It's not a game!
- Thread starter Berty Dastard
- Start date
It's a game set in a simulated galaxy that's based on our own. In other words, what we learn about the galaxy in the game is likely reflected in nature... maybe. But that's the wonder of it all, isn't it? That's why I like to play it. There's something magical about realizing that even when you travel 6000+ times the speed of light in 20-40 LY jumps, getting to Sag A* still takes 2-3 weeks.
For those looking for more content, you're missing the point. Space is vast. Just the amount of space between objects in a solar system is vast.
I wonder what Braben envisions for a sequel?
For those looking for more content, you're missing the point. Space is vast. Just the amount of space between objects in a solar system is vast.
I wonder what Braben envisions for a sequel?
Glad this is still going as the answers tend towards what I really think. It has to be a bit gameish, because there have to be lots of users paying to enable development to continue. But I'm a gamer also, so thats all good. For a lot of people it's game only, while for others it's more wonder and awe. And after nearly a month of getting to Sag A, and nearly back, that's what Iv'e been enjoying. All in open play without seeing one single player or npc.
I see one post above is answered by the inclusion, in today's newsletter', of automated drones. Development is still funded - hooray. But I have also been sufficiently stimulated to find out (very little) about star catalogues, and there appear to be a few of them. Each bears little resemblance to others. So no doubt it was necessary, in integrating all this info, to come up with their own solution. I can't believe Braben has any time or inclination or reason to be thinking of sequels during development. More likely it's 'what can I add that we can afford'?
+1 for the SpaceEngine links
Oooh Lobstris mentioned Falcon 4
I see one post above is answered by the inclusion, in today's newsletter', of automated drones. Development is still funded - hooray. But I have also been sufficiently stimulated to find out (very little) about star catalogues, and there appear to be a few of them. Each bears little resemblance to others. So no doubt it was necessary, in integrating all this info, to come up with their own solution. I can't believe Braben has any time or inclination or reason to be thinking of sequels during development. More likely it's 'what can I add that we can afford'?
+1 for the SpaceEngine links
Oooh Lobstris mentioned Falcon 4
I agree. I read the forums a lot. I'm not the most positive poster, but the recent posts on this thread have made me appreciate how much the physical simulation means to some people, and even see it through their eyes. I almost started the game up, earlier, but then saw how long it was going to take to update and gave it a miss. But I *nearly* did! And that's down to forum posts. And that's why I'm still here, I suppose...
Well, I see it as a simulation of a specific imagining. We can't possibly know what life will be like in 3300. If we had tried to predict life in the year 2000 when back in the pre-silicon days (that is, before the properties of silicon were discovered that allowed for the invention of electronics) we would have imagined a very different scene I suspect because how could you possibly incorporate computer technology into your thinking. I'm sure that we aren't too far away from another revolutionary discovery and who knows what that might be and the affect it will have over the evolution of our day-to-day lives into the future. So ED is a particular imagining of a purely fictitious future technology and the game is a simulation of that future.
You guys really need to stop with this ridiculous God-tier fanboy apologist attitude. So now we're devolving into "it's not a game, it's a simulation"? WOW.
E-D is most definitely a VIDEO GAME. It is not a simulation. If it were they would have made this for NASA and not video game players.
There is nothing wrong with saying "hey this game is really amazing and provides a foundation for what could be one of the most unique gaming experiences out there, but currently it has several serious flaws, not least important the lack of developer created content to enjoy".
We don't need more fanboys blindly defending the game especially on things that the devs themselves have acknowledged they are/need to/want to work on.
I am enjoying the game a great deal, but it doesn't take a genius to realize very quickly that they released the game much too early (for God knows what reason), and the long long list of technical problems and issues like lack of content, or a total lack of multiplayer structure until very recently, are prime indicators of that.
Instead of turning new fans away with "you just don't get it" or "go play Call of Duty" if you actually want to be constructive, explain and acknowledge to new players what is missing / wrong with the game right now, but reassure them (with the truth) that Frontier is an amazing, reputable and reliable developer and they have very long and very grand plans in store for this GAME and that everything we hope for and more will eventually be delivered on.
Geez...it's not a game...gimme a break...
E-D is most definitely a VIDEO GAME. It is not a simulation. If it were they would have made this for NASA and not video game players.
There is nothing wrong with saying "hey this game is really amazing and provides a foundation for what could be one of the most unique gaming experiences out there, but currently it has several serious flaws, not least important the lack of developer created content to enjoy".
We don't need more fanboys blindly defending the game especially on things that the devs themselves have acknowledged they are/need to/want to work on.
