An Honest Review From a well-rounded gamer(non-spacenerd)

First off, I would like to state that I'm not a space enthusiast/geek/nerd. I never cared to watch star trek but I do absolutely love the original star wars and the concept of such a life excites me.

With that said, this review is purely from a 30 year old well rounded gamer. I tend to play a variety of games that do not relate at all to one another and give every game I play an honest effort until an overall opinion is reached. I may get some heat for some of my harsh criticism of the game and Frontier, but I feel like my opinions might be shared by a lot of like-minded gamer's that really wanted to like this game.

The first day or so of playing was very confusing, This stage in a game is often the most fun as learning something new is one of the coolest parts of being a gamer. The lessons learned in the first couple of days were not exactly noob-like lessons of basic combat or how to make a basic bankroll. The missions were confusing and near impossible to find or complete resulting in fines, some bounties did not register, and nobody every says anything about requesting docking with a space station(until you learn the hard way). Many invisible rules to this game that someone with less tolerance then I would probably not put up with, It's not very noobie friendly at all- I actually liked this aspect but I'm a sicko for punishment.

Finding your way through the first few ships is the most fun I've had with the game, hunting bounties and cashing in 100k after an hours worth of work was pretty rewarding at first. Of coarse Once I got to my viper I wanted to find harder,higher bounties- they don't exist!?

So how do I move on up the line? Buy a spacetruck and fly back and forth for hours trading these socalled rare items that have low risk and high reward, and you can do it in solo play to completely avoid any player/pirate interactions. My mind is completely blown at the thought of gold miners and less skilled players just switching offline and doing it in their own protected bubble, AND THE MONEY COUNTS IN OPEN MODE!? WHAT?

After finding out this much of the game I had to go online to do some reading, I needed to know what was up with the things I had issues with and if they were being talked about and/or changed. I found the answers to be disturbing, "We just want more players to dip their toes into the game" So I moved onto my next gripe, the lack of group work: Drive slaving- not going to happen because they want to keep the game more difficult and/or make groups coordinate to be able to fast travel.... This directly butts up against the previous reply of wanting "people to dip their toes into ed", I understand how frustrating it would be to get intradicted by a group of 6 people when you are solo but to not have group travel and group pvp is madness.

My suggestions:
Add in more group play
Make missions easier to find/track- Make GROUP missions
60 LY on the galaxy map? what?
For a typical gamer this game gets insanely boring after about 50 hrs played, if you wanted people to not get what they paid for you did well frontier
More ships and capital ships, encourage massive pvp battles
Live events- Bring those war ships in and start attacking random systems and or spaceports


Frontier as a company

I like the mission statement and their goals, I looked into the company more on glassdoor and such to get a feel for the atmosphere they have going on there. After reading about them, all faith I was holding onto has vanished. Their dev's are vastly underpaid and abused in many different ways. I simply cannot put even a dollar bet on this game ever turning out to be what we all think it should be. This game has no business being in a "released" state.


I'd love to hear more feedback from others that came here with no expectations and found this game to have little left to desire at this point, and what everyone's counter arguments might be. I'm sure I will still play from time to time and mostly hunt bounties but I had hoped this game would take up more of my time(In a good way).

Schindler
 
I got as far as you saying that you are a well rounded gamer and that you don't seem to like science fiction.

Like you, I am also a well roundedngamer, but I really like science fiction. In fact it was my love of SF that got me to buy the original Elite thirty years ago. I enjoy nearly every aspect of ED.

Running trade routes in my Type 6 is great, lots of fun. I especially like being able to switch from Open to Solo.

Maybe if you liked Science Fiction, your experience would have been even better.
 
I too am also appauled at the inability to group up with friends to feel safer and do things as a group. It actually feels like there are a lot of mechanics AGAINST playing together cooperatively. And ya... Space trucks. I've gone there too =(

To "DRIVER," It's fine that you like driving your space truck. What's not fine is that everyone has to drive space trucks to actually afford the bigger ships. It's not fine that all the other ships in the game are balanced in credits around the profits one can make while trading. And trading alone! In the same amount of time bounty hunting as space trucking, you don't make nearly that much money. All career paths should be viable to obtain the ships they want to use. Everyone shouldn't be required to do trading to get that next upgrade.

Also, I have to say space trucks is extremely boring. It's A-B-A-B type stuff... and that's it. You also trade only in high commodities. I as a Space Truck driver never even consider goods below 4k, usually only ever look at High Tech systems and other systems that provide metal... because who trades grain? maybe 100 profit per ton? PFFFT chump change! Trading could be SO much more in depth and far better than it is, but it's not.

This game while awesome, lacks a lot in the content/design department for motivation.
 
This is definitely not the typical game for the typical gamer. Thank goodness. There are plenty of rail rides out there for "typical" gamers that will give them the dopamine dumps for perceived achievement that they're addicted to. This is much more aimed at the old school gamers that enjoyed games like the original Elite and space sims and don't want everything force fed to them or have their hand held and a mission marker always telling them where to go and what to do next.
 
Last edited:
I got as far as you saying that you are a well rounded gamer and that you don't seem to like science fiction.

Like you, I am also a well roundedngamer, but I really like science fiction. In fact it was my love of SF that got me to buy the original Elite thirty years ago. I enjoy nearly every aspect of ED.

Running trade routes in my Type 6 is great, lots of fun. I especially like being able to switch from Open to Solo.

Maybe if you liked Science Fiction, your experience would have been even better.

