Rebirthing Rebirth

[Ghost-Insignus]

When the game was first announced, I was puzzled by the title. Now I understand.

Basically, they have "Rebirthed" the franchise by abandoning most of the features and experience base that was accumulated throughout the trilogy. Having played all of them, and being fully cognizant of the fact that it took awhile to build up that base, my initial conception was that they would more or less build the features of X3:AP into a new engine, then expand and re-imagine them, creating a dynamic and explosive new entry, potentially bringing the X franchise into mainstream, popular gaming (Achieving broad-based brand recognition amongst people who aren't diehards, incidentals, or genre-junkies). In this, they have, for now, failed. They've apologized, yes, but apologies won't increase sales or user-base, and without those two, the bug fixes and expansion will slow. They seem very dedicated to fixing it, but infuriating your hardcore fans and turning away new users with one of the most underwhelming and epically bugged launches of the year is not a sound business strategy. But to analyze just how bad it is, lets examine where we came from.

What drew most people to the X Franchise was the precise fact that it defied the normal conventions of space games, which more commonly respond to the dizzying dimensions of the three dimensional playing field through constriction and campaign mission flows, whereas X let you free form your way through the universe almost immediately. In X, or at least from X:Reunion onwards, you were free to ditch campaign mode for a while, and just explore the history and culture, trading your way across empires and through war zones, building your empire as you saw fit, setting up complex interactions that you could then accelerate and sit on, before taking your flotilla into a campaign arc. Indeed, it rarely gave you much. The most you ever got initially in X:Reunion > X3:AP was a corvette. By the time you got anything bigger given to you, you could probably afford it. You ran the tutorial missions sometimes, then you were free.

Free to do a crap load of stuff. Having second thoughts on that trade you setup? 6 or 7 keystrokes later, you've rerouted ten thousand units of cargo to a completely different sector. Need some fast reinforcements? 4 strokes and you've got a corvette squadron jumping on the nearest gate.
Need an even more immediate panic mode? Ctrl+F, eject drones, and bam, instant hive of mildly ineffective but very distracting bees. Want to zip around as a fighter? Load up your TM with your wing men and use it as an ultra-light carrier (My strat for the first third of X:AP). Bored with how inefficiently the Paranid are running a sector? Jump your flotilla and torpedo bombers in and clean it out, start over. With mods, you can even claim it!

None of these features were apparently even considered for Rebirth at its release point. The shell architecture for eventually adding such things doesn't seem to be there. You have exactly one command you can issue ships. You can't even manage your action queues. No "Go here!" "Do that!" "Blow that up!". There are exactly 4 missile types so far, contrasted to the 12 or more that X2 had at release, and even fewer ships. I have played for about 15 hours, and have been stuck approximately 11 times, 4 of which required complete campaign restarts or hefty editing. All of this feel like I'm bound on a plane in a underwhelming universe with pretty visuals but ephemeral substance. That is the antithesis of the ideal space game. Achieving depth in space simulators is challenging, but necessary.

I mean sure, some features are nice. Its hard to deny there is potential here. The drone interface has potential, the station building looks pretty good, and the squad system might be nice (It needs a companion Fleet system, squads within a fleet that the player can setup that support each other). The highway system and the overall engine design for travel has strong potential, particularly for avoiding peak load lag (Which could harry users in the early days of X2, before computers outpaced the engine). The Level of Detail for the game is pretty spectacular, and the visual effects are pretty impressive, despite the now iconically lackluster character features and animations). I mean, there are things there that the dev team clearly spent time on.

But its what's not there that cripples the game. Now, look, I know, every game in a series or franchise has its potential for fan-rage, particularly with such a big continuity jump as X:Rebirth. But this is ridiculous. This game is 66% completed, at best. The back story and campaign are there, but it is so bug ridden that I must emphatically recommend redacting the entire QA section of the credits, to protect their careers. This deficient QA manifests in the myriad of bizarre game design choices that quite frankly seem as if though they are place holders for completed items. The dialog system, in particular, with its one ship command, is blatantly (Hopefully) unfinished.

