"X:R will be newbie friendly"

[Pimpace]

My biggest problem is that Egosoft work too slowly. I wish they do their work as Frontier Development. I saw those guys how patched their game right few days before the release. Also when their game was in beta state. They give patches almost every 2 days, and in a week a big one, which blew your head when you see the list they fixed.

Why the hekk Egosoft couldn't do such a great work?!?!?!?

We're lucky if get a patch with 1-2 fixes in a month. More thousand peeps bought this game and "payed your bill" through the game's price. So get your ass off, and start working Egosoft!

It's ridiculous as you doing your "game development". And I don't think so that you employee would be stupid. Management is crap I guess.... Joke. After a year we didn't get much better crap when it released. I'm not angry because this game idea would not be good, or it wouldn't has much potential, I'm angry because I see that Egosoft just toke our money, and gave very little for it. And finally I'd like to play a game I payed for and don't wanna wait another year!!!!!

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

My biggest problem is that Egosoft work too slowly.
...

In my professional opinion they are working at a reasonable pace given the size of their organisation. The speed at which some software houses deliver software/changes is in fact too quick as they do not allow sufficient time for proper QA and Testing.

Egosoft seem to do their best to ensure what they deliver is tested to an adequate level, but that is not to say that their software is going to be completely free of issues when released (not feasible to guarantee that in this kind of context).

In general, it is unfair to say or imply team X should be delivering their product updates as quickly as team Y as there are numerous factors to be considered and trying to speed up the process typically causes more issues than it solves. The software industry in general has enough issues with the quality of what is delivered without customers putting unrealistic expectations (based on the party doing the work) on delivery schedules and practices.

In a contracted product development environment, such things would be agreed in the contract. In a COTS development environment (e.g. the development of games), the organisation(s) doing the work have to follow processes and procedures that is most appropriate for them and allows them to (but not necessarily guarantees they will) deliver a product at a level of quality that they are at least ok with.

TL;DR Given their size, Egosoft appear to be working at the nominal rate of progress that normally ensures a reasonable level of product quality and IME working faster than that is bad for everyone involved in the long term.

[Slashman]

TL;DR Given their size, Egosoft appear to be working at the nominal rate of progress that normally ensures a reasonable level of product quality and IME working faster than that is bad for everyone involved in the long term.

I think the problem is that it all feels long term. In that sense when you buy an Egosoft game on release, you suffer as a consequence. You don't get a decently working product and then there is the waiting game until your issue, desired feature or mechanic is implemented.

The argument is generally that they continue to work on their products for a long time after release. That is definitely not a win for everyone involved for a number of reasons. The biggest is that the long term post-release time is so concerned with fixing broken things that work on new features and content gets pushed back. It's a pattern that keeps repeating and it really needs to stop.

You always hear how no other developer works so long on their games. No developer should need to spend that amount of time working on a game post release unless it is for the sake of delivering new features and content. Several developers spend time working on their games after release, and some don't spend as long. Basically, if you release it working right, you don't need to spend 7 - 8 months just getting fixes in place.

It is perfectly reasonable to expect that patching will be required after release, but there is a huge difference between cleaning up a few remaining bugs and continuing to actively work on game completion for months after the game is out. People then call that continuing support. I call it cleaning your mess up.

[Graaf]

My biggest problem is that Egosoft work too slowly. I wish they do their work as Frontier Development. I saw those guys how patched their game right few days before the release. Also when their game was in beta state. They give patches almost every 2 days, and in a week a big one, which blew your head when you see the list they fixed.

Why the hekk Egosoft couldn't do such a great work?!?!?!?

They did do that in the first few weeks after release.

TL;DR Given their size, Egosoft appear to be working at the nominal rate of progress that normally ensures a reasonable level of product quality and IME working faster than that is bad for everyone involved in the long term.

After 7 years the level of product quality was sub-par to put it mildly.

You always hear how no other developer works so long on their games. No developer should need to spend that amount of time working on a game post release unless it is for the sake of delivering new features and content. Several developers spend time working on their games after release, and some don't spend as long. Basically, if you release it working right, you don't need to spend 7 - 8 months just getting fixes in place.

The difference between other developers and Egosoft is that the others usually have a large selection of games to rely on and they can afford to dismiss the worst one(s). Egosoft only has one title to rely on and thus its needed to support that one for as long as it takes.

