X-Online - 2 be or not 2 be?

[Crazy_O]

hi cbj thanks for your response ^^


even without market research, or with the research many other companys did its easy to proof that online games will soon dominate market shares. But infact i myself am surprised after browsing through several reviews of x³ that only a few journalists mentioned that there is no online compenent to x³.

still, if theres no plans to include an online modus theres no way i will buy another x-game. I stopped playing it agein after having a little fun with the new Mods. (Without this community i wouldve forgotten this game ... ^^) And the main reason for that is i felt lonely. No NPC can give you as much fun as you would have playing with a friend. So i turned my back again to x³ and went back to WoW and CSS. But still i am here on these forums cause this is my Fav genre and i would love to play it with my friends.

i applied in egosofts devnet programm, only to be able to know where egosoft sees the future of the x-universe. but without the signs of the develpment of an online compoment this will be one of the last post i will write in this forum sadly :/


But do a market research yourself and you will get the same results as any other company did get. A good working online Component = More Profit


Thanks for reading.

[pjknibbs]

Investors like these are not convinced by the opinions of a few people on a forum but by market research and analysis.

Even if they WERE convinced by people on a forum, the results of the poll in this thread would give them severe pause for thought--apparently less than half the people who have voted think online play is a good idea.

Crazy_O, I don't see any proof that online games will soon dominate market share. In fact, I'm sure people have been saying that for years, yet it hasn't happened yet. If gaming DOES become dominated by online gaming, I have a real fear that we'll end up with just a few really big players (your World of Warcraft, for example) being all the gaming that is available--small, niche markets like the one for X will die out.

[CBJ]

i applied in egosofts devnet programm, only to be able to know where egosoft sees the future of the x-universe. but without the signs of the develpment of an online compoment this will be one of the last post i will write in this forum sadly

An online game based in the X Universe is, and pretty much always has been, one of the key long-term objectives. My posts in this thread aren't intended to suggest that it will never happen, nor that the developers don't want it to happen. In fact I'm fairly convinced that it will happen eventually. The point of my posts is to explain why it hasn't happened yet, since everyone seems to be convinced that the developers must be either bloody-minded or stupid for not doing it.

But do a market research yourself and you will get the same results as any other company did get. A good working online Component = More Profit

You're telling the wrong people. A small development company doesn't get involved in market research because they can't do anything about the results. It's the investors, mainly publishers, who do this kind of thing. As for whether it would be profitable, that is far from proven. As I've said many times before, in order to be profitable multi-player functionality has to result in enough additional sales to more than cover the cost of its development. In order for that to happen there has to be a sizeable market for space-based gaming made up of people who aren't already buying the single-player games. For a LAN-based game that would be all there is to it. An MMO, on the other hand, generates ongoing income after the initial purpose, but that has to be balanced by the costs of running the servers, user support and billing, maintaining the game "live", and the rolling development of additional content.

[Trehek]

No matter how promising the idea of a multiplayer X game is, I hope that Egosoft is having their marketing boys haul their E-Cells and Silicon Wafers somewhere else.

The reason being that no matter how good the MMO games I've played have been, there's always a single factor which completely and irrevocably ruins my gaming experience:

That 50% of all human beings (ie. players) are sadistic evil opportunist gankers who enjoy nothing more than spending hours upon hours of their gaming time (and money) ruining the game and hours upon hours of work (and money) for the other players!

Edit: And pjknibbs, I think there are many in the 60% no-voters who don't think an online X would be a bad idea, but who would in fact love to see a good X MMO game but are sceptical about ever seeing a good one.

[Mav'r'ck]

I also think that those saying that X3 is already approaching perfection are plain wrong. Its the best game I've ever played, but often the problem with truly great games is that they throw up so many things youwant to do and find you can't...Morrowind had this effect to, wheras say Half-Life doesn't.

Why? Because half-life, and every other FPS I've ever played with the towering and still awesome exeption of Deus Ex, has been pathetically limited, and other than in terms of graphics, these games have gone, IMHO, no further than games like Xenon 2, Alien Breed and Chaos Engine. They certainly haven't gone further than Doom did all those years ago, merely refined and perfected the formula Doom created.

