Twice the ranting, twice the nerddom, twice the power!
Top o'the morning, folks!
I thought I should post about what's been eating my time lately, plus I promised you to rant about the crazy book I picked up in Heidelberg.
Be warned though, the rants beneath these cuts are incredibly dorky and not for the faint of mind.
No, seriously. Trekkies have nothing on me.
So I picked this book off the crazygrabble shelf in Heidelberg for three bucks because it was obscure as a demon eggplant.
The book I got is called "Den Sternen zu" (Towards the Stars), written by a Walter von Molo fella. Copyright is from 1916 and apparently this is the tenth edition. It's kinda crazy to think that books like these were once really popular. Even though the premise of the novel and everything else are really "völkisch", von Molo apparently never even got close to the Nazis, even was a founding member of P.E.N. He just liked German culture a lot.
And Schiller. Especially Schiller.
Basically, Den Sternen Zu is a biography, or what passed as a biography in 1916, of Friedrich Schiller. It seems to be the last part of a series, as it alludes to events in the past while only explicitly dealing with the last years of his life. It describes the emotional woes of emobishy!Schiller, a genius (true dat) among infidels, with only the absolutely god-like Goethe to confide in. Basically, it makes them both out to be the worst Garystus in literary history.
Now don't get me wrong, parts of the book are genuinely good and I am at least as big a fan of Schiller as Walter von Molo: I can recite the Words Of Faith and the Words of Insanity from memory, I got his poetry taped to my door (among others, obviously), I did a mini-thesis in 13th grade for a project praising The Hostage as the epitome of Weimar classicism and sometimes I entertain crazy notions of getting a "vivos voco" tattoo simply because of the badassedness.
But even I cringe at this display of moral righteousness in the face of inferior, morally corrupt writers (Schlegel is a sort-of-antagonist in the book. SCHLEGEL of all people) and political upheaval. Now my interest in Schiller and knowledge of classical German literature don't make me a professional, but I do know that a good lot of the events described in the book are at the very least doubtful to have happened like this, inaccurately described or just plain incorrect.
But then again, Walter von Molo may not have known that. Whatever his policy on decent research before writing was, he presents Schiller as a whiny emo boy on the one hand and as the morally upright, almost transcendent genius on the other.
This leads me to believe one thing:
Schiller would have hated it.
Every single word of it.
But taken with the distinct grain of salt and the distance of almost a century, it can make for quite the enjoyable read if one can read fraktur blackletter type easily (as I do) and can put up with the early 20th century's depiction of the late 18th/just beginning 19th century version of internet drama. If these guys had forums, they would have had a flame war.
And I really like the idea of playing out Schiller's mortal illness at this point, making him out to be almost a walking corpse, to the point of scaring people with his mixture of frail, sickly appearance and vehement personality (which is historically accurate).
All in all, very amusing.
EDIT: Now that I haven dined (not in Hell), here's the second rantage as promised. Gaming nerds, hark! There is more to Germany than just Ascaron - Egosoft's X franchise is one of my favourite game series ever, and now that I got the third part of the saga to run, it's time for a review. This has also been eating the bulk of my free time for a week now and prevented me from updating more.
I have been a fan of the X series since the demo version of the very first X-Beyond the Frontier. I suffered through that game (for it was a punishment, really) just because the idea of a sci-fi game with total freedom of action enthralled me. Basically, for those who don't know it already, X is the modern day's Elite. Only better and lots more complex, obviously. Now that I finally got X3-Reunion to run, the game has done the same thing to me as it's predecessors: First I cursed it (a lot), then I came to love it, now I am practically married to it while still cursing it. But the sex is so worth it.
And by sex I mean the incredible graphics and in-depth gameplay. To give you an idea of what I mean:
At this point random Kha'ak assaults endanger the new colonies and since government responses are too slow and ineffective, I have to step in myself in order to protect my trade routes and factories. So I had some capital ship weapons stolen in a daunting maneuver while I have a Split superfreighter built in one of the shady shipyards near the troubled region, which I am going to illegally outfit with said weapons in order to go Kha'ak hunting.
