Old persons view of ED?
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Elite: An old persons view...
- Thread starter CaptnPicard2305
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I think i share the same history, mostly. But instead of BBC Micro it was Spectrum 48k first then a 286 computer. Now turning 51 and being part of Elite Dangerous since release 2014 and has been on and off from time to time.
One thing i do miss in my modern Elite experience is that i don't have any friends playing. So its largely a single player experience for me. But i have it on my bucket list to try to find some new friends to play with. But my problem is my time, and i am only able to join on and off.
My biggest grief with Elite now is the way story arcs is ongoing and it makes it difficult to follow for an on and offer . I know i would love it to know when to join in and focus... as i do now, at the end of this arc, which i now know i would have loved to be part of from the beginning...
One thing i do miss in my modern Elite experience is that i don't have any friends playing. So its largely a single player experience for me. But i have it on my bucket list to try to find some new friends to play with. But my problem is my time, and i am only able to join on and off.
My biggest grief with Elite now is the way story arcs is ongoing and it makes it difficult to follow for an on and offer . I know i would love it to know when to join in and focus... as i do now, at the end of this arc, which i now know i would have loved to be part of from the beginning...
Well, I see this is pretty much a boomer thread, but I want to give my 2 cents.
I was born in 92, started playing vidya in 96 or 97 when my dad bought me a a two year old NES(we got consoles way later than they were originally released here in Mexico) and got a classic Xbox with Combat Evolved by the time I was 10.
Graphically: Elite is good but nothing to brag about. I would even say graphically it was already outdated by 2015, when we got stuff like Battlefront, Bloodborne, Halo 5 or Forza Horizon 2. And those were released in the same year Elite Released pretty much, jump to 2022... It's an old gen game and it shows, graphically it reallly can only compete with Indies (and those pretty much live and dy by Pixel graphics)
Gameplay wise: Too grindy for a modern game, I get that everyone here takes pride in "hard work and accomplishments" and thinks that for some reason we would stop playing if we got endgame content in our first 60 hours (case in point I have 1500 hours on Dark Souls 3 on Steam and 600 on my PS4, I beat that game in the weekend I bought it and 100% in the next 2 months, I still play Souls Games religiously even when I can kill Slave Knight Gael in NG+10 in 4 hits with the most overpowered and ridiculous build I could create)
I get it, that's the cultural paradigm you guys grew up, and it isn't bad, but things have changed, both in the workplace and life in general, working "hard" is seeing as stupid and too much of a time sink, Millenials like me and 15 to 25 year old Zoomers live and die by "working smart" doing the most amount of stuff in the most efficient and less time consuming way possible. If you saw in how much time I actually work per day in real life you would probably have a heart attack (hint: it's less than 4 hours of actual work) and I complete all my daily tasks at work before 2 pm mostly and I "start working" at 9 (actually start at 10 or 10:30 I need my coffee and my morning reading). You would probably call me lazy seeing how little I work, but I pretty much automated my whole job in the first week I was hired because I'm not gonna spend 40 hours a week doing something a chimpanzee could do with a little training.
Elite Dangerous has "boomer gameplay" as I like to call it. A huge timesink of menial tasks that could and should be quicker by modern gaming standards but It's ok, you guys are probably a huge percentage of the player base. but younger people like me, my friends and my siblings live in a different cultural paradigm, where our time is extremely valuable and something to be extremely protective off. A gameplay loop on par with a Korean MMO doesn't fly with us for the most part (unless we are Korean lol)
Narrative and Story: Don't get me started... Everything is pretty much delivered through galnet. There's no questline, no unique characters, no unique conclusions, no player agency on how everything unfolds (CGs have some of it, but it's extremely shallow and boils down to "deliver X amount of Y" most of the time). If I wanted to read about something that is happening without me not affecting jack... I would read about the War in Ukraine or the Blockade the Chinese are trying on Taiwan not play a videogame, Sandbox games these days (and for the past two decades pretty much) have embraced intricate storylines as a way to hook the players to the game, just like Grand Theft Auto, the storyline is short but engaging and you cans till do tons of stuff in your own way afterwards, even survival sandbox games come with "main quests" or some sort of narrative that the player can affect nowadays, like for example Valheim, Green Hell, Dying Light 1 and 2... I could even go as far back as Morrowind or Oblivion for this.
