X Rebirth

[daHawk]

Why the game is what it is now:

X-Rebirth: The story of the failed console game

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=349638

 

 

Code has been revealed referencing the xbox in over 1400 lines. It was meant to be for console but the 360 couldn't handle the game. I suspect Egosoft chose to cut it's losses and release it for PC.

 

 

Yes, they did cut their losses, now its our loss. 

 

Im very disappointed, i have played X2 and X3 and all i can say is that this abortion of a xbox game is a kick to the balls of a long time X fan.

 

 

I just qoute this review here because its a nice summary about everything i have to say about this game, i agree 100% with it.

http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2013/11/18/things-x-rebirth-thinks-arent-true/

 

 

Egosoft’s X games are the last word in open-world space sims by virtue of being the only word in open-world space sims. At least in terms of ones that are still in development. X Rebirth, the latest X game, is a mess. This is no surprise given Egosoft’s penchant for releasing messes and then tidying them up after the fact. But the problem with X Rebirth is that it’s a different kind of mess than the previous games, in new and terribly wrong ways that are beyond tidying up. X Rebirth doesn’t seem to understand what people liked about the previous games. It is a game based on misguided assumptions.

 

After the jump, X Rebirth’s serious misconceptions about me.

 

That space needs to be full of color and junk to keep players from getting bored. That I want my view of space hemmed in by cluttered cockpit graphics. That I’m willing to trade the breadth of ship ownership options for this fixed cockpit graphic of the single ship I have to fly. Which is called the Skunk. Which features an annoying co-pilot sitting next to me all the time. Who I have to look at every time I want to check an info screen because it assumes I want to see a first-person animation of someone twisting in his chair to watch a display panel slide up out a console. That one of things I want in an X game is a chatty co-pilot slash sidekick. Why is she telling the computer to shut up? Frankly, I wish they’d both shut up. That I don’t find every single piece of voice acting painfully embarrassing for everyone involved. That I can wait patiently while cargo flies around in other ships to be bought and sold. That drones should be a cornerstone of the combat, because then I might not realize I’m always and only flying the Skunk. The Skunk. As in something that stinks.

 

That I won’t care if text spills rudely outside the boxes that should contain it. That I don’t want to use my mouse wheel for anything other than scrolling lists. That I don’t need to rebind a lot of the controls. That I’m not attached to the limber control customization options in the previous games. That I’m going to use an Xbox 360 controller and that I therefore want a command rosetta that looks just like the conversation options from Mass Effect. That this map isn’t one of the ugliest and least functional maps I’ve ever pondered. That I can get used to a pointless combintion of clicks and hotkeys and button presses and menus and radial dials that seem like they were each designed by different teams for different games.

 

That I don’t find it utterly ridiculous that tailgating will be the preferred method of travelling between the stars. That I won’t miss having a way to admire the external views of various ships in a space game where I spend a lot of time in transit. That I want my character to get out of the ship, which is ironic given that they won’t let me admire the view from outside the ship. That I want to walk around the same sadly underpopulated sets of halls that represent a space station instead of navigating a menu. That I find these tortured excuses for character models an acceptible ways to populate a space station. That I want a conversation minigame. That I want to scavenge loot out of lockers. Oh, look, six more space suits that I can sell for a handful of credits next time I find a vendor who will buy my trash.

 

That the fast clean imaginative graphics of X3 weren’t good enough for me. That I like space when it’s as busy as the metropolis of The Fifth Element, frame rate be damned. That I don’t mind fighting the frame rate at the same time I’m fighting enemy ships. That encouraging me to fly around a cluttered space city to find collectible points to earn discounts is an incentive for me to explore this glut of busy graphics. That I haven’t had enough Blade Runner inspired graphics in my videogaming career.

 

That I’m willing to tolerate a launch title this buggy, this poorly prepared for its own release date, this far below the considerable ambition of the previous X games, this demanding on my hardware, this glutted with hard-coded story beats, this busy and ugly and cluttered. That I won’t instead download and play X3: Terran Conflict and not regret at all that I’m not playing X Rebirth.

 

 

Just 1 more thing:

From the Trailer: You are the pilot of the pride of Albion, a flying fortress and a home to your crew.

 

 

The pride of Albion is a SKUNK, the flying fortress has just one gun and a missile launcher and the home for my crew is just a 2 seat cockpit, a cargo ramp and a room with a table and bad textured posters.

Im just.....

[Lozenger]

Haven't had a chance to try X:Rebirth yet, I pre-ordered it a long time ago after the first trailer was released...but this doesn't sound good

 

What have I missed? People don't sound happy so i guess they've messed something up big time...

[Maverick]

What have I missed?

 

Long story short: Seems like the game was developed for a console,Xbox 360, and when it was clear that it would never be released for it, ported (very bad) onto PC. Not clear who to blame, Egosoft or Deep Silver, but we gamers are left in the lurch.

