Single ship = can't pilot other ships?

[Captain Lemmiwinks]

My guess is Rebirth will follow a similar trajectory, perhaps even at an accelerated rate by jumping straight into a sequel without an expansion in between (given the rather promising sales numbers thus far), or move to the X-Tension phase via a free patch rather than a paid expansion.

They've said they want to release paid dlc/expansions for Rebirth, in addition to free patches. Which I welcome, I like getting a couple years out of a game before moving on to the sequel.

Waaaait. They officially confimed going dlc route? Well... now I have an actual reason to worry.

/sigh

Tempted to rant... but I won't be subjective or kind in that regard. Suffice to say if they do... I may loose my last bastion of hope >_>

Yes, hisazul, Egosoft is a business that is out to turn a profit.

no problem with profiteering.

unless they are LEGO and sold a set with no corners,knowing they will be selling the corners as dlc..i mean LEGO pack 2.

thats when profiteering turns into milking a cow.

eg: [that means for example]
what if dlc turns out to be say.......ermmmmm
flying multiple ships
or
plant your facs anywhere you like

etc

might look a bit "dracula"..

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

...

Yes, hisazul, Egosoft is a business that is out to turn a profit.

no problem with profiteering.

unless they are LEGO and sold a set with no corners,knowing they will be selling the corners as dlc..i mean LEGO pack 2.

thats when profiteering turns into milking a cow.

eg: [that means for example]
what if dlc turns out to be say.......ermmmmm
flying multiple ships
or
plant your facs anywhere you like

etc

might look a bit "dracula"..

Except that neither of your examples can be fairly equated to the lego feature your are trying to equate them to. A better and closer example would be selling a lego town model with only one vehicle and perhaps only a small selection of base plates on which to structure the town but including plenty of different types of bricks. Additional DLC base plates might include air strips, docks, ponds, etc and additional DLC vehicles could be anything.

The point being (getting back on topic - or trying to) that the original game is still a complete game in it's own right and it is possible to enjoy the base game without the extras.

[Deleted User]

disagree. DLC CAN be an expansion, if developers want it to.
and for Rebirth I'd much rather have DLC which expands on the engine, rather than stand-alone expansions (like it has been for TC/AP)

[Ivorystate]

disagree. DLC CAN be an expansion, if developers want it to.
and for Rebirth I'd much rather have DLC which expands on the engine, rather than stand-alone expansions (like it has been for TC/AP)

This, DLC that expands on game mechanics is the best kind.

[JClosed]

Well - I can imagine game improvements will be free, like they have always been in the past.

I also can imagine bigger expansions will be payed for. Remember - there are a lot of gates that do not work. There are still races (and systems) out there that are not in this release of X Rebirth.

It is not too hard to think about a payed-for "Paranid expansion" or "Boron expansion" complete with detailed local system that has about the size of the system X Rebirth has now. As the Paranid where getting construction info (in X3:AP) for the highway system it is not far-fetched to imagine the Paranid have their own local highway system. The Boron where allies of the Argon - nuff said..

If those expansions would be fairly priced, I think Egosoft could have a winner here. Lovers of the X series would be satisfied and Egosoft has an income. Win-win so to say...

I'm just speculating, but I would not be surprised if this turned out to be the case.

[plynak]

Honestly, I would gladly give up the feature of roaming around space stations and cities talking to automatons -- to just have more player piloted ships.

And exactly this is where Egosoft is doing things right instead of listening to some of the players:

XR is ment to have it all and not just on or the other. But since after 7 years they want to get started, they decided to provide a proper foundation for which things can get added later.

This means that you need to have the core - to which major game mechanics like roaming around stations, etc. count - already in the game when releasing, while adding further player ships is easy to do later on.

Obviously it could never work the opposite way, providing many playerships first and adding major game mechanic changes later.

So... all is good, just be patient.

No, they are doing the opposite. It is supposed to be a space simulator. Not a corridor FPS. Look at STO. Some players were yelling so loud that Cryptic spend half a year by making ship interiors that nobody uses. Look at Star Wars Old Republic, where interiors are nothing but time sink. And a terrible one. Fortunately you are not forced to use them in STO, but you have to use them in SWTOR. I give it two weeks before we see threads like "Running through the same ugly corridors is so boring" and "Why can not we talk to NPC remotely, they are so ugly and running to them is just a time sink". So Arraamis is completely right.

