I wanted to say a few words, about what this game is, and why it is actually one of the best games out there I ever played at.
Some time ago, I hit this moment where I spent more time on this forum reading about the game than actually playing it.
And it's so easy to let the wall of complaining texts hit your spirit. Got me off the game for two month actually.
I forgot, drown in the critics, that in the first place I loved this game so much that I actually bought a joystick to play it, worth more than the game itself. I also pre-ordered Horizon. Not for perks or saving but because I was so in love with the game, I felt wrinting a blank check to playing it more.
And when it came out, I went back into the game to test it. Yet, as I'm playing hours straight again, I landed only once on a planet. The base game alone hooked me back.
As I steped back into my Cobra III, fired up the engines, I felt a jolt of adrenaline and pleasure, juste earing the thrusters come to life. Then, came the soothing and exciting feeling of my fingers, naturally taking over the the take-off sequence. I forgot... all this little things you have to do as you go taste once more the shine of stars. This moment when you detach and you actually feel it, ear it, the absence of gravity, the drift into a slow exit speed... I almost feel the tremor of the engines in my wrist, the weight of the ship as I twist the yoke, the G adding up as I push the thrust up... the faint moment of adrenaline when you shoot througt the letterbox of a coriolis station at full boost and almost scrap the paint ou of a wall... but you don't. You speed away free.
It's so ordinary to plan your jump to another system, yet, the expectation still gives me a chill. Not to be compared, though, to the incredible feeling of jumping into FSD. When this countdown hit zero, and stars deform and elongate in the thunder of your ship shooting forward to another system, I'm this little boy again that hoped one day he could fly the Millenium Falcon.
I came into this game for the "pew pew pew" as most put it. The fury of space dogfights. Boy was I not disapointed... I've never had to play 10 hours of tutorials to master the basics of a piloting game. I've never felt that skill, concentration, balance of equipement and strategy actually mattered like they matter in this game, when fighting. Shooting NPC, tracking pirates and wanted criminals, got me through 100 hours of game. I've barely scratched the surface of what happens when you toggle off this flight assist. But I've seen the videos and I assure you, I will explore the hell out those subtleties.
For that, I wanted a better ship. So after more than a hundred hours of playing the game, I tried trading.
I was ready to be bored.
But then... the simple adrenaline, of cruising with and unarmed ship, without shields, feeling that the smallest error in piloting could send me back millions of credits... I felt something new about this game. I was delighted to see how switching to this new role changed my experience.
Then, there was the planning... the constant optimizing of my trips. Seeking precious informations on websites, forums, to ear about discreet trade routes... It got me searching, thinking, calculating, trying, and getting better every time.
Then I stopped, and Horizon went out, so I went back in.
As I pre-ordered, I could buy the Cobra Mk IV. I was excited to have a better version of my favourinte fighting ship... and yet, disapointed to discover it was a bust as far as fighting was concerned.
So I looked up what it was good for... found an incredible guide to mining that recommended it as a starter mining ship.
And I thougt, why the hell not ? Let's gear up and see what mining is about.
It's gotta be one of the most relaxing, satisfying, and realistick exprience of this game... First, I really enjoyed finding a good mining system. I explored, scanned, and gathered word of mouth in forums. I travelled a hundred LYs to a new system, and started mining.
I love it, the thrill, the expectation, the stress even when you slowly approach an asteroid, send in your probe, wait for it to reach and send in the data.
Nothing will raise your heartbeat like reading à 40% painite on a big chunk of rock, and imagining the profit.
The mining itself is way more subtle and active than I expected... you have ton manage carefully what you refine, balance cargo space and drones stock, plan ahead so that you will return with a cargo hold full of the top five precious minerals. Then, when you are cruising around with your 30 tons of painite and someone scans you, you find back the thrill in your gut you felt while trading and being interdicted.
Except that with a mining ship, you can fight back, for what you carefully colleted, for the very fruit of your labor. You sent every bolt of laser throught the hull of the pirate with a fiery sens of protecting what's yours. And you feel way more relieved and satisfied to see the burning remains of an attacker ship than you did when hunting a pirate for its bounty.
Credits are piling up. I've played a lot of relaxing, poetic and thrilling hours cruising asteroids and mining their gold.
Now, I want to explore. See a nebula, a black hole... land on exoplanets, explore fields of ice and buzz around in those rover, just enjoying the fact I'm on a random planet I found nice, and I wanted to see up close.
I'm already impatient to plan a route so big it will get me to cross a full scale galaxy. I'm dreaming already of all the wonders I will see. I'll make photos, but I gess they won't capture the feelings of actually be there. And I'm a bit worried about what I will find, the danger I'll cross, and thos nasty twin stars that will try and burn me on arrival. But I'm ready for it.
We won't see each-other, I play solo. For now...
One day I will experience the thrill of fighting a real player. Being interdicted by a real pirate while trading. Dodging them while mining... I will discover what Powerplay is about and get passionate about it.
And then, I will get away from you all, alone in my ship, out of the bubble, seeing again what wonders escaped me on my first trip across the galaxy. Find these Thargoïds even, who knows ?
Elite Dangerous is bound to make a lot of players angry. It's not a conventional game. It's my space aventure. My life out there that I can interrupt and pursue again as I like.
It's about being insignificant. Being a hero, yes, but of your own adventure.
Being Out There, in the big galaxy. Believeing for a minute that you are harnessing gold of Saturn's rings. And visiting that star, far away in the sky. Hearing all the sounds of your ship, in the silence of space. Racing, raging into combat, or stopping a moment to admire that blue star going to bed on the surface of a calm, icy planet.
Maybe Elite is just about poesy.
