Game is lacklustre and boring for me, help me understand

scenery is not what makes a game good , you look at it, and then, what?

Space stations does not a game good , you land on them, and then what?

A change of scenery can help make the game not feel so samy over and over again - I wonder how many people felt dissapointed when they reached SOL system yesterday and found.. well it's just another system . I wonder how different they would have felt if they could actually land on Earth, Mars etc etc.

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So why do you want to dock on the planet?

To change the scenery like i wrote in the original post.
 
Planetary landings has the potential to add some much needed variety to the gameplay and spectacle. Of course it would have to be done right, although arguably even FE2 or FFE style planet landings with modern graphics would of been a welcome change of setting to break up the relentless open space. This wouldn't be so bad but they actively encourage you to stay as far away from the planets as possible (because of the slowdown effect on frameshift) so currently planets are little more than a smallish looking ball (usually brown or grey) off in the distance, very rarely if ever does the game lead you close enough to planets to appreciate their scale or beauty.

Perhaps if they remove or tone down the frameshift effect near planets and put more stations and outposts in very low orbits it would help. Also why are there no outposts in asteroid fields? Or amid the drifting wrecks of old battleships? Or nestled into vast protoplanetary disks? Or hanging in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant? Or hidden inside a comet? .... I dunno maybe there are but the sheer size of inhabited space means I'm unlikely to stumble across anything like this even if there are a few dotted around.
 
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I'm having enormous amounts of fun. I'm sorry if you're not, but this isn't a game on rails - it's a galaxy in a box. I subjected myself to CoD:AW because a good mate of mine worked on the facial tools, and you know what? It was a nice cheesburger. This is having the run of the kitchen, and it's stocked with absolutely top-rate ingredients.

No, the cupboard is bare, there is a note in the back that say's 'sorry the game we promised you isn't in the vision so we won't be making that one.'

What we have so far is a placeholder for a game that will probably never be delivered because 'they don't want to'.

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Yes and I think that is one of the main places where people are a bit divided. Do people want a modern day remake of Elite, or as a modern day sequel so Elite, Frontier and First Encounter?

For myself I want a sequel. Something that is part of the same lineage but building on it (a lot). A remake is just not enough. There has to be a whole lot more to the galaxy in 2014 than there was in 1984.

Exactly, if you want to play the original Elite, go ahead it's still there, I do not want to play that stale old game but was hoping for the next grand edition in the line and got disappointment.
 
You might call it a gimmick but planetary landings will offer a change of scenry compared to looking at space all the time - also people don't really want MMO's other than WoW if sales are to be believed.

I agree as it is I feel like I am bound to a wheelchair and cannot walk. Maybe I'll call my cmdr 'Ironside"
 
If you set aside the basic flight and combat mechanics, and graphics / audio (which are all brilliant) much of the rest is actually regressed if you consider the evolution of the original games.
 
As to the game being SP only, a few mates of mine and I have been bunching together from where the wild winds blew us, to get back to covering each other's backs in Frameshift, doing some ad-hoc co-op mining together and that kind of shenannegan.

Just because there's no automated matchmaking mode or "fast travel to system" function doesn't mean the game is singleplayer.
 
Really? I have not played the originals curious to know what you could do there!

Actually mitth'raw'nuruodo is pretty much completely accurate there. Elite: Dangerous does have a massively improved flight model and graphics/sound over the previous games in the series but it has absolutely regressed in gameplay features somewhat.

The original Elite had the following stuff:

  1. Trading of commodities
  2. Upgrading your single ship (a Cobra Mk III)
  3. A basic handful of missions
  4. Lots of freedom

Elite: Dangerous has iterated on that in several ways, but not to a huge degree:

  • Huge Galaxy
  • More mission types (Fedex, Assassination, etc) randomly generated
  • Factions and faction missions
  • Mining, in a basic fashion
  • Multiple ships to own
  • Obviously better graphics/sound/flight model

That said...Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters had a metric tonne more features back in the 90s, aside from the clearly inferior graphics/sound of Elite: Dangerous:

  • Everything I stated above for Elite and Elite: Dangerous
  • Many more different types of ship
  • Planetary landings in cities / outposts on surfaces
  • The ability to land on a planetary surface and deploy remote mining equipment
  • An overarching plot involving the Thargoids
  • Interesting mission types like military recon to photograph stuff
  • Much more enhanced galnet news with much more rich text and lore on the worlds

It has been a while since I played so I'm sure I may have missed stuff.
 
I'm very pleased and happy with it. Imo it is refreshingly different to not be told where to go and follow a linear path but instead to create your own story.
I'm seeing a lot of comments along the lines of this as a rebuttal to criticisms over the lack of activities in game or blandness of them.

Yes, you don't have to follow a prescribed set of actions to unfold a preconceived story in a sandbox game. But at the same time, you are still limited in your own story by what the game allows you to do. Realistically there are only game mechanics in place to do a fairly limited set of activities.

Pen and paper role play games are a perfect example of a true sandbox. You can actually do whatever you imagine because the "game world" is just another person (the GM) whom you can describe your ideas to, and they can run with them. Thus you have true freedom. In a programmed game, you are limited in action to what the code allows you to do. If you keep saying "I want to do this!" and the GM says "No.", " Well how about this?" "No." "This?" "No."... pretty soon by process of elimination it not your story anymore, but one you've been pigeon holed into.

Imagination only goes so far when you need currency to do things. I can imagine myself as the stock manipulating, business tycoon of the galaxy and make myself a pretty signature graphic on the forum that reflects that: but at the end of the day imagination isn't going to fuel your ship.

I haven't been playing long but the game seems like a pretty decent skeleton. It severely needs some more features to really be interesting however. Even in a nearly infinite universe, doing the same 5 things with some of the names changed is going to get old fast.

