Where is the Lore and backstory that is integrated in the game?

[JasonStarcruiser]

I just tweeted this out to the developers and thought I would post it here because this seems to be seriously missing part

I have been playing about 100 hours of X4 Foundations and I have yet to run across any lore. No one (In-game) has told me what has gone on in the past. No markers or monuments of past battles. No relics, no stories, no nothing. Where is the Lore and backstory for this?

I feel like there is a HUGE, gaping hole missing in the game because there is no cement holding it all together and providing an overall backdrop to why I'm shooting all of these Xenans and Kha' aks.

To the Devs: Will that be added later (Hopefully in 3.0 ?)

Everything else, the game mechanics and the ships and the stations are fantastic but I am missing not having a true backdrop to all of this.

Let me know if any of you can point me in the right direction in a kind and considerate manner as I am in posing this question and thank you.

[Axeface]

Other than the timeline, which you unlock the parts for by hacking data vaults (you get a mission when you do it), there is none. I feel very sorry for people that havent played the previous games.

[JasonStarcruiser]

Other than the timeline, which you unlock the parts for by hacking data vaults (you get a mission when you do it), there is none. I feel very sorry for people that havent played the previous games.

Thanks for the reply and I haven't gotten that far but I expected more and I already know the timeline because I read the timeline website, which was very informative but I want to see it integrated into the game like most games to add structure to it.

[DaMuncha]

I've been playing the game for 100s of hours and only found 5 of the 50 time line entries. I've kinda given up now.

[Harrison_rus]

I played ~ 90 hours and found a half of data banks. And it have good story content (as for me, who not played in previous games) These stories includes all from X1 to X4. Very useful info which make a lot of depth to the game.

[Tomonor]

I played ~ 90 hours and found a half of data banks. And it have good story content (as for me, who not played in previous games) These stories includes all from X1 to X4. Very useful info which make a lot of depth to the game.

I wish they hadn't included videos from the previous X games in those, though.

Now, I'm an X vet and I consider myself a hardcore fan, but seeing the X-BtF intro footage in the context of X4's story-telling is somewhat off-putting from the moment. I rather wish they've made some more artwork to fill out those few seconds long gaps.

[surferx]

I've been playing the game for 100s of hours and only found 5 of the 50 time line entries. I've kinda given up now.

Pretty much sums up my status re. data vaults. I just leave them alone now. Since I started out playing XBTF I don't suppose I'm missing that much.

[Pesanur]

I played ~ 90 hours and found a half of data banks. And it have good story content (as for me, who not played in previous games) These stories includes all from X1 to X4. Very useful info which make a lot of depth to the game.

After discovering all of then, I'm feel that the stories on the data vaults are narrated from the point of view of the Argons. Surely that other races disagreed with it.

The affiliation of the Argon Federation with the Beryls and their research in xenon based AI is conveniently omitted.

And this lead to other problem with the lore in X4. How is that the other races aren upset with the Argon by this? After all, their lose the control over those new drones that make use the beryl AI, making the xenon threat worse. To no mention that the discovering of these experimentes by the Terrans, was what lead then to start invading the Argon territory and desenvolved in the Terran war.

[Axeface]

And this lead to other problem with the lore in X4. How is that the other races aren upset with the Argon by this? After all, their lose the control over those new drones that make use the beryl AI, making the xenon threat worse. To no mention that the discovering of these experimentes by the Terrans, was what lead then to start invading the Argon territory and desenvolved in the Terran war.

I was writing up a new thread that I want to post last night about how to emphasise the games racial themes and identifties with gameplay changes (because I think its something that has been completely lost in X4) and the more I brainstormed the more issues I found. One thing I thought was curious, is that the Teladi are taking on the brunt of much of the games Xenon threat, its the Argon that should be doing this - not the Teladi. There are many things about this game that just dont make sense, and many small but meaningful changes could really make a huge difference to the games implied lore. Its as if things like the system layouts wasnt even thought about from a lore perspective. Another example is why are so many of the Paranid systems on the superhighway ring? I think the ring should only graze the xenophobic and secretive Paranid space, not cut right through BOTH of the Paranid factions entire empires.

[Nort The Fragrent]

https://www.amazon.com/Farnhams-Legend- ... B01C4G8702

a place to start

[Techedge]

One thing I thought was curious, is that the Teladi are taking on the brunt of much of the games Xenon threat, its the Argon that should be doing this - not the Teladi.

I agree with you, however it should be pointed out that gates randomly reconnected after the shutdown, so lore-wise it's not so much unplausible that another race got the worst spots...

Another example is why are so many of the Paranid systems on the superhighway ring? I think the ring should only graze the xenophobic and secretive Paranid space, not cut right through BOTH of the Paranid factions entire empires.

