X-Rebirth: The story of the failed console game

[diablo_rf]

Guys, I think the only hope of this game is that the modders community will make instruments and develop this game in the way they want.
U can forget about any work from Ego, its a finished company...

[scarshapedstar]

It's kinda like coming across an abandoned M1 with 1% hull - do you limp it to a shipyard and pay $50 million in repairs, do you spend a month hitting it with the repair laser, or do you just sigh and jump somewhere else?

[Abuss3]

It's kinda like coming across an abandoned M1 with 1% hull - do you limp it to a shipyard and pay $50 million in repairs, do you spend a month hitting it with the repair laser, or do you just sigh and jump somewhere else?

exactly!

[AL'42]

Well that’s the question no one knows the answer to right now.

Do they wait another month for sales to drop to zero and bugger off with all the money or hang around patching up the game… if the latter, why? I doubt they’ll make any more real money on this release. What they should do is move X-R to its own isolated site, this forum used to be one of the best around, currently degenerating in chaos, polluting all that was great about X3.

[pjknibbs]

Do they wait another month for sales to drop to zero and bugger off with all the money or hang around patching up the game… if the latter, why?

You've been around for seven years and you don't know the answer to that question? Has Egosoft ever *not* patched up the games after release? The current flood of negativity reminds me very much of when X2 was released in a very buggy state--it's just the sheer volume of it that's different this time, not the actual content of what anyone's saying.

[Alewx]

Well that’s the question no one knows the answer to right now.

Do they wait another month for sales to drop to zero and bugger off with all the money or hang around patching up the game… if the latter, why? I doubt they’ll make any more real money on this release. What they should do is move X-R to its own isolated site, this forum used to be one of the best around, currently degenerating in chaos, polluting all that was great about X3.

No they will wait until the game is ready too be played, and then they will suprisingly announce a console version of the game!
We paid for the product and got kicked in the face also we get lied that our rigs would be the problem and not the Software. There will never be one single honest word from them!

Yeah that is how good egosoft works together with the community these days.

[WeriTis]

You've been around for seven years and you don't know the answer to that question? Has Egosoft ever *not* patched up the games after release? The current flood of negativity reminds me very much of when X2 was released in a very buggy state--it's just the sheer volume of it that's different this time, not the actual content of what anyone's saying.

I understand that you are probably not to blame for all the false advertising that your boss did.

That being said, could you please spill the beans on whether you are working on actively reverting bad design decisions, or just fixing bugs?

Because even without bugs, the game still would be bad, because you have limited player options and asset management so hard there barely is anything to do besides playing the "mini-games" in free play mode...

[Lone Jedi]

deleted, duplicate post

[Lone Jedi]

Do they wait another month for sales to drop to zero and bugger off with all the money or hang around patching up the game… if the latter, why?

You've been around for seven years and you don't know the answer to that question? Has Egosoft ever *not* patched up the games after release? The current flood of negativity reminds me very much of when X2 was released in a very buggy state--it's just the sheer volume of it that's different this time, not the actual content of what anyone's saying.

You don't get it at all. The players are angry not just because of the bugs, but being lied to and promises are broken. More lies to cover lies. It's about integrity. Trust is lost.

The info in the OP is not a mere theory, it's strong evidence. If that is brought to a court it will be an unanimous verdict.

[ragod]

Do they wait another month for sales to drop to zero and bugger off with all the money or hang around patching up the game… if the latter, why?

You've been around for seven years and you don't know the answer to that question? Has Egosoft ever *not* patched up the games after release? The current flood of negativity reminds me very much of when X2 was released in a very buggy state--it's just the sheer volume of it that's different this time, not the actual content of what anyone's saying.

X2 had a 72 meta rating, X:R has what looks like is going to end up mid 30s, there is more to this than bugs which is why there is so much volume. So many awesome features from the previous games are missing, the volume of bugs as you said, and ****** UI/controls.

I have been playing X games since X2, and they have NEVER been this bad. This game is an abomination, which is why people are going to be surprised that it keeps getting supported.

[Qapla]

Do they wait another month for sales to drop to zero and bugger off with all the money or hang around patching up the game… if the latter, why?

You've been around for seven years and you don't know the answer to that question? Has Egosoft ever *not* patched up the games after release? The current flood of negativity reminds me very much of when X2 was released in a very buggy state--it's just the sheer volume of it that's different this time, not the actual content of what anyone's saying.