[blackWindow]

Yeah everyone wishes for more frequent updates I'm sure. I'm patient enough tho, I know they can't release update every few days or week due to their small team.
I did expect on release tho that we would have more ships and weapons in game. gives me a feeling there's something missing. Now that some of the races are "missing" currently, we don't see many different ship designs. PMC has theirs and Argon has theirs pretty much. And well now Teladi. I hope we'll see Borons, Paranid and more of Terrans in the future.
I'm not familiar with lore, so I don't know if there are any indications of any race disappearing..

EDIT: Another question guys: How do I exchange wares with station? My Titurel can only exchange freight with my Stromvok cruiser and my CV, but not with any other ship or station...

Also, my station is missing Ion cells and station's assigned freighter is not delivering it. It's instead buying Bofu which station has plenty already. Why it doesn't buy the resources it needs? Is this buggy or is manager stupid even tho he's 5/5/5?

[Santi]

To transfer wares to a station only one option works, not remember witch one, list or map. Does your ship have the appropriate cargo type (energy) for Ion Cells?

Egosoft has a valid commercial strategy in supporting games for a long period of time. Of course the added value is reflected in the base price and sadly the games are not as heavily discounted after release like many others, but value for money they are very hard to beat. I rather have the Egosoft model that the Assassins or Total War one, where basically if you get all the expansions and stuff you spend nearly 100 pounds or more for a product that will be ditched in two years max.

[blackWindow]

To transfer wares to a station only one option works, not remember witch one, list or map. Does your ship have the appropriate cargo type (energy) for Ion Cells?

I'm not trying to transfer Ion Cells. I raided one station and it dropped different wares. I picked up those wares with my Titurel which can carry any cargo afaik and now I want this Titurel to transfer some of these wares (like reinforced plates) to my station.

[Grevas]

[...]
The argument is generally that they continue to work on their products for a long time after release. That is definitely not a win for everyone involved for a number of reasons. The biggest is that the long term post-release time is so concerned with fixing broken things that work on new features and content gets pushed back. It's a pattern that keeps repeating and it really needs to stop.[...]

Highly offtopic, but this issue has been actually adressed by berndt shortly after release. In case someone remembers, he was talking about early access options which they didn't have as they started X:R.

Since the latest release was a Content DLC and wasn't up for early access it's hard to tell if they go that route with next game though. Personally i don't think early access on steam directly is a good idea. If it's for feedback from fans, that much exposure might backfire.

But atleast i doubt Egosoft enjoys generating that much hate at launch, so'll be optimistic.

[Slashman]

Egosoft has a valid commercial strategy in supporting games for a long period of time. Of course the added value is reflected in the base price and sadly the games are not as heavily discounted after release like many others, but value for money they are very hard to beat. I rather have the Egosoft model that the Assassins or Total War one, where basically if you get all the expansions and stuff you spend nearly 100 pounds or more for a product that will be ditched in two years max.

Just because ongoing updates have stopped for a game, does not mean the game is no longer worth playing.

I don't play the Assassin's Creed series, but I do play Total War Shogun 2. I bought the base game initially with NO DLC or expansions. I have yet to complete a playthrough with all the factions. The DLC for Shogun 2 does not add new features, just additional factions. There was one major expansion, Fall of the Samurai (I believe that is a stand alone expansion), which does add several new features. That said, I still don't own it and I don't feel like I'm missing anything since I still have so much to try with the base game.

The length of time a game is supported after release doesn't necessarily mean anything if the developers have released the game they wanted to release.

[Santi]

The length of time a game is supported after release doesn't necessarily mean anything if the developers have released the game they wanted to release.

Not sure I follow you, does that mean that Starpoint Gemini will not get more updates? Or Elite Dangerous does not need to expand on the game anymore? It is a bit different when you are talking about small/medium Studios and big Studios that chuck a sequel every year and a half and charge you the price of a new game for it, when it really is a different take of the original game and sometimes not even worth the value of an expansion.

[Slashman]

The length of time a game is supported after release doesn't necessarily mean anything if the developers have released the game they wanted to release.

Not sure I follow you, does that mean that Starpoint Gemini will not get more updates? Or Elite Dangerous does not need to expand on the game anymore? It is a bit different when you are talking about small/medium Studios and big Studios that chuck a sequel every year and a half and charge you the price of a new game for it, when it really is a different take of the original game and sometimes not even worth the value of an expansion.

