Concerns - Can Rebirth measure up?

[jamesormiston]

Hey all.
I've been pretty inactive on here, waiting for something new to come up before I posted, trying to stay patient till there's something to actually talk about.
Well something new has come up as it happens, two of them.

Namely;
Star Citizen
&
Elite: Dangerous

I can't help but feel we're getting shown up here guys...when this project began, Egosoft could work safe in the knowledge that they were the only free-roam space sim still in development out there, all-but ensuring success in this particular niche of the market, but clearly that's no longer true.

These other two games have no need for secrecy and communications blackouts, and I acknowledge that this is because they are crowdfunded projects which, by their very nature, include the fans in the development process a lot more, but this still counts as a mark in their favour against this wall of darkness we've come up against here. (Just a passing comment, I don't want this thread disolving into further cries of "YEAH EGOSOFT! GIVE US MORE INFO!" They have no choice in the matter, this is an observation not a criticism)

Im also worried about features and content....both of these other games offer a wide range of ships to operate, a feature which (whilst growing more and more tolerated amongst fans here) has never been particularly popular on these forums. Equally they offer features that many fans here have claimed would simply not be possible in a game of this scale, but in Star Citizen we see full first person movement about one's own ship, other ships, platforms and even first person shooter elements in boarding operation, whilst maintaining to claim a scale and complexity at the very least matching and at the very most exceeding that of X-Rebirth...

And possibly most importantly of all, both of these games offer full universe-wide multiplayer, with the decisions and actions of the player base causing the universe to grow and change in the aftermath of huge player battles, station sabotage or even the rise of great player-run empires a-la EVE online, whilst the same feature has always been dubbed impossible, or unnecessary in a space sim here.

I'm not here to advertise these games....quite the contrary....I just want to share my concerns that, if Egosoft doesnt pull something extraordinary out of the bag, we may lose most of our playerbase to these other two games.

What are your thoughts on the situation at hand? Constructive comments only please, no flaming/spamming.

[Spero]

Star Citizen is made by the same guy that made Wing Commander.

The more I read about SC, the more it seems like a modern Wing Commander game.

While this isn't a particularly bad thing, I really don't think it's going to contain the depth and longevity of X, and will basically be a dogfighting sim.

[jamesormiston]

Bear in mind that is the same man who created Freelancer as well, pretty much the Grandfather of the open-universe space game genre.....
It looks a lot more like planetside to me, it includes ownership of stations, using capital ships as a base, trading, mining...pretty much all the things available in the X series with one change, you can only control one of your own ships at a time, for now at least.....

[Bobucles]

In the short term? No. It's hard to compete with a game built for action out of the box.

In the long term? Maybe. X games were fantastic because of the rich modding potential and large universe to play around with. The background also added lots of flavor to sit back and bask in. It also had that "just one more hour" addiction that keeps many people excited about it to this day.

While the other games emphasize more of a quick fix, X can do much better for the long haul. We'll have to wait and see.

[jamesormiston]

True....but never underestimate the appeal of mass-multiplayer, it can extend a game's lifespan by years...hell thousands of people still play freelancer online, i did up until last year!

[Rabiator der II.]

Bear in mind that is the same man who created Freelancer as well, pretty much the Grandfather of the open-universe space game genre.....
It looks a lot more like planetside to me, it includes ownership of stations, using capital ships as a base, trading, mining...pretty much all the things available in the X series with one change, you can only control one of your own ships at a time, for now at least.....

No, the grandfather was Elite. I mean the original from the 1980s .

Freelancer has very nice graphics and action, but the economic aspect is rather shallow. Commodity prices in Freelancer are static, so a given trade route will always produce the same profit. The player can own and operate only one ship at a time. There is no station building.

From what I have read so far about Star Citizen, it may go in a similar direction. Hardcore X players might be underwhelmed despite the awesome graphics.
Edit: All comments about Freelancer based on the vanilla version. I have not followed the Freelancer modding scene lately

Considering Elite: Dangerous, I have not found all that much information about the gameplay details. Lots of speculation on the forums, not so many official announcements - almost like here. I think the stickies in the X:Rebirth forum are just as informative, even if they seem a bit old.

