It is really a sad state of affairs.  I think I'll take this opportunity to vent a bit, I'm sure many will gladly ignore my long post.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have only played a few hours, the reason being because the performance is just terrible (unplayably terrible) and I am waiting for them to patch it up.  Some of what I say is based on reviews (not the absurd hysterical rant reviews, but real reviews with actual details).

As far as crashes and performance goes, ok I can deal with that, Egosoft has a not-so-illustrious history of releasing games in such a state, but they also have a truly-not-tongue-in-cheek-illustrious history of supporting their games afterwards.  That said, I am very discouraged that they have not released any type of performance fix in the past week.  Fixing performance is surely quite a bit more complicated than the sort of bugs Egosoft has been up against in the past, and I suspect it will have to involve some communication with nVidia and AMD, but one can't help but wonder if they will be able to fix it at all.  If that proves true, than we are looking at a game in a permanently unplayable state.

I have been a fan of the X games since X3: Reunions, and I have always felt that the primary thing which held the games back, which prevented them from being the modern single player Elite-type experience I want so desperately, has been a disastrous UI.  Granted, you get used to it after a while, but in a game of this sort there is simply so much to do that having a UI which turns every little task into a horrendous chore is an untenable fiasco.  It has made the difference between thousands of hours played and hundreds of hours played.

You would think that Egosoft would actually realize this.  After all, in the press preceding the release of Rebirth, they gave ample indication that they fully appreciated how bad it was, even if the screenshots of the new UI looked less than immaculate.  Well, no.  Just no.  They had no clue.  Somehow they have managed to replace the UI with an abomination that is often even WORSE.  What they were thinking is totally beyond me.  Everything else aside, this alone is enough to be a gigantic disappointment, as it was the single most problematic element of the X series in my opinion.

If this wasn't enough, they actually seem to have watered down or annihilated completely much of the complexity and subtlety that was great about the previous games.  For a long time now, I would observe people reading "one ship" and going completely ape.  During that time, I would usually defend Egosoft on the decision, because I can see the logic in this as it applies to the X series, I really could and still can.  However, one ship being an acceptable option requires it to be truly flexible.  It needs to be nothing short of a a ship from EVE, brought into a simulator.  You'd think Egosoft would understand that.  Instead, we have something that is truly like a noose around your neck.  Equipment choices seems so limited, that it seems a fairly sure bet that you'd be better off in the good old Paranid Hyperion.

I'd go on, but I'm sure by now everybody has stopped reading this post.  For a look at what other atrocities have been committed in the name of console, just take a look at the X rebirth map, and what you can (or can't) do with it.  If anybody ever had any doubt of the vast inferiority of consoles, and that they are a stinking dead albatross around the neck of PC gamers, one need look no further than X Rebirth.

What really scares me, is that failures like this will serve as more discouragement for anybody thinking about creating space sims and Elite-types.  There are SO few, we have waited SO long, and still look at all the ridiculous crap we have to compete with.  Why, for the love of all that is good and holy, WHY would somebody rather hack a giant lizard to death with a medieval sword than launch a nuke from a giant city hurtling through space?  How is it possible that most people prefer bows and arrows and horses to railguns and spaceships?  How can it be that so many people just want to play the SAME utterly empty and featureless "modern military shooter" over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for 10 years?  How can we be so deprived of all the wonder that games and space have to offer?

Sigh, maybe I should just try to be one of those people who works 80 hours a week.  If either of Elite or Star Citizen are nearly this big a disappointment, I will surely find myself in a mental institution in 2 years time, railing against consoles and fantasy games.

 If either of Elite or Star Citizen are nearly this big a disappointment, I will surely find myself in a mental institution in 2 years time, railing against consoles and fantasy games.

To be honest I don't really care all that much about Elite, although I do like what they showed so far, but in regards to Star Citizen you are totally correct and I'm pretty sure there will be legions of players in the same situation if that game doesn't "deliver". All evidence points that it will deliver but we can only wait and see.

As for the subject at hand, X-Rebirth, I'm honestly somewhat surprised the game really is all that bad as many of you say. At first i thought this might just be ranting of fans who were expecting something more but I did not think the game is really that bad. I was actually hoping this game will be better than the previous ones because I never really did get into any of the X games so far simply because of the interface and controls, although I tried them all, just in case.

