Elite: An old persons view...
- Thread starter CaptnPicard2305
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A fair amount of people have too much self entitlement and require instant gratification i.e. games tailored to THEIR personal liking. The stuff that is whined about is mostly, in my opinion petty and non starter. "I don't have ship interiors, Engineering is unfair/grindy/stupid, etc, I don't like the narrative".
Don't get me wrong, there's legit complaints with the game. I get a ton of a Mauve Adders or various other colored snakes but that is not a game content/play issue.
Well yes true l don't want to return to having to fly to each body in a given system and tag it once close enough...that's for sure.
But l do think the current system scanning is overly simple.
Quick.
And you've still gotta fly to a given body to scan it.
Just think there's scope for a more complex version of a system scanner. The detailed surface scanner I mentioned wasn't what I meant...my bad....meant the system scanner.
But l do think the current system scanning is overly simple.
Quick.
And you've still gotta fly to a given body to scan it.
Just think there's scope for a more complex version of a system scanner. The detailed surface scanner I mentioned wasn't what I meant...my bad....meant the system scanner.
I grew up with Pong on the Binatone. The graphics were terrible but the gameplay was great. Sometimes I think the improvement of graphics over the decades has been one of the worst things to happen to the industry.
It's easy to compare any modern game to a 1980s game and be utterly amazed at how far we have come. I played original Elite on a Commodore 64, but I also played games like Bard's Tale and Ultima, and ironically just this week while playing Elder Scrolls Online I was thinking about how far we have come compared to the old C64 RPGs. So yes, I do have those moments of awe.
That said, the fact that cars have replaced horse and buggy doesn't mean that I turn a blind eye to design flaws, breakdowns on the highway, or the inevitable boredom that sets in during a long commute.
By the way, if you wanted a thread with only positive vibes, you shouldn't have tried shaming those who don't share your level of fan-love. I would have left this thread alone if not for all the poking
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Valhalla on the speccy...those were the days...a r.a.t joypad.
Tapes!
Oh robbing house's in ultima..my first thief.
Getting those bods fulfilled.
Raiding in wow. 25 man or 10 man. Puggin it.
I took a long break from pc gaming after over 10 years playing wow. Pvp healer was my thing, the arena.
I picked up elite by accident. An unwanted VR headset for Christmas 3 years ago...knocked my socks off! I just couldn't believe the visuals...!
Gaming has come alongway since the BBC micro commy64 speccy days.
Tapes!
Oh robbing house's in ultima..my first thief.
Getting those bods fulfilled.
Raiding in wow. 25 man or 10 man. Puggin it.
I took a long break from pc gaming after over 10 years playing wow. Pvp healer was my thing, the arena.
I picked up elite by accident. An unwanted VR headset for Christmas 3 years ago...knocked my socks off! I just couldn't believe the visuals...!
Gaming has come alongway since the BBC micro commy64 speccy days.
Its a miracle of a game, I have spent a fortune on it and dont regret a penny, VR set up, a big laptop and a travelling lappy...now a steam deck too.
My only gripe is no VR in Odyssey, but when you see the splendour of how VR looks in the rest of it, well its breathtaking. Love it.
My only gripe is no VR in Odyssey, but when you see the splendour of how VR looks in the rest of it, well its breathtaking. Love it.
I'm 51 so I was really, really surprised to find out I was the second Youngest person in my squad (mind you, I didn't know any of them prior) and we're talking some hardcore gankers and pirates... People who are setting daily 'Murders in the last hour' numbers on Inara lol. I didn't last long with them since I'm the care-bear explorer... but I still like to run around with them occasionally to play the villain. What I did however get from them is that.... We have all waited for Decades for this experience!!! I throw on my VR helmet, hop in my sim racing/pilot cockpit, and I'm a dude in space... in My ship!.. in a 1 to 1 recreation of My 400 billion solar system Galaxy. And yeah, as a fan of Star Wars and other si-fi I've tried Squadrons and other stuff.... but absolutely nothing hit me like ED, and ED didn't fully hit me til I earned that permit to go 'home' to Sol.... This IS my other life! Even if fdev decides to call it quits... just keep the servers on, create more ARX items for me to decorate my ships and FC, and maybe let me buy one of those settlements and I'll spend the rest of my life fishing (aka mining), farming surfaces, watching a rainbow of sunsets, trucking to pay the bills and discovering the remaining 99.5% of undiscovered worlds (think they said it would take the entire ED community a few hundred or thousand Years to fully map ED... that's amazing). I understand they have to appeal to the COD/GTA crowds to bring in the new money, just don't forget the real life simulator aspect that make ED so special.
Its great that you love what they've done with ED and I don't want to pull that down.
But, the other perspective on this is that Elite, Frontier Elite 2 and even FE were inspired, ground breaking games in their time.
However, while ED is certainly pretty and has an excellent simulation, its stuck in old fashioned gameplay design philosophies and is full of missed opportunuties.
Being critical of ED doesn't make people spoiled - which is the sense I'm getting. It means we want ED to be the absolute best game it can be, and for it to live up to its legacy.
