New interview

[Zaydin]

There's a new interview up on Youtube right now; VideoGamer TV has an interview with Bernd up.

Find it here. Fairly good interview, if you ask me. Some of the stuff are things we already knew, of course.

[A5PECT]

UK now. Finally getting across the German border, eh?

[spacecoyote99]

There's a new interview up on Youtube right now; VideoGamer TV has an interview with Bernd up.

Find it here. Fairly good interview, if you ask me.

Added to the sticky! Thanks Zaydin!

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Nice. Nothing new, but nice to watch & listen to.

[Nukah]

Nice. Nothing new, but nice to watch & listen to.

I could have done without it being compromised of alot of rehash of the 10 minutes demo xD

[spacecoyote99]

Nice. Nothing new, but nice to watch & listen to.

Agreed. Listening to Bernd talk about the game, he's obviously very excited and it's contagious

Also "Ego-shooter" is apparently German for "FPS". Seems appropriate somehow.

[A5PECT]

My mind is just taking off under the irony of it. Bernd must love explaining his company to fellow Germans.

"Yeah, I'm the director of a video game development studio called 'Egosoft.'"

"Oh, so you must make ego-shooters."

"..."

[CutterJohn1]

Wow.. They actually had the ability to fly capitals in game and removed it. Such a shame.

Hopefully that means it will be easy to reimplement.

[Zaydin]

Wow.. They actually had the ability to fly capitals in game and removed it. Such a shame.

Hopefully that means it will be easy to reimplement.

Given how Bernd has repeatedly said that Egosoft felt that flying capital ships directly wasn't fun due to how slow and sluggish they were, I'm not so sure directly controllable capital ships are something that's a priority for Egosoft right now. I'd argue other ships that are the same size/class as the Albion Skunk are more likely than letting players directly flying a capital ship.

[ishmaeltheforsaken]

Wow.. They actually had the ability to fly capitals in game and removed it. Such a shame.

Hopefully that means it will be easy to reimplement.

Given how Bernd has repeatedly said that Egosoft felt that flying capital ships directly wasn't fun due to how slow and sluggish they were, I'm not so sure directly controllable capital ships are something that's a priority for Egosoft right now. I'd argue other ships that are the same size/class as the Albion Skunk are more likely than letting players directly flying a capital ship.

Bernd has actually said pretty definitively that even if they do add the ability to get in the pilot's seat of other ships, it will not happen with capital ships. As open as EgoSoft are to fan feedback, this doesn't seem up for discussion.

[A5PECT]

Don't let cut features get your hopes up, and don't think it makes putting in the feature at a later point any easier. Hell, the number one reason for cut features is because they're too difficult to implement with the quality and to the effect the developers are looking for.

Egosoft also had a very tentative multiplayer model set up (emphasis on 'tentative'). But apparently that experiment was ended in short order.

[Funktapus]

Given how Bernd has repeatedly said that Egosoft felt that flying capital ships directly wasn't fun due to how slow and sluggish they were, I'm not so sure directly controllable capital ships are something that's a priority for Egosoft right now. I'd argue other ships that are the same size/class as the Albion Skunk are more likely than letting players directly flying a capital ship.

I tend to agree... Sounds like it will take monumental amounts of time to get a capital ship to do anything (10 minutes to dock?) and anything but NPC control is not likely.

However, if people just want expanded interiors that include an animated bridge, that's probably not outside the realm of possibility.

[hourheroyes]

Yeah, honestly, I think a lot of the cap-ship desirers have in mind TC or AP, which had SETA. Try hopping in AP and flying a TL/M1/M2 across a few sectors WITHOUT seta. I'm not going to say it definitively isn't fun, as I know X is a lot of things to a lot of people, but I know it definitely feels boring as heck to me.

[DaddyMonster]

As well as it being nice to hear Bernd's enthusiasm, I thought it was interesting what he had to say about his relationship with the community, dropping features and making sometimes unpopular decisions with core fans to try to drag the games back into a fast paced mainstream.

[CutterJohn1]

Yeah, honestly, I think a lot of the cap-ship desirers have in mind TC or AP, which had SETA. Try hopping in AP and flying a TL/M1/M2 across a few sectors WITHOUT seta. I'm not going to say it definitively isn't fun, as I know X is a lot of things to a lot of people, but I know it definitely feels boring as heck to me.

Caps still have jump drives. Between that, and the afterburner mechanic, SETA isn't really needed.

Driving an M3 across multiple sectors without SETA wasn't exactly an exciting time either. There is a reason the most popular player ships were speedier members of the classes.

It strikes me very much as a self fulfilling prophesy on egos part. They designed the things to be boring, then, when it turns out that yes, their boring design is in fact boring, they took this as conclusive proof that such ships are boring.

Besides which, since its going to have to be modded in, it would be trivial to bump the speeds up to an appropriate level rather than the glacial pace they are shown to have in the demos. Its annoying that they went back to that 'capitals = wet navy, fighters = airforce' trope, when the ships all operate in the same environment using the same technology.

[Captain Lemmiwinks]

Driving an M3 across multiple sectors without SETA wasn't exactly an exciting time either. .

beg to differ.

slowly traversing the universe,checking stations for missions while smoking a spl....ciggy was great fun and a way to relax.

not to mention spotting a pirate or view etc,with X games freedom was immense.