So, back to my point, It would be cool to have X-Online, but I'd rather play an Excellent X4 than an on-line X3, when the interface has so much room for refinement, when the plot and cut-scene graphics could be so much improved, when cut-scenes, graphics and maybe GTA: SA style missions added to BBS's, complette with cut scene's (I'm thinking more variety of missions, like you get in the main plot).

Even more when the main complaint (and mine too) about x3 is that it does feel lonely. Better AI, Opposing empires, Races that behave as empires, computer ships which jump, strafe etc just like you do...all these could be added in future games.

To be honest with you, my imagination is good enough that if the AI is good enough I don't feel lonely anymore, and it helps my ability to make stuff up. Besides, if a rival empire had just destroyed my most senior UT then I would be far to busy enjoying gaining my revenge than worrying about the lack of other humans in this universe with me.

Other people are over-rated anyway!

(Mind you, that doesn't mean I would'n't like to see X on-line, but I'd rather the current game was 'perfected' first).

PS, thanks for your explanations too CBJ, appreciated.

[Crazy_O]

i dont want x to be an MMO, not in its current state. for an mmo i fully support your standpoint cbj

im only looking for a small 2-8 players online game. something that wouldnt require to change the hole gameplay or mechanics of the game. (heck even 2-4 would be enough ... xD)


@pjknibbs: its true that wow is the only big player at the moment, thats because blizzard did a good job. They were the first who made MMO's open to the public without the complexity former MMORPG's had. (easy to learn difficult to master ) But like in every other game, good ideas will get copied improved and will replace the original.

But as i said, the only thing i want atm... and what i think x really needs is a option to play it with some friends. Like CSS, C&C, Starcraft, HoMaM, NwN, freelancer etc.

The only games that are and still will be a long time on my harddrive are those who allow you to share the joy with your friends. And in the year 2007 i think it should be a standard in every game i buy.

[CBJ]

i dont want x to be an MMO, not in its current state. for an mmo i fully support your standpoint cbj

Obviously there are many aspects of the game model that would have to change. That is well understood, and anyone who thinks there is some prospect that it could be done as some kind of patch to an existing game is way, way off the mark. Any MMO would have to be a completely new game based in the X universe and with some familiar features.

im only looking for a small 2-8 players online game. something that wouldnt require to change the hole gameplay or mechanics of the game.

Please read back through my previous replies to this thread to see why there is no "only" about this. To develop any kind of multi-player game would require major changes to the gameplay and mechanics. This idea that there is a "simple" form of multi-player is quite simply wrong. I've also explained why it is relatively unlikely to happen for financial reasons, other than as a spin-off from an MMO game.

[Cycrow]

and as have been stated, the amount of extra profit made from adding a lan option to the game would be small

and wouldn't cover the costs to develop it in the first place

which is the main reason it wont happen.

the advantage of a MMO is that it can generate more profit from the online componant to cover the costs of development.

but then you'll be in direct compitition with other MMO space games like Eve, which will reduce the amount of users

[hierax]

In the words of sir alan sugar "let's get down to brass tacks" how much are we talking?

I mean I have been seriously thinking about this for a while and would like to know some kinda guesstimate as to how much we are talking about. £5,000,000? higher?

No I couldn't afford it but I would like to know what it would take to sponsor egosoft or invest in it. you never I might win the lottery!

[CBJ]

No-one here is going to know the numbers; I certainly don't. However, taking a wild guess (and it really is a very wild guess) I'd say somewhere between £3m and £5m. You'd have to factor in server costs on top of that for an MMO.

[hierax]

what kind of servers are we looking at?

and how big?

any idea the cost having an in house IT support guy?

[Crazy_O]

maybe im asking to much of egosoft ^^

well you see, you get used to having anything handed to you with an online option (even some low budget games). maybe im too young for X³... dont misunderstand me. im 21 and i enjoyed and played xbtf etc. while it lasted.

so i will keep an eye on devnet but as of now im gone from this forums. its sad. but at the moment... its more fun playing a party chess (i hate chess) with a friend than playing a solo game.



in hope that you get a better publisher,
leaving one of the best communitys ever -_- cya till x4 (i wont join in an mmorpg, playing more than one isnt possible XD)

[CBJ]

what kind of servers are we looking at?

and how big?

any idea the cost having an in house IT support guy?

