Attempt at defending the game developers

[BeidAmmikon]

Greetings, fellow X-ers.
I am a programmer myself, not in the gaming industry though, and I dare to say a word against the bashing that Egosoft receive now and then. When one says "Egosoft, you..., I cannot get to... so and so...", not the management takes the "moral" hit, but the developers.
1. About the single-processor issue of the X series
All of us must understand that this is as embarassing to the programmers as for us the users, them being forced to design software which would have to run on multi-processor machines prepared to smoothly run mostly software created in "modern times". When the boss or the producer says "we must work with the same graphics and script engines, to be able to expand this and this" and "you have to deliver the next product in Y years from this day", you have no choice but to do so, or quit the job. If you want people rejoice over your hard work, buggy as it is in the first stages, then the choice is obvious, and you may hope that you'll have the opportunity to fix nasty issues like the design for a single processor at some time in the unclear future.
2. About the ugliness of some ships
The graphic designers really have had to design a large number of ships, the modders surely know what it's all about, and then work with the developers to implement the behaviour (weapons and all). This is no easy task, as there are 8 races that I know about with unique ships (Terran, Ar, Bo, Pa, Sp, Te, Kh, Xe) and the designers are people, too, ie their imagination could not be limitless...
3. About us being beta-testers
Currently, I am playing Reunion, because TC has not been brought by anyone in my country yet. Reunion crashes my pc completely at random times, but I didn't give it up even after a year which costed me a damaged harddisk because of this game. At this stage in this game's lifecycle I blame my computer for this, not Egosoft, but anyway I am in no mood to buy another rig just for TC - I expect them to fix the software first, to get me motivated for the hardware approach, and in the meantime I play Reunion as miserably as I can.
I cannot fathom that Egosoft launched the game without testing it in terms of performance, I only assume that they did not test it on machines using ffdshow, Nero, Cyberlink or whatever we have to uninstall in order to be able to play TC. The solutions and hints they give us even after the 1.3 patch seem to support this idea, and these solutions I do not see as being conveyed to us as part of a conspiration that has us destroying our multimedia rigs and renounce burning DVDs just to be able to play their game.
Bottom line - I do agree that the game is not as it should be (imperfect AI-but in Reunion also there were many unmoving piloted ships, along with the passing back through a gate when igniting the boost just after entering the system-I think this is a problem of just moving the ship aka changing the flying angle), both in terms of what the developers struggled to deliver despite of all odds, and in terms of our expectations, and in terms of this game being declared the last of its kind at Egosoft. But at the same time I grant all the developers the benefit of the doubt and, if they keep on having the power to repair what things can be repaired, then we will surely enjoy their last patch to this awesome game. All who want to enjoy the IDEA of X-games, have to support them, be it wih DirectX logs, or bug reports, or ideas for new content, but the bashing is of no use. Godspeed.

[cyber-knight]

Well for one I believe the egosoft programmers actually did a pretty good job. I am not a programmer myself, however i do know a thing or to about programing and I am 3d designer. And what I can say is job well done.
I mean, the number of bugs in the game rises with the complexity of the game, and x3 is pretty complex. So I think that the x3 is considering its complexity practically bug-free.
About the design, x3 has some great ships... and I like the fact that race specific ships share design guidelines.
I don't like mechanics of the ships, but that's my personal preference (you cant make everybody happy can you?)
And I don't like chosen ship categories.

But I really am grateful to the programmers and designers of the game for such a piece of work.

Of course I am ready to show my visions of pieces of the game that I don't like, and i make constructive criticism, but that doesn't change the fact that I am ultimately in love with x3.
And I cant name any other game besides freelancer and x3 for which I haunt the forums, try to help the new players sometimes overwhelmed by complexity of the game, and involve myself in various debates over how should the x3 game be.

All in all thank you for a truly wonderful game.

[dblspeed]

Folks just generally come in two types. Those who are looking for what they like, and those who are looking for what they don't.
Not to say some aren't just trying to be objective fence-post sitters though.

Those looking for positives, usually find them, and Vice'versa.

