Today, i've read the description of elite: dangerous on kickstarter.
I've played elite, frontier as well as first encounters. I have also played a bunch of what one would perhaps call elite-alikes.
I think that the way how elite: dangerous is described on kickstarter, simply is "not enough" - it doesn't offer anything new or unique that hasn't been done by other companies already. With this, i do NOT neccessarily mean, that E4 will actually be like all the others... (maybe, but given that braben has waited so long to make it happen, i doubt it)... so, what i'm "criticizing" here more is how E4 is "presented" to potential funders.
And honestly, i do not understand why it presents itself like "just another elite-alike", especially given that i haven't played any game yet, that captured the atmosphere and feeling of frontier and FFE.
Games like for example the X-franchise, as well as a lot of clones (including fan make clones, and including a current online game currently in development, that apparently can do with a 50k funding goal).... all those game feel "cold", "lifeless" and "computerized". It doesn't feel like traveling inside a CIVILIZATION - it feels like traveling inside a world of machines. All you ever do in those games, is press buttons, get feedback from computer voices .... its as if you are the only being ALIVE in the gameworld.
In frontier and FFE instead (and hints of this are already in elite1 itself), you get to browse blackboards with job offerings, you talk to PEOPLE in multiple choice menus, there are newspapers, there is background lore related to HUMANS. In short, it feels like you traveling and interacting inside a civilization of lifeforms, instead of a network of computers. Heck, the frontier disk version went as far, as procedurally generating character portraits.
No other space sandbox game i know of, has managed to give this impression to the player. At most, the closest i have seen is privateer, but that on in turn feels like a much smaller and more repetitive gameworld.
So my question is twofold:
1. Is Braben's vision for E4 still concerned with this "being part of a living civilization"-feel? Will it be an important aspect of E4, or will we like in all those clones just press buttons and interact with machines and numbers? Will it expand on what elite and frontier did in this regard? Will this be an evolution of past elites, or just be the same with updated graphics and multiplayer?
2. If the answer to #1 is yes, then why on kickstarter is E4 presented just like another bogstandard "elite-alike"? Why is there no mention of the things that made elite and frontier unique, and what every other corp and fan so far failed to "copy"? Why would E4 be presented as less than what is planned?
I've played elite, frontier as well as first encounters. I have also played a bunch of what one would perhaps call elite-alikes.
I think that the way how elite: dangerous is described on kickstarter, simply is "not enough" - it doesn't offer anything new or unique that hasn't been done by other companies already. With this, i do NOT neccessarily mean, that E4 will actually be like all the others... (maybe, but given that braben has waited so long to make it happen, i doubt it)... so, what i'm "criticizing" here more is how E4 is "presented" to potential funders.
And honestly, i do not understand why it presents itself like "just another elite-alike", especially given that i haven't played any game yet, that captured the atmosphere and feeling of frontier and FFE.
Games like for example the X-franchise, as well as a lot of clones (including fan make clones, and including a current online game currently in development, that apparently can do with a 50k funding goal).... all those game feel "cold", "lifeless" and "computerized". It doesn't feel like traveling inside a CIVILIZATION - it feels like traveling inside a world of machines. All you ever do in those games, is press buttons, get feedback from computer voices .... its as if you are the only being ALIVE in the gameworld.
In frontier and FFE instead (and hints of this are already in elite1 itself), you get to browse blackboards with job offerings, you talk to PEOPLE in multiple choice menus, there are newspapers, there is background lore related to HUMANS. In short, it feels like you traveling and interacting inside a civilization of lifeforms, instead of a network of computers. Heck, the frontier disk version went as far, as procedurally generating character portraits.
No other space sandbox game i know of, has managed to give this impression to the player. At most, the closest i have seen is privateer, but that on in turn feels like a much smaller and more repetitive gameworld.
So my question is twofold:
1. Is Braben's vision for E4 still concerned with this "being part of a living civilization"-feel? Will it be an important aspect of E4, or will we like in all those clones just press buttons and interact with machines and numbers? Will it expand on what elite and frontier did in this regard? Will this be an evolution of past elites, or just be the same with updated graphics and multiplayer?
2. If the answer to #1 is yes, then why on kickstarter is E4 presented just like another bogstandard "elite-alike"? Why is there no mention of the things that made elite and frontier unique, and what every other corp and fan so far failed to "copy"? Why would E4 be presented as less than what is planned?