This means I'm practically broke for my efforts bribing Split authorities and buying and outfitting ships for combat ranging from Mamba class fighters to the new Eclipse class bomber.
This leaves me with no money to buy, equip and deploy the freighters I would need to support the factories I wanted to deploy in Teladi and Paranid space. So my factories hang pre-deployed in contracted freelance supertransports who insist on the money I promised them a good while ago, threatening to sell the factories back to the shipyards to cover their costs.
So I have to step up my wheat trading in Boron space with special offers and cut costs on my Nostrop production in the Teladi/Split border region while getting my ventures into the Paranid agricultural market into the profit region.
Yeah.
As for the game in more objective terms: X3 is a revolution from X2, which was a revolution from X. This is great as it vastly improves realism while simplifying some of the more complex aspects of the game, such as factory chains, which you can now build into a complex to eliminate the need for vulnerable delivery freighters.
The user interface has been changed a lot, with the classical X keyboard layout being mostly preserved, but in order to fit more commands in, a couple of the more useful keyboard shortcuts have disappeared. Even though I played the first couple games, I was literally unable to do ANYTHING the first time I started. Mouse users and other less oldskool people will love to hear that the mouse is now powerful enough to be used as the primary means of controlling the game. It can even pilot your ship for you if you want. Right click to activate the cursor and click on something or just a point in space, a radar contact or a portal. Your ship will target, and, if clicked again, automatically dock/follow/jump through your mark. This works in several screens and menus and is incredibly useful for the lazier folks.
Still, you may want to memorise most keyboard shortcuts for easier and quicker maneuvering through the menus.
On the point of menus, they are slightly less convoluted than in X2, but it is a minor improvement. You will still use the ESC key a lot.
The graphics are another quantum leap: As X2 was the first X with tolerable graphics, X3 explains it's incredible rescource demands with it's glamoury optics. Here's a couple example links. On a four year old Athlon 64 with 2,8 Ghz and 1024 MB RAM and a GeForce 6600, the game runs pretty smoothly with all settings cranked up high (though not to maximum). These pictures are from a fan site and pretty close to my actual in-game experience:
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/discoverer_800.jpg
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/eklipse-800.jpg
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/LX-800.jpg
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/odysseus_800.jpg
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/tukan_frachter_800.jpg
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/barracuda_800.jpg
On the point of graphics and models: I highly dislike the fact that they made all the capital ships of each race look alike. In fact, I have yet to notice a single optical difference between the Split destroyer, superfreighter and carrier. The others look so much alike it's hard to tell apart any ships other than the Paranid Odysseus and the Hercules/Zeus (which both look alike, again).
Also the Boron capital ships of X2 had not only a unique, but also a menacing appearance, like something truly alien, Lovecraftian, a giant sea monster from a different planet. Now? See for yourself:
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/rochen_800.jpg
The heart of the X series, though, still remains the dynamic interstellar economy - a good grasp of the basic principles of trading is mandatory for survival in space. The economy works more smoothly without player intervention than in X2, as the improved AI of the non-player universe traders balances the market. The principles, however, have stayed the same.
Space combat is still good, but changes to ship balance make it more interesting and realistic as players can no longer just build the biggest and fastest ships around and waltz in there - capital ships are vastly more capital than they used to be(X2 destroyers carried 18 guns each, in X3 it's 40 - and can vary greatly by model! ) and as slow as they should have always been, with the speed of the fighter classes rebalanced so you actually need a good mix of light and heavy fighters. Required ranks to buy heavier ships add another incentive for ship balance. With more than three times the missile types, lots of new weapons, several new ships, classes and sub-classes plus the total revamp of the maneuver jets system, space combat is more tactical and exciting than ever.
The story of X3 is just about as ridiculous and unbelievable as that of any of the other games, but it makes up for what it lacks in intellect with fast-paced action sequences that leave your jaw hanging. As in all X games, you can basically advance the story whenever you feel like it and disregard it if you don't. They even added entirely non-story game modes, which are very interesting to play with (especially the "Broke Assassin" scenario).
