Game feels pretty good, but the first plot mission...

[Necromation]

Ok let me start of by saying that I a really big X fan. I put thousands upon thousands of hours into x3.

And x4 so far looks really good.

But what the hell were you guys thinking with that stupid ass plot mission so early on?

Literally the first mission I have found, and it just a trivial as f*ck plot line, that basically provides everything it needs by itself.

And after maybe 2 hours of gameplay you literally have your HQ?

What?

Where is the feeling of progression in that?

Where is my "farm 10k Microships"? My "Fly into a spooky as **** xenon sector"? Where is preparing a fully slotted ship to even tackle such a mission?


**** it is so infuriating... You can literally just accept the mission without any preparation in the shittiest ship and be done with it in 2 hours. And you get your free HQ.

Yo.. egosoft... the thing about X games was always the long term investment and gratification.

This feels just shit. Reward without effort meaningless.

[ZombiePotatoSalad]

Well, you still have to build all the components, so there's that.

It's much less of a "learning cliff" than X3.

[Kaeltheras]

Pretty much. and you'll have to get enough credits/resources to get it put together, and depending on your start, it can be a really PITA

[Flappy]

Thanks OP,

I'm SO glad to have read this BEFORE purchase. ALL the X3 games I ordered directly from Ego themselves as well as Steam just so I could have the physical copies of the X Encyclopedia, paper manuals and sundry plus support the Devs. But since the "somewhat" less than stellar reception at launch of this one's predecessor I'm forever gun-shy.

I never DID get the idea behind ANY of the design elements of Stations in XR in ANY of its' incarnations beyond unimplemented console code and don't let me start on the gutted from that cut and paste port that is XRVR. Plus I miss the Paranid.

I used to almost RP my play sessions in X3, I too probably have thousands of hours in it from Reunion to AP. I remember when I first became aware of the X series, it was for X-2 and all us Freespace fans absolutely freaked over the screen shots. I couldn't get my order from Babbage's quickly enough when it shipped. I still have it. I still have everything that I've EVER gotten from EGO including the hand-signed thank you from Bernd's Wife when I got my Superbox shipped all the way here from Germany.

Which is why when I notice that you are even more of a long-term lurker here than me (3 posts since '05!) I tend to take heed. I'm not paying a hundred bucks or even 50 for another X360 controller-driven mess. I don't care that I can play it with my Warthog OR on my iMac fancy monitor I WANT X3's universe. A bigger, vaster more vibrant one to be sure but I want X3's depth.

Newb users? Screw 'em, I say. X-2 had a great starting sequence, remember? You were jacking a Space Ship. You went to prison.
Some dude with a recycled name from Asimov or Heinline was gonna explain to you why Ban Danna was cutting you loose and giving you a Disco. Boom, there it is. Heck, X didn't even ship with a manual did it? As for hand-holding, get the control interface sequence interactive and throw the Player to the Wolves. It took me FOREVER to learn the HOTAS scheme in Elite for my Warthog, let alone how to fly and fight in that game, but the investment was worth it. I had a real feeling of accomplishment when I first landed on a planet in VR. I literally broke into an ear to ear grin as soon as the "Cobra" had landed.

So thank you OP for posting this. I'll be watching of course, but I feel that I already KNOW how I'm going to feel about this game, and it's a damned shame. I used to love Ego's X series games, they kept me alive through many hard years with NO Space Sims and reading all the Fan translations and playing X:3 made you feel almost part of a cult.

[eddieg]

but OP... and follow ups... the game is going to be what you make of it; disregard the plot mission then! Take another start, go off to do what you want. Some players will need that help...

[Wou]

The Centaur you got in AP for few menial tasks was bad enough, but this seems even worse. Glad I haven't started doing any of this stuff yet.

[mr.WHO]

How do you trigger the HQ plotline? I skipped the tutorial buy some people say you need to run tutorial to trigger the plot.

[keno1999]

Hmm, I suppose its good then that the HQ mission is completely bugged for me and wont let me start it without it disabling my ability to access any of the menus aside from ESC.

EDIT: this is/was my issue: viewtopic.php?f=180&t=403024

[Revenant342]

So that's it? That's seriously the end of the plot? I've got the PHQ with half the research done and I've been waiting for what's next. Especially with how they hyped up the research aspect! It's literally just "Build the dock, kill two fighters, watch a transport ship crawl across the map, wait 10 minutes per research item," seriously!!!?? I was expecting to at least have to build a new research wing or something to unlock the higher tiers of research, but nope! Just go fix yourself a coffee while your next teleporter level unlocks.

I honestly spent way more time in this plot just figuring out how to get things like the CV builder to work than actually playing the missions. Now that's behind me, I'm pretty sure I could complete this whole thing in an hour or two with the starting Elite. There's really nothing after this?

[Kaeltheras]

So that's it? That's seriously the end of the plot? I've got the PHQ with half the research done and I've been waiting for what's next. Especially with how they hyped up the research aspect! It's literally just "Build the dock, kill two fighters, watch a transport ship crawl across the map, wait 10 minutes per research item," seriously!!!?? I was expecting to at least have to build a new research wing or something to unlock the higher tiers of research, but nope! Just go fix yourself a coffee while your next teleporter level unlocks.

I honestly spent way more time in this plot just figuring out how to get things like the CV builder to work than actually playing the missions. Now that's behind me, I'm pretty sure I could complete this whole thing in an hour or two with the starting Elite. There's really nothing after this?

Yeah, the researching seemed a little ummm sad with it being 10 min per item. I thought it'd be scaling or I'd have to do more? maybe that was the original intent, but they just put a blanket 10 min (or maybe its a glitch? LoL?)
I think this is the setup for the next DLC : / . but on the nothing after, There's a lot to do with the civil war and other fun plot missions that I've found.

[Revenant342]

I joined the Argon/Xenon war and all it gave me was a bunch of chained generic missions :/

Is the Paranid vs. Holy Order war an actual plot, then?