 

 

What really scares me, is that failures like this will serve as more discouragement for anybody thinking about creating space sims and Elite-types.  There are SO few, we have waited SO long, and still look at all the ridiculous crap we have to compete with.  Why, for the love of all that is good and holy, WHY would somebody rather hack a giant lizard to death with a medieval sword than launch a nuke from a giant city hurtling through space?  How is it possible that most people prefer bows and arrows and horses to railguns and spaceships?  How can it be that so many people just want to play the SAME utterly empty and featureless "modern military shooter" over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for 10 years?  How can we be so deprived of all the wonder that games and space have to offer?

 

Sigh, maybe I should just try to be one of those people who works 80 hours a week.  If either of Elite or Star Citizen are nearly this big a disappointment, I will surely find myself in a mental institution in 2 years time, railing against consoles and fantasy games.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on XR. I'm a long time player of the series, although didn't really play X3. Never found X to be able to deliver the same space feeling as Elite, but although different they were fine games on their own. Not that competition in the space game genre was plenty...

Personally I wasn't looking forward XR launch - on hindsight a good thing. Looking at the reviews, I'm still wondering how is it possible to launch a 1st person space game without a radar, but I digress. Anyway, hopefully XR can be fixed (have some doubts :() and the fiasco will not negatively impact on the genre. After all, it has been more alive than probably ever, and I do hope that the games will deliver (and yes, if ED doesn't Ill be banging my head on the proverbial wall for quite some time...)

Cheers.

I think anyone's reaction to X Rebirth is governed by how much they like the original X series, Egosoft could have avoided a lot of the problems by using Steams early access and for a game which has been reported to be development for the last 7 years it is a bit of a mess.I have been lucky in that I have not encounter any of the problems face by others although I can sympathise with any one who feels rip off by this release.(had the same with XCom, 1GD download on the day release and has never work) and It has become a lottery buying any PC game now as to weather it will work on your computer.

They have made some strange design decisions, the whole mini games are just so out of place for this sort of game and should be dumped also the crawling around in the vents which is pointless and for a game where you only have one ship the customization options are some what lacking as is the ship that cannot carry any cargo although you avatar seems to be able to carry an infinite amount of stuff.

It's very unlikely that both Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous will be as bad at launch as X Rebirth has been as both games will tested by the backers and any major problems should be ironed out before the game release as to weather the games will live up to exceptions, who knows.

When I saw the "exploration" preview video, it made me expect that this game was going to end up being arcadey consolized crap. The highway minigame solidified this opinion.

The game is just as bad as I assumed it would be, and it runs even worse. Borderlands quality graphics (they might not even be as good as that), but the game barely runs at all. Barely got through the first fight with two drones, and I'm pretty sure that NPCs did all the work because I couldn't aim at anything with my 5 frames per second.

Performance issues and "additions" (absurd minigames) aside, the feeling that I got from the X3 games is just not there. The game doesn't feel alive. Could be that I am just not looking in the right places, but in X3 the universe was in-your-face and gave a clear feeling that things were going on around you.

Could not be more disappointed. But could be that I am a veteran who wanted an upgrade to an already great series, as opposed to an entirely different game with some similar themes. It's like Diablo 3 all over again. Except at least D3 was playable.

I think anyone's reaction to X Rebirth is governed by how much they like the original X series, Egosoft could have avoided a lot of the problems by using Steams early access and for a game which has been reported to be development for the last 7 years it is a bit of a mess.

Despite all my negative comments, I think what you say is very much true.  If I had no expectations whatsoever, I might be saying, "Here is a nice little game, what a pleasant surprise!" (of course, that assumes they can completely fix the performance issues).  Again this brings us back to the sad fact that there are just SO few games in this genre, as this is ultimately the reason I will probably spend some time playing X Rebirth.  We should not have to get excited over bad games because of there being only one release a year.

It's very unlikely that both Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous will be as bad at launch as X Rebirth has been as both games will tested by the backers and any major problems should be ironed out before the game release as to weather the games will live up to exceptions, who knows.

