Is this better then Starpoint Gemini 2, EvE or Elite Dangerous?

[yoyolll]

@yoyoll: 20 people working 100% (standard working hours) on a product for 7 years = ~140 man years (i.e. 7 x 20).

In estimating:-

• 1 man day is notionally 8 man hours (sometimes counted as 7.5hrs or some other measure depending on the notional full time contractual hours)
• 1 man week is notionally 5 man days
• 1 man month is notionally 4 man weeks
• 1 man year is notionally 12 man months

1 man year is not a single individual working 24/7/52.

I see. I extrapolated the definition of man-hours (which is continuous work for an hour) to other units of measurement. That's far more reasonable.

EDIT: So how are they claiming 140 man years went into this? The entire team didn't actually work on it for the last 7 years.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@yoyolll: You could have wiki'd it and found it under the definition of man hour.

Similar units
The similar concept of a man-day, man-week, man-month, or man-year is used on very large projects. It is the amount of work performed by an average worker during one day, week, month, or year, respectively. The number of hours worked by an individual during a year varies greatly according to cultural norm(s) and economics. The average annual hours actually worked per person in employment as reported by OECD countries in 2007, for example, ranged from a minimum of 1,389 hours (in the Netherlands) to a maximum of 2,316 hours (in South Korea).

EDIT: Whenever the topic of X-Rebirth's feature set comes up, one of the commonly raised issues is the amount of time they spent on it - notionally a maximum of 7 calendar yrs design+develop+test for v1.0 based on publicised info and we know the official team size is at most 20 people. Their work load distribution over that time is a bit moot but the notional maximum level of effort is 140 man years. Reality may be lower or higher than this depending on a number of factors (inc. overtime - paid or otherwise - and outside support work).

The exact figure though is pretty moot all things considered, the point I was making still stands. The amount of effort for the X-Rebirth equivalent of X3:AP is ALOT higher than some seem to think it would take (evidence being the release state, the current state, and the elapsed calendar time from X-BTF to X3:AP).

[MegaJohnny]

The polish and detail of X3:AP came after experimenting with different things and building on top of engine after engine from BTF to X2 to X3:R to X3:TC to X3:AP. I imagine it will be much the same way here. I have high hopes for Rebirth as a series, even if this particular game struggles. Whatever builds on top of the X:Rebirth engine will be even better, and eventually we'll end up something truly amazing.

Chances are, the final result will be almost unrecognizable against it's current form, so I imagine you'll get your wish.

The problem with this is that they build a new engine so they didn't have to build upon build upon build like they did before.

Not really... They made a fresh start so the build-upon-build would be easier, with an engine designed to be more extensible. That doesn't mean they can waft new features out of the air at the same time.

Don't get me wrong, I too wonder about the source of the slow progress - but I really doubt they just sit around twiddling their thumbs all day.

[BigBANGtheory]

I too wonder about the source of the slow progress - but I really doubt they just sit around twiddling their thumbs all day.

It would be reasonable to assume that work is proceeding in the background on "other another project(s)", at some point Egosoft has to sell something.

[SteveMill]

So I am left wondering if the greater market really wants empire building or simply a good space flight sim. I'm inclined to think it is the latter. X games have had the empire building for years and still didn't have this mythical larger audience. Was it simply a lack of marketing? Was it the complexity? What held the X games back?

What held the X games back was basically two things IMHO (and as you know i'm speaking as a big fan of the series).

The UI was always just awful. It needed a modern GUI from the beginning and the need just grew as the complexity grew.

The games never came out is a reasonable finished condition and relied too much on modders to fix.

Up until XR the pain was worth the effort. But for whatever reason XR was just so far from completion and bore very little relationship to the marketing on release that no amount of hand-waving or release week patching and no amount of blaming the customer could mitigate the debacle.

There's a third change. In the seven years or so that had passed the world has changed. Social media, youtube etc etc means you get called out on stunts like this instantly and volubly.

Companies have zero control over the message.

Basically companies cannot expect to get away with these sort of stunts any more.

To add a 4th of my 2 reasons - they decided to largely jettison their old player base in pursuit of a new one. This explcitly was not another in the X series. Old gameplay out, new gameplay in. It really looks like it was going to be a completely different game only late sprayed in X Universe colours.

And if you plan to get a new player base then you absolutely have to hit the ground running.