So overall, I think X:Rebirth may be in a pretty good position to keep the hardcore empire builders. But it might lose some of the more action-oriented players to the competition.

[Dr2i]

To see if X measures up, you'll need the 3 games on kickstarter and compare donation amounts. With 418103 registered forum users, I think rebirth stands a nice chance.

[eladan]

True....but never underestimate the appeal of mass-multiplayer, it can extend a game's lifespan by years...hell thousands of people still play freelancer online, i did up until last year!

Most of the X community have no interest in multiplayer. (You can check any of the multitudinous polls if you don't believe me. )

Given that the major focus of both those games is multiplayer, I don't really see them as direct competitors to Rebirth.

[Fallent]

True....but never underestimate the appeal of mass-multiplayer, it can extend a game's lifespan by years...hell thousands of people still play freelancer online, i did up until last year!

Most of the X community have no interest in multiplayer. (You can check any of the multitudinous polls if you don't believe me. )

Given that the major focus of both those games is multiplayer, I don't really see them as direct competitors to Rebirth.

I'll add my two cents. I currently own all the X-games, played the X3 series for hundreds of hours and hoping to do the same with Rebirth.

The first X-game that has multiplayer will be the first X game I never buy though.

[Gazz]

These other two games have no need for secrecy and communications blackouts, and I acknowledge that this is because they are crowdfunded projects which, by their very nature, include the fans in the development process a lot more

The reason is that they used up all their "marketing ammo" to get funded. Now it's no longer an issue to them.

Egosoft also needs "marketing ammo" for when their game goes on sale. No difference there.

Im also worried about features and content....both of these other games offer a wide range of ships to operate, a feature which (whilst growing more and more tolerated amongst fans here) has never been particularly popular on these forums.

Do SC/Elite promise more than 300 flyable ships or is the "wide range" more like 20 or 40?
That's not counting the many modded ships you can get for X3. If you look at this list, it's more than a handful.

Equally they offer features that many fans here have claimed would simply not be possible in a game of this scale, but in Star Citizen we see full first person movement about one's own ship, other ships, platforms and even first person shooter elements in boarding operation, whilst maintaining to claim a scale and complexity at the very least matching and at the very most exceeding that of X-Rebirth...

About that "scale" thing...
AFAIK, the other space games don't let you control an entire empire with multiple fleets. I could be wrong but how could that work with multiplayer when one player shows up flying his starting ship and the other brings a wing of 80 fighters?

It's much easier to do "small scale" things like boarding or walking around your ship when you don't have to deal at all with the overhead of large and very large scale gameplay.

And multiplayer? Don't know. Don't care. (not any kind of "general" opinion - just mine =)

[Général Grievous]

About that "scale" thing...
AFAIK, the other space games don't let you control an entire empire with multiple fleets. I could be wrong but how could that work with multiplayer when one player shows up flying his starting ship and the other brings a wing of 80 fighters?

+1
Totaly agree with that.

This is difficult to compare it to X3.
The economy and trade aspect is not very present in those games and i don't think this will change.

[Alan Phipps]

I am failing to see any real differences between much of the content of this compared with other active threads in this forum (eg: this one or this one), the multiplayer FAQ, or indeed discussions properly belonging in the Off Topic forum. Notice is served that this thread is under review and will not survive without continuing original and relevant content.

[Gazz]

Scale is a major problem even in X3.

Many of the concepts and game mechanics date back to X:BtF where you were flying the same ship for the entire game.

With one ship, buying and installing all your lasers or shields one by one is absolutely justified.
When outfitting a carrier task force with 120 fighters, it is not.
Scale.

