X-Rebirth

[Angelo85]

X: Rebirth was in development for 7 years. Quite honestly, I don't think blame for this debacle can be shifted on the Publisher's shoulders for once.

 

[mikaelis]

Deep Silver may be to blame for too early release, but not for the design decisions that were brought in. There was this interesting conversation I found linked somewhere in Egosoft forum, about how testers were writing long feedback reports about the problems with the game to jolly Bernd, yet all they heard from him was silence. I mean things like lack of joystck support (where it was stated in the prior poll that vast majority will use one, and like 10% only will use gamepad) is not DS fault. Stupid mini games in tunnels, hunting for icons to dock/find traders, lack of additional control menu for ships/trading/communicating etc., no keyboard-binding, no autopilot, no targeting - that is all Egosoft decisions. And you can't blame it on XBox port, because they clearly knew at least year ago that it will end up on PC only. They clearly don't know their core fan base or they don't care. In which case they will better be gone from the market to rethink their stance. DS may be partially to blame, but the general game design is Egosoft fault.

here is the link to testers chatting about Egosoft being oblivious to their remarks:

http://roguey.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1082&p=2
(a bit further down the thread).

Also, the last two posts in quoted thread show what is really wrong with Ego devs and how detached from the fan base they are.

And they cannot even say it straight to the fans: "yeah we fucked up, we will patch it". Instead we are getting "oh, great success!, some bugs, we have no idea where that came from!"

I say, fuck them! (unless they really pull their shit together and change this game into something that resemble space-sim). We have SC, ED, Limit Theory and Starport Gemini 2 to look forward to in the future.

 

[Raapys]

Well, what I'm thinking is that they were initially pressured/encouraged by DS to make a console version of the X games, or at least a multiplatform version. But when DS realized, after a few years, that Egosoft didn't have the competency/experience to make a proper console game, they told Egosoft to just release it as a PC title instead.

Though they had 7 years to develop the game, a couple of those years alone probably went into the actual game/graphics engine. Then they spent a few years trying to develop an Xbox title, then were told to scratch it and patch it up for a PC release. But by then they'd already wasted so much cash and time that DS forced them to release early, even though the game's in an alpha-state with tons of features still missing. Heck, they even 'forgot' to implement a way for the player to control several of the advertised aspects of the game. That's not 'bad design', it's simply 'not finished'.

And as for what really is bad design, Egosoft would have to carry the blame for a lot of that of course. But we shouldn't dismiss the publisher's influence on the feature set either. Remember Titan's Quest? In Greece, the developers made mountain tops with snow on them. The publisher explained that their audience might not realize there's snow in Greece, so they were told to scrap it. That's the kind of stupid shit publishers can pull.

Anyway, I'm just speculating. The reason I'm skeptical is that Egosoft did seem like the kind of guys who liked to make games with a certain depth. Heck, they added layers of complexity with all their games up until Rebirth. They were also one of the more mod-friendly developers out there. It just seems a bit far-fetched that this company suddenly did a 180 without any outside influence pulling the strings.

 

[Zarniwoop]

I'm pretty sure they edited the Wikipedia article on the game too, or paid one of those disgraceful professional lying companies to do it... The day it came out, the article said that the majority of reviews by gamers were positive, and states the source as metacritic. However when actually clicking the link to Metacritic, ratings were abysmal as they should be, apart from a few very obvious plants using basically the same review over and over again. I see it's fixed now but it was pretty funny reading that Stillbirth got positive reviews. Not even the dumbfucks who gave DA2 10/10 would give this a positive review.

 

[mikaelis]

Anyway, I'm just speculating. The reason I'm skeptical is that Egosoft did seem like the kind of guys who liked to make games with a certain depth. Heck, they added layers of complexity with all their games up until Rebirth.

You will find some truth behind the development of X3:TC and X3:AP scattered around Egosoft forums, but also in the link I posted above. In particular:

Egosoft never made Terran conflict or Albion Prelude In full. They had devs adding a few features to help with creating missions etc and mission guidance. The games themselves were made by members of modding teams and other community members such as Cycrow...

What, I am trying to say is, that it is very likely that within one year from now, some dumbfuck from Egosoft (likely Bernd) will look at THEIR OWN FORUMS for the first time since now and say: "wow, we have all those nice mods here!!! Community never fails $$$!!!". And they will gather them all together and release it as X: Rebirth: Reborn v.2.0 or something.

That is, if community is still with them and they are not out of the business and such talented guys as Cycrow and others won't move to Star Citizen or other places .

 

[Raapys]

Haha, that part wouldn't surprise me in the least.

I'm not surprised about TC and AP. I always had the impression that Egosoft were developing sandboxes for modders and players to express their creativity in rather than full-fledged games. And if were perfectly frank, none of the features in the original games were very good(though still far better than in Rebirth). But at least they were trying at a time where no other developer really gave a crap about space sims. And if they'd continued trying, full-time, after Reunion, we could have had two incremental upgrades by now, instead of one catastrophic downgrade.

