Sooo I just pre-ordered the collectors edition

[dr del]

Did I make a total trump of a decision?

I loved x2 and x3 BTF ( never bought rebirth )

But I currently play elite dangerous and it is a LOT prettier and the ships are cuter. But it has ZERO plot or storyline.

Raeeurance?

[Nulric]

I'm gonna do so when I'm home from work as well.

I think you'll be more than pleased.

In the interests of full disclosure, I'm like you in that I'm one of the crowd who could never really get in to X Rebirth. Does that make me concerned about how X4 will be? Yeah, a little.

I'm still all fired up about it. This is just the type of game I would like to play right now, and I'm not currently playing anything like it, such as Elite Dangerous.

Even if I get a few weeks out of it and decide it's too much like Rebirth (and I don't think that will be the case at all), that's a HECK of a lot more entertainment value for me (dollar for dollar), than I would probably get out of, say, a movie ticket at today's prices. Additionally, Egosoft's post-release support is second to none, so while I'm sure there will be bugs and complaints at first, I think Egosoft will work quickly to address them.

I think it's going to be awesome fun. Worry not!

[Skeeter]

Well apparently there is no plot in x4 its just little plot arcs but i dont know if its 20 hours worth of nice missions dotted around or just 5hrs worth. So it will be a bit better than elite in that regard. Personally im sad and worried with the lack of one man vs the universe story like in xbtf or x2.

The combat in elite is great, the weapons feel and sound like proper space weapons, im not sure combats going to be as nice as elite but it doesnt look that bad but you do get alot of ships to try out in x4 it seems which is better than elites ship list.

[surferx]

Did I make a total trump of a decision?

I loved x2 and x3 BTF ( never bought rebirth )

But I currently play elite dangerous and it is a LOT prettier and the ships are cuter. But it has ZERO plot or storyline.

Raeeurance?

I also never bought Rebirth. I purchased all the others XBTF thru X3AP and Ihave bought, today, Foundations. I have no doubts about this being the game I've been waiting on and that i will never have any regrets. https://www.egosoft.com/games/x4/screen ... en_046.png
{oversized image replaced with link - CBJ}

[DavidGW]

Did I make a total trump of a decision?

I loved x2 and x3 BTF ( never bought rebirth )

But I currently play elite dangerous and it is a LOT prettier and the ships are cuter. But it has ZERO plot or storyline.

Raeeurance?

I think you made a great decision, and I will be doing the same in the next couple of days, when I get a chance.

I think you will be pleasantly surprised by X4 graphics, I wouldn't take too much out of the trailer (which I agree was not great graphics wise) as it clearly says it's alpha footage, and that "graphics will be improved". The screenshots and some of the other videos we've seen look MUCH better. X Rebirth was quite pretty. And considering the system specs as they stand right now (specifically GPU), I figure it's either going to be extremely pretty, or it's terribly optimised

X4 has no overall MAIN plot, but I believe it has multiple main plots, i.e. one main plot for each game start. X3TC and X3AP were both a bit like this.

[plynak]

Hmm, brave souls indeed. I will not preorder. Not after the Rebirth fiasco. And not without an assurance, that they at least tried to test the game which definitely was not the case of any previous X game. Hell you could not even play Rebirth at the day of release. But do not take me wrong. I am glad there will be people playing from day one to give others their opinions. For this, you have my thanks.

[Ringkeeper]

I didn't want to preorder it, as i did it with Rebirth and never manage more then 20min in Rebirth without rage quitting...

but it really looks like a good X game. So, at the moment i'm between "buy immediately before you forget to" and "rather wait if more video come out from beta" ....

And i'm not sure, if the 30€ more are worth it. Yes, you get 2 DLC but how much will they cost otherwise? Music and bla are nice to have but not important.

[BigBANGtheory]

Personally im sad and worried with the lack of one man vs the universe story like in xbtf or x2.

tbh that doesn't worry me at all, so long as we get enough of a plot to "get you going" through the key game mechancis. In the entire history of X games only 2 missions come to mind that added any story value for me in the game X3:R BalaGi recover the Hyperion and X3:TC destroy the Xenon capital ship, everything else was just something to do in between your own expansion gameplay which is the meat & potatoes of X games as we all know.

The issue with Elite's approach is that once you've done something the game seems intent on forcing you to repeat repeat repeat for its gameplay unless you dive into PvP. I think they got off to a great start but have lost their way and haven't really delivered much in the way of progress in the past 2yrs and not much sign of it changing.

[lplates]

I too found the Elite mission structure shallow and repetitive and it was the reason I eventually stopped playing. I felt I had "done it all" once I got the ships I wanted and had been where I wanted to go and upgraded everything I wanted to improve. I don't care for PVP so I wasn't looking for that at all.

I did a lot of exploring which was great but ultimately samey once you'd seen the main galactic objects.

For X, I don't mind a bit of Campaign Story as long as it doesn't restrict the typical X game sandbox freedom. I'd be happy with optional story arcs that I can pick up and put down as I want.
I would prefer that the activities I go looking for are solid and robust enough to keep me engaged time and again.

[mr.WHO]

I'll pre-order too (even if I usually do not preorder) - first rule of gambling - bet only with money you are willing and able to loose.

[ConorC]

I'm not gonna pre-order, I've been stung too many times before coughnomanskycough!

I will definitely be picking this up though. While I love Elite Dangerous and played A LOT of it, nothing fires the OCD neurons in my brain quite like an X game.

[ATTACK_HAMSTER]

I'm not bothered about pre-orders, physical boxes and all that jazz, give me an option to pay for a glossy manual and i would be in!

