[Grimper]

Heads up guys this is releasing in a few days. It's no Star Citizen, but we still need to sink as much money as possible into this genre to keep it going.

[Rodo]

The hole "save the genre" speech is getting a little old. I consider it already saved.

[Patriot]

I'd have to agree with Rodo here, if Rebirth is a good, if not great, game and with Star Citizen panning out to be awesome, the genre will have new life and new blood in it to keep it going for another x amount of years.

What's the exact release date anyways?

[Grimper]

Actually I wasn't being 100% honest before, I'm more worried about the game itself than the genre. The fact that this has managed to fly so far under the radar compared to Star Citizen is worrying, I didn't even notice it until it popped up on Steam as a pre-order, and the forums don't have a lot of activity. It might turn out to be really good, but low sales discourage the company from making more....basically exactly the same thing that happened to Freespace.

That would be 1 less series in a genre that, while getting bigger, doesn't have a whole lot of choice at the moment.

[IronBeer]

X has always been a bit of a fringe series. The devs are probably counting on sales to the X-junkies to primarily make back their cash.

[AdmiralRalwood]

The fact that this has managed to fly so far under the radar compared to Star Citizen is worrying, I didn't even notice it until it popped up on Steam as a pre-order, and the forums don't have a lot of activity.

It's really not worrying at all; the X series is nowhere near as publicized as something like Star Citizen. Never has been, probably never will be (although, given that Rebirth finally throws out so many problems of the old engine that kept it from having a more widespread appeal, who knows?).

[MatthTheGeek]

Do they actually have a tutorial ? I remember trying X3 and then giving up about 5 min because I couldn't be arsed to figure out what they couldn't be arsed to teach me.

[Commander Zane]

The closest thing to a tutorial that I can recall is that when you talk to the flight instructor drifting around Argon Prime.

[Klaustrophobia]

i am now reminded that i have the entire X series in my library waiting on me to play through.  i tried to start a while ago, but haven't been back since i couldn't get the throttle on my joystick to work.  that's kinda a big deal for flying.

[AdmiralRalwood]

Do they actually have a tutorial ? I remember trying X3 and then giving up about 5 min because I couldn't be arsed to figure out what they couldn't be arsed to teach me.

Tutorials are for people who play other space sims! The X series throws you off the deep end and you either end up a billionaire or dead.

Seriously, though, I'm not even sure what an in-game tutorial would look like (beyond the not-even-close-to-a-tutorial-for-the-real-guts-of-the-game flight school). I guess I can just recommend having a guide open and alt-tab between the two (or open it in the Steam overlay and shift-tab between the two).

Actually, come to think of it, when you say "X3" do you mean "X3: Reunion" (the first game using the X3 engine) or "X3: Terran Conflict" (the second game using a much, much improved version of the X3 engine)? Because Terran Conflict was a lot more approachable for new users than Reunion was, by a long shot. Reunion more-or-less used the exact same menu system as X2: The Threat, and that menu system was awful. Terran Conflict is a much more playable game all around, and the engine upgrade for X3: Albion Prelude is even better (but the war system makes it a terrible choice for a first entry to the series).

You know, I remember playing a "Terran Conflict plots in Albion Prelude's engine" mod a while back; I should see if there's a newer version, because the approachability of Terran Conflict's more laidback universe combined with the engine improvements of Albion Prelude makes for a nice combination...

...or, at least, it would if X Rebirth wasn't coming out in two days.

[MatthTheGeek]

Actually, come to think of it, when you say "X3" do you mean "X3: Reunion" (the first game using the X3 engine) or "X3: Terran Conflict" (the second game using a much, much improved version of the X3 engine)? Because Terran Conflict was a lot more approachable for new users than Reunion was, by a long shot. Reunion more-or-less used the exact same menu system as X2: The Threat, and that menu system was awful. Terran Conflict is a much more playable game all around, and the engine upgrade for X3: Albion Prelude is even better (but the war system makes it a terrible choice for a first entry to the series).

And then, people come to me and have the guts to say WiH install is confusing.

**** people.

[AdmiralRalwood]

Actually, come to think of it, when you say "X3" do you mean "X3: Reunion" (the first game using the X3 engine) or "X3: Terran Conflict" (the second game using a much, much improved version of the X3 engine)? Because Terran Conflict was a lot more approachable for new users than Reunion was, by a long shot. Reunion more-or-less used the exact same menu system as X2: The Threat, and that menu system was awful. Terran Conflict is a much more playable game all around, and the engine upgrade for X3: Albion Prelude is even better (but the war system makes it a terrible choice for a first entry to the series).

