The ongoing saga of Patch 1.18

[BDelacroix]

While I do not deny that the release was sub par, I have to point out that the quick turn around of several patches last week are extraordinary. Now we wait for the larger items to get fixed.

[Santi]

What is going on with all this threads that are a "hit and run" OP post some bait stuff, and then doesn't contribute anymore to the thread.

[DavidGW]

What is going on with all this threads that are a "hit and run" OP post some bait stuff, and then doesn't contribute anymore to the thread.

From the "Trolling for Beginners Handbook", "Chapter 1: Simple Methods for the Budding Troll";

1) Find powder keg of angry internet users
2) Light match with non-constructive post
3) Stand back and watch inevitable fireworks

Textbook stuff, really.

[Mauzi!]

What is going on with all this threads that are a "hit and run" OP post some bait stuff, and then doesn't contribute anymore to the thread.

From the "Trolling for Beginners Handbook", "Chapter 1: Simple Methods for the Budding Troll";

1) Find powder keg of angry internet users
2) Light match with non-constructive post
3) Stand back and watch inevitable fireworks

Textbook stuff, really.

Rofl, now that's one cute write-up there !

[shdwknght]

i wish people would stop asking for them to fix the performance, when the f*cking trade ships dont even trade STILL after all these patches that supposedly fixes them.

[Mauzi!]

i wish people would stop asking for them to fix the performance, when the f*cking trade ships dont even trade STILL after all these patches that supposedly fixes them.

If the key issue of XR really is having deadlocks within their multi-threading system, these two bugs are closely related just like most likely any other "hang-up" like passive AI, etc. And it for sure is one of the hardest bugs to find and eliminate - while it shakes the very foundation of the game. Just saying... plenty of things can be related, depending on how their game engine works.

[dmk]

i wish people would stop asking for them to fix the performance, when the f*cking trade ships dont even trade STILL after all these patches that supposedly fixes them.

If the key issue of XR really is having deadlocks within their multi-threading system, these two bugs are closely related just like most likely any other "hang-up" like passive AI, etc. And it for sure is one of the hardest bugs to find and eliminate - while it shakes the very foundation of the game. Just saying... plenty of things can be related, depending on how their game engine works.

nope all one zone calculation probably goes in one thread (that easy that way just believe me), so there is no links between multithread and trade problem, trade problem maybe just scripts bug, or trading part of engine,
anyway it is not related to core of engine which is responsible for deadlocks,
moreover deadlocks(appears in player GUI sometime in properties menus) not full and for me is corrected once I use combination ESC + alt tab + alt tab.
I did not had unplayable fps issue in 1.15 with my GTX470,
some problems appears in 1.17 with highways, asteroids fields mining, and long range scanning.
so stopper for all players is broken ai trading problem - that's fully broken economy in game, fps issue only for some of player and videocard/driver/videomem depended(better to have ~1g videomem).

[Lhotse5]

Everyday that Egosoft procrastinates

English isn't your first language? No one procrastinates. Patches are released when they are done.

There's an old saying, "Sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut and just seem stupid, than to open it and remove all doubt."

My English is fine but your I.Q. seem's to be a matter of some debate. Did you actually have a point or were you just spewing nonsense ?
If you have something germane to add to the topic, fine. Otherwise ?
STFU !

[Tripp_UK]

Wow. Real mature.

I'm the last to defend X Rebirth but is it possible that they're trying to do a ship-tonne for their next update? Why don't you wait and see instead of this "ITS MINE I WANT IT NAOW" mentality. Geez.

[ekvinox]

WTF... we got 6 patches in a week and you're complaining about them doing nothing?

[Tripp_UK]

WTF... we got 6 patches in a week and you're complaining about them doing nothing?

My point exactly, I'm just looking at this realistically here, as I'm sure you are.

Again; this should not be taken as me defending Egosoft or X Rebirth.

[Lhotse5]

Wow. Real mature.

I'm the last to defend X Rebirth but is it possible that they're trying to do a ship-tonne for their next update? Why don't you wait and see instead of this "ITS MINE I WANT IT NAOW" mentality. Geez.

No, you're not the last unfortunately, just another one of a long list of those who are willing to accept getting screwed and regarding English, I'm not sure what a 'ship-tonne' is but as for the impatience you see from some of us, this game was in no condition to be released in any way, so yea, I want it fixed immediately and done right.
Why should we as consumers expect any less ?
If you went to pick up your new car and it wouldn't start, would that be acceptable ?
Both video games and automobiles are marketed products. Why should one be held to a different standard ?
If something doesn't work, don't sell it until it does. It's very simple.
If this were a few minor bugs that were a mild annoyance, I wouldn't care but the game is unplayable and now I'm angry and I want it fixed RIGHT NOW !

