Brief interview with CGOnline

[The_Abyss]

http://www.cgonline.com/content/view/696/2/

A little more new content in there for you, with more to come shortly.

[Lutzie]

Thanks Abyss.

[Deleted User]

Yup, nice one, thanks!

[Lutzie]

Highlights:

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The balancing of different ships has also changed quite a bit with the purpose of giving every ship class a purpose and use in the universe – for example currently an M4 class ship is probably only used by players starting out at present or for some specific missions. 

I don't think you could have picked a more apt class to pick on. The M4 is rather useless.

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Bigger than before of course! More interesting will be the changes to the way the sectors of the universe look. There will be different sizes and shapes – some will be smaller and compact whereas others could be up to ten times the original size. Jumpgates will not be in ‘standard’ North South East West placement in all sectors and they will be far more 3 Dimensional now. 

/bursts in tears of joy

WELL DONE. Possibly the best move you could have made bar none. Seriously, congratulations!

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Having got that balance into the game, we also now have the ability to destroy it (or parts of it). Major events now take place in the universe from time to time – the player’s factories could easily be caught up in one of these. In my own game in X2, I had one sector with over 40 factories in it. I’m not sure I would do that now… 

Most interesting... A lot could be read from this...

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In terms of development, building all the models and new scripts into the new engine is progressing well and we are aiming for end Q3 2005. 

So the aim is for near September.


Absoluty top banana guys. Keep up the top notch work.

[Bowak]

I can add that specific support for lower end cards (and systems) such as a GeForce2 or GeForceMX card has been dropped.

I guess I better get saving then! Seriously though. I'm probably going to have to get a whole new computer to play X-3, and maybe a better job so I'll have the cash in time!

[mintydog]

good stuff there, and i like the bit about dorpping suppor for low end cards. Sure it will dissapoint the people with those cards, but what fo those who want to test their shiny new x800 or 6600
I like the sound of the new sector design as well, and i hope they bring back the docking music from the first game, that was great, longer than the one in X2. And yea, ive hardly even touched the M4, been in my nova for 80% of the game

[Legion400]

Oooooooooooooooo

[Kudu]

Thanks T_A!

[The_Seeker]

Thank you very much for that info, Abyss.

[Ronald Sandoval]

the m4 is to slow to bother with they need to be much faster just not as fast as an m5 about 300-350 at max
the m3 needs a speed boost too

[Duriel_LOP]

What on Argon Prime does this mean?

Greg Kingston - New starting positions are able to be unlocked, along with the ability to place as any race of you want. There are now many more missions available within the game, and some pretty exciting changes outside of those already mentioned to how the player interacts with the economy on a personal level. What we’ll probably do is focus on some of these as the year progresses and talk about them in detail.

personally that bolded bit sounds like a grammatical error, and Id like it to be corrected, so I can understand what he is going on about

[CBJ]

I think that should have said:

New starting positions are able to be unlocked, along with the ability to play as any race of you want.

[Lutzie]

personally that bolded bit sounds like a grammatical error, and Id like it to be corrected, so I can understand what he is going on about

I'm guessing here, but I'm not 100% certain that you start out as Julian...
I think when you start a game you get to pick your Race and/or person. This would be consistant with one of the X2:TR screenshots that was floating around. This would mean that you may start in the Split Homeworld, or Teladi, or close by to one of these.
For example:

Julian Brennan, race = Argon. Starting location, Argon Prime. Occupation, Freelancer/Entrepenur. (sp?)
Mr Fishy Fish, race = Boron. Starting location, Kingdoms End. Occupation, ex-military personal.
Mr Big Guns, race = Split. Starting location, Family Rhy. Occupation, Assassin.
Mr Money Bags 2000, race = Teladi. Starting location, Getsu Fune. Occupation, Xenon expert.

Each person might have a different sub story line which follows in with a main story line. A different game for each person yields the same destination, but different paths.

Also, the starting location is important. When you're near Argon Prime and it's surroundings there's little threat. Starting in BHS or Getsu Fune would be more challengeing.

This may also be part of the Easy, Normal, Hard, X-treme settings...

Of course all of the above is guess work bymyself.

[soimafreak]

Cool Nice read

Really interested in how the game will start out as i can't see how it can be a direct continuation because of coninuity with what a player had when they finished x2 and when they atrt a fresh in x3 and then ther'es being able to choose a race to play as (not place like it read in the interview, unless i missed something )

anyway sounds allll good!!

[Greyhawk1]

There's throwing a bone and then theres throwing a bonio....

Maddeningly few tidbits are dribbling out of this! Its like trying to pry blood from a stone...

*stamp* *stamp* *stamp*

[Al]

Sounds good.

Al

[flagg209]

First, thank you Abyss for getting us the heads up on some new news!

That being said however I agree with Greyhawk - and hate to sound like a naysayer - but I would much rather hear something very detailed about 1 small aspect of the game then to hear damn near nothing about a lot of aspects of the game. There is just not much new material being released. (as Abyss tried to warn us)

I mean come on! We kinda figured that we would be able to pick our race and for real, what was said that was really truely "news".

The only thing that gave me goosebumps was the one blurb about sectors being destroyed. I wonder if things like supernovas or massive attacks, or scientific disasters are going to randomly occur. Now that is what I want to hear about (more likely the Km0) will arrive and pwn you empire.

Anyway, this is good, and I am not greedy, but this isn't really much.

[Drainy]

I think this is great.
Hightens the anticipation.
I have no interest in reading in detail about specific features of the new game, lil dribbles here and there are great

Keeps me waiting for more

[ianavensis1]

Just read the interview with great interest to the graphics cards. It says the graphics card supported are the ATI 9XXX & Nvidia. At the moment I play the X2 on my laptop which has an ATI mobility radeon 9000 graphics card which I have no trouble with. So does this mean I can play X3 without upgrading my graphics cared

[Creston]

Just read the interview with great interest to the graphics cards. It says the graphics card supported are the ATI 9XXX & Nvidia. At the moment I play the X2 on my laptop which has an ATI mobility radeon 9000 graphics card which I have no trouble with. So does this mean I can play X3 without upgrading my graphics cared

I'm not sure the 9000 supports DirectX9.

If it does, then yeah, you should be ABLE to play it. Whether or not it plays at all decently is anyone's guess...

Creston