But... I do love Elite Dangerous and if I ever had a comfort game to just listen to audiobooks or watch a movie while relaxing, my first choice would be Elite Dangerous, always. Althought it does compete with Elden Ring right now and Death Stranding for that spot lol.
This is just a perspective of someone less than half your age, and who grew up with a completely different style of videogames
I was born in 92, started playing vidya in 96 or 97 when my dad bought me a a two year old NES(we got consoles way later than they were originally released here in Mexico) and got a classic Xbox with Combat Evolved by the time I was 10.
Graphically: Elite is good but nothing to brag about. I would even say graphically it was already outdated by 2015, when we got stuff like Battlefront, Bloodborne, Halo 5 or Forza Horizon 2. And those were released in the same year Elite Released pretty much, jump to 2022... It's an old gen game and it shows, graphically it reallly can only compete with Indies (and those pretty much live and dy by Pixel graphics)
Gameplay wise: Too grindy for a modern game, I get that everyone here takes pride in "hard work and accomplishments" and thinks that for some reason we would stop playing if we got endgame content in our first 60 hours (case in point I have 1500 hours on Dark Souls 3 on Steam and 600 on my PS4, I beat that game in the weekend I bought it and 100% in the next 2 months, I still play Souls Games religiously even when I can kill Slave Knight Gael in NG+10 in 4 hits with the most overpowered and ridiculous build I could create)
I get it, that's the cultural paradigm you guys grew up, and it isn't bad, but things have changed, both in the workplace and life in general, working "hard" is seeing as stupid and too much of a time sink, Millenials like me and 15 to 25 year old Zoomers live and die by "working smart" doing the most amount of stuff in the most efficient and less time consuming way possible. If you saw in how much time I actually work per day in real life you would probably have a heart attack (hint: it's less than 4 hours of actual work) and I complete all my daily tasks at work before 2 pm mostly and I "start working" at 9 (actually start at 10 or 10:30 I need my coffee and my morning reading). You would probably call me lazy seeing how little I work, but I pretty much automated my whole job in the first week I was hired because I'm not gonna spend 40 hours a week doing something a chimpanzee could do with a little training.
Elite Dangerous has "boomer gameplay" as I like to call it. A huge timesink of menial tasks that could and should be quicker by modern gaming standards but It's ok, you guys are probably a huge percentage of the player base. but younger people like me, my friends and my siblings live in a different cultural paradigm, where our time is extremely valuable and something to be extremely protective off. A gameplay loop on par with a Korean MMO doesn't fly with us for the most part (unless we are Korean lol)
Narrative and Story: Don't get me started... Everything is pretty much delivered through galnet. There's no questline, no unique characters, no unique conclusions, no player agency on how everything unfolds (CGs have some of it, but it's extremely shallow and boils down to "deliver X amount of Y" most of the time). If I wanted to read about something that is happening without me not affecting jack... I would read about the War in Ukraine or the Blockade the Chinese are trying on Taiwan not play a videogame, Sandbox games these days (and for the past two decades pretty much) have embraced intricate storylines as a way to hook the players to the game, just like Grand Theft Auto, the storyline is short but engaging and you cans till do tons of stuff in your own way afterwards, even survival sandbox games come with "main quests" or some sort of narrative that the player can affect nowadays, like for example Valheim, Green Hell, Dying Light 1 and 2... I could even go as far back as Morrowind or Oblivion for this.
But... I do love Elite Dangerous and if I ever had a comfort game to just listen to audiobooks or watch a movie while relaxing, my first choice would be Elite Dangerous, always. Althought it does compete with Elden Ring right now and Death Stranding for that spot lol.
This is just a perspective of someone less than half your age, and who grew up with a completely different style of videogames
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From my boomer perspective, it seems that you are overpaid and your employer is not getting value from employing you, and is not effectively managing you. It has been my experience, that if I am employed, that my work time is my employer's, and that if I finish "my" daily tasks then I am required to help out where ever I can, assisting others, covering absences etc and doing additional tasks as required. Your employer should restructure contracts to make your position part time with commensurate pay or give you additional work and responsibilities to fill your work hours. If he wishes to give you a bonus for identifying more efficient working practices, then that should be applauded.