I don't think it much of a spoiler to tell you that if you land at the Goner temple and contact Noah Gaffelt (one of the first story-tasks), you will end up in a pretty long action sequence where you control the rear turret of a civilian ship on the run from pirates - even in a planetary megacity of Coruscant-esque proportions and style. The latter part is incredibly fast and visually stunning, with drastic chase scenes through the artificial canyons and tunnels of a futuristic skyline. Woah.
The story does not, however, ease you into the gameplay and economics as it did in X2- this is a step backwards, as the first story missions of the last game really boosted the abilities and confidence of novice traders and offered a very obvious point to "drop it" and do your own thing for a while. In this part, you are pretty much on your own with that. It is recommended you play one of the non-story scenarios for a while before starting into the actual game. That, or you use the "kickstart" difficulty setting.
The required ranks for buying just about anything from Shipyards make the game magnitudes more difficult if you manage to make enemies with one or more species, or if you play on X-TREME difficulty.
The freedom of action, crazy perks like bidding for your own sector, player company headquarters, custom paint jobs and hidden goodies like the scattered pilotless ships, mostly of non-purchaseable variants, add a lot of spice to the gameplay while preserving the traditional strong points of the X series.
All in all, X3-Reunion is the best X I have played so far.
But then again, I did say that about X2 back then as well. And about...no wait, I did not say that about X-tension. But still, this means the franchise is continually improving. Stunning graphics and incredibly complex and addictive gameplay all around, I'm anxiously awaiting Terran Conflict. I gotta hurry up and finish the story before it comes out, though.
...oh, and as for the joke? It ends with the Priest-Emperor having the others shot for being heathens. Blessed be Priest-Emperor Xaar, Incarnation of the Holy Threedimensionality.
Fazit: If you are interested in sci-fi games at all, I seriously recommend picking up this gem. It's really inexpensive by now and will keep you glued to your seat for a long time.
That's it, nerd-time's over. If you excuse me, I got to declare holy war on that Kha'ak scum and collect a secret ship or two.
Hugs out, man.
I thought I should post about what's been eating my time lately, plus I promised you to rant about the crazy book I picked up in Heidelberg.
Be warned though, the rants beneath these cuts are incredibly dorky and not for the faint of mind.
No, seriously. Trekkies have nothing on me.
So I picked this book off the crazygrabble shelf in Heidelberg for three bucks because it was obscure as a demon eggplant.
The book I got is called "Den Sternen zu" (Towards the Stars), written by a Walter von Molo fella. Copyright is from 1916 and apparently this is the tenth edition. It's kinda crazy to think that books like these were once really popular. Even though the premise of the novel and everything else are really "völkisch", von Molo apparently never even got close to the Nazis, even was a founding member of P.E.N. He just liked German culture a lot.
And Schiller. Especially Schiller.
Basically, Den Sternen Zu is a biography, or what passed as a biography in 1916, of Friedrich Schiller. It seems to be the last part of a series, as it alludes to events in the past while only explicitly dealing with the last years of his life. It describes the emotional woes of emobishy!Schiller, a genius (true dat) among infidels, with only the absolutely god-like Goethe to confide in. Basically, it makes them both out to be the worst Garystus in literary history.
Now don't get me wrong, parts of the book are genuinely good and I am at least as big a fan of Schiller as Walter von Molo: I can recite the Words Of Faith and the Words of Insanity from memory, I got his poetry taped to my door (among others, obviously), I did a mini-thesis in 13th grade for a project praising The Hostage as the epitome of Weimar classicism and sometimes I entertain crazy notions of getting a "vivos voco" tattoo simply because of the badassedness.
But even I cringe at this display of moral righteousness in the face of inferior, morally corrupt writers (Schlegel is a sort-of-antagonist in the book. SCHLEGEL of all people) and political upheaval. Now my interest in Schiller and knowledge of classical German literature don't make me a professional, but I do know that a good lot of the events described in the book are at the very least doubtful to have happened like this, inaccurately described or just plain incorrect.
