I was reading about the game and its seems like the kind of game i would like, I play freelancer, freespace 1 and 2, mechwarior, and games like that, reaaly not into fps games.
I was reading about the game and its seems like the kind of game i would like, I play freelancer, freespace 1 and 2, mechwarior, and games like that, reaaly not into fps games.
I just downloaded x3 SPD and im downloading the MPD now.
Returned to X3 last week after a long period away from it. It's still great fun.
You'll find the game starts quite slowly - don't be put off. It's much more satisfying to have an empire of 100 factories and a couple of hundred ships when you think back to when you were hauling a couple of hundred energy cells in your own ship...
Oh, and make sure you download all the updates and bonus material. The game was very buggy on release, but is fine now.
sorry this review is insanely long, but I was truly disappointed by this game and want to share why.
I bought this game out of a random pick up because it looked and sounded really interesting. The graphics are fantastic and flying is pretty fun, though the controls take forever to learn (there must be hundreds of hotkeys!).
You can follow the storyline or just fly off on your own and do whatever. I found the storyline is very easy for the first few tasks, then is suddenly impossible. I was literally dogfighting and killing one ship then immediately saving if I managed to keep lots of shields, then keep re-loading and saving until I made it through the battle of 1 vs 2 or 3 ships. Maybe I'm just a terrible pilot, as I don't play flight sims at all, but I found it incredibly difficult.
So, with the storyline becoming so tough I decided I should go off trading for a while to build money, upgrade my ship and maybe buy a little one with basic weapons to be my wingman for those tough missions.
I had to have a pad of paper writing down every item that looked cheap at one port, then fly to all of the ports nearby that would buy those goods and see if they had a large demand for it, then also see if they had some kind of returning goods which the other port would purchase. I'd have a pad full of notes to establish a decent trade route that lasted maybe a half hour before some huge freighter arrived full of the goods in demand and drove down the prices. grab random quests at these ports when possible to run goods around, transport somebody, or something like that, and I still had to trade for HOURS of fly, wait for docking, sell, undock, fly, dock, sell, etc. After a few days of this, I saved up enough to buy a second very basic, quick little ship which was a lower class than the one I had. I even captured a few pirate ships and sold them for money. I found it very difficult to learn how to issue commands to the ship and do anything with it. They can't do anything on their own without some kind of software upgrades etc, and I basically just had it follow me around (it actually crashed into me a couple of times).
Saving up for over a week of trading money (real life time) bought me a little ship that was at best a minor decoy that could only take a few hits before I had to grab the attention of the attacker or it was doomed. It was useless for trading (tiny cargo capacity), but could be used for transport quests which require a fast ship, though I could never figure out how to actually use the ship for that. the Manual is GROSSLY insufficient, and I was constantly going back and forth between it and the website trying to figure out how to play the game. I was just trying to bring in extra money from transport quests but could not even figure that out. the decent trading ships cost insane amounts to purchase, and the interface for figuring out a good trade route is either completely user-unfriendly or I just could not figure it out and was using a pad of paper. I even bought a computer upgrade so I could see the port's goods if I was in the sector, but that only saved a bit of time as flying around sectors kills SO much time (there's a warp engine you get from a storyline quest, but you have to use up chunks of your money buying energy cells to use it, I found it was just slowing down my money growth).
net result: insanely frustrating game to learn, and though it looks BEAUTIFUL in high res widescreen, I cannot bring myself to "play" it. It honestly felt more like working at a job than playing, when trading. The dogfights and trying to run from pirates etc honestly is a lot of fun, and the endgame with factories etc sounds really interesting, but even after reading for half an hour or so several times I still could not understand how I would be able to build a factory at all, never mind add more sections and functions to it. I never even got really comfortable with the ship and game controls beyond the basics of flight and navigation, trading and gathering/completing quests.
Yes, the manual is a bit thin. This started with the first X game, where you were transported into an alien universe. They deliberately didn't tell you very much, so that you had the challenge of learning about an alien universe. What weapons are good? Which races hate each other? All these things have to be figured out by reading bulletin boards and talking to other pilots, not from a magical manual that appears in your ship at Day 1.
Unfortunately, this turned a lot of people off the game, because they couldn't work out how to get started (I was lucky having played Elite that I knew to look for products below average selling price to buy until I got more of a "feel" for the economics).
But almost all who persevered reckoned it was worth it.
With X3, there is a lot more information in the manual. There ARE details on weapons and races, etc. One thing they missed out was telling you that you need to hire a big TL freighter to move stations, which players of previous games would have known, but might not be obvious to a newcomer. Still, those who got into the spirit of the game would see a HUGE ship and think "cool - wonder what that is?", fly over and comm it, or bring up the info screen. Then, you get told what these ships are for. Voila! This is one game that rewards being inquisitive.
Regarding getting started: (SPOILER)
If you start on easy difficulty, you get a free freighter to start with.
On normal difficulty, you get a free freighter after a few missions.
Once you have a freighter buy the best buys / best sells computers and this makes life a LOT easier. Also, buy a SETA device to speed things up.
If you need a good trade route, try running sunrise flowers from Spaceweed Drift to Greater Profit. You can usually buy at 5-9 and sell at 30+. Since the average price (which the game does tell you) is between the two, it is obvious that you will make good profitssssss (sorry, slipped into Teladi there).
Honestly, this game is nowhere near as difficult as some people make out. You just need to expect to not be spoon-fed what to do, don't expect to control the universe within 3 hours, and enjoy exploring. If that doesn't sound your cup of tea, go and buy Freespace or Freelancer!
Oh, and if you want to give X3 another try, I'd recommend going to the Egosoft forums. There are a number of n00bie guides that walk you through everything from basic flying and trading through to building complexes and arranging fleets.
