"Gamestar" Interview with Bernd

[Llothlian]

I am not sure he is. Based on the thread he created earlier I think he is blaming those who like the game for the fact the features he wants will not be added. Not sure how he knows that, Bernt just say that some features will not be removed.

[TDQuasar]

Well it would seem that in his mind the only success he cares about is making money.

A company can do this only once. Next time it won't happen. They will never sell so many copies again, unless they satisfy their customers first.

My question is: was it worth it? Sell a lot of copies once, and ruin the reputation of Egosoft...? Wasting the reputation built during those years when Egosoft was adding extra content for the X3 games for free?

Sad.

[MegaJohnny]

Well, I can't say I'm too happy about this.

Of course, there's nothing Bernd can say about bugs rather than "whoopsie!" and that's okay. I'm happy with their approach to bugfixing post-release. I'm particularly impressed by the beta program they're going to do - having the game running on thousands of machines rather than hundreds will make much more bugs surface to be given attention to.

But when queried about the mechanics people are unhappy with, we get the stock defense of "oh, it's not X4" and "yeah, these are some things that the veteran players don't like". There is nothing wrong with not making X4, I can see Egosoft's urge to stop packing onto the same big ball of mud. But it doesn't matter if it's a new game, it can still be flawed.

Nor is it about adding a ton of features. The question was even about gameplay mechanics that aren't well thought out, and Bernd's response was long the line of "oh, well given enough time we could implement a ton more things". But consider the UI. They could add lots more things to it, and it would still be an annoying mess with arbitrary delays on switching menus. The same was true in X3, they added lots of nice features to the interface but issuing orders was still laborious.

I agree with the guy who said that Egosoft have made their Redguard, though. In my eyes every company deserves at least one "we goofed up" token, as little as Bernd will admit to having used it.

[Pharoah]

Well, I can't say I'm too happy about this.

Of course, there's nothing Bernd can say about bugs rather than "whoopsie!" and that's okay. I'm happy with their approach to bugfixing post-release. I'm particularly impressed by the beta program they're going to do - having the game running on thousands of machines rather than hundreds will make much more bugs surface to be given attention to.

But when queried about the mechanics people are unhappy with, we get the stock defense of "oh, it's not X4" and "yeah, these are some things that the veteran players don't like". There is nothing wrong with not making X4, I can see Egosoft's urge to stop packing onto the same big ball of mud. But it doesn't matter if it's a new game, it can still be flawed.

Nor is it about adding a ton of features. The question was even about gameplay mechanics that aren't well thought out, and Bernd's response was long the line of "oh, well given enough time we could implement a ton more things". But consider the UI. They could add lots more things to it, and it would still be an annoying mess with arbitrary delays on switching menus. The same was true in X3, they added lots of nice features to the interface but issuing orders was still laborious.

I agree with the guy who said that Egosoft have made their Redguard, though. In my eyes every company deserves at least one "we goofed up" token, as little as Bernd will admit to having used it.

I agree, IF said company admits to those shortcomings, I cannot condone this kind of failure if the company ignores it's failure.

[foxtrot76]

Developer releases broken game in a cash grab.

Its Sword of the Stars II all over again. At least in SOSII they basically admitted they had to do it or go broke, still fraud though.

XR isn't AS bad as SOSII was on release, but its the same taste left over.

Throwing around terms such as fraud without really grasping their meaning, just shows how little you know about the subject. Go ahead and start a law suit. For fraud cases you won't even have to actively do anything apart from pressing charges with your local authorities. Just keep in mind that pressing charges without valid legal grounds carries a penalty that can also make you personally liable... Have fun!

[Hornet108]

Wow, good to see Bernd still has his head up his arse.

[VincentTH]

In any case Egosoft got comfortable in it's niche segment and lowered it's guard opening the way to competitors.

I'm sure that's the case - Elite and StarCitizen will both be focussed on the pewpew with some, limited trading features. I really doubt either will be about managing a trading empire - more about individual ship trading bits and bobs... a little like what X:R is (or is supposed to be).