Lets run with that example. Now, Egosoft's explanation for this was a desire to make the game have a more personal feel to it, by switching from command menus to command dialogs. Some people might like that. But this is why you make a dual track system which simply substitutes one system for another by relying on identical function calls that are arrived at through different methods. That way the traditional fans can run their hyper accelerated empires, while newbies, console junkies, or others (I can't really find the marketing rationalization on who wanted this feature, precisely), can spend 15 seconds muddling through it per go round. Having that option would make managing an expansive empire from within a single ship somewhat bearable.

Of all its shortcomings, that ship is the big one. A key facet of the allure of the X franchise was the ability to cruise around in your big bad capital ship. As a cap-ship monkey myself, the notion of chairing a destroyer or battle wagon was always a big draw for the series. The cycle of trading up and test running different ships was also a big part of the X franchise. There was something deeply appealing about starting off with a rusting bucket of bolts that could carry 500 bits of small cargo, running that for an hour or so, then trading into a small passenger transport (Which I invariably ran for about an hour before filling it with marines and capturing a rather nice corvette, but that's a bit of a power-strat for the less-faint of heart).

Now we get one bucket of bolts. We can upgrade it, but my understanding was that it could be expanded, adapted, or even completely customized into something bigger. Indeed, that port at the back of the skunk always seemed to me to be a place where it could plug into a larger ship.

But apparently, its the drone hole. Also the place where the 8-20 marines you magically fit in a 8x8 crew compartment magically issue forth from in their boarding pods (I was never a terrible fan of the "Fling them out the airlock in their paper-mache spacesuits" method of boarding in X3:AP, but this is a bit of a stretch). Since boarding mostly works on bigger ships, which now usually have docks, it struck me as odd that Egosoft wouldn't simply, I don't know, have you actually force-dock and join your marines in an exciting FPS battle royale. But alas, no. Wishful thinking, I know, but, sigh. The ship will remain the same size.

But its more than those handful of bug-thought design choices. Its a whole slew of them. They all point to a single overriding feeling that the game exudes when I play it: Unfinished. Not ready. Throttled. Maybe in 6 months, it will be finished, but even then, given some of the extremely constraining design choices that Egosoft has built into the architecture, it will likely take 3 to 4 years of intensive modding in order to reach its full dollar value. This could have been fixed, mind you, given 1-3 months of additional development, with a 12-18 month modding cycle. But they released too early.

What does this mean? Well, I look at games more holistically, in terms of where they can go, in terms of replay and mod value. While the X universe certainly has a very capable, dedicated core of modders and fans, this failed release is going to put severe strains on them, and in the meantime will potentially not attract enough new users to compensate for attrition amongst less dedicated fans. Keep in mind that each new user has a small statistical probability of becoming a modder themselves. This is part of the cycle that can extend the lifespan - and thus profitability - of a game. This is predicated, of course, upon the playing experience, which at present is pretty, but intensely frustrating. This denting of the game's long-term viability in turn damages the resources used for future development, in a vicious cycle which has severely damaged even the most established developers in games past (Which is often compensated for using healthy capital reserves, which I doubt Egosoft has).

So where does it go? For starters, Egosoft needs to up the package. Throw in a 75% coupon on X3 with TC and AP, or better yet, a free copy. That will mollify people and give them something to do while they wait on the patches, while still retaining them as future fans. Next, they need to engage fans directly in some method of constructively improving the game. For example, a community voice acting competition, where different people submit and vote on different renditions of lines or NPCs. Thirdly, they have to complete the game, obviously. They can accelerate this by creating a closed play testing community of old-timers and modders. After that is completed, they need to overhaul and redesign large sections of the game to comport more fully with franchise elements:

