After six or so years in development, Egosoft has finally released X Rebirth, their new X series’ game. So, you can scratch one more title from the “Sci-Fi/Space Games You Can’t Miss In 2013” list. This means that this is a big day for all X fans, and I guess for almost everybody into space sims for that matter.
Well, I’m not too excited. How could I be? After all, I never played an X series game minute in my life. Nobody is perfect I know. But, from what I’ve seen in these gorgeous trailers Egosoft has been releasing – which all seem to use actual game material – I may have to do something about it soon. One thing is certain, these guys can surely produce amazing videos. They are all great, but this one in particular has definitely conquered my heart. Does this mean that I’ll finally be playing an X series game?
Here’s the release trailer.
Absolutely beautiful stuff guys. Well done. But, how does it actually play? If you’ve played it please share your impressions below.
By the way, Egosoft released another trailer covering the exploration aspects. Here you go.
X Rebirth is available for the PC on Steam and GamersGate for $49.99/€49.99/£39.99.
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Much like Adam, I’ve not personally played an X game myself either. Space flight simulations are certainly outside my area of expertise.
I have been looking at the comments on this game on Steam though, where it is currently listed as the top selling game. The forums are moving very fast over there, and most of the comments aren’t positive. There seem to be some issues with this title. Performance is one issue I am seeing brought up quite a bit, but in addition I am seeing some comments from longtime X series players about some of the game’s design choices. Granted, part of the issue could be some people had built up so much hype that the game couldn’t possibly hold up to it (take note those of you designing aspiring MoO II successors :) ). Still, I just wanted to caution any fans of X3 to check out the forums before purchasing…
Would love to hear comments from our readers and fans of this series on this title and launch.
I dont get why I should follow the X3 fans opinion…so many other ppl didnt play x3 games for different reasons..gameplay,graphics etc.
Im really not interested in X3 fans opinion …Im interested only in ScFi Space games fans opinion.
i can see they didnt pay the graphics companies for any kind of package for their game to be optimised for the graphics cards… love of god
All I want is X-Wing or TIE-Fighter with 1920×1080 graphics and a decent HOTAS control setup.
That’s it. I would play that game till I died.
There are various total conversions of Freespace 2 though, which should be pretty close in terms of gameplay. Or is the Star Wars setting essential for you?
Oh, I’m so with you on that. Nostalgia surely plays a big role on this type of things, but I’d absolutely love to play a modern X-Wing game. Gameplay was fantastic, but I can’t even imagine how good the game would be with today’s technology. Perhaps we’ll see some of that in Star Citizen or Elite: Dangerous, but, Star Wars…
Check out Enemy StarFighter, then: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmhUiOWQVto
X Games are not for arcade gamers. Dont compare them.
X Games usually have to go through a period of updating before they are right.
X gamers will know this and report issues. Arcade gamers and casual passersby who are attracted to the pretty graphics will rave & rage. Most wont get very far with the game…it’s too complicated they will say. Yes it’s an X Game; X Games are complex space simulations….not arcade shooters.
Adam…if you have never played an X Game my advice is…dont start with this one. Begin with X3Reunion or Terran Conflict. Those games have been extensively updated and extended and are as solid as you can get in any computer game. Lots of mods too. And they are very cheap today.
Good advice, Terran Conflict is awesome.
Been playing for 2-3 hours now, mostly just flying around, and seeing what happens when I do certain things.
Biggest problem so far is the lack of decent controller support. I currently cannot use my X52 Pro with the game without causing game breaking problems involving the mouse cursor constantly disappearing. Without the cursor, you can’t dock at stations for example. Alot of people are complaining about the lack of HOTAS support. There are performance issues as well, but I’m not so surprised about that.
I’m finding the UI an unintuative affair, the sector/galaxy/zone maps are… confusing. Very dissapointed in the lack of any kind of external camera controls and even more annoyed that they’ve gone to all that effort of a pretty and detailed cockpit, with the ability to walk around your ship… but completely unable to look around your cockpit manually except during certain scripted sequences when you access menus, have a cutscene or dock somewhere. Nor can you turn the cockpit off to see more.
There are things I like too though, I think I’ll quite like the exploration factor, you can just fly in around in the middle of nowhere with some very pretty space backgrounds and objects to investigate and a funky long range scanner you can use to ping the area of objects of interest. It is quite a pretty game when you stop to look at the details of the stations, ships and background objects. Combat looks alot more interesting. The interiors of stations and NPC’s are not nearly as impressive looking though. NPC’s in particular look rather dated.
Its still early days yet, but so far generally I have mixed feelings. The technical issues are to be expected since every X game has pretty much had some… issues shall we say at launch. Still it took a while (read years) before they finally arrived at the polished games of X3:TC/AP. So maybe in a few years X Rebirth will be the game we want it to be =P
Overall a very rocky start imo
Long time X serie player here. I just finished to play Rebirth after 3 hours too.
