X-Rebirth, growing fears…

[Chobittsu]

complex building

[ external image ]
Don't. Even. Get. Me. Started.

[giskard]

I don't understand the fears. Those are the guys who brought us all X games so far, except for the AP of course. If someone knows how to make excellent X game, its them. Yes, rebirth may be different in many ways, but I don't expect it to be boring or lacking in any of them. Did you ever ask yourself how would X3-R look like if they had all the years to develop like they did on rebirth? From my point of view there is no way this game could be lacking anything. Stop trying to find old X games in rebirth and focus on what is new and how it works.

If X Rebirth does not contain the old features from the X series I liked, this original XBTF fan will not be buying any more X games.

[dougeye]

but what if its the same principles of gameplay just with altered mechanics?

[giskard]

I know for fact Egosoft are listening to everybody, not just fan boys. If anything Egosoft have a habit of listening to critics more than fan boys I would say. They have a history of returning to points of criticism in later games and addressing them.

For example some of the criticisms I had 5 years ago, initially dismissed at the time are now features/fixed in X Rebirth. I have seen them in the videos.

The other thing is, X3 was not a typical X game.... It is a bastardization of the X series because it destoyed too much of the older games due to an enforced early release date by Deep Silver. It drove lots of egosofts long term customers away, many have not returned. I am of those who did and stayed in touch ready for the day X4 appeared and hopefully addressed my concerns.

I even brought X3TC despite not liking X3 because I know if the money for X4 did not come from fans, it would come from Deep Silver and their contracts already screwed up X3. I did not want to see that happen to X4. If they did, I would have walked away from X for the last time and not looked back. There are other space sims being made, X is not the only one these days.

X3 should have been called X0.5 in my opinion. But it did do capital ships right and the complexes were a good idea too, but the rest I would have thrown in the bin.

Egosoft have listened to the complaints of us older fans 7 years ago just as they are listening to you now, but dont expect to see your issue addressed in X rebirth, Egosoft work slowly.

Those videos show a logo on the side of the ship, a feature we lost, they show cockpits, a vastly improved interface even over the older Pre X3 interface (which was better than X3 but still sucked). They show what I think is complexes built in to space cities now. They show trade lanes that would only be needed if the "empty space" problem of the old sector system had been addressed.

Over all, X Rebirth may lost some things from x3, but honestly... those things where not worth keeping anyway. I welcome the older features back because those where the features that made X in to the best space game available.

In my view, X Rebirth is doing to be the best of both worlds, an attempt to marry what the old fans want back with what the new fans liked in X3.

Sure old fans compare it to XBTF but if you had played that game, you would know why we say that. But most of the features in that video where not in XBTF, they are entirely new. So its not all about us.... X has moved on as it always does.

PS The best fan boys around here criticize Egosoft more than the haters do. So do not confuse us with the A typical fan boys from other games

[CBJ]

Egosoft has fallen back into "tell people nothing" mode and we really have very little information about the game...

Oh come on! It's not even been a week since Gamescom and a huge amount of information being released, yet already you are complaining of "silence"? And that's despite numerous posts from Arsaneus and myself in this forum since then clarifying various points, and all the information that is out there already which has, of course, not magically disappeared.

We can and will release more information between now and the release date, and we will also try and answer some of the questions people have. There may be some things that are still not in the public domain for one reason or another, but in general we can talk.

[giskard]

Egosoft has fallen back into "tell people nothing" mode and we really have very little information about the game...

Oh come on! It's not even been a week since Gamescom and a huge amount of information being released, yet already you are complaining of "silence"? And that's despite numerous posts from Arsaneus and myself in this forum since then clarifying various points, and all the information that is out there already which has, of course, not magically disappeared.

We can and will release more information between now and the release date, and we will also try and answer some of the questions people have. There may be some things that are still not in the public domain for one reason or another, but in general we can talk.

I want to see more videos on controls.... Joystick especially. And of course the new universe layout which I think is the thing most are interested in.

[Bernd]

-The gamescon demo was dumb and useless, only picturing X-rebirth as a space arcade shooting game.

Well we had to make a demo that fits in 10 minutes. It is next to impossible to show any more depth in that period of time.

-They advertised X-rebirth like a Build, Trade, Discover and Fight…. Well, we don’t have any information about trade nor on building stations… quite embarrassing for what was in the previous X the main core of the game…

One of the next videos will focus on trading. A video about building is also planned but we have more than two months to fill and can not release videos daily.