But then again, Walter von Molo may not have known that. Whatever his policy on decent research before writing was, he presents Schiller as a whiny emo boy on the one hand and as the morally upright, almost transcendent genius on the other.
This leads me to believe one thing:
Schiller would have hated it.
Every single word of it.
But taken with the distinct grain of salt and the distance of almost a century, it can make for quite the enjoyable read if one can read fraktur blackletter type easily (as I do) and can put up with the early 20th century's depiction of the late 18th/just beginning 19th century version of internet drama. If these guys had forums, they would have had a flame war.
And I really like the idea of playing out Schiller's mortal illness at this point, making him out to be almost a walking corpse, to the point of scaring people with his mixture of frail, sickly appearance and vehement personality (which is historically accurate).
All in all, very amusing.
EDIT: Now that I haven dined (not in Hell), here's the second rantage as promised. Gaming nerds, hark! There is more to Germany than just Ascaron - Egosoft's X franchise is one of my favourite game series ever, and now that I got the third part of the saga to run, it's time for a review. This has also been eating the bulk of my free time for a week now and prevented me from updating more.
I have been a fan of the X series since the demo version of the very first X-Beyond the Frontier. I suffered through that game (for it was a punishment, really) just because the idea of a sci-fi game with total freedom of action enthralled me. Basically, for those who don't know it already, X is the modern day's Elite. Only better and lots more complex, obviously. Now that I finally got X3-Reunion to run, the game has done the same thing to me as it's predecessors: First I cursed it (a lot), then I came to love it, now I am practically married to it while still cursing it. But the sex is so worth it.
And by sex I mean the incredible graphics and in-depth gameplay. To give you an idea of what I mean:
At this point random Kha'ak assaults endanger the new colonies and since government responses are too slow and ineffective, I have to step in myself in order to protect my trade routes and factories. So I had some capital ship weapons stolen in a daunting maneuver while I have a Split superfreighter built in one of the shady shipyards near the troubled region, which I am going to illegally outfit with said weapons in order to go Kha'ak hunting.
This means I'm practically broke for my efforts bribing Split authorities and buying and outfitting ships for combat ranging from Mamba class fighters to the new Eclipse class bomber.
This leaves me with no money to buy, equip and deploy the freighters I would need to support the factories I wanted to deploy in Teladi and Paranid space. So my factories hang pre-deployed in contracted freelance supertransports who insist on the money I promised them a good while ago, threatening to sell the factories back to the shipyards to cover their costs.
So I have to step up my wheat trading in Boron space with special offers and cut costs on my Nostrop production in the Teladi/Split border region while getting my ventures into the Paranid agricultural market into the profit region.
Yeah.
As for the game in more objective terms: X3 is a revolution from X2, which was a revolution from X. This is great as it vastly improves realism while simplifying some of the more complex aspects of the game, such as factory chains, which you can now build into a complex to eliminate the need for vulnerable delivery freighters.
The user interface has been changed a lot, with the classical X keyboard layout being mostly preserved, but in order to fit more commands in, a couple of the more useful keyboard shortcuts have disappeared. Even though I played the first couple games, I was literally unable to do ANYTHING the first time I started. Mouse users and other less oldskool people will love to hear that the mouse is now powerful enough to be used as the primary means of controlling the game. It can even pilot your ship for you if you want. Right click to activate the cursor and click on something or just a point in space, a radar contact or a portal. Your ship will target, and, if clicked again, automatically dock/follow/jump through your mark. This works in several screens and menus and is incredibly useful for the lazier folks.
Still, you may want to memorise most keyboard shortcuts for easier and quicker maneuvering through the menus.
On the point of menus, they are slightly less convoluted than in X2, but it is a minor improvement. You will still use the ESC key a lot.
