Ugliness of the Xenonauts...

They never claimed it was a reproduction, just heavily inspired by it.

Sorry for my tone... for me its simplest way to say what I thing about... English is not my native language. Ofcouse, you are right about positives... but in background of what I seen - it's look very small things. About 2D map - I've replied to Seafireliv on second page.

Chris, do not take it to heart. This is just my opinion. I think many agree with me, but not all. However, poor implementation of 2D map - this is not a sign to ignore 3D globe. Both options have advantages and disadvantages. I already talked about this for Seafireliv (see 2nd page).

The problem with a truly realistic 2D map is that it would only appeal the the absolute most hardcore strategy gamers, and everyone else would find it confusing because it's a lot less intuitive than what is in the game now.

I started playing games genre x-com, just before the release of her second part. Thanks to my older friends I knew this genre and fell in love with him. However, this game does not even reach the original game as by design and by implementation. The only thing that has brought the game - it's a high resolution image and system of interceptions. That's probably all.

But I admire the author for his attempt to bring the project to release. I'm not saying that the author is an idiot - I just pointed out his mistakes, he also recognizes.

...

Realistic modelling of the curve of the Earth in terms of flight paths and radar coverage is possible, but would confuse and annoy far more people than actually care about it and want it in the game. Radar circles are clear and easy to understand.

Hence the conclusion - you need to make a globe. Or do both, so that the player passed a lesson that the flat map does not reflect the true circumstances.

Having a 2D Geoscape and not modelling the curvature of the planet doesn't mean Xenonauts is incomplete, it just means we've taken different design decisions. You're allowed to disagree with the decisions we've made, of course, but then you're just arguing about personal taste. It doesn't mean the game is unfinished.

It just means that the neglect of reality spoils the impression of the game and scoff their authors. Certainly not in my case, but I'm just stating a fact. If your decision is justified by reasons of clarity, then visibility spoiled immediately for technical education of people.

Cause many people bought into the advertising that the game is a reproduction of bestseller x-com. But, in fact - its degradation!

I love X-Com as well as Xenonauts. In terms of "rising to the level" of the original, I think Xenonauts stacks up very well to the original X-COM. In time, it may even surpass X-COM as my favorite tactical turn-based game.

Also, we tend to forget a "classic" game's faults over time, while a new game gets nitpicked to death over every little wish that wasn't granted or bug that hasn't yet been patched. To that point, let me just leave this here.

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Known_Bugs

Simple Globe in the laboratory of geography teacher - will be enough visualize what was going on. And do not need any excess virtualization technology.

I completely disagree with this statement. Xenonauts is superior to XCom in many ways. A few big ones I can think of: Better non-cheating alien AI, air combat is far more interesting and important to your success, better combat UI, better music and better graphics.

When I first time played x-com - it was on the i486-DX with 4MB of RAM and 40MB of HDD. Without soundblaster! That was cool! Only in the third x-com: apocalypse succeeded to play with sound. Sound in such games generally is turned off on the third day.

I mean, look at the games of the past, as far as they were well thought out. Then they were limited by resources of the hardware. And what now prevents implement ideas? Human resources - it's true. But resources are different!

Sorry for my tone... for me its simplest way to say what I thing about... English is not my native language. Ofcouse, you are right about positives... but in background of what I seen - it's look very small things. About 2D map - I've replied to Seafireliv on second page.

Fair enough, lets agree to disagree.To me your flaws seem pretty minor.

And it's fair that people are demanding a refund or rectify the shortcomings. Cause many people bought into the advertising that the game is a reproduction of bestseller x-com. But, in fact - its degradation!

You make it sound like the game is a epic disaster, while it seems to be a success, i just checked steam forums and I dont see anwyhere cries for refund, i see mostly positive posts or passionate posts about gameplay meaning poeple are playing with enthusiasm.

By now I have played a fair bit of Xenonauts and for me its major improvement over the original . Sure the orignal will be only one since it was first and magic, but i see plenty of smart improvements (some of which i pointed in my previous posts , wont be repeating ) in Xenonauts.

My understanding was that Xcom Enemy Unknown, the new version, was the spiritual and official successor to the old Xcom, they had the rights didn`t they?

Xenonauts was an alternative. It simply added more depth, and a slightly different more real way of doing things - it certainly did not prommise to be exactly the same thing. I thought it went without saying when I bought it.

I think it`s a great mistake to think that Xenonauts was supposed to be just like the old Xcom. Yet, it is very much like the old Xcom.