I share the same critics than him, and I don’t particulary like the user’s interface.
the maps cannot even be zoomed/unzoomed, the font is too big, the buttons are pathetic and too big. the maps from the previous versions of the serie were far more better.
I also have some problem with the controller, I tested with a 360 and you can’t even chose any button you want for any function.
Overall the universe seems far less empty than the previous X with a lot much more things to do. I also like the exploration of the big space installations, from space at least, because yeah the interiors have nothing very exciting in comparison.
Graphics are night and day, and at the contrary of some, I have no pb of frame rate with 1.11, a 6970 ATI and a 3930K.
From now I think that I will wait for subsequent patches and also, as usual in the X serie, the mods :)
We *lost* the ability to pilot multiple ships in X-Rebirth all because of that bloody cockpit and now you tell me it isn’t even possible to look around it!? Pathetic Egosoft!
For what we lost I would expect it to both sleep with me AND bring me breakfast in bed.
Nowadays it is time to be suspicious when a major title releases without a public beta of some sorts or pre-launch reviews. It’s almost like they had something to hide…
Possibly they needed the cash flow (and a public Beta would expose the limits of their readiness).. From what I have read so far – this latest incarnation has pretty lame (Dumb) NPC’s as was feared on the forums… My advice to would-be buyers – give it a couple of months so they can hopefully iron out the bugs – but I have my doubts the NPC’s will be any smarter. See here
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/11/15/x-rebirth-preview/
I’m not trading in my full CH HOTAS on a Microsoft gamepad.
Is ANYONE running this with stick, rudder, throttle?
I’m using a thrustmaster warthog for flying but button support is pathetic :'(
After sinking an AMAZING number of hours into X3:TC, i’m willing to give this one a go. Not right away. Probably a year in.
I definitely agree with what people are saying about this showing the necessity of a beta. The thing is, even if all of these problems were “revealed” in the beta, at that point it’s just the beta, so people don’t have a nervous breakdown and spam metacritic and steam with how much they hate you.
As for me, I am waiting for a performance fix, as the performance is definitely in shambles, but I guess I was half expecting some major problems. I haven’t experienced any crashes. If they can’t fix performance, then I’ll get upset.
As for having one ship, well having sunk a ton of time into previous X, I can’t say that upsets me all that much. Perhaps Egosoft should have invested their time in figuring out WHY it makes sense to have one player ship in X and fixed THAT instead… oh well, could work for X at least. Of course, my being happy with that is contingent on the ship being “massively upgradeable” as they claim.
The biggest “real” problem that I’m worried about here which is a potential huge disappointment is the UI, but I’ll have a real opinion on when they get us a performance fix.
Sigh, we space sim fans have to wait 20 years for games then months for them to be patched… while people who like fantasy MMO, survival horror, and the nothing-to-see-here FPS crap get like 30 games a month. Ugh, this post was so rambling.
I don’t actually mind having only one ship as long as the tradeoff is totally worth what we lose. If the cockpit and ship were fully interactive and you could look around the cockpit like you were actually sitting in it then I could accept the loss for what we are getting in return.
But when you cant even look around the cockpit except in scripted cut scenes, well that’s just totally……. Pathetic. No other word for it. We lost the ability to pilot any ship we want for *that*??
I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to say that is the sole reason or even primary motivation for it. Like I said, I really think it has to do more with some peculiarities of the X games. It certainly didn’t make sense to pilot anything larger than an M6 (basically frigate sized, try flying around in an M2 for a while, you’ll see what I mean). Swapping out into smaller ships could sometimes turn into a huge hassle, depending on what you were doing. So, if this ship really does have the flexibility (and again, it’s not at all clear yet that it does) it may have been a fairly well thought out design choice. I sort of hate to defend Egosoft after another botched release, but I really do see some logic in this choice.
Again, Egosoft probably should have spent more time figuring out these aggravations than restricting choice. I take it for granted that you can fly tons of ships in Elite and SC and wouldn’t give that up, but different games are just different, I’m fine with that.
And, not for nothing, after all I do share some of your frustration with one ship, but usually you look around a cockpit once and never again, because the controls are insufficient to fly and look. Oculus Rift isn’t actually out yet.
Of course I’m not sure it was the *only* reason, its just the only one that came easily to mind. There may have been other reasons but I honestly have no idea what you mean about problems swapping into and out of ships in the older games. In X3 and Terran Conflict I piloted all types, including capital ships and never had any issues at all swapping between ships. So I’m completely clueless as to what you mean by “huge hassle”, it was dead easy.
The frustration is simply due to the fact that they seem to have taken away the ability to pilot multiple ships and given absolutely NOTHING back in return. Once again a new release has actually slid backwards and lost a core feature that all previous versions had. It seems to be the way things are done nowadays, dumb it down, add pretty graphics and hope nobody notices (ring a bell XCOM fans?).
Mind you I don’t actually have the game. I’m only judging by what I read here and on other forums. There might be more to this “one ship” in Rebirth that I’m not aware of which makes up for the lost functionality of the previous games. That would be ok, but there HAS to be something.