[Chatterly]

Everyday that Egosoft procrastinates

English isn't your first language? No one procrastinates. Patches are released when they are done.[/q]

Rude ass is yours though. Ignorance is probably a good time to stop typing: https://www.google.com/search?q=procras ... 3&ie=UTF-8

As you can see, procrastinate is a verb. So procrastinates is a perfectly valid grammatical construct.

[Lhotse5]

Thank you.

[Tripp_UK]

No, you're not the last unfortunately, just another one of a long list of those who are willing to accept getting screwed

You couldn't be more wrong. Because I'm not screwed (it's not like my life as I know it is over), I went and played another game, I also reviewed X Rebirth extensively and have already explained my views on this more times than I want to remember.

and regarding English, I'm not sure what a 'ship-tonne' is but as for the impatience you see from some of us, this game was in no condition to be released in any way, so yea, I want it fixed immediately and done right.

I never commented on your English. Mine sure as ship isn't. Also Ship-Tonne, Sure as Ship? It's a "Clever" censoring that I use on this forum otherwise it'd be **** <-- Yeah because that's better. Excuse me for trying.

Why should we as consumers expect any less ?
If you went to pick up your new car and it wouldn't start, would that be acceptable ?

I wouldn't know. I don't drive, have you seen the amount of taxes and how much insurance costs for someone like me to drive. But if I did, if they could fix it I'd be happy. Granted if they refused to see that there is a problem (Which Egosoft aren't doing when it comes to bugs, they acknowledge that there's issues.) I would however have a major issue with say, going to pick up my new car and it was missing everything save a basic body work and engine...

Both video games and automobiles are marketed products. Why should one be held to a different standard ?

They shouldn't, and I never stated otherwise.

If something doesn't work, don't sell it until it does. It's very simple.

Your definition and my definition of "Works" is different, and clearly our definition for this is very different from Egosofts. I'd also like to know one game in the past five years that was released with no bugs from the start.

If this were a few minor bugs that were a mild annoyance, I wouldn't care but the game is unplayable and now I'm angry and I want it fixed RIGHT NOW !

As I have stated many, many, many times now. I understand that. But you seem to be angry at just the bugs. No offense mate, but there's plenty wrong with it. You're preaching to the choir unfortunately, and instead of repeating myself I'll just quote my feelings on this game below... If you can't be Argoned to read it, it's your loss.

Sorry about the length it took to reply... As you can see it's a very long post. You asked a reasonable question in the face of my dickishness and smart-assery. I'll now elaborate and yet abridge it at the same time. Sorry if I ramble.

Where do I begin? I know. From the beginning!

The bugs are a major problem, I've been playing X-Games since they pretty much started selling in the UK. I was a major fan of Frontier Elite 2 which I played throughout most of my early childhood. Seeing this (X-Beyond the Frontier) when I was 9 (1999) made me buy it very quickly I think the thought in my head was "If I don't buy it quick. Someone else will!"

There was bugs but Egosoft patched them up, and I was happy. Fast forward (Because I never got X-Tension, or X-Gold. No where sold it that I could find. Except eBay (Paid my dad and he got it for me) and they were pirate copies and were sent back, the feedback by the time my dad got the refund was "Didn't even work anyway." So that was a let down.

X2 came out and Pre-ordered it! It was a steep learning curve if I remember but the detail and the sectors. It was also the first time I saw Ban Danna in person in the game, I loved him from the ol' X-BtF days. Loved it, and kept playing it until X3: The Reunion came out, that was riddled to buggery but again Egosoft quickly addressed these issues from what my memory can recall and it was patched and I had fun. I didn't like the no cockpit anymore, that I remember complaining about, but eventually I got used to it. I loved it by X3: Terran Conflict. I put a lot of hours into the X-Games because I LOVE the complexity. I think I understand the side that says X Rebirth is too simple to the point that it's broken, I also understand the other side of the Fanpost that says "It's not that simple when you think about it..." And I appreciate talking to people who... Are rational to talk to.

You see these X games... And I'm sorry to be playing the "Emotional Back Story" card so I will spare you the details. Growing up was not fun. My childhood away from a computer... I hated it. Passionately. At school it was the bully's and actual physical assault from my headmaster on several occasions and home wasn't much better either. Going out side playing with friends? Forget about it things were even worse there. The X-Games provided me with an escape. I became Loyal to Egosoft because they effectively was everything good about my childhood. (David Braben too, with Frontier. Although I hated that Frontier Final Encounters game.)

