Elite II and FFE are better games than ED?

TomS

TomS
More ships
Atmospheric landings
Better military missions
Crew
A storyline

Yes it's different and there are much higher expectations these days. I'm also fully aware I'm going to get shot down for this - but I can't help but feel that even after 3 years of Dev in ED, the old games were just better.

Maybe it's nostalgia but I just don't get the same feeling I could go anywhere and do anything as I used to in the old games.

It probably doesn't help that a planet with a billion people on it has the same traffic as an anarchy system with 200 population. For me - Somehow even though the graphics are so much better the universe just seems a little less believable.

Perhaps when we can land on other planets it will ignite that same feeling of freedom - I really hope so.
 

avow555

avow555
TomS said:
More ships
Atmospheric landings
Better military missions
Crew
A storyline

Yes it's different and there are much higher expectations these days. I'm also fully aware I'm going to get shot down for this - but I can't help but feel that even after 3 years of Dev in ED, the old games were just better.

Maybe it's nostalgia but I just don't get the same feeling I could go anywhere and do anything as I used to in the old games.

It probably doesn't help that a planet with a billion people on it has the same traffic as an anarchy system with 200 population. For me - Somehow even though the graphics are so much better the universe just seems a little less believable.

Perhaps when we can land on other planets it will ignite that same feeling of freedom - I really hope so.
Click to expand...

To be fair the game has a lot to live up to still even after 3 years.
Currently I agree you OP.
 

Mengy

Mengy
In some ways yeah I'd agree that Frontier First Encounters was a more fleshed out, more complete game. It's mechanics seemed more robust and fun to engage with. That said though, it's real hard to go back to FFE after playing a lot of Elite Dangerous. I've tried it, and ED's incredible sound design coupled with exceptional art and assets give it an immersion factor that FFE's better mechanics just can't make up for. Don't get me wrong, I still find FFE great fun, but I feel like I prefer ED even with it's more shallow game mechanics and weaker content, simply for the visual factor alone.
 

PS4gamer

PS4gamer
FFE heck no, its a buggy mess,
Frontier though, yes I would say it is better as it offers more things to do, also the planetary landing is awesome, even the church clocks are at the right time!

Having played all the Elite games, I would rate them thus (best to worst)

Frontier: Elite II
Elite
Elite Dangerous
Frontier: First Encounters
 

Mengy

Mengy
You know, I might be thinking of Elite II actually rather than FFE. I get the two confused sometimes as to which one is which.

Either way, I'd love for ED to gain a few aspects of the older games with regards to mechanics and content.


EDIT: After a quick Google image search, yeah I'm thinking of Elite II. The one with the Orrerey Map and the photo recon missions.
 
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Jack Schitt

Jack Schitt
To me ED is still the best version of this universe, but it's a close call. The sheer feeling of presence in ED is something the earlier games could never hope to match, even though at the time they seemed light years ahead of contemporary games.

Having said that, ED's instancing is still occasionally jarring. I understand why it's necessary, and FD have achieved wonders in minimising its impact on gameplay, but there's something very magical about FE2's completely seamless and smooth experience. In ED it feels as though there's a massive galaxy but you're constantly popping in and out of bits of it. In FE2 the whole galaxy was one massive "instance" that was around you all the time, with your ability to go places and do things limited only by the ship you were flying.

In 1MB of RAM. :eek:
 

Alex Brentnall

Alex Brentnall
TomS said:
More ships
Atmospheric landings
Better military missions
Crew
A storyline

Yes it's different and there are much higher expectations these days. I'm also fully aware I'm going to get shot down for this - but I can't help but feel that even after 3 years of Dev in ED, the old games were just better.

Maybe it's nostalgia but I just don't get the same feeling I could go anywhere and do anything as I used to in the old games.

It probably doesn't help that a planet with a billion people on it has the same traffic as an anarchy system with 200 population. For me - Somehow even though the graphics are so much better the universe just seems a little less believable.