If Rebirth ends up adding nothing but pretty graphics to the franchise then it will be the only X-game I wont be buying.
I think the cockpit does take some adjustment, especially for long time fans. But the game also sets your ship up as the command center for your entire fleet that performs that bulk of tasks that players used to perform in various different ships.
I like the graphics for the highway system, but just for the heck of it I manually flew to several destinations in the starting sector. It was nice to have the option, but the highways defiantly save time.
It is a big change in game play and I’m still deciding if it is compelling enough to keep me in the game for the long haul. I hope the mid and endgames feel a bit more compelling. Still after several installments of the old interface over a dozen years or so, I’m will to give the game some serious time before making up my mind & making comments to erode the user base.
Just to be clear, I was not implying there was anything wrong with the actual process of changing ships, it is the logistical project of having and managing smaller ships, supplies, equipment, movement, repair, procurement etc… I’d buy the argument that those logistical challenges are “part of life” but with a UI and poor automation that makes a chore out of every one of those, I’d be willing to give it up for automation and hugely expanded flexibility of your main ship (once again, whether that exists in X Rebirth I just don’t know yet). IF it’s the case that these were the sorts of things that Egosoft sought to address, with multiple ships as a sacrifice, it makes sense. I don’t know yet if they’ve actually done that, but it seems a sensible goal.
At the end of the day: Yes, I’d certainly rather get to choose between many ships. Who wouldn’t? I just don’t agree with the singular focus the issue often seems to get, especially when the UI and automation are such big problems.
I fear it is all a moot point anyway, as my impression of the new UI is not encouraging.
Ok that makes a lot more sense. Yes the logistical tools for controlling large fleets of smaller ships are pretty sparse and difficult to use, although there are several fan-made script plugins that you can download which make things a lot easier.
I have to say though, I’d rather be able to do these things in the game – even if it isn’t easy – than have them completely removed.
“I fear it is all a moot point anyway, as my impression of the new UI is not encouraging.”
Yes I was afraid of that. Every single report I have read about this game so far has been quite negative. If you do eventually find anything about the “single ship” In Rebirth to make up for the loss of being able to pilot multiple ships I would be very interested to hear it.
Been playing for a few days now and I like many am a litte dissapointed by whats “missing” from the game; although I’m hopeful things can and will change in time.
The arguments about the cockpit i feel are right on, it is for the most part ‘painted on’ since you don’t have the ability to look arounnd so it feels very restrictive. I used to enjoy, for instance flying under a capital ship and watching it float by above the viewport, now it feels like my neck is strapped in place in the pilots seat.
I miss the ability to actually dock at stations via autopilot and view my ship from the external cinematic camera as it goes through the docking sequence. Which leads me to the total lack of external views in the game, kind of a deal breaker for me with any spaceship game and I cannot fathom the logic behind this decision! O_o
The UI has far less information on targets than it used to, you cant change whats displayed there, cant even view an external view of the target ship (á la the windows from X1-3). So for the most part I have very little idea what enemy ships, particularly fighters, actually look like; you only get a brief view during a dogfight as they zing past! And another thing, in X2/X3 you clicked on an object and got a verbose description of what it is and a little history on the object, something i think is missing from this iteration (I can’t say 100% but I dont remember hearing any in the new game – can anyone confirm?)
Character models are ugly as hell and have strange movement patterns, Station interiors all seem to look the same so far and I dont agree that you should have to trawl the entire station looking for a particular person, there should be some sort of phonebook or contact list for stations so you dont have to (if you dont want to)
This seems to be the theme of X:Rebirth, a lot of new features introduced, but just as many have been removed and some may even be deal breakers for some, certainly the lack of external views has me raging.
OK, Rant over! I will say this though, I trust Egosoft to ‘fix’ this game and the modders to throw their weight in for good measure. My main gripe is that I paid £40 ($60?) for a digital PC game! Which, by the time they make it what it was supposed to be (years if previous games are anything to go by) it will be on sale for a fraction of the price :(
Once again, we are reminded of the reality that is gaming in this generation, trust no one! And I mean no one! Unless they have a demo / beta/ multiple reviews, always assume the game will be incomplete at launch!
Not that this is a scam or anything, but once again i’m reminded of the need for patience and peer reviews before making purchases (although avoid the Steam forums, so much vitriol and unconstructive nerd rage!)
EDIT:
FYI, for all those talking about performance drops and issues, I have seen none so while i dont argue the game could be better optimised, its probably more to do with the users rig.
Mine isn’t all that at all and yet I’ve had no issues; no crashes, no graphical glitches (except in stations, NPC’s with glasses: the glasses seem to slide all over their faces as they speak or turn their heads!) FPS is stable at around 37 FPS, rarely drops as low as its lowest which has been as low as 22 fps briefly. I usually have everything turned up to the max (LOD is set one or two notches from max), shodows on and Ambient Occlusion set to on.
My Rig:
Core I3 2100(!)
Win 64 bit
GTX 550 Ti(!)
8GB RAM
As a long time X series fan.