The server environment would have to be highly scaleable, with the number and size of boxes increasing in line with player numbers. While I have a rough idea of server costs for normal hosting or server co-location, I have no clue at all what it would cost for an MMO-standard environment which needs high availability and high connection throughput. I also have no idea of potential player numbers, and multiplying two unknowns together is not a good basis even for a wild guess.

The cost of one in-house IT support person isn't the issue. Remember that an MMO is a 24-hour operation and you may be dealing with tens of thousands of players online at any one time, coming from a range of different countries and speaking different languages. Again, the support team would need to be a scaleable resource.

[hierax]

Dammit! I guess I will just have sit patiently until Egosoft are ready then.

I don't earn much but if they want some kind of volunteer I am here.

All I ask for is basic expense(you know feeding, clothing nothing expensive: I will eat cereal 3 times a day and I buy clothes from primark).

And after all that training( I am vritually inexperienced) you can tie me into some kind of contract like 10 yrs of my life or something or I can't work ofr another game house for 5 yrs after working with you or both - anything I can do

[CBJ]

If you're keen to do what you can to help then sign up for DevNet and take a look at the FAQ at the top of the DevNet General forum (you get access to this once you've done the basic sign-up). If you like what you see then you can sign an NDA and get more deeply involved.

[hierax]

don't I need to have some kind of background or knowledge of the workings of a game such as this before I can join the devnet forums?

[CBJ]

No. Signing up for basic DevNet membership requires no knowledge at all. Once you've done that you can read the FAQ and see what the requirements are for signing an NDA, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

[rhawley]

Combination single/multiplayer game?

I can imagine an X-single player mode like the game currently is.. think, fight, build... where you play and build in YOUR universe.

Then for X-Online, you dock at specialized complexes in your universe (your current single player game) where you could have "instances" for multiplayer goodness. WoW does a good job of segmenting dungeons, pvp, etc. something like that would be interesting.

Also, could have these instances (station option/gate?) level based where you would have to obtain a certain rank before 'unlocking" access to said multiplayer instance.

Instances could fall in a variety of flavors:

1v1, 2v2, 5v5, etc etc (Arena)
5-10 or more group "quest/NPC" instances where people fight as a team against some generated scenario.

could have a free for all universe instance where alot of players fight, think, trade, build... but again you would have to instance out each zone and I think it would just get messy.

Bonus to having the online component is if done right.... can prevent people from hoping to "cheat" since most things can be checked/controlled from the server. (though it is more restricting too, one of the great things about X is its player community and associated mods)

The MAIN thing I HATE about most MMOs is the amount of grinding/coordination etc it takes. I played wow for awhile and quit simply because I was raiding something like 20 hours a weak to "maybe" get some item that had +1 more of whatever on it. When it takes 20+ coordinated and dedicated people to play weekly for some minor upgrade that your not even sure if its better or not, and might not get, the game just loses the luster. The balance of games like that make me want to bang my head into a wall (hence i play this now

What would be terrible is if to do a dogfight against a top player in X-online you ALSO had to put in as much time as that person (grind/raid etc). Great thing about the game now is you CAN take out bigger fish when youre just flying around as a guppy.

another MMO comparison - UNREAL TOURNAMENT: great simple killing fun.

I think perhaps if the MMO version of X were to keep it fun, balanced, simple, and still maintain the single player goodness we have all come to love, that would be grande.

or if they came up with an MMO that was.... completely different from everything else that we've ever seen.... that would be even better

[ZzZGuy]

10 billion credits

6 systems

[insert mortal combat voice] "FIGHT"

connection over lan (perhaps up to 6 players?)

This is all i ask.

[esd]

10 billion credits

6 systems

[insert mortal combat voice] "FIGHT"

connection over lan (perhaps up to 6 players?)

This is all i ask.

I think you should have read some of CBJ's posts:

im only looking for a small 2-8 players online game. something that wouldnt require to change the hole gameplay or mechanics of the game.

Please read back through my previous replies to this thread to see why there is no "only" about this. To develop any kind of multi-player game would require major changes to the gameplay and mechanics. This idea that there is a "simple" form of multi-player is quite simply wrong. I've also explained why it is relatively unlikely to happen for financial reasons, other than as a spin-off from an MMO game.