Note: These could be done by Egosoft or Modders. It represents about 1.2 years of work. They are not ordered by any way or metric. Just ideas. Items with * are key desired/necessary features/redesigns/mods
1*) The dialog system needs to become optional next to a traditional command menu system
2*) Reintroduce more small ships. As well the remote piloting feature that was promised. Recommend adapting the drone control entrance animation and mechanism for this purpose.
3*) The Skunk needs to be expandable as well as upgradeable. Even if its just to a corvette class ship, I want to run it into a shipyard, watch then tack on more parts, and run out.
4) Tweaking to the station building.
5*) Changes to the trade dynamic, perhaps reintroducing satellites and other deployables.
6) More dynamic trading consequences
7*) MORE PLACES TO GO
8) Zoomable, pan-able maps. For the love of benji, how did this not come up?
9) Fire whoever wrote the script for Ren Otani. Or dock their pay. Seriously. "Show me your wares" sounds like a line from a Space Quest themed D-Grade Porno from the early 90's. 9a) Use the docked pay from script writer to hire acting coach for the voice actor for Yisha Tarren. Very stilted, at times. The actor for Ren is decent enough.
10) Ability to substitute small freighters for cargo lift drones as an operation.
11) Ability to tweak operations and actions in the manner described by item 10
12*) Tactics. Missile usage, Safe/Fire, global hostile, fight/flight, etc.
13*) A Fleet system, in which you can tack large numbers of ships into a group that can be commanded to move (Essentially pegging the formation or leashing individuals to a point) and function with squads (Say of fighters and freighters, or even large mutually supporting ships) with their own customizable strategies for ranging, missile usage, fighter deployment)
14) Greater ship variety, particularly at the M level (Corvettes and fighter-destroyers)
15*) Less giveaways in the campaign mode. I mean, seriously. A destroyer 6 missions in? Its so useless, btw, that everyone sells it for 28 million, thus ruining the games economic progression. Just saying. I mean, the main character is this hard luck freelancer who gets his big break finding a derelict in a wreck field, yet he's just sitting on a fully capable E-freighter this whole time? Seriously.
16) Basic turrets on all freighters, even if its simply a rear maser.
17) Escort assignments
18*) Full ship command functionality on par with X2:AP (Go here, jump there, blow that up, drop those off, pick that up, dock with that thingamabob). You're running a business empire, and your character is the boss. This whole "Handsoff" squad based management dynamic doesn't fit. Squads are for fighting, not trading. 18a) Reorganize the trading interface to post the closest ship to the proposed deal first. Also add options to change that variable prioritization, to say, most space then fewest jumps.
19*) ECM and AI missile usage. Modules and additional monitors should be added to the front-viewport to accomodate this. You can actually now use the different seeker types introduced in the original trilogy for something. Go figure.
20*) An AI that actually works. I mean seriously, the AI hatred in the NPC game universe culture seems to have infiltrated your dev staff.
21*) You have to overhaul and redesign the Arawn before you get sued for basically lifting the hull of a Battlestar from Battlestar Galactica. I'm not even kidding. It stands out drastically against all other ship types and screams "I DONT BELONG HERE BECAUSE SOMEONE HAD A BRAINFART AND NEEDED A SEXY XL BATTLESHIP" Chopping the front and turning it into a hangar ain't sufficient.
22*) Rework the boarding dynamic to make sense. Military ships have boarding defense teams and damage control teams as separate units, especially on larger ships, and no one is going to divert to repair a blown out turret when you've got hostiles clanking around your bridge. SOP would be to seal the section and rotate the ship to bring an intact battery to bear. The hacking should stay, but add the option to hack bulkheads or vent atmosphere.
23*) Add bridge components on larger ships that can be hacked to damage maneuverability, and decouple main engine damage from maneuverability, as the two have no correlation in even contemporary spacecraft. On such craft, even present modern naval vessels and aircraft, you have to either damage the control surfaces or destroy the bridge/cockpit to cause an engines-on deadstick scenario.