I am extremely disappointed in this game. It has taken what was good from the previous titles, removed them and added broken and dumbed down features. It is essentially a console game and rumors suggest it was designed to be for the Xbox 360 at some stage but failed. Anyone on the fence with this game, do no buy it expecting an X4. It is an abomination and is not worthy of the X name.
So basically it looks like Egosoft just shoved their entire dedicated, hardcore fanbase out the airlock in order to make room for 12 year old kids with short attention spans and twitchy trigger fingers.
I wonder how well they sleep at night? Rest in peace X-franchise, you will be missed.
*****sigh*******
I have been a fan of the X series since x-btf, then x2, skipped x3:reunion due to the crappy stuff, then went to X3: TC.
Very great games throughout the years.
****************
NOW! X-rebirth *****sigh****nothing but a disappointment.
1) Somebody at the top who came up with the console focus and pushed the devs for that really deserve to be given a public scolding and should be fully made accountable when its original and dedicated fans start turning sour.
2) It should be fine to support 32-bit mode for the game (yes even with the limit of the 3-4GB on 32-bit systems). All it needs is some ingenuity in this area similar to X3tc. (YOU DO NOT NEED TO CREATE SEAMLESS TRANSITIONS)
3) after typing so far, i am at a loss of words now. (20+ of my friends who bought the game are now asking for refunds….they too are fans of x3tc but i dont think it will ever be the same for x-rebirth).
Dear egosoft, good luck and godbless on the bad decisions and hopefully, in future, you would listen to your devs more and less on the management people who came up with this kind of market driven nonsense which ultimately led to this situation.
***sigh*****
Personal experiences:
I am actually rather happy with the design choices they made. A lot of the endless waiting and grinding is gone. Rather the game has been made faster, with possibilities to do stuff constantly. This does not mean that the game won’t have calm moments. It does have plenty of those actually. You decide what to do and what you get. I heard quite some people complaining about the game being simplified. Honestly, I do not agree with that. The control scheme has been simplified a lot though, but that does not make for a “consolified” game imo.
My main issues of this game:
– Performance.
– Lack of proper feedback.
– Some annoying bugs like UI sticking (forcing you to flip your AA settings a bit around to fix) and CTD’s (mainly performance related, but also some due to not catching certain events well).
That being said, I must say this is pretty much the X game I love most of the entire series (having played all the X games since X2 the threat, including X2, a lot). You make it as complicated and as intense as you want it to be. A real sandbox-styled game.
I have recorded quite some X rebirth footage by now. 1 has been thrown on youtube without any editing. Another being uploaded now. Soon I will work on a sort of trailer-ish video showing the game on a very underpowered machine. The video I’m uploading right now actually has the gfx settings themselves in it. Also my specs are clearly visible in it at a point.
Video links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEtkHW_KjcY (spoiler alert starting at 27 minutes).
After tweaking my settings and my PC more, I finally realized stable recording performance while maintaining decent FPS. Resulting in this:
http://youtu.be/jX-9qqBWqZQ
Thats quite an interesting view. I agree there are some good design choices, I actually like the space lane feature and the greater focus on speeding up the overall game, but I guess I’m hung up on what they took out, and I don’t understand the thinking behind it.
For instance, no external views? Non-interactive ship interior/ UI? No mouse-look to view that lovely interior that is the reason we only get one ship? (ONE SHIP!!! 11…. Which you never see from the outside? ?^^) no missile camera? No autopilot?
Lets be clear these are all well ingrained features of the X series which with the exception of the single ship issue, we had no reason to believe would be omitted, and the new features haven’t been well implemented, hence a lot of people feeling ripped off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X3:_Reunion#Reception_and_criticism
A very similar situation to the current one with X Rebirth. Expect egosoft to act in a similar way.
The difference with Rebirth is that even if all the bugs are fixed, the core game will still be a shallow, dumbed down console shooter. I’m finding it hard to believe that any amount of patching can fix *that*.
I’ve posted my own review (I say Review, more of a few hours of impressions before giving up) of X-Rebirth here for those interested:
http://thegianteye.com/x-rebirth-review-im-done-with-pre-orders/
I liked your review. And sadly it just reinforces what I have been reading elsewhere on the net. That not only is there nothing to make up for the loss of multiple ship piloting, but the rest of the game is also a dumbed down mess with a massive amount of basic features simply *gone* and nothing added to replace them except pretty graphics.
Sorry about the money you wasted, but if it’s any consolation, I’m sure that your well-written review will help many people to avoid making the same mistake. Myself included.
I’ve heard of cases where buyers have tried (and succeeded) to get a refund from Steam. It is worth a try. A case where I got burnt by pre-orders were Legends of Pegasus, so yeah. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m not even pre-ordering from my trusted publishers/developers anymore.
Ahhh Legends of Pegasus, yeah I really got burnt with that one. In that case I did attempt to get a refund, no joy.
