Platforms, a distraction for Egosoft

[Perahoky]

I dont understand people always searching something bad on a/the game and try to hit egosoft in the stomach, despite criticism is ok and called "feedback".

But Feedback contains no judgement such as "distraction".

Distraction, what a stupid word....
Because we have hundreds of threads with thousands of lines with peoples wishing to leave the ship and walk around - seamless.

Furthermore people also want to build ships, get a moddable engine, a good economy system, modular ships and stations, want a great unvierse, many fractions, many models, many stories, many enemies, many missions, many effects sound pictures stories gamestarts working autopilot asteroids mining many many many.
Me included.
It's called immersion.

But all of this needs time, a good concept (which needs time), many employees, and much more money.

Egosoft has none of this, except a great vision and a good base engine.
Thats the reason we have the modding ability.
X-TC was greatly evolved by the x3 XTM Mod.


Keep in mind, egosofts consists of about 20-30 employees (and the people in the background like admins, mods, fans, audio studios, tester and so on)
Just buy the game, buy the DLC's (with more content) and hopefully the company grows, hires more employees, creates and improves stuff on the games which we like.
Because we are here because we want these games which egosoft develops.

X was always more a platform with platforms than a fully completed game.

just keep in mind how minecraft started (which is much more easy to make).

[krylkathesis]

I'd personally like to see a spaceport lounge, it would be great to have crew members and traders available in a more compact space. The docks are cool for seeing all the ships but they aren't that good for much else.

[Nibel]

running for passenger and waiting is cancer,it must go.
buying/selling from black market should be done from ship when docket via some sort of software/delivery after you did thier mission. same goes for normal shop one app for all of them.

[UthervL]

I think the biggest problem with platforms is that they are about 20 times larger than is useful, with perhaps 4/5ths of my time spent wandering around looking to see if the station has what i want (so far, more often than not, it doesn't)

The useful parts of the station can and should be truncated to 3 rooms.

1) a bar where you hire crew.

2) an office where you talk to managers/representatives.

3) a market where any vendors spawn and crafting tables are present.

and all of these 3 buildings should be within seconds walk of each other.

Put as many useless NPCs and flavour areas around as you want between these three adjacent areas so people can see that the place is alive or whatever. but keep the crew in the bar, the managers in the office, and the vendors in the market. i dont want to have to mouse over 100 NPCs to see if they are who i'm looking for. i want to go land, do my business, and leave. not stretch my legs for 20 minutes in empty and overlarge environments.

i also want to know if a station has what i want BEFORE i land. maybe it does already but the UI is labyrinthine and opaque, but this would be less of a problem if i could just land, check 3 places and leave.

Well said. I don't mind walking around, I rather like it, but the environment could use tweaking like you mentioned.

Also, no NPC's sprinting around.
More interaction options at vendors, engineers, managers, etc.
The UI opaqueness and overlap is quite difficult to read in the map section


The ships coming and going is great.

[Zarjazz]

I like the idea of immersion and have nothing against adding platforms for that purpose. My problem is that I don't feel like Egosoft do it particularly well, the first person mode is extremely basic, and that fact it gets tedious very quickly (at least to me). This is only made worse by the fact it is made compulsory to complete missions or visit traders. If some people like that then fine but just don't force it on everyone. I seem to remember one of the first and most popular XR mods was to remove having to land at stations completely, you could do everything over comms *if you wanted to*

[MartinSGill]

I rather like the stations in X4. It's all very subjective of course, but here is my (subjective) view.

There's a whole philosophical debate you can get into whether station interiors should exist in this type of game or not, but they do, so I'm much more interested in if/what they add to the game.

X-Rebirth was Egosoft's first attempt at this and it didn't go too well. Egosoft were also the first to really do this at this scale, so it's almost inevitable that they would get things wrong. There are a lot of things about the station interiors in X4 that Egosoft got right; having learned well from the previous experience.

1. I can get to almost any place on a station in < 60 seconds.
2. I don't really get lost/disorientated; a quick scan around and I almost immediately spot a "shop" or "exit" and can easily find my way there.
3. The transport pod system is great, will make adding to the stations almost trivial[1]

Of course there is one glaring disappointment as well:

1. Not much variety or content[2]

My conclusion is that Egosoft have got the fundamentals for station interiors right this time. As long as they keep those fundamentals intact as they add content I think stations can become a very good part of the experience and somewhere to spend time while my stations and ships fly around the galaxy making me rich.

