Release Style of the game.

[Kane Hart]

I think we had talked about this last year in the summer time. I wanted to bring it up again with out nercoing the old posts.



Has there been any hit or comments of the style of release X4 will have? I'm hoping Egosoft will adopt the early access system and I don't mean release the game sooner for our benefit to get our hands on it but for reputation of the company. Egosoft known for some the best games on the market and most of us are use to less Polished release of a game and then months and years of content and updates added. But it seems the time of this type of release is just not acceptable anymore besides the miss understanding of Rebirth vs past X games it seem that the bugs, issues, content, etc had a big play with reviews, etc.

So I guess this post is talking about the release style of the game and do you think Egosoft will adopt the EA system and do you think it's acceptable for them to adopt such a system?


It does seem that Egosoft is pulling out a few new cards for X4 in terms of how they are quite secretive in the past. For example I can vision future version being on a Steam Test Branch Build and rather having a long beta test besides internal and small group of testers that they decide to do a Early Access for it.

Anyways I thought be fun to have a conversation

[CBJ]

[BigBANGtheory]

Fundamentally it is a commercial decision and I don't think ES will discuss it until they have made a final decision.

My gut feel is they won't do EA unless they feel they have to.

The Steam page also doesn't mention EA but of course is subject to change.

Should ES do an EA launch? well that is another matter entirely but I sense not the purpose of the the thread. What is really encouraging though is ES themselves appear in control and that I think is a good thing for everyone.

[Vandragorax]

IMO "Early access" is becoming a bit of a joke tag, stuck onto games that get stuck in infinite development for years and years, and then when the developer finally "releases" it, half the stuff that people expected to be in it is missing still anyway

I think the tag has been used too much by small devs who either don't have a long-term plan for what they are doing, or are too inexperienced to actually complete their project with any degree of quality. Early Access was actually first used as a kind of 'kickstarter' to back indie games but of course larger companies cottoned onto it "for profitttssss"


Egosoft's track record suggests they will go for a "closed beta" approach, inviting some community members into a closed beta test a few months before the game's release, to help find and iron out the major critical issues (and as many minor ones as time allows). They will then work hard to release several patches in the first few months of release to continue chasing down issues until most things are sorted.

But that's just speculation until we know for sure

[Kane Hart]

[ajime]

[Kane Hart]

[nightphreak]

Honestly i'd rather wait a bit longer than have another NMS fiasco. EA is nice on occasion but too many games have died that way. Though a projected release date would be nice as steam shows it should be releasing this year sometime.

[Kane Hart]

[Alan Phipps]

@ Kane Hart: "Not to sound insulting ... " Actually you do. I'll close this thread (already-answered by a dev anyway) before an argument develops.

I don't think I see anything 'sad' about nightphreak describing their experience with NMS as a fiasco and then not wanting to experience anything similar with X4.

I do see that there are major differences between the games and their developers and that the EA experience of one game cannot really be expected to affect the EA experience of another, but nightfreak is quite entitled to express a personal opinion about their own experiences and hopes without being labelled as lacking 'critical thinking'!

Let's drop this line of personal comment now please. If you are unhappy with anything I have said then please PM me.