what do you miss from the Original Elite?

The only thing I miss is the friendly atmosphere from back then, that the Internet has eroded away...

There wasn't a internet in '84 at least not WWW style so my gaming circle were my friends and the internet has done nothing to our relationships :)
And to be honest the internet just seems to reflect the state of the human race, nothing has changed there, we are still the same brutish animals we always were.

I miss the 'newness' of the technology that made ED possible, the pushing the boundaries back and seeing what we could do within the limitations of the technology. These days it seems to be graphics, graphics, graphics.
 
The anticipation of watching the C64 tape drive tick over to '00174' when the game loaded.

More seriously, the pirate career path actually being fun. Just scooping and selling cargo after battles ... instead of the current interdiction-speed docking mini games.
 
Thing is, people will remember the original Elite and its in-game features differently depending on what version they played.

The main thing I miss from my Speccy days - the sense of achievement and wonder, but I really think that's down to me no longer being 12 years old.
 
The rubber keyboard?

Escape capsules were pretty cool.

Missiles were pretty good back then too, even if we only had four.
I seem to remember how good the ECM was too, if you could hit it quick enough, it would damage or kill the ship that launched it.
Hmm, energy bomb, nice, but expensive...
 
I miss the ships from the original. Seeing a flying brick just called a T9 seems so souless. Give us the Krait, Boa, Mamba, Moray, Gecko etc and then it'll finally feel like Elite again.

Oh and anarchies. How i miss fighting through waves of pirates hoping I'd make the station. Now it's an interdiction or two if you are lucky. Sigh!!
 
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The Acorn Electron version of Elite had insta-dock.
Indeed, as did the Spectrum version even though it wasn't as memory constrained as the Electron. I never quite understood why that was. Still, it made the trade runs that bit faster. The NES version had enforced insta-dock with no manual flight option, and some versions had the option to pay a per-use fee where the station would fly your ship in on remote if you didn't have a docking computer.

(I have a generally good memory, but only for useless trivial rubbish like this. Most of the stuff I was supposed to be learning during the early 80s? Gone forever).

The things I'd most like to see make a comeback are the Trumbles. Imagine how funny that would be using the current engine. The audio people would have a field day adding little squeaking, chewing, arcing sounds as they worked their way through the ship's electrics, and fully 3D rendered Trumbles drifting around the cockpit as you tried to dock would be fantastic. Rather than having to fly near to a star to kill them off, how about turning off life support and shields before ramming a hole in your canopy? Cue a 30-second stream of Trumbles whizzing out through the breach.
 
for me its the following...

-being able to buy a unit that lets you see commodity prices on entering a star system without having to dock first! This would allow you to check prices when on route while passing through systems so you could ad hoc trade for a byter profit. Surely in this advanced universe it wouldnt be unrealistic to assume that you could get pricing information without having to physically dock!??

Never seen in the original 1984 Elite even if I must admit that in the 4th century not being able to have whole known universe market prices on your fingertips in less than 1 sec. is a (not so) little nonsense.

-Thargoids. At least you didnt have to scan to know that when you met this lot you either fought or ran. In fact rather than powerplay it would have been good if a side line for everyone would be to stop the spread of a dangerous threat in the universe. Something we all had a common goal to do. Missions could involve say taking down a base ship or something for a huge reward and status and in the process stike a victory for humanity.

This one I miss too and I'm convinced that has a lot of potential for a huge war that could break galaxy in two. Even if I fear that, if DEVs do like all the idle stories I read in Galnet that lead to nothing, Targhoids update will be nothing more than "go kill X" or "take UA from X to Y" or "grind Z to that station".

- being able to upgrade ship manoeuvrability. As far as i can rememeber you used to be able to buy upgrades to make your Cobra out-turn the smaller ships. Whats the point in upgrading your weapons or your ship when a sidewinder can just run circles round you? It would be good to be able to 'soup' up any ship. That way when you fight another ship youve encountered you never know its capabilities until you start fighting them.

Never seen in original 1984 Elite and I strongly doubt a Conda could ever outmaneuvre a Sidey even with the most suppa-cool sci-fi-can-do-everything upgrade in the whole galaxy.

-instant docking. The current docking computer is painfully slow-its just an excuse to go and make a cup of tea. With the original Elite you could enter a system, hit the docking computer and instantly you were docked! Yes i know it may not be 'realistic' but Im over the stage of wanting to experience every part of the landing process.

Never seen in original 1984 Elite but I can admit that toghether with insta-dock adding insta-fight, insta-trade, insta-smuggle, insta-pirate, insta-bounty hunting, insta-mining, insta-exploring and so would bring tons of realism and make things a lot easier.

-unlimited expansion. You used to be able to upgrade your cargo space by using compression(albeit at an exponential cost). Now you are limited by the number of slots you have in your ship. So if you now want to transport more goods you have to buy a bigger ships at the cost of being able to use your ship to fight. You should be able to do everything (fight, trade, explore) with one ship if you want to rather than having to have to keep changing them. At least give us the ability to have one of our docked ships 'delivered' to where we are currently at. Again maybe its not 'realistic' but this is sci-fi ,anything is possible!

Never seen in original 1984 but pulling that sci-fi-can-do-anything subject to the farthest end I'd suggest do add a VERY big ship, lat's say as huge as the whole galaxy, in which I could store everything, with a huge insta-do everything button so that I don't need to do anything more and have enough spare time to dedicate myself to a more immersive game

-stealing ships. In the original Elite you used to be able to wear down a ship to the point of getting the pilot to eject, capture him/her in your cargo and then steal their ship which you could then sell or keep. This would open up the idea of missions where you could be paid more to bring someone in alive

Never seen in original 1984 Elite but if someone stole my 130 MCr Clipper after I took several grindin months to build it I would go directly to his house and chop his head in two with a rusty waraxe.

