So, this is it, huh?

[Noahdilweed]

Although i hope good things for Egosoft, I cant say im sure it will be good or yet good enough in time. I havent purchased XR because i wanted to watch community reaction and gauge from there. In fact i think this is the first time ive even posted since release. (I cant remember lol)

If we do see a downfall of this dev team, i would hope they could do something like this
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/09/25 ... h-parties/. See it off into the sunset sort of thing.

Edit: so ive posted once before this, since release, had to check. It was bugging me lol.

[Hippotastic]

<snip>
If you want to link to vgchartz.com statistics showing a trend, how the sales are going, that is fine. But please don't come and claim that these would be absolute numbers and that you know from these, how many players there are still playing X Rebirth worldwide, as the vgchartz statistics surely do not provide this kind of information.

Good point. If we take the number 68500 sales,(of course I do not know how many units shipped, might be only 15000) that's about £3.5 million return.

You got 20? devs on what? £50K a piece is £1m per year.

I make that around two years operational cash guessing.

Now it is what they choose to do with this time that matters. Rescue XR or start something new.

I would go chasing trust over sales any day if they want their legacy to last.

[yoyolll]

It wouldn't be the first time one bad release dissolved an otherwise reputable game developer's company. Look at Troika, Black Isle (who is now back!), People Can Fly... it doesn't look like egosoft is too concerned though, judging from what little progress they've made in the last two months.

[Sturmhardt]

Yup... I change my outlook from "could still be great in a few months" to "will not change". I don't see any real improvement except for bug squishing... which is by far not enough. I am so disappointed... damn you egosoft, you were a great company once

[danskmacabre]

Especially as Elite Dangerous is due out in March, for me X:R will be a distant memory. No way I'll be pre-ordering Elite dangerous though, learnt my lesson there from X:R!

I don't think ED will be out in March. It's only alpha-testing the combat element at the moment. There is beta 1 and beta 2 to come. And then the mass pre-release final gamma. (Ego take note)

It'll be done when it is done.

I don't care if it doesn't come out until December if that is what it takes to hit the track running.

One thing we can be sure of - as it is being tested in the full light of day - you'll all know way ahead of time what its features and and if it all works.

I'm in the second beta and looking forward to it.

Ah ok, thanks for the info.
Yes, I'm willing to wait as long as it takes. I definitely do NOT want to get it on time, but incomplete.

[YorrickVander]

ED seems to be pretty much on target - video reviews of the combat alpha phase are glowing. If it is later than the initial March estimate probably not by more than 2 months by current progress. The BBC model B version of Elite got me hooked back in the day, I hope this ones as (relatively) impressive.

[danskmacabre]

ED seems to be pretty much on target - video reviews of the combat alpha phase are glowing. If it is later than the initial March estimate probably not by more than 2 months by current progress. The BBC model B version of Elite got me hooked back in the day, I hope this ones as (relatively) impressive.

OK, well if it's ready and it comes out soonish, I'll be very happy.

At the risk of going further off topic from the conversation, Ultima 2 and Elite on the Commodore 64 were the reasons I bought a computer many years ago, that was about 1982 and the Commodore 64 was my first computer.
and Yeah at the time Elite was awesome.

Having played several space trading shooters over the years since Elite, I doubt ED willl have the same impact on me that Elite did many years ago.

[Tasogie]

I deleted rebirth weeks ago I have been playing X3 Albion prelude an have not been able to put it down.. 13 hours a day 7 days a week lol Amazing game.

[SteveMill]

ED, according to a forum announcement thread post is due for commercial release in 'late 2014'.

I'm in on the second beta and can't wait. Been watching the current alpha live play streams and he combat looks like everything I've wanted.

If people are interested in following ED then join the forums. It's not being developed in secret and there are plenty of links to streams of alpha play.

Personally I think this is the future of good games development. Involve your players as investors and testers. Evil-doers fear the light. The righteous - not so much.

Long before ED comes out anybody who makes a little effort will have a very clear idea what they are getting.

And if they try and pull a fast one - there will be old Elite fans like me screaming from the rooftops.

