Folks,
I've been through copious notes, videos and references I made during the lifetime of ED. I thought I'd document it as a bit of history now it's fading into the past... particularly the early stuff. Here's the first one, on the kickstarter of 2012-2013. Were you there?
Mods, feel free to move if in the wrong place, didn't seem to have a category really.
Youtube link if your cookies aren't happy.
Cheers,
Drew.
I wasn't just there, in your question, which is referring to the kickstarter, I was HERE, on this forum when David Walsh announced the kickstarter. The true moment in Elite Dangerous history it started, yet always seems to be forgotten. It doesn't help that the thread that proves this, has been moved to a restricted section of the forum, only viewable by moderators and above. Some of us have been asking Frontier to return this thread to a section where we can all see it, but for now you'll have to make do with a wayback machine link ...
Everyone: thank you for your patience. We should have some exciting news for you within the next couple of hours..
web.archive.org
So yes, I was there, and I was HERE, at the start.
But I can make a claim one better than being on the forum when it was announced. A bit of Elite Dangerous history everyone has missed. I, yes me specifically, I was pushing Frontier to make Elite IV a year before the kickstarter. It started when a gaming magazine reported that The Outsider had been cancelled, a curious fact that Frontier still have yet to officially announce. I grew impatient waiting for news on Elite IV as the rumour back then was that Elite IV would begin development after The Outsider.
Frontier had not long published Kinectimals, and I asked for news on Elite IV. I told Frontier to "stop making fluffly kids games, and make the game everyone wants". I got this reply from Michael Brookes: "We'll announce something when we have something to announce". I told them they did have something to announce, the cancellation of The Outsider.
A year goes by and one night in November 2012, I was refreshing the forum when a post by David Walsh pops up "We'll have something to announce in an hour", and an hour later, the thread I linked to via the wayback machine popped up.
I .... me specifically ... I had a role to play in Frontier launching the kickstarter, which by their own words was "to gauge interest".
No-one ever remembers that that's what happened. But I do.
EDIT: This is going to be the last time I ever tell this story. In future I will just say "I have been here a while."