Perhaps when we can land on other planets it will ignite that same feeling of freedom - I really hope so.
Click to expand...

On your basis of comparison yes I agree. Most games from those eras have more to do than current games. Thats largely because the modern graphics, networking and all sorts of other things detract from content and gameplay. It was so much easier to add things and do things in the past and this is seen on all genres and most games.
Also expectations are a lot lot different.

However, If we use an alternative base of reference such as current players or hours spent or whatever the chart flips on its head. I know which I'd pay more money for.
 
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TomS

TomS
Factabulous said:
Have you not got your own forums for your fave games? Not really sure why you're here since this game is so bad.
Click to expand...

Yeah nice one - those old games have nothing to do with ED...:rolleyes:

And who said ED was bad?

Not being as good as the best games ever made does not make ED bad.

Perhaps lay off the passive aggression - if you have nothing else to add, please feel free to take your own advice...
 

Iskariot

Iskariot
TomS said:
More ships
Atmospheric landings
Better military missions
Crew
A storyline

Yes it's different and there are much higher expectations these days. I'm also fully aware I'm going to get shot down for this - but I can't help but feel that even after 3 years of Dev in ED, the old games were just better.

Maybe it's nostalgia but I just don't get the same feeling I could go anywhere and do anything as I used to in the old games.

It probably doesn't help that a planet with a billion people on it has the same traffic as an anarchy system with 200 population. For me - Somehow even though the graphics are so much better the universe just seems a little less believable.

Perhaps when we can land on other planets it will ignite that same feeling of freedom - I really hope so.
Click to expand...


I disagree, because you compare a final product to one that is in the middle of development.

Atmospheric planets
The atmospheric planets in the old games were incredibly limited. They were basically just like the planets without atmospheres we have now, but with a primitive atmospheric entry animation. Don't get me wrong. It was fine, or even incredible for those days, but it wouldn't wash now. Nobody would accept it.

Just being able to leave our ships in a well designed SRV in ED is an enormous step forward compared to the old games. It adds an awesome new dimension to the game that turns planets into actual planets. In the old games you couldn't really go down to interact with the planetary surface, drive around pick up stuff etc.
Of course it needs more work, but it is already much better than the old games had to offer.

Ships.
And the ships in ED are so much more detailed and modifiable that it isn't even funny. It is much much better than the old games.
Of course I want more ships, but in the old days FD did not have to design interiors too. It is much more difficult to design the ED ships than it was to design the ships of the older games. And in ED the ships look so awesome and solid. I still spend a lot of time looking at the beautiful sexy thrusters on my FDL or Cutter :).
And having 40 instead of 30 ships does not in any way make the game better. It has nothing to do with the point you try to make.

Crew.
I agree with that. I want NPC crew very very very much. But I do expect we might get that further down the line.
This game is going to be developed for a few more years, remember?

Storyline.
I would love a campaign further down the line. But to make that meaningful FD will first have to completely finish the basic mechanics.
FD could release a separate story campaign then and make use of everything the complete game has to offer. We might start out as farmer on tatooine and then work our way up to owning a ship, leave the planet and fight the evil emperor :).
They could release this as a separate product and throw in a few new ships and some other cool stuff to seduce us and I would be willing to pay full retail price for something like that.
My point is: It is too early for a storyline.

Better military missions.
I agree that definitely needs a second look.

Maybe it's nostalgia but I just don't get the same feeling I could go anywhere and do anything as I used to in the old games.
Click to expand...

Yes it's nostalgia.
Nostalgia is a liar.
 
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Shadowdancer

Shadowdancer
FE2? Navigating around a dead, static galaxy with glitchy graphics, and mostly navigating by cheating your ship into stations by time acceleration on maximum impossibility drive? Yeah, it was amazing for the time, but once you look past the nostalgia filter, it's pretty far behind what you're offered here.

