Gamescom demo and additional info

[dougeye]

well then we demand a new features video! have some pizza and then crack on!

[DiabloTigerSix]

ASPECT is correct. To suggest something as fundamental as the physics model of the game could be made optional is absurd.

Is it? Are all the mini-mods that change this sort of stuff absurd too?

Actually yes, it may be. I've explained this before, but I'll do it again with this particular context in mind.

Every time there is a discussion about a particular feature, you have three camps. There's the "I want this" camp, the "I want that" camp, and then you have the people who think they have a magic solution that will make everyone happy, the "make it optional" camp. The trouble is that it's not the magic solution those people think it is.

Creating a game that is fun and enjoyable is about making game design decisions, not dithering about it and ending up leaving the player to decide. While some players have strong opinions about a feature, most will just go with the default setting, and if you have dithered and not designed your game firmly around a core set of solid design decisions, then everyone's experience will be almost certainly be the poorer for it. Of course there are exceptions, particular features such as graphics settings, where giving people options doesn't detract from the game's core design, but for something fundamental like the cockpit it is almost always better to make a decision and accept that it won't please everyone than to dither and give people two different options, neither of which can be fully followed through because you have to take into account the possibility that people may choose the other option.

And that brings me to the second point, which is that making something optional costs more than making a design choice even in the case where one of the options is simply not having that feature. Why? Well, because not only do you have to develop the feature (or in the worst case two different versions of the feature) but you also have to set up the option (additional menus, translations, etc.), and then you have to test the whole game with both options. The more things you make optional, the more different combinations you have to test; up to twice as many combinations, in fact, for each thing you make optional.

It gets even worse if the option is as fundamental as something like the cockpit. Even if the cockpit were just eye-candy, you'd have to make sure that all aspects of the game worked and performed correctly with both a full-screen view of space and a partial view. But of course in this case the cockpit isn't just eye-candy, it's an integral part of the game, with the parts of the UI built into it. Making that optional would require the game to function with two separate interface paradigms, significantly increasing the cost for design, development and testing.

Why should you care about making things optional being an expensive way of doing things? Well, cost and time are pretty much the same thing in development tems, both of which are finite, so those resources would, by definition, be prevented from being used on other game features. Worse still, for any given player, at least some of those resources would be wasted, because they would be spent on an option that they wouldn't be using; in fact in practice for most players, all the effort put into the non-default option would be wasted. In essence you are shooting yourself in the foot somewhat by suggesting that a feature you want should be made optional; you are asking for the available resources to be spent on a feature you don't want, only for you to then switch it off, instead of on features you do want!

And this of course brings us back to the first point, which is that it is almost always better to make design decisions than to try to please everyone by making everything optional.

No, "make it optional" isn't the magic bullet that solves every possible programming dilemma.

That may be true, but it isn't the same as "nothing should ever be optional".

I just can't have fun in a space sim without feeling the mass and inertia of my ship when dancing with it. Flying around and through the bits and holes of large space station in X3 is half the fun.

I'm afraid that EGO went a bit too far in making this game accessible and that it extends beyond the flight model. The simplisctic weapon system replacing weapon slots, an established standard in space sims, doesn't make me comfortable either.

[elexis]

Point me to a space sim that has true space physics. I know of none that were successful. (and odds are the ones you point out will not actually have true space physics)
The X series did weapon slots quite differently from most other sims. Not many I know of allowed you to fill your entire cargohold with guns and switch out to the most suitable ones on the fly.

[DiabloTigerSix]

Point me to a space sim that has true space physics. I know of none that were successful. (and odds are the ones you point out will not actually have true space physics)

Why does it matter whether they were successful not? There are plenty of space sims with either Newtonain or semi-Newtonian physics and that's all you need to know.