X3 was much more than just flying around shooting things, it had its own niche that no-one is really competing with. If Egosoft hadn't succumbed to envy of the new, cool kids and had built on their niche they would have done very well - probably much better than anyone would have thought. It'd be easy to say "yes, star citizen is good, love flying around shooting things, but for real depth in a space sim, you want to try X4 which has loads more to do"

But ho hum, we end up with X:Commander which might have been fantastically good (sans the bugs of course) 15 years ago.

I doubt that you have seen Star Citizen Economy model, , for you to say that it would concentrate solely " on pew-pewing, with only limited trading features"

[Noimageavaiable]

Probably a waste of time but I can't sleep so here is a translation anyway

GS: How did it come to X:Rebirth being released in such an unfinished state?

Bernd: There are many reasons that played together. The release date was determined quite a while ago and after seven years of development time you have to release the game at some point. But the problem wasn't the date but our struggle to add ever more features even very late in development.

We always want to offer high variety and it did become an X game even if I always emphasize that it is not X4. I didn't want to create that impression either but it is nether the less difficult to release a game where between trade, station building, fights, plot and tutorial so many things are possible.

For example we completely redesigned the landing platforms just in early 2013. Up until late 2012 we had a modus where you land through a button press and then interact once without free walking. But we weren't satisfied with this and added many things too late.

But the bigger problem are actually the small bugs, the small crashes. And that is the main reason for the bumpy start, we just didn't have enough testers there. I underestimated that a lot. With 150 people we had more testers than ever before but the game is very popular. We achieved our goal on one hand, to have more people play the game.

But that also meant that we were surprised by many technical problems that occurred especially on fast computers. We underestimated the amount of problems that would occur on high-end machines. We didn't even have a computer in our office that was as powerful as some of the systems Rebirth is played on now. We always assumed the game would also run well on these computers if it ran well on out midline computers.

GS: Now Rebirth isn't just criticized for its bugs but also because of poorly thought out or poorly functioning game mechanics. Did you never get the feeling during development that you had to draw a line at some point?

Bernd: No. This problem isn't new after all and it is always that way: We could go on and on. We could theoretically include everything after all. And that is how we will continue working once the bugs are fixed. There is already an endless list of new features we want to include.

However I see the gameplay changes as different from the technical problems which are annoying and could have been avoided if we would have had something like Early Access. If you would just test with more people. Many hardcore fans might dislike some gameplay changes but it is another game after all. It was also clear to me from the beginning that many hardcore fans would prefer an X4. And maybe we will do that at some point. But we can't reach new customers with that. The introduction to the game as well as the pacing of all the gameplay mechanics will always differ between those two directions.

GS: And you reached more players with this release?

Bernd: We sold more games in the first weeks since release than with any X game before.

GS: But was it a fair start to charge 50 Euro for a game in this condition?

Bernd: We also received lots of positive feedback, it is sadly overshadowed by many technical problems but there are many people who play this game and are satisfied with it. It is of course regrettable when part of our customers, regardless how small that part is, experiences performance problems or gets stuck in the plot for some reason. And these things are avoidable.

But things like the change to highways. These specifics that are radically different. The game is supposed to be faster and more action oriented. Trade for example is supposed to run in parallel instead of forcing the player to personally experience this slow part of the game. It doesn't make sense to discuss things like that with our fans. With these fundamental things the question weather it is better or worse doesn't make much sense because you're comparing apples and oranges. It is just completely different. If you make a game where the players trade themselves and pilot their trade ships you'll have a significantly slower game. But we will never change that about Rebirth.

On one hand we have detailed plans to expand X:Rebirth and also enable many things old fans in particular are missing. But as much as we are going to add, X:Rebirth stands for many changed mechanics and those will never change. You have to differentiate there.

GS: You mentioned Steam's Early Access program. Why didn't you use that option since you're already going with the controversial mandatory Steam activation?

Bernd: We would have liked to do it but the opportunity came too late. And it didn't work for reasons of distribution too. It would have fitted our style of publication well and we probably would still have the game in Early Access over a longer period of time.

