Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum
We have confirmation of ship sub-systems and suggestions towards crews and other NPC "assets", although nothing about an RPG type system.It is obvious from the way that each of the X games has advanced in leaps and bounds that Egosoft listens to what we, the players of X, have placed in our wish-list on the forum for what we would like in the next generation of X. Is there anything that Bernd would have liked to include in X², but could not because of processing power/memory requirements etc.? (Lucrativus)
Good question. Yes, many things. We would like to split up ships into component parts and have crew you can hire with traits they can develop in an RPG type scenario. There is an endless list of things we would like to add. Firstly though, you have to balance the playability and fun in the game. Take the flight model for example, we have discussed this so many times, but it's a balance.
Also, we currently track well in excess of 10,000 objects in the X-Universe. If you introduce crew (for example), with a number of statistics each, this increases to well over 100,000 instantly. You can have over a million objects easily. Graphics and sound can place enormous strain on today's machines. We would prefer to have the machine use this power for the presentation of the game and delegate the tracking and calculating of millions of objects to large servers. That way, only the data you need for your current environment can be given to the client. That's a little of what Online-Universe is about.
forloren wrote:
For example, from X News number 9 in 2003:It is obvious from the way that each of the X games has advanced in leaps and bounds that Egosoft listens to what we, the players of X, have placed in our wish-list on the forum for what we would like in the next generation of X. Is there anything that Bernd would have liked to include in X², but could not because of processing power/memory requirements etc.? (Lucrativus)
Good question. Yes, many things. We would like to split up ships into component parts and have crew you can hire with traits they can develop in an RPG type scenario. There is an endless list of things we would like to add. Firstly though, you have to balance the playability and fun in the game. Take the flight model for example, we have discussed this so many times, but it's a balance.
-Forloren
This!!
This is what i talked about a few pages back. Having an rpg type levelup/upgrade system for player ships or ships in general. Hopefully this would be rep/credit based as i wouldnt want too see an xp point system in an x game.
also the end of the quote (which i chopped off) mentioned server based object mapping. which would suggest something similar to DRM and would probly require an internet connection but i think this is unlikely. Although if it meant i could have a masive empire with not 2 much lode on my cpu im all for it!
The parts in "()" are added by me, some clarify things, some are used when words are hard to find to translate. some are used to make pointers, or additional info. Don't consider them or ANYTHING I wrote as truth, it's just a pointer m'kay?Krawall.de:Will there be things to do, around stations (for example), which are based upon skill? Docking maneuvers, re-tanking, or something like that?
Bernd Lehan: Ah...yeah.Something in that sense is there.
Krawall.de: Can we now actually exit the ship and maybe even walk around stations?
Bernd Lehan: No. You won't be able to walk around the stations. You get to get out of the ship, interacting with other people (NPS's probably) to get/do missions, hire Managers, and hire personel for your own stations...well, those are the concepts we have this far.
Krawall.de: Are there (will there be) any planets you can land on?
Bernd Lehan: No.
Krawall.de: Not even MoonBases?
Bernd Lehan: No...well, more or less. Of course we have stations, which are very deep in the atmosphere, almost on the surface (of planets), considering the sizes (messurements) we use. But you won't be able to run around planets or something like that.
Krawall.de:You said, you didn't model everything by hand...I guess, the stations and other things might be built using a modular system? Some kind of building blocks?
Bernd Lehan:Well, it not really that easy. It's true, we have a huge universe with lots of content to fill and not every object can be unique. So, in a sense we have a Building Blocks system, but the degree of details can't be compared to what we had before. (read: the degree of detail is much higher)
Krawall.de: Well, how about you tell us what we should imagine by that? Will all stations be build by the designers using a Building Block system - I'm just gonna call it that way for now - and then reviewed and fitted (more details, small changes etc.) if needed?
Or are you generating a big part randomly and then just revisit the parts of the universe which are important for the story and make 'em look good?
Bernd Lehan: First of, nothing will be generated randomly! The universe is more designed and better layed out then the others we had before. We have not been looking to break some quantitative records, just so we can say "We have 200 Sectors!", which would be basically copy&paste from others. The universe is modeled from start to finish and a high degree of detail is being pursued, which makes the universe much bigger, rather then just adding twice as many sectors.
Krawall.de: Are there any specific places in the universe which got "special" attention, because they are important for the story? Some real "landmarks" maybe?
Bernd Lehan: Actually everything. That's the goal. The whole universe should be unique and special. Each sector, every landscape in the universe should have something special about it, that's our demand (goal, mission)
Krawall.de: So, what kind of cool stuff is there in the universe? Are those then asteroid fields? Oder what should we imagine?
Bernd Lehan: Please. Asteroid fields...pff! Of course there are Asteroid fields. (he says that as if he's driving through one each morning on the way to work).
Krawall.de: Yeah, that wass't the most original example. But what is there where you say:"Something like that, you've never seen before"?
Bernd Lehan:A lot! There are is some stuff from before (old games), which you've never seen in that quality, or the gigantic space stations which are unique in the universe.
Krawall.de: One of the last big competitor would be "Eve Online". Have you taken a closer look at that?
Bernd Lehan: I've never played it personally, but we have always kept an eye on it. I have been presented it once on a fair (convention), and of course some of us have already played it. It's a cool game, no question there...beautiful trailers...I can't say anything negative about it.My personal impression through, is that it's about the opposite of what were trying to achieve. In that game you are doing the same and sometimes monotone things for a long period of time, which is something MMOs rarely consider.
Krawall.de: All old races still there?
Bernd Lehan: I can't say anything about that. The story is a new one, and a couple races are still around, others aren't. It's different, while it's being played in the same universe, you will meet some known (races) and some unknown.
I hope Split are there! Their fighters <3 And maybe Ancients decided to butt in and send Sohnen to do their dirty work. (Sohnen Incubus *drool*)Bernd Lehan: I can't say anything about that. The story is a new one, and a couple races are still around, others aren't. It's different, while it's being played in the same universe, you will meet some known (races) and some unknown.
So, although capship piloting may not be in X:R stock, I can certainly say that what they intend to do with them must be pretty great if they're replacing the piloting system! It also seperates fighters and Capital ships more - you can actually fly fighters, while in your capship you command and order. When the battle gets thick, you bolt for your fighter and get out there, flying yourself.Hi guys,
ok lets be a bit more precise about the capital ships then. Piloting a huge capital ship from the seat of the pilot is boring, therefore we left that out.
ON THE OTHER HAND: The player can own and can command ships and he can use them for a lot more different things than before. Stations as well as large ships have a lot more ways to interact with them now and your own as well as other factions ships are much more interesting to play with.
Instead of sitting in the cockpit you will assign people to command ships for you.
although I'm likely in the minority.These code snippets were discussed heavily in the Off Topic forum, in the thread What do we know about modding Rebirth?. iirc, it was admitted at some point in the discussion that these snippets had been heavily modified for the presentation, replacing some items with familiar ones from earlier games.forloren wrote:Anyone catch the tweet a couple months ago, the one that linked to additional web content for a conference presentation on AI given by one of Egosoft's AI programmers? In the section on Domain Specific Languages (DSLs), there are two sample XML files, Cutscene from "Unannounced" and AI script from "Unannounced".
Why X3R+X3TC == X:R ?PTR wrote:I hope that the next time they release something it's about gameplay. Now I think of X:R as X3:TC + some (rumored) changes = X:R, and according to the comments here a lot of people think like that. It's hard to do otherwise without a reference....
