Will there be a public statement about problems in Art department?

[battou]

So, now, after dozens of threads here and on steam about noticeable art design and music downgrade in quality, quantity and detail compared to previous instalments, its obvious that there is some problem with art department in EgoSoft. Too many of us dislike stale, almost absent music, generic, not detailed, mirrored and bulky design of the ships and boring look alike stations.

Will Egosoft release a statement about current state of things in company? Does they have lost their lead designer and composer? Because if I vould knew that X series lost its soul and style, I vould never preorder this game. And lets be fair, there is many space trading fighting games, and X always stood out with its fantastic, charismatic and unique music, art style, lore and gameplay mechanics. And now the new X4 is lacking in almost every thing compared to X1 2 and 3 in regards of art, style and atmosphere.

I vould like to know, as a costumer and a fan of the series since X-Tension, what is happend and happening in the company.

Thank you.

[-Kulu-]

I also do miss the music and the diversity in ships...

[Socratatus]

I always switch music off in all my games. I play my own music off the pc.

To be honest, I find your demand for a public statement rather funny. Maybe some of these missing things are part of the cost of having a game that never needs to Load while playing?

[Kadatherion]

Yes, there is a design problem at Egosoft, whichever it might be, and no, there won't be any official statement in that regard. That would be shooting their own foot, as it would mean admitting the current state of the game in that department is underwhelming (which would encourage and lit a much bigger backlash, which would come from trolls and haters mostly instead of legitimately concerned players), and would also be an incredible slap in the face of their current art department, nobody in his right mind would do that unless the state of things was so dramatic they'd have to lay off people and rush for damage control. Steam reviews are at 72% - mostly positive - which means that no, the situation isn't so dramatic to justify such a thing.

Their current art and modeling guys might have done a questionable work when compared to their previous titles, but their boss going online basically saying "we are sorry our art guys suck at their job" (that's how people would read it anyway) would be incredibly rude.

[DancingPengiun]

Another request thread..

You say you are a fan yet you haven't done much research tbh. The music sounds fine to me and it is the same composer from previous games (Alexei Zakharov).

As for the art side. Yes, it seems to be slightly lacking compared to X-Rebirth and looking at their job page, they are looking for senior artist (3D) with AAA experience. So it could indicate something or not.

At this point, anything is speculation.

[MrMikey]

I think the game is just fine beside a few things (turrets accuracy, reaction times (made worse with the very limited range of M turrets, they barely shoot at all) for instance). The gfx is fine and the music/ambient isn't bad at all, in fact i like it!

Rather take a few % off poly count/tex res and have the immersion that the seamless game-play play brings and that's what i think it boils down to, stream read huge assets while in game will cause issues for most systems like stutter, pop ins and bigger system reqs. I think they got a good balance for most players. What many seems to fail to realize is that the endgame should still be playable - When you have 100 of ships/stations in sight or perhaps you gfx snobbs don't care if you have 1 fps... bet you would cry about that too tho

No matter whats done - Crybabies are always gonna cry!

[bl3ek]

Ships and stations are all modular now, that compromises the design. I can live with that, but there needs to be a little more imagination going forwards.

Particularly in the lack of ship diversity, which is an issue compared to X3. I like the game but this is underwhelming.

I personally really like the music, there just isn't enough of it! Thankfully there's a mod that pulls in XR and/or X3 music too.

[mr.WHO]

Music is done by the same author as X3 music!

However I do admit that when I listen to entire soundtrack it looks like about 50% of the music are quiet/mystery/spooky sector music. There are very few X3 style loud music like X3 Kingdom End.

Additionally there are some technical issues with sound and music gradually stopping playing during your game - for me these have been solved by 1.30 patch and now I hear sounds and music more often.


As for ship art design - unfortunately they are limited by the new X4 design style (e.g. S-ship must fit M-ship dock and landing platform, M-ship must fit S-ship dock while also beign able to land on dock platform of station and Carrier.

The longer I look at designs the better I see that it's not artistic imagination that is lacking, but gameplay/technical reason that limit the design.

[Kadatherion]

The longer I look at designs the better I see that it's not artistic imagination that is lacking, but gameplay/technical reason that limit the design.

It's a bit of both. A talented artist could probably work around those issues a little better (but no miracles can be done in short time, that's for sure), and those issues don't excuse blatant cut corners like with the mirroring of models and textures.