"Gamestar" Interview with Bernd

[Llothlian]

I love how the 10 or 20 people who throw childish fits on the forum equate themselves to the majority of the player base.

I don't know how her could be more clear. This is not X-4! This is an alternative version, an action game. Yes, it needs a lot of TLC. No, it will never be X4.

[jeroll3d]

Very good interview.

Congratulations to the entire team at Egosoft for this wonderful game. He has enormous potential and the team is on the right track.

It is obvious that criticism would come, assuming the game wins new fans worldwide.

Very good interview with Bernd. Always honest, always humble, always simple - and this is one of the reasons I respect not only professional, but as a person Bernd.

Now it's 'move on'. Correct any errors in the game and then discuss with all future additions of the XR.

[vahadar]

Ok this is what Google translate says I don't speak German so don't blame me if its wrong

stuff.

A little notice here, you just translated the first page and there are 3 pages

On the last 2 pages we learn that Bernd probably regret X:R hasnt gone throu Early Access. He also acknowledge the bugs and state of the game. There is no Denial then, but what is annoying is that (and Gamestar notice it good) the fact that the good sales of the game is no excuse to its poor quality.

[Daisai]

This guy has some serious issues in setting priorities in game development, also complete lack of knowledge of mistakes of other developers.

Not having a high end pc to test your game for example, if your company does not even have around 1500 euro's to spend on a high end pc then there is something really wrong.

Assuming that if a game runs good on a old pc it should run good on a new pc, well assumption is the mother of all....

[Akeela]

It is scary that he doesn't seem to comprehend that the ONLY reason he sold so many copies of the game is that people BELIEVED it would be an actual playable game that they longed to play.

Do you think he will understand when their NEXT title completely falls flat because they have lost the trust of their fanbase?

[Lazerath]

ya previous x games were buggy on release... and we still pre-ordered x-rebirth... but thats because the core game was good and could be modded into something better by the community...

However, with this recent "SHITE" storm with the state of the game at release is a 1000 times worse then anything before it... plus all of the false advertising and lying about what is in the game by Bernd..

Doesn't he realize that people are going to remember what has happend here when he tries to release a new game in the future?

How many people are going to pre-order a new game from Egosoft when everyone will be rehashing what happend with X-Rebirth..

Not many... Because they won't be fooled twice!

EDIT:
To those saying that people are complaining because they wanted X4 and didn't get it, thats a bunch of Bullshite!

I never expected X4. Bernd said this space game would have all the features of the previous X games and MORE.. Yet its lacking the MAJORITY of the features.. Plus everything else that has been listed by the many upset customers that doesn't work or were lied to about what was in the game but actually isn't! etc.

And saying that only 10 or 20 people are complaining on the forums is even more proof that some people here are also in a state of denial like bernd. The backlash against this game is all over the gaming community by reviewers and most importantly the GAMERS WHO PURCHASED THE GAME!
END EDIT

Its sad that he has chosen to go the route of DENIAL and making up EXCUSES instead of OWNING UP TO THE FACTS!!!

[vahadar]

Ok this is what Google translate says I don't speak German so don't blame me if its wrong

stuff.

A little notice here, you just translated the first page and there are 3 pages

On the last 2 pages we learn that Bernd probably regret X:R hasnt gone throu Early Access. He also acknowledge the bugs and state of the game. There is no Denial then, but what is annoying is that (and Gamestar notice it good) the fact that the good sales of the game is no excuse to its poor quality.

here is the full translation of all 3 pages by google :

Many people are satisfied with the game "

After the catastrophic release of X: Rebirth , we spoke with Egosoft boss Bernd Lehahn and wanted to know : How did it come so far and how to do it now with Rebirth continue ?

The German developer Egosoft team has a tough task ahead : they must regain the trust of their customers. Because after the release of their space game X: Rebirth in November there were massive criticism from both the fans as well as by the press . Rebirth was bugged and unfinished thrown on the market - after seven years of development time.

At present, although new patches appear almost daily cycles . Until the youngest part of the X - series , however, achieved a commendable status , are certain to pass Monte. And if the serious gameplay weaknesses are ever resolved , written in the stars .

We spoke with Egosoft boss Bernd Lehahn about the release of X: Rebirth , about the future of the game and good sales now account for the Rebirth at least to financial success.

