" The German developer Egosoft team has a tough task ahead: they must regain the trust of their customers. Because after the release of their space game X: Rebirth in November there were massive criticism from both the fans as well as by the press. Rebirth was bugged and unfinished thrown on the market - after seven years of development time.
At present, although new patches appear almost daily cycles. Until the youngest part of the X-series, however, achieved a commendable status, are certain to pass Monte. And if the serious gameplay weaknesses are ever resolved, written in the stars.
We spoke with Egosoft boss Bernd Lehahn about the release of X: Rebirth, about the future of the game and good sales now account for the Rebirth at least to financial success.
Gamestar: How did it happen that X: Rebirth was released in such an unfinished state?
300x.jpg We spoke with Egosoft boss Bernd Lehahn on X: Rebirth Bernd Lehahn. There are as many reasons that have negatively played together. The release date is indeed set for a while before and after seven years of development, you have to come out sometime in the game. But the problem was not the date, but our struggle to add more and more features, and that too very late in development.
We always want to offer a high level of diversity and it is just an X game become, even though I have repeatedly stressed that it is not X4. This expectation I did not want to wake up, but it's still difficult to bring out a game in the Trade, Substations, fights, plot and tutorial so many things are possible.
We have, for example, until the beginning of 2013, the landing platforms completely rebuilt. By the end of 2012, we had a mode where you end up by pressing a button and then once interacts without free running around. Consequently, we were not happy and have added much too late.
But the bigger problem is actually the little bugs that small crashes. And that is the main reason for the bumpy start, as we did not have enough testers. I have a very underestimated. We had 150 people with more testers than ever before, but the game is very popular. We have on the one hand achieved what we wanted, that many more people play the game.
But it has also brought with it that we were surprised by the many technical problems that occurred especially on fast computers. We underestimated how many problems there would be with high-end computers. We had here in the office is not a computer, which was as strong as some systems on which Rebirth is now played. We have always assumed that the game would run on such computers also good if it runs on our middle-class computers.
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X: Rebirth
On "highways" we can move through the sectors of the revised X-Universe quickly - unfortunately it has fallen quite small with only four systems.
Gamestar: Well Rebirth is not only because of its bugs but also because of not well thought out or well-functioning game mechanics in the criticism. Did you have during the development never felt you had to draw a line sometime now?
Bernd Lehahn: no. This problem is not new and it is always like this: We could go on and on. We can theoretically install everything since. And so we will continue to work once the bugs are fixed. There is already a long list of new features that we want to include.
The gameplay changes I see but other than the technical problems that would certainly have been annoying and avoidable if you would have done something like Early Access. If you would just test with more people. Some gameplay changes might not like many hardcore fans, but that's just another game. It was clear from the outset that many hardcore fans would rather have a X4. And maybe we do that, too someday. But we can not reach new customers. Both the entry into the game but especially the pace of the entire gameplay mechanics will always be a difference between these two approaches.
Gamestar: And with this release, you have more players achieved?
Bernd Lehahn: We have sold more games in the first weeks after release than at any other X game before.
Gamestar: But was that a fair start to charge 50 Euros for a game in this state?
Bernd Lehahn: We also get a lot of positive feedback, it is unfortunately overshadowed by many technical problems, but there are also many people play this game and are happy with. It is of course annoying when some of our customers, no matter how big is this part that has performance problems or get stuck for any reason in the plot. And such things are preventable.
But such things as the change to the highways. Something very specific, which is radically different. The game is faster and action-oriented. The trade is for example run in parallel instead of the player to force personally experience this slow part of the game. For such things there is no point with fans via such features to debate. With these basic things, the question makes little sense after better or worse, as you compare apples with pears. It's just completely different. If you make a game in which the players act itself and control its merchant ships, one has a much slower game. But we will never change at Rebirth.
On the one hand we have detailed plans X: Rebirth to expand and also to enable much what grade miss the old fans at the moment. But this much we will also add, X: Rebirth anyway for a lot of changed tuners and where nothing will change. One must as accurately distinguish. "
Another translation
http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/topic/40 ... nd-lehahn/
Same crap, the guy has lost his marbles .
The agreement probably forbid any sort of public testing or large scale test. 