24*) Add engines-on deadstick scenarios. Just for giggles and so you can force massive ships to ram stations. Doing so would be a first in space simulations, I would wager.
25*) Realistic physics based collision damage. Just make sure you fix the AI first
26) Retool AI collision avoidance to a box/sphere system based on module/ship proximity, rather than the push/collide/maneuver system presently employed, which looks stupid, sloppy, and massively slows down mission progression.
27) Mission variety
28) Mission scaling. It shouldn't be offering me "KILL THIS HUGE ARAWN" missions when I have l1 shields and weapons.
29*) The campaign moves too quickly and unrealistically. The gate just magically turns on and ends decades of isolation? Yet its treated as blase. First contact with a new terran faction? "OH HEY WE TRUST YOU! DOCK HANDSHAKE LOL GET US GOODIES BECAUSE YOU BLEW UP OUR DEPERSONALIZED NERF ENEMIES once or twice"
30****) Difficulty settings. Seriously. I can dogfight and even kill capital ships in this game while 3/4's asleep. They don't even launch missiles!
31***) You need to fix the whole "Sidebar info popup screen" in the cockpit to be an optional front screen
32****) The ship should not stop moving unless I tell it too. I don't care if I just popped open an encyclopedia entry or am negotiating a trade.
33********************************************************************************) SETA. I don't care what you've said in press releases. You are going to add it back in. I don't care if you have to rebuild the whole damn game engine to accommodate it. Either you or a modder will add it in or people will not play it seriously. If I want to occupy my time playing side-missions while executing trades or want to eat that time up in SETA, that's my fundamental choice, as it should be, just as it was in all previous X games. Further, its a continuity issue. You've had it as an item in nearly every game. Did the X-universe suddenly un-invent a major technology? Does not compute.
34) Early campaign light xenon encounters. Just to spook the newbies and remind people they are there. Make it a minor plot mission to investigate a xenon incursion for Heart of Albion or something.
35) More trade stations
36) Eliminate fuel cells. Pointless commodity. You have no less than 3 separate energy storage mediums in a backstory that is based upon a single unified one. Further, their scarcity places extreme limitations on player capital ship movement, especially early on, leading to losing things campaign mode gives as critical items.
37) Random straggling Khaak would be interesting.
38) A limited range UFJD that can't reach the cutoff sectors but which can jump to the outskirts of the main plot sectors would an interesting way of extending replayability.
39**) Ability to build hab stations which turn food rations into credits from taxation. With tweakable tax rates and "desirability" characteristics that can be expanded with luxury modules, additional inputs of goods, jobs on in-zone stations, etc. And the ability to set policies. I'm an MPA student. Sue me.
40*) Employment dynamics incorporated into overhead calculations for stations.
41*) More encounters with the disparate community races. The notion of running into suited up boron and armored splint on stations appeals to me. Also, being spit on by Paranid. I mean, it used to be an Argon sector, so they are all there. You can't tell me a few passenger transports didn't get stranded.
42) Single use hull-repair drones
43*) The officer system needs retooling, to the point of actually boosting ship systems. Not really seeing the pay-off at present. Also, seriously, some skill evaluation would be nice. Maybe dialog questions about their work history?
44*) More Large asteroids and the ability to mine them through redeployable stations.
45*) Ability to buy any ship at any ship dealer, so long as there is no faction conflict.
46*) A customizable play-list based music player. Not saying anything about the music, which is fine, but it would be a nice addition. I mention this mostly because I played Homeworld 2 Complex mod which has an intensely sweet but uncustomizable one in it. Basically, pipe your youtube playlists into the game. Go on. Think about it. Youtube would likely pay you to introduce that functionality. Also, I totally chilled out to a repeating track of the theme song to Strike Suit Zero while writing this.