Apart from the Battlecruiser series I've never seen a more shambolic release. I just hope that somewhere down the line a decent follow up comes.

But their business model of releasing prematurely and fixing/finishing later just won't fly any more. You have to hit the market with a core, working game even if you plan to add features.

And the sixth of two reasons is - frankly bizarre design decisions. The mini games, the vent crawling, the terrifying NPC's, the awful co-pilot, the 'it needs a face so I can punch it' computer.

The giving you a super-ship right at the start.

I love the empire building aspects of the X Series but it has to be embedded as part of a working space sim. I can empire build in any number of games.

[Graaf]

Not really... They made a fresh start so the build-upon-build would be easier, with an engine designed to be more extensible.

That's not how I see this quote:

Adding features to a game that was not designed for these features at the start, is never perfect

And the first thing that comes to mind is: Was the engine designed for a Gravidar? And if so, why then was it excluded from V1.0? And if not, does this make the 7 years of development pointless for "forgetting" the most basic tool in a flight sim?

For me small issues like this make the entire development of Rebirth questionable at best. Not to mention the overall design of Rebirth.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@Graaf: There is a key difference between designing for something and implementing it. The impression I get is that the new engine has been designed to do a lot of things, implementing them is where the problems come in - it all requires time. Some of the features will not be implemented for free in a patch because the time involved is too great but that does not mean they would not be implemented in a future game based on the same software or perhaps a paid for expansion.

I have worked on systems designed to be open and easily extensible from the get go, and just because a the software is designed with certain future features in mind does not mean they have to be implemented at day one.

The way things have been (and appear to continuing to be) done with X-Rebirth are probably the way they should have been - implement the fundamental parts then build upon it in some notional order of priority.

The way I see it, many of the things complained about or asked for since release are not fundamental parts from a technical perspective - C&C, Capital Ship Bridges, Multiple Flyable Ships, et al - but are essentially predominantly high level front end concerns (albeit probably with some back end considerations that only need to be addressed when they plan to implement said features).

Things like the gravidar are of questionable value, some may make use of it but others like myself do not (or only on very rare occasions). It is for this reason that I suspect Egosoft considered it a low priority feature.

[ravage_za]

Your argument would be valid, if it weren't so obvious that Rebirth was released with features completely missing. That are still missing 8 months later.

This has nothing to do with people misunderstanding what Rebirth is. It has a whole lot to do with Rebirth not being what Egosoft said it would be. Please try to remember that a lot of the features being complained about or asked for, were those that Egosoft's own release information stated would be in the released game. They are not. Why does this make people wrong for expecting them?

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Errmm....

Multiple flyable ships - not promised, in fact explicitly excluded as far as X-Rebirth is concerned.

Capital ship bridges - not explicitly promised, wording was very ambiguous and arguably it does fit what they said they would deliver.

C&C - Nothing explicitly mentioned on this score from what I have seen (except perhaps the possibility of an RTS style interface at some point). Since release, this has been improved on and is expected to be continually improved upon in small steps (v2.50 Public Beta and previous patches is evidence enough of that).

As for rate of progress (or any apparent lack there of in any given areas), that has nothing to do with the validity of my points - as I stated designing for something does not mean something is necessarily implemented in any given time scale. Designing for features is relatively easy but that does not mean implementing said features will necessarily be either quick or easy just feasible/possible.

[Nanook]

Errmm....

Multiple flyable ships - not promised, in fact explicitly excluded as far as X-Rebirth is concerned.

Not explicitly excluded. In fact, just the opposite, if you care to go back and read the dozens of prerelease threads on the subject in the Archives forum. What they said was that there was going to be just one ship at release, and they'd see how it goes from there.

Capital ship bridges - not explicitly promised, wording was very ambiguous and arguably it does fit what they said they would deliver.

Ambiguous, yes, because if they'd told everyone that the player would be confined to the docking bay of their own capital ships, there would've been a huge uproar. It was implied that we would be on the bridge in one capacity or another, just not as a pilot. Again, check the old archives forum if you don't believe it.

[Graaf]

The way things have been (and appear to continuing to be) done with X-Rebirth are probably the way they should have been - implement the fundamental parts then build upon it in some notional order of priority.

The way I see it, many of the things complained about or asked for since release are not fundamental parts from a technical perspective - C&C, Capital Ship Bridges, Multiple Flyable Ships, et al - but are essentially predominantly high level front end concerns (albeit probably with some back end considerations that only need to be addressed when they plan to implement said features).

