Egosoft's next big thing....

[Hob Anagerik]

...is likely to be a telling one. Will it be X4, the game their community wanted or is it going to Rebirth 2, the one the vocal majority didn't?

If they switch back to X4 it will be both a triumph of reason and an admission of failure.

If they go with Rebirth 2, it might be the final nail in their coffin.

[thesus1]

If for you X4 is just X3 with HD Skin (more of the same), I don't want X4.

[Hob Anagerik]

I guess the problem is that I don't really know what I want X4 to be. But I do now know what I don't want it to be!

[Tenlar Scarflame]

See, that's the thing - I want a game with true depth and strategic options like X3, built on Rebirth's sexy sexy engine. That's not precisely X4, that's just Rebirth as it ought to be. Like Gandalf the White.

[Teladidrone]

I really do hope that they at some point deliver X4 so to call it.
You know, really continue and improve their awesome series from X2,X3,TC/AP for modern hardware without loosing halve of its features on the way.
But frankly I have my doubts... I am more afraid they will be stubborn and continue to try go down this alleged "mainstream" path of Rebirth and unfortunately they are too small and cant do both.
Which means that AP really was the end of the line.

[MegaJohnny]

See, that's the thing - I want a game with true depth and strategic options like X3, built on Rebirth's sexy sexy engine. That's not precisely X4, that's just Rebirth as it ought to be. Like Gandalf the White.

Agreed wholeheartedly. When I think about Rebirth I think about the OP Skunk, the unhelpful UI, the missing things like buying smallships... but when I consider going back to AP, I think about the awful dogfight AI, ships suiciding on obstacles, autopilot that only knows about giant scary spheroids covering stations, the failed attempts to convey scale...

As much as is missing from Rebirth, it fixed a lot of (very annoying!) things in X3 that could only have been fixed by such an extensive engine overhaul. Now that Egosoft have thrown away the big ball of mud and created a shiny steel ball, they can pack lots of nice mud on top of it.

[N4N]

If for you X4 is just X3 with HD Skin (more of the same), I don't want X4.

Its not just the skin, they could just take X3, fix what was worng and leave what was good. Why touch something which is working? then we got rebirth.....
In my opinion, if they take X3 AP and change:
-Use rebirth graphics engine, very pretty.
-Use rebirth Stations(exterior of course), but one sector can hold 2 or 3 of those big stations.
-Remove some of the gates in near systems, such as in the solar system, when yo just travel from planet to planet add something like highways, I like the concept, but remove nonsense minigame.
-Fix the big fleet management, in X3 is a pain to control big fleets and they stuck at gates and etc....
-Fix IA and collision system.
-Add some real challenge/target for late game. Like adding sector conquer, or something like it. Its like CK2, you can conquer the whole contienent, but it will be a hell of a way to do so.
-Fix a bit trading system, was ok, but need some tweaks here and there, but leave the core like it was.
-Make Cap ships modular such as they are in rebirth, with different parts and so. Also fix that cap ships attach to the same spot each other, thats ridiculous.
-Balance the missions , for example you can make millions on killing misisions, but for same rank think missions you only do 30K.......

And many small tweaks... just here and there, and they had the perfect game.....

[wasdie]

This game is going to morph into what X4 was going to be X4 over time.

It's just going to take a lot of time. The engine needs constant work and they need continuous feedback from the community. They really need to look into Early Access on steam or doing some other beta.

[Raapys]

Uh, Rebirth's engine seems pretty crappy to me. It doesn't look any better than X3's engine, and the multithreaded code is a complete mess which holds back the performance.

At any rate, the way I see it X Rebirth really did try to be X4. That's why they're so similar. If you cut all the bad parts from Rebirth, the stupid minigames, the ridiculous station landings and the exclusive player ship, you're essentially left with an unfinished X game. A step back to be sure, but still an X game. You still have the player owning and controlling multiple ships and stations, you're still running around doing random missions, fighting pirates and aliens, upgrading your ship, etc. It's still (trying to) simulating a living universe and economy.

So yeah, is there a difference really? Rebirth seems to me like just an unfinished X games with minigames and NPCs tacked on to appeal to the younger generations.

