X2 ONLINE-UNIVERSE.NET & X2 The Return Comparison Study

[Hhaus]

All X2 Fans, report for Discussion Pole, Duty, ASAP! Let us set Discussion times and dates for discussions, and meet and go over our plans to take over the Universe like good, little Aliens from all over the Galaxy. And let Us form clans, as well as races, empires, and Federated & Non-Federated Space Governments, as we ready ourselves for the next chapter; called, "ONLINE-UNIVERSE.NET". I cant wait to see this one!

[Logaan]

Woah, hold up there, XOU is years away yet. And there already Clans and Guilds out there, youve just got to look

[Deleted User]

All X2 Fans, report for Discussion Pole, Duty, ASAP! Let us set Discussion times and dates for discussions, and meet and go over our plans to take over the Universe like good, little Aliens from all over the Galaxy. And let Us form clans, as well as races, empires, and Federated & Non-Federated Space Governments, as we ready ourselves for the next chapter; called, "ONLINE-UNIVERSE.NET". I cant wait to see this one!

NO

[-XAAR-]

yes i am planning on founding the"paranid empire" guild, cant wait i would love to feature as actually being XAAR in the XOU

[StarDream Inc]

This poll makes no sense. What are the two options supposed to mean?

And XUO had better be years away, unless Egosoft and their partners are planning on losing millions of dollars.

X2 needs a lot of serious re-design work before it's ready for a MMOG platform. A couple fundamental changes, and lots and lots of minor ones. The interface will need to be massively reworked and improved as well. It cant support multiplayer communication and real-time Player vs Player interactions when it doesn't even have a useable mouse interface, for one thing. There is more to this game than just ship-on-ship dogfights.

And to be perfectly frank, the X2 flight engine is garbage if you look at it from the viewpoint of 'can this work for multiplayer PvP combat'?

No, it can't. It needs work before it's ready for that. Real space-flight physics would be my choice (where Inertia matters), plus all the space-sim staples that are missing, like afterburners. Getting rid of or changing the first person shooter style strafe controls would be another good one to change before unleashing PvP in the X-Universe. Who wants to pay a monthly fee to get into space fighter dogfights where your oppenent just dodges side to side and up and down? ROFL

MMOGs are the most risky business in gaming to undertake. There are far more in development than the market can bear. Less than 40% of gamers are willing to pay a monthly fee for a game. You need a nigh-perfect game platform to succeed, for one thing. X2 doesn't have that. No amount of marketting can make up for such a lack. Ask EA about that.

[Umpa Lumpa]

Oh yes, an online universe, I can see it now. You buy the game a week after it comes out. You save up to buy yourself a trade ship and slave for hours to save up for a fighter. You just potter through the universe and keep your nose clean and then....out of nowhere.....pops a titan owned by someone who bought the game the day it came out and wants to bump up there combat rank by 1%. Bye bye trade ship, bye bye hours of work.
This is why an online universe just wont work, people are to evil.

Feel free to tell me if theres a way round this.

------------------------
If cryogenics were all free, you could live like Walt Disney, and live for all eternity inside a block of ice.

[StarDream Inc]

There is, but like I said it will require massive redesign of the X2 platform, gameplay and interface to make it workable. I'd write a design prospectus on that specific topic for a consultation fee, but not for free.


Very good point, man.

[JonR]

I can see it now. Rival gangs who you must pay money to for protection or they will kill you. The strongest ganging up on the weakest, stopping the weakest rising by taking their money, and destroying all challengers. Real fun. Not to be pessimistic or anything.

[StarDream Inc]

That's not pessimistic, that is realistic.

You've clearly played a few MMOGs before.

That is exactly the kind of thing XOU would need to be designed to avoid if it were to have any hope of being successful.

On the other hand, dumbing it down too much is what killed Earth and Beyond before it even began its beta test. EA couldn't even get most of the tens of thousands of people it let play for free keep playing for more than a couple weeks, since combat involved no skill with dogfighting whatsoever. Select target, sit back and watch. Whoever had the bigger ship and guns won. Exactly the kind of thing you guys describe, since space-gamer skill was completely removed as a factor from combat.

I've been waiting for a space-figher multiplayer online game since Origin first came up with the idea of making MMOGs about 15 years ago. I can wait another ten years if I have to. A half-assed space-fighter MMOG just won't cut it, and won't make it. Not when it now has to compete with Eve, Jumpgate AND Starwars Galaxies.

X2 in its current platform and design would fare much better as a small-scale multiplayer game than an MMOG. Getting 2 to 12 players in one X Universe could make for some excellent co-op or head to head play, to see who can build up an emprie and crush the other first. It would require dedicated servers on the company's end though. This ain't an RTS. You'd need the server running constantly for 30 days minimum to make such a head to head contest work. And that's hard to do if the gamer has to host his own server. Again, this is not something most people would pay any kind of monthly fee for. But a better idea than rushing out an MMOG version of X2 without major redesign.

[Zanzubaa]

There r ways and means u could get around these problems. For starters, and ur not going to like this, u could make it so it wasnt a MMOG but seperate games hosted on different servers much like the way its done in 'freelancer'. Its not half as good but then its not half as ambitious and it is at least still multiplayer.

For those of u who havent played fl multiplayer. when u die u r respawned on the last station u landed on. ur player info is saved in a profile on the server. some servers can have 45 people on at once. there r modded servers with more systems and equipment available.

Not as good as a MMOG, not even near but still a good feature never the less. Maybe ego will include this in an addon-pack later down the line I dont know.

[JonR]

YOu could also have a hosted universe between friends who just play at the same time (and can only go on at the same time) but this would mean that both would have to really enjoy x2 and have lots of spare time. Theoretically this could work with ppl arranging into groups over the web but it isnt a perfect solution.

[-XAAR-]

or quite simply for an mmog, have newly starting out players in safe and heavily guarded sectors patrolled by in game moderators, in which player killing within these sectors is heavily punishable, i.e. a moderator armada coming after the player killers belongins

moderatoes with some superioir powers to normal players acting as police units would easily solve this problem of the rich killing the poor, allowing new players to find their feet (in my opinion)

cant wait to play with the rest of u though

[DragonsClaw]

Ya, it surely would be tooo cool to be able to fly with and against u guyz here. But lets face it: First of all Star Dream Inc is 100% right about everything he said and second: XOU has been promised to the community to be "the next project to work on" after XT, then it was postponed till the release of X² - TT, now X² - TR or maybe X³...
I am beginning to believe XOU is nothing more then a promo-gag in order to make ppl buy the games even without ANY form of multiplayer mode

[The_Abyss]

Ya, it surely would be tooo cool to be able to fly with and against u guyz here. But lets face it: First of all Star Dream Inc is 100% right about everything he said and second: XOU has been promised to the community to be "the next project to work on" after XT, then it was postponed till the release of X² - TT, now X² - TR or maybe X³...
I am beginning to believe XOU is nothing more then a promo-gag in order to make ppl buy the games even without ANY form of multiplayer mode

No such promise has been made, and no date set other than X-OU being a longer term goal. Nor has there ever been any discussion of X² Online or X² multi-player. Once X-OU gets underway, it will NOT be based on X-BTF, X², X-T - it will be its own game.

And once this happens, you can guarantee it will be heaviliy publicised, so players don't have to just refer to a few ancient posts from 1999 that nobody can find anymore stating that X-OU will be available in 6 months time.