Gamestar : How did it happen that X: Rebirth was released in such an unfinished state ?

Bernd Lehahn : There are as many reasons that have negatively played together . The release date is indeed set for a while before and after seven years of development, you have to come out sometime in the game. But the problem was not the date, but our struggle to add more and more features, and that too very late in development .

We always want to offer a high level of diversity and it is just an X game become , even though I have repeatedly stressed that it is not X4. This expectation I did not want to wake up , but it's still difficult to bring out a game in the Trade, Substations , fights, plot and tutorial so many things are possible.

We have , for example, until the beginning of 2013, the landing platforms completely rebuilt . By the end of 2012, we had a mode where you end up by pressing a button and then once interacts without free running around . Consequently, we were not happy and have added much too late .

But the bigger problem is actually the little bugs that small crashes. And that is the main reason for the bumpy start , as we did not have enough testers. I have a very underestimated. We had 150 people with more testers than ever before , but the game is very popular. We have on the one hand achieved what we wanted , that many more people play the game.

But it has also brought with it that we were surprised by the many technical problems that occurred especially on fast computers . We underestimated how many problems there would be with high-end computers . We had here in the office is not a computer, which was as strong as some systems on which Rebirth is now played . We have always assumed that the game would run on such computers also good if it runs on our middle-class computers.

Gamestar : Well Rebirth is not only because of its bugs but also because of not well thought out or well-functioning game mechanics in the criticism. Did you have during the development never felt you had to draw a line sometime now ?

Bernd Lehahn : no. This problem is not new and it is always like this: We could go on and on . We can theoretically install everything since . And so we will continue to work once the bugs are fixed. There is already a long list of new features that we want to include .

The gameplay changes I see but other than the technical problems that would certainly have been annoying and avoidable if you would have done something like Early Access . If you would just test with more people . Some gameplay changes might not like many hardcore fans , but that's just another game. It was clear from the outset that many hardcore fans would rather have a X4. And maybe we do that , too someday. But we can not reach new customers. Both the entry into the game but especially the pace of the entire gameplay mechanics will always be a difference between these two approaches .

Gamestar : And with this release, you have more players achieved?

Bernd Lehahn : We have sold more games in the first weeks after release than at any other X game before.

Gamestar : But was that a fair start to charge 50 Euros for a game in this state ?

Bernd Lehahn : We also get a lot of positive feedback, it is unfortunately overshadowed by many technical problems , but there are also many people play this game and are happy with . It is of course annoying when some of our customers , no matter how big is this part that has performance problems or get stuck for any reason in the plot. And such things are preventable.

But such things as the change to the highways . Something very specific , which is radically different. The game is faster and action- oriented . The trade is for example run in parallel instead of the player to force personally experience this slow part of the game . For such things there is no point with fans via such features to debate . With these basic things , the question makes little sense after better or worse , as you compare apples with pears. It's just completely different. If you make a game in which the players act itself and control its merchant ships , one has a much slower game. But we will never change at Rebirth .

On the one hand we have detailed plans X: Rebirth to expand and also to enable much what grade miss the old fans at the moment. But this much we will also add , X : Rebirth anyway for a lot of changed tuners and where nothing will change . One must as accurately distinguish .

Early Access , X4 and operation

Gamestar : You just mentioned the Early Access program from Steam. Why did you choose this option is not used if you already relies on the controversial in your fan circles Steam coercion?

Bernd Lehahn : We would like to have done it , but the opportunity came late . And it was not due to marketing reasons. It would fit well with our type of publication and we would have the game now probably over a longer period in the Early Access .

Gamestar : But on their Steam sells the game even ? And so the new Early Access option on Steam is again not now .

Bernd Lehahn : How do you say already on Steam , we sell it yourself. But unfortunately be supplied only on Steam. Because I can not go into details , but it's just so that we can not do what we want . We also need to take on the retail sales consideration . Sadly, it has .

Gamestar : Is the game have been published in the unfinished state because your retail Publisher Deep Silver (Europe) and Tri Synergy (USA) have made pressure?