I'm sorry if reading essays is too much, keep on truckin brotha
 
Ticks all my boxes. Only other thing i have played for years is HOMM series. Have had my moneys worth from this game many, many times over. But of course that isnt what you want to hear is it...
 
I do wonder why you bought this game if you do not like what it is about.
Also, not figuring out how to request docking permission? Seriously? You really haven't seen a single video about this in advance either? Not played with the interfaces? It's actually not rocket science, no pun intended.

You weren't interested in this before and now complain that you didn't get what you wanted...

If I went to buy GTA and then complained about being unable to explore star system... that would be silly, wouldn't it? (to say the very littlest)
 
This is definitely not the typical game for the typical gamer. Thank goodness. There are plenty of rail rides out there for "typical" gamers that will give them the dopamine dumps for perceived achievement that they're addicted to. This is much more aimed at the old school gamers that enjoyed games like the original Elite and space sims and don't want everything force fed to them or have their hand held and a mission marker always telling them where to go and what to do next.

And I appreciate the authenticity to it, but lets be real here. This game won't be around for any of you unless drastic changes are made to appeal to the masses. You had your authentic old school space sim with the first elite, it's time for a bump in the content to get it to today's standards(CIG seems to understand this).
 
I do wonder why you bought this game if you do not like what it is about.
Also, not figuring out how to request docking permission? Seriously? You really haven't seen a single video about this in advance either? Not played with the interfaces? It's actually not rocket science, no pun intended.

You weren't interested in this before and now complain that you didn't get what you wanted...

If I went to buy GTA and then complained about being unable to explore star system... that would be silly, wouldn't it? (to say the very littlest)

Because being directed to the website shows an immersive, combat oriented and unforgiving space sandbox of do what you want when you want and conquer the galaxies.... If they wanted an accurate representation of this game it would be 1/5th dog fighting for bounties and 4/5th's cruising around in space looking at nothing special.

I really don't mean to bash on the space games because I'm not a spacey guy, I'm just a typical gamer that wanted to play a good fun game. This game has a lot going for it and it COULD be what most of us want it to be, my opinion is that it won't ever reach that level and it's a shame because I WANTED to like what I paid my $60 for.

You guys can say good riddance and whisk me off, but I'm just one of many that will go for similar reasons. I thought it would be a small contribution to post my reasons for leaving instead of the latter.
 
Things like docking permission were covered in the tutorial missions. Surely you started with those right? ;)


Yes of coarse however being that it looked like an MMO game, I'm sure many people jumped into OPEN play expecting some sort of online tutorial...

My problem with requesting docking wasn't that I got blown up for forgetting to do it, it's that maybe there should be a warning while approaching the door or bay that says you aren't authorized for docking or something.... Long space trucking trips make a trucker forgetful and being blown up for it is a little extreme. Needless to say I never forgot to ask permission again.
 
He has a point there. And clearly he wants it to make it just like the rest of us or he wouldn't have bothered making this post.
 
And I appreciate the authenticity to it, but lets be real here. This game won't be around for any of you unless drastic changes are made to appeal to the masses. You had your authentic old school space sim with the first elite, it's time for a bump in the content to get it to today's standards(CIG seems to understand this).

Yes yes doom and gloom, the typical gamers have been spouting this at us for quite some time. Its yet to be true. Its a niche market, Frontier knows its a niche market, they planned on it being a niche market, and so far its gotten great reviews and is exceeding their sales expectations, to the point they are adding more development staff. There is definitely going to be continual development and added content, but I don't at any point see them attempting to appeal to the masses. Id rather see the Elite franchise die and mourn its loss than just be another typical game.
 
This game is more Star Trek than Star Wars.

Star Wars is serial-level fantasy that happens to take place in space sometimes. It's fun and I love it, too, but when you started out saying, 'I like Star Wars...', I immediately thought, 'oh this guy is not going to have a good time'.

lol.
 
Last edited:
You say "most of you" as if you did extensive surveys about what ED backers want.

You are projecting your own ideas on this and want to turn it into what _you_ think a game should be.

Think back. Remember the days when every game was different. When you learned controls by hitting every button on the keyboard. When you had no idea what you were about to experience when you got a new game, because there was no internet around to tell you what to expect, what to believe, what to make of it.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

This game is more Star Trek than Star Wars.

Star Wars is serial-level fantasy that happens to take place in space sometimes. It's fun and I love it, too, but when you started out saying, 'I like Star Wars...', I immediately thought, 'oh this guy is not going to have a good time'.

lol.

Yeah. That. ^^
 
Because being directed to the website shows an immersive, combat oriented and unforgiving space sandbox of do what you want when you want and conquer the galaxies.... If they wanted an accurate representation of this game it would be 1/5th dog fighting for bounties and 4/5th's cruising around in space looking at nothing special.

I really don't mean to bash on the space games because I'm not a spacey guy, I'm just a typical gamer that wanted to play a good fun game. This game has a lot going for it and it COULD be what most of us want it to be, my opinion is that it won't ever reach that level and it's a shame because I WANTED to like what I paid my $60 for.

You guys can say good riddance and whisk me off, but I'm just one of many that will go for similar reasons. I thought it would be a small contribution to post my reasons for leaving instead of the latter.

Go then? Why does everyone feel the need to write out a huge novel when they're leaving. I can understand if you were a pillar of the community but you're certainly not, so just walk to the damn exit. Imagine if someone stood up on a table and rattled off a speech about their innermost desires and feelings before leaving a local McDonald's. Hopefully that person would be told to shut the hell up and leave.
 
Back
Top Bottom