Your situation seems to be a failing of many modern businesses, overpaid and underworked employees negatively impacting the profitably of the business. It is likely that at some stage the business may be forced into making changes to remain in business by implementing more efficient working practices. Enjoy the good times while you can, as times change and over the next 40 years things are likely to get worse and better in cycles. Us Boomers have been through it already.
Finally, please do not take my comments personally, they are aimed at the modern work culture. Something us boomers not understanding and end up shaking our heads in disbelief.
Steve 07.
I think it highlights just how inefficiently some businesses are run, but change is on the way. One example is the recent move to working from home or hybrid working. There have been quite a few comments how various employers aren't moving with the times on this one but once there's the realisation of how much can be done by a motivated employee when all office distractions are removed (if they're not motivated, that's poor leadership, so I'm expecting changes in expectations of management too), so expectations of workload are going to be significantly increased. However I do find I'm also more motivated to start work when my 1 hour+ daily commute is removed as well.
Personally I think being able to get 4-5 hours of work done is fine, but it won't be long before companies insist stretch goals, training and development fill up the rest of the time. Anyone in a comfort zone right now probably is going to find themselves out of it pretty soon.
Well there is still some time to make a pilgrimage over the weekend. The following list is most of the story of INRA / Azimuth and the development of the mycoid weapon. IIRC each site has voice logs that can be discovered with a SRV. It more or less tells the story about Azimuth. There are a few other ones like the black flight, but that span huge distances and is probably best made with a fleet carrier or over time. For instance it starts with one site in Colonia and then continues in the bubble. The mega ships are a bit boring and only text logs, but one can follow that trail too, there's not all that many of them. This IMO is the best of it due to the creepy locations and the voice logs.I think i share the same history, mostly. But instead of BBC Micro it was Spectrum 48k first then a 286 computer. Now turning 51 and being part of Elite Dangerous since release 2014 and has been on and off from time to time.
One thing i do miss in my modern Elite experience is that i don't have any friends playing. So its largely a single player experience for me. But i have it on my bucket list to try to find some new friends to play with. But my problem is my time, and i am only able to join on and off.
My biggest grief with Elite now is the way story arcs is ongoing and it makes it difficult to follow for an on and offer . I know i would love it to know when to join in and focus... as i do now, at the end of this arc, which i now know i would have loved to be part of from the beginning...
Hermitage 4 a - Hollis Gateway
HIP 15329 A 3 c - Stuart Retreat
Alnath A 2 a a - Klatt Enterprises
HIP 59382 1 b - Mayes Chemical Plant
HIP 7158 A 2 b - Hogan Depot
LP 389-95 7 - Velasquez Medical Research Centre
Conn A 3 a - Ameida Landing
HIP 16824 A 2 f - Carmichael Point
HIP 12099 1 a - Stack
12 Trianguli A 1- Taylor Keep
HIP 12099 1 b - Jameson's Crash Site
Ahem; Gen X not Boomer, didn't they teach you Millennials anything? And who exactly do you think developed the concept of automating tasks?
To put things into perspective, to many of the younger generation, reading a book from end to end is an unbearable grind. Whose fault this is is a different discussion but if one doesn't understand someone else's motivations, simply relegating them to the future's dustbin is not a response that will get much respect. I am happy to know that not all young people are like that but many of those find their environments increasingly difficult.
Another point is, that games of the past on computers of the past didn't have the complexity we're used to now. You simply can't compare things running in 64 kB with the GBs of today. Maybe in another 20 years our stuff will be dwarfed by many more orders of magnitude and the generation after that thinks it was all rubbish. What they don't understand is that theirs wouldn't exist without it.
Another point is, that games of the past on computers of the past didn't have the complexity we're used to now. You simply can't compare things running in 64 kB with the GBs of today. Maybe in another 20 years our stuff will be dwarfed by many more orders of magnitude and the generation after that thinks it was all rubbish. What they don't understand is that theirs wouldn't exist without it.
