RPS article

[Palanor]

Taken from and new RPS article

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/06 ... ore-215187

“This is definitely also something that we want to rethink a little bit for the future. But overall I still believe that highways are a very good method of focussing and giving missions that you play a faster pace.”

Now i KNOW he never played his own game. To dare say it leads to faster pace is behond beleif.

[MegaJohnny]

It’s important to note Lehahn’s apology refers specifically to the game’s bugs and broken systems, rather than any design decisions. Over the course of an hour’s discussion, he is by turns accepting and defensive regarding whether various parts of Rebirth’s design worked or not

This is the most important part IMO. Bernd is the one calling the shots, and he still has his head in the sand about the design of the game. It's impossible to have hope for the future while he still defends the horrible design decisions made with Rebirth.

About the highways though, who cares if they're faster than SETA? Travel time in reasonable doses is what makes a game world feel big, and I think the pacing on them is about right. Either way, anything is better than SETA.

[Thufar]

Now that depends on what perspective you take regarding his comment.

If you take the position that highways are slower because you can't insta-jump from one zone to another, I see where you can draw your conclusion.

However, within Rebirth, traveling in highways is much faster than not. Certainly, traffic is focused at the highways (that traffic which uses them), and for missions such as neighborhood watch. It would be painfully long to travel between zones without highways.

Regards,
Thu

[Artean]

I like the highways in its current form - they give me a sense of speed and a sense of geography within a sector.

[jeroll3d]

That said, 2.0 still isn’t the end. Further changes are on the way, such as the ability to look around your cockpit while flying. At the same time, Egosoft are looking toward new game possibilities. “Whether these are at some point called X4 or X Rebirth 2 or whatever, I cannot talk about now,” Lehahn says. “We are making experiments, we are trying out certain things. Depending on the outcome of those experiments, we will decide how our next product will look and how it will be called.”

I like!

[Archaeosis]

Bernd's evasion of a lot of the criticism fans have of his design direction looks bad. On top of this, despite an early apology, he later attempts repeatedly to distance himself from the responsibility for releasing an appallingly broken game - something he must have known was this bad, and something he is getting pilloried for in the comments. What he's said has inflamed people once more, exactly as you would expect. I don't know how he keeps getting things so wrong.

The comments are pretty merciless, and I would say rightfully so in many instances. Here's a rather vehement sample:

Bernd Lehahn is a scumbag and a liar as far as I am concerned. Plenty of people on DEVNET were making it known that it was not ready for release and yet he claims that it was.

I was lucky enough to get a full refund for the game and I will not purchase another from them.

I wish he had outlined more of the things he would like to see done differently, his hopes for future changes and improvements, and that sort of thing. This interview seems mostly to concern his justification and excuses for the terrible release, and it all falls flat in a sad and even pathetic way. It sounds like it's just him defending himself to protect himself, and that players' thoughts and experiences of the game are really irrelevant to his whole process. It makes me feel his design decisions are a huge problem for the game - he comes off as sounding like his head is in the sand, that he thinks it's all OK really. But it clearly isn't - people don't like the game, and he just doesn't seem to get why or acknowledge their thoughts in any meaningful way.

I still agree with a lot of what this person says, though:

X3 and its standalone expansions were horribly broken and they really had to start over. I don’t know how anyone could cope with a supposed empire-building and space dogfighting game where you couldn’t run the time acceleration feature without your ships crashing into each other. Or where the favored way of “playing” the game was letting it run overnight after setting up a few stations. Or where entering Sudoku numbers through a horrible text interface was somehow a mission.

Now, the solutions they found might not have been the best (even though the technical foundation of the game seems solid), but they deserve credit for undertaking this massive project. People who say they’re done with the series or whatever are heartless bastards. This company deserves all the support it can get, because even great artists have bad moments. They’ll strike gold again eventually if we keep them afloat.

Egosoft are capable of making a good game, and they're tantalisingly close to bettering all their previous attempts with the pieces of a game they have now. That said, with Bernd at the helm defending it blindly and seemingly lacking understanding of the widespread criticism it faces, I think I have less hope for the future than I did before.

Perhaps it's just that he's not much good at interviews like this - maybe he didn't quite plan for it to pan out as it did, or something? Still, I feel like an apologist clutching at straws, here - I just wish Egosoft would make a decent argument themselves as to why we should keep following the game, what they're going to improve, and that sort of stuff. For now Egosoft's public image is that they just sit in some ivory tower, away from any criticism or discussion, and it's bizarre and sad. I really want them to do well, but they shoot themselves in the foot with terrible PR like this.

I guess it's worse than the classic wall-of-silence we get the rest of the time, but it's astonishing they've gone for this long and not tried to improve their public image.

[werewolves?]

I like the highways in its current form - they give me a sense of speed and a sense of geography within a sector.

Yep i prefer that sense of space far more than X3's implementation. But, I don't quite like the squiggly lines, personally I think freelancer's more structured method was superior.

I find it funny how Bernd categorically apologises (which he has done on a number of occasions) and people still pick issue with him not apologising enough or in the exact way they want. Pathetic.

[Darrosquall]

On a personal note, these alterations don’t affect the clunky script and grating voice acting, which were the main reasons I bounced off Rebirth

yes, big issues...

[plynak]

On a personal note, these alterations don’t affect the clunky script and grating voice acting, which were the main reasons I bounced off Rebirth

yes, big issues...

Well scripts not working in a script heavy game are not a big issue?

[Darrosquall]

they're talking about the script, not about scripts. Maybe the best story of the series, obviously secondary in a sandbox.

And the voice acting, lol, first world problem...

[Cabrelbeuk]

Highway is a good idea, and Super-Highway actually give this notion of huge distance... and speed.

