Am I the only one who ISNT excited about XR ?

[apricotslice]

Isn't the point of XML sort of that it's fairly easy to learn anyway? Like HTML?

I never learnt html either. I've always used an editor that was like using a word processor. Type out what you want and let the editor create the code. Its one reason I still keep an old version of Netscape Communicator around, just for its in-built editor.

The L3 Ideas forum, assuming it's reopened, will be a busy place then. =)

Maybe so, but you wont find me in there. Not unless its rules change a great deal.

[Chris0132]

Isn't the point of XML sort of that it's fairly easy to learn anyway? Like HTML?

I never learnt html either. I've always used an editor that was like using a word processor. Type out what you want and let the editor create the code. Its one reason I still keep an old version of Netscape Communicator around, just for its in-built editor.

Nor me, although I probably could if I wanted to.

Although, if X:R becomes popular, you might find that someone codes an addon for notepad++ or whatever which adds a frontpage style visual interface, or something like a word processor as you said.

Hell there might already be things like that, you can get some pretty amazing IDEs for popular languages and loads of stuff uses XML.

You might also find that you don't need to learn much XML to do the things you used to, or you might find like me that you just think 'bah I want this thing in the game, gonna see if I can hack it together from that other file' and then you do and it's awesome, and then you think 'hmm maybe I could make this into something else I want' and eventually you end up writing a dozen new guns with all sorts of bells and whistles and a few new interface elements. Happened to me when I used to play Garry's Mod which had Lua scripting bolted onto it.

It's a lot easier to learn a language when you don't realise you're doing it.

[Inauxas]

I wanna fire the flight crew, fly any ship myself and stay the pilot jockey instead of the CEO behind the desk.


I wanna be Han Solo instead of Captain Picard.

That said...

Han Solo had one ship. He also had a crew he did not fire...

[Gazz]

Well, you don't fire a wookie...

[Mightysword]

doesn't change the fact he has a crew ...

[apricotslice]

Interestingly, since we are on the subject, Han never had to "fire" his crew, they kept getting killed. (He lost a lot of Nogri over the years). Only Leia survived and she wasnt technically "crew". You had to follow the books to know that though. Only time he didnt lose crew was when he had Jedi in the turrents, which wasnt that often.

Back on topic, I still dont like the idea of being a bridge captain instead of a pilot.

[TrueSanity]

Good lord, there are some negative people here. I thought I was a pretty negative person, but some of you guys make me look like Pollyanna.
It seems that everyone prefers to assume the worst of every detail they read, or interpret them in the worst possible light rather than reserving judgement for the actuality. Lighten up and have a little faith. Remember, Egosoft has managed to get at least one or two things right before or you probably wouldn't be here now.

[Gazz]

Remember, Egosoft has managed to get at least one or two things right before or you probably wouldn't be here now.

Actually, quite a few of us are here because of the things they didn't get right - because that opened up a lot of S&M potential.

[TrueSanity]

Back on topic, I still dont like the idea of being a bridge captain instead of a pilot.

apricotslice, there seems to be a lot of room for interpretation still in what exactly you'll be able to "fly" in the non-capship categories but I'm hoping for everything.
As far as capships go, it sounds like they are going to be taking a much different role in XR than what we're used to and expect in X3. Rather than huge lumbering fighters (or with your mods, huge, zippy fighters ), I am picturing something more along the lines of somewhat mobile, weaponized features of the landscape (starscape?). Remember that factories are going to be considerably different as well, since it seems we'll be able to weaponize them, too. I know both will play much more strategic roles from what we've been hearing, and I'm hoping both will be cappable as well.
However, I'm willing to wait (barely) and see what the game is actually like and THEN I'll start complaining about stuff I don't like.

P.S. I haven't mentioned it before but I'm a great admirer of your guides and mods. I'd hate to see you give up on all that, so I hope you find XR to your liking when it is finally complete.

[TrueSanity]

Remember, Egosoft has managed to get at least one or two things right before or you probably wouldn't be here now.

Actually, quite a few of us are here because of the things they didn't get right - because that opened up a lot of S&M potential.

Ah, too true, but they did make the base game that made it possible for all of you S&M types to do so many fantastic things.

[Gazz]

Luckily, they didn't do too good a job.
Take a look at Syndicate or Magic Carpet 2, for instance.
Modding those would feel like drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. It just isn't done.

[BigBANGtheory]

Back on topic, I still dont like the idea of being a bridge captain instead of a pilot.

Fair enough, but wouldn't it be cool to have both options and jump into either role as you see fit or as the plot demands?

I'm sure Egosoft will make some significant gains, I'm not convinced they will pull off NPC interaction and character animations because frankly their track record says so.

[apricotslice]

I'm not convinced. Period. About anything.

The latest problem for me is this Steam proposal.

I will NOT have steam on my computer, and I will especially not have any program going in background while I'm playing a game, that wants to check the internet. Every single time the stupid thing checks and cant get through, the game will become a slideshow. The net here is not good enough for that. We can go for 1-2 minutes at a time with no access, and at such times, programs that are searching for access dominate the computer and everything else slows down. I dont play on-line games for this reason.

As far as I'm concerned, I game in isolation, and if I need to remove the net to play the game properly, then thats what I do. I had to for X2, I had to for X3, only TC did I have a computer that could run it and the net at the same time, but even then, at times I shut the net off because it was impacting framerates.

No Steam. Period.

Someone said that was the future of gaming. I guess my gaming days may be over then.

[ragamer]

there won't be an in-game script editor in XR

Mmmm... Houston we may have a problem here.

I can live with an offline tool in whatever language chosen but not without an inline debug system.

I will assume that the XML system will include instructions for somekind of variable dumping to a logfile at least but...

...Unless the new AI paradigm changes dramatically and removes the "virtual thread", if each entity is still a collection of bound threads it will be a hell to spot when one of your AI scripts goes rogue or remains on an unexpected state, or spoting which "unbound threads" are contaminating a given savegame triggering slowdowns and/or CTDs.

P.S. In fact I used Exscriptor for most my "heavy scripting" simply because copy'n paste operations were too cumbersome on the in-game editor but... For debugging, the in-game was extremely valuable.

[ScRaT_GER]

Isn't the point of XML sort of that it's fairly easy to learn anyway? Like HTML? Or any markup language?

Yes, and it is. I honestly don't understand all the fuzz apricotslice et al make about the syntax. Looking at the example AI script, it seems that its almost the only change.

I thought they were supposed to be for lightweight applications where you need some sort of general language to describe a thing rather than to compute a thing, and that you should be able to use them fairly easily, something you'd learn in addition to your primary languages.

Yes, and that's exactly why I don't really like XML as a host language for DSLs. XML is already domain specific: It's a markup language.

I will NOT have steam on my computer, and I will especially not have any program going in background while I'm playing a game, that wants to check the internet.

Steam doesn't need a permanent internet connection. I guess it depends on the game itself (maybe some Ubisoft games need permanent connection), but most games (at least the ones I have) also run in 'offline-mode'.

For a long time, I also didn't want Steam on my computer, because I heard it would slow things down. But actually it isn't noticable at all on todays machines.

I can live with an offline tool in whatever language chosen but not without an inline debug system.

Yes, that's one of the biggest problems. At least if you have to reload the game each time you change a script. If the game would reload changed scripts automagically it would be fine, too.

Greetings,
ScRaT