Planetary landings could be amazing for content. What they need are the ability to run resource extraction operations on the surface to sell. Consider every planet is going to have a different configuration of orbit, axial tilt, etc. Thus you could explore the galaxy trying to find the perfect configuration to grow a crop of a certain type.. or find a planet with a certain type of mineral. Maybe I want my story to be one of how my friends and I built a successful colony on a planet surface and trade food to the nearby mining systems. That cant be my story if its just not possible.
 
Really? I have not played the originals curious to know what you could do there!

In terms of features and gameplay ED sits somewhere around 1987-89. More than the 1984 original and less than Frontier mostly. Yea - it's graphically much better but its lacking the story, the variety of missions, the thargoids and all that stuff.

Braben said awhile ago that they'd built the rooms and now they were going to fill them. Instead of filling them they've just painted the bare walls. Don't get me wrong - I'm an original fan and having fun with the game as-is.

But Frontier has my money now and needs good reviews and a stream of new customers who aren't nostalgia-driven. I don't think the current game-play is deep enough.
 
Personally I think anyone who is complaining about the mission richness needs to just be patient. I mean for starters there are already signs of increased mission richness in gamma (USS's offering more choices and insight into under plots) there are clearly more planets moving into turmoil with various factions asking for underhand missions etc.

I also have faith that when the game goes live there will be even more involved missions and maybe some underlaying plots etc (they are hardly going to expose us to all the goodies now are they) so all this speculation and grumpiness that is bantering around is silly , remember the golden rules - it is BETA ..... um no wait GAMMA.

regarding the trading some are saying has gone backwards, I just don't see it, they trading mechanics are all there, it is a valid method of making cash, I am not sure what else you want from it.

As to those saying it is boring etc, well you are missing the point of the game I think. Most games walk you by the hand through a scripted mission designed to make you feel like a hero. ELite is not that game. Elite is a sandbox game . here is a universe, rich and varied, here are a load of ships, here are tools to customise them as you see fit. a load of missions now go out and make a name for yourself.

My point is if you are finding it boring, then it is YOU making it boring, if you want action then take the combat missions, go to a war zone and fight fight fight, if you want technical challenges the do things properly learn to go silent and smuggle, or surprise people in resource site BE technical. This game is what YOU make it, can't deal with that, then maybe it just isn't your thing.

I guess all I am qualified to say really , is that for me it works, it is all I need, and am loving every minute, yes it is still waiting on a few features to come in, but it is totally releasable like this, and those features will be added at a later date. I don't see the issue with that.

I hope the disgruntled ones will come to love the game as much as I do. considering the small amount of people posting negative things compared to the 122K backers I guess they must be close to the mark.
 
I agree - I am totally enjoying being back in the Elite Universe after over 25 years absence. I hope that there are future innovations but this is the game I dreamed about every since I was a teenager.

Pehaps, as a community, we over estimated what was deliverable?
 
I agree - I am totally enjoying being back in the Elite Universe after over 25 years absence. I hope that there are future innovations but this is the game I dreamed about every since I was a teenager.

Pehaps, as a community, we over estimated what was deliverable?

Maybe Frontier overstated their expertise and got people enthusiastic?
 
I think the fact that I am already enjoying this game immensly in this barebones state makes it even more of a bummer to me. I see that there is potential, I see that there is intention of making this the best Elite ever, but I'm afraid that by the time they actually get to the point where Elite: Dangerous is at the peak of its potential, I will already have gone far beyond the peak of my interest in it.

Maybe Frontier overstated their expertise and got people enthusiastic?
Seeing that they had to admit to having to leave out features in the release version already makes this a "certainly" rather than a "maybe".
 
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I think the fact that I am already enjoying this game immensly in this barebones state makes it even more of a bummer to me. I see that there is potential, I see that there is intention of making this the best Elite ever, but I'm afraid that by the time they actually get to the point where Elite: Dangerous is at the peak of its potential, I will already have gone far beyond the peak of my interest in it.

In all Elite iterations I've played I only wanted to achieve one thing: Become Elite-Rated. I've not achieved this goal ever.
That's Elite for me: Becoming Elite-Rated. Whatever else they bolt on to that over the 84 experience is nice and after the scrapping of the offline, it had better be darn good. Millions of credit doesn't interest me, owning a bazillion ships doesn't interest me, having a playerhouse on an asteroid doesn't interest me. Emergent gameplay can kiss my w/e too.
I would like walking around my ship and checking the outside systems pre-flight (I enabled the checklist before taking off to always occur as well.) to materialize. I keep my ship in perfect condition at all times and that addition would help my immersion inmensely.

Other than that... All I want is Elite-rated.
 
This is a great game. I knew it would disappoint many. That's fine. Call me easily amused; that's fine, I love this type of game freedom.

I've played days worth of "orbiter", the best space simulator ever invented, and I'd have paid for it but it was free.

A year from now I'll have made enough for an upgraded exploration ship and still have much more to do. The twitch kids and the OP will be dropping cash on other things.


PFF! Orbiter - KSP is where it's at! ;)
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I think the fact that I am already enjoying this game immensly in this barebones state makes it even more of a bummer to me. I see that there is potential, I see that there is intention of making this the best Elite ever, but I'm afraid that by the time they actually get to the point where Elite: Dangerous is at the peak of its potential, I will already have gone far beyond the peak of my interest in it.

So it is your loss really, not ours.


Seeing that they had to admit to having to leave out features in the release version already makes this a "certainly" rather than a "maybe".

Sure, ever increasing feature and improvement list has nothing to do with why game has increased in complexity and therefore release as planned is not fully possible.

Only question is - do we delay release further? While I am torn on this, I better see game to be released solid tweaked first version than make people wait for another year.
 
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