[Oldman]

That said, 2.0 still isn’t the end. Further changes are on the way, such as the ability to look around your cockpit while flying. At the same time, Egosoft are looking toward new game possibilities. “Whether these are at some point called X4 or X Rebirth 2 or whatever, I cannot talk about now,” Lehahn says. “We are making experiments, we are trying out certain things. Depending on the outcome of those experiments, we will decide how our next product will look and how it will be called.”

I like!

Yes, interesting.
I don't think it's going to be what I'm currently hoping for though....Kickstarter game, completely devoid of any reference to any 'historic' features of the past 'X' Series of games...a totally new design format, set in space.
It could be a refreshing and unique opportunity to shake off the X Rebirth 'blues' forever. A new start, new ideas and above all a completely new Universe design that's primarily PC based....*shrugs*....time will tell.


Oldman

[SupraRZ]

And you lot wonder why Bernd keeps quiet? .
LET THE STONNING COMMENCE!!!...

So he mentions X4 or X Rebirth 2 and future support? Which I read as an X4 expansion maybe?
I'm just glad that they are still afloat and I'm looking forward to the future.....

[Atrocious]

I like the highways in its current form - they give me a sense of speed and a sense of geography within a sector.

I don't find the highways as bad as some people do, but I would rather like to see boosting for the playership: You set a course and your ship accelerates to warp-like speed until you reach the target zone. To give more flexibility they could allow you to exit warp with an emergency break, just like you can exit highways now.

[plynak]

And you lot wonder why Bernd keeps quiet? .
LET THE STONNING COMMENCE!!!...

So he mentions X4 or X Rebirth 2 and future support? Which I read as an X4 expansion maybe?
I'm just glad that they are still afloat and I'm looking forward to the future.....

Just one question. Who will pay for that future? I bet new sales are reachig zero and numbers of playing passengers are falling faster than Obama's popularity. It is clear now that their second screw up called 2.0 did not work at all as people really are not that stupid to go buy it just because a number difference, so where will they get more money?

[Artean]

... second screw up called 2.0

I wouldn't call 2.0 a "screw up". It brought several good changes and addition but far from enough.

I'm a bit surprised that Berndt indicated work/experimentation being done on a possible XR2 or X4. I can surely see the point of starting from scratch and trying to get things right, but on the other hand feeling a bit let down by not having the full commitment from the Egosoft team on improving XR.

It leaves me with the feeling that we can't hope anymore for big new feature additions (cap ship bridges, empires at war, more life and meaning to station interiors, RTS style fleet ordering, new flyable ships etc.), and that the remaining focus on XR mostly revolves around fixing more bugs.

And, at the same time, I can't decide which option I would prefer: Egosoft focusing more and more towards a new game or full commitment to develop XR further.

[SupraRZ]

... second screw up called 2.0

I wouldn't call 2.0 a "screw up". It brought several good changes and addition but far from enough.

I'm a bit surprised that Berndt indicated work/experimentation being done on a possible XR2 or X4. I can surely see the point of starting from scratch and trying to get things right, but on the other hand feeling a bit let down by not having the full commitment from the Egosoft team on improving XR.

It leaves me with the feeling that we can't hope anymore for big new feature additions (cap ship bridges, empires at war, more life and meaning to station interiors, RTS style fleet ordering, new flyable ships etc.), and that the remaining focus on XR mostly revolves around fixing more bugs.

And, at the same time, I can't decide which option I would prefer: Egosoft focusing more and more towards a new game or full commitment to develop XR further.

I never typed that quote lol .....
Hopefully Bernd will use xr and give it an x4 expansion makeover then rename it ....
It doesn't matter how you perceive XR you have to be impressed with its engine in its infancy.....

[SupraRZ]

And you lot wonder why Bernd keeps quiet? .
LET THE STONNING COMMENCE!!!...

So he mentions X4 or X Rebirth 2 and future support? Which I read as an X4 expansion maybe?
I'm just glad that they are still afloat and I'm looking forward to the future.....

Just one question. Who will pay for that future? I bet new sales are reachig zero and numbers of playing passengers are falling faster than Obama's popularity. It is clear now that their second screw up called 2.0 did not work at all as people really are not that stupid to go buy it just because a number difference, so where will they get more money?

That's 2 questions !lol
I wouldn't like to speculate on ego financial state its none of my business ....
You may as well ask how they survived with previous titles with such a niche market ...
I personally hope they carry on as the revival of the space / combat / trading genre is making a comeback ...

[Artean]

... second screw up called 2.0

I wouldn't call 2.0 a "screw up". It brought several good changes and addition but far from enough.

I'm a bit surprised that Berndt indicated work/experimentation being done on a possible XR2 or X4. I can surely see the point of starting from scratch and trying to get things right, but on the other hand feeling a bit let down by not having the full commitment from the Egosoft team on improving XR.

It leaves me with the feeling that we can't hope anymore for big new feature additions (cap ship bridges, empires at war, more life and meaning to station interiors, RTS style fleet ordering, new flyable ships etc.), and that the remaining focus on XR mostly revolves around fixing more bugs.

And, at the same time, I can't decide which option I would prefer: Egosoft focusing more and more towards a new game or full commitment to develop XR further.

I never typed that quote lol .....
Hopefully Bernd will use xr and give it an x4 expansion makeover then rename it ....
It doesn't matter how you perceive XR you have to be impressed with its engine in its infancy.....

Sorry! I've edited my post.

[Cabrelbeuk]

Would be really disappointed if they build a new game when there is so much things missing in the first one. There is a potential for this game, i'm not gonna buy what the first game should have been at release, and could be with work.