Egosoft, Plese stick to what you are good at!

[-Dna-]

Does anyone know, if EGOSOFT outsources i.e. their animation work via sites like www.fiverr.com?

I mean, they are a small team - maybe it would be best they concentrate on what they do best and give the stuff, they can not do as well to specialists.

I guess they are doing that already, but I still would like to know how they do it.

For Terran Conflict - if I'm not mistaken - they outsourced the creation of Terran ships and stations model to these guys http://www.thelightworks.com/?lang=en&n ... lustration (and I think this is also where Preuss works? ).

EDIT: They did some help with XR too http://www.thelightworks.com/?lang=en&n ... ertainment

[CBJ]

We do have specialists on our team, but if you look at the game credits, you'll see that we also involve external companies to help with some elements of our art department's work.

[Hairless-Ape]

Wow, what an offensive post.
I'm not sure which is worse, the disrespectful title, or crap comments like "its the economy stupid".

I can agree with part of the expressed desires of the author, and I too think the economy complexity is core to the game play, but this is exactly the tone that they don't appreciate for all their hard work, and no way to get the result you want.

I have faith that the egosoft Devs know the spirit of the past X games and trust that they will keep the faith there, and do much more to make it even better. Lets not beat on them guys. Keep positive please.

Love your work Egosoft. Can't wait for X4 !

[Dreez]

After watching the trailer, i'm inclined to say that i will continue playing X3 - sadly.

I have ZERO interest in walking in stations, and an X-game without Split, Teladi, Boron, Paranid,
it just another non-special space-sim for me...

X3 with U4E graphis - yes please.

[mr.WHO]

Oh FFS! The station walking has been reduced to station landing bay which seems quite small and functional. All mentioned race except Borons (which might be added later as they are work in progress) are in.

It's disturbing how people seems to hate X4 only because it share engine with X-Rebirth. It's like game racism!

[Shimrod]

I have a similar experience, played the original X series heavily but could not get into Rebirth, currently playing Elite.

I think if NPC interactions are going to be central to the game, the NPCs need to look decent, have different personalities and voices, and in station environments move around based on their job/schedule rather than remain motionless.

If walking about stations is in there, one can understand similarities due to prefab nature of stations, but we should expect each race to have different interiors, and each station type interior should differ. Like wheat farm you should be able to go into the domes with the wheat etc. Bars should play more than 1 song, and each race should have entertainment appropriate to their language and culture.

If I crew interaction is in there I want it to be like Firefly or being on the Normandy when I played ME:2, no 2 people the same, different voices etc, bit of drama and all that.

That said, I mostly just want to fly around, shoot things, do missions etc like in X3. All that other stuff could be nice, if fully resourced and polished, but I'd be inclined to focus on the bread and butter of the space sim for the initial release, and leave the nice to haves for expansions.

[Graaf]

There's a video out there showing 100's of small fighters attacking a Xenon I.

I'm certain it all went well, given that they don't really use collision damage in Rebirth.

It's disturbing how people seems to hate X4 only because it share engine with X-Rebirth. It's like game racism!

If it was just the engine we wouldn't have a problem. It's just that they send a newsletter informing us about this real X4 they are making, but all they talk about is Rebirth 2.

[mr.WHO]

It's disturbing how people seems to hate X4 only because it share engine with X-Rebirth. It's like game racism!

If it was just the engine we wouldn't have a problem. It's just that they send a newsletter informing us about this real X4 they are making, but all they talk about is Rebirth 2.

What about current X4 information makes you think it's X-Rebirth 2, other than game engine and highways?

[Skeeter]

I think that's the problem mrwho. Some people expected x3 based game but evolved into x4, not x rebirth being evolved to x4. Being that they expected the old sectors with gates and not rebirths systems and zones method, no highways they expected as they weren't in x3 buy were in xr. So its easy to see why some are saying its x rebirth 2.0 as egosoft are basically using x rebirth and its features like highways etc and expanding it to make x4 which tbh u can see as its sounding and looking like rebirth just with multiple flyable ships now and a fancy map system added and saying its x4. I think that's what people are fearing.


That's what I think others are meaning, me personally I haven't decided as waiting till its near release to see if its like rebirth with a update or feel like a proper evolution overall.

[mr.WHO]

I understand the X3 nostalgia, but the game itself was a GUI horror and the engine was ancient.
I understant the hate on X-Rebirth as I'm among the people who hated XR untill around 3.0.

However it need to be cleal - there is no going back to X3, just like there is no going back to X-Rebirth - both are dead end's. What the XR is that X3 isn't - an necessary prototype for X4. Out of it's many shortcomings and failures Egosoft took many notes and it seems they rather well on implementing into good X4 and weed out the bad.

Fly every ships? Check.
Much better GUI and map? Check.
Reduce station walking? Check.
Ship bridges and cokpits? Check.
Reduce of station walking to absolute minimum? Check
Reduce of highways (from nausea inducing spagetthi, to lines)? Check.
Carriers? Check.
Add missing races. Half-check (Borons tbd)


Unless something will go VERY wrong the X4 has the potential to live to it's name and beign better than X3 and XR.
Of course life is life, so there is a chance we will end up with XR2. That's why you don't pre-order things these days (and I already seen a lot of [people] who say they will preorder X4 as soon as it will be avaliable).