 

[Heresiarch]

It's late to say this, but the first time I ran TC, I smelled immediately something fishy. The so-called new ships were all community made ships. Not a big deal if Egosoft paid them properly. Then I went to the newly introduced sectors, and I saw they used the community made space backgrounds as well. The problem is, the community made ones had a much lower resolution compared to the official ones. Therefore I saw very obvious pixels on the planets and stars and stuff in the new sectors. It was a huge immersion breaker for me. Adding in all the out-of-place new, community made soundtracks, I got the feeling that Egosoft was not sincere at all at providing new contents.

 

[mikaelis]

They were likely paid with manly pad on their backs or some Doritos TBH (save for one or two that ended onboard) :D. That's X mod community for you. Fucking greatest philanthropists out there (no pun intended - I genuinely think they are the best game modding community out there).

Some very small credit is due for the devs to allow easy modding. But then again, it almost look like they are doing it on purpose, so the other can create the game for them.

On the same note, there is one statement from Egosoft that I am willing to believe till the grave - they promised that X: Rebirth is even more easily modded. Wonder why...

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

third patch.

• Fixed a number of crashes during start-up and in-game.
• Fixed crash when docking at certain capital ships.
• Fixed a problem with missing flight control data in savegames.
• Fixed a stall when loading savegames.
• Fixed characters crouching when you talk to them.

THIRD PATCH, and they still have crashes DURING STARTUP!

 

[mikaelis]

Yeah 1.15......., we should wait till 1.50 to FIX things. Adding stuff will start from 2.0. Patch 3.0 with the community support should be when people can start touching it without six meter stick.

 

[theSavant]

• Fixed characters crouching when you talk to them.

Read "fixed crouching..."... damn, I almost thought they fixed removed crouching through ventilation shafts. Unfortunately not. I really wish they would add the community mod "Never Enter Stations Again (NESA)" as an official patch. So that people will never see these ugly NPC models and minigames.

 

[Raapys]

That would be an admittance that it sucks though. So far they don't seem to be in the admitting mood. If it's a bad or missing feature, it's because the game's not X4. If you are having technical issues, then they're sorry that you are using a 'not normal' system configuration.

 

[MetalCraze]

So which Evil Publisher fucked up this Poor Dev's awesome game?

Deep Silver is the evil publisher this time.

Deep Silver has been the publisher of all the X games apart from the original. They weren't that evil then.

They clearly didn't give poor Egosoft enough time to develop the game. 7 years, they got to be kidding.

 

[Echo Mirage]

RPS finally had something to say about it.

The only time I felt like I was making an impact, changing the world. It was going well enough that I looked up some mods to see if there was a chance that I could begin rebuilding the game. If there’s anyone who can parley a disappointing game launch into something positive it’s the people who made X3. They wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t. And neither would the community.

Then it crashed and the save corrupted. I’d spent about 30 hours getting to that point, and I’d had enough. It’s an appalling, broken mess, and I’m not going back.

 

[Metro]

I don't disagree that this game is a total abortion but... people who don't use multiple/backup saves are retarded.

 

[Xi]

I uninstalled, it's a totally uninspired piece of garbage. I'm not sure if it can be fixed. It needs a LOT of content, interface updates, and rule refactoring before it will be worth a damn. That's years off, imho. It has some interesting elements, but if they couldn't make the game in 7 years, it's just not going to happen.

 

[Gord]

Ok, since even Xi, who was quite positive for a long time thinks it's shit now, I guess I'm not missing out on anything by ignoring it...

 

[Xi]

Ok, since even Xi, who was quite positive for a long time thinks it's shit now, I guess I'm not missing out on anything by ignoring it...

Resist the urge. Wait for 2.0 and then reconsider.

 

[titus]

Don't think that's going to happen. They probably got the cash to restock on crack for another 7 years now

 

[Gord]

Ok, since even Xi, who was quite positive for a long time thinks it's shit now, I guess I'm not missing out on anything by ignoring it...

Resist the urge. Wait for 2.0 and then reconsider.

Given that X games always have been a huge timesink and I don't have that much time right now, it's probably for the best...

 

[MetalCraze]

Patches fix bugs, they fucked up the whole design.

A game where you are forced inside a single, dull ship with annoying and useless co-pilot, tons of missing features (cameras, autopilot, time compression among other things) shitty horrible interface (and that's after X3TC which is near perfect) with controls made exclusively for X360 gamepad... in a PC exclusive game. Amazing but they've also fucked up space backgrounds. Whereas X3 games had amazing backgrounds in X4 they look just ugly and sometimes very low quality too.

Spending 7 years to fuck up a game - yeah, good luck with your 2.0

 

[theSavant]

but they've also fucked up space backgrounds. Whereas X3 games had amazing backgrounds in X4 they look just ugly and sometimes very low quality too.

Yeah, in some review I have read (or heard) that some planets look like "they just hang in there" and you can clearly see it's just part of a fake background, destroying immersion. E.g. the huge destroyed planet in one of the starting zones.

 

[Spectacle]

I'll just forget this game exists for now. In a year the combination of patches and mods may have turned it into a playable space sim.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i envy your blind optimism.

 

[Turjan]

Well, looks as if Zarniwoop was right. At least I didn't buy it. I already had the mouse pointer above the trigger, but something held me back. Seems as if I dodged a bullet. I'll revisit this in a year from now.