Mac Gamer: Are you considering a concurrent Mac implementation of future titles? The Mac market is growing daily and is quickly catching Windows up.
Bernd Lehahn: At the moment, it's a little early to decide about future projects.
Mac Gamer: Your new baby, X3: Terran Conflict, has been available just for PC since October and also, through Virtual Programming, will appear in a Mac version. What is the biggest advantage of the latest installment, in your view? What makes it unique, compared to its predecessors?
Bernd Lehahn: The return to Earth - it's the climax of a game universe which was introduced in X - Beyond the Frontier. The X Universe will be joined to the Solar System in Terran Conflict. Many new sectors can be explored near planets and moons known to us, we show the highly advanced technologies of Earth and the two factions that have military control over it all. Terran Conflict is, moreover, simply the best and most complete X game.
The user interface has been thoroughly reworked and many new ships, groups, stations and goods have been introduced. The single most important improvement, in my opinion, is the new mission system with many generic missions and full plot campaigns.
Mac Gamer: How do the sales figures look then? Which game has sold better than the others and which one not so well?
Bernd Lehahn: That's difficult to differentiate. Almost every game has been sold in combination with its respective predecessor. Overall there has been a steady increase from installment to installment. We hope that this will hold true for Terran Conflict too.
Mac Gamer: In the X-Series you work closely with your own DevNet (Developers Network) Community in the development of the titles. How important to you now is the support of the fans?
Bernd Lehahn: Very important. We not only have testers in the community, but we have also recruited a significant number of translators and scripters. Even now many of the salaried employees at one time worked for free as DevNet volunteers.
Mac Gamer: In recent years you have dealt exclusively with the X-Series. Do you not feel like doing something else?
If so, what would it be, which direction would you go in?Bernd Lehahn: Partly. We have the X-Series on one hand, of which X3: Terran Conflict is a worthy conclusion. We do, to a certain extent, have to break out of the constraints that the previous series has placed us in. But we have no desire to turn our back on the space genre. I am so convinced that there are still many possibilities to improve space gameplay, that I see no reason why we can't do something completely different. This new direction is in some ways like the old, but more radical.
Mac Gamer: Overall the whole games market is tending towards consoles. Revenues in the PC business have drastically fallen recently. Do you think that this trend will persist and more emphasis in future will be placed on the Playstation & Co?
Bernd Lehahn: It's hard to say. In the past, it's often gone in phases between consoles and PC. I hope that it's so this time around and in the long run, both platforms can live beside one another. At the moment it's in fact necessary to develop big projects for at least one of the main consoles as well.
Mac Gamer: And finally... which title do you like to play when you want to relax?
Bernd Lehahn: It varies a lot. Sometimes arcade classics from the 80s, sometimes GTA IV. Recently I've been taking a look at Little Big Planet.
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