We have two types of trading, one is item trading and one is for the large quantities. Item trading is basically what you can call intenvtory items. You buy and sell things mostly on platforms, use them in missions and for special purpose. The serious trading with larger quantities always happens with third ships (usually capital ships). They take orders from you and execute the trade asynchronously. This allows us to make the trading more realistic. It has loading, unloading with massive amounts of small transporter ships and drones and the capital ships can maneuver into the large stations slowly.

-Then we know we are capped to the Albion Pride…. But it is a small fighter craft… No, no I see you coming fanboys who will tell me it is a M6 corvette but honestly look at the last video when the ship land and we see the hangar… You can see the player near the loading ramp and see the stern of the ship, the engine and landing gear… honestly it is no bigger than CH-53 chopper…. so far from a true corvette. Moreover, we can see the pilot climb a cramped staircase to immediately go down the tiny cargohold…. which betrays how small the Albion Pride is.

The size of the Skunk is 43 x 28 x 15m. CH-53D for comparison is 27 x 4.7 x 7.6m. So the "Pride of Albion" is double the length double the height and more than 5 times the width which means it is about 20 times the size of the CH-53.

The purpose of the Skunk is to be an allround fighter ship. It is by no means meant for transportation of anything other than weapons, drones and crew.

-Another fear is the upgrade of the ship… Damn men we are 2 month of the release after seven years of development it is time to wack out some remaining bugs but no more to develop and code features, everything now must be ready and working… It should time for the dev to show us great feature. Like hello folks, this is a picture of the Albion pride at first then this is another of the Albion pride fully upgrade. Showing us this is two different ship , a bit like in darkstar one when the ship at first was more like a pod then ended with extra wings, cargo mudule, engine module making it from a, let say, 20 meters ship into a 80 meters one. You know really increasing its size and armament… but here, one important has never been discussed or shown by the devs…

That’s quite frightening and leaving me with the feeling there is no upgrade to the Albion Pride. The feeling that it will not evolve into something bigger, better…

This fear is partially correct. The Skunk will become better but not different. But dont forget drones you can fly for many different purposes and of course you can also own and indirectly control many capital ships.

The Skunk will be extended with various features (Engine, shields, primary weapons...) but not changed in form. The external look of your ship therefore does not change a lot.

Yes this is one among many other features we would love to do better, but sorry not in 1.0.

-Ok you don’t have multi ship but you will be able to dock bigger ships and command them from an observation bridge. Well nothing of that has been shown or explained…and that’s quite frustrating… Once again the devs are leaving us with the feeling nothing of that exist… We should had least have been given a long video of the Albion Pride docking a big ship, of the player moving to the obs bridge and be explained the command menu… but no….

There are no plans to command your ships from an observation bridge. You can dock on capital ships just like you can dock on stations but this is not for commanding. Commanding ships happens by talking to pilots via intercomm. When trading for example, you collect offers on stations and they are then added to a special menu which allows you to filter for what you want. Now whenever you enter this menu you are in a conversation with a pilot of the ship you want to transport these wares and the commanding happens by sending him the offers you want to pick.

-They showed us in a video how a big ship was plotting its flight route around stations. Well but we weren’t shown any map… and honesly I fear we will still end with a useless 2D map….

Correct. You will not have a map to plot a flight path. At least this is definitely not in 1.0 and we currently have no plan for anything like this for an expansion either. The AI video showed you how a trade ship is docking to pick up wares. Your role in this is to find the offers and tell the ships what to buy and where to sell it. The hard part in development was to allow our AI to get into these really complex geometries.

One of the MANY things we are considering for later updates would be to allow the player to have more detailed influence on attack paths for his capital ships and that is indeed something that would have to happen with a map. So while in X Rebirth 1.0 you will tell your pilots only roughly how to attack a target, a possible later update may add more micro management options. If this happens and when depends on your feedback after release. But there is no point in discussing priorities for updates with our fans as long as the game is not in their hands.

-The fight… man.. the fight…. Gamescon left me with the dreadful fear of an arcade game... one shot kill… insane shield on the Albion Pride. The fight with the bigger ship… you destroyed the turrets/shield gen and engine with such an ease… it was pathetic….

Again: This was a 10 minute demo designed to allow total beginners to have some fun. Would we have made the difficulty level realistic the majority would go away with a negative experience.

And I’m not even speaking… well I am about that lack of complete demo which could leave us those fears… I know it is forbidden here to speak about gaining access to the game without paying for it, I’ve seen someone else posts being deleted when he said he would torrent the game to test those features before buying or not the game… but with such clouds on the game I’m thinking there was nothing bad in his way… Who’s ready to throw away 50 bucks… honestly right now, buying X-rebirth is like buying a cat in a box… you don’t know what you are purchasing… Best solutions should be to wait reviews or ask people who will have purchased it. Nevertheless that’s sure I won’t directly purchase it because I don’t want to waste 50 bucks into a game I might uninstall quickly with the bad feeling of having wasted my money into an arcade game that share with the X-serie the name and nothing else.

