Huh?
If you replace minutes with seconds in your description, then it describes how I'm experiencing these features in E: D 98% of the time.
Something's definitely bugging your game - net connection or hardware? Or conflicting software?
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Wow, you're a bitter one!
That aside, one glaring error in the quoted part of your rant I have to correct: you say E: D is not Elite, and that's a blatant lie - E: D is very much
Elite, but it isn't
Frontier (FE2 or FFE).
An
Elite tribute game, perhaps, though i'd class it more of an Oolite tribute.
But real Elite is based around full piloting freedom, which ED is fundamentally incompatible with. That was classic Elite's appeal - it's not that monochrome vector graphics are superior to full colour HD, but rather the fact that, at the time, black and white 3D was a revolutionary advance that made 3D spaceflight possible. Likewise, being stuck with pitch, roll and a speed limit wasn't its raison d'etre,
unconstrained spaceflight was. So if your argument is that ED's technical failings qualify it as "faithful" to the original, i couldn't disagree more. The core game is getting as close as possible to free flight, which is why FE2 and FFE were such logical natural progressions, removing even more limits, giving you even more piloting freedom.
If ED offered yet more of the same kinds of advances as FE2 did over classic Elite, but only had monochrome wireframe graphics, then, my friend, you may have a point... Although even then, Elite has always broken new ground graphically as much as in space sandboxing freedom.
And if brevity is the soul of wit, then i'm a droning dullard... but so is ED; Elite's vibe was always its responsiveness to your wandering pace of play - it caters to the slow scenic route, but also the flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants arcade rager... jamming your finger back onto the 'J' key even while your last victim is still vaporising, tearing head-on into the next pack of mambas or vipers etc. The function key mappings were logical and consistent, right up to FE2, so you could instantly get the info you needed as you needed it. DB talked about "recapturing the immediacy of the original games", and has promptly gone and done the polar opposite of that, giving us a massively restricted slideshow.
You could make an
Elite diorama - paint the inside of the box black with all little LED stars, and papier-máché ships with a lovely little cobra mkIII center stage... but it wouldn't
be 'Elite', would it? I mean all the paint would rub off on your hands. It'd never be able to recreate the dynamic pacing of the previous games.
ED is anathema to the spirit of Elite. It is literally the archetypal, definitive caricature of everything Elite isn't, it's an offensive effigy of Elite, a crass popinjay, a false pretender. It's a 180° reversal on Elite's defining ethos. The exact opposite of piloting freedom, seamlessness and reactive pacing - you're not allowed to even accelerate in (ahem) "normal space", there's transitions
for the transitions, every one's a lockup, and you're
forced to tag along at
its pace in every endeavor. The interaction that
is allowed is dull, linear and robotic. Without natural speed and momentum to control, and with no autopilot, external cams or time acceleration, the majority of player input is simply dot-tracking, interspersed with waiting, to do more of the same.
The different disjointed modes and their egregious lockup transitions are just shocking - hand-holding you through the stiffly choreographed set pieces like a Pyongyang tour host, neither straying from the ordained path nor skipping any of the pomp proceedings are allowed. You may not apply thrust to your ship. You cannot look out of a side or rear view, or see your ship properly from outside. You cannot engage autopilot while browsing maps or other systems. You
may nudge the stick up a bit, left a bit for 30 mins at a time - and if that sounds appealing you'll be pleased there's no heading reticle to line up on - and you may pitch and roll within a very narrow range of allowed taxiing velocities, demarked by the 'blue zone' on your throttle which you must always pay strict attention to and never stray beyond its bounds (the blue zone boundaries are there for your benefit, so must and
will be respected, and no deviation can or will be possible). "Supercruise", "orbital cruise", "glide mode", "limited attack angle", "optimal mass", "top speed", nitro-boost, all of this guff is sacrilege, utter apostasy to everything Elite stood for. Opposites land. Worst case scenario. If you like seamless free spaceflight, with some low-consequence arcade blasting mixed in.. 'yuh, sorry, that's not supported, anymore'.
What's been dropped from ED is
everything that stitched the previous games into a cohesive whole, greater than the sum of their parts. Instead of further
developing the game, insofar as making the same kinds of advances it has always made over its prequels, it's gone the other way, for the lowest-common denominators defined by the low-expectations target MP demographic and the inherent restrictions of the networking system. ED is aimed squarely at gamers who
think spaceships have speed limits, that inertia is velocity-dependent, that looking and moving in different directions requires a PhD, and that autopilot and external views are 'mersion-breaking win-buttons. On that count, the game's a runaway success, if a shamefully low hanging one. But that's little consolation for disenfranchised fans of the series..