[AdmiralBoom]

Such a shame, I was hoping this could be the game to entertain me before Star Citizen. Maybe Elite can deliver.

 

Any idea when Elite is supposed to be completed?

[Zabulon]

Any idea when Elite is supposed to be completed?

Next year, around easter time I believe.

[AdmiralBoom]

At that point hopefully SC will be in beta

[Whittle]

Sounds pretty tragic, I had it installed but haven't played it yet.

Will give it a try next year once there's better feedback (patches)!

Lets hope Star Citizen is better lest there be tears xD

[Zabulon]

So I applied the latest patch that's supposed to fix some issues, including the tutorial missions that were broken. But I still can't get past the tutorial mission where you're supposed to stock up on 100 energy cells and sell them. I can now order the Rahanas to sell them at the designated station (that option was unclickable before the patch), but the freighter just travels to it, overshoots it by 4 kilometers, then just sits in space spinning around randomly.

 

*sigh*

[Deedy]

So I applied the latest patch that's supposed to fix some issues, including the tutorial missions that were broken. But I still can't get past the tutorial mission where you're supposed to stock up on 100 energy cells and sell them. I can now order the Rahanas to sell them at the designated station (that option was unclickable before the patch), but the freighter just travels to it, overshoots it by 4 kilometers, then just sits in space spinning around randomly.

 

*sigh*

 

I immediately though of this

[Nameless]

The energy mission now works just fine for me. It helps to start a new game, which I did a lot by now. It makes me happy and a bit sad at the same time, because after a patch the game works better, but I need to restart sometime to make it fully work

[Maverick]

So I applied the latest patch that's supposed to fix some issues, including the tutorial missions that were broken. But I still can't get past the tutorial mission where you're supposed to stock up on 100 energy cells and sell them. I can now order the Rahanas to sell them at the designated station (that option was unclickable before the patch), but the freighter just travels to it, overshoots it by 4 kilometers, then just sits in space spinning around randomly.

 

*sigh*

Did you start a new game, or continue your old save?

 

€dit: Sry, refreshed the page too late to see the other posts.

Edited November 23, 2013 by Maverick

[Ryofar]

 but the freighter just travels to it, overshoots it by 4 kilometers, then just sits in space spinning around randomly.

 

The point where I one laughs because it's so absurdly bad

[Maverick]

FYI, I got the same reply from the steam support as Deedy did.

[Zabulon]

I immediately though of this

 

The similarity is uncanny 

 

Did you start a new game, or continue your old save?

 

€dit: Sry, refreshed the page too late to see the other posts.

I loaded one of my old saves at the mission in question. I'll try starting the tutorial from scratch and see if it works out.

[Maverick]

I loaded one of my old saves at the mission in question. I'll try starting the tutorial from scratch and see if it works out.

That's always the better option in X games after a patch has been released. Mostly if you have encountered a problem the savegame "backups" the problem and no patch can help.

[AdmiralBoom]

Anyone have any updates on this game? Have they patched it? Is it still terrible or has it gotten better. I needa nice space sim fix!

[Nameless]

They've released patch 1.17 last week. So far all big major issues are nearly fixed. The first version of 1.17 caused some new problem, but they've applied a hotfix.

It's hard to tell if 1.17 really fixed something, because the steam forums are just full of complaints.

 

For me it did fix some problem at least. I started a new game, and the first trade mission, that didn't work at all in the beginning went jus fine.

Yet there are still some issues, that cause crashes. 

Currently patch 1.18 is in beta testing.

• Fixed several causes of crashes in-game and when loading savegames.

• Fixed a specific problem resulting in periodic slow-downs. • Improved general performance (first small improvement only, more to come). • Fixed several problems resulting in trade ships getting stuck. • Fixed several problems with ship/drone docking/undocking behaviour. • Fixed problem with player drone formations. • Fixed several small localisation issues. • Improved skill levels for new NPCs. • Improved readability of entries in interaction menus. • Improved GPU listing on laptops with multiple GPUs (still some driver-related issues on certain hardware).

 

But I haven't tested it yet. So it's at least playable, if it's tearible or not is hard to tell, as only longer game session could tell this.

Most people for example think the UI and menues are terrible. The references to Xbox 360 in the code also isn't helpful.

 

Most people are pissed about the bugs, then they see some other things they just don't like (no bugs, they simply don't like it) and the console references paired with the fact that you can play it with a controller, but not a joystick, makes people blinded by rage.

 

 

If you aren't a die hard fan of the X-series (though even some of those are at least dissapointed) I would still wait.

[Maverick]

Forget X Rebirth and wait for the next REAL part of the X series (if there ever will be one). At least I won't make the same mistake twice, I'll pirate the next part first and buy it afterwards, if it's worth it.

[rotorax]

Sad to see such reaction Maverick, but I have to agree completely. Today distribution companies like EA rush the game development and purposefully advertise their product like the best thing we´ll ever see and when the "game" finally came out, people get the cold shower slap to the face and see what they actually bought (falsely advertised crap).