And then, people come to me and have the guts to say WiH install is confusing.

**** people.

In fairness, I am not among those people, and also, those are all separate games.

[Hades]

Do they actually have a tutorial ? I remember trying X3 and then giving up about 5 min because I couldn't be arsed to figure out what they couldn't be arsed to teach me.

Tutorials are for people who play other space sims! The X series throws you off the deep end and you either end up a billionaire or dead.

Seriously, though, I'm not even sure what an in-game tutorial would look like (beyond the not-even-close-to-a-tutorial-for-the-real-guts-of-the-game flight school). I guess I can just recommend having a guide open and alt-tab between the two (or open it in the Steam overlay and shift-tab between the two).

It doesn't have to look anything special, it just throws you into space, helps you get past the worst UI design in the industry and teaches you to use some of the worst keyboard economy in the industry. Oh, and some of the gameplay mechanics that are hidden under those two terribly designed aspects.

Either way, it's better than having a guide open and having to alt tab every 5 minutes. Seriously, when their game is so inherently flawed due to UI and key mapping and they don't at least offer a tutorial to help people try to get past that, they're going to remain a poor developer as they rightfully should, since tutorials are sort of an industry standard for integrating a basic 'manual' of sorts into the game itself, and X3 of any flavor needs one triply so for the aforementioned issues.

[Mikes]

So I bought the boxed Collectors Edition, which is really cool ...

... just a shame that checking out the physical goodies / the card game, was more fun than my first hours playing the actual game after it downloaded.

Meh.

I really would not have believed it possible, but in many ways I would consider the UI in this game to be even worse than in the last X Games. Seriously... especially that universe/sector map ... WT******
Furthermore... the dialogue and character the animations are literally the worst I have seen since X2. Walking and talking immersion breakers. And it really doesn't help that even in the free form / non campaign game you are stuck with that annoying copilot that is pretty much a poster child for "gratuitous dumb sex object included to make game appeal to 13 year olds more". - or maybe she would be, if the animations wouldn't make her look like some alien without bones ... creepy.

I don't really know whom I am more mad at ... the developers for yet again presenting us with a game so amateurish most amateur game designers would turn red from embarrassment or myself for yet again buying that garbage and believing it would be different... this time. LOL.

[Nemesis6]

[Deepstar]

Yeah, i bought also the collector's edition. But only because i have also the CE's for X2, X3 and the Superbox ^^.


The goodies and the BluRay were indeed much more fun than the game itself  .

The controls are horrible and the character design and animations are bad as they were in X2. And also, in the german version, nearly all voices are missing ^^.


Ah, i think i should reinstall X-Tension right away and remember much better days. The last time i end it, my save had 25000 stations and a game time of eleven in-game years.
Or i should finish my latest X-Universe fan-fiction finally. Because it ignores all happenings since X2... so.. there is no Supernova that changes everything *g*

[Flipside]

From the sound of things, I made the right call by not pre-ordering.

That's a great disappointment, rather than save the series, I fear they may have just put the final nail in its coffin

"Ship no work. Me not know why Ship no work "

[The E]

I've seen the first few minutes/half hour being played, and I am certainly not going to be picking it up anytime soon. Graphical glitches everywhere, bad (like, really bad) character animation, utterly bizarre writing, and the game still does a really bad job at explaining itself.

I do like the new control schemes and controller-compatible interface, or at least I like the idea that such things should be present. The actual implementation seems very counterintuitive to me.

[Hobbie]

I've played it. It's fantastic.

Fantastically buggy.

If it weren't for the bugs and terrible optimization, it'd be a lot of fun. X Rebirth and the others in the series are literally two different games. More news as I play more and the situation develops.

[AdmiralRalwood]

terrible optimization

Yeah, it's rather disconcerting that the game gets 10-40 FPS seemingly at random, regardless of graphics settings.

Also, all targeting has to be done with the mouse? What happened to "target nearest hostile", Egosoft? I've heard they're going to add them back in, but why were they not already in?

So far I'm also having fun, but the interface is such a bizarre mess I can't bring myself to play it for very long at a time. That is not a good combination.