I believe that these and other suggestions will fully complete X:Rebirth, and lay the groundwork for the next game in the series. Feel free to add yours. Also, pester people to sticky this, because I didn't type 3000 words just to let it fizzle to the bottom. And for the good of the game, it should stick around. I want to see these in the game.

[Teln3t]

Text wall I did not read, was too busy trying to find out why my ship is stuck at 0%.

[Ishanda]

Throw in a 75% coupon on X2 with TC and AP, or better yet, a free copy.

Since I do not have AP, I'll settle for my free copy.

It represents about 1.2 years of work.

You make many good points and while I am sure some people will do it, the vast majority of the "new audience" won't wait around 1.2 years. That is 100% guaranteed, and make no mistake, Egosoft are going to have to rely on the "new audience" now since their core fanbase has been eroded by this one. What COULD however work (and only then) would be if Egosoft very quickly comes up with a very detailed roadmap on exactly what their plans are and shares this with the community and the media at large.

[SunofVich]

A sheer cliff of text.
Ain't no body got time for that.

Basically complexity upon complexity upon complexity that is the X3 series had to be flushed and restarted just as it did from X2 to X3. People were gonna QQ regardless of what this was, just like they did with X3 after X2.

[Ghost-Insignus]

That complexity is what made some people like it. Also, I can understand your point. This is why you make that complexity optional. You dual track it to make it so different people can engage at different depths. Its not that hard a concept. Its called "Hardmoding"

Also, the complexity of a thing is not an argument against its existence, rather, a condition of it (Repurposed Nietzche). While simplicity can often be good, it can also be clumsy. Life itself itself is both complicated and simple, and both are often enjoyable in different measures. The whole "Oh they had to flush it to restart" argument doesn't fly with me. I mean, crap, you spend years and tens of thousands of dollars building a system, a fanbase, and a backstory. Why would you flush parts of it? I mean, hell, you can reinvent the game while maintaining the mechanism. It merely requires additional creativity in your story telling.

[Ghost-Insignus]

Also, I don't really recall people QQing over tossouts between X2 and X3. Those were mods, addons. What I am talking about is changes in core functionality and baseline features, not mods. There's always going to be a "Why didn't you add in my mods to the next game?" crowd, and sometimes those mods get incorporated, but we're talking about substantive and largely unnecessary design revisions that change the nature of the franchise.

[bluesme]

Prefered Uncle Paulie list from first page if this thread here:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=349253&start=0

[Ghost-Insignus]

I hadn't seen that, but thanks. I oriented my list towards a more strategic set of ideas and concepts for Egosoft or the mod community to incorporate into the game. His no-nearest target in particular was something I"d noticed, but apparently omitted from my listing.

[Lyth]

Well I read your post, close to what I felt the first half of the time I spent playing the game, then, I realised that the features you want will never be there - this is an action game based in the X universe, the strategy game you (and I) want is not this, won't be this, cannot be this. There's always X Rebirth 2 which we can only hope will be the strategy game version.

[Sovereign01]

TLDR- 'nuff said.

[DJC]

I will not have this game until the 26th, Issues or not I will get it. I know how EGOSOFT works as does obviously the OP of this post. What baffles me is all the complaints about the changes from the old X games, not the bugs they will be fixed. We all were told that this game was going in a dif. direction a long time ago, like when Albion Prelude came out. It is unjust for that reason to complain about this new aspect of the game. Expressing your disapointment is differant then complaning and demanding that they make this X4 by adding old X game content, it is not X4 and was never supposed to be and never will be. You did not have to buy it.

To the new people to Egosoft the bugs will be fixed, new content will be addeded, texture packs will be released, and things wil be tweaked until this is an epic game, at least that is the exp. that I have seen in the past

[Mauzi!]

Fancy post and all - nothing new for X veterans though, of course.

What I am missing:

A word about Egosoft having outright lied to their customers instead of "just" providing a bugged game. The latter is fine and generally accepted by the X community, the first is ruining any trust that lead to community helping Egosoft getting where they are now.

And all this while demanding a premium price - but you got a few suggestions for that via freebies of older games. Not that this would ever happen, since Egosoft clearly prefers the coin of trying to sell e.g. X³AP for a while longer over making unhappy customers happy. Plus, most X veterans have those games anyways - so it would just be helpful for newcomers, who most likely have much less issues with the lack of depth.

A word about the community having been the key to the X series' success in the past, and that after driving many of them away or at least pi$$ing them off there's less people inclined to fulfill Egosoft's promises for free while wasting endless hours of their sparetime.

Omitting these points reduces the credibility of knowing the grand picture quite a bit.

