X Rebirth

[Lionclaw]

It seems it was good to wait and see how the game would be received. It seems it's pretty bug-ridden.

It looked nice in the trailers. But with the experience of beeing fooled by TW:Rome 2's videos before release, I decided not to be fooled again.


The game seems interesting though, but it's overpriced in it's current state, at least on Steam. Retail version is cheaper it seems.

[Skybird]

There are technical problems. First fact is: not all that is reported as "bug" is "bug" indeed. Fact also is, they are working on them, several patches already have been out. Fact finally is the bugs are more present in the campaign. I do play the freestyle game only. And face much less bugs there. Others confirm this. The campaign, on the other hand, almost made me quit. Almost... Thank god I mad up my mind, and I did not regret it.

Another fact is that after frequently reading the forums at Steam and Egosoft, I find that many people a.) just parrot the hating that swapped over the boards at the start, and b.) many people report as bugs what they have not understood in functionality, and do not know how to run correctly. The bug thus is lacking knowledge and experience (I initially fell a bit to that very early, too, the game makes it easy to walk into this trap since it does not give enough documentation on its features, and not always the kind of feedback that in the action would be appreciated). Both things now spread, living a life by themselves, it seems. That is not to say there are no technical bugs. There are, but much less than one get get an impression when reading the forum, I'd say.

Egosoft made some questionable design decisions, however, that complicate the handling, and that adds to people finding it difficult to learn how to do something - and then calling the lacking result a "bug". Let's face it: the documentation is lousy. I had so many questions that I needed to search for in the forums that I had to interrupt gameplay quite often. But mostly, I found answers. Some issues however indeed are bugs, it seems.

But I must admit: the game is much better than it's ruined reputation, and it is much less bug-ridden than many aggressive voices indicate. The early experience of one's own expectations not being met, currently has the momentum.

By what it offers in potential, it is brilliant.

That's why I keep on saying: do not scratch this one off your lists too early. Give it a recheck in some time, really. I play it all day and night long since release now. If it were really that much broken like the opinions in forums seem to indicate, not only wouldn't I have been motivated to do so, but I also should have been unable to do so. But here I am, playing. Can't be that bad at all, then.

Egosoft acted stupidly, yes, and rushed it. Some design decisions are questionable. Interface ergonomics leave to be desired. But the game is much, really very much better than what the forums make you believe, or the Amazon feedback (Germany, England, US, they all give it 1-1.5 stars). That is undeserved, and more a media phenomenon with kind of an unstoppable self-dynamic now. And many kiddies howl to the moon while not knowing what they are talking about. Then there are those fools who complain about pushing everything to maximum settings, in an object-saturated environment like this DX9-game offers, and then complaining about getting low frames. That made me laughing already two weeks ago, when Assetto Corsa was released.

I hope Egosoft lives through this time, and stick with it afterward. Criticism is one thing - but the kind of attacks I have seen in recent days, is very different.

I have explored in a fast trip all systems, sectors and zones now. The universe is huge, and beautiful.

[Skybird]

Grrrr... I thought I could escape fate, but after 16 hours ingame time that "serious error" described in the forums has struck me as well. Savegames do not load, only older ones. Then 1.15 was released, and suddenly the saves in question loaded again. But only to produce the same problem with some minutes delay, now in midgame, or when saving again.

Before that, in those 16 hours I had one system freeze and one CTD. No lags, low frames, or any of the technical issues others have reported.

[CaptainHaplo]

5 patches in 5 business days.

That is what Egosoft has always been. Releases are known to be historically buggy - but they definitely always support their games. X3TC was patched for at least 3 years.

Egosoft will get this game right - but it will take time. It will take longer than usual because of some bad design decisions, but rest assured the game WILL be fixed.

Skybird is right when he said ignore the webhate. Be patient, then buy when the game is in a finished state.

It should be noted that - to egosoft's credit - that the engine is hugely mod-able. There are already a good number of mods and there are many more coming!

Go Modders!

[Arclight]

Ignore the web-hate... Seems that's applicable to every release nowadays. Makes me wonder what's deteriorating; quality of release or intelligence.

[Skybird]

The only doubt I have is the economic basis, Haplo. German magazines reported that the company (they are German) fell silent completely some months ago, and did not give any testing copies, instead the project manager visited them and showed prepared movies only, never any live ingame action. From a journalists' POV, they say, that always is a very suspicious signal that something is wrong and that a project is in trouble. Having investigated this a bit, I found that the German magazines really really tried to like the game, but nevertheless, with great regret, have shreddered it. And this from print magazines which usually are very friendly to the software sellers.

There must be a reason why Egosoft released it the way they did, and one must take it for certain that the developer knew perfectly well that his baby was ill. There are two reasons only that makes sense to explain why they released it the way they did.

First: they wanted to scramble early for the christmas season. Which was a bit too early, obviously.

The second possible reason: money - and that they are running low on it, desperately needing to make some cash now. And if the studio is economically ill, then you cannot rely on past experiences with their support anymore, for if they cannot live anymore, then they cannot live anymore, that simple.

This is the great unknown variable here. I hope it is just a ghost from the shadows of my mind.

For the time being I can report that continuing gameplay from an older savegame was successful. It was only the mentioned savegames being porked.

Difficult time this project currently has to live through.