The game need much more than simple patch, personally i am not bothered by bugs, well not much, the game itself is a boring crap.
This game need to be reworked.
And this very ""simple"" imho copy paste X3 terran conflict with Rebirth graphisms + rebirth plot and that would a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge improvement.
Remove the NPCs they are a shame to the PC game, remove the useless space stations, give us a radar and simple menus and the game will be ok until then i will not trust egosoft or anyone, any company responsable for this failure.

[wasdie]

I've actually got a slight alternate theory to a few things about this game.

Things like walking in the stations, the low variety of NPCs, the tiny interior of the skunk, the looting, and the way the engine handles the HUD makes me really question how many of these things they spent a long time designing. It certainly doesn't feel like 7 years of planning went into that. These things are all a stark contrast to the obviously much better planned out seamless world, star cities, and far more robust capital ships.

What it feels like is that when Star Citizen was announced and became the big player in the space sim genre, Egosoft almost felt like they had to keep up with Star Citizen to stay relevant. Thus this last year they spent time adding in things like station interiors, NPCs, and a way to interact with all of them in some way (personal inventory, crawling through tunnels, etc.). Why is that with all of these years of development there are only 4-5 station interiors and a very tiny amount of modeled and animated NPCs yet the exteriors of the stations, variety of the capital ships and smaller ships, and universe backgrounds are all extremely varied and very well made?

It seems like a lot of the most complained about features in this game are almost afterthoughts tacked on quickly within the past year. There are so many clashing design decisions that litter this entire game. Why did they build an engine that can do a very robust economy with station managment then implement some sort of a loot system and personal trading inventory that completely undermines the entire economy? Why is it that we can buy all of these various ships yet have so little interaction with them? Why does it feel like all of the "immersion" like the interior of the ship, the way you interact with menus on board the ship, and the little things like the NPC boarding cutscenes and turning your head constantly to look at the menu feel so shallow and not well thought out?

These are all signs that they've had a big change of direction this game was going in the last year or so. We see a very robust engine that is teeming with capabilities that improve on the old X series in every way yet that seems to have been designed and crafted over a few years and then we see all of these shallow gameplay "features" that undermine everything the engine can potentially do and an interface that is focused on being "immersive" instead of use able.

This is the opposite direction a lot of people here were implying. People here seem to be convinced that they originally started off with all of the shallow features that were made for a spinoff series on the Xbox and then they decide to port that to the PC, but that makes no sense as even the shallow features they have are extremely underdeveloped and have no signs that they spent years working on them. I think the exact opposite is true and that the core of the engine behind X Rebirth was designed to do something far more robust than it was and that in the latter half of the development of the game did they shift gears and start working on all of the features to make the game more "accessible" and "immersive" potentially due to the splash that Star Citizen has made on the genre.

This would also fit in why there are Xbox 360 shaders in the files as at one time they were experimenting with getting the engine to work on the 360 yet realized their original goals were just to big for the platform and thus they scrapped development. This happened far before Star Citizen made its appearance.

[pjknibbs]

I understand that you are probably not to blame for all the false advertising that your boss did.

That being said, could you please spill the beans on whether you are working on actively reverting bad design decisions, or just fixing bugs?

I don't recall my boss doing any false advertising, but then, neither he nor I work for Egosoft. And that should hopefully answer your second question as well--I'm not spilling any beans because I have no beans to spill; you might be better off directing those questions at an actual Egosoft employee.

[AL'42]

This game need to be reworked. And this very ""simple"" imho copy paste X3 terran conflict with Rebirth graphisms + rebirth plot and that would a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge improvement.

Wouldn’t that be great!!! Ain’t gonna happen though.

Ego can’t make money on it. Niche market. I’d love it, you’d love it, the fan base would love it but it won’t pay the bills. Look at the xbox market, COD, GTA5, hugely popular, hugely accomplished games, big money, AAA quality, there’s no doubting it, my boy plays them, but I’d be bored stupid after a few hours (not so if I were a teenager again I should add). And that’s the rub, we want a complex beautiful space sim that makes us think and plan into the small hours BUT who’s gonna pay for it?

[Nomadian]

This game need to be reworked. And this very ""simple"" imho copy paste X3 terran conflict with Rebirth graphisms + rebirth plot and that would a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge improvement.

Wouldn’t that be great!!! Ain’t gonna happen though.

