Elite Dangerous in the Media thread

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RPS is one of the best gaming websites, their reviews are always intelligent and trustworthy, and I think this review is a very fair summary of ED, it is a rough diamond that is in serious need of polishing. For me what is missing most is a bit of personality, when you begin you are plonked in a space station that looks exactly like all the other space stations, no matter which side or faction you choose it matters little as the missions are the same in every system. This uniformity is disappointing and it is a big part of what makes me question whether it is worth investing too much time. I played the original Elite and loved it, but games have moved on a lot since those days. and the technology is such that we no longer have to use our imaginations to fill in the blanks, I guess we've been spoiled with games like Mass Effect. There are many great things about ED, but it feels like the bare bones of what could be.

Now excuse me, I need to jump back in my Viper as I have some slaves to transport...
 
The first planned significant update will be 1.1 and will enter beta in the first week of February. We’ll be talking next week about how 1.1 will introduce a new way to collaborate with other players in the galaxy in preparation for 1.2’s major Wings update. We have some some good news for planners of long journeys - V1.1 will also have a significant increase in the maximum distance for the route planner. We’re currently looking at extending this to 1,000 light years!

Looking further ahead there will be a 1.2 update which is planned to enter beta testing in the first week of March. The focus for this update will be Wings and other multiplayer goodness. I’ll provide more detail in future updates.

Thanks

Michael
 
Not a bad review I guess. He's had a lot more bugs than me, and some of his bugs clearly aren't bugs.
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And this was clever of his pal:
My pal parked his transport ship, full of cargo, and bought a smaller Viper as an extra to try out
 
Sorry, but I refuse to take seriously a review site that directly and deliberately took part in an organised campaign to insult and denigrate it's audience, rather than acknowledge the corruption rife within its reviewers ranks. Rock, Paper, Shotgun, should either deal with these problems or change it's name to Rock, Paper, "Takes bribes for positive reviews". They are an insult to the profession of journalism.

I used to be an avid consumer of such media, but stopped when it became clear how much contempt for their readers these people had. Kotaku, and the above, reviews from these review sites, not worth the weight in Gold of the electrons used to illuminate my laptop's screen, when it is switched off.

TL: DR. Sorry, not interested in the opinion of someone willing to sell their integrity for a few pieces of silver. or "Goods" in kind.
 
hmmm

"10 floating cargo cannisters vanishing into thin air, shortly after being dropped"

i think that one is working has intended, and not a bug.

Don't worry, there's one that causes scooped canisters to respawn immediately :)
And canisters vanishing also doesn't really work as intented. They stay in space for more than an hour.
 
Sorry, but I refuse to take seriously a review site that directly and deliberately took part in an organised campaign to insult and denigrate it's audience, rather than acknowledge the corruption rife within its reviewers ranks. Rock, Paper, Shotgun, should either deal with these problems or change it's name to Rock, Paper, "Takes bribes for positive reviews". They are an insult to the profession of journalism.

I used to be an avid consumer of such media, but stopped when it became clear how much contempt for their readers these people had. Kotaku, and the above, reviews from these review sites, not worth the weight in Gold of the electrons used to illuminate my laptop's screen, when it is switched off.

TL: DR. Sorry, not interested in the opinion of someone willing to sell their integrity for a few pieces of silver. or "Goods" in kind.

hmm review seemed pretty fair to be honest. Pretty much stated how i feel about the MP, along with the some other things, not that it makes it a bad game. Had he given a blazing review of call of duty, then i would be worried.

But it looks like Total Biscuit will do a review of it after a few more updates. he seemed fairly impressed with it for intial impressions. check this video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcMrNDTOWXc

Don't worry, there's one that causes scooped canisters to respawn immediately :)
And canisters vanishing also doesn't really work as intented. They stay in space for more than an hour.

really? dang... were was you when i accidently jeted my cargo hold full of 120 rares to be sold, right outside momus reach, watching them explode one by one while trying to scoop :D

voice attack let me down that day, i had to walk away from my computer for the night...

The perfect summary that begs repeating:

"A mile wide and an inch deep"

That right there is the problem. I sincerely hope that FD have a fleet of back-actors ready to rumble 'cause that inch is a serious problem indeed.

scott manley said the same thing
 
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really? dang... were was you when i accidently jeted my cargo hold full of 120 rares to be sold, right outside momus reach, watching them explode one by one while trying to scoop :D

voice attack let me down that day, i had to walk away from my computer for the night...
Why'd you ever want to jettison all cargo to have a voice control for it? :D

Anyway, here's how canister duping looks like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9-YThe2Ir8 (those canister stayed in the instance for several hours until server restart)
 
Why'd you ever want to jettison all cargo to have a voice control for it? :D

Anyway, here's how canister duping looks like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9-YThe2Ir8 (those canister stayed in the instance for several hours until server restart)

ahh thanks, yeah, when first going to play it, was reviewing a bunch of scenarios while setting up voice attack, one being that if needing extra speed & maneuverability to jet all cargo if in a fight, only to realize no such event would occur, due to weight really not seeming to much of a problem, and the ease of escaping, but after it coming back to bite me, i deleted that voice command and unbinded the key just to be extra sure!
 
I, too, do not trust reviewers anymore - ANY reviewers. They have a long way to go IMO to earn back my trust.