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As an older Gen Xer who mentally aligns more with millennials, I agree with much of what you say, but not everything. Particular differences of opinion include:
- Graphics - Judging a game based on how photorealistic it is a pretty shallow "skin deep" assessment. There are plenty of photorealistic games that are rubbish, and there are plenty of "cartoony" games that are amazing. That's not to say I don't have standards. For example, one of the reasons I didn't get hooked by Empyrion is that for me personally, the graphics are too primitive compared to its competition. And "primitive" is different than "cartoony" or "not 100% photorealistic". There's a minimum threshold that a game must meet to draw me in, and Elite meets that threshold. And just because there may be other games with better graphics doesn't mean those games themselves are better. I own both Red Dead Online and Elder Scrolls Online, and RDO looks way better than ESO, yet I almost exclusively play ESO because it's just a much better game IMO, and while not as good looking as RDO, it still looks pretty amazing IMO. On the other hand, I could not go back and play Oblivion, no matter how good the game is, because it doesn't meet my minimum graphics threshold.
...
I do take issue when Elite fanatics mock games like No Man's Sky for being cartoony or tell people to buy the most expensive video card for Odyssey's "superior" graphics, as if Odyssey graphics are a ground-breaking achievement in photorealism. That's spit-out-my-coffee laughable, and it tends to come from people who compare Odyssey to their old Atari 2600 video games rather than other modern games.
- Grind and Story - I do think a lot of younger people are in a huge hurry to "win", which makes them see anything that gets in the way as a grind rather than gameplay. I've been running a lot of public team dungeons in ESO lately, and one thing I hate is that my teammates are racing through so fast that I can barely keep up. There is no talking to NPCs unless it's mandatory to finish the dungeon, and even then it's click through dialog as fast as possible if I don't want to be left behind. It's just run, fight, run fight, run, fight, "win". I've done multiple dungeons that I can't even remember what was in them because it was such an insane sprint. What's the point of having good story and narratives if you're just going to blaze through and ignore them? I'm guessing most these players have done these dungeons before, but if one is going to run the same dungeon 1000 times, what point is there in a good narrative in the first place? It's often players that make something a grind (gotta get those champion points) more than it is the game, and I think we older people tend to go slower, take our time, smell the roses, enjoy our environment, immerse ourselves in the game world, etc. That's not to say that Elite doesn't have grindy elements to it (for me it's mandatory gameplay to unlock XYZ that I don't find enjoyable at any pace), but it's not as bad as some people make it out to be. In fact, if Elite were "dumbed down" to be a "finish in a weekend" kind of game, I would have uninstalled it years ago. But you're a Souls player, so I'm guessing you're not looking for "Easy Mode Elite". Maybe you're just looking for "sprint through as fast as possible like my teammates in an ESO dungeon" Elite? And if that's the case, why should Frontier even bother with any story at all?
...
But personally, as someone who does like to take their time and enjoy all the story and narrative in ESO quests, I find Elite's game world very "flat", generic, and ultimately disappointing. It has thousands of inhabited systems that all feel the same. There's more to Tamriel - one continent on one planet, than there is in 400 billion star systems combined in Elite. I blame ED's cookie-cutter generic procgen mission system and simplistic BGS for this, compared to the hand-crafted narratives of most MMOs. This is one of the reasons I'm so looking forward to Starfield, which while having just a tiny fraction of the planets of Elite, will likely have magnitudes more content and "life". But of course this is my own subjective opinion based on the types of games I like to play. Some people love sand, and ED has lots of that (400 billion grains of almost identical sand), and I'm not going to fault them for enjoying the game that Elite is. In fact, I know there are people who do not like hand-crafted narrative and scripted missions, people who hate games like ESO, so one could argue that Elite was made for them.
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It's about the journey rather than the destination...eh? In Elite Dangerous, "I" will never get to the end...
Time is a cruel master of us all. How we manipulate it depends on our circumstances. Most of us have jobs, long hours, unsociable etc. Little time to play a game that requires time itself to progress.
Its a long commitment to unlock & engineer ships suits personal weps etc. The grind is there..have no doubt.
There are huge opportunities and scope for content that could keep us amused for decades. Would need constant updating.....sound familiar?
Elites progress is ongoing,.a few steps back n forth.
Let's hope it continues in a general forwards direction
Its a long commitment to unlock & engineer ships suits personal weps etc. The grind is there..have no doubt.
There are huge opportunities and scope for content that could keep us amused for decades. Would need constant updating.....sound familiar?