-picking up canisters in space. Why now is everything you pick up considered stolen? Previously in Elite you found something you could safely dock at any station and sell it. Surely if you come across something in the depths of space you should be able to pick it up and sell without getting an instant fine if you were scanned by a police ship.

How do would you call it if someone found something with your name and address written on it and kept it for himself?

I'm sorry to say I'm fast getting bored with Elite dangerous and just feel some of the original features would have kept my interest a bit longer.:( For me the most perfect game would have been to take the exact gameplay of the original Elite, add the better graphics and multiplayer aspect and then expand the game from there.

what does anyone else think?

I'm sorry but I think that, except for Targhoids (but just if well developed), none of original Elite feature would add something to E: D.
 
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I miss everything from 84', other than the game.
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Someone said that the atmosphere was more friendly back then, that the internet has eroded. Well, of course the atmosphere was more friendly, you were on your own, no internet. If the game seemed hostile in 84' for any reason, it was you yourself, giving yourself a hard time. ;)
 
I miss the old Speccy exploit where, upon leaving a station with a hyperspace destination set, you could just turn the ship around head back to the station entrance and if you timed it right, you could enter hyperspace just before you docked and you would emerge from hyperspace instantly docking in the station you were jumping to.

That made making credits very easy :)
 
Never seen in the original 1984 Elite even if I must admit that in the 4th century not being able to have whole known universe market prices on your fingertips in less than 1 sec. is a (not so) little nonsense.

You were able to see prices system wide - which was simpler then with exactly 1 space station per system.

As to why you couldn't see other systems, that was explained in the accompanying book. Let me quote it here


The Dark Wheel said:
There is no way of knowing trade prices at other systems.Each planetary state jealously guards its stock-market information, and there are heavy penalties forFaxing the market prices of any item beyond orbit-space.


This one I miss too and I'm convinced that has a lot of potential for a huge war that could break galaxy in two. Even if I fear that, if DEVs do like all the idle stories I read in Galnet that lead to nothing, Targhoids update will be nothing more than "go kill X" or "take UA from X to Y" or "grind Z to that station".

That was not a part of the original elite either


Never seen in original 1984 Elite but if someone stole my 130 MCr Clipper after I took several grindin months to build it I would go directly to his house and chop his head in two with a rusty waraxe.

Actually, you could capture other pilots sometimes. They became slaves in your cargo hold. You're correct though that you could not do anything with their ship except blow it up.



I'm sorry but I think that, except for Targhoids (but just if well developed), none of original Elite feature would add something to E: D.

Pretty much the whole of the original game HAS been implemented except, as you point out, the Thargoids. I have faith in Frontier doing the Thargoids justice.
 
As to why you couldn't see other systems [prices], that was explained in the accompanying book. Let me quote it here
The start of the long-standing tradition of Elite games in which things can be outlawed and it actually completely prevents it (see also: side-mounted lasers and launching without enough crew in FE2; permit violations in Elite: Dangerous). I wonder why they don't outlaw piracy.

Assuming that the Elite hyperdrives worked like the FE2/FFE ones and took days to complete a jump, by the time someone had come from system X with prices, and you'd gone back there with the goods, the prices would be completely different anyway, so there wouldn't be much use beyond what you could deduce from the basic "economy" advertised anyway.
 
Originally Posted by The Dark Wheel, p27

There is no way of knowing trade prices at other systems.Each planetary state jealously guards its stock-market information, and there are heavy penalties forFaxing the market prices of any item beyond orbit-space.

I think that was clearly an artefact made to hide hardware limits of that time. Otherwise why hide stock prices to traders? To deter them to trade in that station?
 
I think that was clearly an artefact made to hide hardware limits of that time. Otherwise why hide stock prices to traders? To deter them to trade in that station?
Not so much to hide hardware limits (everything was PG so calling up other systems' prices would have been trivial) but to justify a design choice. Having the prices loosely tied to planetary tech levels and economic types (and maybe populations, I'm not sure) gave the player an incentive to look at the system data screens and choose routes according to likely profit. With all data available everywhere, players would instantly have found the most profitable 7 light-year flip-flop and just churned away at that.

Even with those limits in place, news of good routes travelled fast. We had no internet in 1984, but we had the school bus which was an almost equally rich source of gaming tips. :)
 
I miss of course,,

1. Planetary landings

2. MB4 Mining machine

3. Fuel scooping of gas giants

4. Continued Military Missions. Photography and Nuclear mission.

5. Ship crew

6. Escape pod

7. Planets orbit simulation in time, in systems.

8. Larger Hyperspace Clouds ( not a Little dust cloud as it is now)

9. Panter Clipper and Tiger trader ship.

10. Missjumps (even if those could be fatal) :D

11. R.I.P Death sequence :)

12. License/Registration number on ships so you can se the number Before you buy the ship.

13. Passenger Missions.

14. Human face interaction when communicating with a stations eg are docked.

15. Rear and turret look. You could actually jump to a turret position and operate it manualy.

16. Military medals.

17. Wormholes.

18. Energy Bomb :D

I miss everything above and:

19. 3d map of the solar system

20. the feeling of traveling in outer space and of being alone in the void (no interdictions, no magical NPC that appear out of nowhere, no instant fines from millions of km away)

21. the exit point of the hyperjump outside the solar system and not near the star.

22. Hyperjump bubbles with lightning around.

23. Assassination missions: wait for the target for days , chasing him through various systems.

24. Fighting in deep space , no Supercruise , no easy way to escape if you were intercepted.

25. Serious and permanent consequences for the crimes.

26. The dozens of police's Vipers coming out to hunt you down.

27. ... there are too many other things.
 
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