In my opinion it is neither. Allow me to elaborate:
Let me start with this: I'm still pretty new at Elite, A bit under 72 hours total but it'll climb bit by bit every day (or at least for now)
Now on to my explanation.
Elite Dangerous has the reputation it deserves right now. The game while feeling great isn't that deep but let's start with the good parts.
Starting with the flying:
While i have played games like Elite namely Freelancer (that game is an old masterpiece seriously, if you haven't played it yet you should), Strike suit zero, X rebirth (i played it because i couldn't get Elite Dangerous at the time) and out of these games Elite feels the most free and engaging to use. I changed the pitch and roll control immediately because it felt seriously clunky to me but past that it's great how you can control nearly everything your ship does. Flight assist is great as well for flying with a feeling that you are actually flying in space.
Combat:
While i didn't really engage that much in combat (i'm a trader at heart) i do still enjoy the parts that i did, the human NPC's have a good difficulty to them at higher levels but are reasonably easy at lower levels and thus perfect to start out and invest time into it. Thargoids are a fun challenge (even though i was pretty much carried by the CMDRs i was flying with) and man do they sound good. Which brings me to my next point.
Sounds and effects:
Elite dangerous is a great looking game and sounding game. My Elite runs on mid settings considering i have a GTX 1050 and i prioritise FPS over textures. i started up ED for the first time, got in my sidewinder and thought **** it's running on ultra so i went to my settings to find that the graphics were on Mid, it's funny that many games of that release time have graphics on ultra that look worse than Elite Dangerous on mid. And the sound, man that's a gem as well. I remember the first time the countdown started for the FSD and was struck with an adrenaline rush for how cool it was both in effects and sound.
Other mechanics:
Things like Asteroid Core Mining while being relatively new are engaging and fun to do (albeït tedious at times, yes i'm looking at you pulse scanner), they sound and look their part too. Cracking open an asteroid for the first time was again a great experience and i never grow tired of it.
Now let's go to the bad as well, let's not kid ourselves there's quite a few.
Bugs:
Don't get me wrong here every game has bugs but Elite has some bugs that really need to be ironed out. Like the Wing core mining bug where your charge will explode right away even though it shouldn't and the likes. Again bugs are normal so it can somewhat be excused.
The map:
Elite Dangerous has a massive and i mean MASSIVE map, but that comes with a catch. The map was clearly created by an automatic engine, this resulted in a general pattern to be present in nearly all systems. Most systems will have 1 or 2 main orbits around the sun and some lesser orbits around the main orbits. This results in a reduction of variety.
In-Game purchases:
To me this is kind of a big one but to others it most likely isn't. For me being able to customize everything is a big thing in these kind of games, i like to look good and i will skip certain ships just because i don't like how they look (the Fer-De-Lance for example). But any and all vanity is locked behind a paywall. Elite Dangerous is certainly not expensive (25 euro's here) it is still a game you buy to then have to spend more money on said game. Now don't get me wrong here, i don't hate it. With how niche this game is it's a big thing to still get revenue after sales but it'd like there to be at least some options that i can buy with credits instead of everything with real money only.
Missions:
Missions give **** all if you're trying to get a more expensive ship, my python for example would've taken me at least 1680 hours to get if i was earning credits at the rate i was doing missions. After 60 hours of playtime i had roughly 14M overall (6M in credits, 8m in assets) when i was doing the highest earning missions i could do. Considering the ship i was going for was an Imperial clipper i'd need around 140M credits to buy and fit it properly.
In-game help:
While i hate games holding your hand (like COD or any recently released game for that matter) the way Elite Dangerous just throws you out is also a bad thing. Things like Core mining, ranks, reputation, outfitting prices and so on you'd be crazy to say you don't have much to do. But a new player won't know that, they'll see the surface of everything (mining with mining lasers, missions, some trading which is all somewhat explained) but not the rest because none of this is ever even mentioned. Finding things out for yourself is great and all but not being able to know anything because nothing is ever mentioned isn't a good thing. Or at least in my opinion.
