Celebrating 35 years of Elite!
- Thread starter Stephen Benedetti
- Start date
My favourite memory is from 1992 when I had just bought Elite II: Frontier and saw the intro sequence, proceeded to start a game and slowly came to realise how awesome and huge the game world was, and that there were many ships to buy and fly, different missions and worlds to explore. I mean, I was vastly impressed by the first Elite on my humble C64 in 1985 as a young kid, but this was even better and rather unbelievably ran from one Amiga 880kb floppy!
Memory lane? Well, I was 16 at the time when I bought Elite for the Commodore 64. Unfortunately I have no picture for what I am telling right now (you know... It was 1986! No selfies at the time!) but my parents thought I was ridiculous enough!
I was really excited by the game. So excited that I stole my daddy's motorbike helmet, turned on my record player with the Star Wars OST (very loud, indeed...) and held on my Cheetah 125+ clone.
And I was there. A mighty space commander on my Cobra, smuggling illegal dangerous cargo and fighting horrid aliens!! I was Han Solo, Lucky Starr and J.T. Kirk rolled up into one!
And when the notes of "An der schönen blauen Donau" started to play, I was David Bowman, flying thru infinity! :-D
All this while I was playing Elite!
And all these emotions remained intact and pristine thru the years, while I continued playing Elite on my Amiga and while I bought Frontier: Elite II, Frontier: First Encounter and now Elite: Dangerous!
My co-pilot, today, is that 16yo child that still put on his daddy's helmet. And I cannot be more happy!
I forgot. I will be 50yo in few months so my love for Elite is... Well. Take an educated guess! <3
I was really excited by the game. So excited that I stole my daddy's motorbike helmet, turned on my record player with the Star Wars OST (very loud, indeed...) and held on my Cheetah 125+ clone.
And I was there. A mighty space commander on my Cobra, smuggling illegal dangerous cargo and fighting horrid aliens!! I was Han Solo, Lucky Starr and J.T. Kirk rolled up into one!
And when the notes of "An der schönen blauen Donau" started to play, I was David Bowman, flying thru infinity! :-D
All this while I was playing Elite!
And all these emotions remained intact and pristine thru the years, while I continued playing Elite on my Amiga and while I bought Frontier: Elite II, Frontier: First Encounter and now Elite: Dangerous!
My co-pilot, today, is that 16yo child that still put on his daddy's helmet. And I cannot be more happy!
I forgot. I will be 50yo in few months so my love for Elite is... Well. Take an educated guess! <3
The first time I really looked at the galaxy map in Elite Dangerous, instead of just going from point A to B. I zoomed out to look at the size of the bubble, and thought "Wow, this is a pretty big game". Then zoomed out more. And more. And more. I was in sheer awe at just how huge this game is. That was the moment that convinced me to go out into the black and start exploring.
--CMDR Would You Kindly
--CMDR Would You Kindly
My memory has to be playing the orginal Elite on the BBC model B at Secondary school. I remember those times grabbing the floppy disk and going into the woodwork rooms at lunchtime because Mr Bailey would let me play this awesome game....ahhhhh such fun and easy times CMDR Wilko601st
CMDR tml
I have 2 very strong memories about the original Elite.
The first one is actually from a time before I had the game. My favourite magazine back in 1986 was a monthy mag called Commodore Világ. In its first 8 issues it had a series of articles about Elite. I was going to primary school back then and I was hooked on reading that month by month. I think it was the first episodic stories I've ever read in my life, the adventures of Cmdr Jameson. Unfortunately I did not have the game back then and I had to wait about 4 years until I found someone who had a copy so that I could copy it (Sorry about that. We were behind the Iron curtain back then).
Gameplay wise my most vivid memory is also about the classic Elite. I still remember how excited I was when after having played the game for a long-long time, finally something unexpected happened: at a random station some dude was offering me to buy some Trumbles because they were cute. Of course I bought them. Turned out to be a really bad idea. They started to multiply and multiply and multiply and eaten all the stuff in my cargo hold and flood the cockpit to the point where I couldn't fight any more because they were obstructing the sight. I spent months desperately looking for a cure! I figured that if I buy an escape pod and self destruct the ship, I get rid of most of them but not all of them, so the whole process restarted but at least I got another week to play before my ship was screwed again. As there was no Internet back then, I had no choice than to try to solve it myself. I chose the scientific method and started to systematically visit every single system in all the 8 galaxies, hoping to find a cure. I never did.