The classic Wing Commander system where a ship always has such and such lasers would be much healthier on a fleet scale.
Not only does that cut out a huge chunk of pointless fiddling, it also allows for far greater ship diversity because ships can be tailored to very specific roles.
In X3, you have a grey mass of can-do-everything ships because of all these legacy systems.

I am failing to see any real differences between much of the content of this compared with other active threads in this forum

So merge them. =) <With which one? :wink: Alan>

[ApatheticEthic]

Scale is a major problem even in X3.

Many of the concepts and game mechanics date back to X:BtF where you were flying the same ship for the entire game.

With one ship, buying and installing all your lasers or shields one by one is absolutely justified.
When outfitting a carrier task force with 120 fighters, it is not.
Scale.

That's a deft observation. The equipment problem just gets worse from there. Equipment docks in the game are keyed more to single ships than fleets. They barely hold enough products to outfit a single ship. Such pitiful numbers aren't realistic for a game of this scale. The problem extends to the many factories.

The factories simply don't build enough. To get an installation capable of supply even small operations with missiles or other equipment, you need ugly, big groups of factories. That's the crux of a major problem. A player can't get huge amounts of production without abusing complexes. It ends up ruining framerate and being an eyesore. Obviously, the devs couldn't foresee the things the engine would be subjected to, but it's a disappointment that we can't made better factories. I could go on about the other problems of scale, but I'm rambling.

[BigBANGtheory]

I think they are missing out on free publicity at this point, but this discussion to my mind is more relevent to the sucessor to X Rebirth since its clearly going to be the first to market.

[shea]

IMHO i like the way SC is going, in my eye,s it will become far bigger than X Rebirth,The thing i like about SC is that there will be updates every 2 weeks.And the way things are going around here,people are getting pissed off about getting no INFO and are goin to focus more on Star Citizen & Elite: Dangerous.Egosoft you guys will regret not keeping people informed.

[Aragosnat]

One thing Rebirth will do that SC does not do. We will be in the combat zone 24/7 and not dealing with a movement and combat system similar to Star Trek On-Line. Another is station building and large NPC fleets from the get go.

@shea: It is once a week we get updates unless you are refuring to what subscribers get?

Anothing about SC is shen and if the game is released you have already bought the game. If you pledge enough for it as well as a fully 3D environments that our customizable avatar will be able to walk around in.

Both have something to offer that the other does not. And I'm looking forwards to seeing what they both come up with.

[AkrionXxarr]

True....but never underestimate the appeal of mass-multiplayer, it can extend a game's lifespan by years...hell thousands of people still play freelancer online, i did up until last year!

Never overestimate the success of mass-multiplayer. It can just as easily be what crushes a game.

[shea]

@shea: It is once a week we get updates unless you are refuring to what subscribers get?

No what i mean m8 is that when SC is released the dev,s will have new content every 2 weeks

[bluenog143]

The other game's seem more like competition to EVE than they do to X, but that's just my opinion on the matter.

Star Citizen (SC) and Elite Dangerous (ED) both seem multiplayer centric; ED in particular from what I've seen. X is mucher deeper in that it's not about flying around in a fighter while spamming the text box. The thing I dislike about multiplayer is that it limits what the individual player can do because thye have to share with someone else. Maybe the other person doesn't want to wait for you to take down that escort, etc. Not to mention that the game 'runs' while it's off.

Not that I have a problem with sharing, just that also means other things, like single player aspects being taken out or not developed/ignored because of the multiplayer aspect or no mods unless it's on a private server, etc.


I think X fits a niche in the space sim market because of the empire building aspects and the fact that it's singleplayer. The only thing I'd wish to have X at this point is an economy which doesn't spam things (ships, stations, creds, wares, etc.) but besides that I'd say X is a solid game in a niche that those other games can't fill.

The only other game I can think of that will be a bit more like X is Limit Theory (LT), although from what I've seen LT is still different enough from X that X wouldn't have a problem.

Of course I'm not downing any of the games I mentioned and I'll have to see every one of them for myself before I can make any opinion or comparison of them.