[biohazard15]

Well - I can imagine game improvements will be free, like they have always been in the past.

I also can imagine bigger expansions will be payed for. Remember - there are a lot of gates that do not work. There are still races (and systems) out there that are not in this release of X Rebirth.

It is not too hard to think about a payed-for "Paranid expansion" or "Boron expansion" complete with detailed local system that has about the size of the system X Rebirth has now. As the Paranid where getting construction info (in X3:AP) for the highway system it is not far-fetched to imagine the Paranid have their own local highway system. The Boron where allies of the Argon - nuff said..

If those expansions would be fairly priced, I think Egosoft could have a winner here. Lovers of the X series would be satisfied and Egosoft has an income. Win-win so to say...

I'm just speculating, but I would not be surprised if this turned out to be the case.

I'm not against this model, but ONLY if those DLCs will be independent. I.e. you can buy both, one, or neither - and it will not affect your future experience with free updates or other DLCs.

A good example of this is Mass Effect 2 - Lair of Shadow Broker and Arrival greatly expanded original story and characters, but weren't needed for other DLCs and didn't affect the story outcome.

A pretty BAD example is IL-2 Sturmovik flight simulator. About 8 years ago, there was 3 contents packs for it - Pe-2, Manchuria and 46. Catch is, you couldn't install last pack without installing first (i.e. to install 46, you were required to buy and install Pe-2 and Manchuria).


Now, imagine if there will be a paid DLC that adds a co-op or online multiplayer features with new MP-exclusive zones, factories and ships. I definitely won't buy this DLC, because I don't need those MP features. But, sometime after, another paid DLC is rolled out - full of neat singleplayer features. And I suddenly need to buy that MP DLC, because SP DLC uses assets from it! That would be a blatant rip-off.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

No, they are doing the opposite. It is supposed to be a space simulator. Not a corridor FPS.
...
So Arraamis is completely right.

With all due respect, I believe you are wrong and missed Mauzi!'s point (which has been made before many times over by various people).

X is much more than just a space simulator (we are not just talking HawX in space). The FP aspects of the engine have been missed by many since X2, X3 did away with much of the character based story "movies" although they did exist in some limited form in X3:R IIRC. Ok, so the animation was pretty bad but it did help with the story telling aspect.

In X-Rebirth, these aspects from X2 appear to have been brought back and improved upon - not only that but modders can now script sequences involving characters and thus perhaps help with their own story telling. This was not possible in X2 if I am not mistaken.

As for the remote comms aspect of it, we know it exists for your own crews to a greater or lesser extent and will have to wait and see how much it applies to other NPCs.

As for implementation of FPS v. Multiple-Ships, the two are probably distinctly dissimilar enough in skill sets required for the work that it is probably not simply a matter of implementing one in favour of the other.

We do know the engine is capable of supporting multiple player ships and that modders can implement it if they wish. Given this, Egosoft have obviously built a solid framework for the future with probably most of the features (or at least support for) the broad spectrum of X modders and gamers have be asking for since at least X2.

[Alci]

This, DLC that expands on game mechanics is the best kind.

it's the worst kind. DLC from nature is a choice. If you build mechanics improving the base game (which is X way unlike Borderlands or Fallout where DLC takes you to the new area with new mechanics) then you will have problem with any further updates because you (developer) cannot tell if customer has specific feature at a disposal or not. If makes complete mess from any other DLC's where you need to solve dependencies.

Base game mechanics improvements can be done only as updates. In form of free patches or expansions (standalone (X3TC) or not (X3AP) ) or new game.

[Geek]

X is much more than just a space simulator (we are not just talking HawX in space). The FP aspects of the engine have been missed by many since X2, X3 did away with much of the character based story "movies" although they did exist in some limited form in X3:R IIRC.

What the hell ?
X has always been a space/economic simulation game.
X2 did *not* have any FP element (scripted plot scenes do not count) - just because you had the *option* to dock manually inside the station does not equal to FP walking.