I just want my ship to have some real mass and inertia and not fly in the arcady way like we've seen in the videos. The feeling of intertia can sometimes be lacking even in space sims that do have proper Newtonian physics when the ships themselves are given the mass values of paper planes.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Point me to a space sim that has true space physics. I know of none that were successful. (and odds are the ones you point out will not actually have true space physics)

Freelancer is close, but not real. The abandoned B5: We Found Her game was purported to have proper Newtonian physics. The only game I can think of that even comes close is one of the original space games - Lander.

The X series did weapon slots quite differently from most other sims. Not many I know of allowed you to fill your entire cargohold with guns and switch out to the most suitable ones on the fly.

Freelancer, DarkStar One, SpaceForce : Rogue Universe - to name three I can think of - allow on-the-fly changing of equipped weapons (IIRC)

But TBH, in a fight you often do not want to be swapping between more than 2/3 weapons. From what I have heard, it would seem the mounted gun count is back down to X2/X-BTF levels which is good since it means less bullets per ship and so more processing headroom for larger battles.

[BigBANGtheory]

Use of multiple control interfaces and monitors still remains vague, I think basically what people would like to know is :
1. can you extend the display across many screens?
2. use the following: joystick, throttle, pedals recognised as individual controllers?
3. any head tracking support, does the pilots head move freely in the cockpit or in fps walking mode?

[Wana]

Humanity will not live in space until they invent inertia stabilizers and gravity field and energy.

You pray for a newtonian space game. Try Earth landing with space shuttle in X-Plane. then you'll pray for a directed engine, because it's just not fun.

Even VASMIR, the plasma engine suffer practical operation. half trip to accelerate, and the other half to decelerate, in order to go to Mars.

with those current space games, like X and Eve, my only concern is about top speed of vessels. moving at Mach 1 in space is really weird.
But also, moving at Mach 30 is uncontrollable, so...

[Geek]

Freelancer, DarkStar One, SpaceForce : Rogue Universe - to name three I can think of - allow on-the-fly changing of equipped weapons (IIRC)

Freelancer & SFRU : weapon grouping yes, but otherwise docking required.
DS1 : docking required

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Freelancer, DarkStar One, SpaceForce : Rogue Universe - to name three I can think of - allow on-the-fly changing of equipped weapons (IIRC)

Freelancer & SFRU : weapon grouping yes, but otherwise docking required.
DS1 : docking required

Just confirmed with SFRU - In flight equipment changing is possible, docking not required. May not be able to change equipment while in combat though.

Have not got Freelancer or DS1 installed at the moment, so can not comment at this time. You MAY be right with them, but that is not how I remember them. Will report back when I can find the media to (try to) install them (not sure if they will run under Windows 8 ).

[DiabloTigerSix]

Point me to a space sim that has true space physics. I know of none that were successful. (and odds are the ones you point out will not actually have true space physics)

Freelancer is close, but not real.

Freelancer is most certainly NOT close. The ship change directions istantenously. When you enter the drift mode, you lose speed at a certain rate for no reason. It's as far from simulated physics as you can get. I also hate the mouse-joystick simulation and that so many other space sims copied it. It literally disconnects you from the experience. Coming back to a space sim with direct mouse control, such as Freespace 2, is a real godsend.

The abandoned B5: We Found Her game was purported to have proper Newtonian physics.

It's not abandoned. They're working on a new version.


Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos is probably the most enjoyable interpretation of full Newtonian physics out of all space sims that I know of.
There is a sense of momentum and intertia to everything, angular momentum included. And the way you move your head in relation to the ship when turning under hard G's makes the whole experience even greater.
The player in the following video is flying rather slow, is not moving around a lot and isn't making full use of them, but you should get the idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvIMfiZ7x8o

[elexis]

So, now that my points have been proved, disproven, proven again and now sits somewhere in the middle, lets add more points.

Someone mentioned adding an "option" for true newtonian physics. How might I ask do you think Egosoft could justify redesigning the pathfinding system, the ai system (especially in combat), the fast travel system (which in newtonian physics is redundant) all so you can have the "option" to turn it on?