THIS is an issue. I could understand if the ring passed by the GOP, but why HOP? I like the ring concept and all, but having factions at war being connected by the highway is simply absurd.
Maybe border sectors like Second Contact II and Pious Mists II (and their HOP counterpart) could be disconnected to get more real and "feel" this war? (maybe dinamically, given that sector owners can change)?

[Axeface]

THIS is an issue. I could understand if the ring passed by the GOP, but why HOP? I like the ring concept and all, but having factions at war being connected by the highway is simply absurd.
Maybe border sectors like Second Contact II and Pious Mists II (and their HOP counterpart) could be disconnected to get more real and "feel" this war? (maybe dinamically, given that sector owners can change)?

Yeh, It would be amazing if lore was written into one of the dlc's and Paranid space cut off (all but maybe 1 setor) from the superhighway ring due to the crisis with the HOP by diverting the ring to different systems. Then some of my ideas could be implimented to make the Paranid seem like.... Paranid (I mean, egosoft named them Paranid... probably a quick mix of Paranoid and the insecty 'nid' suffix), such as making their rep requirements for pruchasing ships very high, and adding a weapon of wanton destruction to their arsenal. As for the Teladi, they could write it into the lore that the Argon and Teladi have come to an agreement about defence of Ianamus Zura - it is the Teladi home system after all, their homeworld is there! They would be rather fed up with such a threat and their allies the Argon should be doing something about it. At least create a new Argon fleet that travels there and joins the Teladi defence fleet on occasion? Or an Argon fleet that enters Matrix 451 to try to create a buffer sector, something like that? They could even give the fleet a name.... oh my gosh, some lore!

Who is building the superhighways and highways anyway? In Rebirth EVERYONE and their grandma ( ) is talking about it, but im not sure whos doing it in X4 (Im going to assume the Teladi - and I think most of it should be Teladi space).
I just want MORE LORE!

All of this would be facilitated by a dynamic BBS/news system... PLEASE. The XTC mod has a system like this and its amazing.

[IronSquid501]

It's a pretty stark contrast after X:R had more lore than gameplay. X4 is very fun, but not very immersive IMHO

[Axeface]

It's a pretty stark contrast after X:R had more lore than gameplay. X4 is very fun, but not very immersive IMHO

I really dont understand how anyone that has actually played rebirth (the most recent versions) and actually understand what the game is can say that. In my opinion Rebirth is just better than X4 in almost everyway, except for the one ship deal, and indestructible stations/static sector layouts, station design/construction and lack of races. It has better missions, it 'feels' better, the combat is MUCH better, the balance is better, the sectors are better and much more varied (yes i said that, i think rebirths systems are vastly better and feel bigger, it is a work of art), the ship design is FAR better, it has loads of weird and interesting space anomalies and dangerous zones - I could go on.

As for the difference in 'lore' in Rebirth against X4 - Rebirth was designed with lore in mind, its obvious that the person designing the games systems was trying to make a believable space universe, and it worked - the 'lore' of rebirth is inbuilt into everything. Look at a zone like Cuspid Splint... it really is amazing design, there is so much more variety in Rebirth. And the funny thing is the writing and story which most people would call 'lore' are actually pretty terrible in Rebirth, its everything else that makes it feel complete.

Maybe depth of lore, believability and immersion are just much more important to me than most players, and the lack of these things makes it very hard for me to find the good in X4.

[IronSquid501]

It's a pretty stark contrast after X:R had more lore than gameplay. X4 is very fun, but not very immersive IMHO

I really dont understand how anyone that has actually played rebirth (the most recent versions) and actually understand what the game is can say that. In my opinion Rebirth is just better than X4 in almost everyway, except for the one ship deal, and indestructible stations/static sector layouts, station design/construction and lack of races. It has better missions, it 'feels' better, the combat is MUCH better, the balance is better, the sectors are better and much more varied (yes i said that, i think rebirths systems are vastly better and feel bigger, it is a work of art), the ship design is FAR better, it has loads of weird and interesting space anomalies and dangerous zones - I could go on.

As for the difference in 'lore' in Rebirth against X4 - Rebirth was designed with lore in mind, its obvious that the person designing the games systems was trying to make a believable space universe, and it worked - the 'lore' of rebirth is inbuilt into everything. Look at a zone like Cuspid Splint... it really is amazing design, there is so much more variety in Rebirth. And the funny thing is the writing and story which most people would call 'lore' are actually pretty terrible in Rebirth, its everything else that makes it feel complete.

Maybe depth of lore, believability and immersion are just much more important to me than most players, and the lack of these things makes it very hard for me to find the good in X4.

I actually agree on most of those points. But Rebirth's lore is so deep that it STILL outweighs its gameplay. Like, EVERYTHING has at least a page of lore behind it in the encyclopedia, every one of those conversation minigames has a ton of hidden options that you might not even know about if you don't use gifts, and every zone has a backstory as to why it is the way it is. Before they added SETA I mostly passed spare time by reading stuff in the Encyclopedia, because there was that much stuff to read.

