X3 - Its Release state - Egosoft - And us, the consumers!

[Ashers]

To Laz.

Great post, well said. I agree with you fully.

To Angry, Ranting People.

I agree that you should post the problems you've been having. It helps the guys fix things and make it better for everyone else. But, why do you feel the need to do it in such a rude way. I'm not posh or anything, but simple manners are a must for civilised society. If you've not noticed, you are much more likely to get what you want if you ask nicely. At the end of the day you should ask yourself if it worth getting so angry over a game....you'll live longer if you don't. Also ask yourself which game of this type is best, games this vast are few and far between. Computer games are a while off being totally realistic, so be thankfull of what you've got. I personally love the game, even though I have experienced many of the bugs. It is eaisily the best of its type and as such warrents applause.

[nosoup07]

Good post, I agree that egosoft should be given time to fix thier product. It could always be worse, they could have released the product and left it as it was. I am a big fan of the x-universe an I hope they make it what is was made out to be in the first place.

[Razorwind]

Excelent post. Thank you for taking your time writing such a huge text.

[steel chicken]

I also think egosoft should dump their publishers enlight/deepsilver or whomever they use to distribute!.. ok sure thats a big ask, but if they care enough about the community and their future they should make it their mission in life..

As has been previously stated, Space is a niche market, and Egosoft are lucky to get a publisher at all. If they could choose, no doubt they certainly would. Fact is, they have to take what they can get.

Thats complete and utter rubbish. This is the modern world. Sell the thing themselves, over the internet. Download the game over broadband. You dont need a publisher. Thats just another excuse to say "its not our fault the evil publishers made us make a crappy game".

[sai-ku]

They were on the clock and you don't **** with the clock.

Every Dev knows that.

[Lazerath]

Wow.. I did not expect for my post to still be getting replys. To those who said a Kind word about my post, Thank you.

@ Everyone

Egosoft May NOT have responded by telling us why this or that happend but there is a reason or reasons for that. Egosoft also signs contracts with its publishers and are not always at liberty to comment on things. Even though they may want to, their hands are tied.

Anyone of us could sit and point fingers all day but in the end it will do no good. Just like it would NOT do any good if Egosoft came and posted in this thread and confirmed or denied anything.

If Egosoft said, its Enlights fault. What would that Accomplish? Nothing, it would simply make their relationship with their Publisher rocky. It would also make things tougher for them in the future when they publish another program.

Publishers would be hesitant to work with a Developer who is known to pass the buck on problems and blame the publisher, whether it was the publishers fault or not.

Also it would do no good if Egosoft said, its our fault, we didn't make the deadline because of this, that and other reasons. What good would it do? None.

Sure you might say, well I'd feel better but at what cost would that come at? A company that bends over backwards for its fan base ends up opening another perverbial cup of crap to get flammed by.. Not necissary in my opinion.

Either way, in the end, X3 will be even more kick ass then it is now and produced by a SMALL company for a Niche market. Remember, they are not huge like EA (Electronic Arts) and what they have done is by far as good if not better then what a Large company can deliver.

Lazerath

[shadowfawx]

I don't believe that anyone wants fingers pointed. However I do believe that most feel wronged and would at least like to see some sort of timeline as to what is going to be done. I dont mean dates either.. What I think would be a good move by egosoft on this forum right now is this.

"Sorry about any inconviences you may be having, we are currently doing our best to correct the issues you have brought forth. We will be addressing XXXXX immediately, then moving on to XXXXX, then hopefully we can find a way to add/fix ******. Please bare with us through these times.

-EGOSOFT STAFF

"


That is NOT very much to ask, and is proper business etiqutte.

[Lazerath]

Granted that is true but..

We already know they are working on a patch.
We ALL already know it was NOT their intention for the game to be buggy at the date of release (No company wants that).

What point is there in saying, sorry for the inconvenience? It will take up space, server no purpose aside from making some people feel better because they read a few words when the common user in the forum already knows that they do not intend for anyone to be inconvenienced etc.

I don't know of any company that releases a single player game that has a few bugs/problems with it that posts appologies about it. Especially with what I have already said in this post.

Just seems kinda redundant doesn't it?

Just like asking for timeframes on when the patch will be released. How could they possibly give an exact release date on the patch. If something comes up and they find an issue etc. then what do they do.

If they say, sorry no patch yet. People bitch at them for lying about the patch release date.
If they release it knowing that there is a new issue with it. People bitch about that.

Infact all people do is bitch, no matter what avenue they go, there will always be those who bitch, those who defend (Example, Me) and those who just don't care and wait for patches.

Truly, it is a No-win situation for Egosoft. Screwed if you do and screwed if you don't.

[shadowfawx]

When I make a mistake I apologize. Don't you?

