Competition for elite?

[munkor]

although i agree that some of te backlash is because of unreasonable expectations (because they have said from the outset this is not X4) I do not accept that the buyers of X or the majority at least were influenced by the kickstarter projects

they were loyal fans, who appreciate a big, complicated and immersive game, when all they have gotten is a failed \console game.

Also I think the game as it is is so broken, that it would be tough to patch it, it really needs rewriting at its core. If you have played it, you probaly understand this more than if you have just seen it played.

For example, to have a tagline TRADE FIGHT BUILD THINK, and to have the trade mechanic completely broken is just ridiculous (although i agree this can probably be fixed fairly quickly

 

[Jumpin' Jack Flash]

With some trepidation I'll be picking up my CE copy of X Rebirth today.
I've been a player of the X series from the year dot, I've seen the reviews and read most of the posts (negative and positive) on all the Egosoft and Steam forums so I'm pretty much aware of what to expect.

A serious side note here....I hope (which I'm sure they will be doing ) that the development team over here look closely at some of the reasons why X Rebirth's release has had so much backlash from new, as well as 'veteran' players.
Some of the core reasons of why I like the Frontier Elite series was the 'real' expansiveness of the universe, the different ships I could pilot, the ability to land on planets & moons, and the universe map interface. Even in it's basic form those many years ago, in my humble opinion it was/is still in some ways more superior than what we generally see now in some 'space simulation/adventure games'.
Okay...I may have a 'rose tinted spectacles' view of Frontier Elite 2 and First Encounters, but those core ingredients still apply in my personal opinion.
So *shrugs*...I hope Frontier are taking note for the future of Elite Dangerous.
I have fond memories of Frontier Elite, I really hope that Elite Dangerouse can rekindle those past pleasures.

Jack.

 

[Variform]

From what I have found it certainly looks interesting but currently has a severe case of bug infestation.

That is why I am happy with FD's 3-phased testing period.

And I know we have mature alpha testers who will be keen on reporting their finds. The better they test, the better the final product will be.

 

[Variform]

The FSD and hyperdrive are at least more plausible than space highways and I fail to see how SpaceEngine's fast travel is supposed to be more realistic than Elite's

What a strange discussion...

Fighting over what is less realistic... It seems that if humans will ever leave this planet, they will do so withy either one of these options

1: They have evolved ethically and learned to respect Earth and its flora and fauna and have turned away from mass hyper-consumerism and paradigms of economic growth based on finite resources, or

2: They will discover the way to travel to other worlds quickly, by whatever technology you can dream of and have the same wasteful attitudes towardsw their environment.

That means that any world colonized will either be set up as an environmentally sound society or we will copy 21st century style motifs on a colony.

If that is the case, there is no need for space commerce. Any society will just rip open the planet they are on to get to resources, which is much easier than mining far away systems and hauling in ore. A solar system has plenty of materials to exploit before there arises the need to find them elsewhere.

So the idea of space lanes and space commerce is utterly nonsense anyway. Especially when you consider by the time you can colonize space, terraform worlds etc, you can grow any food in a greenhouse, or produce any artificial substance. So there is no need to haul rice from any world to another, or livestock. Only some specialty goods would need to be traded in, like advanced robots and that just depends on how far the development of a world has reached. A newly set up colony would not have industrial capabilities like that. But if they are smart, they won't need robots anyway.


Space sims like this are basically just transposing our current way of life onto a different environment. Whether you sail a cargo ship from China to Rotterdam or from Zaonce to Van Maanens Star makes little difference. It is just a mercantile based scenario.

 

[Captain N]

Sounds good, and there's nothing wrong with that - it's how you like to play your game. I assume by "respect the astronomy" you mean realistic scales (because highways have nothing to do with astronomy). Like I said, as long as people stop claiming that highways are "unrealistic" or whatever....it's all good

For me the issue with the highways is not so much (technological) realism than that it goes against the freedom of going where I want. The problem with the highways is that it constantly highlights the scale issues of the universe for me, and keeps reminding me of its existence in the background even when I'm not using it. (Those huge glowing threads are everywhere I look) They may not prevent me from freely flying in the confines of the X universe, but they do remind me of the fact that the area I'm exploring is limited and just isn't very large.

I also assumed with "structures" you meant dividing space into boxes and entrances and invisible walls that restrain your movement, or give you pre-defined paths to follow. No one has said they don't enjoy a sci-fi game that has stations and imaginary technology in it, and I don't really understand this "realism" discussion other than where it relates to astronomy and scale of the universe, and the X universe being small, but okay I accept that X players don't probably care about that, anymore than Skyrim players care about not being able to walk to Daggerfall.