I suppose the sad fact is... It's just a matter of choice.

Standing up and saying what you think is a good thing though. It's just that bashing sometimes is not done in the most constructive of manners. /giggle.

Not a programmer personally, but have at least messed with Basic enough to have what I think to be an understanding of it, albeit a limited one.

As to X3R crashing; The most common cause was something in the sound Codecs/drivers. I played for 2 yrs with the random crashes. I looked through the entire tech support threads, followed most of the advice / tweaks etc. This did improve it 'some' but never *fixed* it per'se. Then one of my kids got some vids on a disk to watch from a friend. But to be able to view them on my computer, they would have to install the CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack) (think this is especially made for viewing most anime's etc)
So the next day I fire up X3... 1hr passes, then 2, then 3hrs. Humm Odd, no crashes... Actually it hasn't crashed since for the most part, Unless once every month or two is considered bad.

[anneking]

About the only thing that puzzled me was the slowdowns.

Crysis is considered the most demanding game in existence and I get like 30fps at the v.high 1680x1050. It NEVER turns into a slide show. Yet X3TC often exhibits this slowdown behaviour in busy sectors. Of course its easy to solve, simply choose your fights in quiet sectors. I do find it a little surprising though.

As for the rest, no worries, v.complex game, expect a few bugs, simply outstanding.

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Crysis makes your graphic card cry. Your CPU can handle it quite happily.

X3 the reverse is true and cycle for cycle your GPU being a dedicated piece of graphic hardware has more muscle than your CPU.

[lLongshanks]

I don't think they should be defended.
They are not doing a very good job. X3R XTM is working OK. Instead of building on that they broke it. It seem common practice now for every game company to release games long before they are ready. I wish i could get paid for doing only half a job. Just how many other trades would get away with selling half finished products? The excuse that game developing is hard just does not wash. Everything will seem hard if you never took the time to learn it.

So what has ES got to show for a game that's been in the making for over 10 years?
The game has not evolved if anything its getting worse.
We have lost cockpit view
Combat is still the same very basic point and shoot that's was in XBTF. No extra option to target parts of ships like weapons /engines. We even lost the boost ability to go beyond speed limits while sacrificing shields.
We got a lot new ships which are basically the same things with bigger guns and shields.
Some new weapons with special abilities that are not that useful.
The only thing that seems to change is the graphics but this comes at the cost of performance.
Most of the new feature that do work have been made by the community.

Terrible AI to compensate ES just gives them bigger guns that don't miss (x2, Kha'ak)(TC, PBG and PBE) This just makes the AI seem even worse once the players gets hold of these weapons. AI controlled ships you have following will randomly smash into you. Ai does not move in any kind of formation. Auto pilot tries to smash your ship into the nearest object or do some silly dance. The jump gate system does not work. The AI can not handle it.

The X series just feels like the same game over and over again.
The game is boring. The universe is so tiny (a little unfair as its a MMO but check out the size of the universe in EVE) you have no real impact on the game. The sectors are cluttered up with ships, stations and random crap. Its no wonder the AI cant fly through it. If someone removed the spit and boron from my game i would never notice.
The game is full of totally pointless micro management. A trading system that makes no sense. Why are the stations even there they serve no real purpose. Other than a way for the player to make money. Those tiny Shipyards that look like a TV aerial hold unlimited amounts of ships and construct them out of thin air. Things like EQ docks have never been updated to accommodate the new ship. Selling only 2 PPC guns when ships require 24. So you have to build up your own complex, spend hours watching an AI complex or dupe them.
The AI Stations used to own ships to help make them work. The AI even had to use TL to build stations. Now its just the never ending free spawns

I would be embarrassed if i made this. It needs to be ripped out replaced. The selling prices should be either at a fixed price or a price based on stock of entire area not just the station. Did ES start selling X3TC at $1 then increase the price as their stock went down?