Elites progress is ongoing,.a few steps back n forth.
Let's hope it continues in a general forwards direction
Being in Elite with C-64, then amiga and then Pc with Elite Dangerous.
Problem for me is how Frontier has almost stopped (stopped, for me, = slowly progressed during those years) the development of the game basically leaving out all of the promises done during along the kickstarter.
A swallow game, repetitive task, grind, lack of missions, have definitly driven me far away from the game.
I am looking to Starfield with interested: let's see what it will bring...
Problem for me is how Frontier has almost stopped (stopped, for me, = slowly progressed during those years) the development of the game basically leaving out all of the promises done during along the kickstarter.
A swallow game, repetitive task, grind, lack of missions, have definitly driven me far away from the game.
I am looking to Starfield with interested: let's see what it will bring...
It takes a long commitment to unlock a yacht IRL (unless you're born to money), so I just enjoy my canoe instead.
Started off with Spectrum and then Amiga and I came across Elite back in 2016 ? For Xbox ( just missed out on the MK4) my first Multi player game . Took me 2 years for triple elite I sort of bimballed around doing stuff enjoyed the game it for what it was.
It's showing its age and I feel it sat on its bahoochie for a long time and didn't really innovate and it has fallen behind many of the newer games ( in my opinion) and has now only realised it. But it's the same with many other long running games they have run out of steam . But that's not saying it's "doomed" Its one of these comfort games you can go back nothing will have changed and you carry on as you left .
It's showing its age and I feel it sat on its bahoochie for a long time and didn't really innovate and it has fallen behind many of the newer games ( in my opinion) and has now only realised it. But it's the same with many other long running games they have run out of steam . But that's not saying it's "doomed" Its one of these comfort games you can go back nothing will have changed and you carry on as you left .
some of your opinions needs to prove in the future. i´am boomer aswell and i recognize the upcoming fear in our society how the future will continue when all the boomers are in retirement. there a lots of specialists and well educated people who have done their job 40-50 years and gained a lot of experience, they are not easy to replace and certainly not with lots of "smart working people sitting in the homeoffice and waiting for someone who maintain their powergrid, watersupply, heating ...... and take care of their health support whan they get older". Its normal generation stuff that young people believe their are smarter than previous generations (i have believed this aswell 40years ago) but current social develpments show they are not.
sorry for being offtopic, i have started with computers approx 45years ago with self soldered 8085 computers and dip-switch assembler coding. in university i even had to take courses on mainframes with punch cards. not many people here may understand what i´am talking about. other than that i fully agree with the OP.
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Oh the days of programming a computer byte by byte flipping switches! Those were truly the bad old days!
No worries,
I don't take it personally, we live in different cultural paradigms and different work culture, we seldom take pride in "hard work" but pride ourselves on "smart work", while in your time "hard work" was the norm as if in some weird twisted "life is suffering, deal with it" kind of way, while people my age and younger are most of the mind akin to "Life is Party, enjoy the hell out of it". Most of the time me and my peers are looking for ways to work quick and efficient. And it's funny, the company I work for had been having record profits this past half year, and my managers and GM are very happy with my perfomance. "underworked" is subjective, because when I finish my work at 2-3 pm, I just keep the Slack open (I work from home thank god) in case of an emergency and my email in case I have to jump on a meeting with a client.
It's really interesting how the way we both percieve the world is miles apart and it even affects how we play or think about our videogames
07 commander!
That's the thing... I'm playing a videogame, to escape reality and wind down. Not to "work for my virtual Yacht" hahahahaIt takes a long commitment to unlock a yacht IRL (unless you're born to money), so I just enjoy my canoe instead.
Elite, like many games, is a game of progression, where you can't just log in on day one and fly any ship you want like a flight simulator.
The point I was making in my last post is that I can enjoy Elite just as much (more, actually) flying a ship I can earn in hours as I can in one that takes days or weeks to obtain. Most content in Elite is not gated - Thargoids are the only thing that comes to mind, and I just don't bother with them because that is one grind I'm not interested in.
But if the only way someone can enjoy Elite is by flying a G5 Cutter or Corvette, and they don't want to "earn" that ship by playing the game, then you're right, Elite's not the game for them.