The big GamesCom interview with Bernd - Comments

[BigBANGtheory]

Thanks guys for doing this, it was a good read.

Three things stood out for me (as an observation not criticism):

1. There was nothing Bernd said that puts me off from X Rebirth, its all good as far as I'm concerned and still looking forward to it as much as ever. Fingers crossed for a 2012 release but I'll not be suprised or bothered that much if this slips into 2013.



2. There still seems to be a reluctance to discuss tactical/strategic/property management options for the player. We know now there will be menu's and not detailed overlays into the cockpit but it still leaves some very big questions open that has a massive impact on gameplay options.

Bernd said "the ability to control capital ships himself - indirectly, just not from the cockpit. You give them orders, order them to your position, tell them how they have to attack".

Ok but you could do that in X3 and it was 'nicht gut' to put it mildly. In X3 it was restrictive on basic options (e.g. movement in 3D space) and complicated to execute to the point many just gave up. How do I do it in Rebirth is the question? How have you made a potentially complex strategy assement and set of commands that the player would want to do(possibly to many ships) non-complicated to execute?



3. There was no discussion on the fact that Egosoft has been very quiet on X Rebirth for quite some time.

[supahfly]

How have you made a potentially complex strategy assement and set of commands that the player would want to do(possibly to many ships) non-complicated to execute?

Keyboard shortcuts? "attack my target", "follow me"? I don't think there will be something more complex judging by the (few words in the) interview.

[imperium3]

Or a Homeworld-like strategy interface?

[Rabiator der II.]

I think if the emphasis is more on commanding other ships in Rebirth, it creates a need for something better than the X3 map view. Maybe something Homeworld-style.

But it's not like this has been discussed here for the first time...

Edit: Dang. Imperium3 was faster

[BigBANGtheory]

Lets just say 'a more advanced/capable strategy interface', you start mentioning HW2 and folks think you want to turn Rebirth into an RTS which isnt helpful.

But yes a continued reluctance to discuss this major topic. I'll leave the speculation to other threads I've made my point.

[TZER]

Are people kidding when they're complaining about the game being developed for quad-cores? Quad-cores are cheap and most games today pretty much require them.

OT: Interview was nice, keep up the good work lads!

[Santi]

Referring to the point about the ship guns, I agree they have lost out importance compared with missiles and drones, drones are taking center stage, followed by missiles and then ship weapon systems. It kind of makes sense to use a fighter class drones, instead of risking your own ship in combat, as the arrival of subsystems could make it extremely expensive to take regular damage, it also adds more depth to the gameplay.

You can be piloting a drone, while positioning your ship for a missile strike or to take advantage of a breach you first made with the drones.

Of course that takes us to the need for 'a more advanced/capable strategy interface' as other contributors already mentioned.

[shadowrunner85]

Are people kidding when they're complaining about the game being developed for quad-cores? Quad-cores are cheap and most games today pretty much require them.

OT: Interview was nice, keep up the good work lads!

can you even buy less than quad-core these days? anyways, cant see way ppl. are complaining, I'm about to change out my 4 year old quad-core PC. you can't expect a high-end resource-heavy 2012/13 game to work on 2003 single core computer.

[MaverickRUS]

Preliminary russian version is available:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=328011

[Rabiator der II.]

Are people kidding when they're complaining about the game being developed for quad-cores? Quad-cores are cheap and most games today pretty much require them.

OT: Interview was nice, keep up the good work lads!

can you even buy less than quad-core these days? anyways, cant see way ppl. are complaining, I'm about to change out my 4 year old quad-core PC. you can't expect a high-end resource-heavy 2012/13 game to work on 2003 single core computer.

Yes, Intel still sells dual core versions of Ivy Bridge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Bridge ... processors.
Versions with hyperthreading are called "i3", versions without are called "Pentium".

Now the Ivy Bridge architecture has a lot of oomph per core, so if any dual-core can run Rebirth, those would qualify (and maybe the Sandy Bridge dual cores, they are only slightly slower).

[Voyadjyer]

seems by the interviews we will see a game year through three. only water, nothing specific. "this is I do not know, this is also not sure, about it still did not work, and this is only planned!":? in short, I run away from here, what advise everyone! delayed for more than a year is always talking about very serious problems.

[Bobucles]

The system of ship upgrades sounds a little concerning. It seems that your ship will eventually get the best of everything, all at once. Cookie cutter builds tend to detract from gameplay, since it makes the player choices less meaningful.

The weapon overhaul is unusual. It'll be interesting to see how it works out! If weapons can be hot swapped mid combat, then it's really no different from having a huge number of weapon bays. If there's some kind of delay or lag, then switching weapons will be a careful consideration. If one ship can have everything at once, that'll be strange.

[ajax34i]

The guns are like in a first person shooter game: you have many to choose from (based on what you've unlocked), and can switch between pistol, shotgun, rifle, grenade, knife, etc., but can only use one weapon at a time. And you can upgrade to a better kind of each type. Like in Mass Effect, for example.

That's what they're going for.

[Rabiator der II.]

The guns are like in a first person shooter game: you have many to choose from (based on what you've unlocked), and can switch between pistol, shotgun, rifle, grenade, knife, etc., but can only use one weapon at a time. And you can upgrade to a better kind of each type. Like in Mass Effect, for example.