I wrote a scathing review for X Rebirth, I felt bad for doing that to Egosoft. Especially when it was Egosoft that made positive moments in my childhood.

Why did I do it... Why do I dare say "This game sucks." Well my friend this is the long answer, and I appreciate you asking. First of all whilst yes I like the graphics, I find them to be a little repetitive I don't know how to explain that, but I guess that's all on perception of the individual person. The space docks felt copy and pasted, yes I am a little annoyed at only (I think) four sect- system's, I don't care how much KM there is compared to X3 and about it being similar, that's not the point - In my opinion. Everything looks all spread out and spaced light years away from each other. Yet there's room to build more stations and provide a wide varity of differing wares, the opportunity to take the wares list from the old X games and build on it, was so ripe yet it was, I feel a missed opportunity.

Next; We were promised vast space cities. Now as I said in a previous post in another thread, I wasn't expecting the Citidel from Mass Effect but come on... We got ripped off there. I wouldn't go as far as saying I want to run down the streets of each new city (Although not impossible to generate from a random seed, I think it's been done already, actual random cities from a seed made at the beginning of a game. I digress, I wasn't expecting that, but surely there is more than what we got?!

LOVE that you can walk around. It adds another dynamic to the game, I feel. However, I feel that there was a missed opportunity. Call me crazy, but I picture a massive room, circular, seats around the place like a nice club, maybe some tables, a BAR in the centre of the room, serving drinks in a 360o rotunda. But the edge of the room, along the whole room is a window out to space. A Space Bar, filled with alien species from all over the X Universe, rather than that windowless, closed off, funky coloured rooms with maybe 3 to 8 people in yet massive amounts of chatter coming from all the walls. It feels... Cheap. Fake. It's not immerseve at all. That would have been something. These people are shielding themselves from the beauty of space. Okay I understand that maybe some of those patrons have been in space all day, they don't want to see space again when they're in the bar. Okay. So maybe some bars have it, some do not. If nothing else it adds variety. Again missed opportunity...

Console Control support was apparently nail hitted on the head awesome. I wouldn't know. Whilst I have a 360 controller in my PC, I would never dream of using it for an X-Game. I'm probably the only one who thinks that way. I'm glad they got it nailed though, if it's true.

Next was the loot. Again more varity would have been nice. Perhaps maybe find some Spaceweed Laced Argon Brownies or something? Why not? You can find Spaceflies. Those guards, if ships can invade people's privacy can't those guards do a stop and search? Again missed opportunity... Yet they're more quiet than the average British Royal Guard.

While we're on the subject of British, do British men in the game really have to sound so... Beta male? Meek? Submissive? Everyone else for that matter the voice acting sucked. I think though-out the game I only heard a handful of different voices. We got Terran's? Why not get some Aussies up in there? Perhaps some Irish people, hell someone who can do a range of voices and accents would have been preferable. Again... Missed opportunity.

Limited Weapons and Shields. One Ship (At least we were warned about this one). The most UN-Intuitive User Interface I've ever used. Limited software. Limited weapon mounting points (A turret on the back would have been awesome it's supposed to be the Pride of Albion, isn't it?) all missed opportunities.

We were also promised "your actions truly matter when every ship and every space station is a part of a fully simulated universe…" Be honest, really most of these ships are just cannon fodder and it doesn't make a blind bit of difference (Perhaps only in reputation with factions) if I start fly swatting, really. It’s even more noticeable when these ships are coming out of these ridiculous highways. I understand we can finally get rid of SETA now but this isn't (at least to me) better. Freelance's method is closer to what I feel is the answer but that had it's own issues too. I digress again... When these ships come out of the highway, they disappear. Most don't even light up (thankfully) as potential targets.

The targeting system going will take a lot of getting used to. But the Radar? Even Elite had one.

The storyline lacks substance and is predictable too. PMC and Albion whatever are supposed to be hatin’ each other? Why aren’t they fighting? Why are they living side by side each other and shit? Why am I the one singled out and attacked by PMC? Come to think of it when a PMC dickwad starts shooting at me, none of my Albion friends come to my aid? In the previous X-Games I could at least hail a station and ask for assistance, in this game I ****** get told off and punished by Albion when I return fire on a PMC ship? But if these sides hate each other wh-? You see, that’s console logic.