Sorry, i took it upon my self to assume you meant the FSS...my bad
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I first witnessed Elite on a Spectrum (anyone outside UK and non-mummy still knowing those?), and even was allowed to crash into those very very black space stations (with stars in it) a couple of times, until my friend became annoyed with my low skills. Took ages to load from that cassette deck. So much for the League Of Ancients Entry Credentials.*
Thing is, even today, after taking a long nap from intense Fuel Ratting (and still snoring), never touching Odyssee, ending up with that nothing-new-to-be-seen feeling, I find myself still being delighted, and I mean delighted by firing up my Rattaconda or Dioneia Anti-Bug Python at the occasional Thargoid hunt CG and simply enjoy that close-to perfection immersion in graphics, sound, stunningly realistic/detailed controls and gauges and --- space!
And yes, I also think that Elite is wasting much, much potential by not caring about any storyline and exploration anymore. But still, it is mind-blowing every time I fire it up again.
And that is still with Gears of War, all the other CGI-monsters and meditative stuff like No Man's Sky around.
Oh, it's the only game ever I created an own website for with the Rat's Artists Collective. And started drawing cartoons for ... so ...
But yes, I would be thrilled by some more story-driven content ... remember the times when Thargoids only existed in riddles?
*) Plus, see Freagle in avatar.
Thing is, even today, after taking a long nap from intense Fuel Ratting (and still snoring), never touching Odyssee, ending up with that nothing-new-to-be-seen feeling, I find myself still being delighted, and I mean delighted by firing up my Rattaconda or Dioneia Anti-Bug Python at the occasional Thargoid hunt CG and simply enjoy that close-to perfection immersion in graphics, sound, stunningly realistic/detailed controls and gauges and --- space!
And yes, I also think that Elite is wasting much, much potential by not caring about any storyline and exploration anymore. But still, it is mind-blowing every time I fire it up again.
And that is still with Gears of War, all the other CGI-monsters and meditative stuff like No Man's Sky around.
Oh, it's the only game ever I created an own website for with the Rat's Artists Collective. And started drawing cartoons for ... so ...
But yes, I would be thrilled by some more story-driven content ... remember the times when Thargoids only existed in riddles?
*) Plus, see Freagle in avatar.
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There's a huge debate about clouds in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 on that forum. Some say they look terrible, which I think is a ridiculous opinion, while others say they are perfect, which also is not accurate. Having started with a 1 fps version of FS-C64, I can't help but be giddy about how far we've come since then, and for me personally, the clouds are mostly "good enough" (which, when you consider how hard it is to generate them on a technical level, is huge praise IMO).
That doesn't mean I won't rightly point out what is broken and needs to be fixed and finished, however.
I'm 60 and played Elite on the BBC micro and loved it back then (I still have my boxed set of the game). I did not play many games in the period between Elite 84 and 2019 except for some flight simulators - notably the Condor/Condor 2 glider sims (for which I purchased a VR headset). Whilst looking around for other VR content, I noticed Ellite Dangerous, thought "Elite, I remember that!", and well - here I am, thousands of hours invested, many alt accounts, an active member of the Fuel Rats (>1000 rescues), and very much still loving the game, especially the now rarer opportunities that I get to play in VR.
I suppose long term involvement with ED does require that you enjoy the experiences and underlying game loops, and play in a way that gives you a purpose to play on. It's extremely easy to get fixated on wealth creation and rank progress, issues that are not helped by the profusion of fast progress guides on Youtube. Such players "Speedrun" progress, get their Anaconda (without meaningful progression through the variety of ships that the game offers), grind for their stretch goal of a Fleet Carrier (likely declaing that it's too expensive along the way). All they have known is grind and have never played for the joy of the game. Once those (IMO false) goals have been achieved, they have no gameplay to fall back on, and as they likely have more credits than they know what tto do with, no impetusto do normal trade or missions.none of the in-depth knowledge of the game that more seasoned commanders build up over years of more paced gameplay. As such i can see why some Commanders lose their way and see no reason to continue because of those reasons.
That said, ED DOES have issues. Whilst the concept of the game is still valid, the age of the game shows through. Whilst no other games match the scale of what ED does, others have a much more modern feel. For example yesterday one content creator in stream went to push a button inside an odyssey lift (as one would in another popular space game). To be honest, I was hoping that issues such as that were dealt with in the Odyssey release. I feel that ED missed a chance to modernise at that time, one that it badly needed to grasp IMO. I can also see how the issues and misjudgements around Odyssey's release disenfranchised many commanders hoping for more than what we got, some left soon adter Odyssey releae, some held on but faded away, some of us are still here. FDev have been bigging up now imminent new content. I hope it is enough to revitalise some of those lost commanders' interest.