[Rmaccc]

X games are gone,
old news,
history,
they have forever curled thier toes and gone to visit the choir invisibule.

is there any point in flogging the subject anymore ?

maybe in 4 years thier next game will be even better than the X series.
then again we could see the same old arguements reguritated for that game.

fyi,
thier next game is called Uber Pong: the return
basically old pong but with planets

[Deitri]

We all love X to a certain degree, likewise how we wish it had this or that, or less bugs. One and the same. If you look at the X series as made by a small company who are standing alone in their genre, they're doing fantastic work. If you look at the X series compared to the rest of the gaming industry, they're doing quite poor if not unacceptable.
To say bashing is of no use, well, if everyone praised the game and said everything is fine, how many patches would we see? Yeah, "Egosoft sucks" doesn't get anywhere, but neither does defending them from said remark.

[Tutte]

I have been working in the games industry for over 10 years as a 3d artist/tech artist, so I think I have some insight.
That is insight into creating games, not egosoft and how they work.

My experience working with smaller companies is that there is just not the manpower and money to do a crysis level game.
The time and money needed to do a game is staggering. It is not all down to each individual coders skill, but rather the complexity is what hinders progress. Dependencies is a major problem. Change this system, well now that system fails as it depends on the previous system. Usually a game is like a house of cards and once built up it is very hard to add or change.
A little tip is to count the "game modes" to see the complexity; flying in space, check. Trading, check. Fighting, check, etc etc. Each system has to be done and work with all other systems. The X series is really very complex and therefore quite difficult to change. If you look at many FPS games they are really quite simple. A sandbox game like the x-series where you decide on what to do instead of relying on scripted progress to keep you moving forward can be a beast.

At times the best way of doing stuff is to tear the whole thing down and rebuild from scratch, but that costs a lot of money. At every place I have worked on this is the wish after each and every game, but rarely an option. Often game 1 never makes money. Game 2 on the same engine is where you make money. Game 3 gets you enough money to start work on a new game in parallell.

I will not say that I would like to see more of the x-series.
I have basically gone as far as I can go now in the game and feel myself getting tired of it. However, thanks for houndreds of hours of great fun! One of the best game experiences I have had in a long long time.

[KiwiNZ]

Good words, Tutte, and I am in full agreement with them.

I have been playing every single incarnation of the X games and I also have put all of them to the side for considerable time before picking them up again. The time spent playing each of them has vastly exceeded game time of any other game I bought.

A game as complex as this is bound to suffer from hardware compatibility issues but I have been long enough around to know not to buy top end computers for games but instead assemble a system from 'trusted' components. The result is that I can still play using the same computer I bought for Reunion and after turning off 3D sound in Reunion, I haven't really had any crashes in either X3R or X3TC.

Having worked in the software development industry for many years, I am also just too aware of how hard it is to produce code that interacts flawlessly with other pieces of code. It is neigh on impossible to do that with your own pieces of code, let alone trying to get your stuff to work with that of others.

Some of the weaknesses in the game are rather unpleasant and annoying. However, my approach is: what would I do to change that? How could it be implemented without being a bog on the game? Quite sadly, although I have had a few ideas about it, there was nothing that made go 'yes, that's how it should be done'. Many fixes would lead to even more CPU strain and that is exactly what nobody wants. Balancing issues are also always a pain. Who do you listen to? We have had many people asking for the exact opposite in terms of balancing So how are you going to do it? As much as I'd love to be challenged as a senior player, I don't think that is the way to go. Senior players usually stick to the series not for their difficulty level but because they have IMAGINATION and stake out their own goals. An open game like the X series is first choice for self-set goals. Hence, instead of listening to the veterans, the game should be made more applicable to new players. It has come a long way in that direction but still has some mileage to do. The more new players Egosoft can attract, the more money they will have at their disposal to make the next game better. Veteran players are merely part of the financial 'least income' base. What keeps Egosoft ticking over are new players.

[Deathgeese]

It seem common practice now for every game company to release games long before they are ready. I wish i could get paid for doing only half a job. Just how many other trades would get away with selling half finished products? The excuse that game developing is hard just does not wash. Everything will seem hard if you never took the time to learn it.