And when did walking become a fundamental element in a spaceships flying game?

What is the use to design a single ship with, and I quote, "several rooms you can see and use", while the only rooms that are of use are the scripted cockpit (duh) and the boarding ramp?

Why did station walking have a higher priority then flying multiple ships?

And if I recall the initial "1 ship only" thread was started back in 2011. So it's not like Egosoft didn't know what their former fanbase wanted.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@Graaf: Implementation decisions have to made on technical merit not just customer desires and at the end of the day the choice is Egosoft's and theirs alone.

As far as walking around is concerned, I think I understand from a technical perspective why it had to be one of the first things done. The way the user interacts with the environment appears to be driven by it to a large degree (even cockpit mode is a first person view - just a fixed sitting position one). Doing this probably also made support for head tracking gear easier as well since the APIs for such kit is more than likely optimised for FP based avatar game models.

Whether we individually approve of FP mode (or any other implementation decision) is pretty irrelevant at the end of the day - X-Rebirth is what it is and nothing is going to change that.

It is important to bear in mind that what some are calling design decisions are more than likely implementation ones and the distinction is important. The former implies no intent to ever in the life of the software to implement certain features where as the latter implies just not for the time being (assuming said feature is not present of course).

The distinction is irrelevant for some games, but not for Egosoft's X series of games (inc. X-Rebirth). Egosoft have declared an intent that X-Rebirth is only the first episode of a new X series, the feature set for the new series is unclear but only a fool would believe that all the "apparently missing" features from X-Rebirth have not been carefully assessed and reviewed. The most likely result of that is that such features have been kept in mind with the engine design, but for X-Rebirth they had to keep the feature set small so as to control the size of the job they had to do.

@Nanook: Still nothing explicit was promised in either case, but the status of either matter is moot. It does not negate the point I made about the difference between designing for something and implementing that something, and that just because something is not implemented does not mean it has not been considered in the design.

Not having visibility of the design myself I can not comment with any authority on what Egosoft has and has not considered but the same can be said for anyone else in the community in a similar position (with only visibility of the product not the technical design). However, it is a natural assumption that they would have considered all the features we have become accustomed to in the design and while some things will most likely never be implemented (player piloting of large military/civilian capital craft for example), other items (such as multiple flyable smaller ships and general C&C) almost certainly will at some point in the future.

In the case of both Cap Ship Bridges and Multiple Flyable Ships we have heard from Egosoft staff about the implementation issues. The former has some technical "implementation" concerns that the artist feels needs to be addressed before hand and the latter is unlikely to be done for "X-Rebirth" due to estimated level of effort being too great.

From the sounds of things, we may get Cap Ship Bridges at some point but we will most likely have to wait for the next game for the multiple flyable ships (as we were warned several times pre-release may be the case).

[ravage_za]

As an end user, I will say again, as I have before. The technical difficulties of software engineers should never ever be my problem. I can certainly empathise with things going wrong, but it doesn't automatically provide universal immunity from simply cocking-up.

Egosoft purpose built the engine themselves, as they felt nothing else out there was suitable. The fact that their own engine which was built for the exact task to which it is being applied is not suitable, can only their responsibility. Not mine. There is a marked difference between a well-made game with few features, and a patch-up job with missing features, and anyone without an agenda can see said difference.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@ravage_za: Without seeing the code it is impossible to say which of your descriptions apply to X-Rebirth - a well made game with few features OR a patch up job with missing features.

As a software engineer with no agenda to speak of I do see the difference and delivering software with bugs and performance issues is not an automatic indicator of a "patch up job" as you put it.

X-Rebirth is slowly changing in many different positive ways with each successive patch. As end users, we have made requests for change, some of which have been silently accepted and implemented, others have been discussed, some have been effectively denied. It seems that some can not accept the latter in at least some cases, and assume things have been denied because of lack of discussion/comment wrt other issues.

As I see it, the only real issue that could be attributed to Egosoft is lack of transparency and the presence of apparent ambiguity with respect to the target end state for X-Rebirth. As I see it, transparency of their operation (or the development process) is not an entitlement and any apparent ambiguity will eventually sort itself out at an appropriate juncture of the games evolution.

