What do you expect from Egosoft? (next game)

[pref]

I can donate my enter key if needed.

[Graaf]

Superior graphics with an even wider range of well-conceived gameplay features - who would say no to that?

I did. And those "superior graphics" are debatable.

[Bernd]

I want minigames and pay to skip access, platform game type running around stations where you spend an hour learning the exact timing for a gamepad button bashing configuration, less fighting more hugging, The ability not just to land on planets but to populate them with cute sporelike creatures, more steam integration where i'm not just forced to use the platform but swear an allegiance to them, daily updates to the game, a greek like economy model, hardcore gay alien sex scenes, more ED type fling for 20 mins for the sake of flying tactics, the old script editor reintroducing so i can fix the thing for them like i did pre RB , my enter key to start working

Ok. I suggest we start with implementing the "pay to skip" and you send me your concepts of the sporelike creatures and gay alien sex. We will then take it from there... OK?


On a more serious note: A lot of you are discussing the travelling in the universe (Highways vs. boost vs. jumpdrive vs. time acceleratio).

For the "Big update" (probably called 4.0... surprise), we are right now experimenting with changes on all these technologies.

As some of you already said: Each has advantages in some areas. In other words: We wont be placing Highways all over the place. The universe will be more diverse and you will have more choice over which method of transportation is best for your use.

More on this and the pay to skip, later...

-Bernd

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

[ external image ]

[Getsune]

Superior graphics with an even wider range of well-conceived gameplay features - who would say no to that?

I did. And those "superior graphics" are debatable.

Well, that's unfortunate for you, then.

And yes, graphics are a matter of taste, but the new engine allows us to use graphic options
that were simply unusable with the old one, either because the engine didn't support it
or the technology wasn't there back then. That's an improvement, no matter how you look at it.

More on this and the pay to skip, later...

Really looking forward to these new gay alien sex scenes!
After all these years, we'll finally get some real space stimulation.

[Senner]

@Bernd: Imo highways are an improvement over SETA and the best solution to this 'waiting as a feature' issue that has always been debated by players of the X games. Highways worked in Freelancer and in X-Rebirth as well. The visual design though, is less to my liking.

If one was to imagine further ways of travelling, the boosting without flight assist comes to mind. Perhaps this could be implemented to a limited extend so as to preserve the highway system.

[werewolves?]

On a more serious note: A lot of you are discussing the travelling in the universe (Highways vs. boost vs. jumpdrive vs. time acceleratio).

For the "Big update" (probably called 4.0... surprise), we are right now experimenting with changes on all these technologies.

As some of you already said: Each has advantages in some areas. In other words: We wont be placing Highways all over the place. The universe will be more diverse and you will have more choice over which method of transportation is best for your use.

More on this and the pay to skip, later...

-Bernd

This sounds excellent.

[MegaJohnny]

Please, anything but time acceleration!

[Graaf]

Superior graphics with an even wider range of well-conceived gameplay features - who would say no to that?

I did. And those "superior graphics" are debatable.

Well, that's unfortunate for you, then.

And yes, graphics are a matter of taste, but the new engine allows us to use graphic options
that were simply unusable with the old one, either because the engine didn't support it
or the technology wasn't there back then. That's an improvement, no matter how you look at it.

I don't see how that is unfortunate for me.

To be honest I do not share your view on anything I quoted earlier.
Superior graphics = nope
Wider range of gameplay features = nope
well-conceived = nope

The only improvement I see is the engine.

[Oldman]

...
On a more serious note: A lot of you are discussing the travelling in the universe (Highways vs. boost vs. jumpdrive vs. time acceleratio).

For the "Big update" (probably called 4.0... surprise), we are right now experimenting with changes on all these technologies.

Please, anything but time acceleration!