FireStorm1010, I agree with you, but only with

Sure the orignal will be only one since it was first and magic

In rest - you and only people at his self decide play or not to play in remakes of originally X-COM. I just expressed my own opinion. I said it in order to in the future authors considered their mistakes. And I hope that criticism will contribute to this. I also said BRAVO for autors! But criticized the publisher. Even if he is same person. Thats mean, it is his another mistake (for player's point of view), but he may be know better about his situation with that game development. Hope in the near future Chris will develop better games, as it said - now he have finacial resources and experience. First steps is always hard. But if you want to run you must learn to walk first. In attempts to walking surely you must to elicit lessons from stumbles. Cruelly - but it is the essence of life.

All the flaws you listed are very much accurate.

The lack of a geoscape globe is totally unacceptable. It was very characteristic of the original x-com, and is very cool. even new XCOM has a floating globe. The projection really brings a lot of issues with it, with 2d projection.

and the game is very slow, and boring. enemy turns take forever, moving units take forever and with 10+ units it became tedious.

very disappointing

About 10+ of soldiers - it is also an advantage of x-com. Even if it takes a little bit much time. But I do not understand - in the era of serious graphics card, how can use 2d sprites?

Just some words about evolution of such games series...

Quite obvious that the tactical mode of UFOs is a healthy solution to combine real-time (unacceptable in such games, but welcome) and turn-based strategy. Chess mode should be left as an option, but it was more a lack of x-com series. That is, I think that it is necessary to promote the genre of such games in the obvious ways. Good game of this genre, I believe should be a combination of:

- Globe of the good old X-COM: UFO Defense, but with adequate landscape and penalties or bonuses.

- Tactics of UFO: after ... series, but with the possibility of destruction of the walls and abandonment of the cell structure maps.

- Economy like in x-com: apocalypse with a variety of organizations or something like that.

- Come up with another concept of an alien invasion. Not bad attempts were in UFO:Aftermath and UFO:Extraterestrials. I think on one, completely different concept. It is suitable only for the continuation of one of the classic concept of an alien invasion. But will say it in another place.

When I have any complaints about the game, I'll be sure to make a thread telling the devs they did it wrong and demand a refund as well...

war screens have latitude lines. and nobody uses the projection that xenonaut uses for warscreen, especially since nukes from russia to the US will come through the north pole region, the projection will make it difficult to accurately ascertain the situation.

The globe made you feel like the world is at your fingertip, that you are a leader for a truly global organisation. The globe was the first thing you see after the menu in x-com and it made a huge impression.

war screens have latitude lines. and nobody uses the projection that xenonaut uses for warscreen, especially since nukes from russia to the US will come through the north pole region, the projection will make it difficult to accurately ascertain the situation.

The globe made you feel like the world is at your fingertip, that you are a leader for a truly global organisation. The globe was the first thing you see after the menu in x-com and it made a huge impression.

Pedantics really, the point is real war rooms have a 2D screen\monitors of large maps, not a globe that you can`t see at once exactly because it is less efficient.

`Feel` is not enough for something that is actually less efficient than a 2D screen. Although it don`t kill the `feel` for me at all. I have a dozen good games of world empire building that use a 2D map screen, Civ 5 is one example. Age of Wonders 3 is another.

This is just rose tinted specs again.

Pedantics really, the point is real war rooms have a 2D screen\monitors of large maps, not a globe that you can`t see at once exactly because it is less efficient.

`Feel` is not enough for something that is actually less efficient than a 2D screen. Although it don`t kill the `feel` for me at all. I have a dozen good games of world empire building that use a 2D map screen, Civ 5 is one example. Age of Wonders 3 is another.

This is just rose tinted specs again.

well how many war rooms have you been in? or are you just basing your idea of a war room on movies like Wargames? As I already mentioned, for things like ICBM launches, an actual globe (or part of it) is advantageous.

even in original x-com, it's possible to have multiple ufos spread all over the globe. there is no awareness issue, since you can easily rotate the globe and track all ufos. not that tracking ufos is meaningful, since it's precise position is not important. you simply want to know which region it is in and then send interceptors after it, after which you just wait till interception occurs.

most combat operation takes place over a theater, where a 2d projection is quite accurate. the game takes place over a globe. you can't have realistic fighter interception paths or the idea of air and space in general without a spherical (or speroid). Since the primary gameplay of the map is actually the aerial interception, not having a globe is actually very relevant. you can not do things like fly over the pole to intercept a target, something which would be done in an actual aerial interception scenario.

As for the world empire building game that uses 2d, that is more of the fact that tiling doesn't work very well on 3d more than anything else.

and most importantly, a globe is much cooler than a map.