I’m not so fussed about a refund with Rebirth though, because Egosoft in the past have patched their games up to be playable and fun as time goes on, so perhaps in a few months or so, X Rebirth might actually be fun to play.
I do hope they get it to a point where it is playable, though ive not had any bugs in my brief play so I know at least I won’t be playing it again since bugs were not the subject of my ire.
I was and still am a fan of the X serie, however, I am still really disapoint by X rebirth.
I even had low expectation:
I expected that the game would be dumed down (I was actually looking foward for that :p )
I expected the NPC interaction would be horrible
I expected performance issue for most people
What I didn’t expect was a game that has some of its core mecanic broken
The trade/build aspect are just plain unplayable, right now, people need to go fiddle in their save file to make their ship able to trade.
Even with low expectation, I was really disapointed.
I still have hope however, egosoft normaly improve their game regularly over a long time period and the modding community is awosome (already many small mod to fix most of the anoyance in the game).
I belive that the potential is there, but its a game that you should still wait a few month before playing.
I started the X series of games in 2005 with X2 and played every X game that came afterward. I have logged countless hours in trade empire building and fleet management in TC/AP and preordered Rebirth. I say this from the bottom of my heart, X-Rebirth is abysmal by any metric. After 23 hours of playing I can say with out a doubt in my mind that this was never intended to be an X game. Egosoft and Bernd can claim it was never a console port but after tearing into the shader hard code and finding endless lines of xbox 360 specific language I have to call bullshit. It’s a damn shame but at least I have Star Citizen and Elite to look forward to.
See this is what gets me the most, it’s the dshonesty. I expect this sort of bait and switch from the likes of EA or any other big name, rinse & repeat, annual release kinda publisher, but Egosoft has (had?) a loyal following that trusted them to keep the franchise growing, and its that loyalty which is going to be tested by this. Even with their penchant for buggy games, we expect this and KNOW they will fix bugs as they always have… but the lies, oh the lies!!!
They promised a reboot of the series, and yes they delivered. But they promised that the complexity would be comparable to previous X-Games, (cant remember where but that was back in 2011!) – LIES
They Promised a huge explorable universe, living and breathing etc… – LIES
(5 star systems does not a universe make – previous X games had DOZENS – proof: google Terran Conflict/ Albion Prelude sector map – did i mention there are like 7 clones in the entire universe and only about 3 different station layouts?)
They promised streamlined trade – LIES
(How is it streamlined when you spend ages looking for a place to dock, then running around looking for an NPC to buy/sell)
They promised a highly detailed, endlessly customisable/ upgradeable ship in exchange for flying multiple ships – LIES (we have a cockpit skin which takes up most of the screen- its totally non-interactive btw, just a pretty skin -, that we cant look around and linear upgrades on weapons: Mk1, Mk2 and NO STATS to tell you which does more dmg, rate of fire, good for shields or Hull etc)
and as you mentioned, they promised a PC exclusive! – LIES
console port!! The preference for a controller, the sliders to select ware quantity – you cant enter numbers with the keyboard! NO HOTKEYS – no control mapping to keyboard hotkeys, FOV (60 deg?) and optimum resolutions (720p!) perfect for a TV not a widescreen monitor (remember, PC exclusive!!) and no external views (previous X games, F1 would cycle 4 views, one was external target padlock, F2 would cycle external views of your ship, two of which were cinematic- so you could see your ship and play the game in this mode for that cinematic feel)
I could go on but I’m back playing AP and not regretting a moment of it! :D
I have to amend the part about the linear weapon upgrades, it seems you can install different weapons. Stats shown at the trader at least: range, damage per second, as well as a verbose description.
Yeah the level of just outright lying from Bernd and the misrepresentation (just have a look at any reveal vids) is something I would expect from a big Corp. It’s one thing when the faceless Mega Corp gaming industry screws you over…this is like your best friend robbing you. You had their trust and they just use you. I’m really just done supporting anything that hasn’t had at least a few months of patching and reviews. I have been burned before but this…this is unacceptable.
Technically it IS a PC exclusive… Microsoft probably told them where to go when they saw what a mess it was and they fell back to milking the PC crowd who would eventually fix it for them :@
Already there’s essential mods over on X:Rebirth Nexus site:
(1)NESA
(2)Remove local highways
(3)Manual command extension
(4)Up-close detailed monitor
(5)Smart miner
Descriptions following: —>
DISCLAIMER: This may come across a little bitter, I’m guilty of that but not sorry, these things should have been in GPRC#1 and not left to the community! Now that’s in the open, the 5 mods above by the numbers!
1:
NESA stands for “Never enter stations again” and adds a fully customizable feature somehow missing from the public release to call NPCs from outside the stations like normal business people do today. It’s not perfect- you still need to discover a dock point and be inside a (configurable) minimum range… TOTALLY WORTH IT!”
Trouble is, with all the tedious busywork crap removed from the game by modders, how much *actual* game is left and is there any point in playing it?
