About our ongoing work - Patches, Updates, Bugfixing on X Rebirth

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Bernd
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About our ongoing work - Patches, Updates, Bugfixing on X Rebirth

Post by Bernd » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 02:35

Hello

Unfortunately I have not written much here since the release.

First, I would like to apologise to those of you who have had technical problems. I have started a thread in the Steam forums where I have listed the most common errors and have now collected a lot of information about this. All of this will of course be made available here in our support forum as soon as our server is able to remain stable under the load.

Secondly, I would like to say how amazed we all are here by the huge success of the game. Number one on Steam for several days in a row at this time of year when the big hitters come out... wow, we never expected that. It's crazy to see that more than 10,000 people are playing our game at any one time on Steam (even more if you include those who are in offline mode). Madness!

Great though it is to see that the game is so successful and that many people are having a lot of fun with it, it pains me to see every case where the game causes problems. Sorry folks, I can only apologise for that.

Now, on to the reason for this post: I want to set out our priorities for the next few weeks. These are, as it were, the results of the feedback so far.

1) Language bugs - the German Betty, french text and other problems will be fixed.

2) True crash bugs fixed. There are undeniably some program-related crashes, and we are are trying to sort these out by sending those who experience particularly large numbers of crashes special versions of the EXEs. From the feedback it seems that some people are affected much more frequently than others by crashes. At the beginning of the week we will build a group of new computers and will try to reproduce your problem PC (same motherboard, same GPU, etc.). Those of you who believe you are particularly badly afffected (and no, it is NOT safe to use 32-bit Windows) should contact us at info@egosoft.com for the special EXE.

3) AI bugs with trade ships (please make sure you are using the trade menu correctly before assuming you are affected by this bug).

4) Performance improvements: It seems ironic that most customers who are particularly dissatisfied with performance are those with the fastest computers. This may partly be because we made no special attempt to optimise for fast PCs. It even seems as though the most extreme high-end PCs barely have higher framerates than mid-range ones. We will be tackling this issue aggresively and will be stocking up on high end hardware for tests, to try out things like SLI and hex-core systems. Of course optimisations will also benefit other systems. Tips for configuration are in my post on the Steam forum and in the Egosoft Support forum.

5) Improvements for the near future: We will now begin to organise our plans and your wishes by priority. There are a few major development areas that are sure to take us into the beginning of 2014 for an update, and many small things that we would like to address as soon as possible. Here are just a few examples:

- Smalltalk on platforms: Once you unlock a reward you can ask for all the rewards we currently have already. If you ask for a good NPC you can further filter by job type. So you effectively find e.g the best pilot in your vicinity.

- NPC classes are to be clearly marked to make it clear who does what.

- Improved joystick support - there seem to be problems at the moment with joysticks. Some may not yet be configured in a satisfactory way (we're working on it). There is also a suspicion that certain joysticks crash the game at startup when they are plugged in.

- Improved menus - feedback regard some menus which should be improved accordingly. What I hear most often at the moment are problems with managing the Trade Order list. This should be shown in every ship that is in your squad and can then be removed from the Info menu. There are also other improvements in various menus that will need to happen gradually over several updates.

- Shortcuts - currently veterans miss many hotkeys such as "T" for next target, Shift-"D" to dock, Shift-"R" for the property list, etc.

OK... this should give you all just a brief insight into our current work. For those of you able to play without problems, I wish you continued fun. For those who have technical problems, and as can of course be seen on here on the forum there are many of you, I want to apologise again and ask for your patience.

Thank you all for the huge success!

-Bernd
Last edited by Bernd on Thu, 21. Nov 13, 15:05, edited 1 time in total.
---
-Bernd Lehahn, bernd@egosoft.com

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Tsar_of_Cows
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Post by Tsar_of_Cows » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 02:39

Good luck with the firefighting Bernd, I hope you guys have a constant supply of pizza! ;)

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Post by Gazz » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:12

Stop, drop and roll. =P
My complete script download page. . . . . . I AM THE LAW!
There is no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

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Post by Mauzi! » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:13

Thank you, Bernd, for the honest update. Looking forward to getting the baby fixed up - it's promising but needs a lot of care now !

Now I wish that you guys find the energy to stand all the incoming yells for a while more and will be able to tackle the actual input from pointless crying.

But now, enough of this, get to work ! :D

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Post by maxgee » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:20

How about a fix for ship repair not working at all?

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Post by UnclePaulie » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:24

Are you serious " huge success " I am playing on a new PC and there is very little wrong in the way of bugs, the problem is the game itself . Did you not think that the high number of people playing is just because they, myself included are trying to get something for their money .

I hate the game so far and I am a huge fan of X series, I am one of the " 10,000 active users on Steam " I wish I never bought the game, I have forced myself to play it in the fading hope I might find something I do like .