[spankahontis]

I just tweeted this out to the developers and thought I would post it here because this seems to be seriously missing part

I have been playing about 100 hours of X4 Foundations and I have yet to run across any lore. No one (In-game) has told me what has gone on in the past. No markers or monuments of past battles. No relics, no stories, no nothing. Where is the Lore and backstory for this?

I feel like there is a HUGE, gaping hole missing in the game because there is no cement holding it all together and providing an overall backdrop to why I'm shooting all of these Xenans and Kha' aks.

To the Devs: Will that be added later (Hopefully in 3.0 ?)

Everything else, the game mechanics and the ships and the stations are fantastic but I am missing not having a true backdrop to all of this.

Let me know if any of you can point me in the right direction in a kind and considerate manner as I am in posing this question and thank you.

That was something I liked about X:Rebirth. It was full of story content, more in-depth with the animations during the campaign.
Ren Otani and Yisha Terran, who I figured was their next Kyle Brennan, Kho etc. That you'd see in future X titles?

Which has me hoping that we will see the Rebirth Gates connect to X4's with their Factions and the PMC/Heart of Albion conflict still raging.
Even when you entered a New System, you would get an in-depth animated story of the Sector and how the Gate Shutdown affected it?.. Especially DeVries, loved the tragic backstory about it.
Maybe you can't do that given that there is 50+ Sectors in this one compared to the 8 in Rebirth.. But even the Background story for each Sector in X4 is so weak sauce/barebones.

I know it's a Sandbox, but so were the previous titles and they had all kinds of exciting things like the Terraformer War, Operation Final Fury and the gate connection to Earth leading to the Terran Conflict. We need more History in X4, gates reconnect and then what happens?
Paranid Civil War seems to be the only thing the history books will remember??

I've been playing the game for 100s of hours and only found 5 of the 50 time line entries. I've kinda given up now.

I found most of them but I still went on the Spoilers page to get the remaining 3-4 when I couldn't find them no matter how hard I searched, scoured entire sectors to no avail.

[Falcrack]

Finding data vaults is much easier if you use the sector satellites mod and drop a probe in each sector.

[JasonStarcruiser]

I just tweeted this out to the developers and thought I would post it here because this seems to be seriously missing part

I have been playing about 100 hours of X4 Foundations and I have yet to run across any lore. No one (In-game) has told me what has gone on in the past. No markers or monuments of past battles. No relics, no stories, no nothing. Where is the Lore and backstory for this?

I feel like there is a HUGE, gaping hole missing in the game because there is no cement holding it all together and providing an overall backdrop to why I'm shooting all of these Xenans and Kha' aks.

To the Devs: Will that be added later (Hopefully in 3.0 ?)

Everything else, the game mechanics and the ships and the stations are fantastic but I am missing not having a true backdrop to all of this.

Let me know if any of you can point me in the right direction in a kind and considerate manner as I am in posing this question and thank you.

That was something I liked about X:Rebirth. It was full of story content, more in-depth with the animations during the campaign.
Ren Otani and Yisha Terran, who I figured was their next Kyle Brennan, Kho etc. That you'd see in future X titles?

Which has me hoping that we will see the Rebirth Gates connect to X4's with their Factions and the PMC/Heart of Albion conflict still raging.
Even when you entered a New System, you would get an in-depth animated story of the Sector and how the Gate Shutdown affected it?.. Especially DeVries, loved the tragic backstory about it.
Maybe you can't do that given that there is 50+ Sectors in this one compared to the 8 in Rebirth.. But even the Background story for each Sector in X4 is so weak sauce/barebones.

I know it's a Sandbox, but so were the previous titles and they had all kinds of exciting things like the Terraformer War, Operation Final Fury and the gate connection to Earth leading to the Terran Conflict. We need more History in X4, gates reconnect and then what happens?
Paranid Civil War seems to be the only thing the history books will remember??

I've been playing the game for 100s of hours and only found 5 of the 50 time line entries. I've kinda given up now.

I found most of them but I still went on the Spoilers page to get the remaining 3-4 when I couldn't find them no matter how hard I searched, scoured entire sectors to no avail.

I am just starting X Rebirth because I see that it is more of the style of game I want to play (A Sandbox Mass Effect) with plenty of Story Content

[Matthew94]

Finding data vaults is much easier if you use the sector satellites mod and drop a probe in each sector.

I haven't used that mod but the problem with the normal satellites is that even if it reveals a data fault, it won't show up on the map unless you zoom in quite far.

There should be a map filter option allowing us to highlight all found vaults, along with their open/closed status.

[Alan Phipps]

Mini-bump/necro in progress!