Is walking in station/ship/wherever required to play?

[ajeffco]

The title says it all. I searched before posting but couldn't find any relevant posts.

It looks like a beautiful game but I got motion sickness just watching the gameplay trailer!

Thanks

[Alan Phipps]

From the devs' X4 Q&A Index Sticky:

Q. Are we forced to walk on stations or can we control all aspects from cockpit?
A. Platform gameplay has been reduced in comparison to X Rebirth. However, there are new interaction possibilities on platforms, and walking will always have a real purpose, for example as part of missions.

As you can see from the trailer, there is some walking about in and to/from cockpits and docking areas

[ajeffco]

Looked in the wrong place!

Thanks for answering. Too bad, looks like it would have been fun to play.

[Solflame]

I wouldn't count it out just yet: remember, trailers are fast and action packed. Normal gameplay shouldn't trigger motion sickness that badly, and they do have a "walk" mode to slow yourself down.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

My wife has trouble watching over my shoulder when I play anything first-person - changing where her point of view is facing without her own input is disorienting. When she's in control herself, though, it's a LOT better. So, you might have a better time of it when you're at the helm, so to speak.

Of course YMMV - if you tend to have issues with disorientation in first person stuff in general, then yeah, you may need to sit tight for an equivalent of the Never Enter Stations Again mod. But that mod happened REALLY quick after Rebirth first landed, so, I'd stay tuned.

[nielsw]

Walking terribly dull and repetitive space stations in terribly dull avatars with so-so controls was the anti-feature of Rebirth to me.
Causing me to not even finish the story line, which rarely happens, that I forfeit the story after paying for a game.


In the age of Assassin's Creed, Tomb Raider, Witcher and any number of highly polished shooters, I think there's only one choice for a 1st / 3rd person component in a manpower-limited game like X: Advance the whimsical charm of the early titles in the way how funky looking Boron, Teladi etc showed up on your comms, that would work with much less extreme modeling and animation requirements.

Egosoft doesn't have studios around the world to contribute realistic looking and moving humans and architecture. Unless there's a massive advance in game building tech, I have doubts it can be done by our beloved Egosoft team. So shooting in that direction as if they could looks like a strategic blunder to me - dropping players smack dab in "uncanny valley".

Thinking instead of the funky and whimsical characters like you find in XbtF, Starcraft, and other developers' games who mitigated a lack of 300+ employees by making an "art choice". Which is found in Egosoft's own X roots - all ready to go!




Of course this thread is way too late for X4.
Maybe X5 for the more whimsical roots of X...?

[Nulric]

I think you should give it a shot. Of course, that's just my own uninformed opinion, but I'm betting the good will far surpass the bad.

I get pretty bad motion sickness too, btw, in many a game. As to that, I think that they've portrayed the *required* interior station walking as being a very minor portion of your time in-game. Hopefully that means, in terms of the required part, two or three excursions on a station and that will be the size of it.

Anything not absolutely required will likely get mods from players which will remove the need, I would bet. Hopefully that won't take too long to figure out for the modders.

[Skeeter]

Me too, personally would have prefered if they skipped 3d models and walking around stuff and just did the usual monitor interactions from x2 say, but do more of em as in more character heads. I so miss the teladi from xbtf and x2 as the way they are now is so bad they look like little dino people instead of strong, cool sounding, military uniform wearing, race.

Teladi still look rather bad as in nothing like old teladi. Most of the 3d animations seem improved tho and they look better made, well the humans do. But most of the alien species seem wrong with their modernized look since rebirth, which for me is very off putting.

[Skeeter]

Its not great to say try the game when they said just even watching the video had made them motion sick. If your motion sick because of that then hes gona be motion sick in the game weather walking on stations or ships is a good idea or not in the game.

[Solflame]

Like someone else said, sometimes watching someone play is more disorienting than when you actually play. Plus, there'll be a demo (eventually at least) so that should help OP decide whether or not to pickup the game.

Definitely don't get it right away, but if you can demo or go to a friend's place to try it give it a shot.

[ajeffco]

After reading these (all good posts BTW, thanks), I'll keep an eye on it, might even try it out. Can't hurt with steam refund anyway. I'm really hoping that it doesn't bother me because the game looks like it's gonna be fun.

Yea, it's weird, some games have no effect on me, others I can only play for a while before I get sweaty and a headache then sick. Just odd and never tried to figure it out, just learned to stay away from games that had the effect on me.

Thank you all for your responses!

Al

[Kittens David]

For walking in station between ships i cant wait a "never walk in station anymore " mod like in x rebirth

Sorry but i find no interest in walking in station... it's not the kind of game i desire.

[atavistuk]

You might find it a good idea to rush the Teleporter quest line if you do play, to at least remove the 'walking from one ship to another' issue if the game DOES make you motion sick.

[gbjbaanb]

There's also the cut-scene bits where you walk to the pilots chair. That might also make him sick, and potentially annoying if it cannot be skipped or turned off.

[CBJ]

There's also the cut-scene bits where you walk to the pilots chair.

That was XR. If you want to walk to the chair in X4, you do it yourself; there's no cutscene involved.

[StoneLegionYT]

There's also the cut-scene bits where you walk to the pilots chair.

That was XR. If you want to walk to the chair in X4, you do it yourself; there's no cutscene involved.

That is awesome and that is what it also looked like from the footage from what we have seen so far. I was not a fan of the forced animation / cut scenes like that.

[Vandragorax]

As well as what others have said about controlling the camera yourself being much better than watching a video where someone is moving the screen around without your input, I would also say that the videos and screens so far have had a VERY wide FOV which to me causes a little bit of a distorted look to them.

I'm very much hoping that the FOV slider is still in the game options, if so then it's also likely that reducing the FOV will reduce motion sickness significantly. I don't really understand how anyone can play a PC game at 90+ FOV yet these videos/screenshots sometimes are looking like they are at 110 FOV or more... and I'm even on an ultra-widescreen monitor, but I never put it that high in say Euro Truck/American Truck Sim, it's always around 70 to be most comfortable.

Each to their own of course, but personally that is one thing that can cause significant headaches

[StoneLegionYT]

If the slider was in Rebirth it will be in X4 90% sure. They did of course massive graphics engine upgrade but I can't not see them adapting the option. Keep in Mind as much as it's a brand new game it's a massive enchantment to the old engine so rather then being 100% fresh start it's enhancing on something already decent (That is a good thing).

[eRe4s3r]

There's also the cut-scene bits where you walk to the pilots chair.

That was XR. If you want to walk to the chair in X4, you do it yourself; there's no cutscene involved.

Does this mean we HAVE to walk to the cockpit every single time we land somewhere? Is there no "change ship to selected" right click interaction with a docking computer insta-moving you into the controls of the freighter/capital ship/whatever?
And is there a return to ship button when on stations?
Is there a return to cockpit button when on ship?

Seems to me walking around is again an anti-feature that is only there to cost time, and adds nothing to the game nor gives any intrinsic reward. Please scatter my worries.

[DaMuncha]

Sounds like computer games arnt your thing.