[Fire_Spy1]

In Frontier it was awful.. All fights were reduced to jousting. Physics like that do have their place in things.. just not in games like this. Just pretend that they have advanced so far to have complete control over inertia.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@DiabloTigerSix: I did have some success with modding in ships that behaved close to Newtonian physics (I had some fun playing around with this). Unmodded, yes you are probably reasonably correct (although inertial dampeners could explain slow down). Besides which, after a while Newtonian (or pseudo Newtonian - c/f Freelancer) physics get boring and many do not consider it fun (it does allow for some interesting manoeuvres though - the bit I liked).

Not that I agree that Newtonian physics is desirable, but it could be implemented in such a way that it only affects the player's own craft control. This would however give the AI the appearance of being perfect pilots, and would probably make the game too difficult for the average player.

@elexis: This is not about point scoring (at least as far as I am concerned), but with regards to weapon swapping...

SFRU - In Flight Swapping Confirmed but can only access screen out of combat
Freelancer - No In Flight Swapping but can carry spare/alternate weapons
DS1 - TBC (installing now, but expecting the situation to be similar to Freelancer)

How this relates to X-Rebirth I am uncertain of though... Are we saying that changing mounted weapons requires the player to be docked in X-Rebirth? Or is the complaint about the number of weapons mounted at any given time?

[Shootist]

Freelancer, DarkStar One, SpaceForce : Rogue Universe - to name three I can think of - allow on-the-fly changing of equipped weapons (IIRC)

Freelancer & SFRU : weapon grouping yes, but otherwise docking required.
DS1 : docking required

Just confirmed with SFRU - In flight equipment changing is possible, docking not required. May not be able to change equipment while in combat though.

Have not got Freelancer or DS1 installed at the moment, so can not comment at this time. You MAY be right with them, but that is not how I remember them. Will report back when I can find the media to (try to) install them (not sure if they will run under Windows 8 ).

I don't care what Darkstar 1 or Freelancer did, or how they played.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

I don't care what Darkstar 1 or Freelancer did, or how they played.

Neither do I in the context of X-Rebirth, but certain claims were made which invited examples and these were obvious ones.

To try and steer things back on topic though... what was the initial complaint that triggered elexis to comment:-

Not many I know of allowed you to fill your entire cargohold with guns and switch out to the most suitable ones on the fly.

[VincentTH]

Speaking of Newtonian (or Quasi-Newtonian) physics and no mention of the IWAR series?

[EmperorJon]

Read more. Lots of mentions of it.

[Night Nord]

After 4 days of standing at the booth, my task is now done and I'm heading home. Thank you all for coming to Gamescom trying our demo and talking with me. I had some interesting talk there and enjoyed it even while my feet and legs died.

I still have to read through all the comments but we'll see what we can do to clear things up a bit if necessary once I was able to rest a little

Arsaneus

Thanks a lot for your awesome work! You've just made the whole gamescom adventure much more useful.

And about that presentation... Well... I guess EgoSoft just received their membership card for "We don't care about all that non-german people at intentional fair and will make English-announced presentation in German" club. Really, I could be a bit naive, but if someone announces presentation in English using intentional platform, then he shall probably expect intentional audience. I may only hope that Bernd have noticed a surprised look on half of the faces in the crowd when he started his talk in German.

Also, that "goodies" give away action was actually ordinary "threat your fans as animals and throw goodies in the crowd as bones" action, very common for cheap and ugly MMO booth. Good thing was the confused look on Bernd face (who actually thrown only one thing with very sorry face) and his obvious wish to get over with this part (he even started it prior talk and not after, like normal, most probably due to Deepsilver guy at still present on scene, so he could've done all the throwing instead). It's good to know that morals in EgoSoft are still high, even if you succumb to the dirty PR tactics under the pressure of publisher.

[BlackRain]

I thought there was supposed to be some special announcements or new info or something yesterday or today but no one has said anything?

[dougeye]

No I asked if there was any new footage etc and the reply was no the presentation was based on what we have already seen.