It's whatever you find in it.
Surely, I found a lot...
Some time ago, I hit this moment where I spent more time on this forum reading about the game than actually playing it.
And it's so easy to let the wall of complaining texts hit your spirit. Got me off the game for two month actually.
I forgot, drown in the critics, that in the first place I loved this game so much that I actually bought a joystick to play it, worth more than the game itself. I also pre-ordered Horizon. Not for perks or saving but because I was so in love with the game, I felt wrinting a blank check to playing it more.
And when it came out, I went back into the game to test it. Yet, as I'm playing hours straight again, I landed only once on a planet. The base game alone hooked me back.
As I steped back into my Cobra III, fired up the engines, I felt a jolt of adrenaline and pleasure, juste earing the thrusters come to life. Then, came the soothing and exciting feeling of my fingers, naturally taking over the the take-off sequence. I forgot... all this little things you have to do as you go taste once more the shine of stars. This moment when you detach and you actually feel it, ear it, the absence of gravity, the drift into a slow exit speed... I almost feel the tremor of the engines in my wrist, the weight of the ship as I twist the yoke, the G adding up as I push the thrust up... the faint moment of adrenaline when you shoot througt the letterbox of a coriolis station at full boost and almost scrap the paint ou of a wall... but you don't. You speed away free.
It's so ordinary to plan your jump to another system, yet, the expectation still gives me a chill. Not to be compared, though, to the incredible feeling of jumping into FSD. When this countdown hit zero, and stars deform and elongate in the thunder of your ship shooting forward to another system, I'm this little boy again that hoped one day he could fly the Millenium Falcon.
I came into this game for the "pew pew pew" as most put it. The fury of space dogfights. Boy was I not disapointed... I've never had to play 10 hours of tutorials to master the basics of a piloting game. I've never felt that skill, concentration, balance of equipement and strategy actually mattered like they matter in this game, when fighting. Shooting NPC, tracking pirates and wanted criminals, got me through 100 hours of game. I've barely scratched the surface of what happens when you toggle off this flight assist. But I've seen the videos and I assure you, I will explore the hell out those subtleties.
For that, I wanted a better ship. So after more than a hundred hours of playing the game, I tried trading.
I was ready to be bored.
But then... the simple adrenaline, of cruising with and unarmed ship, without shields, feeling that the smallest error in piloting could send me back millions of credits... I felt something new about this game. I was delighted to see how switching to this new role changed my experience.
Then, there was the planning... the constant optimizing of my trips. Seeking precious informations on websites, forums, to ear about discreet trade routes... It got me searching, thinking, calculating, trying, and getting better every time.
Then I stopped, and Horizon went out, so I went back in.
As I pre-ordered, I could buy the Cobra Mk IV. I was excited to have a better version of my favourinte fighting ship... and yet, disapointed to discover it was a bust as far as fighting was concerned.
So I looked up what it was good for... found an incredible guide to mining that recommended it as a starter mining ship.
And I thougt, why the hell not ? Let's gear up and see what mining is about.
It's gotta be one of the most relaxing, satisfying, and realistick exprience of this game... First, I really enjoyed finding a good mining system. I explored, scanned, and gathered word of mouth in forums. I travelled a hundred LYs to a new system, and started mining.
I love it, the thrill, the expectation, the stress even when you slowly approach an asteroid, send in your probe, wait for it to reach and send in the data.
Nothing will raise your heartbeat like reading à 40% painite on a big chunk of rock, and imagining the profit.
The mining itself is way more subtle and active than I expected... you have ton manage carefully what you refine, balance cargo space and drones stock, plan ahead so that you will return with a cargo hold full of the top five precious minerals. Then, when you are cruising around with your 30 tons of painite and someone scans you, you find back the thrill in your gut you felt while trading and being interdicted.
Except that with a mining ship, you can fight back, for what you carefully colleted, for the very fruit of your labor. You sent every bolt of laser throught the hull of the pirate with a fiery sens of protecting what's yours. And you feel way more relieved and satisfied to see the burning remains of an attacker ship than you did when hunting a pirate for its bounty.
Credits are piling up. I've played a lot of relaxing, poetic and thrilling hours cruising asteroids and mining their gold.
Now, I want to explore. See a nebula, a black hole... land on exoplanets, explore fields of ice and buzz around in those rover, just enjoying the fact I'm on a random planet I found nice, and I wanted to see up close.
I'm already impatient to plan a route so big it will get me to cross a full scale galaxy. I'm dreaming already of all the wonders I will see. I'll make photos, but I gess they won't capture the feelings of actually be there. And I'm a bit worried about what I will find, the danger I'll cross, and thos nasty twin stars that will try and burn me on arrival. But I'm ready for it.
We won't see each-other, I play solo. For now...
One day I will experience the thrill of fighting a real player. Being interdicted by a real pirate while trading. Dodging them while mining... I will discover what Powerplay is about and get passionate about it.
And then, I will get away from you all, alone in my ship, out of the bubble, seeing again what wonders escaped me on my first trip across the galaxy. Find these Thargoïds even, who knows ?
Elite Dangerous is bound to make a lot of players angry. It's not a conventional game. It's my space aventure. My life out there that I can interrupt and pursue again as I like.
It's about being insignificant. Being a hero, yes, but of your own adventure.
Being Out There, in the big galaxy. Believeing for a minute that you are harnessing gold of Saturn's rings. And visiting that star, far away in the sky. Hearing all the sounds of your ship, in the silence of space. Racing, raging into combat, or stopping a moment to admire that blue star going to bed on the surface of a calm, icy planet.
Maybe Elite is just about poesy.
It's whatever you find in it.
Surely, I found a lot...
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