When I tell one of my clients something that is not correct, the second I realize I am wrong, I relay that information to my client letting them know I will correct my error.

When I step on someones toe, I say "I'm Sorry".



How is Egosoft any different?


It's called courtesy... and there is no excuse for not having it.



Also in my post I said nothing about dates, stated nor estimated.

Imagine if a car manufacturer didn't have to release recalls when they saw their error. It's not right no matter who the company is or what they produce.

[SugarPops]

Ow, my head hurts

Was there a release date for the patch somewhere in there?

[Lazerath]

When I make a mistake I apologize. Don't you?

I sure do! I make mistakes all the time.. Saying sorry is second nature for me Wish I was perfect but alas, I am not. Just another person stumbling through life!

When I tell one of my clients something that is not correct, the second I realize I am wrong, I relay that information to my client letting them know I will correct my error.

When I step on someones toe, I say "I'm Sorry".



How is Egosoft any different?


It's called courtesy... and there is no excuse for not having it.

I agree,

I just don't think that it serves any purpose. At least not at this point in time.

Also in my post I said nothing about dates, stated nor estimated.

Sorry, it was not my intention for you to feel that was directed at you. It was just a reply to what someone else had stated (I am super busy today but trying my best to reply).

Imagine if a car manufacturer didn't have to release recalls when they saw their error. It's not right no matter who the company is or what they produce.

Back to the whole apology thing though for one more second.

Anyone in here remember the Fiasco with the Ford Explorer and the BFGoodrich tires exploding on them and causing accidents which resulted in lots of deaths.

Thats a good example of one company saying, its the other companies fault... It didn't do any good in the end (granted its a huge discussion I won't get into but if you remember anything about it.. then I am sure you know what I mean).

I do however see your point and I do agree with it, I just don't see a point in it.

What we can hope for though, is that in the future, Egosoft deals with this type of thing differently. Takes into consideration many of the views that have been shared in this thread and others and acts accordingly.

I do still feel though that they handled the situation probably to the best of their ability and legally.

[shadowfawx]

I do remember the Firestone incident.

I do agree that what I am asking for will speed nothing up.. However it would change my view, and alot of other peoples view too I'm sure, of the company.

Because quite frankly right now I see Egosoft as being just as greedy as the publisher who I'm sure rushed their release.

An apology can be a very simple and effective thing.

Either way..


I'm going home ... Happy Thanksgiving to all. Take care of yourselves and your family

[Lazerath]

Ah.. thats right, firestone.. Not bfgoodrich.. My bad!
Happy thanksgiving (we already had ours a few weeks back).

[dhl32]

Great thread laz.

I didn't read through all 11 pages, so I am not sure if this replicates what's already posted, but here goes...

Being a long time fan of the genre (a relatively casual one compared to some here, but a fan nontheless), I've noticed that the goals of

1. shipipng a product on time,
which
2. fulfills an ambitious vision of the developers and
3. is relatively bug free

is pretty much an impossible task for ANY company. You can do 2 out of the 3 at the most. All of us want a game that is deep with a complex universe/sandbox to play in rather than a narrow linear game that drags you along without much freedom... trying to accomplish this makes it hard to test out all the possibilities out there precisely because of the amount of freedom the game affords.

Remember "Freelancer"? I was all excited about it reading the previews about all the features that was supposed to be in it...then I found out it was rather limited.. The dev/publisher there decide to cut down the ambition greatly to fulfill the other two goals (I think it was still delayed, if I am not mistaken.

And there's the disaster known as Battlecruiser...

Even the much less complex Privateer 2 was buggy (yeah, I am that old). Relatively complex games in other genres are prone to bugs/delay, too (Arcanum, Fallout 2).

Anyway, there are lot of great PC games out there which were buggy/incomplete at shipping (and some crappy ones, too), and it's just a reality of PC gaming, been that way for years.

We as fans can get angry and abandon these games altogether to punish the dev, that's our right. However, if you do that, you might miss out on a lot of fun...

I personally think that Egosoft is doing the best thing to deal with the hand they were dealt by showing a committment to fix things when shipping a perfect product is impossible.

My personal strategy as a consumer is to wait a few months after ship date to buy most PC games. Get the enjoyment with much less frustration this way.


By the way, I played X2 but not X-BTF or X-Tension... should I go back and play the original? Or would I not enjoy the primitive version so much having been "spoiled" by X2?

