I jumped into ED yesterday for the first time in... well err... the launcher had to update and put Horizons in, so its been a long time...
I got into the game and yes, I was enthralled again, with the great view I saw out of my window and indeed inside my cockpit. I had forgotten how good ED looked in ED's way 'ie. space'.
I went for a jolly around and enjoyed it. I didn't do anything really, just flew around, flying was the joy I remember when going through the early pre-release game. I just loved it back then.
Way back still, in 84, it was dots flying past that gave a vision in our minds of how it must be flying through space.. Of course its not like that, but you know what I mean. The feel it gave back then was, well, hard to get over to people nowadays. Lets just say, 'it was special'.. [yesnod]
Back to yesterday, I went into cruise and just sat and pondered how great it felt. The sound & the soundtrack, the gentle tapping of the fingers on the controls, looking around and seeing the odd light from a thruster. It was very enjoyable.
I actually thought about starting from zero in ED and building up again. I hadn't got that far after release and reset and having put ED down (as done), so wouldn't lose much.
Prior to release I had as much as the game could give really, well, that was available back then that is.
But I'm still not sure really. Perhaps I will, may be good to get back up a little incase they drop a mind blowing update on us.. Am I dreaming ! I hope not.
I'm playing NMS. Now clearly not for a 'space look', but for its own style of fantasy sci-fi beauty. Both ED and NMS are very different games, very different styles, but a very similar way of drawing the player in. I didn't stay in ED, but it was nice to pop back in for a couple of hours just flying. I wasn't pulled out of cruise for any fighting (surprisingly, in a good way), just left in peace to enjoy.. Which I did. That is the most enjoyable part which they sort of ruined a little, with the endless pulling out of cruise to fight some -not very believable- npc pirate, etc.
ED is about peacefulness for me, just trading a little getting from place to place to explore whatever is there, if anything, plus a little mining too perhaps. Then moving on.
The devs seemed to think adding large numbers of needless/hopeless npc pilots was required to constantly pull you out of cruise, which would have been great, had they put the time into making good ai.. But they didn't..
As it stood, it was just relentless immersion breaking nonsense fighting something that clearly had no feelings of self preservation, no tactics, no awareness, just.. well.. the worst part of game ai, silly npc's put there to, 'fill space', sorry for the pun.
.
ED was, and is, so much better than just that. I like the odd fight, but prefer that with something I think is living in the other craft, not person, most people are worse than ai, unless you have like-minded folk. But at least something that had the will to live, tactics and the nounce to run if they're getting beat, or indeed call for others to assist in a tactical way, instead of attack until dead, mentality.. Don't get me wrong NMS is the same for that.
But back to NMS for its fantasy sci-fi style and look. The flying in NMS is o.k. but of course not the same as ED, or indeed any of the other space games I have. But you can sit back and fly if you want, just a busier, prettier, more colourful space, but still lots of fun. Exploring in NMS is so much better of an experience than ED (planetside), or indeed any other space game I have that has planets.
If they could combine resources and make a game, HG & Fdev, then I think we may have something world beating in the space genre. But for now, we still have it, just spread across a number of games, whereas none, actually tick every box.. But that is probably just a pipe-dream I have. [blah]
Keep things; space-side ED inc stations etc (although with space legs), craft-side Rogue System, size and planetside NMS, build-side Space Engineers (for building my own spaceship). That would sort of do me,
maybe add in KSP orbiting !!!!............... no just the others, we can go too far...