It is your good right not to buy the game at first or not to buy it at all. We will release more videos and eventually you will of course also have independent reviews soon after release. So go ahead and base your decision on that.

Once again: With a game that has so many features we have to set priorities. Once the game is released we have a very long list of features that we would love to add in upcoming updates. Which of these will be done and when, will depend on your feedback.

[Bernd]

I want to see more videos on controls.... Joystick especially. And of course the new universe layout which I think is the thing most are interested in.

Support for joystick will of course be in 1.0. It does work already but it is not so easy to say when it is 100% done because as opposed to gamepads, every joystick can be different and requires configuration options. I am confident the support in 1.0 will be "good" and if special features are needed that is something we can easily add in updates. I do not however think that joystick support is interesting enough to make a whole video about it.

-Bernd

[EmperorJon]

Well some of those things are a little disappointing, mainly the capital command. What's the point of docking on-board the ship if we have to get back into the Skunk, un-dock, and use the intercom to talk the the pilot/captain? Also the lack of any kind of direct trading.
Don't get me wrong, it does still seem to me like a good game, but I'm sure many of us are a little disappointed.

Let me get this straight right at the start. X Rebirth is not less complex or dumber than any of the X games of the past.
But to make a game intuitive and easy to learn, you have to design it from scratch. Adding features to a game that was not designed for these features at the start, is never perfect.

As I've said before, it looks like you're going back to BTF's routes and will then expand on it in the future, but surely you can't say the game is "Not less complex or dumber" when we can't trade ourselves, have to do the plot to open up the majority of the universe, can't fly any other ship or directly command any other ship other than the Skunk + drones, and are limited to 1 gamestart?

I've already said, it looks fun, and I think you'll build upon it on the future.
But personally I definitely think saying it hasn't been dumbed down is a little silly.

[Lorien]

We have two types of trading, one is item trading and one is for the large quantities. Item trading is basically what you can call intenvtory items. You buy and sell things mostly on platforms, use them in missions and for special purpose. The serious trading with larger quantities always happens with third ships (usually capital ships). They take orders from you and execute the trade asynchronously. This allows us to make the trading more realistic. It has loading, unloading with massive amounts of small transporter ships and drones and the capital ships can maneuver into the large stations slowly.

-Then we know we are capped to the Albion Pride…. But it is a small fighter craft… No, no I see you coming fanboys who will tell me it is a M6 corvette but honestly look at the last video when the ship land and we see the hangar… You can see the player near the loading ramp and see the stern of the ship, the engine and landing gear… honestly it is no bigger than CH-53 chopper…. so far from a true corvette. Moreover, we can see the pilot climb a cramped staircase to immediately go down the tiny cargohold…. which betrays how small the Albion Pride is.

The size of the Skunk is 43 x 28 x 15m. CH-53D for comparison is 27 x 4.7 x 7.6m. So the "Pride of Albion" is double the length double the height and more than 5 times the width which means it is about 20 times the size of the CH-53.

The purpose of the Skunk is to be an allround fighter ship. It is by no means meant for transportation of anything other than weapons, drones and crew.

If I read this correctly then, it means that gone are the days of loading in a few crates of crystals into your ship and then selling them yourself at the factory of your choice? Even the smallest of fighters had this capability before.

[EmperorJon]

That seems to be so. Trading seems to be down by purchasing/constructing (or maybe hiring to start with) huge bulk freighters like shown in the pathing video. It's a bit of a shame. Space-truck-driver Humble Merchant was always my favourite start.


Also edit:

One thing Ego have been unfairly criticised of is poor community interaction. I think this is mainly caused by people expecting videos/content every day (ala. Kickstarter projects, which have to do this in order to get interest.), but I think it's important to ask yourself this: On how many other developer forums do you see the managing director of the company talking to fans?

[CBJ]

I think you may be misunderstanding the trade scenario slightly. You can still choose what to buy and sell and where to do so. It's just that the goods you buy and sell are transported using a cargo ship that you need to have nearby, not your own personal ship.

[Bernd]

If I read this correctly then, it means that gone are the days of loading in a few crates of crystals into your ship and then selling them yourself at the factory of your choice? Even the smallest of fighters had this capability before.

The main misunderstanding on this point is the same like with trading and building in general. You can still do all those things, but you do it with secondary ships in your own squad. The goal is that you can always get other ships in your squad to quickly do jobs for you. Since your UI knows which ships are in your squad we can deal with these ships functions as quick and easy as if they were functions of the Skunk.