To this day I still don't know how to get rid of those little buggers.
I have 2 very strong memories about the original Elite.
The first one is actually from a time before I had the game. My favourite magazine back in 1986 was a monthy mag called Commodore Világ. In its first 8 issues it had a series of articles about Elite. I was going to primary school back then and I was hooked on reading that month by month. I think it was the first episodic stories I've ever read in my life, the adventures of Cmdr Jameson. Unfortunately I did not have the game back then and I had to wait about 4 years until I found someone who had a copy so that I could copy it (Sorry about that. We were behind the Iron curtain back then).
Gameplay wise my most vivid memory is also about the classic Elite. I still remember how excited I was when after having played the game for a long-long time, finally something unexpected happened: at a random station some dude was offering me to buy some Trumbles because they were cute. Of course I bought them. Turned out to be a really bad idea. They started to multiply and multiply and multiply and eaten all the stuff in my cargo hold and flood the cockpit to the point where I couldn't fight any more because they were obstructing the sight. I spent months desperately looking for a cure! I figured that if I buy an escape pod and self destruct the ship, I get rid of most of them but not all of them, so the whole process restarted but at least I got another week to play before my ship was screwed again. As there was no Internet back then, I had no choice than to try to solve it myself. I chose the scientific method and started to systematically visit every single system in all the 8 galaxies, hoping to find a cure. I never did.
To this day I still don't know how to get rid of those little buggers.
My Best moment in Elite was when i first got interdicted by a thargoid. I almost wet my pants. Hehe
Commander name: JOE238
I started playing Elite on the Commodore 64 and my favorite memory was hearing Blue Danube for the first time after using my docking computer. I had already crashed into the docking stations a few times on trade missions already and lost a bunch of credits, so the docking computer was literally music to my ears. Years later, I discovered Elite Dangerous, and yet again, being a new player again, I had a hard time docking. I bought a docking computer and used it and much to my surprise, I hear Blue Danube playing again as I dock. That brought back so many more fun memories from playing Elite all those years ago.
I started playing Elite on the Commodore 64 and my favorite memory was hearing Blue Danube for the first time after using my docking computer. I had already crashed into the docking stations a few times on trade missions already and lost a bunch of credits, so the docking computer was literally music to my ears. Years later, I discovered Elite Dangerous, and yet again, being a new player again, I had a hard time docking. I bought a docking computer and used it and much to my surprise, I hear Blue Danube playing again as I dock. That brought back so many more fun memories from playing Elite all those years ago.
I guess my favourite memory was when I first played the original Elite on the BBC Micro and my dad and I turned the entire room into a spaceship using cardboard boxes and anything else we could get our hands on (much to my mum's despair!) We drew screens and consoles on all the boxes, pretty sure it just looked like a mess but to me at that age it was the bridge of my ship 
CMDR Pete Justice
CMDR Pete Justice
![[xtc]mrsly](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/198/198705.jpg?1586450506){kind=avatar}
my favorite memory of elite is when i joined a pgf and started me donating 100's of tons of painite to new players, joining our group in return i ask they buy a stock sidewinder and add my name to it in the hope that one day there may be a fleet of sidewinders all called sly in some way
I think it was year 1986 or something, when I had Spectrum 48K and found Elite.. If I recall the year correctly, I was 10 year old. I remember playing with the game, flying around, now and then imaging I would land to a planet, playing along, imagination added. But I remember when how happy I was when I finally understood the market logic and acquired the military laser and energy bomb, alongside with the rest of the additional modules. I also learned that I could change the default CMDR Jameson to something else, when I saved the game. Those were magical times.
With thanks to the team whom made ED possible, and of course to big thanks to David and Ian.
CMDR Maxim Cliff
With thanks to the team whom made ED possible, and of course to big thanks to David and Ian.
CMDR Maxim Cliff
Having only played Elite Dangerous and starting just a month ago, it's all good fun. But I'd have to say that my favorite moment was at the beginning of play since I have been all VR. Stepping (sitting) into command of a spaceship in a world (galaxy) of its own and all around you was and still is quite simply, awesome!
Commander Nogee
Commander Nogee
I've loved this game since 1986. IBM PC XT, DOS 2.0, NC (Norton Commander) and the game "Elite.COM". Display CGA. Good times. That was the beginning. And I'm glad that today we continue to play in the same, but a new Elite.