In the mean time, whether you love it or hate it X-Rebirth is what it is at the end of the day and we have a fair idea about what will not be changed for this episode of the revised series (the denied requests) and those changes are deal breakers for any of us then we will just have to wait for the next X game to see if they get addressed then.

[SteveMill]

As an end user, I will say again, as I have before. The technical difficulties of software engineers should never ever be my problem. I can certainly empathise with things going wrong, but it doesn't automatically provide universal immunity from simply cocking-up.

Egosoft purpose built the engine themselves, as they felt nothing else out there was suitable. The fact that their own engine which was built for the exact task to which it is being applied is not suitable, can only their responsibility. Not mine. There is a marked difference between a well-made game with few features, and a patch-up job with missing features, and anyone without an agenda can see said difference.

Quite. Once a company offers a product to market and unless they itemise problems, there is an implicit agreement that the product is fit for purpose. (And no - just to be clear - end user agreements are worth precisely the paper they are written on in most legal jurisdictions).

For some reason computer games are given a pass and as customers we do tend to be patient.

It's nice that Egosoft are still plugging away for the handful of players they have left but there was no excuse at all for releasing XR as was.

But I still wish and hope for a follow up and I hope it is awesome. Out of the box awesome, not 24 months later awesome-ish.

Edited to add: And no - this is not an unreasonable expectation. Particularly as following the current debacle they have to do so much better just to claw back reputation. That's why I was earlier banging on about a need to seriously rethink their development process because whatever it is at the moment - it ain't working.

Definition of insanity and all that.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@SteveMill: Egosoft have itemised problems, they have also indicated that the list is longer than the ones they have itemised thus until they say otherwise the implication is that X-Rebirth is not at the intended release state in ALL problem areas.

While the rate of progress is perhaps not ideal, there is not a lot we can do to improve the situation except co-operate with them in regards to testing when the opportunities arise (and also provide appropriate constructive feedback on any issues we encounter).

As for the game being "fit for purpose", it is in many ways otherwise no-one would be able to enjoy the game.

The purpose of any game is not to tick some factual boxes but rather to satisfy a subjective need for entertainment. The problem with games such as X-Rebirth is mostly not whether the product is fit for purpose (arguably at initial release it was not - due to quality reasons - but now it arguably is since a lot of the technical issues have been addressed) but whether or not as individuals we like the game.

[Assailer]

I wonder where is the line for X:RB when it will be called X:RB2 as a new game to buy.

[SteveMill]

@SteveMill: Egosoft have itemised problems.

Not before they took our money they didn't.

Edited to add - practically no-one is enjoying the game. You're familiar with the forums and you're familiar with the Steam numbers. And you're familiar with the reviews with new and shockingly bad reviews from new and horrified customers regularly appearing on metacritic and amazon.

Do you believe this series can survive a re-run of this debacle? No. You're an intelligent and articulate guy - of course you don't. I appreciate your dedication to the franchise and to some extent I envy your ability to enjoy XR. But all fans of this series should be giving Ego the same message.

Enough. This cannot go on. You cannot keep releasing wildly unfinished products. Whatever you're doing - you're doing it wrong.

Consider it an intervention.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@SteveMill: Egosoft have itemised problems.

Not before they took our money they didn't.

The situation was that the release state was bad (it is possible that they did not know how bad it was pre-release and there is no hard proof to the contrary), they apologised for it and laid out then set in motion a plan of corrective action. They have not abandoned the people they sold their software to.

As for taking the money part, many of us took the nominal risk of pre-ordering the game and thus there is an element of "Caveat Emptor" in play there. However, it has been possible to get refunds and it is not Egosoft's fault if Steam (or any other non-Egosoft shop) are resistant to giving the refunds. But that is a whole separate issue for another thread (of which there have been many on that specific topic).

The fact of the matter is, no-one is perfect and things can and do go wrong with software releases even despite employing best practices sometimes. All software development and releases carry an element of risk and not all the risks are easily quantifiable (and sometimes can be quantified inaccurately/incompletely despite best efforts, as appears to have been the case with the release day issues). While this is not our problem per se as end-users, it would be worth keeping it in mind when considering ordering software in general (and especially when pre-ordering software).

[SteveMill]

Come on! Of course they knew how bad it was. It took about 3 minutes of play to stumble across game-destroying bugs and about another 10 to see the actual game bore little resemblance to what was advertised.

And if they didn't know then it just goes to prove what I'm saying. Their development, quality and testing processes are not working.