Xenonauts 2 - Update

Where do you preorder ?

I can't see hardware being an issue anymore. Computer performance advances seems to have slowed down somewhat a few years ago so it's no longer necessary to upgrade to a new PC to play most new games. My 6 year old system has handled everything up to Divinity: Original Sin with no issues.

Most of the heavy processing is in the graphics card now % wise. The load your processor has to handle isn't going up that fast. I've had to upgrade my video card about every two years to keep up with the graphical requirements of modern games. For example my Nvidia 650 that allowed me to play Skyrim on "HIGH" everything, was completely inadequate for Witcher 3 even on "LOW", so I moved up to an Nvidia 960. The modern graphics card is really a computer unto itself and quite a marvel at that. It also does a lot of stuff for the developers that previously was extremely coding intensive, so games are easier to develop than they otherwise would be.

I'm gonna be honest, the 3D graphics worry me. Xenonauts looks fantastic and is likely to age beautifully too. For 3D to stand the test of time you need to be seriously talented and have your style completely locked down. I'm not saying you guys can't handle it, but then I don't exactly know that you can either. It wouldn't surprise me greatly if, in ten years time, we all agreed that Xe1 looks better than Xe2. I mean, even the newer Jagged Alliance games are starting to look a dated after just a few years. So please don't screw this up, we've got enough dull and ugly strategy games to look at.

Also, Re: Innovation. Please keep it recognisable! We love Xenonauts because it remained faithful to the mechanics that worked. XCOM 2 managed to disappoint in a few ways with it's ridiculous teleporting enemies (goodbye, strategic unit placement) and time restrictions (so long, careful planning) so hopefully you'll choose the right places to innovate and won't simply shift your way into an entirely different genre. Strong focus on player strategy and avoiding overly cheap AI strategy is essential. I like XCOM 2, but I also feel like Firaxis slipped a little on both of those points.

Other than that, no real concerns. Looking forward to the official reveal!

Incidentally, progress is coming along well. I kinda want to post up a new progress report but I also want to keep my powder dry for the proper announcement, so I'm a bit torn - but we are still working on this and things are going pretty well right now

Hmm... tricky one, isn't it! I mean, do any journos actually pay attention to this forum? Looking at sites like RPS, they only noticed Xenonauts 2 when you announced it on Twitter and then came to the forum for more info (and even then I think only 2 sites did that?). I bet if you put one screenshot on Twitter and a more detailed one on the forum, the one on twitter would do the rounds LONG before the one on the forum did.

Hmm... tricky one, isn't it! I mean, do any journos actually pay attention to this forum? Looking at sites like RPS, they only noticed Xenonauts 2 when you announced it on Twitter and then came to the forum for more info (and even then I think only 2 sites did that?). I bet if you put one screenshot on Twitter and a more detailed one on the forum, the one on twitter would do the rounds LONG before the one on the forum did.

Pretty sure RPS reported something about Xenonauts 2 based on the forum before there was a proper formal announcement. But I may have made that up.

You're not wrong. Checking RPS, they did do a report on 30th of September last year, directly referring to the forums. But most of the hits for Xenonauts 2 are on the 3rd and 4th of Feb, which was when it was announced both here and on Twitter. Looking at any articles produced on that day, they almost all directly quote the Tweet and the Xeno 2 webpage. Some have some interesting attributions. There's a few sites which attribute Blues News, who in turn attributes PCGamesN, so chances are it's prolly going to be easier for sites to stea (I mean attribute)l from each other than it is to take from the original.

Sure, yes, sorry. Wasn't looking to imply you were wrong. Just a random piece of trivia which popped into my brain (and probably should have gotten filtered away before posting, but never mind).

Incidentally, progress is coming along well.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Amor. Everything is going extremely well."

That's great news!

Some things I'd love to/would hate to see in game:

* AVOID THE TRON

There's nothing more horrible than this neon outline/ui craze going on in modern games. Sure, it's cheapo way to design UI, but why waste all that effort on realistic models if you cover them with glowsticks? Prime example from the most relevant of examples:

I'm sure there's some stupid gamedev lecture from prominent developer out there that praises this as "sleek & clean design" but all I see is facebook game UI overlaid over something more serious.

* But don't keep looks utilitarian

...as Xenonauts pretty much was. Everything felt a bit... too standard and placeholder-ish. Militaristic font here, black box there. Especially character portraits felt like from some kind of online "portrait illustration generator".

We all know why, and I hope Xenonauts was profitable enough to have more (and more courageous) artistic direction this time.

* Have depth and make it cool

One thing I enjoy most in Xenonauts is reading Xenopedia entries. Legitimate-sounding science and line of thought, a bit of character, more depth to the story... I wish Xenonauts had much more of that. Like Jagged Alliance series do, with its quirky characters and action movie references and evolving story bits.

It also lacks some of the coolness of old and new XComs. That comic action style or whatever. I think new ones overdid it, but old one -- everyone remembers music tracks from interceptor battle and so on. Xenonauts felt a bit too serious, even boring and mechanical in that regard. So your Condor-I met UFO-12... so now you're on battle screen... so you lost... but where's the adrenaline?

And most of all,

* Bring back the terror simulator

But while Xenonauts managed to do and (even surpass) original XCom series in most aspects, it doesn't have fear in it. Like original UFO did... and not even close to amount Terror from the Deep did...

Let me just give an example:

Opening a door and having three Sebillians fire successful shots at my Xenonaut made me sigh.

Opening a door and finding my Aquanaut in room with three Tentaculats made me almost lose bowels.

One was just difficult game.

Other was a true terror simulator atop of even more difficult game.

That's the side Xenonauts didn't cover very well, if at all. I wish X2 would.

* Remember why we're in this forum and not Firaxis' one

There's good reason gamers preferred Xenonauts over new XCOM. Don't lose any of those reasons (like dumbing game down same way, losing RPGish stats or complex inventory, etc)!

I hope I wasn't too harsh about anything. Now where do I sign/kickstart/etc?

Edited April 13, 2016 by InCreator

My fondest wish for Xeno2 is a GUI button to open & close doors.

If it is one of them "wish threads" - then I would like to express my wishes for Xenonauts 2 as well.

More factions in the game may be? Hostile, neutral, allied?

Government based agencies, alien technology hunting groups, man in black or good old KGB, all of the which looking to get their share in shady waters of alien invasion?

Any ideas of that matter?

It's great to hear about the new Xenonauts project. What will you guys do to the project which is based on Jagged Alliance? Will some of its feature be merged into Xenonauts 2?

Btw, I hope that Xenonauts 2 can make the combat become real time when there is no enemy in sight. Sometimes, searching for the last enemy with a turn-based system is quite boring and time consuming.

It sounds really nice to me that the frequency of air combat shall be reduced.

If we're talking about the request then there's only one I have - remove the "feature" where aliens were able to see and attack characters through ceiling. One that even Firaxis felt the need to introduce... And I'm not talking here about the silent storm approach here.

 

Although thinking about SS, destructible objects does sound like a good one to consider (building was whole before mined door exploded there) ;-)

Edited July 13, 2016 by Kurruk