Both of the developers for those games stated that they were going to continue to add content to the game after release. Frontier has actually told players what kind of content they can expect to see added.

Both of those games did not launch as incomplete products, but rather with the stated goals of the developers achieved, and in a very stable and playable condition. Those companies aren't going to spend close to a year getting the game up to scratch. They don't need to. They can both immediately begin to concentrate on QOL and content updates as they see fit. This goes back to illustrating my original point. Regardless of how long a developer chooses to work on a game after release, the player loses when there is significant time spent continuing development that should have happened during the development phase.

The message SPG2 and ED sends is: "Pick up my game whenever you like and expect content updates for it down the line even as you have fun playing." The message X:R sends is: "Pick up this game over a year after launch (on sale) which is when it will be in an acceptable launch state and then expect content for it down the line (along with more fixes for stuff that still doesn't work right)."

That's the very antithesis of newbie friendly. Newbies are expected to know that this is Egosoft's MO and that they need to wait for things that should have been implemented way before in the game's dev cycle.

[Ormac]

I felt Terran Conflict 1.0 was a complete Egosoft Game at launch. Yes it needed patching for performance but each patch and Major Version Bump seemed to add to and improve the Game.

X-Rebirth turned out to be a completely different animal and the fact it's taken Egosoft two Major Version Bumps to achieve what they said would be available from launch is disheartening.

My expectation of Egosoft was their usual extended post release support to improve the game they released. I had not expected Egosoft to handicap themselves so badly by beginning so far behind their own starting line.

Is X-Rebirth 3.0 better now because of user feedback [Public Beta, Threads discussing Highways, Stations, Trading, Combat, Map/Gravidar] or just because Egosoft has had the time to add the things they left out?

-- Ormac

[SteveMill]

Both of the developers for those games stated that they were going to continue to add content to the game after release. Frontier has actually told players what kind of content they can expect to see added.

Both of those games did not launch as incomplete products, but rather with the stated goals of the developers achieved, and in a very stable and playable condition. Those companies aren't going to spend close to a year getting the game up to scratch. They don't need to. They can both immediately begin to concentrate on QOL and content updates as they see fit. This goes back to illustrating my original point. Regardless of how long a developer chooses to work on a game after release, the player loses when there is significant time spent continuing development that should have happened during the development phase.

The message SPG2 and ED sends is: "Pick up my game whenever you like and expect content updates for it down the line even as you have fun playing." The message X:R sends is: "Pick up this game over a year after launch (on sale) which is when it will be in an acceptable launch state and then expect content for it down the line (along with more fixes for stuff that still doesn't work right)."

Quite. While I am somewhat critical of ED being feature thin on release it is a working game. I'm not waiting for scanners or a proper interface to be added. I'm not having to edit save games or pray for modders to solve problems.

You only have to compare the state of the respective forums following release to appreciate the difference.

I'm actually a little bit surprised how well ED has been received given that it's basically an Elite 2 from about 1987, but with 2014 graphics. But I guess that shows the advantage of starting from a solid gameplay position and building from there.

XR for whatever reasons chose to simply throw out the established X gameplay. You do that and then compound it by the new gameplay not working then you're in trouble.

It's good that things are much better now and there are people still playing happily but it's a basic principle of any business that it's extremely difficult to win back lost and alienated customers.

There's no dark anti-XR conspiracy. It was just a dreadful release, compounded by an incredibly tone-deaf company response.

Similarly there's no conspiracy behind ED's reception. It's just that a lot more people are enjoying playing it.

[Alan Phipps]

We already have threads dedicated to comparing XR to ED and SC etc. This one is to discuss how new-user-friendly XR is found to be. Thanks for your attention to this.

[blackWindow]

I felt Terran Conflict 1.0 was a complete Egosoft Game at launch. Yes it needed patching for performance but each patch and Major Version Bump seemed to add to and improve the Game.

X-Rebirth turned out to be a completely different animal and the fact it's taken Egosoft two Major Version Bumps to achieve what they said would be available from launch is disheartening.

My expectation of Egosoft was their usual extended post release support to improve the game they released. I had not expected Egosoft to handicap themselves so badly by beginning so far behind their own starting line.

Is X-Rebirth 3.0 better now because of user feedback [Public Beta, Threads discussing Highways, Stations, Trading, Combat, Map/Gravidar] or just because Egosoft has had the time to add the things they left out?

