Gamescom demo and additional info

[Wana]

Tried it a few times, may or may not add infos from the OP.

this is my personal experience with X:R Demo GC13

- acessing the map can be kinda realistic (turn your head, display coming in, switching on), but with extensive use, will enrage player in the long run.

- the highway are closed for you, dont try to leave (ohh noooo ! lol )

- the ship is indeed very agile. hitting a wall is a wanted mistake made on purpose.

- you can dock, the game rely far more on mouse. in X3, you can almost play with keyboard only.

- The radial menu ("T") is clearly made for console gamers with a pad.

- Yes you can chat with npc, it require a double click (?) to interact. C key is completely unused. you can chit-chat to hear some borons jokes, hire marines and more. Don't know if differents NPC are available on another docking bay (only had time to dock at one)
KB shorcut are pairs numbers. so 6 and 8, which are not near from WASD are quite used.

-First Person mode is quite good. pretty fast, fluid, with, i think some drifting. the jump is like an old Unreal Tournament jump.

- the station is... not really crowded. toolboxes are often empty too. no minigames were present. there is a laptop in a room, should be an old celeron one if not older referring to its size. To sum up, i don't feel i'm living in the future.
Didn't found the exotic dancers though.

- although there were some casualities, i was not needed to finish the mission.

- scripted parts (NPC radio discussions) prevent you from any control (can't do anything even walking on station)

- Yisha talks from an empty chair if you're docked

- are we in god mode or i'm damn too good shooting that cap ship ?

- 10mn is not enough to build you own capital fleet and conquer the universe. obvioulsy someone is lying, or broke his NDA.

- This game is under development, so... there still are some dark mechanics, like docking, trading...

- X:R machines are accessible in a few minutes. Unlike some (all) others big licence.

Being there Thu(crowded)/Fri(overcrowded), i wish good luck to all of you if you're going on sat/sunday. take a chair with you.

and if you don't, here's a gift :
http://imageshack.us/a/img713/7396/ecrt.jpg
guess who is it ? (hint : he's making presentations in german, so everybody can understand )


{Images posted directly to the forums should not be greater than 640x480 or 100kb, oversize image now linked - Terre}

[Night Nord]

guess who is it ? (hint : he's making presentations in german, so everybody can understand )

The whole gamescom is mostly german-only - sounds like some kind of local trade show, not an international gaming event... Thanks to egosoft that at least game is not, not like some other titles...

@Geek and co: could you please keep your one-ship-related holywar in some other place? Just so that other people may safely ignore it without bumping on burning battlefields at each thread. Especially here it's quite an off-topic. Thank you.

[Spami]

(hint : he's making presentations in german, so everybody can understand )

Well, making a good presentation (to speak fluently and single-minded as well as to be a good improviser) is really hard in other languages then your first language.
I don't know Bernd in real life, I guess he is a really nice person, but what I have seen so far (even in German interviews) he seems to be not a really good rethorician.

...It's a game. Of course things are going to be spawned.

It's simply a question if those things are spawned in a convincing manner like from a shipyard, under particular economic condition; or in an unconvincing manner at a completely random point in empty space. Hell, you can get away with the second one as long as it occurs far enough away from the player and at a low enough rate to be unnoticeable.

Definitly, yes. It doesn't matter how intelligent the AI is - in order to keep the universe running, they have to help the universe slightly here and there to push the AI back again in the right direction.
Or the universe of some people completly dies and you have to start all over again after you spent months in this savegame because the AI was too dumb to hold itself alive.
There is no game the AI is not cheating in.

[Geek]

@Geek and co: could you please keep your one-ship-related holywar in some other place? Just so that other people may safely ignore it without bumping on burning battlefields at each thread. Especially here it's quite an off-topic. Thank you.

I do realize that you are the OP, but... how is the playership off topic ?

I understand you created this thread to report your experience at the Gamescon. But then, people are going to comment that (and I mean the game content, not you), do not you think ?

[biohazard15]

2 Night Nord

More questions :D

1) In demo, can you walk freely inside Skunk? Or it's an auto-transition between cockpit and station dock?

2) Is there some new stuff in game options, like asteroid\civvies density? And can we enable subtitles for all this chatter during missions?

3) What system is used for demo (CPU, GPU, RAM)?

4) Is there turrets on Skunk? Or some special missile defence system (Mosquitoes\flares\ECM)?

5) Is bailing and\or boarding present in some form (or will it be added after release)?

6) All this chatter between talking heads and Yisha - does it contain at least some hints to game plot? And does someone call you (player) by your name\surname? (In some previews, player character is called Ren Otani)

7) If you attack transport ship, can you shoot off containers (and grab their contents), like Freelancer?

8) In his comments for demo, Bernd stated that you can fly inside hangar and literally try to kill capital ship from inside. Is this possible with Plutarch capship from demo?

[caleb]

Thanks for the info, and thanks for the video! and that hand that appears on the bottom left of the screen from time to time looks so real!!!

EDIT: Ugh... Those faces... The guy looked weird, the girl that appeared later on looked a lot better. Could you make those models move their eyes? Have them look at the player (track the player), they would look a lot better...

[randomuser]

if you are piloting your ship you always face the camera to your right when talking to someone and totally ignorw what s in front of you
NOT

i think it s logical that they dont face you directly, they are busy doing something else at the same time

[caleb]

if you are piloting your ship you always face the camera to your right when talking to someone and totally ignorw what s in front of you
NOT

i think it s logical that they dont face you directly, they are busy doing something else at the same time

Agreed, that totally applies to the real world... However, for a game, I would prefer it looks pretty. At least make them move their eyes or something, they look too much like a wooden doll.