Bernd Lehahn : No, because the publishers are not to blame. I push and no one else's fault in the shoes . The problem is that you have to plan quite different for a retail release. It must be said , when the game comes in the store, the packaging must be produced, it must be listed very early stage. Since you can not half a year ago when Steam Early Access offer , move its data.

Gamestar : Other developers have but quite well done , with Bohemia Interactive , ARMA 3, for example ( also on Steam in self- marketing with local retail publishers ) . The possibilities were there for some time.

Bernd Lehahn : Our planning for the retail release of these possibilities still came too late. In the future we will work safely otherwise .

Gamestar : When speaking of the future. What is the future of the series of , more or Rebirth we will see an X4 ?

Bernd Lehahn : We will not be working in the near future to ensure a X4. Our immediate future is the development of Rebirth . Over the next two months, many more smaller patches will appear with gameplay enhancements . Over the next year, we will then change to monthly patches to install larger innovations. But now we must first do our homework in terms of performance and stability before we take care of , for example, such things as an outside perspective.

Gamestar : Looking back on the release of X: Rebirth . Would you say that it was a mistake to incorporate new features to the end , instead of at some point to take care of the completion of the existing elements , especially in the user interface and general operation ?

Bernd Lehahn : So in terms of the operation , no. As we have continued to develop us in small steps and added new concepts late . Every time when you solve old problems , one creates in this way unfortunately new ones. As more development time would not have changed even a whole year.

We already made ​​tough compromises in features and example AI commands are not implemented, we would have liked to have had loving the release.

But I think if you start the game for release, one has in the first 10 hours no problems with these end-game features. As does the user interface , because rather disturb the already for the most part now fixed bugs . These are also the things that annoy me the most.

Gamestar : So aside from the bugs , the operation is in your opinion , well, just at the beginning of the game?

Bernd Lehahn : For the things that you can do in the initial phase , yes. The trade of a ship , if you want to transport a small amount of goods is sufficient. There's certainly things that can be improved , but as long as you only have one ship, it is all about. It becomes difficult when one wants to focus on trade , which of course (not only) our old fans want. They want to control and build large fleets . These features , we will only need to expand even further. As the user interface is not good.

Gamestar : You have recorded at Rebirth to the previous games List menu . For example, instead put more on symbol and grafiklastige menus everything works on classical lists. Did you try you between times to other menus ?

Bernd Lehahn : No, that's even a feature that we get deleted. We decided because of the extensibility it. Although there certainly could do a lot better in terms of presentation.

The future of X: Rebirth

Gamestar : Rebirth has been getting the worst reviews of the test series . Do you think that you can still rotate the opinion of the game?

Bernd Lehahn : I am convinced that we can influence the opinion of many people over time positive, but for the tests is of course too late. And thus we lose potential customers. Even worse , it is safe for players who bought our game and then because of the bugs are entitled dissatisfied. The we have only just recovered again . We can only do what we've always done in the past : namely, to expand the game far beyond the release , not only to fixed but also massive.

Gamestar : How will you avoid such a start next time?

Bernd Lehahn : The team has worked very hard and I throw anyone of something. It is sad that the start is gone as he went. But the game on the other side is also very successful. There are many people who love the game in its current form. The game has sold extremely well since we have therefore also some done right. We sell even now a day more games than we have ever done that for an X game. What also means that the features that have the release does not work properly , are not so important for many people. In some cases, this is also sad because I would like to convey new players the draft of the economy and construction.

Ideally, I want players who are a Wing Commander expect to offer a Wing Commander first and then show them the depth of the universe.

Gamestar : But that means for you is that the good sales figures justify the bad release?

Bernd Lehahn : No of course not. We want to always do better. Especially the bugs making the existing game design broken, are very annoying .

Gamestar : Do you think that you still riff ?

Bernd Lehahn : Of course. I explained that already in the forum. Phase one is now first stability. Because it really needs more testers . In the future, we will make sure with Early Access. But we have fixed in the three weeks since release Crashbugs more than in the year before and the stability is already quite good. There is but it is also always customers who run the game below the minimum requirement , for example, on 32- bit systems.

After that we will take care of the performance. Even if I'm not will promise too much too soon . These improvements take time. We are currently also make betas for the patches . And in the same way , we will continue in the coming weeks.