No. It really is hard. The days are long gone when one guy with a good idea could make a commercial quality game. Nowadays games are a multi-million dollar endeavors with large teams of people ranging from 50 to 200 people or more. Not only that, but the technology used has increased exponentially. It's not anywhere NEAR as easy to take advantage of this new technology as it is for the old technology. As processing power increases developers add more stuff into the game. As more stuff is added to the game there's not only an increased chance for things to go wrong in and of themselves, but that leaves more choices for the player. The player isn't a defined thing. Different players will do different things in different ways and the devs have to code for all of those different scenarios. If they only had to focus on one scenario, it wouldn't be nearly as bad. Basically what this adds up to are extremely complicated games.

[Observe]

In spite of the many valid points mentioned about the difficulty and complexity of developing games, the fact remains that X3-TC is hardly a giant leap from X3-R - or at least not a leap forward anyway.

With X3-R we have a reasonably stable, well performing game. With X3-TC we have essentially the same game engine and graphics quality, but significantly reduced performance.

Why is this? My guess is with TC someone made the decision to add more sectors, more high-poly models, more AI spawned ships, etc than the game can reasonably handle.

As far as I'm concerned, TC is indeed a step backward from X3-R. Nothing has been added of any significant game-playing value; beyond a bunch of added ships and other models not needed for the base game.

So again, I ask: What has TC given us of any real benefit over Reunion besides a different UI, and packaged XTM mod - which really has little if any added value over various other available mods and add-ons for Reunion?

As much as I keep trying, I just can't seem to find the rationale involved in decision to produce TC - other than an infusion of probably much needed cash. Perhaps I'm missing some yet to be revealed "big picture".

[John-David Mc Bride]

All good points......

I see add graphic....

Bad game play...


You cannot make this game better by putting into play a system that the older players know will not work......we pay good money for the game and we want a good return.....If you apply logic to most of this X TC...you see very quikly that it has not got the content to it ,as i have said before,just adding timed events to every plot does not make it better,, all it does is keeps people bizzzy for a bit so you can come up with a fix or a patch,,sorry i can see your plans...hehe....Putting timer in, and by that i meen like deliver 60 billion of this or 69 billion of that,,it's all time based..or get to the target first...and so no.....please stop doing it......give us a store line that works,,stop sponing rendom shite..stop making the ai better fighter then the player ship....none of this work it just make people think that was a waist of my time....I build a fleat of ship only to have then kill by 1 pirate ship ????.....pointless...laser tower that do not kill targets unless you are in sector with them????...just stop doing it...it all down to the programmers......and it's not funny....It just makes me want to unistall the game and be done with it...

Best regards John..

[cyber-knight]

Well I agree that egosoft needs to increase the sale of x3, but they are not going in the right direction.
In order to get new players they need to make the game more user-friendly... a tutorial or two, a working manual, and above all a simple-to-use interface would not require to much job, but would definitely increase the number of players.
Although there are user made scripts most of the players wont go through the trouble of finding and installing them...
Things like shortcut for boarding should be present in the vanilla...
So lets take the trouble of boarding in the vanilla...

I must keep the enemy vessel shields at below 10% while maneuvering to dodge incoming fire, while positioning myself in the right position for boarding, while cruising through the interface to find the command for boarding.

Week ago a friend of mine watched me play x3, and he got interested.
However after he witnessed my agony in trying to switch of my turrets in the middle of the fight (i tried to cap a ships, turrets were trying to destroy that same ship) he wasn't so interested no more.

If this was some other game, I would easily uninstall and move on with my life. But as this game has the BIGGEST potential of any sandbox do-what-you-want game I'm simply not giving up.
It is simply a love-n-hate game... i love 50% of the game and despise the other 50%...
I simply wish there was somebody from egosoft reading these post, and would answer our hails from time to time.
He doesn't have to answer positively, he can simply say "we cannot do that because it would strain the CPU" or something...
Because I don't see any advance in TC over reunion...
We simply have more ships in universe, more systems, and I believe that it would be better if there were less ships, but better AI.