[Hob Anagerik]

The problem with Early Access is that it is a double edged sword. On the one hand you can earn some extra money before your game has finished bring written. On the other hand all it takes is some prominent YouTubers to rag on it and all of sudden that income you had been relying on disappears.

[Captain Lemmiwinks]

TNBT is selling the franchise before other space sims are released

thats what i would do.


darkstar 1 beats this game hands down,and look what happened to that.


sell it,before the worldwide recession hits too hard and you cant sell anything anymore.

[Alucard291]

See, that's the thing - I want a game with true depth and strategic options like X3, built on Rebirth's sexy sexy engine. That's not precisely X4, that's just Rebirth as it ought to be. Like Gandalf the White.

Sexy engine?

You mean fugly low tech and 6 years out of date engine right?

Those low res textures, those fugly and slow dx9 shaders (overload of them to hide the horrid textures) the low poly models (excusable in 2007 or so not in 2013). Need I go on?

No no no they need to make a NEW engine. Not reuse the one they had bouncing around for 7 years+. Because this one has NOTHING sexy to it.

[scarshapedstar]

Their next big thing will be filing for bankruptcy, not that we'll notice after we're hooked on Elite.

[Ravenhurst]

Making XR more like X4 would be sufficient

Their next big thing will be filing for bankruptcy, not that we'll notice after we're hooked on Elite.

haha Elite, OMG.. yeah that shoestring budget title with less than 18 months development time will surely change the world

[Hob Anagerik]

Which would be difficult because X4 doesn't actually exist and we haven't even determined what it would be yet.

Regarding Elite, they are actually in dialogue with their user base to ensure that what the game ends p being is what the community widely agrees is what they want it to be. In theory at least it shouldn't fail to be just what the Elite fan base want. Every aspect of the game is being discussed from how shields to how the hyperdrive and in system travel will be presented.

Alpha is coming in December and there will be live streaming and uploads on to YouTube. Watch this space.

[Noimageavaiable]

See, that's the thing - I want a game with true depth and strategic options like X3, built on Rebirth's sexy sexy engine. That's not precisely X4, that's just Rebirth as it ought to be. Like Gandalf the White.

Sexy engine?

You mean fugly low tech and 6 years out of date engine right?

Those low res textures, those fugly and slow dx9 shaders (overload of them to hide the horrid textures) the low poly models (excusable in 2007 or so not in 2013). Need I go on?

No no no they need to make a NEW engine. Not reuse the one they had bouncing around for 7 years+. Because this one has NOTHING sexy to it.

They can just replace the graphics engine and leave the actual game engine alone. Its what they did for X3.

[dubnium]

See, that's the thing - I want a game with true depth and strategic options like X3, built on Rebirth's sexy sexy engine. That's not precisely X4, that's just Rebirth as it ought to be. Like Gandalf the White.

Sexy engine?

You mean fugly low tech and 6 years out of date engine right?

Those low res textures, those fugly and slow dx9 shaders (overload of them to hide the horrid textures) the low poly models (excusable in 2007 or so not in 2013). Need I go on?

No no no they need to make a NEW engine. Not reuse the one they had bouncing around for 7 years+. Because this one has NOTHING sexy to it.

They can just replace the graphics engine and leave the actual game engine alone. Its what they did for X3.

you mean the actual engine that is so bad at multithreading that it works worse if you upgrade your cpu? yeah, that sounds lovely.

[Noimageavaiable]

you mean the actual engine that is so bad at multithreading that it works worse if you upgrade your cpu? yeah, that sounds lovely.

Like any new code it needs lots of bugfixing and optimization. A new engine won't be any better in that regard.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

Yup, I wasn't talking about the graphics - they are pretty middle-of-the-road with the occasional obvious problem. I'm talking about the core simulator, which you can tack whatever the heck graphics you want on to. The exact same engine could have totally new and different graphics swapped out further down the road - like X3.

EDIT

Yeah... there are possibly a few problems with how they've done multithreading. That needs work.

[SunofVich]

I like the direction they went with X:Rebirth. I just want it to function correctly.