But you also say that there are probably many runs well , at least we constantly had a week after the release of more than 10,000 active players , of course . You have to see the criticism whatsoever in relation. If you sell a lot of games, and only one percent gets the game then not working, these people legitimately are naturally very acidic , and provide a hearing on the Internet . But from this one can not draw the conclusion that now 50 percent of the players are . But no matter how many customers are concerned now , it's always annoying .

Gamestar : If you could go back in time for one year. What would you have in terms of features and the release done differently?

Bernd Lehahn : I would have changed nothing on the features of the game , but rather concentrated on a larger test before release.

[jeroll3d]

Exemple for all

Gamestar: If you could go back in time for one year. What would you have in terms of features and the release done differently?

Bernd Lehahn: I would have changed nothing on the features of the game, but rather concentrated on a larger test before release.

Very good!!!

[iuiz]

Compare this to an excuse from Valve, when they screwed up. And they did a minor mistake in comparission to Egosoft:

http://blog.dota2.com/2013/11/not-my-best-work/

Here are some of Valves statements, try to compare these to Bernds statements:

- "we [made] a significant mistake"

- "you were rightly upset about it"

- "Due to our poor prediction of your reaction"

- "we didn’t spend enough time thinking about talking to you about our decision"

- " we’d made a bad decision"

Also they explain not only WHAT they did wrong, but WHY they did something that a lot of persons thought was a mistake. They c o m m u n i c a t e d with the community.


The interview with Bernd is an example of a slippery CEO that wiggles out of every hard question asked by a "gaming journalist".

[YukikazeX]

I don't know how her could be more clear. This is not X-4! This is an alternative version, an action game. Yes, it needs a lot of TLC. No, it will never be X4.

I like action games, space games and even sidescroller shooters if they have a good design. X Rebirth doesn't have a good design. That's what matters to me. It's not fun, it's clunky, lacks cohesion and in general it doesn't work. You can read millions of post on how the game design is flawed in this game. Too many half cooked ideas and a general misunderstanding on how things are too complex to micromanage entirely or too simple and boring, with neither working as expected. They shouldn't have tried a hand to a wider audience without understanding the basic of a mass appeal game. The minigames are a tragic display of this problem.

[Hippotastic]

I have not much to say except I cannot find any action in the Action Orientated game. I have tried to trade, failed see later. Tried to fight, failed. Spent a lot of time thinking, of XML, and I have not got to build as I cant build any ships to trade with.

I mapped every part of the four sectors, and gave up last night as I was not being offered anything but escort missions, and that last two of those I did, after nearly falling asleep watching it do stupid around the stations, bugged out and I had to quit the mission.

I ain't complaining, I am going to play something else. Prolly X2

[Mopy]

Gamestar : Do you think that you still riff ?

How does one answer such a question?

I'd love to see a human translation.

[TinkerToy]

Yes, record sales for an X-game, but sadly also a record number of refunds. Plus a sizeable reputation hit, due to the game being almost universally panned in reviews.


I hope it was worth it.


Egosoft used to make really good (if somewhat buggy) space empire building games. With Rebirth it looks like they are attempting to switch to a new genre, the "space shooter", a fast and action-packed game. And in my opinion, they failed comprehensively at that.

[YukikazeX]

Frankly they'll be lucky if X Rebirth doesn't ends up in various "Worst games of the year" articles...

[billw]

Compare this to an excuse from Valve, when they screwed up. And they did a minor mistake in comparission to Egosoft:

http://blog.dota2.com/2013/11/not-my-best-work/

Here are some of Valves statements, try to compare these to Bernds statements:

- "we [made] a significant mistake"

- "you were rightly upset about it"

- "Due to our poor prediction of your reaction"

- "we didn’t spend enough time thinking about talking to you about our decision"

- " we’d made a bad decision"

Also they explain not only WHAT they did wrong, but WHY they did something that a lot of persons thought was a mistake. They c o m m u n i c a t e d with the community.


The interview with Bernd is an example of a slippery CEO that wiggles out of every hard question asked by a "gaming journalist".

Really? He said they made a big mistake with testing, that peoples anger was justified, that the UI is bad, that it wasn't the fault of the publishers but his personally, explained what happened in the company that caused the bad launch, and a bunch of other mea culpa. What exactly do you want from him?! Is it that he said that a lot of people *are* enjoying the game that you don't like? I'm pretty sure that is true considering there are 1600 in game right now (compared to 700 for X3:AP for instance).