[ezra-r]

I'll preorder collectors too, going to be the time I spend most in a single game, why? Beucase I want to support egosoft and the type of space game they make. Don't feel dumb or anything, consider what many people spend on games like Fornite and the likes, for basically aesthetic and weapons crap. So, don't feel you need justification.

If you still feel you need, here is mine. We still can't play so many of the old space games genre, and egosoft is one of the few companies contributing to it, providing hours and hours of fun.. yes, with cups of frustration, but still I played Rebirth for as many hours as Skyrim probably (near 900+), where else do I get that?

[kazacy]

I am new to these forums and english is not my first language.
I also pre-ordered the collectors edition and my reason is pretty simple: according to trailer now you can finish the main story being only a pirate and not being the biggest magnate from the game.
Don't get me wrong in the previous versions of this game i really tried to trade and manufacture, but fighting is much more fun and i play for fun and my free time is really limited.

[StoneLegionYT]

I'm a full time caregiver so I will not be affording collectors maybe not even standard for launch. That being said I do thank you those who keeping their faith in Egosoft and supporting one my favorite devs in the industry. They proven in the end they never stop working making great content and it means a lot seeing others who still support them after so many troubling years in the gaming industry.

[Vanir]

I also pre-ordered the collectors version, via the Egosoft shop, as it seems that Egosoft has learnt from its mistake with X-Rebirth albeit with the 'help' from the X community.
Additionally I like to support games developers that produce space games such as the X series and Elite Dangerous.

I am a founder member / Kickstarter contributor of ED and have bought many paintjobs, T-shirts etc. to support Frontier in its development of ED.
ED is a good game but it has suffered from bad design in the last few years; in my opinion: Powerplay and the RNG Engineers / material grinding being the principal guilty parties.

X3 Reunion /TC/ AP have a more diverse set of in-depth activities for the individual player than ED.
X Rebirth I bought but have only played a few hours - it was a bit of a dud.

X4 has been a long time coming down the highway!

[-Skipp-]

I'm probably one of the few people that actually liked Rebirth (after v2.0 and major performance patches that is). But as people who played older games in the X series probably know - it's the after-release part that counts.

The major issue with Rebirth was the major hype and the wrong expectations people had (expecting X4) while it clearly wasn't. Still - The game is fine today, runs smoothly and delivers on what it was.

It was a huge blow to Egosoft and I'm sure no company would deliberately release a game that can't even run properly again. But everything has already been said hundreds of times so let's just leave it at that and look forward to the new shiny X game coming up sooner than expected!

Oh yea, I also got the CE since i'm 100% sure I would buy the DLCs anyway so why not get it done now at a discounted price.

[CorruptUser]

I got X3AP on sale for a tiny fraction of the price, and plowed 1000 hours into that game. I got XR and addons on sale for either 1/3 or 1/2 the price, and have put maybe 600 hours into the game.

For the amount of fun I've had, I think Egosoft has earned my money this time around.

[Yorkie_GBR]

My mouse pointer keeps getting drawn to the perorder button, but after all these years playing every instalment bar afterbirth, my finger just wont commit.

I will no doubt get it closer to release when more info becomes available, but unlike afterbirth I do have high hopes for the game.

[XD733]

The major issue with Rebirth was the major hype and the wrong expectations people had (expecting X4) while it clearly wasn't. Still - The game is fine today, runs smoothly and delivers on what it was.

It was a huge blow to Egosoft and I'm sure no company would deliberately release a game that can't even run properly again. But everything has already been said hundreds of times so let's just leave it at that and look forward to the new shiny X game coming up sooner than expected!

I have to disagree that Rebirth is fine today. I tried it again for an hour and a half or so last night. In just that time, here are the major issues I saw that still remain:

- The very first ship you meet, to drop off the person who boarded your ship, just disappears when you are done talking to it. It doesn't jump or teleport or move away - it just unspawns with no fanfare. Talk about immersion-breaking.

- The space highways still suck. The plot seems to require you to get into them to move around, but for whatever reason I was constantly ejected. And why are you faster than all the other traffic in the space highways, so you have to dodge it? And why are no ships faster than you, even the tiny ones etc.? It just feels so gamey, unlike X through X3:AP.

- It's super hard to steer on the space highways. On my system, when you first enter, you can't see the borders for a second or two, which leads to a super annoying in-out-in-out pattern. Seriously, of the 1.5 hours I played, about 45 minutes was probably just trying to stay in the space highways.

- The UI is tiny, even at just 1080p resolution. The little message that "you have to leave the space highway" is also tiny. If you miss it even by just a second, the mission guidance apparently requires that you loop around ALL the highways again so that you can get back to that spot.

- Tiny as it is, the UI still blocks the upcoming ships on the space highways, so I was constantly running into them. The crosshair in flight mode is huge, and you have to place it near the middle to stay in the highway. If you move it just a little so you can see the ships you're about to run into, you risk getting ejected from the highway entirely and having to spend a minute or two trying to get back in and getting ejected.

- The 3D models of people and aliens are horrible. There is apparently some kind of lip sync, but it must not be to the English voiceovers. And the 3D models themselves look like something out of a bad 1990's 3D rendering, not any kind of a modern game. Plus, in the 1.5 hours I played, I was ALREADY seeing repeated models used for different characters, with the same faces.

- Outside-of-ship movement feels wrong and weird. I've played thousands of hours of FPS's over decades, and this just feels wrong.

- Why does the game go out of its way to show you that all of these crates you are looting are empty? It just looks so weird. Why have an open-the-crate animation just to show that it's totally empty, while simultaneously telling you that it's not actually empty?

- The game seems to want to SHOWCASE the awful 3D people, the laughably bad lip-syncing and the empty crates. So weird.

All this is from just the first 1.5 hours of gameplay, if that. And half that time was spent just trying to get into the space highways. It does not inspire confidence that X4 is going to be any good.