That being said, this particular review seems reasonably fair. Although -

1. The bug list, if you look at it carefully, isn't that bad. If you just look at the number of them it would seem "holy cow this product is bugged big time" whereas in actual fact there are only one or two that are actually of any consequence. All the others are either 'working as intended' - kill stealing for example (you can do that to npc's yourself if you're smart about it, this is just a fact of battle life) - or completely trivial and don't affect the gameplay at all (spelling or variable names rather than the name itself for example). And further, some are not bugs, just not well designed at this point and already acknowledged as such and will be changed at some point.

2. The use of "etc, etc, oh god, etc." is emotive and provocative and not what I would expect from a professional reviewer. If you think about it, it would be fair to say that the bugs that were of most consequence to him would be itemised and any others that fall into the "etc." category must therefore be even more trivial than the most trivial ones in the list published, which is pretty darn trivial and so all the "etc's" must be so trivial as to be not worthy of mention - and so why add the "etc." at all? Not good journalism.

3. To put the criticisms into context a good review would also make mention of the speed at which updates have been coming out and the minor issues being addressed, whilst the major ones are generally acknowledged (wings for example) and are on the plan for addressing. And if you read the release notes you will frequently see "added telemetry to help trace <insert bug here>" which clearly is an acknowledgement of the existence of the bug and a public notification of the attempt to track it down.

So my review of his review would score him about 6 out of 10.

BTW - just a quick mention of this rather strange criticism that ED is " a mile wide and an inch deep" - isn't that a feature rather than a fault? Not sure why this is being thrown around as a big deal. ED was always intended to be a modernisation of the original and that is what it is and that is what the original was too. It's typical of this sort of game - there is no pre-determined storyline that ends at the end game - hasn't this been said before? Any flight simulator is 2 dimensional by nature (i.e. a mile wide and NO deep) but ED is a sim with SOME depth. I'd say more than an inch myself, and more depth is coming as we know. So I think it a little unfair to say that about a game that was designed to be exactly that.
 
I love RPS. One of the few sites that I will spend money or not on the basis of a review.
And that is a good review.
I don't share the reviewers feeling about the multiplayer stuff - that is all Meh to me - I don't play games to socialize, I socialize to socialize... although I am sure he has a point, but the rest of it is spot on.
Personally I am of the opinion that when the placeholders (the whole USS diceroll thing) that are covering until proper persistent NPC's and the associated mission richness etc are out of the way the game will really start to shine.
I still put all the free hours I can into the game though - even as it is... ;)
 
BTW - just a quick mention of this rather strange criticism that ED is " a mile wide and an inch deep" - isn't that a feature rather than a fault? Not sure why this is being thrown around as a big deal. ED was always intended to be a modernisation of the original and that is what it is and that is what the original was too. It's typical of this sort of game - there is no pre-determined storyline that ends at the end game - hasn't this been said before? Any flight simulator is 2 dimensional by nature (i.e. a mile wide and NO deep) but ED is a sim with SOME depth. I'd say more than an inch myself, and more depth is coming as we know. So I think it a little unfair to say that about a game that was designed to be exactly that.

hmm, i don't know, i don't think it's too critical a remark since we know that expansion packs are planned for elite dangeorus, and so the depth will potentially come, i think its referring to it's current state. I'm not even sure Star Citizen will reach ED in terms of a "mile wide", since SC only has 100 + systems planned so far, compared to ED 400 billion stars/political system, but we know when SC is released, whenever that may be, it will have a whole bunch of depth. but time will tell.

I haven't played either of the predecessors of these franchises, and the reviewer makes no mention of having experience with previous titles, so may be unaware of what you mentioned of being a reincarnation to the bare extent and may be comparing to other standards or his own initial take has someone new to ED?
 
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Best review I've read to date. Accurate, honest, and informed.

I love the game too but, FD is on a knife ' edge at the moment with which way this game turns out. Hope they get their heads on straight and pull if off.
 
BTW - just a quick mention of this rather strange criticism that ED is " a mile wide and an inch deep" - isn't that a feature rather than a fault? Not sure why this is being thrown around as a big deal. ED was always intended to be a modernisation of the original and that is what it is and that is what the original was too. It's typical of this sort of game - there is no pre-determined storyline that ends at the end game - hasn't this been said before? Any flight simulator is 2 dimensional by nature (i.e. a mile wide and NO deep) but ED is a sim with SOME depth. I'd say more than an inch myself, and more depth is coming as we know. So I think it a little unfair to say that about a game that was designed to be exactly that.
Being a mile wide is not a fault, being an inch deep is. It's called that not because it lacks some kind of story, but because it lacks mechanical depth and gameplay diversity.
 
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It's a decent review and I agree with many of the points it makes. But some things puzzled me. To me the review seemed to be written by someone who spent maybe a few dozen hours playing the game. But at some point he said he played hundreds. Yet, he only found out a few days ago that you can actually change the sensor scale? Did he never go through the list of keybindings or read the manual? Same with the disappearing canisters. Someone that has played the game for so long should know they don't last forever. Perhaps he never visits the forum or googles things that he doesn't understand and just tries to figure out everything himself?

I do agree with his point though that ED in general is not making much effort to explain stuff ingame. Like the difference between all the internal components and their classes of letters and numbers, as he correctly mentioned. (Or how the kill-warrant-scanner works. Took me a while to figure out that one.)
 
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