Probably, but there didnt seem to be any kind of tutorial. My experience was heres a ship, have fun! Now go conquer the universe.
Yeah it does have a steep learning curve, I found You Tube videos helped. But like you say this shouldn't be required.
Indeed it is steep. I'm sure it is a good game once you get the hang of it, but i see it as the worst game i own because i had no clue where to start. This is just my view on my worst game
Unfortunately I'll have to agree. X3 might be one of the worst games I own. The graphics are brilliant, but for someone new there is no way to figure out how to get to the system you need to get to. Remeber, it's no job and I can't be arsed to go and look at youtube videos for an hour because the devs did not include a tutorial or some helping gameplay mechanic. Even Eve Online has one.
I agree, I bought X2 (I think that was it) and had absolutely no idea what was going on after just being plonked into a space ship. Never worked it out, and never went back.
The learning curve is part of what I loved about the X games. The games could probably do with better tutorials, but being told "here's your ship, figure it out from here" was half the fun for me when I first played X2 and just added to the feeling of being a little, confused speck of dust in a massive, living universe. Writing the whole series off because you didn't have your hands held is.. well.. a bit stupid, in my view; plus a quick google search (even back then) would have turned up the absolutely massive and friendly forums at the developers' site where a lot of the information can be found quite easily or asked-for. The X games just aren't that 'type' of game where the information is handed to you on a platter (they're too damn huge for that to be a viable undertaking from the developers alone, which is part of the games' beauty), and fair enough if that isn't your thing, or you think it's a genuine design failing of the game.. But does that make them bad games? I think it's ignorant to say that it does, but that's the apparent point of this thread judging by most of the posts. Personally, I'd love to see more 'hardcore' games of their type out there these days.
X2 was amazing! AMAZING. apart from, it took literally hours and hours to fly accross space. I started to play X3, then after about 3 hours, i realised it would be way tooo much of an investment of my time.
You did remember to hit 'J' for your time-compression device, right? (Though admittedly it would still probably take a good hour or two to get from one side of the universe to the other during SETA in the X games..)
You are probably correct, X3 might be a great game. I also agree that a game should not spoon feed you every little information you need. However it should teach you the very basics you need to know. And navigating in space is of uttermost importance in a game like this. Eve Online has a massive learning curve as well, and if you don't learn you die, easy as that. When I played the game 4 years ago there was a tutorial that takes about 5-10 min to complete that introduced you to the many menus and how to navigate the space map. The tutorial did not make the game any easier nor did it take away any challenge, but it sure made it easier for me as a player to get into. There even was a basic tutorial mission at the beginning iirc, I never completet it as I couldn't figure out where to go. Would it have been so hard to show a few pictures in the first mission? Pilots get some training navigating their ships as well.
Well, to be quite honest; I find it difficult to relate to the complaint since the very first thing I did in X2 was to load up the simulator tutorials and play through those; And I distinctly remember them teaching me quite adequately how to fly a Boron fighter ship with the aid of a voiced instructor. There were tutorials on basic flight, targeting, docking, etc.; and while tutorials are rarely enjoyable in any game, I don't think it's the game's fault if people were insistent on throwing themselves into it without learning how to play first with the adequate information provided! X2 Manual - Go to page 13 for the in-depth tutorials - More information than most other games give in their manuals these days. Since X3/TC/AP basically use the same control schemes (aside from optionally different mouse controls in the X3 series) I never felt any dire need for tutorials in those; but given that all of the games had tutorials (aside from maybe X3Reunion, but I thought it did) I just don't see what the problem is. They are deep, complex games with a vast amount of information being presented to the player, which is always going to be daunting; but then again, that's true for a lot of RPGs and other number-heavy games too. I remember being clueless about how THAC0 worked in Baldur's Gate when I first got that. Did that weaken the game for me? Not a chance. It's been my experience from reading forum threads about the X games in the past that the people who have the biggest issues with them are the people who were expecting the simplicity of Freelancer from a series of games that are in a different league altogether. That's not to say the games are perfect (every X game has its flaws, some of which should have been fixed long ago); but I just think it's a shame to call them bad games just because they're complex, niche, hardcore games instead of instant-gratification space shooters. The information was there if people were willing to make the minor effort, in all fairness to the devs.
I reckon with the upcoming "X: Rebirth" they are going to finally manage make an 'accessible' version of their game. I think I'm a the minority though in that I did overcome the steep learning curve of the X games, and I ended up just not liking what I found anyway. They seem massively complex at first glance and yeah, it sucks that previous versions made very little effort to try to ease you in the game. But the thing that bugged me about them is that once you work out how to play, there isn't that much depth there anyway. You can travel from A to B trading goods, or you can travel from A to B transporting passengers, or you can travel from A to B on a mission, or you can travel from A to B randomly killing people, etc.. There is depth in that you can do lots of different things, but I just found no depth in any of those things themselves, and not even much challenge either. You can generally fly anywhere in the universe using autopilot, so you don't even need to fly most of the time. Combat is little more than steering your ship to shoot at the giant X which has predicted for you exactly where to shoot. Trading is just about buying low and selling high, and then you can even buy ships with gear that do this entire process automatically... so you aren't actually playing the game at that point, you are just sitting back and watching your ships on autopilot collecting your virtual money. Having said that, it's typical sandbox gaming, and I always hate sandbox games, whether it's Oblivion, X3, or Minecraft, and yet most people seem to like them, so if you like Minecraft or Skyrim, check out the X games
I been a fan of the X games since the first one back in '99. It is a game that you really need to be in the mood to play though, but once I got into it and could afford to build space stations to rake in the money I found it really addictive. I found this map really helpful when starting out.
Gotta go with Stranglehold, haven't finished it till this day. I would sell it but I'd probably only get £3 for it lol
Might want to try oolite too nothing has beaten the elite series since it came out imo. www.oolite.org/
Terran Conflict fo sho. And like smiffy said you gotta be in the right mood for it, and that map makes a huge difference too.