GS: But on Steam you're publishing the game yourself, aren't you? And Early Access on Steam isn't that new either.

Bernd: As you said on Steam we publish the game ourselves. But unfortunately only on Steam. I can't go into details there but fact is that we cannot do whatever we want. We also have to consider Retail. That is how it is unfortunately.

GS: Was the game released in this unfinished state because your publishers Deep Silver and Tri Synergy pressed you?

Bernd: No, our publishers aren't at fault. I do not lay the blame with others either. The problem is you have to plan completely different for a retail release. You have to announce early when the game will hit the shelves, packages have to be produced, it has to be listed. You can't just change your dates half a year in advance when Steam offers Early Access.

GS: Yet other developers managed to do it, Bohemia Interactive with ARMA 3 for example (also self-published on Steam with local Retail-Publishers). The possibilities have been there for a while.

Bernd: For our plans for the retail release these opportunities came too late anyway. We will certainly work differently in the future.

GS: Since we're talking about the future. How does the future look for the series, more Rebirth or will we see an X4?

Bernd: We certainly won't be working on an X4 in the future. Our near future sees the development of Rebirth. There will be many smaller patches with gameplay improvements in the next two months. For the next year we will then switch to monthly patches to include bigger changes as well. But for now we have to do our homework with performance and stability before thinking about things like exterior view.

GS: Looking back on the release of X:Rebirth. Would you say it was a mistake to include features to the very end instead of finishing the present elements particularly regarding the UI and the general control scheme?

Bernd: Regarding the controls, no. There we always advanced in small steps and included new concepts only late. Whenever you solve old problems you also create new ones. Even another year of development wouldn't have changed that.

We already made some cuts with features after all and didn't for example implement AI commands that we would have loved to have on release.

But I think when you started the game on release, you didn't have problems with those endgame features in the first 10 hours. There the UI works and you're mostly annoyed by the by now mostly fixed bugs. Those are also the things that annoy me the most.

GS: So disregarding bugs the controls are especially in the beginning of the game good in your opinion?

Bernd: For the things you can do in the early game, yes. Trade with one ship, when you want to transport small amounts of goods, is sufficient. There are certainly things that can be improved but as long as you only have one ship it works actually. Difficulty arises when you want to concentrate on trade, which of course is something (not only) our old fans want. They want to control and build large fleets. We have yet to expand those features. There the UI isn't good.

GS: You kept the spreadsheet-menus from previous games for Rebirth. Rather than for example using symbol- or graphic-heavy menus everything works through classic lists. Did you try out other menus at some point as well?

Bernd: No, that's even a feature we removed. We decided against it due to expandability alone. Although you could certainly improve quite a few things in terms of presentation.

GS: So far Rebirth received the worst test results in the series. Do you think you can still turn the opinion on the game?

Bernd: I'm certain that we can positively influence the opinions of a lot of people over time but that is of course too late for the tests. And we obviously loose potential customers that way. Although it is certainly even worse for the players that bought our game and are now rightly displeased with it due to bugs. First we have to win those back. We can only do what we always did in the past as well: Not only fix the game far beyond the release but also expand it massively.

GS: How do you want to avoid a start like this next time?

Bernd: The team worked hard and I don't blame anyone. It is sad that the start went the way it did. But on the other hand the game is very successful too. There are many people who like the game in its current form. The game sold extremely well so we did some things right there as well. Even now we sell more games per day than with any prior X game. Which also means that for many people the features that didn't work properly on release aren't that important. Though in some cases that is also sad since we want to bring the depth of the economy and building to the new players as well.

Ideally I want to offer people who expect a Wing Commander a Wing Commander first and show them the depth of the universe later.

GS: But does that mean for you the good sale numbers justify the bad release?

Bernd: No, of course not. We always want to do it better. Especially the bugs that destroy the present game design are very annoying.

GS: Do you think you will still get it done?

Bernd: Of course. I already explained that in the forum. Phase One is stability for now. There we really need more testers. In the future we will certainly do that with Early Access. But we fixed more CTDs in the three weeks since release than the year before and the stability is already pretty good. But there are also always customers who run the game below minimal requirements such as 32-bit systems.