I really do not understand people who want X to be a FPS/RTS/RPG/SIM/ETC game. Mixing everything only result in every part being very poor.

[Deleted User]

Disagree.
This engine is new. I bet they have the source code with them.
If they want to make changes to how stuff works, they can release an updated exe. IF it is necessary.

[Vandragorax]

I agree that it won't be long before we get sick of walking through boring corridors just to talk to an NPC, and trading will suffer for it imo until it gets patched out and we can simply dock and interface with all NPCs from there.

It's a shame to pander to the FPS 'crowd' when it doesn't really bring anything to the game besides a pointless walking exercise. Let's see how wrong I am on Friday (we hope)

[plynak]

No, they are doing the opposite. It is supposed to be a space simulator. Not a corridor FPS.
...
So Arraamis is completely right.

With all due respect, I believe you are wrong and missed Mauzi!'s point (which has been made before many times over by various people).

X is much more than just a space simulator (we are not just talking HawX in space). The FP aspects of the engine have been missed by many since X2, X3 did away with much of the character based story "movies" although they did exist in some limited form in X3:R IIRC. Ok, so the animation was pretty bad but it did help with the story telling aspect.

In X-Rebirth, these aspects from X2 appear to have been brought back and improved upon - not only that but modders can now script sequences involving characters and thus perhaps help with their own story telling. This was not possible in X2 if I am not mistaken.

As for the remote comms aspect of it, we know it exists for your own crews to a greater or lesser extent and will have to wait and see how much it applies to other NPCs.

As for implementation of FPS v. Multiple-Ships, the two are probably distinctly dissimilar enough in skill sets required for the work that it is probably not simply a matter of implementing one in favour of the other.

We do know the engine is capable of supporting multiple player ships and that modders can implement it if they wish. Given this, Egosoft have obviously built a solid framework for the future with probably most of the features (or at least support for) the broad spectrum of X modders and gamers have be asking for since at least X2.

Well I am one of those who did not care about the story. I left the stroyline as soon as I could in X2 and in X3 and just came back when I had my empire and fleets. I think story was not what X was about. The same applies to other games e.g. Oblivon or Skyrim. Those stories were mediocre at best, but the game was about an open world and making your own stories.
And yes, you may be right. Seeing those incredibly awful interiors looking like they are from a 10 years old game filled with even more awful NPCs, I bet it could not take too much efort to come up with. Which is maybe even worse. I mean why to spend any resources on this, when it looks so horrible instead put them somewhere else?

[BinarySlave]

It is a known fact, that Egosoft is using a very old, but very effective psychological trick here. After flying around in this gorgeous, totally beautiful space environment for a while, you will start seeing it as a fully normal thing. The moment you enter one of the cities, you will be reminded how beautiful and compelling the outside space is and so are able to enjoy it over and over again.

Yeah, psychology wins.

[Haysand]

Well I am one of those who did not care about the story. I left the stroyline as soon as I could in X2 and in X3 and just came back when I had my empire and fleets. I think story was not what X was about. The same applies to other games e.g. Oblivon or Skyrim. Those stories were mediocre at best, but the game was about an open world and making your own stories.
And yes, you may be right. Seeing those incredibly awful interiors looking like they are from a 10 years old game filled with even more awful NPCs, I bet it could not take too much efort to come up with. Which is maybe even worse. I mean why to spend any resources on this, when it looks so horrible instead put them somewhere else?

Since I remember, players were hungering for character+space ship game play(I have no idea why...) and there is always some dev who fall into that development trap since it is next to impossible to produce such game at satisfying quality due resource costs.

I guess that is how it is, always has been and will be. :/

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

X is much more than just a space simulator (we are not just talking HawX in space). The FP aspects of the engine have been missed by many since X2, X3 did away with much of the character based story "movies" although they did exist in some limited form in X3:R IIRC.

What the hell ?
X has always been a space/economic simulation game.
X2 did *not* have any FP element (scripted plot scenes do not count) - just because you had the *option* to dock manually inside the station does not equal to FP walking.

I really do not understand people who want X to be a FPS/RTS/RPG/SIM/ETC game. Mixing everything only result in every part being very poor.