[DJC]

Fancy post and all - nothing new for X veterans though, of course.

What I am missing:

A word about Egosoft having outright lied to their customers instead of "just" providing a bugged game. The latter is fine and generally accepted by the X community, the first is ruining any trust that lead to community helping Egosoft getting where they are now.

And all this while demanding a premium price - but you got a few suggestions for that via freebies of older games. Not that this would ever happen, since Egosoft clearly prefers the coin of trying to sell e.g. X³AP for a while longer over making unhappy customers happy. Plus, most X veterans have those games anyways - so it would just be helpful for newcomers, who most likely have much less issues with the lack of depth.

A word about the community having been the key to the X series' success in the past, and that after driving many of them away or at least pi$$ing them off there's less people inclined to fulfill Egosoft's promises for free while wasting endless hours of their sparetime.

Omitting these points reduces the credibility of knowing the grand picture quite a bit.

as I said before I dont have the game yet so I cant speak to it but 2 days before realeace I found a recorded demo that IGN I beleive got there hands on and it seamed to offer all that was promissed. it did seam unfinished but that is a demo. but still from what I saw there were no lies. I guess I will find out on the 26th. I hope I an not barking up the wrong tree.

[Mauzi!]

as I said before I dont have the game yet so I cant speak to it but 2 days before realeace I found a recorded demo that IGN I beleive got there hands on and it seamed to offer all that was promissed. it did seam unfinished but that is a demo. but still from what I saw there were no lies. I guess I will find out on the 26th. I hope I an not barking up the wrong tree.

In that case you missed out a few important facts: The only "demo" that Egosoft let out before release was a combat demo which in no way showed the actual game. For a reason, obviously.

While it's getting old to repost this interview over and over, since you asked for it here it is again:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... -of-Legacy

The lieing portion is this:

Any fan of space simulations will find the UI in X Rebirth easy to use and much more intuitive, but the 'Trade, Fight, Build, Think' gameplay elements and interaction remain as deep as X game fans have come to expect.

I'd claim that the above statement cannot be misinterpreted by any means and names a crystal clear promise. And he never cared to reply to this being called a lie except "We told you this isn't X4" - true, he promised more than the old games under a different name.

I am sure they'll iron out the bugs sooner or later. The question is what type of game XR will be in the future, or rather if Egosoft manages to turn it from an arcadish wannabe-4X game into the promised real one. At this time I consider it impossible to know what kind of game we'll get or what XR will be.

[DJC]

as I said before I dont have the game yet so I cant speak to it but 2 days before realeace I found a recorded demo that IGN I beleive got there hands on and it seamed to offer all that was promissed. it did seam unfinished but that is a demo. but still from what I saw there were no lies. I guess I will find out on the 26th. I hope I an not barking up the wrong tree.

In that case you missed out a few important facts: The only "demo" that Egosoft let out before release was a combat demo which in no way showed the actual game. For a reason, obviously.

While it's getting old to repost this interview over and over, since you asked for it here it is again:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... -of-Legacy

The lieing portion is this:

Any fan of space simulations will find the UI in X Rebirth easy to use and much more intuitive, but the 'Trade, Fight, Build, Think' gameplay elements and interaction remain as deep as X game fans have come to expect.

I'd claim that the above statement cannot be misinterpreted by any means and names a crystal clear promise. And he never cared to reply to this being called a lie except "We told you this isn't X4" - true, he promised more than the old games under a different name.

I am sure they'll iron out the bugs sooner or later. The question is what type of game XR will be in the future, or rather if Egosoft manages to turn it from an arcadish wannabe-4X game into the promised real one. At this time I consider it impossible to know what kind of game we'll get or what XR will be.

well if that link was the demo you spoke of it is most certianly not what I saw I cant do it now but I will try to find it again. According to the person nariting this was an exclusive release and not to the public. I watched as the player (someone at IGN I think) fly the skunk land go through the stations open boxes and and talk to people go in the highways among some other things. it all looked like just what was said we would get.

as for the UI well I will have to see it for myself to comment. X2 was my first X game and I hated the UI, I had to buy a N52 controler before I could even think of playing but after I got used to It it became 2nd nature. I just wonder if it is just the dif. that is upsetting. This I will find out when I get it.