Ship and weapon variety:
While not being a really big point it's still worth mentioning. Elite doesn't have much in terms of variety, ships have not many classes they are classified in and not many ships in said classifications: Fighters (8 ships), freighters (5 ships), multipurpose (8 ships) and passanger (3 ships, one of which DLC locked). Compare that to Freelancer (a game released in 2000) has 2 main classes: Fighter (25 ships total) and frieghter (6 ships) with Fighter having 3 sub classes: light (11 ships), heavy (9 ships) and very heavy (5 ships). Freelancer while being a way older game (elite coming out a whopping 14 years later) has more ships in it's fighter class than Elite does in total (don't believe me? check out the Freelancer wiki: https://freelancer.fandom.com/wiki/Vessel_Types). Weapons however are about the same, that still isn't great though.
But with that let's end this with a high note. I love Elite Dangerous, i really do. Its community, or at least what i interacted with, is great and seriously helpful. The gameplay is great and the sounds are perfect! Keep in mind all of these pro's and cons are my opinion so you might not agree with me.
See you out there commanders o7
There's plenty to do. I just took up mining. Blew up my first asteroid full of diamonds. Made a small fortune, enough to A rate another module on my annie. Once I have A rated everything then I'm gonna get Horizons and do a bit of engineering. Then I'm gonna wing up with some fellow righteous commanders and hunt down all the griefers and Judge Dredd their asses!
Actually the sandbox is pretty big....sorta the size of the galaxy.... which is uh, really big......
Actually it's not all randomly generated, parts of it are handcrafted e.g. Leonard Nimoy station. Looks very different from the other stations. Not sure of the significance if the palm trees tho....
I think ED is really not the game for you. You need to move on, somewhere out there the perfect game is waiting for you. Your mission is to find that game. Good luck commander, we're all rooting for you!
Yeah, understood.
I agree with you that Elite is unique in many respects. For example as far as I am aware Elite is the first (and possibly only) persistent MMO based on a first person cockpit simulation experience with twitch controls (as opposed to mouse click like in EVE or WoW). And it also offers a combined set of features few other game offer at the moment.
Granted, if you define competition as in "any other games that do what Elite does, or close" then you will be hard pressed to find many games that compete. The only option left as of today would be pretty much to clone Elite. But I personally think that would be to narrow the scope of the definition so dramatically that it would render the discussion a bit moot and useless. Successful games tipically and often tend to be succesful precisely because they manage to differentiate themselves well enough from others, weather it is in actual innovative game features, or improved quality of old proven ones, or great graphics, or great social features, or great marketing or... etc. And that is hard, it requires good planning and execution.
More critically and to the point here you also seem to think, and correct me if I am wrong, that a lack other games in this very specific and narrow niche would prevent FDEV from being motivated to improve or do better. And this is the part where I think you may be missing a new angle, so let me put a different spin on what you may consider competition.
As I said before I indeed think there is competition for Elite. Actually I think that, without realizing it, you also agree :
That is one example, and I fully agree that other games may do things better than Elite in certain areas. But that precisley means competition because at one point or another some players that may be considering spending time or money in Elite may decide to spend that time and money with any of those other games instead because in their view they may do some of those things better. And I am pretty sure we can find without great difficulty a few clear examples of those in this very forum
In other words, you do not need another game or games that fall squarely into what you describe as "the Niche where Elite Dangerous is Sitting" to generate that competion. Games compete every day on the basis of partial overlap of feature sets that players of every walk of life may find attractive.
FDEV probably knows this very well, and follows relatively closely the development of games that share some of the themes or features that Elite has. Games like EVE, NMS, Space Engineers, Kerbal, Astroneer, Evochron, Hellion. Even non game software like Space Engine or projects of games in development such as Star Citizen are already competing with Elite for some of the same players time and money (almost 300 million dollars there suggest as much). Now some of us may be able to spend both time and money in more than one of these, but that does not detract an atom from the fact that the competition is very real and the developers of each of those are in competition either in most or some of the features of their games and projects.
This competition, has been there since day 1. For example, the Star Citizen kickstarter was about the same time as Elite´s and I would bet that FDEV´s project execution plan was somewhat influenced (even if it was just so to decide the Elite´s launch date and some elements of the scope that would go into it) by the public views and plan for SC coming from Chris Roberts. And viceversa.
All those represent very real competition that makes a dev team to try and stretch and strive to deliver better and/or faster, or all of the above, than others. The results obviously are for each of us to judge, these may be better at times, not so good at others (competition alone does not guarantee good results), but that is by the by, the incentive for FDEV to stretch and improve Elite is there thanks to all that competition since day 1.
Thank you for the nice and civil reactionI agree with some of your points, but...
In-Game purchases
The cosmetics are the only way FDev is earning continuous revenue for ED as they do not have subscription fees for the game.