This is really my greatest hope.  In the past, I was dubious about the extreme openness that some projects seem to have these days, as I feared that the communities that crop up around them are too excitable and too unstable not to exacerbate potential, perceived or existing problems.  Fortunately, I think there is increasing evidence that I was wrong about this, the ultra-closed development and disastrous release of X Rebirth being good evidence.  I feel that we have more information about Star Citizen than we've had on any other game this far ahead of release.  Knowing technical details, such as their use of CryEngine 3 and eventual use of CryEngine 4 and actually having the ability to fool around with the SDK also helps to instill confidence that they can actually achieve a great deal because they already have a great game engine.  This coupled with an alpha and beta and Chris Roberts impressive ability to always say exactly the right thing to get me excited and allay my fears makes me think that, although I still have a hard time believing SC will completely live up to expectations (at least I tell myself this so I can handle what comes!), I by now think there is almost no chance it will be bad.  (Please Chris Roberts, don't make me eat my words.)  I think much of the same can be said about Elite: Dangerous.

Egosoft's apparent complete misunderstanding of what makes the genre and obscenely long development process makes me think we will rarely see calamities of a similar nature.  I just pray it doesn't serve to help murder the genre, just as it was being resurrected.  

  Again this brings us back to the sad fact that there are just SO few games in this genre, as this is ultimately the reason I will probably spend some time playing X Rebirth.  We should not have to get excited over bad games because of there being only one release a year.

Not a complete list here as it not been updated for a while http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/topic/2177-game-release-dates-20132014/ and not many in the so called triple A games but the indies are doing some great work.

 In the past, I was dubious about the extreme openness that some projects seem to have these days, as I feared that the communities that crop up around them are too excitable and too unstable not to exacerbate potential, perceived or existing problems.  Fortunately, I think there is increasing evidence that I was wrong about this, the ultra-closed development and disastrous release of X Rebirth being good evidence.

I think you have hit the nail right on the head their if Egosoft had been more open about the game with their existing fanbase they would have avoided the disastrous launch of the game and the endless patching which will now be taking place.

GOD DAMMIT!!! 

This is just like another game I brought and played for 1 hour ONLY. Finding out the stupid limitation and let downs ... SimCity!!!

I have just put down $10 deposit for a box set of XR and will not receive this until Jan 14.

I'm really disappointed with the reviews of this game ... but hoping, really hopping that these reviews are bias and over the top.

Honestly,

I am pretty much enjoying X Rebirth. The performance is fairly bad, but not terrible in my machine. My machine can run X Rebirth with decent FPS in big battles while frapsing and pumping the frapsed files immediately to mp4 1080p format on the fly (realtime). And with decent FPS I mean a FPS of 25. It took some tinkering, it took some patience. But after the modding community released some proper mods which fix things, the game is quite well playable for me. But I think I am in a very lucky state compared to other players around.

By now I've clocked in about 60 hours of X Rebirth, and I am likely going to see that rise to over 1000 over the coming 24 months.

But I notice many players are having a lot of problems with performance and the UI. I do get some UI problems, but not very often. And many of the problems which many are ragequitting about do not bother me that much. They challenge me to find a solution. I know many people won't ever like that sort of thing, but I do. Fun thing is that I am likely running one of the cheapest gaming rigs around, featuring cardboard as case.

Regardless, I see also plenty of people writing complete utter bullshit about X Rebirth in a negative way. SpaceSector comments has plenty of that bullshit inside there. Someone saying Legends of Pegasus's release state was the same as X Rebirth's? Gotta be freaking kidding me. That sort of bullshit lets me ignore a post right away. But I can understand some of the frustrations voiced by several people.

 

I am pretty much enjoying X Rebirth. The performance is fairly bad, but not terrible in my machine. My machine can run X Rebirth with decent FPS in big battles while frapsing and pumping the frapsed files immediately to mp4 1080p format on the fly (realtime). And with decent FPS I mean a FPS of 25. It took some tinkering, it took some patience. But after the modding community released some proper mods which fix things, the game is quite well playable for me. But I think I am in a very lucky state compared to other players around.

That's the reason of postponing playing it untill Christmass. But I do not think that a 25 FPS framerate is decent (unless you are using a very old machine). It really needs optimization.

I'm really disappointed with the reviews of this game ... but hoping, really hopping that these reviews are bias and over the top.

It's going to depend on how big a fan you were of the original X games.