[Manddrack]

Interesting idea but when you submit them avoid screaming at the dev in mean time.

It's limiting the likeness to be taken into account.

[Ghost-Insignus]

Aye, thats why I didn't put in a lot of the stuff in a vein that Manzuil was taking. I may share some sentiments, but its not going to do much to move them to consider adding them in.

As to the whole "Directionality" thing.
I accept different directions. Branches, for example, grow in different directions. They skew in one or another, but generally follow or start from a common root.

Egosoft, this go around, chose to clip it off and plant it in a shady outhouse, hoping to god it will grow through the roof in time. I mean, if you want to make a more casual fighty game, thats absolutely fine. Just tell people that "We want to make a more casual X game to bring in new blood, but the next one will be epically on-target with our original model, this will just test our new engine and combat model, YEAH!".

If they had done that, a lot of people would've taken a pass, but many also would've bought it simply to show support. And we would not have nearly as many complaints. People are not simply complaining because it doesn't work for them. They feel like they are not getting a desired product, and its not simply a "Oh this is 100% of what I wanted so I'm going to whine about it" mentality, either. This is UPS stuffing a year old pizza into a game box, running it over with a truck, then launching it at your front door with an air cannon from the road. Savvy?

[Nomadian]

We all were told that this game was going in a dif. direction a long time ago, like when Albion Prelude came out.

X3TC to X3AP is nearly the same game.

X3anything to X Rebirth is a completely different genre. The transition to this game is nothing like the transition to X3AP. If you are expecting an economic simulator as it's core gameplay you are in for a rude awakening. Rebirth is more like a FPS shooter or an arcade game. If that's what you want then you will probably be content. But I can't see how any real fan of the X series would prefer a FPS/Arcade title over the traditional economic simulator as the core gameplay of an X game.

It is unjust for that reason to complain about this new aspect of the game. Expressing your disapointment is differant then complaning and demanding that they make this X4 by adding old X game content, it is not X4 and was never supposed to be and never will be. You did not have to buy it.

To the new people to Egosoft the bugs will be fixed, new content will be addeded, texture packs will be released, and things wil be tweaked until this is an epic game, at least that is the exp. that I have seen in the past

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewforum.php?f=109

Where in the stickies in that forum does it say Rebirth will not be an economic simulator? Even a post to a video and a time stamp or a developer comment will appease me.

I have no doubt that they will fix the bugs like they always do. But will the game remain a FPS shooter (or w/e you call it) or will it be an economic simulator in the end?


At the OP:
I doubt you are going to get a lot of the stuff in that list. If you do it will certainly be a long time from now. But I guess time will tell. I hope you do.

[DJC]

We all were told that this game was going in a dif. direction a long time ago, like when Albion Prelude came out.

X3TC to X3AP is nearly the same game.

X3anything to X Rebirth is a completely different genre. The transition to this game is nothing like the transition to X3AP. If you are expecting an economic simulator as it's core gameplay you are in for a rude awakening. Rebirth is more like a FPS shooter or an arcade game. If that's what you want then you will probably be content. But I can't see how any real fan of the X series would prefer a FPS/Arcade title over the traditional economic simulator as the core gameplay of an X game.

It is unjust for that reason to complain about this new aspect of the game. Expressing your disapointment is differant then complaning and demanding that they make this X4 by adding old X game content, it is not X4 and was never supposed to be and never will be. You did not have to buy it.

To the new people to Egosoft the bugs will be fixed, new content will be addeded, texture packs will be released, and things wil be tweaked until this is an epic game, at least that is the exp. that I have seen in the past

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewforum.php?f=109

Where in the stickies in that forum does it say Rebirth will not be an economic simulator? Even a post to a video and a time stamp or a developer comment will appease me.