-- Ormac

I didn't expect XR to turn this way either. sure they said it's going to be "different" and fresh game, but I thought by that they mean new engine, improved UI, tutorial, better and more accessible controls/options etc. I thought it's new fresh because they are going to make it easier to understand, learn, control, play... not that they are going to take away bunch of stuff away.

Of course this is again to each their own opinion, but my feeling is that the game is missing a lot of stuff and it's not easy to get into. I wouldn't complain about certain things being taken out/changed if it would actually work the way they implemented it.

But for example AI is not really a lot better. They gave us only one flyable ship, so I expected at least better AI. But I'm sad and frustrated when I see my destroyer overcharging and dancing around target and like it want to make all turrets fire at the same time, but instead it ends up wasting minutes before it gets into good position to fire. And it looks stupid when it's circling around and shooting like a disco ball.

I have already talked about UI and commands/functionality, but let's see another example: Yesterday I've spent hours to figure out how to make my freighter exchange wares with my station. Who would think that only option to make this work is to be in te same zone as your freighter, have it in squad, have it follow you and you must choose "through map" option when you click on "transfer ware" in command console. If you click through list, bam you're screwed. It doesn't make sense and it's not user firendly. I have the ship in squad and if I can communicate with it from another sector why can't I order it to transfer ware as well? No, I must stop doing what I'm doing and call myself a taxi to get into that sector just to issue that "transfer wares" order, because whatever logic.

[Grevas]

I'd say every game-stopping bug is player unfriendly, not only for new ones. I'm pretty sure at launch the game's plot was not finishable without editing / asking for help.

I have played the plot myself now (holidays, you know), so maybe it has some value to write it down. I'll try to keep dislikes of features and stuff as much as i can out of it...

First off, a little comparison between X3R (the first one i got) & X:Rebirth. I grabbed it from some sale in a market and it sounded very interesting. Haven't played more than 15min at first because i was lost, it was burried somewhere for months before i retried.

Didn't happen in X:R, though i have been playing the previous titles... Anyways, the hints deal with most of the informations and i think the plot itself is a good guide. Except when you hit that station-building barrier, that's were i stopped after the release.

The station-building part still needs improvement. I'd say the game itself should keep the data of discovered producers in the encyclopedia*. That would be very handy for all players & contribute to exploration as a goal (no trades != no producers, might have even lost that offer already? Well, look it up then!). Depending on third party is never playerfriendly**. In my playthrough: i'm pretty sure i haven't seen the Reinforced Metal Plating in the construction vessel before starting the station, which i hunted down beforehand (since i already "knew" it would be an issue), might be my mistake. Maybe Construction Vessels could sell stuff before and that's a more recent change.

A few aspects are not explained:
- squad tutorial, pretty sure i had to figure it out the hard way around

Some i'd judge important or have been atleast interesting to me are hidden from the player:
- Skills, more is better, well... better how? Atleast the ones that actually count are boldened, but why bother even showing the other ones? The only one i could figure out was the engineer - since it has a visible effect & only 1. stat.
- I haven't seen any introduction to mining ingame, didn't bother to try it yet.

These came to mind, so to me the learning curve seems properly stretched. Missing a few things, but still more welcoming than X3. Fun fact: i had no idea about SETA, that's why i left X3 so early ;) ("seriously, i don't have the time to do this kind of stuff"), i'm very happy they decided to get rid of it.

* some integration in the map could also help, having it under the product as info would be my preffered place to look for it. Navigating UIs to find something is not engaging. I can't say if that info is that important though. Might bash it in for some, that it's something important. When does spoon-feeding start here? Hmmm...
** but it can work, there are games which provide even less. For example, minecraft, that has got a wiki very early in the development stages though ;) (i haven't had good experience with current X:R wiki content, but the nature of the game makes it hard .... "Evolving stations" and so on.). The ingame encyclopedia is good to have anyway.


P.S. i'm personally having trouble with the production chains not beeing available as ingame info, but i wouldn't categorize this as new-player problem. Some (usable) item descriptions would need work, the biggest offender in my mind would be that scanning drone. I have no damn clue what this actually helps with and i stopped caring by now. I just ignore it. Got full with traitor drones, happy not to reload the game every time i mess up and having a BLAST with it (pun intended).