Like it or not (personally I do not care either way), there has been at least some demand for FP (on-foot) aspects to the game ever since X2 and if you are implementing scripting for X2-style FP plot cut scenes the easiest way is probably to go the whole hog and add FPS type character control functionality.

But back on to the point (and hopefully topic), X has always been much more than the sum of it's parts and different players value different aspects of the game in different ways.

To me the BIGGEST feature of an X-game is the ability to own and control fleets of ships be it for combat, trade or anything else. The nature of this would appear to have changed quite significantly and possibly for the better. If the improvements in fleet control come at the cost of being able to directly pilot more than 1 ship+drones then I am ok with it (in principle).

We do know multiple player pilotable ships are moddable so there is hope that the appropriate content will become available at some point in the future (either via official or fan authored mods/dlc/expansions - paid or otherwise).

Personally, I am glad that they did not impose further delays to the release just to allow them the necessary time to implement the relevant content to add multiple player ships in Vanilla.

Just be glad that we are not hard coded to piloting just the Skunk and it's drones.

[Geek]

Like it or not (personally I do not care either way), there has been at least some demand for FP (on-foot) aspects to the game ever since X2 and if you are implementing scripting for X2-style FP plot cut scenes the easiest way is probably to go the whole hog and add FPS type character control functionality.

You have really no idea how that works. Cutscenes, and fully interactive environements have not the same requirements at all. A game is not a movie, period.

To me the BIGGEST feature of an X-game is the ability to own and control fleets of ships be it for combat, trade or anything else. The nature of this would appear to have changed quite significantly and possibly for the better.

I disagree of this being the main feature, otherwise X would be a RTS.
And Rebirth do not improve this. Ships and crew are difficult to acquire and and the player have very little control on what they do.

We do know multiple player pilotable ships are moddable

We do not know this at all. Personally I highly doubt this.

Personally, I am glad that they did not impose further delays to the release just to allow them the necessary time to implement the relevant content to add multiple player ships in Vanilla.

Because of course, the time spent on interiors, 3D characters, etc could not have been used for something else. Riiiight.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

We do know multiple player pilotable ships are moddable

We do not know this at all. Personally I highly doubt this.

Apparently, it was confirmed in a recent interview with Bernd (mentioned earlier in this very thread if I am not mistaken)

[CutterJohn1]

We do know multiple player pilotable ships are moddable

We do not know this at all. Personally I highly doubt this.

Apparently, it was confirmed in a recent interview with Bernd (mentioned earlier in this very thread if I am not mistaken)

From here: http://www.incgamers.com/2013/11/x-rebi ... rnd-lehahn

IG: Almost every time a news piece or article about X Rebirth goes up, somebody will note that you can only fly one ship in this title (as opposed to a range in previous X games.) I believe it’s possible to fly others, but only by remote control. Can you explain the thought process behind this change?

This aspect of X Rebirth was something that was hotly discussed within Egosoft as well. This was not a decision we took lightly, but I would say a big factor in this decision was the reality that most ships are inherently not very interesting to fly. For instance, piloting a huge capital ship might seem exciting in theory, but the actual act of flying a capital ship is slow and ponderous. Unless we were willing to make the movement of such a ship unrealistic, turning and accelerating a capital ship is an experience that gets old really fast.

With this said, at launch, the player will only be able to fly one ship. But like we’ve seen in past X games, we will listen to our community’s feedback. Also, we are fortunate in having an extremely active modding community which we would not be surprised to see address this topic.

Emphasis mine.

We may not know the exact mechanism, or exactly how much support we'll get, or how well the extra ships will integrate into the game engine(i.e. can we buy them off the market, how do you switch ships, etc), but if that isn't an admission that yes, you can mod in new ships, I do not know what is.

but I'm still going to crumble about how its their own fault if capital ships aren't fun. This was a new game after all, and they could have changed up the dynamic, just as they did between X2 and X3.

[Geek]

It is very far from an assertion to me.

Remember, we are talking about different ships, not just a remodeled Skunk.
Many, many things will have to change in the gameplay to allow the player to fly something really different.

Maybe it is technically possible but it is far more work than just a 3D model.