Loads Of Questions Regarding X2ol For Egosoft, Please Relpy!

[fireblade]

A lot of maybe and probably then. In regards to the issue about subscription, wouldn't this have a positive effect as many more people will buy the game and previous titles?

yes and no

remember if you have a persistant universe this requires a continues or periodic input of money in order to pay for its upkeep (power, internet peoples wages etc.)

if you charge a subscription it will cover these and the cost of the game can cover development costs

but

if there is no subscription then you have to have enough new people buying the game to cover these costs as well as people leaving the game

note people must leave at the same rate as new join other wise the mantanance cost will increase while your income stays the same which would be a problem.

secondly if you have a potentiol of say 100000 people and you estimate a 10% market share i.e 10000 people when you have sold the game to that many people you have a problem as there is no one else to buy the game
which means you have no income but you still have maintanace costs which meas you are continuosly losing money and will go out of buisness

40) Will you be able to trade ship to ship in the simple Freelancer style?

not sure what you mean

Sorry, I should have explained it for those who have never played freelancer. In freelancer, to trade with another person in a ship, you just had to go within a certain distance and press 'u' which would send them a message that, if agreed to, would open up a window where you simply display the goods/cash and they display what they're willing to pay trade for it. What I am asking here is whether you will need an upgrade to trade ship to ship otherwise you would have to land and go through the whole transfer routine.

Thanks for the (rather vague) replies anyhow!!!

hmm i think if you have a transporter you could probably somthinng very similar. if you don`t you will probably have to either both dock somewhere or eject your cargo into space for the other person to collect

you might be able to dock your ships together and do a cargo transfer that way but i don`t know about that.

i can`t realy be anything other than vague as very little infomation in available

I have a question. Just how much of the enviroment is going to be interactive. Can you fly into planits and crash or maybe distroy the gateways.

fly into planets and crash almost certainly
destroy gates i doubt it.
a the gates are supposed to be in general very tough (the gate destroyed earth gate is a special case) and
b. the ancients wouldn`t take kindly to having there gates destroyed, you could wake up on a planet without a ship, it would probably be a nice planet but you would still be stuck there that or they would just rebuild it again, which they would probably do anyway.

[Wolvan]

I think it might be a little early to be asking some of these questions. If it is going to be a MMP game expect a fee, it's the only way to make it profitable. Secondly if it is MMP expect a very long development cycle, so if it is going to be MMP it's probably still in the conceptual design stage

Just a thought, on a way to keep it free.

Anyone here played neverwinter?

With a game like this MMP could get prohibitively complex, considering player owned stations and fleets and the then required size of the universe. To me it would seem a lot easier to just redesign and expand the universe slightly and tweak some of the gp issues and open it up to smaller 3rd party servers. I mean MMP is fun and all but with the size the sp game is already it would be a lot easier to have a bunch of fan controlled 64-82 man persistent servers.

If anyone here has ever played the NWN PW servers you have an idea of what I'm talking about, and unless you are a socialite or a real chatter box then you really don't notice the abscense of a gazillion players in the same server. As well it's nice because these types of servers tend to develop a group of regulars and you end up finding a group of people you enjoy playing with and you don't have to deal with all the a**hats.




Just a thought.

[Crazywolf2001]

I play NWN occaisionally, and agree with you that some sort of setup which allowed users to design and host their own games would be great.

Although I'm a big MMP fan (I've played UO for almost 4 years now) I think that an Online MMP version of X2 would have a job standing up against games such as SWG. I know SWG is a character driven game rather than a ship driven game like X2; but SWG has the branding to attract a lot more players - and draw potential X2:Online players away.

[Lyrael]

Then there might be a good solution!

X2 online could be an massive online game witch you subscripe to play
X2:the Threat should get multiplayer from an expansion or something, just simple LAN/ 16 player or something multiplayer!

Thats the way, aha aha we would really like it, aha aha!