<Confrontational term used in final sentence adjusted. Alan Phipps>

[gbjbaanb]

I understand the X3 nostalgia, but the game itself was a GUI horror and the engine was ancient.
I understant the hate on X-Rebirth as I'm among the people who hated XR untill around 3.0.

However it need to be cleal - there is no going back to X3, just like there is no going back to X-Rebirth - both are dead end's. What the XR is that X3 isn't - an necessary prototype for X4. Out of it's many shortcomings and failures Egosoft took many notes and it seems they rather well on implementing into good X4 and weed out the bad.

Fly every ships? Check.
Much better GUI and map? Check.
Reduce station walking? Check.
Ship bridges and cokpits? Check.
Reduce of station walking to absolute minimum? Check
Reduce of highways (from nausea inducing spagetthi, to lines)? Check.
Carriers? Check.
Add missing races. Half-check (Borons tbd)


Unless something will go VERY wrong the X4 has the potential to live to it's name and beign better than X3 and XR.
Of course life is life, so there is a chance we will end up with XR2. That's why you don't pre-order things these days (and I already seen a lot of [people] who say they will preorder X4 as soon as it will be avaliable).

<Confrontational term used in final sentence adjusted. Alan Phipps>

But does any of those things make the game feel more X3ish and not just more Rebirth-y? I'd say not - it requires a lot more than simply tweak X:R to have a few more features and say "job done!".

The Economy and trade is so much more important
The fleet management has to be improved
The empire management has to be improved
The minigames have to all go
The look and feel has to be more interesting

the worry is that it'll be tweaked to be X:R2 and not throw away the rubbish parts of X:R to implement the good parts of X3. X3 has to be the focus or it will be a watered down version of what we all expect. I really don't want to be in that position again after the hype of TNBT.

[Graaf]

It's disturbing how people seems to hate X4 only because it share engine with X-Rebirth. It's like game racism!

If it was just the engine we wouldn't have a problem. It's just that they send a newsletter informing us about this real X4 they are making, but all they talk about is Rebirth 2.

What about current X4 information makes you think it's X-Rebirth 2, other than game engine and highways?

Everything. Continuing the walking experiment, preferring the walking over Borons, showing the same gameplay, the lack of clear answers.

Everything that has been shown says Rebirth 2. There is nothing saying it's going to be X4, beside the Egosoft employees.

[mr.WHO]

The Economy and trade is so much more important
The fleet management has to be improved
The empire management has to be improved
The minigames have to all go
The look and feel has to be more interesting

the worry is that it'll be tweaked to be X:R2 and not throw away the rubbish parts of X:R to implement the good parts of X3. X3 has to be the focus or it will be a watered down version of what we all expect. I really don't want to be in that position again after the hype of TNBT.

They say the economy will be changed comparing to XR, but there is no actual footage yet.
The fleet and empire management seems to be covered by the new RTS map and from footage it looks more functional than X3.
Not a singe trace of a minigames yet.
The walking has been reduced to the landing platform and ship bridge, which is more functional than X-Rebirth.

To me your complains seems nothing more that a bias because X4 use XR engine.

[RodentofDoom]

Everything that has been shown says Rebirth 2. There is nothing saying it's going to be X4, beside the Egosoft employees.

It's neiither X:R2 nor X3 v2.0

They are taking key features from BOTH games and incorporating them into a new game ...

I'd say that lets them call it X4

[Crellion]

I understand the X3 nostalgia, but the game itself was a GUI horror and the engine was ancient.
I understant the hate on X-Rebirth as I'm among the people who hated XR untill around 3.0.

However it need to be cleal - there is no going back to X3, just like there is no going back to X-Rebirth - both are dead end's. What the XR is that X3 isn't - an necessary prototype for X4. Out of it's many shortcomings and failures Egosoft took many notes and it seems they rather well on implementing into good X4 and weed out the bad.

Fly every ships? Check.
Much better GUI and map? Check.
Reduce station walking? Check.
Ship bridges and cokpits? Check.
Reduce of station walking to absolute minimum? Check
Reduce of highways (from nausea inducing spagetthi, to lines)? Check.
Carriers? Check.
Add missing races. Half-check (Borons tbd)


Unless something will go VERY wrong the X4 has the potential to live to it's name and beign better than X3 and XR.
Of course life is life, so there is a chance we will end up with XR2. That's why you don't pre-order things these days (and I already seen a lot of [people] who say they will preorder X4 as soon as it will be avaliable).

<Confrontational term used in final sentence adjusted. Alan Phipps>

I wonder if you realize that what you are actually describing with the cute check list is a new and improved XR... like ... XR2.

Joke's aside what you are describing as 'not possible is exactly what the fans really want.

They want Egosoft to understand that Rebirth was a failed experiment and should be buried in the attic and then go back to start building with X3 as basis.