Footnotes/Bugs/Spoilers below:

Spoiler

Show

[1]: Turns out the rooms you go to magically move around the station . I went to the science lab on the PHQ and noticed it had a great view of something under construction. A while later I was back at the station and wanted to check on the construction and went back to the science lab and it had an entirely different view!

[2]: I teleported into a Xenon wharf; I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be able to do that . Looks exactly the same on the inside as the other stations, except no one running around and the shops/crafting don't work.

[tomchk]

I am also a huge fan of the platforms. I think they are incredibly immersive and impressive. I would like to see Egosoft add more to them, and I actually liked some of the stuff in XR that gave you more reason to explore them (like hidden crates, which I haven't found in X4 yet). I think adding faster possible run speed is reasonable.
I don't think they should take out moving NPCs. If anything, I am confused as to why they removed so much that we had in XR.

Egosoft, is there any chance it would be easy/doable to re-add various things from XR for those of us that loved them? For example, could we visit De Vries and those upper atmosphere Omicron (?) zones in X4?

@BlackRain, could things like that be possible to mod into this altered engine?

[Lost Captain]

I also like being able to walk around on the stations.

It's a nice break from flying and I would like to see them expanded if at all possible.

The ship graphics also shine when you can walk around them and take in all the details
you can't see when you are flying.

[MartinSGill]

I think adding faster possible run speed is reasonable.

There is a "Run" binding in the controls, but it's not set to anything by default. Almost doubles walking speed and it's a toggle, so you don't even have to hold the key down.

[Drakuel]

You may may not feel that they add anything to the game, but there are lots of people who do, especially people who are new to the X series and who compare it to other games whose name I don't need to mention. At this point in time not having this feature would have a serious impact on its appeal to a wider audience. While you might consider it a "distraction", you should perhaps bear in mind that having a broad enough appeal to bring in new people is what makes it possible for us to continue developing these games. Clearly there are elements of the experience that we could, and hopefully will, work on to make them appeal more to players like you, and maybe there are some game features that we can make also work remotely so that you don't have to walk around as much, but I'm afraid not having this feature at all really isn't an option any more.

I agree, new systems and bringing new players and fans to to the series should be important.. Problem is on one hand you make that a priority, then give your new players zero tools to learn and try your game, this the first X game launch literally without basic information tools for new players.

1. No manual
2. Encyclopedia just empty of any useful info
3. No tool tips on hover
4. Broken tutorials, and most of these were confusing

Look at it from a new player perspective, I did and unfortunatley the result would be frustration and anger, then add the bugs ontop of it, equates to refunds for many or a game shelved and not played or worse a potential fan gone forever.

I thank god was not a new player, but when I was I had basic tools to help me along the complex buggy world, that helped me stay with it and now Im a fan, I am shocked these simple things are just not there...

You seriously cant expect new players to play this title, without instructions or info easily presented, I am havibg to go around steam and help people, others are too, I get you worked hard on this game and a bit proud, but new players and new fans you are not winning over to your compnay when you release without basic info tools to learn to play.

[Phoynix]

I agree in part, but also being on the bridge of a Paranid destroyer is well breathtaking, that bridge was done exceptionally well.

Besides we may get a FPS function at a later date in a far far along expansion.

Having seen both outings of this feature by Egosoft, I fail to see the point in any of the platform stuff; there's no actual game play there just tedious walking between points. The inclusion of travelators and teleporters are a workarounds but they still keep the need for you to land and sort these things out. I expect my passenger to be waiting on the dock for me when I land, I run a million credit enterprise why are you making me chase you round the place?

Waiting for your passenger's AI to bumble their way around a station to your ship is utterly pointless when you have a teleporter directly to the cockpit from game start.

The real issue here is that Egosoft will be spending serious resource making models and fixing bugs in an area which just doesn't add anything to the game itself, other than looking good when you see it the first time in a video. It added nothing to XR (I happily cut them a break since they were trying something new) and nothing to X4 so it might be worth considering cutting their losses and focusing on what made X2 and X3 great in the new engine.

[DerKrampus]

I didn't get it either until I bought my first Argon Drill amd saw it appear on the M size pad next to me Wow.