[bulletstop]

I would like to put in my cudo's to Egosoft. They have never let me down and I have all the games from beyond the frontier to x3. I can say they have always looked out for the community adn even tho I read the forums and knew there was issues I still bought the game because they will patch it and more importantly Improve on what they have created.
I want to thank them for there work and didication because I do appreciate it.
On the subject of the post, Awesome..........
Bullet

[Black83]

sounds like egosoft needs a new publisher for x4
suggestion: dont take EA ^^

X-BTF is some fun to see, even if you know almost all things. its fun to watch what changed and the story of course

[shinzoy]

I have been waiting for this title for a long time like most of you and to see it come out like this is almost too much to bear. Once I called around for my copy and found none I was at work and decided I would have a read at some great reviews and maybe some new screen shots to tide me over till I can get my copy.
Then I read this article http://www.metacritic.com/games/platfor ... nion#users
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/x3reunion
I was so surprised to read on about the pain some of these clients have been dealing with, like missing media right out of the box or cd’s that were blank and so on.

Then my best friend calls me and tells me he has it, he has applied some of the suggestions from the forum and has it running, he told me it lags when he gets into busy areas but otherwise its playable. So leery from the read I have had on the forums and also some reviews I decided I would borrow his copy and install it into my new PC to see how the game fairs.

SPECS : with nothing in systray
Board: DFI NF4 ULTRA-D - Bios 623-3
Processor : AMD X2 3800 Manchester 2.4GHZ
Memory: Mushkin Redline XP PC4000 1GB - 2-2-2-6 @ 3.3V DDR 600
Video Card: BFG GeForce 7800GT OC
Hard Drives: WD Raptor SATA 36GB || 2 Seagate 80GB Barracuda 7200.7 SATA, RAID 0
Sound Card: Audigy 2 ZS Plat
Power Supply: OCZ - 520W MODSTREAM
OS: WinXP Pro 32-bit w/ SP2

I downloaded the patches and installed them and started the game. I start with the fight tutorial and as soon as it loads it is lagging so bad I had to exit because I could not even aim at a ship. I decide to start a trading career and I would like to see these mammoths of space stations and ships that I had watched over the time I waited in production, just gorgeous and wonderful graphics but the game once in a while will lag and then eventually catch up on itself. Overall the game looks immersive but the lag takes away from the experience. I explored the game for an hour and I love the look of the game and I cannot wait for it to be fixed.

I know thare is a patch they are working on to resolve crashes and frame rates but what I have a really hard time accepting is the fact that this was a product that shipped rushed, they rushed the game out and they are not even admitting to it. The pc I built is no slouch that’s a 2.4 GHZ dual core AMD running DDR 600 Ram, and before people start on about X3 not enjoying rigs that are OCed. My motherboard comes with BIOS save slots that allow me to save my bios profile and I wasted no time returning my pc to bios defaults and the game still lags to no end. To ask the community to disable their internet, then close all processes except basic OS core including explorer takes allot of gumps. That means that every time someone wants to play the game they have to disable their entire machine just to play the game.

Personally I think the community deserves an apology for the game being shipped in this condition, the devs are not to blame for this as their work speaks volumes but this game should have been beta to the general public months ago to flush out issues like we are seeing in the forum. Its just unforgiving for a game company to ship a game in this condition and then have support in the forum pretty much tell clients that its their machine and proceed to disable their entire machine, I can see it being the case when a pc does not meet minimum specs but for monster pc’s running the latest and newest and still have the same issues as the lower end machine says only one thing to the community and don’t think people do not remember things like this.

I have read good posts in this forum and I read a good reply by linby who actually wanted specifics for what was going to be addressed in the next patch and basically was given the answer he expected witch was nothing. I am still going to buy the game as I believe it will be fixed eventually but the saddest thing of all and the bottom line is that it takes very little effort to get an official word from the company to post on the forum an apology to the many people who bought a product that was rushed and in allot of cases was missing the game from the game box entirely. There is no excuse for that, I have been purchasing games for pc since 98 and I have never heard of buying a game and the cd’s not be in the box, how pathetic.

Do I actually expect everyone to agree with this statement, of course not as there is always the naysayers that will banter on, leave the poor company alone, but in the end treating customers like this when they have a legit complaint says volumes about corporate integrity.

My 2 cents

[BlackRain]

I am sorry but, why did you feel the need to make yet ANOTHER new post about this, couldn't you just have replied to another post, if you read the other posts as you say, why bother making a new post to just rehash all that has already been said?

[Cycrow]

just do u know, i have the same gfx card as u, simlar motherboard, i have the DFI SLI-DR
but i have a lower chip and mines overclocked, and i've never had a problem with lag and runs smooth even in the highest settings and has done since version 1

[ajsarge]

Thank you for your time on a great post. I haven't played, but I do hear that X3 was PLAYABLE out of the box, completely unlike X2 which was buggy to heck. Also, don't blame manufacturers on shipping, if you're in the US, Enlight is to blame. They are the ones responsible for shipping and manufac. the discs.

I waited for a while for X3 to come out, but I bought Quake 4 instead since I didn't want to leave the store empty-handed. I have no money right now, but x-mas is coming so I can wait for a little longer.