Please, do complex. PC-complex.

[Sanjor]

[Shootist]

[robalexhall]

You aren't stuck with choosing between build-it-yourself or a Dell.

For ~£700 you there are several quality companies who will build a capable gaming machine to your spec, deliver within a few days and offer a comprehensive warranty.

Personally I have found overclockers.co.uk to be excellent.


- returnign to the topic of the UI. The problem with the X UI has been that it's worked like a console interface (nested menus, no proper use of mouse etc). X3TC remdeied this a bit... but just a bit.

Is this a german thing (no offense ) because the Gothic games made the same horrible design decision i.e. PC specific games that failed to make use of the mouse.

[Sanjor]

[euskai]

Complex=good, Complicated=bad

I agree with that.

However, too many times I´ve seen game developers talking about "simplifying without removing complexity", which sounded much better than the sad truth: "dumbing it down trying to get the money of those casual gamers who are going to play the game for 3 hours before moving to the next shiny thing"

I hope this is not the case, I don´t think it would be good for anyone. Hardcore gamers would be pissed and mindless kids would not buy (if you want to compete for the "casual" gamer kids you need to be a FPS which requires 0 thinking)

But probably Egosoft knows this, or they would be releasing cheap CoD ripoffs instead of space sims, so for now I´m optimistic

[GT182]

From what I gather Consoles are the arcade genra of PC's games and simulations. My gaming is PC only. There is no Console type I would buy or own, nor would I want an over rated arcade game.

Hopefully Egosoft will stay with PCs and let the console players drool over what they're missing. Maybe X-Rebirth will be the turnaround point where PC 'gaming' will return to what it once was. From what I've seen of Rebirth, it is going to be specatular. Great work so far guys, and I can't wait till it hits the stores. Please, just make sure we Steam isn't the only to buy X-Rebirth... or I won't own it.

[caleb]

[Xeroeth]

Yeah, many games there have great potential, but becose they lack good controls they are doomed to failure. It's hard on the developers side to find a good balance between simple controls and complexity. Especially in the world of space sims, where the enormity of options & informations is huge and players need the constant acces to most, if not all of them.
And on the side note, I always build myself my machines. Maybe I'm an endangered species, but that's the cheapest way if you want to get what you really need. Well the other side of this is, that you need to wait for all the parts to get to you ...

[Chris0132]

The other thing is that excessively complex games generally fall into the grognard category, selling to people who are obsessed with the particular thing the game simulates and who are perfectly happy to pay a couple of hundred dollars for their terribly designed simulator game. There is generally no reason to make good controls, because you make money by extorting the fanbase, not by making good games.

Frankly I'm very pleased egosoft is looking to open the series up, as X3 was a bit ridiculous in that aspect.

[madcow]

[A5PECT]

[Chris0132]

X3 probably doesn't fall into the category, but it does skirt dangerously close to it.

This direction is much better than bolting more features onto X3 and calling it X4.

[Xeroeth]

[karoliussen]

[softweir]

There's bad and there's bad. Controls can be bad enough to put off 99% of newcomers to a game, but not bad enough to put off players who have been learning them for 10 increments of the game's development. When that happens you end up with a very loyal fanbase that expands slowly as a few newcomers master the controls, but no chance of the sort of significant expansion that can break a game out of the niche market it fills.

The X games were going that way. The sidebar in TC helped considerably, but there were still too many menu options that had to be hunted for.