Let's boil it down, the ships were in huge parts a stylistic hodgepodge, "atmospheric landings" were just setting down on differently coloured spheres with rare weird setpieces, the crew was mostly an attrition mechanic ("Want to fly that ship? Enjoy waiting around this for for a few weeks and see if enough crew spawn lol"), and FE2 didn't really have a storyline anyway. The missions were pretty cool for the first couple runs, but ultimately also very few archetypes with slightly different greebles.

Now I cant speak for FFE, always thought that looked like a big steaming mess just from the visuals, so didn't try it.
 

Arioch

Arioch
I had a bit of a retro urge last month and ended up losing a weekend to Frontier: Elite II on Dosbox, one of the first games I got for my 486 SX25 in Ye Olden Dayes (massive framerate increase compared to my Amiga, and texture mapping, oh yes!).

There's a few things I think it does better than ED, and even though it looks primitive these days there's still a lot to be impressed by (cloud shadows, clock tower time and bezier curves are my favourites). There's even detail that isn't clear but is still there - a radiation warning sign on the back of the Cobra III for example (I remember seeing that in a mag just before release but you can't zoom in close enough in-game to read the text). I got to wondering how much more stuff you could display on a modern computer while keeping the same simple polygon shapes - cities of hundreds/thousands of buildings and cloud groups that could span a globe?

One thing I found was that I was better at Engine-Off combat these days (the best way for FE2) possibly thanks to a bit of flying FA-Off in ED.

As for ED, there's a lot I'm now willing to forgive since getting a Rift a fortnight ago. Best time in game since the original Beta.

(And I'll not forget FFE - mainly since I bought the new-fangled CDROM version that had some quite unforgettable handcam FMV... "Hello Sweetie!" <shudders>)
 

Captain N

C
The one thing I really miss is the truly seamless universe (only "loading screen" was the jump between systems)

The flight model being truly newtonian (no max speeds) was also cool.

ED is without a doubt a better game overall, though.
 

Faded Glory

Faded Glory
Yes, and no...

Of course the graphics are night and day, and actually the flight model in ED is IMO more fun than it was in FE2. There's actually also much more variety in missions and other activities than there was in the older game. But still...

ED has growing pains, that's for sure, and the multi-player aspect has complicated certain mechanics such as C&P. ED is also I suspect a bit of a victim of it's own scale. In FE2, if you aligned with a superpower, missions tended to send you to the other power's territory which made more sense really, and in FE2 it really was difficult to rank up in both the Empire and the Federation.

To be fair, I'm sure I've put more hours into ED than I did in decades of playing FE2, and playing now in VR has just added a whole new life to the game. I also really like being able to have multiple ships, and have genuine uses for them in this game. But I think from a Commander's story perspective, ED is a bit muddled, while in FE2, that role playing (dare I say immersive?) side was stronger.

Finally, I think the whole basis in ED of RNG and the ability to farm are weak points. In FE2, there were consequences for taking certain missions, and you knew there would be when you took them, likewise you knew that going to Riedquat (an anarchic system) would result in endless attacks as you tried to make it to the space station, and that was as near as you could get to farming rank. The fact that opposition and challenge might or might not appear in ED, regardless of what you are doing or where you are flying is again something that pulls you out of your role-play, and makes it very apparent it's a game.
 

Apos

Apos
Not really, I fail to see the more gameplay options part if you include things that some people just ignore and expect to be hand held, like the BGS.

ED also has a storyline, it's just not centered around every player. If anything, the fact that FD is so rigid to stick to their storyline is what keep detracting from the game experience, because anything achieved by the players that doesn't fall in line is simply ignored with an obvious hope it will be reversed on its own.

More ship variety, I'm all for. Not everything has to be best, but they should at least try to keep things close. Stuff like the agility of the DBX is just shameful.

Other than that, the whole open/private/solo debate will always be a thorn on the game's side. Because it tries to be everything at the same time, which never really works out.
 
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Ziggy Stardust

Ziggy Stardust
Nope. Hated both those games.

Overjoyed Elite D is based on the original. The Mac Daddy. Instead of it's (edit: slang for extramarital, like William ) offspring.
 
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