I don't see why people are arguing over this. Xenonauts' engine can't support 3d. The best it can manage is the kind of isometric 3d that existed before true 3d did. You can't have a sphere without true 3d, so you could never, ever have a spherical geoscape. This is arguing over, and demanding of something that would never happen due to technical constraints. Give it up already! You're all wasting your breath on something that would never have been.

war screens have latitude lines. and nobody uses the projection that xenonaut uses for warscreen, especially since nukes from russia to the US will come through the north pole region, the projection will make it difficult to accurately ascertain the situation.

You'd be wrong there. Both NASA and NORAD use such screens.

I started playing games genre x-com, just before the release of her second part. Thanks to my older friends I knew this genre and fell in love with him. However, this game does not even reach the original game as by design and by implementation. The only thing that has brought the game - it's a high resolution image and system of interceptions. That's probably all.

But I admire the author for his attempt to bring the project to release. I'm not saying that the author is an idiot - I just pointed out his mistakes, he also recognizes.

It's fine, I'm not annoyed by your post or anything and I know English isn't your first language. I'm just pointing out that you think a 3D view is better than a 2D view, but I think a 2D view is perfectly fine for the game. I would probably at least try a 3D world if I started development again, but I'm not actually sure it would improve the game.

Anyway, the fact that you would prefer a 3D map to a 2D map does not make the game incomplete. Lots of people like the 2D map and think it's better than a 3D map, and they paid just as much for the game as you did. Their opinions are just as valid as yours.

People buying Xenonauts pay for an updated X-Com and they get one - we're not obliged to do any extra work because we've updated it in a different way to how you would have done. As the development diary says, you're buying my update of X-Com rather than yours.

2d map is fine by me. The original X-COM was the first game I really fell in love with, but I absolutely hated the globe thing. That was most because by the time I bought the game, my PC's processor was so fast that I could not control the globe. One light tap on the rotate and the globe would spin past my targetted area. It was annoying as hell and actually almost did make the game broken.

Was that a developer issue or a technical issue? I don't know but there was nothing I could do to slow it down.

The 2D map in Xenonauts has never given me any issue. It's playable. I don't even think about it. A globe is cooler? Maybe, but ascerting the game is broken or that the 2D map is a "mistake" is pretty silly.

Do you fail missions because of a 2D map? No. Do you fail to shoot down UFOs because of a 2D map? No. Is it unrealistic? Only if you believe real war rooms in 1979 had holographically projected globes (in which case you need to stop smoking that stuff or maybe see a doctor about your delusional perception of reality).

There are elements of Xenonauts I am not 100% happy with. But if you think it's incomplete or somehow lacking compared to the original, you need to go back and replay XCOM with your rose colored glasses off. That game had so many holes in it (even discounting the unresolved bugs) it wasn't funny. Its micromanagement of inventory, excessive exploits available, and the totally OP double punch of psyionic amps and blaster bombs were certainly "mistakes" that could have been corrected but weren't. It was/is a great game, but it wasn't flawless.

Same with Xenonauts.

Is it unrealistic? Only if you believe real war rooms in 1979 had holographically projected globes (in which case you need to stop smoking that stuff or maybe see a doctor about your delusional perception of reality).

The previous generation of displays were better but aliens stole all of the globe displays because they knew we would never be able to stop their invasion if we had to rely on 2D maps.

I didn't go through all the posts and I am not going to. Having skimmed a bit through the thread though, it's "funny" to see how some people cannot accept criticism or even cannot accept that someone may have a different point of view than their own. Yes, for someone a 3D globe is important and they would love to see it in the game. Get over it and don't try to convince them otherwise, simply because you are of a different opinion. The same applies to the rest of the negative comments about the game.

It's also "funny" to see how arguments develop and how heated these arguments become, on what is realistic or not. That would be more than welcome on a scientific program, but on a computer game that is about an alien invasion in the seventies this is..well.. odd to say the least.

Anyway, I am glad that Chris does not belong to either of these categories - how could he, because if he did, he would have not produced this game. As also he said in the diary, you cannot please everyone and it is always a balance of fun vs realism and micro-management. And judging from the result, it's a good enough game to give him a profit and allow him to start the development of two more games (if I remember correctly).

In short...

Do I agree will all game decisions? No.

Do I find small things that break immersion? Yes.

Are there bugs and many annoying things? Absolutely.

Could it have been better given the restrictions? Probably.

Do I enjoy it enough and I am happy for the money that I paid? Definetely!

The last one is the more important question. And thousands of gamers agree with me ;-)