I'm not a huge fan of jumpgates either, but at least you don't see them in most games when you're not needing them. A game can be designed around gates in such a way that it still kind of feels huge. I-War did a pretty good job with this.

In the end, I think it's also what has already been mentioned, that the sci-fi we grew up with moulds our expectations of what we want to see in sci-fi games. Luke Skywalker and Captain Kirk never messed around with jumpgates or space highways, they just pointed their ship at a star and flew there. Jumpgates are probably completely natural to fans of Babylon 5 and the many books that involve similar technology. Space highways probably feel strange and silly to most people because there is not a lot of fiction out there embellishing the myth around them and making them seem cool.

 

[W4rSkuLL]

I was really looking forward to x Rebirth. But from the reviews and videos on Youtube it seems very bugged and slow. Maybe they can patch it up The graphics are very nice, but I think thats it. So I will not buy it. I liked Albion Prelude. It had many nice elements. I guess its better to wait on E.D

 

[Memnoch]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxUx96-6-dw

 

[Patrick_68000]

I guess its better to wait on E.D

Nobody here will contradict you

 

[Memnoch]

To paraphrase the text on the Jade's First Encounters site

I would rather play Elite: Dangerous (a chunk of alpha code on Frontier Developments hard drives) than X:Rebirth (a chunk of alpha code on customers hard drives).

EDIT: Looks like the Egosoft forums just died.

 

[manifold]

What a strange discussion...

Fighting over what is less realistic... It seems that if humans will ever leave this planet, they will do so withy either one of these options

1: They have evolved ethically and learned to respect Earth and its flora and fauna and have turned away from mass hyper-consumerism and paradigms of economic growth based on finite resources, or

2: They will discover the way to travel to other worlds quickly, by whatever technology you can dream of and have the same wasteful attitudes towardsw their environment.

That means that any world colonized will either be set up as an environmentally sound society or we will copy 21st century style motifs on a colony.

If that is the case, there is no need for space commerce. Any society will just rip open the planet they are on to get to resources, which is much easier than mining far away systems and hauling in ore. A solar system has plenty of materials to exploit before there arises the need to find them elsewhere.

So the idea of space lanes and space commerce is utterly nonsense anyway. Especially when you consider by the time you can colonize space, terraform worlds etc, you can grow any food in a greenhouse, or produce any artificial substance. So there is no need to haul rice from any world to another, or livestock. Only some specialty goods would need to be traded in, like advanced robots and that just depends on how far the development of a world has reached. A newly set up colony would not have industrial capabilities like that. But if they are smart, they won't need robots anyway.


Space sims like this are basically just transposing our current way of life onto a different environment. Whether you sail a cargo ship from China to Rotterdam or from Zaonce to Van Maanens Star makes little difference. It is just a mercantile based scenario.

But obviously by the time that occurs, space cows will have been invented and it's pretty clear that negative-energy-density drives would be hazardous to space cows. I mean, just going off of what I know about current-day cattle and transposing our standards of living onto the speculative reality.

Although I see your point, and do think the spice trade would probably take a hit, especially with excess production of greenhouse gas, I'm hesitant to accept that the trek to Rotterdam would be any less exciting than fermenting rotten onions in massive cargo containers. If we don't have a way to ship those fermented onions around, how will the refugees make soup? I guess that depends on how far the empire stretches out, but IMO we will still need fast transportation for large quantities of bacteria-laden soups.

As for specialty goods like advanced robots and small, holographic mushrooms, I agree that we probably don't need jump gates for them. I say: ship them via the underground mushroom railroad. Well, actually, that assumes that slavery isn't legal in the region, but you understand my point hopefully. If that fails, AFAIK, we should still be able to grind them up into dust particles and then use the FSD to open up a hallucinogenic rift in spacetime.

 

[Pyros]

Although I see your point, and do think the spice trade would probably take a hit, especially with excess production of greenhouse gas, I'm hesitant to accept that the trek to Rotterdam would be any less exciting than fermenting rotten onions in massive cargo containers. If we don't have a way to ship those fermented onions around, how will the refugees make soup? I guess that depends on how far the empire stretches out, but IMO we will still need fast transportation for large quantities of bacteria-laden soups.

As for specialty goods like advanced robots and small, holographic mushrooms, I agree that we probably don't need jump gates for them. I say: ship them via the underground mushroom railroad. Well, actually, that assumes that slavery isn't legal in the region, but you understand my point hopefully. If that fails, AFAIK, we should still be able to grind them up into dust particles and then use the FSD to open up a hallucinogenic rift in spacetime.

Regardless of anything else, the Spice must flow!