Honestly,

 

My machine can run X Rebirth with decent FPS in big battles while frapsing and pumping the frapsed files immediately to mp4 1080p format on the fly (realtime). And with decent FPS I mean a FPS of 25. It took some tinkering, it took some patience. But after the modding community released some proper mods which fix things, the game is quite well playable for me. 

I share your desire to mitigate the hysterical people a bit, there are far too many of those and they really like to come out of the woodwork for botched releases, but there is no way around it: 25 FPS is not decent, it is abysmal.  Despite being a big disappointment on most fronts, I have no doubt I will get at least a little bit of enjoyment out of the game, but they really need to fix this first.  If it were a very steady 30, it might be marginally playable (it should be at LEAST 40), but 30 with dips to 5 (that's what I get) is totally unplayable.  If Egosoft is not able to fix this reasonably soon, I'll join with the hysterical people on feeling I actually deserve my money back.

I am sure if the publisher has patience then egosoft will be able to fix it.

Rest assured, I really started to enjoy the game when i installed some mods which gave proper feedback from my captains and started building my first few stations. But by that time I was already well into 12hrs playtime already. Not many people who like to spend that much time into it. I know ways to do it in under 4h, completing your first station. Rest aside, the game clearly has issues. Its a matter of how much tolerance a person has for derped up stuff in a game before he gets fed up. I notice, when speaking to other people, that I have a quite high tolerance for such things*.

* excluding PC peripherals, and in particular my mouse.

I don't like X-Rebirth for many reasons, all down to personal likes/dislikes. For me it just doesn't hang together as the kind of space game I enjoy playing.

Currently having fun with X3TC, which I do like, even though I think some aspects are a bit clunky and unclear - but still, for me, it works as a space game.

Bernd has multiple times stated that X3 TC and XRebirth are not comparable except for the fact that they play in the same game universe.

People had insanely high expectations of X-Rebirth. They were probably thinking about SC. And the reality hammer came down.

Bernd has multiple times stated that X3 TC and XRebirth are not comparable except for the fact that they play in the same game universe.

Couldn't agree more, they are very different games. Personally, I don't like X-Rebirth, but I don't have any issue with anyone else enjoying it, if you like it, play it! 😀

Stormprooter: I have played over 100 hours of any X game since X2 the threat (I didn't spend much time in X BTF honestly). But I can say that I both enjoy the recent X3-series installments and X Rebirth. The 1.19 patch fixed major showstoppers for me, being performance and trading ships getting stuck.

That being said, I can understand why people don't like X Rebirth when they are familiar with the earlier titles.

Bernd has multiple times stated that X3 TC and XRebirth are not comparable except for the fact that they play in the same game universe.

But I think it was more or less the same scenario as how typical AAA publisher ruined a classic franchise.

At least Egosoft still doing their best to fix it. Hopefully.

Stormprooter: I have played over 100 hours of any X game since X2 the threat (I didn't spend much time in X BTF honestly). But I can say that I both enjoy the recent X3-series installments and X Rebirth. The 1.19 patch fixed major showstoppers for me, being performance and trading ships getting stuck.

 

That being said, I can understand why people don't like X Rebirth when they are familiar with the earlier titles.

Egosoft have obviously tried to do something a bit new and a bit different with X-Rebirth, some will like it, some will not. I'm not going to jump on any game-bashing bandwagon about it, I'm simply in the "don't like it" crowd. It is good to hear that the game is being patched to sort out bugs, it helps me keep the faith with Egosoft, and I look forward to seeing their next title.

Post-release support is imo egosoft's strongest point. It's why I still throw my money at them 🙂

Couple of more interviews with German game site http://www.pcgameshardware.de/X-Rebirth-PC-236813/Specials/X-Rebirth-Interview-schlechte-Bewertungen-1100888/

 and http://www.pcgames.de/X-Rebirth-PC-236813/Specials/X-Rebirth-Entwickler-Bernd-Lehan-im-Interview-1100853/ you will need to run them through Google for a loose translation.

I see he mentions 150 testers were used, you have to wonder what they were testing.

 

I see he mentions 150 testers were used, you have to wonder what they were testing.

An unfinished game. perhaps?   

An unfinished game. perhaps?   

Now Egosoft will be finishing it for the next year