After a release like that the most important thing to do is admit their mistakes and plan out clearly how they intend to fix them, trying to get as much of the willing community on-board as they can. Bernd is the managing director and presumably has the final say on most things, and he has posted on either these or their forums maybe four or five times since the game released. I can't see any good reason to remain so silent - presumably there are business forces at play here, but after that godawful release, I'd think the only sensible option for the future of the game is to engage with the community as best possible to fix things. There's no word on economic fixes, station fixes, anything like that. We have very little idea of what they intend to do with the game, presumably because (as with release) it'll cause a backlash. This is how things have been - more or less completely silent - since well before release. Occasionally we get a bit of idle chit-chat or a little hint of ambition from Lino, but it's barely anything of note, nice though it may be. They neither ask for nor respond to feedback except in the very rarest of cases, normally regarding unimportant minor changes. To what meaningful extent? Every facet of actual game development is shrouded in almost absolute secrecy. Yes, they're only human - it's just that most don't feel they have to resort to such toxic, wanton deceit to fund their own out-of-touch ideals. But really, like most folk, above all they care about getting paid so they can get by. I guess Gamescom will clarify their ambitions. If they don't fix Rebirth, I can't imagine they'll ever make another "successful" release. If they care about their product, or even their reputation, they don't say or show it. They made a fast buck by deceit - their MetaCritic 33 game sold brilliantly, so it was a "huge success". They are rather like other companies, that much is clear. A fine mess they've made the forums - now it's largely a ghost-town. Nanook, one of the moderators on the forums who's been there for years, said Egosoft killed off swathes of their previous community with the toxic mess of Rebirth's release, whereas all previous releases added more. Their forums became a toxic mess and lots of people cleared off. I'm amazed people still cling to them, singing frantically about how the good old days will be back any time soon, that it'll all be alright in the end, that Egosoft really care, that they're not like other companies! They might have been supportive and engaged in the past, honest about their games, perhaps, but they've destroyed anything they got from that. They lied horribly in the run up to release, misleading tens of thousands, and 2.0's release was a similarly shameful attempt to flog more copies. They seem to follow their own perverse and confused design direction rather than perhaps engage with the community and see what they'd like (rather than what Bernd likes). Hooray.Įgosoft are slow, never really communicate, and don't really make much in the way of progress. In adding these things they managed to comprehensively screw up station building, something that's now been half-broken for months. Perhaps Lino didn't have much other work). Cockpits! (nice, but unnecessary at this barely-past-alpha stage). A handful of simple ship commands! (so simple it was ludicrous they took so long). Shaders! Radar! (the nicest addition, I think, yes, but that important with all the current issues?). It didn't feel like there was much in terms of significant fixes and progress compared to previous patches - rather just slightly unnecessary additions to get more sales. The game is still clearly unfinished and buggy, and they've mentioned no plans to address most of the big concerns. Yes, a few sorely needed but small things were fixed, and a few nice things added, but nothing big was really addressed. 2.0 was only really a frantic (and morally ugly) attempt to flog more copies of a still-incomplete and deeply flawed game, by pretending everything was fixed and finished and ready to buy - mainly by adding some glitzy, shallow window-dressing and putting a fancy trailer up. Seeing as they're calling it 2.5 and not 3.0, a patch like that, let alone a series of them, seems unlikely. If they made a few patches like that, perhaps the game would be in a state they could call "finished" sometime in the next six months to a year. The full integration of small and medium ships and a completely functional economy, with balanced player-economy interaction and player-stations with capable AI would be a start. At this rate I'd rather want it to contain more significant changes than 2.0 for it to seem worth the long downtime and (amazingly) quiet forums, quieter than even the usual Egosoft wall-of-silence.
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