They can use the Rebirth engine "under the hood" and they can use specific things they believe went really well with Rebirth but only as modules. The overall game -according to core fans- should feel, taste, smell and sound like X3.

That is what using the name X4 plays at after all... but from the look of things ... that's the only thing it does... playing...

[mr.WHO]

I wonder if you realize that what you are actually describing with the cute check list is a new and improved XR... like ... XR2.

For one the glass if half-empty while for other it's half-full, while both look at the same glass.

The checklist was the list of thing that were missing/bad in XR which caused it to be a failure (not next X4). Therefore fixing this would make it worthy to call it X4. You can call it XR2, but many people seems to use it as an insult because it use XR as a "Foundation"

IMO theere is a much higher chance that X4 from upgraded XR will be better that imaginary X4 from upgraded X3.

[Crimsonraziel]

Everything that has been shown says Rebirth 2.

Especially this "fly every ship" thingy, right?

For one the glass if half-empty while for other it's half-full, while both look at the same glass.

For me it's twice as big as necessary.

[ajax34i]

IMO they have to go forward with the current (X-Rebirth) or future engines, so the game will look and feel more like X-Rebirth than X3.

At the same time, yeah if they truly want good reviews for the avatar parts of the game, the avatar parts of the game have to be at the same level of quality as other games with avatars... what's the current industry standard? Skyrim / Fallout 4 with body and face mods? They are very far away from that level of quality, and it does require huge expenses for motion capture, voice acting, etc.

I think making it all optional by making sure that we can trade and interact via menus from space would be good, as would making sure that players can create avatar and NPC mods, esp. face and body mods.

In any case, what I actually really want from Egosoft is to make a game. And that means:

- please balance the ships so they're all desirable to fly / each have some cool ability / some niche application.

- please balance the guns (firepower vs. range vs. AoE), and then balance them again on the ships that they are intended for.

- please please balance the damn missiles so they're all useful based on range, tracking, and payload.

- please let us easily source all the weapons and missiles that you've spent time balancing. No more rare drops / rarity and cost should not be balancing factors (you're just forcing us to cheat them into the game if they're impossible to get otherwise).

That's all I want. Make the combat part of the game all about different viable strategies, rather than a database of randomly-generated ship, weapon, and missile stats that have no thought behind them.

[MegaJohnny]

I wonder if you realize that what you are actually describing with the cute check list is a new and improved XR... like ... XR2.

What about having freedom to fly and loadout all your ships reminds you of Rebirth? I just don't get it.

[lurker]

Another X2 and X3 vet returning having seen the X4 announcement.

For my part, I love the economy/empire building, and the sandbox experience of the earlier games. And the texture of the X-universe itself - the Boring Boron, the Psychotic Split, the greedy Teladi, the Generic but familiar Argon, the pirates, the Khaak, the Xenon - the music, the graphics, and just the general 'character' of each sector. I can still remember the 'feel' of many parts of the X-universe, even having not played in it for years.

I got so much out of X2 and X3 + expansions, that I don't mind having paid for rebirth, even though I barely played it. I happily wrote it off as an investment in a possible future X4.

I was sad to hear 'no Boron' - I have many fond memories of time spent in the safe space of Kingdom End etc. In general I hope to see some recognisable continuity between the earlier incarnations of the X universe and the one in X4; this was something I really felt was missing when I played Rebirth. It simply didn't feel like it was taking place in the X universe which I had come to know and love.

Anyway, based on what I know so far (and bear in mind, I have not played recent versions of Rebirth: it's possible some of this may be out of date):

On the plus side the map interface looked better than rebirth. Perhaps it's improved now (I gather patches have improved the game a lot since launch) but the terrible interface of rebirth on launch was one of the major things which killed it for me.

Highways still in, but no longer 'essential - this could work. I hated highways personally, it just seemed like a way to reduce the magnificent 'go anywhere' freedom of space to a more mundane and limited 'on rails' mindset, but if people want to use them that's fine by me - so long as I don't have to.

Being able to pilot everything: obviously a great thing. Being stuck with the one 'main' ship was another game killer for me.

Walking around stations, I can take or leave. Nice if done well, but not why I play the game, ultimately. And I quite liked the old 'comms chatter' interactions with people. I'm concerned that Egosoft probably don't have the resources to do 'full body' models well, and I'd rather they spent the time elsewhere - if I wanted realistic 3d humanoids I'd play one of any number of other games.

Economy sounds promising. We will see. In X3 I loved being able to start with a single ship and end up being a galaxy-spanning magnate with fingers in practically every sector of the universal pie, and other sectors which I had personally changed from obscure barren zones to galactic hubs hosting FPS-destroying mega-stations built around high value asteroids which I dragged into position personally. I gather that you can do this in Rebirth nowadays too? But the thought of having to do that with the interface and tools Rebirth provided on launch made me lose the will to live.

I will buy X4 and give it a whirl. I would love to be able to pour countless more hours into the series once more.

Fingers crossed for 2018!