That's what they're going for.

And it is a matter of taste if you like it. Some of the best FPS have limited carry capacity, just like earlier versions of X.
Remember Deus Ex (the original)?

[Santi]

I presume that the upgrades, while being unlocked by the plot in a linear fashion, will be regulated by the money they cost, so hopefully you can choose the upgrades for your type of starting game.

You can have all the weapons systems installed, you can swap weapon systems or upgrade those weapon systems, but this time, there are targets that you cannot damage with your own set up, their shields will not be reduced or you will not be able to penetrate their defenses. On top of their offensive capabilities of course. You cannot slug it out with a bigger, more powerful ship in Rebirth just using your energy weapon systems and your own ship.

Combat with bigger ships, will be more a matter of disabling critical equipment first with drones or missile strikes and when you manage to even the playing field, move in with your ship for the kill or boarding, if you want to do so.

[ajax34i]

Yeah, similarly to a boss fight in an MMO.

[NLS]

Since everybody commented something...

- To me I don't expect a release in the next 3-6 months. ESPECIALLY if it was until end of 2012, he would know it and not so many things would still be un-tuned. I see 9 months from now, the earliest.

- I am not sure I like all the ideas he presented. My problem of course. Also of course we all know they are trying something different, HOPING it will be the "killer form" of space gaming. Discussing about those things and actually SEEING them and interacting is way different.

- Not sure I like the DLC plan (EA sh*t style). I think up to now, ES only posted updates when they actually had something to add that was NOT planned before. I don't like to intentionally cut things only to add them back later.

- I still thing their supposed shift to "simplicity" again lost its way somewhere. I think X:R will still be a complex game, with a complex way to control it. Different "complex" than the previous iterations, which is worse because for the user it will be COMPLEX + UNKNOWN instead of just complex. Then again this is just my feeling. After all, not sure would someone keep adding goodies in such a game type without adding to complexity.

- No mention on anything concerning information updates or anything for their followers. I didn't like that. So this part remains cloudy as ever.

- Don't see why this translation took that much time. It's not that it is top quality after all... far from it (and I am not even a native English speaker). As posts above proved it could just be summarized in a couple of paragraphs. Of course my thanks to people that did the translation anyway.

Resulting feeling: Not sure it's positive.

[rrfarmer]

Which games has EA screwed up?

Let's just start with the whole C&C series. And then all the other games too.


Again, from Bernd's interview it sounds like he has had a lot of ideas, but DS is pushing him towards what they think will sell, and not a true X game.

I just hope it all comes together and makes a game that I would play for hundreds of hours as in previous X games.

Also, nobody has mentioned that Bernd hasn't played AP much? Not sure how I feel about that. I guess I'd rather him be working on Rebirth instead of playing the plot of X3+

To end my post, I'm happy! For him to be saying all this and still have the "Expected 2012" on the site, then these things might be coded, but just not balanced. In my experience I see changing a value of a variable or attribute way less time consuming than programming the functionality.

[NLS]

They could indeed be coded not tuned (although I doubt ALL is coded, let say they are). Still there is not enough time for a 2012 release.

Esp. if this includes boxed release.

If someone plans for a game release, three months before it takes place, I am pretty sure he would know it.

It's not just saying "code is ready" and "things are tuned". There is also beta testing, documentation, intro and logo etc.

Anyway as I always say "we'll see".

[Scoob]

Hi,

Firstly thanks to all who put this together for the English-speaking community, we appreciate it

Couple of observations...

Sounds like they've fallen into the trap of "let's just add this one more feature" from how Bernd was talking...easy to do when you enjoy what you're creating I'm sure. Still, as long as they have a line in the sand so to speak, with a clear feature locked point then we're good

Secondly, on the subject of menus and displaying data, it seems that this is still to be finalised. Not a big deal as such as we can assume that the data is there, it's all about presentation - important for sure, but I'd imagine more cosmetic / ease of access than anything too scary. I'd not expect to see the mid-battle menu-fu needed in prior games in X:R though lol.

I do quite like the idea of having one majorly customisable ship, it might be nice to really invest in it during game-play. Also, it's something a little different to what we're used to and I have no doubt that the player ship options will be expanded eventually in "Extended for X:R" as Extended did for the original X:BTF all those years ago. I do feel there is still a gap in information between the player ship & it's drones and the huge capital ships we can "command but not fly". I do hope I have my ship, my drones, a captal ship as well as smaller ships in-between. Of course any ship without a pilot could be called a "drone", all my ships in AP are drones in that regard. But I would like to have to hire crew for other in-between ships and not just my ships and my capitals...we shall see.

Two main threads plus the usual spawned graphics thread....sounds like it's aimed at quad cores doesn't it? This is encouraging as I'd imagine X:R is heavier on CPU than GPU just like TC and AP are...well, beyond a certain point of minimum required GPU of course...

I guess the bottom line is that Egosoft have to release something in order to get their main pay-day from this project. With the extra development time taken so far I'd hope that v1.0 will be in a good playable state. Patches will as usual bring us a few extra features and bug fixes, but the big extra content will be coming from DLC.

Like everyone, I'm keen to see a rolling demo, or at least some up to date videos of the engine working in anger...

Scoob.