The graphics are another quantum leap: As X2 was the first X with tolerable graphics, X3 explains it's incredible rescource demands with it's glamoury optics. Here's a couple example links. On a four year old Athlon 64 with 2,8 Ghz and 1024 MB RAM and a GeForce 6600, the game runs pretty smoothly with all settings cranked up high (though not to maximum). These pictures are from a fan site and pretty close to my actual in-game experience:
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/discoverer_800.jpg
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/eklipse-800.jpg
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/LX-800.jpg
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/odysseus_800.jpg
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/tukan_frachter_800.jpg
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/barracuda_800.jpg
On the point of graphics and models: I highly dislike the fact that they made all the capital ships of each race look alike. In fact, I have yet to notice a single optical difference between the Split destroyer, superfreighter and carrier. The others look so much alike it's hard to tell apart any ships other than the Paranid Odysseus and the Hercules/Zeus (which both look alike, again).
Also the Boron capital ships of X2 had not only a unique, but also a menacing appearance, like something truly alien, Lovecraftian, a giant sea monster from a different planet. Now? See for yourself:
www.seizewell.de/schiffsliste2.0/rochen_800.jpg
The heart of the X series, though, still remains the dynamic interstellar economy - a good grasp of the basic principles of trading is mandatory for survival in space. The economy works more smoothly without player intervention than in X2, as the improved AI of the non-player universe traders balances the market. The principles, however, have stayed the same.
Space combat is still good, but changes to ship balance make it more interesting and realistic as players can no longer just build the biggest and fastest ships around and waltz in there - capital ships are vastly more capital than they used to be(X2 destroyers carried 18 guns each, in X3 it's 40 - and can vary greatly by model! ) and as slow as they should have always been, with the speed of the fighter classes rebalanced so you actually need a good mix of light and heavy fighters. Required ranks to buy heavier ships add another incentive for ship balance. With more than three times the missile types, lots of new weapons, several new ships, classes and sub-classes plus the total revamp of the maneuver jets system, space combat is more tactical and exciting than ever.
The story of X3 is just about as ridiculous and unbelievable as that of any of the other games, but it makes up for what it lacks in intellect with fast-paced action sequences that leave your jaw hanging. As in all X games, you can basically advance the story whenever you feel like it and disregard it if you don't. They even added entirely non-story game modes, which are very interesting to play with (especially the "Broke Assassin" scenario).
I don't think it much of a spoiler to tell you that if you land at the Goner temple and contact Noah Gaffelt (one of the first story-tasks), you will end up in a pretty long action sequence where you control the rear turret of a civilian ship on the run from pirates - even in a planetary megacity of Coruscant-esque proportions and style. The latter part is incredibly fast and visually stunning, with drastic chase scenes through the artificial canyons and tunnels of a futuristic skyline. Woah.
The story does not, however, ease you into the gameplay and economics as it did in X2- this is a step backwards, as the first story missions of the last game really boosted the abilities and confidence of novice traders and offered a very obvious point to "drop it" and do your own thing for a while. In this part, you are pretty much on your own with that. It is recommended you play one of the non-story scenarios for a while before starting into the actual game. That, or you use the "kickstart" difficulty setting.
The required ranks for buying just about anything from Shipyards make the game magnitudes more difficult if you manage to make enemies with one or more species, or if you play on X-TREME difficulty.
The freedom of action, crazy perks like bidding for your own sector, player company headquarters, custom paint jobs and hidden goodies like the scattered pilotless ships, mostly of non-purchaseable variants, add a lot of spice to the gameplay while preserving the traditional strong points of the X series.
All in all, X3-Reunion is the best X I have played so far.
But then again, I did say that about X2 back then as well. And about...no wait, I did not say that about X-tension. But still, this means the franchise is continually improving. Stunning graphics and incredibly complex and addictive gameplay all around, I'm anxiously awaiting Terran Conflict. I gotta hurry up and finish the story before it comes out, though.
...oh, and as for the joke? It ends with the Priest-Emperor having the others shot for being heathens. Blessed be Priest-Emperor Xaar, Incarnation of the Holy Threedimensionality.
Fazit: If you are interested in sci-fi games at all, I seriously recommend picking up this gem. It's really inexpensive by now and will keep you glued to your seat for a long time.
That's it, nerd-time's over. If you excuse me, I got to declare holy war on that Kha'ak scum and collect a secret ship or two.
Hugs out, man.