[Crazywolf2001]

I think if EGOSOFT brought out a 2 different versions, a free 'design and host your own multiplayer', and a Subscription 'massive multiplayer', the masive multiplayer would die in a very short time.

Yes, I'd love it if there were a MMP of X2 - but I think it's a financially risky venture and could well go the way of the Dodo leaving EGOSOFT with some serious money-troubles.

Most people don't like the thought of paying a monthly subscription just to play a game. It's a pity - but it's true!

[Lyrael]

I dont like paying for subsciption because you need all these fancy credit cards that i don´t have. But I want is to play X2 with my friends, not with 60 000people i dont know in a super laggy server.

[Crazywolf2001]

1) I doub't the server would have 60000 other players on it, a couple of thousand at max. (They'd have more than 1 server running the game - and each server would be it's own self contained universe.)

2) Any servers running the game would be ultra fast - so any lag would either be client-side or internet lag: both of which would affect even an ordinary Multiplayer, not just massive-multi's!

3) Most reputable videogame retailers these days sell Game Time Certificates. They're single use coupons which don't have any of your bank account details on them. If EGOSOFT took X2 down the MMP road then I'd hope they'd allow users to use Game Time Certificates.

[Lyrael]

3) Most reputable videogame retailers these days sell Game Time Certificates. They're single use coupons which don't have any of your bank account details on them. If EGOSOFT took X2 down the MMP road then I'd hope they'd allow users to use Game Time Certificates.

Yes but in Sweden there doesnt seem to be any place selling Game Time Certificates so that a problem for me

[SKurj]

Lyrael ask about Star Wars Galaxies at your favourite game store... you can buy 3 months game time over tyhe counter at any EB store in North America at least.

SKurj

[Jungleer]

I agree with Lyrael about the Multiplayer aspect.
From a marketing standpoint, the MMO has almost reached market saturation.
To many of them out there and many more being made. There are already 2 MMO Space Sim/Trading games that I know of and have played on the market.
Hell, name any MMO and I've played it or Beta tested it.
I'm sick of them.

This game would be perfect for 1-64 players (or more!). I want to play with certain clans/guilds, not the entire world.
One thing that I've seen happen in all the MMO's that I've played that I hate with a passion is the obtuse overworked admins and company owners. There are always cheaters/griefers. You find them in every MMO out there. Then there's the company not giving players what they want because it goes against their "Vision".
Example: You have worked long and hard on your character/quest/empire just to have some griefer/cheater come along and mess it up and then deal with an admin that cares more about making the company money than the Client's gameplay experience.

A very good system that I think works very well and that I would pay for involved the kind of multiplayer that NWN and Freelancer provide.
A local clan/guild/group can setup their own persistant world and interconnect them to each other.
From a Mod-ing/self-policing standpoint this is great and I think fits in well with the true spirit of the X-Tension universe that people want.

Most of the players you meet would be the kind of people you like to play with.
There are many other positives to Client-run persistant worlds that I can think of, and I'm sure you can think of them as well.
For example, like in NWN, you can link your Persistant world to other persistant worlds. Take a gate and boom! your in a new, un-explored custom-made universe.

If X2 was given the same Multiplayer capabilities as found in NWN and Freelancer, I'd probably host my own persistant server and have it linked to others in my clan, or if on the edge of hostile space, an opposing clan's server. (With their permission of course)

And Egosoft could still have a profit maker by hosting their own paid-for special-content, persistant worlds as well- for Clan competitions or otherwise.

BTW, if they do make X2 into a MMO, I would not buy it. Just like many others, I don't like paying to play. If I did, I'd probably still be playing EVE or Earth & Beyond.

Now, if X2 where given the above mentioned multi-player capabilities...There's the game I've been waiting years for!

Just my 2 cents and my first post on these forums...

Jungleer
Spaceweed and Space Fuel runner....When you absolutely have to have it there Friday night!

[Crazywolf2001]

I think EGOSOFT would still be able to make money with a normal Multiplayer by doing the same as NWN: releasing a add-on disc every year.