Here is some stuff I hate about your big success story

1- The stations are total copy and paste garbage when you land .
2- The NPC's are horrible to interact with .
3- The trade ships just follow you and never go to the commanded area, my trade ship has 6 destinations on it and will not go to any .
4- I was trying drop cargo, you cant .
5- No external view of ship .
6- No nearest target, I would let you off with that since it was on your list but there is no reason why the game should not have launched with the feature .
7- My character must have a neck brace on because he cant move his head .
8- Having to manually go to trade locations so you can tell your ship to go there ( genius )
9- The target reticule is massive and obstructs view of enemy ships .
10- The text in many areas of the game is tiny and unreadable .
11- Pressing multiple number comands to do simple stuff .
12- The cockpit is useless, it should have had interactions on it for easy access to menus etc by clicking mouse on them .
13- The Map is terrible and is of no use whatsoever .
14- The main character and the chicks voice acting is horrible .
15- No weapons menu .
16- No cargo on your own ship .
17- Horrid tutorial that explains nothing, well nothing that makes sense in game on first play .
18- Not being able to change ship .
19- The much hyped drones suck, I will have the capital ships back any day of the week .
20- Trading full stop .
21- I doubt I will ever manage to " Build trade fight think " in this dissaster of a game .
22- The fact it is clearly made for next gen console, or at least last gen and you failed and repackaged it for us .
23- Zero respect for the people who pay your wages, yes us the hardcore X fans .
24- 20+ hours in and not a single thing interesting to do outside the campaigne .
25- No idea whats even happening in the campaign .
26- STUPID way to start the game .
27- Severed many interesting races from previous games .
28- I waited for this for years and want to delete it the same weekend I bought it .
29- The lanes suck .
30- No seta or jumpdrive .
31- No radar
32- I target ships in combat and the game untargets it randomly .
33- No way to commands at all, follow me really that's it ?
34- The lanes take too long to travel and hitching a ride on them is rubbish, who wants an extremely close view of the back of a ship ?
35- The chat option with NPC's .......... who thought that up, it is a joke .
36- I find a place that sells something good, am I supposed to remember all the items by memory ???
37- The sound crackles all the time .
38- The whole setting feels totally empty, not to look at but 95% of stuff in view is just a empty shell that offers nothing to gameplay .
39- The vents are in the exact same location of every area .
40- The vents offer nothing to add to the game .
41- No space suit or eject .
42- All the weapons I have used so far are lame .
43- The PMC can attack you anywhere and are unpunished, unlike the player .
44- The game sucks .
45- The game is very boring and tedious .
46- I have engaged even large ships and have never even came close to getting killed .
47- The enemy ships fly at very slow speeds while hugging stations .
48- The AI is poor and offers no challenge .
49- Have I already stated I have no idea whats going on .
50- The stupid videos that are forced on you started while I was in combat and the enemy ship almost killed me .


I could go on and on, I fear I will never get even half of the things I want added to this game but if I do not get some of it I will never buy anything from you again, I have purchased ALL of the previous titles and spent a lot of money supporting you and this is how you thank me and all the other core gamers . I am £40 out of pocket and to be honest I could not care one bit about the cash, I am devastated the game I waited so long for has been butchered in this way .

I will be willing to bet the 10,000 active users is nowhere near as high in a weeks time . :lol: :lol: 8)
Last edited by UnclePaulie on Mon, 18. Nov 13, 00:40, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Chips » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:25

Thank you for the update, it's much appreciated.

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Post by MegaJohnny » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:25

Hey Bernd, thanks for the much-needed update - at nearly 3am no less! Judging from your to-do list, it looks like you guys are on the ball with what needs improving. Good luck! :)

PS. I agree with others below though, there are some design decisions that need addressing too, not just interface and usability issues.
Last edited by MegaJohnny on Sun, 17. Nov 13, 04:04, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Wanted Bob » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:26

Thanks for the update Bernd! Played it for about 4 hours now, and I've really enjoyed my time with it.

Great news to hear that more shortcuts and menu options are being added, look forward to seeing those implemented.

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Post by EmperorJon » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:28

Whilst I really appreciate the update, and the hard work you're doing into fixing the game's bugs, I must once again state I feel we need some sort of comment regarding game design, whether you expected to alienate so many old fans, whether things will change in the future to accommodate more of the previous series style, whether this was always intended, whether it's not/was never intended, etc.