Ahem, the future is far from being a bipolar choice

Regarding X:R, well things have unfortunately not been going for the best. Hope Egosoft improves the game.

 

[Commander Mick]

I actually thought this game sounded interesting didn't look to bad in one of preview You-Tube videos I saw earlier. I quite like the concept of combat, trade and building things in space.

One thing I didn't really like about it was piloting the space craft. It just moves left or right in stead of rolling.

So ordered myself one through Electronic Boutique and it won't arrive until some time in January in time with my new computer next year.

I also won't have the pay the $45.00 AUD it cost me until then. I was tempted to buy the Limited Edition which is nearly $200.00 AUD, but I just went for cheaper.

For the mean time I also ordered the X-Superbox which contains all the previous X-Space-Sim games. It was reasonably cheap and will most proberly arrive on my doorstep sometime next week.

My X-Superbox arrived today and I am busy installing fourth game on it. after briefly playing the first one which really needs a instruction manual and a proper tutorial and the third game which has a instruction manual and also needs a proper tutorial on top of that.

I notice there, improved graphics with regards to how they made space look, but there characters models are very poor and don't seem to have improved over the course of three games.

If the sound on my computer would actually work better this may be a more immersive experience.

 

[Styggron]

Lucky I bought X1,2 and 3 when they came out. They have lovely manuals. The manuals will be on there just on PDF.

Superbox is good as it is DRM free.

 

[Variform]

Regardless of anything else, the Spice must flow!

Ahem, the future is far from being a bipolar choice

Regarding X:R, well things have unfortunately not been going for the best. Hope Egosoft improves the game.

You understood what he wrote? I didn't.

 

[Lestat]

Reading this whole Topic I am glad I never got the game. Watching the arguments about Space highways, or warp drives or FTL drives and so on. I started thinking about the past.

Let look at cellphones, tv, computers, plastics at one time. They do not exist. Going to the moon, space travel, internet, plane trains and auto. To the people at the time any of this did not exist and it was a idea or a story that bring up those ideas..

Sorry off the topic. But I like to point out right now it might not be possible to have space highway, warp drives or FTL drives. It dose not mean it will not happen later. But our views today might give a name star travel tomorrow.

 

[Jumpin' Jack Flash]

...
Superbox is good as it is DRM free.

Yes I agree, I've had the Superbox for quite some time now, and it's got quite a bit of (useful) content.

It's perhaps slightly off topic, but to my mind relevant (player interfaces) in particular universe/star maps.
One of the main bug bares (if you'll excuse the pun, not intended btw.) for X Rebirth is the System/Sector/zone map.
I'm just thinking, for example...comparing the Elite Frontier style of interface to X Rebirths The Elite map for me personally was/is much easier to grasp in a first time user context. Okay, I'm probably being overly simplistic here as the two games are radically different, and having a more than a casual interest in astronomy this may in lots of ways give me 'some' prior advantage with the Frontier map overlay as it stood many years ago.
I'm just wondering whether you folks here have thought or are thinking of this difference map wise between X Rebirths style and Frontiers style. That's of course depends on whether Elite Dangerous is going to have a map interface similar to their prior games?
Would a Frontier style map interface be easier to grasp for a first time player?

Jack.

 

[Pyros]

You understood what he wrote? I didn't.

Well I could say took it as a sort of allegory - presenting our current issues into future actors, different but with the same basic issues.

But honestly I just cannot resist the temptation of evoking Dune whenever I can

 

[Tinman]

Yes I agree, I've had the Superbox for quite some time now, and it's got quite a bit of (useful) content.

It's perhaps slightly off topic, but to my mind relevant (player interfaces) in particular universe/star maps.
One of the main bug bares (if you'll excuse the pun, not intended btw.) for X Rebirth is the System/Sector/zone map.
I'm just thinking, for example...comparing the Elite Frontier style of interface to X Rebirths The Elite map for me personally was/is much easier to grasp in a first time user context. Okay, I'm probably being overly simplistic here as the two games are radically different, and having a more than a casual interest in astronomy this may in lots of ways give me 'some' prior advantage with the Frontier map overlay as it stood many years ago.
I'm just wondering whether you folks here have thought or are thinking of this difference map wise between X Rebirths style and Frontiers style. That's of course depends on whether Elite Dangerous is going to have a map interface similar to their prior games?
Would a Frontier style map interface be easier to grasp for a first time player?

Jack.

If you want to know more how the map will be handled you should probably read newsletter 9. IMO lightyears ahead of X-Rebirths so called "map".

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=ffe2385d13

 

[Variform]

I can't get over how much I like that map picture.

 

[Tranquility]

I like X-Rebirth and am looking forward to Afterbirth.