1984 Elite vs 2014 Elite

[Manshonyagger]

I played Elite on the C64 not long after it came out, and poured an unhealthy amount of my life into it.

I played Frontier on the Amiga when it came out, but I could never get really hyped about it. Both combat and navigation were hard to do properly, and there was a whole lot of ridiculous overshooting going on.

I never played the third game, somehow.

Playing ED (oh dear) in the context of the other two, it has a few shortcomings:

* Docking is way too easy with all those thrusters and rotational correction and whatnot. Docking successfully in Elite took skill, courage and/or patience (pick two). Docking in ED is easier than parking a car, and I don't even have a license.

* Speed caps, sound and those engines combine to make the thing feel more like flying motorbike combat. We can casually FTL across a star system, and yet the engine goes chugga-chugga? You can hear things a mile off? The combat is hugely enjoyable and playable, but it just doesn't feel like space.

* Farming zones just feel a bit cheesy. Why, when I were a lad, pirates came to you whether you wanted them to or not, and always at the worst possible time - and what they left behind was yours to take. They didn't head down to the Cop Zone to get mopped up by 37 System Authority Vehicles and scavenging bounty-hunters.

On the other hand:

* Holy crap, it looks magnificent.

* Just physically flying the thing feels awesome.

* Huge amounts of stuff - hopefully moreso in 1.3

If I had my druthers, I'd like to see:

* Stronger AI, much rarer but much nastier pirates at RES, with the ordinary tryhard scum mugging you in supercruise instead.

* Much more challenging docking procedure.

* Legal salvage (I paid the iron price; it is mine)

* Different station interiors in different station models.

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

this game is getting better and better.
It is the best space game today , imo.
Played since 27.06.14 and still play.
Only other game played over years was LoTRo.

Cheers Cmdr's

 

[Ydiss]

All great points, but again, I think you missed the whole point. What I am most definitely not saying is : ED looks great but it isn't much better than Elite, but it's been 30 years so it should be .

What I am saying is after 30 years gaming has evolved where we no longer need to use imagination, where people always want more.
I am saying ED is still true to its roots, yet is has managed to evolve to the point of what we have today, was what we could only imagine in 84. I'm not saying it should be better, why should we fix something that isn't broken?. It is better in every way, it is a masterpiece of a game, and yet it still manages to capture the spirit of Elite, and stays true to the original. definitely no complaints from me. I love it, just as it is, and it is just as I had imagined

Forgive me, I misread the final part of your post.

I'm editing my post now. Ignore that part and consider my post a complete agreement to yours

 

[Insomnia]

I read through a good thread today comparing both elite 84 and Elite Dangerous. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=143037

Instead of just rattling off another response, I felt I needed to comment here separately.

Any of you who know me, know that I am an old timer, who played elite way "back in the day" on the speccy & C64. I feel that some people are missing a fundamental point of the comparison. Just to recap for some "younglings" (no disrespect intended) At the time we had a bunch of 8 bit computers, some may remember the Atari 400/800, the Sinclair Spectrum, the Commodore VIC20, and Commodore 64. The Dragon 32, the Texas Instruments TI99, the Oric Atmos (had to love those orange keys The Amstrad CPC464 and of course for those posh enough to afford it the BBC Model B Microcomputer (all hail the mighty Beeb!!)

The games we played consisted of a staple of get a sheet of aliens, shoot them, go get another sheet, rinse and repeat until dead. We had 3 lives, and an extra life at 10000 points. At the time I used to feed my 10 pence coins into a Space Invaders machine that our local Cafe (Garage - or Gas Station if you are American) had installed. There was invariably a bunch of kids gathered around it after school. So finding my love of video games, I eventually managed to get an Atari 2600, original Teac effect (which is still working today, with the space invaders cartridge) and get into gaming. From there, I managed to get a spectrum, and then a C64. Learning to program in basic, Pascal, and for anyone who remembers the C64 - peek and poke

Then came the explosion of games, we had Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, Sabre Wulf, Entombed, Psi Warrior, Marble Madness, Ant Attack, Attack of the mutant camels ( Thank you Jeff ), and the amazing Mercenary, and Damocles to name but a few.

They were all great, but none really offered anything more than the usual formula for gameplay (with the exception or mercenary)

Then .... Suddenly .... -=ELITE=- was born. David and Ian released a masterpiece that changed the direction of gaming. This was not just a new idea, it was a complete paradigm shift in thinking about the way we play games.
Suddenly, we had a ship, 100 credits, and a universe to go and make your own story.