After that we will take care of the performance. Even if I don't want to say too much here. Those improvements take time. We currently do betas for the patches too. And we will continue the next weeks in the same way.

But of course you also have to mention that it apparently runs well for many people, after all we had always more than 10.000 players in the week after release. You have to consider the critiques with that in mind too. If you sell a lot of games and only one percent doesn't get it to work those people are of course legitimately angry and make themselves heard on the Internet. But you can't conclude from that that those are 50 percent of players. But regardless how many customers are affected it is always annoying.

GS: If you could turn time back a year. What would you do differently regarding features and the release?

Bernd: I probably wouldn't have changed any features and instead concentrated more on a bigger test before release.

[rusky]

...

Thank you.

OT: Nothing new really, Bernd still claiming the game is a "success". If XR was the best selling X game I think it's safe to say whatever they release next (if anything) will be their worst selling game ever.

[werewolves?]

Bernd essentially addresses everything that people complain about and request answers for, but of course this will all be completely ignored and we will still get all the "riddle me this Bernd!??" and "Y dun u apologise 2 me Bernd!!!" threads and posts.

[ShienZu]

Bernd essentially addresses everything that people complain about and request answers for, but of course this will all be completely ignored and we will still get all the "riddle me this Bernd!??" and "Y dun u apologise 2 me Bernd!!!" threads and posts.

+1
that about sums it up

[leecarter]

" This is not X4"
" This is not X4"
" This is not X4"
" This is not X4"

This keeps getting repeated like it's some magical incantation that will ward off the fact that the game is horrible. And I'll pass on restating all the misleading claims they made beforehand regarding this as they've been hashed and rehashed a million times already.

But hey, they sold more than any other X game so it was a stunning success. So what I (and you) think of the game state is pretty much irrelevant because they cashed in big time.

It's a pretty disgusting way to treat your customers really, but you know what they say, fool me once...

[rusky]

Bernd essentially addresses everything that people complain about and request answers for, but of course this will all be completely ignored and we will still get all the "riddle me this Bernd!??" and "Y dun u apologise 2 me Bernd!!!" threads and posts.

Must've been reading a different interview then because I've not seen Bernd address the horribly dumbed down experience that is XR nor what their plans are on making the game actually have a "THINK" component again. Or a UI that's not WORSE than the one from their OLD game.

Maybe going up a...sorry..THE ventilation shaft and opening "hidden" crates is truly a THINK revolution for the average console gamer.. shame they don't even get to play this amazing, full of action space shooter though.

[Noimageavaiable]

Bernd essentially addresses everything that people complain about and request answers for, but of course this will all be completely ignored and we will still get all the "riddle me this Bernd!??" and "Y dun u apologise 2 me Bernd!!!" threads and posts.

People just want to vent their frustration, they don't care about facts or whatever. Hell, if you actually paid attention before the release you would have seen 99% of the game's problems coming a mile away but people wanted to get hyped so the got themselves hyped. When others pointed out the problems they chose not to listen. Now they again choose not to listen. But thats organized masses for you.

But anyway, its nice to have some official confirmation that this game is and will stay dumbed down, regardless of how many fans cry about it.

[pr0nflakes]

GS: Since we're talking about the future. How does the future look for the series, more Rebirth or will we see an X4?

Bernd: We certainly won't be working on an X4 in the future. Our near future sees the development of Rebirth. There will be many smaller patches with gameplay improvements in the next two months. For the next year we will then switch to monthly patches to include bigger changes as well. But for now we have to do our homework with performance and stability before thinking about things like exterior view.

[ external image ]

[Trillsiker]

Bernd essentially addresses everything that people complain about and request answers for, but of course this will all be completely ignored and we will still get all the "riddle me this Bernd!??" and "Y dun u apologise 2 me Bernd!!!" threads and posts.

I will sort that out for all thoses poor minded people.