[nemesis1982]

@Geek: Could you just take a brake from constantly bikkering. It wasn't a unreasanoble requist and you must see the difference between discussion and bikkering.

Now back on topic. Thanks Wana. Really appreciate the updates.

A few questions:
- You say the ship is agile. But does it feel overly agile or just right?
- How naturally does conversing with NPCs feel? Just curious.
- Am I correct in assuming you find the difficulty a bit lacking?
- Can you clarify the dark mechanics comment? DIdn't get it.

[DaMuncha]

if you are piloting your ship you always face the camera to your right when talking to someone and totally ignorw what s in front of you
NOT

i think it s logical that they dont face you directly, they are busy doing something else at the same time

Agreed, that totally applies to the real world... However, for a game, I would prefer it looks pretty. At least make them move their eyes or something, they look too much like a wooden doll.

Thats because thier eyes are painted on.

[MegaJohnny]

Thanks for the experiences, people that posted them - it's really nice having a flow of new details.

Re: the difficulty, I have a feeling they toned it way down for the demo. It's like when they were making trailers for Skyrim at its reveal - when the guy playing it opened the inventory you could see his health was 999.

[imperium3]

Other changes to flight model - top direction, either orthogonal to the nearest capital ship, if you are in the gravity well, or some global top-direction if you are in open space. Sector design is mostly flat, BTW, as in Freelancer (Arsaneus words). You can't switch it off.

Top direction? What does this mean - that you can't roll freely any more?

[EmperorJon]

I believe the ship reorientates itself to flying "forwards" after you let go of the controls, and the sectors are rather 2D, and that it's a feature that cannot be disabled.
Personally I think this is something which community pressure will cause to disappear...

[imperium3]

I believe the ship reorientates itself to flying "forwards" after you let go of the controls, and the sectors are rather 2D, and that it's a feature that cannot be disabled.
Personally I think this is something which community pressure will cause to disappear...

Yes, at least for the playership. I can see how it would be massively useful for the AI in order to stop it doing silly things...

[EmperorJon]

Clarification: I'm not entirely sure how it works and I doubt I will be until I get my own hands on it, but from what I've seen in the videos when you try to roll your ship it reorientates itself to facing "upwards" (even if you're flying up/down) so you're not travelling at an angle. Basically the fact that the areas are quite flat and have the big space cities has introduced a universal "up", which I don't mind in sector design but I think forcing you to always see that as up could be potentially annoying.
Many times in X3 I found myself lost in a sector until I realised I was looking at everything from a totally unexpected angle. It was surprising, but also cool.

[vukica]

1. real space is flat, if you infinitely go in one direction, you won't end up in the same location again, or reach an end. you'll just keep on going.
2. local systems are organized in planes (e.g. all the planets in the solar system are almost in the same plane, and most of asteroids)
3. stars in a galaxy are in mutual 3D-relationships when you consider it from a perspective of a single star, or even a star cluster, but the galaxy itself is again a flat spinning disk only 1000ly thick (1/100th or less of it's width)
4. hypothetical large space stations should be located in L-points, which are always on a 2D plane. (ISS and other satellites are not really stationary relative to positions of earth and sun, so they are not stations. cmdr hadfield refered to ISS as a spaceship, not a station.)

so, X-Rebirth is organized as it should be, isn't it?

[A5PECT]

Before you guys fly off the handle with "ZOMG DUMBED DOWN 4 CONSOLEZ," fire up X3 and take a look at the options menu.

[ external image ]

It's always been there; it's the flight equivalent of auto look centering in an FPS. I see no reason why it wouldn't be an option in Rebirth, as well.

It was probably set to "on" by default in the Gamescom demo.

[EmperorJon]

Note I wasn't saying ZOMG DUMBED DOWN 4 CONSOLEZ, I was simply saying it's something I don't really like (and I gather some others too) and it could do with being removed/having the option to disable it (as I don't reckon that'd be too difficult), as you've pointed out existed in X3.

Note:

Other changes to flight model - top direction, either orthogonal to the nearest capital ship, if you are in the gravity well, or some global top-direction if you are in open space. Sector design is mostly flat, BTW, as in Freelancer (Arsaneus words). You can't switch it off.

[EuRoKa]

2 Night Nord

More questions

1) In demo, can you walk freely inside Skunk? Or it's an auto-transition between cockpit and station dock?

Yes, you can walk freely inside the ship! You can't walk inside the cockpit though only leave or enter it. If you're right outside the cockpit, there is a small room which would lead directly to the loading ramp if you were docked at a station. In this room are two doors. The left one leads back to the cockpit and the right one was not accessible, but it surely gives you a hint that there are more rooms to come like quarters, turrets and so on.

[Gupster]

2 Night Nord

More questions

1) In demo, can you walk freely inside Skunk? Or it's an auto-transition between cockpit and station dock?

Yes, you can walk freely inside the ship! You can't walk inside the cockpit though only leave or enter it. If you're right outside the cockpit, there is a small room which would lead directly to the loading ramp if you were docked at a station. In this room are two doors. The left one leads back to the cockpit and the right one was not accessible, but it surely gives you a hint that there are more rooms to come like quarters, turrets and so on.

Is there a restroom on-board the ship ? if not ( In Space no one can hear you scream)