When I look at elite dangerous today, what I see is that same vibrant game that I played back in the 80's. With one major exception. Its not that the game is not giving us what we expect these days. Its not that with the current power of todays computers I expect better, its not that I expect more from the game because there has been 30 years to improve. Its not anything like that ....


When I play elite dangerous today, the difference is this. I see on screen what my mind imagined, playing Elite back in the 80's. When we had a limited 3D vector graphics display, running as fast and jerky as the machines of the time would allow, my mind visualised being in a Cobra, and exploring the galaxy.
In my humble opinion, Gamers today are used to virtual worlds created on a whim, where GTA can recreate an entire city similar to Los Angeles, and Assassins Creed can provide you with an exact replica of 17th Century Paris. What is left to imagine? Docking at a wireframe station was in my mind the same as flying into Aulin station, and docking on your assigned pad.


Today, I see elite as the game I always imagined it to be. The graphics and user interface are amazing, but the core gameplay is still back in its roots of the 80's and believe me, that's not a bad thing. I play today, what I imagined yesterday. Tomorrow I will play what I dreamed of today.

enjoy the game folks, and see you "out there"

Merged now. :/

 

[Zieman]

If you must, then watch the gameplay here...

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IYQvxtOlcE

No don't. Whoever that is playing really isn't very good at it. (If that is you Red Dirt Nurse, Sorry).

Oh yeah, that fellow was pretty clueless or did the ending on purpose.

Heres my take on this on an emulator, Lave Radio inspired (that's why I bought the missile, wouldn't have done so if starting ne Jameson normally).

Spoiler

[video=youtube;d-Zxogh4jw8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Zxogh4jw8[/video]

 

[CMDR RAY-ZOR'SHARP]

* Much more challenging docking procedure.

* Legal salvage (I paid the iron price; it is mine)

* Much more challenging docking procedure. Why? Docking is a dull needless event, through the slot and docked like the old days this would also stop the rammers dead, If not all ships should have a DC by default which could be switched on/off by the player, (no station would risk damage from manual docking if reality was the games intent) no need for a 2 ton cargo slot (that is unrealistic).

* Legal salvage (I paid the iron price; it is mine). Loved the reference and agree 100%.

Being closer to 60 than 59 I really like to take gaming a little slower these days, though I have have played ED more hours in 3 months than all my other PC games put together in the last 5 years (excluding Ogame which sucked the life out of me till I realized what a steaming pile of super addictive poop it was, no happy memory's there).

I reached Elite with on an Amstrad CPC464/6128 and Deadly on an Atari ST and hammered both of them to death both (easily my most played games ever), ED will eventually join them, it evokes the same feeling as back then (I can play how I want when I want, no hand holding though a dully scripted path to an eventual end and never to be played again game).

We have a true sand box which will grow slowly as time goes on and I love it.

Good luck to everyone in game.

 

[niphredil]

1984 Elite -> best experience ever IMHO

2014 Elite ? It's not 2014 Elite....it's FROM2014 Elite and Beyond. I love it now...I'll love it even more as it grows with us all.

CMDR Niphredil

 

[dayrth]

Oh yeah, that fellow was pretty clueless or did the ending on purpose.

Heres my take on this on an emulator, Lave Radio inspired (that's why I bought the missile, wouldn't have done so if starting ne Jameson normally).

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Zxogh4jw8

That's more like it

 

[Insomnia]

2014 Elite ? It's not 2014 Elite....it's FROM2014 Elite and Beyond.

Yes, of course. But it was released in 2014.
Most games grow with content patches and DLC nowadays.

 

[Samosa]

My vote for planetside transportation:

 

[excalibus]

Your reactions are interesting.
It seems that there's a lot of nostalgia involved in this.
But you can't build a game on nostalgia in my opinion. It has to stand up on its own legs and not rely on some legacy.
And I won't go play an old space game from 1984. I have nothing against games giving hints to what original versions was like, I don't think you can build on it.


Please don't get me wrong though. I still love the game and I recently bought a HOTAS controller just for ED, plus I started using 3 monitors just for ED.
I wonder where the game will be 10 years from now.
I'm hoping ED to be what I always dreamed of: A space game to live in, a game to spend hours upon hours and do everything I always wanted in space.

ED is the game Frontier (and more specifically DB) would have liked FFE to be, Elite Dangerous has more to its history than just the original elite, there where in total 4 previous releases, Elite, Elite Plus (had colour polygons PC and Amiga), Frontier and Final frontier (which was a completely rushed release with bugs still in it at release)...