2:
Remove Local Highways
Bit undecided on this one… It removes highways but with the lack of sector-wide targeting or any autopilot whatsoever you have to follow other ships to discover new stations. Boost is unlimited though so it’s actually quite neat
3:
Manual command extension
Adds manual STOP, FOLLOW, etc commands but is heavily broken if used in the wrong circumstances such as it is now
4:
Up-close detailed monitor:
This one simply moves the camera to the pop-up screen instead of making you squint to see it
5:
Smart miner
Actually has miners searching for asteroids instead of floating in a static flight area
Thanks for the mod recommendations, I gave them a shot and the few dialogue canceling mods. I have seen first hand what the modding community did with XRM but unfortunately without true fleet command and control and a real trading empire this game is getting shelved for at least 6 months if not a year.I’m starting to doubt Egosoft will even be around a year from now.
Mark:
Sorry I ignored you while writing that, just wanted to get it out of the way.
Actually? There’s a surprising amount of gameplay there just waiting to get the crap out of the way! The core elements are all there to begin with, just buried. I go waaaaay back to X:BTF so I remember only having one single ship (before X:tension addon) so I’m hopeful on that front. The weapons and missiles need SERIOUS expansion in choice but the trade system is actually workable with the above modifications. My biggest gripe is that I’ve not (so far) been able to find any way to own smaller trade ships (X3’s TS/TP/TM classes) but it’s inevitable the community will plug the holes!
X3:Reunion was a steaming pile of bantha poodoo, X3:AP 3.0+Mods is still the greatest IMHO :)
@ Rich B
Nice to know there’s still potential then but it sounds like any fun is still a long way off and relies heavily on the good will of the modding community.
Luckily I didn’t waste my money on this mess, so I think I’ll just follow Ambushclose’s lead and wait 6 – 12 months for Egosoft to sort out their massive trainwreck. Assuming they’re still around after that time, which is far from certain.
I have installed X3:AP and am just about to get into it. Hopefully it will be more like TC and a lot less like Rebirth :)
Ambushclose:
No thanks necessary, just X-men together (haha, had to!)
This game is as broken as X2R was upon release but over time they all work out. As for ES not existing in 6 months?
I totally agree but imagine if the IP went for sale and the development team hit KS to purchase the rights from DS after initial asset liquidation proceedings? Working under contract sucks :)
We’ve got elite and SC to come but don’t write X off altogether, after all: Terran Conflict started as a mod :D
Mark:
I’m actually doing a playthrough of AP myself at the moment with new mods:
OK Traders (off the bat UT’s with better AI)
Rating: 7/10
Essentially UT’s that actually communicate as well as being the proper cowards they need to be to survive!
Phanon Corp (Basically an AI rival corp)
Rating: 9/10
Adds AI competitor
Battlestar Galactica v3.0.3
Rating: 6/10
Adds BSG ships and plot + Cylon attacks – Only just trying this one after recent release but so far really enjoyable
@ Rich B,
Thanks for the mod suggestions. I don’t have any mods at all in my version but they sound good, particularly the UT one. I was a big fan of UT’s in TC.
I’ll check them out. The Cylons sound like a great substitute for – or addition to – the Xenon.
Mark:
No problem dude. To be fair that’s just the latest ones I’m trying, my mods are too numerous to list in full but there’s plenty to choose from! For example, I like anarkis’ CF:SPP (Crystal-free solar power plant) while my mate hates it for imbalance. I don’t argue it, I just run what I want :D
Cadius’ Xtra ship+station pack is an amazing expansion to Terrans in both TC and AP though most of the ships come from other titles so can’t be officially incorporated.
Phanon corp? (Nerdgasm!!!11)
Phanon corp adds a scripted rival, it works with mods as well as it does in vanilla; X has NEVER been the same for me since I discovered this one :)
This video review had me chuckling although I don’t know why because the joke is on us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxUx96-6-dw
Its going to take a miracle for me to ever trust Egosoft again after this travesty of a game.
Yeah I feel like they took advantage of the core supporters they have had for years. It’s a real shame, this is such a niche genre and I really want to support smaller dev teams like this but, they lied about most of the features and I can no longer support them.
Of course there would have been no choice here though; Without a release the title becomes vaporware and impossible to rectify due to legal issues :)
I agree that they have a had track record for these kind of releases, but the volume of sales that are steam based are going to haunt them. Initial reports of almost a 20% refund request and it hasn’t been that long yet. Now as a long time player I really want to have faith but this is kinda low for Egosoft IMHO.
Ambushclose:
True and I’m agreed in everything you postulate but I really think it’s a DS contractual issue that is to blame for the current release fiasco…
I can’t see any other reasonable explanation for this insulting piece of software than conflicting interests or more likely financial obligations that give design priority to ‘wider audience appeal’ over ‘understood & established standards requiring exclusion of any future expansion’
Very bitter again I know but the translation is this:
Egosoft: “X:Rebirth can be the best X we’ve ever made!”
Marketing: “X-Rebirth is going to cost more than THQ did!”
Egosoft: “We have a core base of dedicated customers!”
Marketing: “Aim it at them and their children then!”
