Ooh pretty!

My gaming computer died, leaving me with an ancient laptop. Decided to boot up X2:The threat.

I might be falling in love with this series.

Some calling boring, I call it relaxing.

I'm not holding my breath for Rebirth to be anything more then a slight upgrade to TC. I just don't see the company re-doing combat, economy, and the rather terribad UI.

Still, those are some great screens, and kinda gets me excited.

Egosoft team has always had a great set of artists, I just hope gameplay and game mechanics match these great shots.

Anyone else think that first picture looks like freelancer.

wee bit on that first one, I think they are doing a good job with the art, they always have really. With the name X-Rebirth you would hope there is going to be a revamp of the game play to open the game up for veterans and newbs to the series.

any chance of seamless planetary action this time around???

I havn't heard anything. You CAN walk around your ship....

...the tradeoff being you can only fly one ship, and instead remotely control others with VR goggles.

Kinda lame. Keep your ship interiors and give me back my multiple ship choices.

For me it depends on what you can do when you walk around....? Now if we can interact with the ship systems, work on systems and repair them that would be cool, never mind possible interaction with any crewmates. Wouldn't mind seeing planet landings, but it is very doubtful because that would be a first for X games and they would have let that cat out of the bag a long time ago because it would be a huge selling point.

Was there not some mention of being able to enter a planets upper atmosphere or low orbit.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense... Pity though as the visuals for their game are just so fantastic you look down on the planets and think "I want to go to there"

Same old story then in that case: "bzzt... Help me i-novae you're my only hope... bzzt" <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//nyam.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

Actually that's not fair, Evocrhon does a great job, I just wish the Gas Giants were massive in scale compared to the rocky planets

Well, if you havn't been following X Rebirth on the X forums. I figured I'd tell you folks what we know about X:R's various features:

From the X forums:

In regards to Ships:

Quote:

[background=rgb(16, 16, 16)]You can walk around on station platforms and inside your playership by moving from one point to another. So YES you can move in real 3D and interact with people, but NO you are not freely moving as in a FPS (also you dont have a gun for that [/background][background=rgb(16, 16, 16)] [/background]

TL;DR ITS NOT FREE MOVEMENT. Think of it as an interactive menu. It has been stated that the only purpose crew serves, is to help with the management of your empire. Your co-pilot does the autopilot. One does the turret systems etc.

It has also been confirmed you are confined to ONE ship, with VR goggles used for flying 'drones' that can be anything from traders to small cap ships.

Planets are also eyecandy.

Honestly, I havn't seen a single shred of evidence that X:R is going to re-invent the space genre. I think its going to be another iteration of Egosoft's successful series. Do I think this is a bad thing? Heck no, I love X. Do I think its going to change so radically that it will become more freelanceresque? No.

Not to be blunt, but I think you folks are going to be dissapointed if that is what you are expecting.

It sound a lot like "I-War" in the way you could move between stations on the bridge.

Never played Iwar. Mainly because I didnt have a joystick at the time. I suppose I should grab it of gog.com one of these days.

Don't think you need a joystick for the first one, remember playing it on my 98 windows laptop, then again I might be wrong.

Any one heard any news of a release date.

Egosoft has gone silent I'm afraid. Last we heard on the Egosoft forums was a "2012". That being said, they just released and updated Albion Prelude twice.

Speaking of which, Albion Prelude is scheduled for a 2.5 update in the next few weeks.

Rebirth's release however? You will find a lot of folks whining about vapourware on the egosoft forums. They havn't released any news whatsoever on that front.

So... when its done? <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_razz.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':P' />

So they get to feel (a little) whats its like to be an Elite fan! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//girl_sigh.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

Intresting that they are still working on Albion, you can't help but think Egosoft may have done another U turn, in continuing with the current Xgames and putting Rebirth to one side.

Then again it's a bit too early to be calling Rebirth vapourware, if it does appear this year it will probably be in September for the Christmass market.

Can't wait until the day comes when I can finally get to playing the first one!

Are there any other space-sims on the horizont that are supposedly going to reinvent it or at least be somewhat "freelanceresque"?

I like these concept arts a lot:
 

Nice concept art but you think they would have some more screen shots of the game by now.

Nice concept art but you think they would have some more screen shots of the game by now.

At your request:

source: http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/alex_preuss

Lastly, some pictures from Egosoft forums that I believe, haven't been posted here yet:

Egosoft is definitely giving us a reason to delay the game, with screenshots like this it will be worth the wait and I think it would be fun just to fly around and admire the visuals. Modelers and Texture artists are working overtime.