I think it is a good way of doing things because the paint jobs and stuff are a completely voluntary purchase, and not in any way mandatory to play the game.
Missions
I think there are currently more than enough ways to earn the bucks for bigger ships. I think you need something to strive for and buying a new ship and upgrading it is good motivation. I am currently at a point that I am able to buy all ships I want without much effort. I do feel a bit sad about that. I liked the days when I bought a basic Python hull and really had to work to upgrade its components.
Ship and weapon variety.
I do not really get what you are point is as far as ship and weapon diversity are concerned. Elite too has several ship sub classes if you want to divide them up that way.
There are heavy freighters, light freighters, medium freighters and there are light, medium and heavy combat ships for example. The thing is... Elite's ships are highly customizable. Even freighters can be converted into combat ships. I used to kit out a T9 to hunt for pirates. Just for fun.
Although I would of course not mind even more weapons I do think that the variety is already substantial. Elite uses an engineering mechanic which enables you as a player to create incredible variety among weapons and modules. I know of no other spacesim I ever played that has this much variation.
It isn't. Most of their revenue is from new sales. I'd say that's the main reason why are they focused so much on easing the experience for new players and probably because player retention is not so stellar.Thank you for the nice and civil reaction
As a reply to your points allow me to reply:
In-game purchases:
I agree with you on this mostly, i know the cosmetics are an important way of FDev to make continuous revenue. I don't mind this in any shape or form mostly as i stated before, however! I do think at least one or 2 options should be offered via in game credits. They don't even need to be special, they can just be a simple color change from for example a normal dark green python to a white or black python. Something to at least change a bit of the python to not just feel basic while also keeping the worth of the other skins.
My theory is that they are energy vampires, like Colin Robinson in "What We Do In The Shadows". The TV series, not the movie. There was no energy vampire in the movie.He didnt decide or tell you to stop coming, he asked a genuine question: why do a dozen or so deeply frustrated and bitter people keep visiting the forums of a game they clearly dislike, just to moan and whine for years on end?
I mean, "I have the right to!" isn't incorrect, but it isn't an answer either.
He didnt decide or tell you to stop coming, he asked a genuine question: why do a dozen or so deeply frustrated and bitter people keep visiting the forums of a game they clearly dislike, just to moan and whine for years on end.
There are a lot of people playing ED in Solo mode who would argue that multiplayer is not necessary for a game to compete with ED. Ironically Subnautica is the #1 competitor to ED on my PS4 right now, checking two of the three criteria on your list. In fact, Subnautica is winning the "tug of war" for my time and affections at this moment.Looks for Space Sims with only a very few Core Values.
Open World.
Multiplayer.
Direct Control over your Ship.
These are the 3 things the People in a Space MMO are looking for.
So any Game Offering these 3 Core Values could be considered Competition to Elite Dangerous.
For at least some other people it's IL-2.There are a lot of people playing ED in Solo mode who would argue that multiplayer is not necessary for a game to compete with ED. Ironically Subnautica is the #1 competitor to ED on my PS4 right now, checking two of the three criteria on your list. In fact, Subnautica is winning the "tug of war" for my time and affections at this moment.
Agreed. Frontier Developments should be bloomin' proud of themselves.ED is the best game I have ever played ... period.
You have to make allowances for the ambition. The complexities involved with putting something like ED together must be mind boggling and as more is added the more complex it gets. Space games are a tricky business.Im one of these people. Its because we spent money on it and it turned out to be a huge waste of potential. So I check in here from time to time to see if theres anything new happening. There isn't. Imagine what this game could have been.
Ambition? They've had five years and a lot of money already. How much longer does it take ? I could land on earth and the moon on my amiga in the 1990s
As great as it looked on your amiga you could probably count the polygons on one hand. So comparing the two games ignores the technical challenge fully fleshed out earth likes would require.Ambition? They've had five years and a lot of money already. How much longer does it take ? I could land on earth and the moon on my amiga in the 1990s
Hardly a fair comparison. Frontier "atmospheric planets" consisted of some cloud lumps, a slightly lighter blue sky and some wind noise.I could land on earth and the moon on my amiga in the 1990s
The forums would go ballistic save for one lonely voice “yay best game ever”Hardly a fair comparison. Frontier "atmospheric planets" consisted of some cloud lumps, a slightly lighter blue sky and some wind noise.
The comedy value would be priceless though.The forums would go ballistic...