I find calling your game a "success" a bit steep. Yes, it made a lot of sales and has a good number of players, but you only have to browse the forums here to see the huge impact it's had on a community that feel they've been sold a game that was a combination of work-in-progress and insult-to-X3...
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I'm Jon. I'm mostly not around any more. If you want to talk, please message me! It's cool.
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Post by Ebyl Vampyre » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:46

Appreciate the post, but I will say that while your game may be a monetary success, it is a complete design failure. The game's main problem is not the bugs, but the choices the development team made in the 7 years it took to produce this mess.

I've been an ardent supporter of your games, but if these are the type of design choices you're going to be making for your future games, I don't see myself supporting your development studio any longer. You've got a chance to fix this, but first you need to realize the main issue here is not bugs, but awful design choices.

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Post by Matchimus » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:50

I must once again state I feel we need some sort of comment regarding game design, whether you expected to alienate so many old fans, whether things will change in the future to accommodate more of the previous series style, whether this was always intended, whether it's not/was never intended, etc.


I think most of the hard core X fans need an answer to this. If this was in fact the intention, we can put the game down for good and move on. Please dont support false hope for a game that is never going to be what many of us want.

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Post by MeltingPointSP » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:52

I'm sure the forums are crashing from all the people trying to leave compliments...

As the CEO, your rose tinted glasses do not instill confidence in me. How can you fix a game with such fatal design decisions, if you can't even admit they're there in the first place.

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Post by Promethium » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:53

Bernd already stated that they didn't originally want to make another game in the X series, but they felt that the lore of the X Universe was too much to let go of.

Well you know what, they did exactly what they set out to. They made a game that wasn't part of the X series.

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Post by Ebyl Vampyre » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 03:59

It could have easily been a game not a part of the "X series" and still been a great game. There was lots of room for improvement and outright change. But the design choices in this game, top to bottom, are flat out awful and make it an absolute failure in terms of anything but money grabbing.

I wasn't expecting X4. But I also wasn't expecting a space simulation that appears to be have been designed by people who have never played a space simulation, let alone designed one. The list of serious, fundamentally flawed ideas and implementations in this game is ludicrously long.

It's absolutely mind boggling this came from an experienced space sim developer.

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Post by iuiz » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 04:05

Hi Bernd. It saddens me how you just talk about stuff that is easy to fix and not about a single design flaw that is discussed everywhere. I mean we all hate bugs, but they can be fixed. But the game design is broken!

Having read your Reddit AMA again I feel that you lied to us.

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Post by jl1aisbett » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 04:05

Ebyl Vampyre wrote:first you need to realize the main issue here is not bugs, but awful design choices.
I would kind of disagree with that, regardless of anyones thoughts on the design aspects of the game fixing the bugs that are very real and do affect many players should rightly so be the first priority.

Whether they end up making any design changes or not the bug fixes should come first.

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Post by Darlandra » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 04:09

I would like to understand the differences between x3 and xr. The original series is what you established the concept of Fight Build Trade Think off of, yet the games are similar in no way at all. If it is correct that you wanted a new game, why keep the same name and the same creed? That makes us think that we're getting a similar design. But we wound up with a design that frankly, many dislike. I personally was dreaming of recreating the Fighter Base Commander mod in XR...but I cant even bring myself to play it due to the awful voices (I want to murder the copilot and my character), and cant even imagine commanding a squadron as I did in that mod.

Please, this is in a way an integrity check for your company. Tell us if we're going to wind up with a game we want or not. If it's not, don't keep us on our tiptoes waiting. And if you don't want to do it, please consider releasing your source so we CAN do it.

X3 created a legacy we wanted to build on....but I don't think many of us feel we can do that with the XR you've given us.

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Post by Ebyl Vampyre » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 04:11

I'm not suggesting the bugs should not be fixed first, or at least I didn't intend to (too lazy to go back and read my post). They need to be fixed and should have priority.

But my point is that we all know Egosoft is dedicated about fixing bugs. I have no doubts they will do just that. I don't consider them a problem with this game because I know they will be fixed, as Egosoft has always done.

But when we get a post from him that really doesn't even give a hint about understanding a lot of the complaints are also about fundamentally flawed game design decisions, that's an issue.

I don't expect him to say, "Yep, we realize it's got some serious design flaws and we'll get right on fixing those." He can't say that now. But what I would expect is an acknowledgement that the complaints about the serious design flaws are being heard and will be discussed.

Changes on those, if they ever happen, will require a development team decision and tons of work. It would be a slow process. But at least letting us know those complaints are heard and understood, and are being taken to heart, is something many of us need to hear to restore what little faith we now have left in Egosoft.

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Post by Pora » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 04:14

EmperorJon wrote: I must once again state I feel we need some sort of comment regarding game design, whether you expected to alienate so many old fans, whether things will change in the future to accommodate more of the previous series style, whether this was always intended, whether it's not/was never intended, etc.
Comment on the fighter/trader commands/menus will be appreciated too.

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