Any fan of space simulations will find the UI in X Rebirth easy to use and much more intuitive, but the 'Trade, Fight, Build, Think' gameplay elements and interaction remain as deep as X game fans have come to expect" - Bernd Lehahn


[ external image ]

[MegaJohnny]

Thanks a lot for the proper translation Much easier to get what he's saying.

My favourite little tid-bit is this:

For example we completely redesigned the landing platforms just in early 2013

...

GS: If you could turn time back a year. What would you do differently regarding features and the release?

Bernd: I probably wouldn't have changed any features and instead concentrated more on a bigger test before release.

Turning time back a year would bring us to late 2012 - ie, before landing on platforms was implemented. So maybe there is something more to this. I don't want to speculate on it, though.

Anyway, I don't really get his comment about apples and pears. If you were to compare Supreme Commander and Battlefield 2, this would definitely be apples and pears. But Rebirth is a new game in the same series, with the same basic goals and characteristic features. They are very much comparable - although many people take this too far and say that something in Rebirth is bad simply because it's done differently from X3.

[rusky]

XR is dead, long live X3AP ? For some reason the AP modding section seems to have had new life breathed into it heh... just a shame about the single threaded engine really, the 1% where XR is better than X3.

Quite an achievement really, making a sequel that's worse than the previous game in almost every single way possible.

[Noimageavaiable]

just a shame about the single threaded engine really, the 1% where XR is better than X3.

And yet AP manages to still perform better than Rebirth, so that doesn't really hold true either. Truly a success in every way

[Lazerath]

I have read enough of your acidic vitriol to know I don't want to purposefully search for it.

Nothing acidic about what I have said! I have only spoken the truth and have not said a single lie in anything that I've typed. I have merely shared my thoughts and feelings about the different matters in the forum at this time and backed them up with PROOF.

I have also stated in posts through out the forum how much I used to support this company as well as the substantial amount of money I have invested in purchasing multiple copies of their previous games because I wanted to help support them more. I used to write some scripts for X3 and published them here for others to use and hopefully improve their game play!

Now though, instead of posting how much I liked the X-game I was playing I am instead posting WHY I don't like it, whats wrong with it and how I feel lied to by Egosoft about my purchase. I have also (as I already mentioned) provided proof. You simply need to go and re-watch the videos posted pre-release and you will see Bernd say one thing but in actuallity it is the opposite in game or the feature(s) are broken/completely missing.

However, it seems to NOT be okay with me posting my issues with the game and its release state with the same amount of passion that I have put into posting how much I enjoyed playing the previous games.

I also used to be someone who defended Egosoft on its previous releases when they were full of bugs and game breaking issues because they had not lied to me about what was in the game and what it could actually do.
I did not end up feeling lied too, ripped off or feel like I was sold a game in a completely unfinished state. Many other people have posted the exact same feelings around the Internet such as Reviewers for Gaming Sites and Magazines. Bernd was just interviewed and asked point blank about the horrible release state of the game and he talked around the question completely IMHO!

I would still be sitting here DEFENDING Egosoft on the release of X-Rebirth if it had only been released in a buggy state. I cannot and will not CONDONE a company releasing a game that is NOT FINISHED, yet charged me PREMIUM price for a game that is not even considered an ALPHA state by a lot of the Game REVIEW's I've read (my opinion as well)...

Therefore I have as much right to sit here and COMPLAIN when Egosoft does something WRONG as I do to PRAISE them when they do something RIGHT!

Also, STOP TROLLING MY POSTS. I have just read the entire thread up to page 8 and you are CONSTANTLY complaining about peoples posts who have an issue with this game. Each of us has a RIGHT to feel how we doo. You have YOUR RIGHT, WE HAVE OUR RIGHTS!

I do not go to your posts and pick it apart because of something you like with the game or pick your post apart because you are praising the game . That is your RIGHT and you are granted it freely. However that does NOT give you the right to pick apart peoples posts who have a Complaint about what has happened, is happening with the state of the game and its release!

There are some things I really like about the game, I've POSTED that info already. There is just to FREAKING MUCH WRONG WITH IT! that it overshadows the GOOD!