Well....it all depends on what specific part of the game you'd want to use it with.
If a journey from one part of a system to another in real time takes for example one or several hours it might tend to end up being tedious eventually.
As a side note...exploring outside of the highways in X Rebirth was one of the features that was a big disappointment to me personally due to the player ships low speed. (There were other reasons, but that would be a separate/different topic).
I used the seta function in previous games on some occasions, it's (was) a choice whether you use it or not, I seem to remember (I think) Bernd or one of the developers saying they didn't really like the seta principle?...*shrugs*...I didn't find it lessened my enjoyment of the game, in fact quite the opposite personally speaking. I can see some of the reasons why it would be unworkable in a multiplayer game, but in a single player game?...could you possibly give your reasons why you wouldn't want the seta mechanic back in a future X Game?...I'd be genuinely interested to know.

Hey!..Anyhow *cough*...it's reassuring to see that some of the 'veteran' players have still got the ability for some interesting and fertile imaginations for unusual game content, LV!

Oldman

[Graaf]

On a more serious note: A lot of you are discussing the travelling in the universe (Highways vs. boost vs. jumpdrive vs. time acceleratio).

The way I see it there are 3 ways of travel mentioned and 1 way to speed the up the universe. And SETA doesn't work with these 3 ways of travel since 1 is instant and the others require input. So that only leaves autopilot, which is viable in Rebirth since there is no collision damage, or free-flight.

Please, anything but time acceleration!

Just like in X2/X3, nobody is forcing you to use it.
...
At least nobody is when I'm playing X3. And I can also live without a personal jumpdrive or those (Split) boosters.


From the things Bernd mentions:
Highways = bad
Boost = basically cheating, since only the Skunk can do it
No Jumpdrive on smaller ships = Good
No SETA available = bad, even if I wouldn't it

[MegaJohnny]

I made extensive use of SETA too, as it made getting around bearable. Some players had enough micromanagement to do that they spent the whole journey out of SETA. But I'm not those players, and so my journeys were largely spent watching a jumpgate get bigger. Cutting down those times did very much add to my experience, don't get me wrong, I just think other methods of achieving that are much better.

My issue is in large part the side effects of time acceleration in a game with finite computing power. The AI-fudging effect of SETA did some nasty things like slowing down in-sector combat because they had trouble getting into an attack run, or making M5s and M4s much more likely to splat on a large object because in one frame they leapt too far forward to avoid it. I had no interest in exploiting these things, but I didn't like having to wait several minutes to prevent them either - especially when I'm watching the escort target get fragged or home in on an enemy I'm chasing. For the next game I'd much rather have an AI which is smarter and a bit more taxing, than one that has to cope with being sped up a whopping ten times.

This is talking about when the game is centred around SETA. If it's included as secondary to a proper travel system then knock yourself out.

[BigBANGtheory]

Its a tricky thing to get the balance right for travel you have to consider what works for:

1. The player piloting a ship, which may include a personal squad in tow
2. Commercial trade including player owned assets (tankers, haulers etc)
3. General NPC traffic
4. Military ships and capital groups

As an example having a point-to-point jump drive is all well and good until you've spent hours setting up your nice shiney HQ complex only for a Xenon attack group to appear on your doorstep whilst you are off doing something else. So if you have a point-to-point jump drive system in game you also need some distruption technology and assets to offset the potential power and keep the balance. In fact that could be campaign plot right there...

You also have to consider the navigation options and I assume this was part of Bernd's meaning behind improved maps.

I'd start off with a few guiding principles personally and try and work out what might happen in different scenarios and how that would come across to the player. As a suggestion you could start off with:

- Commercial traffic cannot self jump, they require assisted jump from infrastructure such as a jump gate or a wake jump capable ship
- Only very select ships can wake jump (i.e. jump themselves and others in close proximity) top tier military or specialised civilian ships e.g. carriers, dreadnoughts, research type ships
- Smaller ships possibly destroyers but mainly frigates and some corvettes (pilotable by the player) can be upgraded to self jump point to point
- fighters, drones etc cannot jump by themselves they require assisted jump like commercial traffic e.g. docked in carrier, wake jump, jump gate
- should have two point to point jump systems, one where the player can navigate the jump co-ordinates and one which is jump to beacon or gate.
- jump technology should be earned by the player and not be cheap/easy to aquire under normal conditions
- requires jump distruption technology
- players NPC factions should be able to monitor and have some degree of control of jump gates if they are ever allowed to own a zone e.g. shut down the gate or tax incoming/outgoing traffic to some degree

food for thought

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Please, anything but time acceleration!