Ego can’t make money on it. Niche market. I’d love it, you’d love it, the fan base would love it but it won’t pay the bills. Look at the xbox market, COD, GTA5, hugely popular, hugely accomplished games, big money, AAA quality, there’s no doubting it, my boy plays them, but I’d be bored stupid after a few hours (not so if I were a teenager again I should add). And that’s the rub, we want a complex beautiful space sim that makes us think and plan into the small hours BUT who’s gonna pay for it?

The same people that have been giving Egosoft a paycheck since 1999.

[Artificer]

This game need to be reworked. And this very ""simple"" imho copy paste X3 terran conflict with Rebirth graphisms + rebirth plot and that would a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge improvement.

Wouldn’t that be great!!! Ain’t gonna happen though.

Ego can’t make money on it. Niche market. I’d love it, you’d love it, the fan base would love it but it won’t pay the bills. Look at the xbox market, COD, GTA5, hugely popular, hugely accomplished games, big money, AAA quality, there’s no doubting it, my boy plays them, but I’d be bored stupid after a few hours (not so if I were a teenager again I should add). And that’s the rub, we want a complex beautiful space sim that makes us think and plan into the small hours BUT who’s gonna pay for it?

I find it so odd, in 2013, when people say "It wouldn't make money."

Know what one of the biggest earners of the decade... and really, all time, is?

Minecraft.

A "niche game" that was "going nowhere" when it first came out. A game that barely involves combat at all, has extremely unflashy graphics, is almost literally unplayable without the wiki open or recipe mods installed, has no minimap, no quests...

*deep breath*

The point is, in this decade, anything can make money whether it meets "big video game" expectations or not. The biggest key is not making a title with broad appeal, but nurturing and supporting your community.

[Raider480]

It's a little more than that though. Minecraft, at least in the incipient doubtful phase, had quite low production costs. XR has been being developed for years by a bigger team and with a clearly more demanding technical infrastructure. Anything can indeed make gross profits, but the net gain is what matters for a corporation especially (like Egosoft or indeed now Mojang).

[wasdie]

Minecraft is a pretty bad example for a number of reason. First there was nothing really like it before. With the X series we've seen for the past decade the space sim/empire building genre not really gain popularity over the years, rather just stay afloat from the small community that plays the games. Further more the very basics of Minecraft are simple, while the mechanics of the X series are inherently complex. Egosoft tired to simplify them but has utterly failed in doing so.

There was never a chance even a finished and polished version of X Rebirth was going to take off like Minecraft. Even if it was working and their ideas of streamlining the experience actually improved the game while appealing to a larger audience, the actual market for the space sim genre is pretty small. Heck despite Star Citizen making ungodly millions of dollars, there is a relatively small amount of backers (under 300k last I checked). There is really no indication that a wide audience will buy the game upon its completion.

[WeriTis]

I understand that you are probably not to blame for all the false advertising that your boss did.

That being said, could you please spill the beans on whether you are working on actively reverting bad design decisions, or just fixing bugs?

I don't recall my boss doing any false advertising, but then, neither he nor I work for Egosoft. And that should hopefully answer your second question as well--I'm not spilling any beans because I have no beans to spill; you might be better off directing those questions at an actual Egosoft employee.

Well, sorry about that then.

I got fooled by that Egosoft sign in your avatar.

[Zorvan]

This game need to be reworked. And this very ""simple"" imho copy paste X3 terran conflict with Rebirth graphisms + rebirth plot and that would a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge improvement.

Wouldn’t that be great!!! Ain’t gonna happen though.

Ego can’t make money on it. Niche market. I’d love it, you’d love it, the fan base would love it but it won’t pay the bills. Look at the xbox market, COD, GTA5, hugely popular, hugely accomplished games, big money, AAA quality, there’s no doubting it, my boy plays them, but I’d be bored stupid after a few hours (not so if I were a teenager again I should add). And that’s the rub, we want a complex beautiful space sim that makes us think and plan into the small hours BUT who’s gonna pay for it?

And yet, it doesn't look like their "mainstream" approach was very successful, does it? 15,000 units sold when even the crappiest "Mainstream" "AAA" clunker can sell 100k+ boxes. Who knows how many of those 15,000 refunded or worse just thrown in the trash. Yeah, Bernd got a real "success" story out of all this, didn't he?

Bernd's crappy strategy turned off both that "wider" audience he shot for, as well as alienated the ones who bought these games religiously. He damaged the brand, most likely irrevocably. Get rid of Bernd, replace the devs that need replacing ( such as whoever did animations and NPC textures ), and get a real group of devs with a real leader n place and MAYBE the next X game ( if the company doesn't go bankrupt before then ) can bring things back on track.