Sorry I dont just read I reserch,I cant tell you where that came from. maby the fact that ( I have not finished AP yet) in ap the sun is suposed to go nova and destroy everything I know I read this stuff somewhere and that the races would be dif. the fact that we were told that there would no longer be jump gates because they were all destroyed. the fact that there would now be these "highways", the one ship thing. I could go on, the evidance was clear from the release of AP. I dont like to talk disrespectfuly BUT, I guess I did not put my head in the sand. I put the obvious together and deducted that this game was obviously going in a dif. direction. it was obvious that this was going to be a drastic change to the series there was no slow transition to make. The sun goes nova for god sake what else could you posibly expect.
If you dont like the game suck it up. You have know idea how many games sit on my shelf that I cant stand. I dont like it but that is the gaming world. let it go and move on.

I will tell you and all that continue to bash this game and the devs. You as a hole could crash EGOSOFT with this, and then your hope for the posibility of an X4 will truly be dead. I loved the old series also. Maby instead of bashing and threating to kill (the devs) and calling this game some of the most discusting things posible (no one in this post). Just except this game for what it is weather you like it or not. They just might bring the old X back if we continue to suport them. But this game will not be it.

[Nomadian]

We all were told that this game was going in a dif. direction a long time ago, like when Albion Prelude came out.

X3TC to X3AP is nearly the same game.

X3anything to X Rebirth is a completely different genre. The transition to this game is nothing like the transition to X3AP. If you are expecting an economic simulator as it's core gameplay you are in for a rude awakening. Rebirth is more like a FPS shooter or an arcade game. If that's what you want then you will probably be content. But I can't see how any real fan of the X series would prefer a FPS/Arcade title over the traditional economic simulator as the core gameplay of an X game.

It is unjust for that reason to complain about this new aspect of the game. Expressing your disapointment is differant then complaning and demanding that they make this X4 by adding old X game content, it is not X4 and was never supposed to be and never will be. You did not have to buy it.

To the new people to Egosoft the bugs will be fixed, new content will be addeded, texture packs will be released, and things wil be tweaked until this is an epic game, at least that is the exp. that I have seen in the past

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewforum.php?f=109

Where in the stickies in that forum does it say Rebirth will not be an economic simulator? Even a post to a video and a time stamp or a developer comment will appease me.

Sorry I dont just read I reserch,I cant tell you where that came from. maby the fact that ( I have not finished AP yet) in ap the sun is suposed to go nova and destroy everything I know I read this stuff somewhere and that the races would be dif. the fact that we were told that there would no longer be jump gates because they were all destroyed. the fact that there would now be these "highways", the one ship thing. I could go on, the evidance was clear from the release of AP. I dont like to talk disrespectfuly BUT, I guess I did not put my head in the sand. I put the obvious together and deducted that this game was obviously going in a dif. direction. it was obvious that this was going to be a drastic change to the series there was no slow transition to make. The sun goes nova for god sake what else could you posibly expect.
If you dont like the game suck it up. You have know idea how many games sit on my shelf that I cant stand. I dont like it but that is the gaming world. let it go and move on.

I will tell you and all that continue to bash this game and the devs. You as a hole could crash EGOSOFT with this, and then your hope for the posibility of an X4 will truly be dead. I loved the old series also. Maby instead of bashing and threating to kill (the devs) and calling this game some of the most discusting things posible (no one in this post). Just except this game for what it is weather you like it or not. They just might bring the old X back if we continue to suport them. But this game will not be it.

Slow down there... I didn't bash anything. No, I don't like the game. But I didn't say anything about the game that was false. Nor did I say anything about the game that was demeaning, unless you consider calling it a FPS or Arcade game demeaning. But that's what it is... Is it wrong to put it into the genre where it belongs?

Egosoft made the game the way they did, I didn't. The critics are bashing it into oblivion, not me. I may have said a few negative things about the game here and there around the forum, but I've been very civil about it and I've been honest to the best of my ability. If honesty brings the end of Egosoft, then perhaps it was meant to be? I'll not feel remorse for being honest.