[Lazerath]

omg...

Bernd Lehahn : Of course. I explained that already in the forum. Phase one is now first stability. Because it really needs more testers . In the future, we will make sure with Early Access. But we have fixed in the three weeks since release Crashbugs more than in the year before and the stability is already quite good. There is but it is also always customers who run the game below the minimum requirement , for example, on 32- bit systems.

Now he is using the excuse about customers running it on 32 bit systems..

I am not running a 32 bit system, and almost all of the posts on this forum are from people NOT RUNNING 32 bit systems but 64 bit systems..

He continually tries to shift the blame on to something or someone else!

This is pathetic..

But he is showing everyone that he won't own up to it and sees nothing wrong for the most part even though he has lied about a lot of things..

Okay.. seriously done... this shit is starting to make my blood boil.

Never get another dollar from me and I'll make sure to spread the word about how the state of this games release and the companies stance towards its customers are....

[Lazerath]

*Forum Double Posted - REMOVED*

EDIT: Added new info!

and now I have seen quite a few modders saying good bye.... sadly here goes another one!

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 80#4277480 who also wrote some excellent guides if I am not mistaken!!!!

Sad ..

[Vandragorax]

No offence to the man, but he seems pretty out of place in the gaming world in general... weirdly enough.

For example, he seems to think that because of publishing via retailers, they were 'stuck' and couldn't offer a beta test through Steam for say, pre-orders online. His reasoning: because they have to make packaging and retails discs which they "can't change the data" on 6 months before release.

WTF?!

This guy is deluded... X:R is a game which REQUIRES Steam... you can put whatever dubious code you like into a package for retailers 6 or 12 months before release, and then just require people on release day to download a massive patch to fix everything that you discovered was wrong in your 6(or 12)-month Steam pre-order beta test.

This alone would have cleared up MOST of the issues currently being experienced, which clearly 150 alpha/beta testers were not going to find in just a month or however long they gave them for testing.

I am truly bemused at this guy's apparent lack of critical thinking. Either that, or I got totally the wrong end of the stick with his comment, but I think I have the benefit of the doubt here, seeing as how things turned out

Same old story with every software company these days... massively under-estimate the need for QUALITY ASSURANCE testing, release sub-par code, then spend the next month wondering why all customers are shouting about things being broken and desperately trying to firefight with hotfixes etc.

When will these companies learn, I have really no idea!

[chikatilo]

There's quotes from Bernd that imply they had to change and add a lot last-minute, and that's exactly what this game feels like.

You can feel the love that went into making the galaxy, ships and stations, but so many other elements of the game feel like they were crapped on the disc on their way to the publisher.

I'm reading between the lines they ran out of money, crapped the promised features on there, released the game and will patch it up to what they intended now that they have cash.

[Llothlian]

omg...

Bernd Lehahn : Of course. I explained that already in the forum. Phase one is now first stability. Because it really needs more testers . In the future, we will make sure with Early Access. But we have fixed in the three weeks since release Crashbugs more than in the year before and the stability is already quite good. There is but it is also always customers who run the game below the minimum requirement , for example, on 32- bit systems.

Now he is using the excuse about customers running it on 32 bit systems..

I am not running a 32 bit system, and almost all of the posts on this forum are from people NOT RUNNING 32 bit systems but 64 bit systems..

He continually tries to shift the blame on to something or someone else!

This is pathetic..

But he is showing everyone that he won't own up to it and sees nothing wrong for the most part even though he has lied about a lot of things..

Okay.. seriously done... this shit is starting to make my blood boil.

Never get another dollar from me and I'll make sure to spread the word about how the state of this games release and the companies stance towards its customers are....

Nothing he said in your quote was a lie, it was all 100% accurate. The game did need more testers, and we're doing that for them. There are clearly customers running it on 32bit systems or otherwise below spec. My laptop is below min spec and I have tried to run it on there, so I guess I proved his point and disproved yours? Wy are you people always trying so damn hard to take offence and get angry at Egosoft? All it does is stress you out and reduce your life expectancy. No, Egosoft don't need to refund that either.