 

Many recent titles like BF4, new Batman and mentioned X:Rebirth are nearly unplayable without heavy patching and the fiasco around Dark Matter or the newest Ashes Cricket 2013 are so alarming, that I wonder how much can we handle before total loss of trust. And I´m talking about real dedicated gamers, not these mindless sheep blindly buying same relabeled shit every year.

[Hon-R]

Agreed, @rotorax they make games look so good with all the trailers and hype, and then they can't live up to their promises.

 

The industry really needs to wake up and stop promising things it can't deliver, before they lose the little trust that they have left. It seems like far too many developers/publishers these days create games just to grab more money, not because they want to make a great game. 

 

I wish they'd delayed X: Rebirth and made us wait so they could fix the bugs first instead of releasing a half-finished piece of unplayable crap. 

 

That's why I'm glad Star Citizen has such an open development process. Sure, they won't get everything perfect all the time, but at least they're honest about it and don't bullshit us with all this false advertising.

 

And then they wonder why there's so much piracy these days... 

[Nameless]

The really sad thing is, that we will never really know, why this release was such a disaster. Egosoft is a small developer with about 20 people. Deep Silver is a bigger company, but yet they are not as big as publisher like EA or Activision.

 

That's what makes it even sadder. Of course a small team/company is no excuse for a bugged game, yet it would be interesting to know what forced them to release the game in this state. X games have always been some kind of bugs at the beginning, yet they are dedicated and so they fixed it.

They also do this know. This game will get just as much long term support as their other games have gotten.

This is their first total fuck up and I'd rather buy a game from them, before I'll ever buy a game of EA again. EA ruined almost every game they've released this year. (I've read yesterday, they said they have Sim City under control now. Though the recent addon was rated really bad and the gameplay is still terrible)

 

I'm sure they are disappointed about themselves. They had a real passion for this game. They may have lied, but honestly they can't afford to make promises and then give us this mess. They are simply not big enough to do this.

 

It think it would be a great relief to know the causes, as there were even people that are wondering why they didn't not choose early access.

Maybe it was Egosoft, because of pride or they made a mistake and Deep Silver was kind enough to still finance them. Maybe it was Deep Silver, that said it's time to finally release it, because they got impatient or ran out of money

[Hon-R]

The really sad thing is, that we will never really know, why this release was such a disaster. Egosoft is a small developer with about 20 people. Deep Silver is a bigger company, but yet they are not as big as publisher like EA or Activision.

 

That's what makes it even sadder. Of course a small team/company is no excuse for a bugged game, yet it would be interesting to know what forced them to release the game in this state. X games have always been some kind of bugs at the beginning, yet they are dedicated and so they fixed it.

They also do this know. This game will get just as much long term support as their other games have gotten.

This is their first total fuck up and I'd rather buy a game from them, before I'll ever buy a game of EA again. EA ruined almost every game they've released this year. (I've read yesterday, they said they have Sim City under control now. Though the recent addon was rated really bad and the gameplay is still terrible)

 

I'm sure they are disappointed about themselves. They had a real passion for this game. They may have lied, but honestly they can't afford to make promises and then give us this mess. They are simply not big enough to do this.

 

It think it would be a great relief to know the causes, as there were even people that are wondering why they didn't not choose early access.

Maybe it was Egosoft, because of pride or they made a mistake and Deep Silver was kind enough to still finance them. Maybe it was Deep Silver, that said it's time to finally release it, because they got impatient or ran out of money

 

The evidence right now (references to Xbox in the game's code, among other things) points toward Rebirth being designed for consoles and then ported for PC, of course we have no official statement from Egosoft or Deep Silver on why it was so badly made in the first place. If they'd released Rebirth as an alpha/beta first and patched it then I think there would've been a lot less anger about it.

 

Apparently someone (we don't know if it was Egosoft or Deep Silver) thought it would be a great idea to jump on the console bandwagon. Something must have gone wrong and it wasn't released on consoles (perhaps MS thought it wouldn't sell well) so they were forced to port it back to PC.

 

And the moral of this story?: Develop for PC first, and port to consoles later.

[Maverick]

I just have to repeat one more time: It's not the bugs that bug me (pun intended).

I'm used to X-games being buggy in the beginning, it does not bother me that much 'cause I know they patch the sh*t out of every part they released until it is well playable and I was grateful for every time they did that.

 

It's the cause for many of the bugs that really tortures my gamersoul to the point where I can't trust both, Deepsilver and Egosoft, any more. I lost my faith that they can do another part of the series and live long enough afterwards to patch it to a point where it's playable. They disappointed a broad fanbase, which will not buy the next X release. I'm just afraid that they put an end to the X series and their companies with this release.

[Drago]

My sentiments exactly!

[LightMonk]

It's now waiting a few months (year) till they fixed everything and you can call it a X Game again