Some people have said that this will probably be the end of Egosoft, and there’s no doubting they’ve lost a lot loyal fans trust over this, myself included. Some are fine with it, and in my opinion, that’s good for you. But I’m not fine with it and a hell of a lot of people aren't fine with it either. Nothing’s stopping you from putting up a positive review.

It saddens me that Egosoft has done this, but hey they didn't make X Rebirth just for me. So I try to keep the fanboyism out of it. A lot of people seem to act like Egosoft made X Rebirth just for them when they're being angry and that's just not going to accomplish anything. The ones who are complaining about having their trust violated... Yes I understand that very well.

So my point of view: I was lied to, sold a game that is... Sub-par at best. Egosoft have a history of having buggy launches, I accept that. No one is perfect. They are competent at fixing them efficiently and there's no faulting them on that. But I feel this game is so sub-par that it's beyond patches. In my personal opinion they released a game that wasn't complete or perhaps even fit for purpose. I would have been less annoyed and less angry if they just reskinned X3 tweaked it a little, gave it a storyline and made add a feature or two like a/some real lazy game dev corporation(s) that shall not be named.

My list of problems grows every time I play it. The Economy in the game has been pretty much identified as broken beyond repair, and I feel that everyone's universes are like this. (Basically stations will run out of producing materials and the economy grinds to a complete halt. Nothing is produced. The tier system is also significantly weaker than the previous X Games. For example you needed to trade or produce Energy Cells for everything, to make them you needed Crystals and (I think) some food, depending on the race the station was brought from. They make enough energy cells to make enough stuff to make more energy cells and to make other things. It's was a well thought-out, well balanced system it was complex yet easy to understand once you put your mind to it. Yet I feel this doesn't even exist no where near to the scope anyway in X Rebirth. So that also makes me feel it's dumbed down.

Does this answer your question, Norsk?

So you see I don't accept that I'm getting screwed. There's very little I can actually do about it. Other than; I won't be pre-ordering from Egosoft ever again Bethesda lost my trust once, and I've never pre-ordered from them again and all that was wrong with Skyrim was the freaking bugs.

So next time you make assumptions of people, engage your brain first before you engage your fingers.

[Cipher1]

Perhaps they finally learned their lesson and won't release unfinished not working patches anymore.

[bunyarra]

Everyday that Egosoft procrastinates on releasing the 1.18 patch, is one more day they look worse than they already do. EVERYONE is waiting to play a game, that will not play and the LEAST they could do is give us some sort of an update, everyday they don't release it.
It's just leaving us without any information, as opposed to having an assistant take 2 minutes to inform us, just makes things that much worse.

Get a bleeding life ... geesh. It's just a game.

[Tripp_UK]

That's exactly my point. No one (outside of Egosoft) really knows what they're doing. Saying they're procrastinating isn't really valid, for example. Do you have solid evidence that, that is what they're doing?

If so, buy all means, share and shut me up. Accusing someone of something they're not doing (or in this case, not doing by doing) is wrong. Not saying releasing X Rebirth in the state it's in was a good thing, but two wrongs do not make a right.

[Ruiner82]

To be honest even when it is patched, I still don't want to play it. X Rebirth has completely killed my interest in X. It's dead, and X3: Albion Prelude is the last true game that's ever going to be made in this series.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

The problem with the quality of released software in the modern gaming industry appears to be an endemic and worsening problem overall. It is not an intractable problem but rather almost certainly a consequence of a lack of comprehensive testing probably due to aggressive deadlines and cost-saving measures (in general).

I have worked with a lot of different types of people over the years and it typically takes a major software quality screw up for some of them to realise the importance of appropriate QA/Testing before release (such activities do not happen over night and thus are seen as wasteful by some). Even then, some may just shrug it off with a "stuff happens" attitude and continue to work as they always have done.

That being said, Egosoft strike me as being a rather more professional lot overall. The reasons behind the broken release and subsequent poor quality Wk1 patches are probably not going to be known to us; However, the pause between patches we are experiencing now is hopefully a good sign.

Progress reports during bug fixing (or proverbial fire fighting) typically result in the work being delayed even further (especially in a small team - c/f Egosoft) because reporting status takes time out of the working day and the reporting typically requires those that are doing the work to stop, think about the report, then try and get back into what they were doing (not always a quick process if you want hard information).

Personally, I am certainly not happy with the results of Egosoft's release and patch strategy to date (especially where X-Rebirth is concerned) but I still have some faith left to believe that when we do get the next patch that it will make the game playable.