There are two types of crates. Some with items some (much larger) with bulk goods. Items you pick up as before. Containers with bulk goods are too large for your ship and for all small freighter ships. They are still dropped from stations as well as from exploding cargo freighters, but you have to have ships in your squad and you command THEM to pick the goods up. All you need to do for this is "tag" containers for later pick up via drones sent by these ships.

As with trading this happens then asynchronously (slower) while you can already care for other things.

This general principle allows us to show things in a much more realistic way. Cargo REALLY FITS into these ships and the loading and unloading can actually be seen realistically.

-Bernd

[EmperorJon]

@CBJ

Yes, I understand it's really an extension of the one-ship-only mechanic. You have something else do the job you want to.


@Bernd

Now this is interesting. Squads. Is this like a wing that you have? A set of ships specifically told to follow the playership around, like you're using some fleet commanding thing?

[Général Grievous]

That seems to be so. Trading seems to be down by purchasing/constructing (or maybe hiring to start with) huge bulk freighters like shown in the pathing video. It's a bit of a shame. Space-truck-driver Humble Merchant was always my favourite start.


Also edit:

One thing Ego have been unfairly criticised of is poor community interaction. I think this is mainly caused by people expecting videos/content every day (ala. Kickstarter projects, which have to do this in order to get interest.), but I think it's important to ask yourself this: On how many other developer forums do you see the managing director of the company talking to fans?

+1.
Really, it's a good things to see Bernd answering our questions. I am really happy about that.

What ever, i saw in a video that is possible to break asteroids with the player ship. For mining i suppose. So does it mean we are able to load Ore in OUR cargo bay, then sold it in a station?

Thank you for your time!

[Lorien]

If I read this correctly then, it means that gone are the days of loading in a few crates of crystals into your ship and then selling them yourself at the factory of your choice? Even the smallest of fighters had this capability before.

The main misunderstanding on this point is the same like with trading and building in general. You can still do all those things, but you do it with secondary ships in your own squad. The goal is that you can always get other ships in your squad to quickly do jobs for you. Since your UI knows which ships are in your squad we can deal with these ships functions as quick and easy as if they were functions of the Skunk.

There are two types of crates. Some with items some (much larger) with bulk goods. Items you pick up as before. Containers with bulk goods are too large for your ship and for all small freighter ships. They are still dropped from stations as well as from exploding cargo freighters, but you have to have ships in your squad and you command THEM to pick the goods up. All you need to do for this is "tag" containers for later pick up via drones sent by these ships.

As with trading this happens then asynchronously (slower) while you can already care for other things.

This general principle allows us to show things in a much more realistic way. Cargo REALLY FITS into these ships and the loading and unloading can actually be seen realistically.

-Bernd

Hmmm...

This is one of those things that seems like a step backwards from what we've been used to from the days of XBTF, but cannot give any real thoughts on until we either see it in action via a video or for ourselves.

[CBJ]

So does it mean we are able to load Ore in OUR cargo bay, then sold it in a station?

No, you would load mined materials into an appropriate ship, and transport it using that ship to where you wanted to sell them (or use them).

[BigBANGtheory]

-They showed us in a video how a big ship was plotting its flight route around stations. Well but we weren’t shown any map… and honesly I fear we will still end with a useless 2D map….

Correct. You will not have a map to plot a flight path. At least this is definitely not in 1.0 and we currently have no plan for anything like this for an expansion either. The AI video showed you how a trade ship is docking to pick up wares. Your role in this is to find the offers and tell the ships what to buy and where to sell it. The hard part in development was to allow our AI to get into these really complex geometries.

One of the MANY things we are considering for later updates would be to allow the player to have more detailed influence on attack paths for his capital ships and that is indeed something that would have to happen with a map. So while in X Rebirth 1.0 you will tell your pilots only roughly how to attack a target, a possible later update may add more micro management options. If this happens and when depends on your feedback after release. But there is no point in discussing priorities for updates with our fans as long as the game is not in their hands.

As long as you have the ability to select, group and order pilots through the map/gui/tactical interface (whatever you want to call it) and not be forced into using the radial menu on a one-to-one ship basis it should work.

Obviously a proper tactical map in 3D plus RTS controls are preferable but I can understand if that has to be future goal.

[randomuser]

Will we be allowed to upload x rebirth gameplay on youtube, so the ppl who didnt buy it on release can decide if they want to buy it or will that get strikes against our account?

[CBJ]

Why would that get you "strikes" against your account?