To its roots (and all throughout the series) it has been a 'you forging your own way in the universe' type of game with no real actual 'end' beyond reaching elite status...

It has always been a trade and combat focused gameplay type of game...

Frontier introduced new player ships and additonal starting locations as well as planetside stations etc.

FFE brought in the galnet news type system where you could get ideas from for possible lucrative trade routes but still I cannot help but feel that is was way too rushed and probably more to do with publishers wanting a release than frontier wanting to release...

ED has brought us more interactivity with the galaxy in the shape of the background simulation and more relevant galnet news etc, it has brought us a multiplayer more 'vibrant' universe in some aspects...
It still has other things missing that where in the previous versions such as the ship variety, (I really miss seeing those massive megacargo carriers and being able to buy an 1800 cargo ship , passenger cabins and transport missions, the advanced military missions, the need for cargo bay life support or your live animals turned into animal meat mid flight lol, real smuggling opportunities AND risks I wonder who else remembers writing down black market dealers names for a system when you found one who was not a cop wanting to fine you?

So yes 'Nostalgia' is part of the appeal because of its legacy, I am certain of the fact that there is still much for FDev to bring into the game and I believe in DB's vision and that the game will eventually be the game he has waited this long for the technology to be at a point where to make the game how he wanted it to be....

 

[SteveLaw]

Randomly found this.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19055707

 

[Insomnia]

Randomly found this.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19055707

I have one in the basement. Thanks for the link!

 

[SeregDuin]

Did some idiot merge these 2 threads.
-=ELITE=- Then and Now
and 1984 Elite vs 2014 Elite.
Although they may be both about similar subject matter and both very good posts and threads, they are coming
from 2 completely different viewpoints. Merging has made many of the replies meaningless and impossible to
tell what people are replying to.
I replied to a fellow elite veteran with the word "ditto" about his nostalgic musings and great satisfaction with
the fact that the imaginings of his youth while playing elite have been brought to life in ED.
Now it looks like I've said ditto to a young fella who had never know about elite until ED.

Come on mods - at least read the thread before waving the merge wand and my apologies if I am mistaken.
Edit: Added quotes to previous posts so that I am not misrepresented by blind merging.

 

[CMDR Ellegon]

Your reactions are interesting.
And I won't go play an old space game from 1984

Well, that is up to you. But as a consequence, it is now pointless to discuss this with you.

 

[Insomnia]

Well, that is up to you. But as a consequence, it is now pointless to discuss this with you.

On the contrary. I've been discussing this for over 9 pages (it got merged with another thread. Bit unfair to the other OP as he was ppraising the original Elite ). And I think I understand people now.
If I wasn't there, I can't be sent there.

 

[Darkstar_IE]

Did some idiot merge these 2 threads.
-=ELITE=- Then and Now
and 1984 Elite vs 2014 Elite.
Although they may be both about similar subject matter and both very good posts and threads, they are coming
from 2 completely different viewpoints. Merging has made many of the replies meaningless and impossible to
tell what people are replying to.
I replied to a fellow elite veteran with the word "ditto" about his nostalgic musings and great satisfaction with
the fact that the imaginings of his youth while playing elite have been brought to life in ED.
Now it looks like I've said ditto to a young fella who had never know about elite until ED.

Come on mods - at least read the thread before waving the merge wand and my apologies if I am mistaken.
Edit: Added quotes to previous posts so that I am not misrepresented by blind merging.

Yeah *sigh* , the reason i started the thread was because (exactly as you say) it was similar subject matter, but from a totally different viewpoint. ah well ..

 

[J0nT]

Yes the new ED is just like it's predecessor. It's a gamechanger. It may take some time for many to see why. (And what makes it SO different to the likes of EVE et al)

 

[Insomnia]

Yes the new ED is just like it's predecessor. It's a gamechanger. It may take some time for many to see why. (And what makes it SO different to the likes of EVE et al)

How is Elite: Dangerous a 'gamechanger' according to you?
No, it isn't like EVE at all. But EVE is about the closest we get with comparison, if SC would be here, we'd compare ED to SC instead, which is more fair IMO.

 

[WiseDuck]

Now we get to ED lol.

A game that wants to be epic but plays it safe all the way.

No jepordy , no exitement , no challenge.
A hand holding live die repeat console port with a dismal flight model, boring combat, and game content that is offensivelly simplistic and 20 years behind state of the art.
Yes nice graphics.

I give ED 35%.

Couldn't agree more.