I am enjoying the game a great deal, but it doesn't take a genius to realize very quickly that they released the game much too early (for God knows what reason), and the long long list of technical problems and issues like lack of content, or a total lack of multiplayer structure until very recently, are prime indicators of that.
Instead of turning new fans away with "you just don't get it" or "go play Call of Duty" if you actually want to be constructive, explain and acknowledge to new players what is missing / wrong with the game right now, but reassure them (with the truth) that Frontier is an amazing, reputable and reliable developer and they have very long and very grand plans in store for this GAME and that everything we hope for and more will eventually be delivered on.
Geez...it's not a game...gimme a break...
You asking for too much I think
lol...perhaps...hope not
I don't feel there's anything simulator like about ED really. The fact that the game maps our galaxy to the best of our knowledge doesn't make it a simulator any more than google maps is a simulator. The accuracy of what's there is highly questionable anyway, given that our own solar system in game, which we know an awful lot about these days, bears almost no resemblance to the one we're currently hurtling through. The first thing I did when I got to Sol was to go moon dodging around Saturn, but no, I can't, because there seem to be fifty odd of them missing. At that point I realised that the game isn't the amateur astronomers wet dream that I assumed it to be and in no way can it be called a "simulation", of our galaxy, space flight or indeed anything else. It's a fun game with a colossal playing area, but it's not a simulation by any stretch of the imagination.
It is a game - a very good one I might add . What Elite simulates is our galaxy and how planet systems works. Flight model is as gamey as in any other space games.
I wish so hard it would be a simulator, but it is just not.
. What Elite simulates is our galaxy and how planet systems works. Flight model is as gamey as in any other space games. I wish so hard it would be a simulator, but it is just not.
You need to do some reading, most of those air to air missiles have motors that burn out way before they reach their maximum range and then they use control surfaces to alter their course, which would not work in space. All your sensors are passive, any active one would give away your position before you found your target, in hostile galaxy you want to be quite and not draw attention.
Yeah, you totally couldn't replace those surface controls with thrusters.
IRST says hello.
More to the point, unless you deliberately try to hide your ship's thermal signature, you'll appear on the primary sensor of each ship within range anyway.
Ultimately, ED is a space action game with a simple, close in dogfighting model - which is just fine as far as it goes. Limiting the game to within visual range combat is a pure design decision, no more, no less.
Rep op. You sir have won the internet for today. There is a reason I am working so hard to head out to the black. I have dreamed of it since I saw my first Star Trek episode. I still do why I read so much. I watch all the Sci shows too.
Bullet
Bullet
I think I've seen that. Isinona's smuggling video, was it? You can still slide into a station with flight assist off and your ship rigged for silent running to evade detection. I do that quite often myself. What has changed is that cooling your ship down to the point where the canopy freezes is a lot more difficult, especially if you want to stay in silent running at the same time.
Thing is, I don't think docking with a station undetected was very realistic in the first place, and just underlines my point that the spaceflight stuff in the game is very far from anything hard science fiction. All that stealth stuff is there because they wanted an element of submarine warfare in the game because they thought it would be cool. Not because it would be particularly realistic in a space setting.
I'm not sure I get your point about the game not being ambitious. What other game out there models the entire galaxy at a 1:1 scale, with all the planetary orbits simulated, allows full freedom of movement within that scale, and has twitch-based real-time MMO gameplay on top of that?
It's something no one has done before. Many would have considered it an impossible combination of features before ED came out. In a sense, it is impossible - which is why ED makes some compromises when it comes to the MMO nature of the multiplayer as well as to physics and the seamlessness of spatial transitions - but it still gets closer to realising this particular ideal than any other game before it.
I'm not sure who has said there haven't been any space games in 10 years. It's just that the quality of the few games out there has been, well, whatever it has been.
To the OP - what a great post - thank you!
and this is just damn awesome!
and this is just damn awesome!
Just to add to my previous post, I'd sooner accuse the rest of the genre of a lack of ambition in the last 20 years or so, than to say ED is not ambitious enough.
FE2 did the realistic galaxy thing back in 1993 - but after that, no other game aside from the game's own sequel has even attempted to one up FE2's achievement. It's like all the space sim developers at that point just collectively threw their hands up, decided they can't possibly compete with that and just went on to do their own things in their own little boxes. Some of them did it better than others. None of them were Elite.
As a result I lost much of my interest in the genre.
FE2 did the realistic galaxy thing back in 1993 - but after that, no other game aside from the game's own sequel has even attempted to one up FE2's achievement. It's like all the space sim developers at that point just collectively threw their hands up, decided they can't possibly compete with that and just went on to do their own things in their own little boxes. Some of them did it better than others. None of them were Elite.
As a result I lost much of my interest in the genre.