Congratulations to all the 35 anniversary of the great Elite!
CMDR John J Lee
Congratulations to all the 35 anniversary of the great Elite!
CMDR John J Lee
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Do you remember the magazines like Acorn User Etc, saying how impossible it was for them to mix Mode2 and Mode1 graphics on the same screen, and to think they fitted all our adventures, all those systems, ships, planets stations into 32K....after 35 years I never forgot how a cobra felt to fly, amazing, great memory of Christmas Cmdr. So cool!My favourite memory of Elite:
Load New Commander (Y/N)?
11 year old me in 1984, sitting in front of my BBC Micro Model B on Christmas Day in awe of the amazing 3D wireframe graphics scrolling in front of me.
This game was like something from the future, never before had I seen graphics like this on my home Micro!
A very exciting time that created a buzz around my friends, we didn't realise how iconic this game title would become.
o7 - Cmdr Bowker
See you in the black!
[CITAÇÃO = "Dirk Braben, post: 8016119, membro: 30712"]
Sim, obrigado por não forçar . O ARX é forte neste.
Também pular a pintura, obrigado. Os momentos favoritos estão enterrados há muito tempo (antes dos RNG ).
[/CITAR]
pitura ? isso por 35 anos de jogo ? chamam isso de presente ... gosto muito do jogo , n e possível que essa seja a visão do produtor desse jogo ... da uma nave personalizada com tudo ,cor de armas, pintura , tudo que um kit , pra um iniciante isso e presente
Sim, obrigado por não forçar . O ARX é forte neste.
Também pular a pintura, obrigado. Os momentos favoritos estão enterrados há muito tempo (antes dos RNG ).
[/CITAR]
pitura ? isso por 35 anos de jogo ? chamam isso de presente ... gosto muito do jogo , n e possível que essa seja a visão do produtor desse jogo ... da uma nave personalizada com tudo ,cor de armas, pintura , tudo que um kit , pra um iniciante isso e presente
1984 was so long ago that I cannot remember any particular memory about Elite I could tell here. What I do know is that Elite on C64 forever changed my mind about a few things.
I didn't play computer games then. The reason I wasn't gaming was the early 1980's games. They looked and sounded nice, but they were all boring. I though that simulators will probably be my thing as soon as they become more realistic, definitely not games. Meanwhile I was learning programming and the hardware of the C64. I even built two serial port adapters to connect a modem (the other one was for my friend so we could fly head to head), that kind of thing.
But I was only 14 and I didn't know myself very well. Little did I know that imagination could take one's mind away from this world and propel it almost anywhere. Video games had this power too, not just books. When did that first happen for me? Was it the first time I stared at the rotating Cobra in the Select commander menu? Or was it when I realised buying stuff cheap, taking it somewhere else and selling it for profit was - strangely enough - much more fun than it should have been? Or was it when the first INCOMING MESSAGE took me by surprise right after docking? Thinking back now it was clear Elite was the first game that made it possible for me to immerse myself in something that was definitely not real. While doing that, it also changed my thinking about how my mind works. Why is it I get excited about something. Even which is more real: a computer simulation or my thought processes and is there a difference. I'm quite sure I would not have thought of all these things without the world Elite took me into 35 years ago.
CMDR LeLv30_Superbus
I didn't play computer games then. The reason I wasn't gaming was the early 1980's games. They looked and sounded nice, but they were all boring. I though that simulators will probably be my thing as soon as they become more realistic, definitely not games. Meanwhile I was learning programming and the hardware of the C64. I even built two serial port adapters to connect a modem (the other one was for my friend so we could fly head to head), that kind of thing.
But I was only 14 and I didn't know myself very well. Little did I know that imagination could take one's mind away from this world and propel it almost anywhere. Video games had this power too, not just books. When did that first happen for me? Was it the first time I stared at the rotating Cobra in the Select commander menu? Or was it when I realised buying stuff cheap, taking it somewhere else and selling it for profit was - strangely enough - much more fun than it should have been? Or was it when the first INCOMING MESSAGE took me by surprise right after docking? Thinking back now it was clear Elite was the first game that made it possible for me to immerse myself in something that was definitely not real. While doing that, it also changed my thinking about how my mind works. Why is it I get excited about something. Even which is more real: a computer simulation or my thought processes and is there a difference. I'm quite sure I would not have thought of all these things without the world Elite took me into 35 years ago.
CMDR LeLv30_Superbus