The gaming community for XvT and XWA was once huge, but has diminished significantly since the “Zone” days. Most obviously, the technology of the game is not up to today's standards. It was written for very low-bandwidth connections and has a horrible lag-compensation netcode compared to contemporary game enginges. Obligatory joystick usage is also a reason for decreasing interest.

The demands of the players has also changed during the recent years since XvT was released in 1997. The list of possible ideas is long. However, most of the gamers might (or might not) agree with the following lists of awaited changes in the gameplay:

• Better scaling of the ships
• Increase overall speed of the craft
• More Realistic damage modeling
• Arena servers with many player slots
• Option to steer with both mouse and/or Joystick
• Ability to control capital ships including their guns
• Modern HUD with wireframe space navigation aids like in I-War
• A fully navigable Death Star

As with every good sequel, some good aspects of the original must remain, for it to be picked up by the old gamers.

• Most obvious: Non-instant hit lasers :)
• Detailed cockpits of individual craft
• Hit prediction crosshair highlight remains (opposed to an extra predicted target crosshair as in FS
• Higher quality sounds, but close to the original
• Keyboard layout must remain close to the original

Add your own ideas for the XvT reboot here, or leave other notes on the topic.

Speed should not be increased too much, because it would become very hard to actually get hits! -Unknown Pilot

More speed and would make it more like a real space sim. XvT has kind of arcade gameplay with its fixed max speed and generally oversimplified flight engine, yet I'm afraid this would already too much actual flying.

• DJO Club TRA on Twitter

• Slashdot comment on "Which Game Series Would You Reboot?"

The following is just a quick glance on this slashdot discussion with ideas for the actual new game collated.

Dual solo campaigns (rebels and empire) and massive multiplayer dogfights, complete with capital ships. Hell yeah.

Starwars Battlefront II doesn't scratch that itch for you?

No.
Battlefront II is a first-person shooter/third-person shooter video game.

» Yes. A million times yes. In a perfect world, it would be 64 vs. 64 players online (minimum), with the ability to have a few people on the capital ships (a la Battlefield 1942). I would imagine a leveling system sort of like COD4, allowing you to have access to perks and better ships the more xp you get.

No ground combat, though. I can't get behind the Battlefront series because it doesn't do vehicles or ground combat well, it does both halfway, and isn't very enjoyable because of this.

Balance would probably be an issue, with TIEs being mostly paper dragons compared to XWing. There's a reason standard imperial tactics require you to outnumber the rebels 3:1 before engaging…
It's one of the things I'd be wary of. Either they toss balance or they toss the original feel. Either you have to play 30 vs 10 (and still everyone would want to be in an XWing because tactics on a public server…) or you have to drop the idea that TIEs crack at the first hit.

1. True scaling of ship sizes. They were better at it here than the sprite-based Wing Commanders but I want to see ships that feel bloody HUGE. Star Destroyers still felt too small.
2. Realistic damage modeling. I want to see ships shot up, pieces falling off, hulls venting flaming atmosphere, etc.
3. Second part of damage modeling - It always struck me as funny that a Star Destroyer operated at 100% efficiency when shields and hull were 100% and did so all the way until hull was 1%. Then one final laser blast and BOOM! it goes up in flames with midi drumbeats for explosions. You should be able to mission-kill a ship by blasting the engines but properly exploding it should require proton torps hitting the reactor or getting torn to pieces by turbo-lasers from another capship.