My own gameplay styes were (and still include) Trading and Exploration, and I still massively enjoy both. I never was much into combat (space or on-foot). Much of my current gameplay is related to the Fuel Rats, and most evenings I'm out lobbing limpets, meeting commanders in trouble, and helping as best I'm able. Some of those experiences have been extraordinary, for example one particularly memorable rescue of a commander on emergency oxygen, which involved a long supercruse and a tense and unavoidable 40km boost in normal space to the client. Later, when talking to the client, I learned their life support was down to just one second when power was restored. I was physically shaking for several minutes following hearing that.
An extraordinary game (if you hold it the right way up). The quality and impact of the game is reflected in the amazing community that surrounds it.
I suppose long term involvement with ED does require that you enjoy the experiences and underlying game loops, and play in a way that gives you a purpose to play on. It's extremely easy to get fixated on wealth creation and rank progress, issues that are not helped by the profusion of fast progress guides on Youtube. Such players "Speedrun" progress, get their Anaconda (without meaningful progression through the variety of ships that the game offers), grind for their stretch goal of a Fleet Carrier (likely declaing that it's too expensive along the way). All they have known is grind and have never played for the joy of the game. Once those (IMO false) goals have been achieved, they have no gameplay to fall back on, and as they likely have more credits than they know what tto do with, no impetusto do normal trade or missions.none of the in-depth knowledge of the game that more seasoned commanders build up over years of more paced gameplay. As such i can see why some Commanders lose their way and see no reason to continue because of those reasons.
That said, ED DOES have issues. Whilst the concept of the game is still valid, the age of the game shows through. Whilst no other games match the scale of what ED does, others have a much more modern feel. For example yesterday one content creator in stream went to push a button inside an odyssey lift (as one would in another popular space game). To be honest, I was hoping that issues such as that were dealt with in the Odyssey release. I feel that ED missed a chance to modernise at that time, one that it badly needed to grasp IMO. I can also see how the issues and misjudgements around Odyssey's release disenfranchised many commanders hoping for more than what we got, some left soon adter Odyssey releae, some held on but faded away, some of us are still here. FDev have been bigging up now imminent new content. I hope it is enough to revitalise some of those lost commanders' interest.
My own gameplay styes were (and still include) Trading and Exploration, and I still massively enjoy both. I never was much into combat (space or on-foot). Much of my current gameplay is related to the Fuel Rats, and most evenings I'm out lobbing limpets, meeting commanders in trouble, and helping as best I'm able. Some of those experiences have been extraordinary, for example one particularly memorable rescue of a commander on emergency oxygen, which involved a long supercruse and a tense and unavoidable 40km boost in normal space to the client. Later, when talking to the client, I learned their life support was down to just one second when power was restored. I was physically shaking for several minutes following hearing that.
An extraordinary game (if you hold it the right way up). The quality and impact of the game is reflected in the amazing community that surrounds it.
Neah, people are kind to ED. Hang out elsewhere with other games and people are far more scathing about a games shortcomings.
Peoples complaints are legitimate.
No they're not kind LOL. Some complaints are legit. Many are not.
This.
You'd expect the superpower ranks and power play to be vehicles for narrative driven content.
Look at most successful MMO's. You align to one of the games nations/powers and embark on a narrative driven quest line that digs into that nations lore, conflicts, and world building from their perspective. As you rank up you get rewards.
In PvE MMO's (and some PvP) these nation storylines often converge into a "greater threat" storyline and branch out into sub narratives.
This trend isn't coincidental, its because they're the ideal places to thrust a narrative out there.
Now, its all fair and well going on about "personal narrative", but its a damp squib. MMO's like WoW and Final Fantasy XIV have vibrant role play communities within them of the likes ED could only ever dream of having. They also have a massive amount of narrative driven content far beyond the scope of a space game. Narrative content and personal narratives arent mutually exclusive. If anything they compliment, enrich and encourage each other.
Go over to GameFaqs or ResetEra...
Go to the Final Fantasy 7 Remake board, or Tales of Arise, both won GotY awards in their respective genres. Check other successful games communities.
No, people certainly are kind to ED.
I think it's easy to read a reply to a thread and assume that it's aimed at you. I try to separate the doom vs legit criticism, which I'm aware is based on my own perspectives even if I try to be as objective as possible, but I agree that there is room for critique as nothing is perfect. But it's also ok for some to want to just wax on the good stuff, of which there is plenty in Elite, in a thread such as this, despite the fact that yours and others' criticisms may be valid to a greater or lesser degree.
I played Elite on my C64 and Frontier on my Amiga, and while I am still waiting for the full Frontier experience in Elite Dangerous, I think it's pretty plain to see that if you compare the representation of the ships in Frontier to that of Elite Dangerous, applying the same level of advancement to surroundings, such as cities and terrestrial planets, is inordinately a much greater task, especially considering the raised expectations of it these days. Frontier was pretty state of the art on the Amiga, but that was 1993, nearly 30 years ago. There are other aspects of Elite Dangerous that completely blow Frontier clean out of the water, and I would never trade the two. Elite Dangerous, including Odyssey, is where it is at.
Elite Dangerous for the most part is the game I imagined when I played Frontier, better even. It is still being developed, and hopefully that will continue to encapsulate the development of the big features still to come.