If only Ego had done this instead of arrogantly foisting on us a 'vision' that not only few of their existing customers would share but a vision so weak and flawed it was never going to have a broader appeal.

I suspect I speak for a lot of old X fans when I say - we were never uncompromisingly hostile to the single ship thing. We were fine about being able to interact with stations. We were absolutely overjoyed to hear that they were going to finally make a decent interface.

And yea - simplified trading and fleet management. That sounds good. Better combat and more of it. Give us some of that also.

But if Ego had been as open and honest as Frontier are being. Discussed features and had us test game components from alpha through gamma then we could have avoided this mess.

We could have told you the mini-games would never fly. We could have stopped you embarrassing yourselves with the station component/character model debacle.

We could have said - the interface is many times worse than what we didn't like in earlier games. We could have said that the co-pilot who does nothing isn't a co-pilot.

That a limited field of view, unable to turn your head, non-functioning cockpit was a BAD idea.

That pilot controlled drones demanded a co-pilot capable of flying the ship.

That spacecraft need scanners, targetting and maps.

That good games don't have dialogue apparently culled from abandoned Wayne's World scripts or delivered by 'will recite dialogue for food' people off the street.

That captains who can't find their asses with both hands and a map let alone a fuelling station or an asteroid was a 'No. Just no' concept.

Etc etc.

After having been a big fan of the X games it really does sadden me to see the series crash and burn in this way because the developer decided to trash everything they'd learned and arrogantly and deceptively foist on a foolishly trusting fan-base a 'vision' that could not stand the slightest scrutiny.

[shireknight]

Wait, really? The one where you have five positions, one for a captain and one for each subsystem and the captain is the only one who can see the status of all the subsystems and has to coordinate everything by giving commands? There are two of these games? That's awesome, I hope this becomes it's own genre XD

Found it, this is the game you're thinking of

http://www.artemis.eochu.com/

[Eric the Viking]

If only Ego had done this instead of arrogantly foisting on us a 'vision' that not only few of their existing customers would share but a vision so weak and flawed it was never going to have a broader appeal.

I suspect I speak for a lot of old X fans when I say - we were never uncompromisingly hostile to the single ship thing. We were fine about being able to interact with stations. We were absolutely overjoyed to hear that they were going to finally make a decent interface.

Great post.

You certainly speak for this X gamer.

There are some great concepts in XR but they are lost in the sea of everything which is wrong, bizarre design choices which one struggles to understand how they made it into the final product (or whatever that was which was released on launch day).

The sad thing is, many of these points were raised by many who played/tested the game prior to release, feedback was provided, but ignored it seems.

I'd suggest a myopic vision but perhaps it is I, as an older gamer, who fails to see the future intended by Egosoft.

[serenitynow]

Forum hasn't been this dead since release. The patches continue to be merely more than bug-hunts, and the steam statistics are on an all time low.
This was my most anticipated game ever.
I know it sounds silly, because after all this is just a game, but I am really sad to see my favorite game-series completely destroyed.
I don't see any way for egosoft to get any of that X-Feeling back into this game. And based on the patches up until now, neither do they.
There is still no way to control any of your ships. This is just straight up insulting.

Well put, I feel your pain. While I'm not happy about it, it's nice to not think about this abomination of a game, here's what I have done: I have uninstalled it from Steam, unfavorited it so I won't really see it much in my games list, and have stopped checking forums every week for updates...I've really totally given up. I think I'll check back in a year now or so.

[yoyolll]

Wait, really? The one where you have five positions, one for a captain and one for each subsystem and the captain is the only one who can see the status of all the subsystems and has to coordinate everything by giving commands? There are two of these games? That's awesome, I hope this becomes it's own genre XD

Found it, this is the game you're thinking of

http://www.artemis.eochu.com/

Who needs XR

[DMcG276]

Who needs XR

I've got a feeling for most here it goes something like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4eT1zWyMHw

[yoyolll]

Who needs XR

I've got a feeling for most here it goes something like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4eT1zWyMHw

I..........doooooo...............

[narn]

I am so sad. I hope egosoft learns from this and tries to stick with what its built up over the years.