Egosoft: “FUUuuuuuuuuuuuu!”
“Kill it all, let mod sort ’em out!”
:D
A new mod came out today that seems to have won my friends over et al;
Real Highways mod removes the slipstream minigame, increases boost speed inside highways, removes ‘fake’ traffic and finally at the same time makes highway boost unlimited.
End result?
Proper highways, relevant traffic and a glimpse of the ‘affect the economy’ dynamic we were promised on release!
Link:
http://xrebirth.nexusmods.com/mods/72//?
Cautionary comment:
I haven’t tried this particular mod yet due to uni work and blogging, it sounds worthwhile but I can’t give any personal opinion just yet :)
The game is absolutely horrible, and doesn’t deserve to be part of the X-series at all.
I wish I never even paid for it. :-/
I made a bit more detailed review and my thoughts on it here: http://angrysailor.net/?p=19
Since X – Rebirth has turned out to be a big steaming pile of digital poo, I have been wondering about trying Eve Online as a non – braindead option for space trading/empire building.
Has anyone had a good experience with Eve?
I’ve played EVE on and off since it came out in 2003. Played it pretty constantly until about 2007/8 when I finally lost my steam in it. Nowadays I just play casual from time to time. But despite me being burnt out on it for the most part, I still passionately recommend it to others who like sandbox games.
Some call it just spreadsheets in space, but its so much more than that. The adrenaline rush of PvP combat is like no other game I’ve played because death matters and has serious consequences. If you die, you will really lose your stuff, stuff that may have cost billions of in-game currency and months of your time.
I literally could write an essay about why I love EVE, but I this trailer sums it up nicely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq2oxt7Nrxo
Thanks, it *does* sound interesting. I don’t care about spreadsheets or eye candy, I just want a some intelligence and depth in a space game. I liked the video :)
EVE is one of those, Love it or Hate it games. It looks absolutely gorgeous and the last i checked there are now avatars that you can walk around as but still no gameplay reason to do so. Remember though, its a PVP MMO so expect no story or campaign of any kind, its entirely player driven (everything you buy has been crafted by someone else-except the ships themselves) and while there are NPCs who give out missions, you dont really get much more than your standard quests types: go here, Kill this, return or deliver/ transport this person/Item etc… It wasn’t for me, although i do play and enjoy MMO’s (there aren’t any spaceship MMO;s that i like with the exception of Star Trek Online), I feel the games needs more PVE and some sort of campaign just to do justice to the potential depth of the IP; some of the EVE fiction on the website is just begging to be explored/ fleshed out and is being wasted, but thats just me.
I’d seriously check out a review from a site that specialises in MMO’s to really undestand the game and what its all about, but then there’s the 30 day free trial and the currently discounted price on steam (£3.25/ $5.00?) so doesn’t hurt to check it out.
For the record, I did like the idea of EVE and have many friends who still love it, so the above isn’t a missve against the game, just a heads up.
@ Chucki792,
Thanks for the overview. I’m honestly not sure whether I’m going to fall into the love or hate camp, but I think I will give the free trial a go, after all if I don’t like it then all I have lost is some time and bandwidth :)
@Chuki792:
Actually, even the ships are built by the players themselves.
@Mark
If you want to try EVE, I suggest looking into the buddy invite system.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=9874
There are quite a few offers there, that would give you a benefit over the normal 21 day buddy trial account, if you decide to sign up for the game.
Yes, EVE is basically a player driven sandbox experience, this means, that though there is no official in-game story besides a few general ideas and alliances, that does not mean EVE would be boring.
That video Angel linked not just sounds and looks cool, its actually how EVE works. I could probably tell similar stories from my 7 years of EVE. (well, except maybe from the rescuing the single miner leading to an epic battle between alliances thing, though there have been cases, where wars were fought over a few misplaced words, so I guess its not impossible)
So if you are not an antisocial git and prefer to play MMOs for their multiplayer aspect, so that you can play WITH people, not just besides them, then EVE is the way to go.
Thanks Csebal, I think I will give it a go. I know I wont be able to treat it like an X game, but I’m hoping that there will still be fun there.
I’m wondering if I should be wary of those buddy offers though, they seem almost too good to be true.
I know there are scams in Eve that unwary players can fall into. Are all those buddy offers legit or would I be taking a risk?
Well, the fact that you are even asking this question probably means that you are EVE compatible :)
I haven’t tried the buddy offers myself, but from what I know, they are legit, especially as they are in a thread started by the devs.
CCP does little to prevent scamming in game, but they are very careful about not allowing people to scam stuff around subscriptions, so if someone were to scam in character trades, with GTC offers (not in game PLEX sales) or stuff like the buddy system, they would most probably crack down on the individual.
The way the buddy system works is this: when a new player who signed up through the buddy system pays for their first month, the inviter gets a free month of game time in the form of a PLEX (player license extension – plex is an in-game tradable item, that has an in-game currency value, so you can buy and sell it in game, just like any other item). Now for obvious reasons, there is competition between those who offer these “invites”, and a part of that competition is offering kickbacks and other perks to invited newbies. Even if they give you 75% of the PLEX value, that would still mean that for every 4 new players who sign up through them, they get 1 month of game time for free.
