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[TheTrain]

Hi guys,

It's again time for me to wish you all a Happy Christmas and all the best for the new year. It is however also the time of the year when we normally start talking about a new game or expansion.

Last year it was Home of Light, and before that it was The Teladi Outpost. Both of these X Rebirth expansions received a lot of positive feedback and helped us to show X Rebirth 4.0 in a much better light.

This year, there are several really exciting new developments that I can share with you:

- We have Update 4.10 of X Rebirth almost ready, as well as Updates for X3AP and X3TC.
- There will be a VR game based on X Rebirth: the X Rebirth: VR Edition.
- X4 is in development!

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=392987

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A little sneak peek from the official forum:

Will be possible to change actual weapons loadout on our ships, as it was in X3?

There are ships with more than one weapon slot. You can equip compatible weapons and assign them in weapon groups.
Example with a ship with two weaponslots.
E.g. slot1 laser installed, slot2 has a shotgun equipped.
Weapongroup 1: fire slot 1
Weapongroup 2: fire slot 2
Weapongroup 3: fire slot 1 and slot 2.

Either two shotguns or two lasers can be installed of course, too.

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Vulkan for X: Rebirth VR:

- Special universe and economy: While based on X Rebirth and Home of Light, the universe and economy of X Rebirth VR Edition are specially designed for a Virtual reality experience. This is also the reason why the games are not savegame compatible.
- New graphics engine: X Rebirth VR Edition will be the first title by Egosoft to utilise our new in-house development, based on the innovative new Vulkan graphics technology.
- New content: X Rebirth VR Edition extends the gameplay and universe with new missions to deliver a unique virtual reality experience.
- Special UI: The user interface of XR VR Edition was specially designed to work entirely as an immersive first person VR cockpit experience.
- Pace and Balancing: All aspects of the game had to be rebalanced to create the best experience for the VR environment.

 

[Eolz]

Good. Would have been a shame if they were missing that space sim revival era.
Nice to see that they've heard the Rebirth feedback and building on it.

No interest in Rebirth VR, but I guess it might interest several hardcore users.

 

[TheTrain]

Good. Would have been a shame if they were missing that space sim revival era.
Nice to see that they've heard the Rebirth feedback and building on it.

No interest in Rebirth VR, but I guess it might interest several hardcore users.

Another good news is that they're adopting the early acces for the VR edition so, probably, there will be the same iter for X4. For the first time in the X history we might have a bug free release from Egosoft!

 

[mandiller]

I bought X Rebirth at launch and it was horrendous. One of the worst games I've ever paid for. They're going to have to do something really drastic to make me think about getting X4.

 

[CriterionDog]

Damn I swear X4 came out in 1997.

 

[cyress8]

Please don't fuck this up.

 

[Kyougar]

I was a fan of the X franchise since the first game. Over the whole franchise I probably played over a thousand hours. X-rebirth was the biggest pile of Argnu-excrements that ever was. Unfortunately.

I hope they go back to the roots with X4

 

[glaurung]

I never could get into X Rebirth. The design choices in that game were just beyond bizarre. But the premise was amazing, a proper EVE Online universe with a single player game.

Unfortunately, the lack of proper tutorials and a steep learning curve killed any enthusiasm.

Fourth time's the charm?

 

[foxuzamaki]

I remember my absolute thirst everytime a thread from this game would pop up only to find out that it wasent about xenoblade X

 

[Durante]

A VR game with a Vulkan-based engine? Very interesting, from a technical perspective at least.

 

[jmga]

I-Novae Engine (Infinity: Battlescape) is also switching to Vulkan.

 

[vesirott]

X3 TC and AP were great. Way too many hours spent there that I'll never get back. I also preordered Rebirth and played it for 1 hour I believe. Havent touched it since. Curious to see what X4 will be based on: updated X3 or revamped X Rebirth.

 

[Burny]

Played the first one maaaany years ago, when it was included in a PC magazine. It grabbed my attention pretty hard for a while before I lost interest. Never got the motivation or time to try the successors.


I'm wondering whether they'll look into online multiplayer for X4. There's a number of rising space games, but nearly all of them have a focus on direct control, while X always seemed more like an offline Eve.

 

[Thraktor]

While X:Rebirth's launch was by most accounts a disaster, I do have to hand it to the devs for sticking with it and releasing several years worth of patches and updates which apparently did a pretty good job of fixing most of the game's problems. It would be interesting to think of how different the reaction would be if they'd slapped an early access label on it.

A VR game with a Vulkan-based engine? Very interesting, from a technical perspective at least.

Does Serious Sam VR not support Vulkan? (Going by support in The Talos Principle and assuming they're using the same engine)

 

[SmartBase]

I hope that they keep it single player and moddable, I can't deal with another shallow Elite-like online-only sim.

 

[jrush64]

Thought it was Xenosaga for a second. Don't know why.

 

[Onemic]

A VR X game? Im in. Is there gonna be VR for X4 or just Rebirth?

And is Rebirth good now after all the patches or is it still mostly mediocre?

 

[KPJZKC]

Going to have to really impress to lure me back (I put hundreds of hours into X3 across the different releases), the state of X Rebirth at release left a real bitter taste in my mouth rivaled only by (ugh) Sword of The Stars 2.

 

[Murdamonk]

Don't know why, I thought you guys were talking about XIII.

A sequel to that game would have been awesome.

 

[Enduin]

Rebirth was probably my biggest disappointment in gaming. In no small part because I campaigned hard for Egosoft and the X series hardcore leading up to release here on GAF and feel terrible knowing some people bought that game based on my posts.

They are really going to have to pull one hell of a turn around to win me back.

 

[Durante]

Does Serious Sam VR not support Vulkan? (Going by support in The Talos Principle and assuming they're using the same engine)

IIRC they plan on supporting it, but don't do so yet. There's an additional challenge there in that the VR API needs to support Vulkan. OpenVR got support for that only a few days ago, and I don't know if other VR APIs support it at all currently.

 

[Bl@de]

As far as I remember the last game was a buggy disappointing mess. But I hope for the best for this one

 

[RRockman]

I came in here expecting a Megaman X4 remake.


I am a fool.

 

[Mindlog]

I will always buy X no matter how far they stray just for the chance to get another proper X. Let's make space empire building great again.

 

[TheTrain]

A quick teaser listing the features added to X Rebirth between 2.0 and 4.10, released in early 2017. This is mainly to inform new customers of the features added between 2013 and 2017.

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1KnESEaz-8

Amazing.

 

[Memory]

Used to love this series but it totally fell off. Hoping they can turn it around for the next instalment, although i think the genre is getting quite crowded for them to shine.