+9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 here

Problem with previous games was that they were built around SETA.
Of course, you are not forced to use it, but without that the game transforms into a waiting simulator.
Rebirth, on the otherside, seems to have a natural SETA included, as everything in the game is slightly faster but at all time. That seems to be a much better and less immersion-breaking solution, keep it this way.
Maybe make capital freighters and small freighters a bit faster.

[Gligli]

Ok. I suggest we start with implementing the "pay to skip" and you send me your concepts of the sporelike creatures and gay alien sex. We will then take it from there... OK?

Warning it's a slippery slope
Thanks for laughing time

For the "Big update" (probably called 4.0... surprise), we are right now experimenting with changes on all these technologies.
-Bernd

Ammmh... Did you just obliterate whatever-RB2?

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

In X3 games, travelling around and between sectors without a jump drive was often time-consuming and random missions, trade opportunities etc. are often in other sectors. SETA was a useful means for avoiding spending a long time looking at distant jump gates etc., just as time acceleration in Frontier helped pass the time flying between ports. Like or loath it, SETA was was a tool applicable to substantial parts of X3 gameplay.

By comparison in Rebirth, random missions, trade opportunities, etc. are generally in the same sector, and travelling around a sector in Rebirth without a jump drive is generally not relatively time-consuming.

[Bernd]

Jumpdrive: I would really like to avoid making all jumpdrives much more powerful, e.g: by allowing them to jump anywhere that you have been before, because this brings a lot of balancing problems: You basically devalue traveling overall (why dont just all ships simply jump directly to their target when trading?), circumvent all risks etc.

The idea with limiting the jumpdrive to beacons, is that we can still have strategical planning. Factions could block or capture beacons and allow or disallow traffic from / to there.

So the most important change will be to possibly add a jumpdrive to the Skunk. IF we decide to do this, it goes without saying that it is not easy to get that.

SETA on the other hand is, like many pointed out, something that can usually be combined with anything else. You dont mind it because nobody forces you to use it but it allows different ways of playing the game...
Sounds nice at first.
The catch with SETA is first of all performance: Running the universe faster means that the engine has to do more in a shorter time. And that does not mean more graphics.

You are right, that I dislike SETA as a solution. One here made a good point: We should not design the game around SETA. The game must be fun without SETA but yet sometimes a method of accelerating time can help improving your game experience nevertheless.

Highways: They are great for high density regions and can make traveling more interesting wherever you are not trying to have exploration. But we overused them in Rebirth and put too much emphasis on the skill involved to be faster. So one thing we are playing with right now is speeding up some highways quite a lot.

-Bernd

[nalim27]

Hello,
from next Egosoft game I'm expecting:
1. Almost none information from CEO Bernd and developers about the game till launch except some nice trailers.
2. Very buggy and unplayable game with horrible performance first 6 months after release.
3. Not too detailed manual.
4. Not interesting story.
5. Bad character animation (including face animation).
6. Very much number of frustrated players after release
7. Probably Egosoft bankrupt because many paying players will apply new Steam refund policy and thus Egosoft will loose money.

Do not me understand wrong - I wish that none of this happens. But I'm with Egosoft long time and thing that Egosoft will not change way how they are doing business.

[Ketraar]

Jump beacons are OK as they are, the only thing I'd change is the mandatory "bus line" type jumping that is currently implemented.

What I mean is remove the need to jump multiple times to get to a sector, so if I want to go from Lookout Alpha to far Out I can do that with one jump. By all means charge me the fuel and the time to charge the jump drive accordingly (longer jumps take longer to charge and consume more fuel).

The benefits to pacing would be great, also trade runs would get accelerated. If you want to go the extra mile make jump range limited to upgradable tech and/or NPC skills, which would give an additional level of depth to game play and allow speeding up the game pace mid-late game.

But keep the jumping limited within the System forcing ships to go through gates still, this way it would be only a slight change in mechanics, but with a (IMHO) good impact.

MFG

Ketraar

[MegaJohnny]

I agree with basically everything you said there Bernd.