One interesting note about the plex system, it is CCPs way of fighting illegal money trades. You can buy a game time card for EVE, that would give you 60 days of game time for about 30 bucks. You can instead of adding that time to a single account, convert it to into in game PLEX items, that each can be used to extend game time by 30 days and can be traded freely. (beware, that you should never transport those around, unless you already are pretty confident in your abilities, as there are pirates hunting for them – its a PVP game after all)
Anyway, this PLEX system does two things.
1) It allows many players, who otherwise would not be able to afford a monthly sub to still play the game, by buying their game time from the in game currency (ISK)
2) It gives a legal way of acquiring more in game currency with real money, as you can always just buy game time and sell it to other players for ISK.
While it might seem pay to win, EVE is built in a way, that equipment and character skills matter a lot less, than teamwork and player skills. Its merely a nice way of getting some head start or some extra cash if you are not in the mood of grinding the money in game for whatever reason.
I’m sure that whoever you go with in the buddy system will tell you all about PLEXes.
One last thing: EVE is a highly social and very PVP oriented game. Yes there are solo PVE activities, that you can pretty much do alone in empire (safe) space, but if you only rely on those, the game gets boring pretty quickly. Not to mention that you lose out on the fun parts of it. Most other activities, even if not directly PVP related, would put you in an environment, where PVP is always allowed. This is one of the reasons why it is especially important to find a bunch of people to play with, as there is strength in numbers and its easier to do your thing, if there are others watching your back while you are doing it.
Finding the right bunch might take some time, but if you are open minded about it, its not that hard. I suggest you go look at the recruitment section of the forums, if you decide to go with EVE even already during the trial.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=topics&f=265
I know there are corporations in the game, that specialize on taking and training newbies. Look around until you find something that sounds interesting and then get in touch with them to find out more.
If you are into that kind of stuff (or simply not against it), I would suggest picking a newb oriented PVP corp. Trust me, the sooner you get your feet wet in real PVP, the better the game will be for you. Many players play EVE with the fear that PVP might happen to them, instead of enjoying the change of pace it usually brings.
Most of these corps allow you to learn PVP in cheap, disposable ships (often provided for free as part of the training), giving you the confidence required to assess a situation properly, which can be a life saver later on, when you fly big and expensive ones and happen to run into some less than friendly players :)
Finally, though you already seem to know some of this, remember the key concepts of EVE.
– Nothing is ever free, or at least you should not expect it to be.
– If its too good to be true, it probably is, so always think about what’s in it for the other side.
– Ships are meant to be blown up. Its just a matter of time when you will lose your ship (might take years if you are good and lucky, or just a few hours of you happen to be like me :P), so never fly anything you cannot afford to lose.
Last, but not least, if you are *interested* in PVP, then I would suggest picking Tank CEO. His might not be the best offer out there as far as ISK goes, but he is one of those players who were doing PVP since beta, so he might be able to give you a few pointers on where to start with that in the current state of the game. I suggest you talk with him beforehand though, not sure what his level of involvement is with newbies.
Thanks for the detailed response, some very good information there, a lot of it I wasn’t aware of.
I was planning on getting my feet wet doing pve stuff for a while before I approached anything pvp related. Don’t want to bite off more than I can chew too early. The way I see it there will be plenty of time for pvp once I know what the hell I’m doing.
I have actually already accepted a buddy offer and have my 21 day trial, the client is downloading as we speak. I guess I will find out for sure if he plans to rip me off when/if I subscribe. Anyway at least I get 21 free days to see if I will like the game or not.
Good luck and as we used to say in EVE, fly safe.
As for the PVE vs PVP stuff. Most PVPers also do PVE, as PVP is a money sink, while PVE is a money generating activity.
Frankly, for me, the only reason to make ISK in that game during the later years was so I can spend it on “war materials” :)
Thats not to say, there aren’t interesting PVE activities to partake in. I suggest you take a look at incursions (a highly team oriented PVE activity, that requires teamwork and cooperation similar to PVP, so its a very good training tool in how fleet operations work in EVE) and exploration (a PVE activity that you can also do solo with the potential to find some nice and interesting items. It has a rather low skill barrier, as it was designed in a way so new players can also enjoy it).
Most importantly though, remember and strongly consider what I wrote about finding and joining a corporation as soon as possible. It is usually what draws the line between those who stick with the game for years and those who leave it after a few weeks / months due to “it not being interesting enough”, or “being too grindy”, “too harsh”, or any other excuse they can come up with so they do not have to look into the mirror and face their own antisocial behavior :)
There is a lot more to this game than shooting ships, mining ore, running errands for NPCs or trading. The really deep and interesting part of it is in the dynamics of the underlying community. The relationships between players, corporations, alliances and their struggle for resources or just to achieve their goals.