[kamikazi1231]

Just so many things with capital ships. If you own it are you going to be the pilot or the captain? If you're the captain then autopilot needs to be back in. Then since everything is first person only there has to be a way to tell you whats going on around you so some sort of virtual HUD showing ship positions and such. Then if you're in a large fight as the captain do you hop up and go to a gunner chair or do you just give the command and sit there as AI gunners shoot things down? Since they can jump people would use them to skip the highway mechanic that ego worked so hard to implement. How would they implement modular capital ship systems on your player ship? Either you don't have modular systems giving you a distinct advantage in fights or you have the possibility of the engines and jump drive being taken out and sitting there for four hours as your crew slowly repairs it or you are towed to a station.

I think another goal was they could build the game around the skunk and the difficulty curve to it. In the previous games most people would rush for an M3 so they could survive a fight. Then at some point you had to upgrade to the larger ships if you wanted a chance to survive. It ended up being a number games with everyone just trying to get a Hyperion.

I like to think of this game as this generations X Beyond the Frontier and that in a few years we will look at is as ancient and the base on which other amazing games were built. Maybe in one of those games we will have fully fleshed out capital ship interiors that we can run around in, command, and fight off boarding parties. I'd love to see it, but I want to see it done right if it's ever implemented. Not as just an extra tag on but a massive game changing mechanic that'll extend the X universe based games for years.

[BGrey]

Besides which, since its going to have to be modded in, it would be trivial to bump the speeds up to an appropriate level rather than the glacial pace they are shown to have in the demos. Its annoying that they went back to that 'capitals = wet navy, fighters = airforce' trope, when the ships all operate in the same environment using the same technology.

Aside from simple balance issues how can you say this is wrong, it's about the role of the ship not the technology. If it comes down to a capital engagement the one that actually has weapons and defensive systems is going to win over a ship that is half engines.

[Ravenhurst]

Also "Ego-shooter" is apparently German for "FPS". Seems appropriate somehow.

"Ego-shooter" means, a FPS done by Ego-soft.. right?

[ThommoHawk]

Driving an M3 across multiple sectors without SETA wasn't exactly an exciting time either. .

beg to differ.
.....snipped ....
.....with X games freedom is immense.

^ + 1 and added small correction to your post Captain L.

WARNING: Respectful Flaming Follows:

So while many 'pilots' are nodding in agreement with Bernd on how boring or unwelcome or impractical or stupid it is to want to command/pilot BIG ships and that "no one likes to do that", I say once more:

Oi! Hey! Yoo-Hoooh! (vigorous arm waving). Bernd! Pilots! Most objections to piloting M1/M2/TL's are disregarding the many, many statements made by many other pilots who get some joy out of piloting big ships. Can these "I don't like the big ships" guys just accept how others do like them and move on? probably not ... so

No one is telling folks they must pilot big ships, but too many keep telling me (I'm including Bernd in this) that I don't want to, based on what?

1) "too slow and clumsy".

yes? so? ever hear of changing tactics and piloting methods? enhances gameplay for me.

2) "take too long to dock / slow sluggish".

yes? eh? since when is it necessary to dock a M1/2/TL in person, ever hear of oos. Nice when you can. necessary? no. And what's to stop a freighter supplying a M1/M2 with all those transport drones flying around? take too long to dock?/too clumsy to dock? *yawn* dont dock then. I have piloted many big ships without docking them. But using one for a major battle; that's another story.

3) "boring and no fun" oh really now? yes commander.

I totally disagree ok? - anyone ever tried shooting from M2 turrets with ship on 'attack all enemies'? NEVER boring for this pilot, different challenge and changed role as turret gunner = fun. Or piloting an M1 and launching fighter defence/attack etc = fun. Not boring.

4) "oh it takes so long to fly around some sectors in the slow big ships how boring for me. oh could only do that using SETA oooooh booring otherwise...."

well, if there was no option to pilot another ship, and only stuck in a single ship which happens to be a M1/M2/TL type then, ok this is a point. So now enter the Albion Skunk and XRebirth.

I'm just finding a lot of head nodding and uh-huh-ing about 'bad' features of X3 and earlier, to be invariably disrespectful of all the previous X games with these large ships as features of the games, and which are now being trashed as 'oh, those. never did like them, they were rubbish. nod nod uh huh uh huh noddy noddy. bah!

Anyhow I don't agree with Bernd on this thing. I am gobsmacked at how casually he rubbishes features of his own games in defence of dropping them for Rebirth. Talk up what has been added, fine. But at the same time to down talk games players are still enjoying and will continue to enjoy, is not required to promote a new game.

what I see are a lot of: yes, agree, that's right, yes Bernd, yes oh it is rubbish, yes and boring, and nobody wants that (the features we have played with in older games, especially if they never understood how to have fun with it in the first place).

Oh yes, forget about those guys who love piloting the big ships. And the other stuff, Small fast manoeuvrable ships are so much more fun (yes they are fun pewpew pewpewpew) .... ooh yeh. i like all those pretty coloured lights ...

so i am irked by this strange duality, that's all.

Respectfull Flaming End.

(oh and CutterJohn; I wasn't singling out your post, I'm referring to pervasive and more general posts and comments which dismiss the large ships as not enjoyable to pilot from previous X3 games etc. ...)