Elite Dangerous Vs Star Citizen from the point of an Elite Dangerous Player

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Elite Dangerous Odyssey £29.99
Star Citizen
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While star citizen has it's fair share of cool content that elite is lacking at the moment (maily ship interiors), after playing both for a while I have to say that I still prefer ED:H and even ED:O over it. Just a matter of taste of course, but from my subjective point of view, SC overall is even more shallow than ED. But it's also a roleplayers paradise, I give them that.
 
The thing that makes me most hesitant about SC is that I have absolutely no idea what I'd be getting for my money.

I've seen video's of space-shooty stuff, wandering around a ship interior, flying across a planet surface and FPS stuff but I have no idea how much actual long-term gameplay is baked into the game.

A lot of people criticise ED for the whole "mile wide and an inch deep" thing but it is, at least, fairly obvious that you start off with a puny ship and no credits and you spend as much time as you want earning credits so you can buy ships and then spend more time upgrading them so you can do things better.

Maybe that isn't as diverse or interesting as some people would like but it IS, at least, fairly obvious that there's scope for spending a LOT of time pootling around in your pretend spaceships, figuring out which ones you prefer for different things and then modifying them and upgrading them so they work the way you want them to.

With SC, I've just got no idea if there's any kind of "progression" in the game.
Honestly, I kind of get the impressiont that SC is more about buying a ship (with real cash) and then going and trying a bunch of the things the game has in it.
And, erm, then what?
If, for example, you get smoked in combat, do you go back to the RSI website and buy a different ship to have another go?

To be fair, I suppose if I was more interested in SC I might be paying more attention and then I'd know exactly what long-term gameplay there is but I just haven't seen SC discuss it.
 
While star citizen has it's fair share of cool content that elite is lacking at the moment (maily ship interiors), after playing both for a while I have to say that I still prefer ED:H and even ED:O over it. Just a matter of taste of course, but from my subjective point of view, SC overall is even more shallow than ED. But it's also a roleplayers paradise, I give them that.
What do you do in SC's ship interiors? Cool combat boarding actions for piracy? Hijacking, as a passenger? Hanging up trophies from big game hunting expeditions?

In Traveller, the tabletop RPG Elite was based on, you can do all of these, maybe as a passenger on a liner you get a mission from a patron to steal or open some of the cargo, might release some "big game" that's caged in an environmental chamber, after bribing the guards, in order to distract from some colleagues who are assassinating a politician in a first class stateroom whilst disguised as stewards... then helping yourself to precious artworks in said politico's private safe and rendezvousing with a disguised corsair cruiser in the next system and evading Naval cutters despatched by the local Duke who has been pursuing your gang through several subsectors... getting away you have a big private bounty put on you by the dead politico's family who have decided law enforcement are not up to the job and another bunch of adventurers can do it better. Meanwhile your damaged corsair has to be ditched in a lake (to hide it as best as possinble) and you commandeer vehicles to travel across land to a tiny, rural dirtside starport in search of a new ship to get the heck out...

We're decades off, if ever, computer AI being to fabricate linked adventure scenarios like the human mind can.
 
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The thing that makes me most hesitant about SC is that I have absolutely no idea what I'd be getting for my money.

I've seen video's of space-shooty stuff, wandering around a ship interior, flying across a planet surface and FPS stuff but I have no idea how much actual long-term gameplay is baked into the game.

A lot of people criticise ED for the whole "mile wide and an inch deep" thing but it is, at least, fairly obvious that you start off with a puny ship and no credits and you spend as much time as you want earning credits so you can buy ships and then spend more time upgrading them so you can do things better.

Maybe that isn't as diverse or interesting as some people would like but it IS, at least, fairly obvious that there's scope for spending a LOT of time pootling around in your pretend spaceships, figuring out which ones you prefer for different things and then modifying them and upgrading them so they work the way you want them to.

With SC, I've just got no idea if there's any kind of "progression" in the game.
Honestly, I kind of get the impressiont that SC is more about buying a ship (with real cash) and then going and trying a bunch of the things the game has in it.
And, erm, then what?
If, for example, you get smoked in combat, do you go back to the RSI website and buy a different ship to have another go?

To be fair, I suppose if I was more interested in SC I might be paying more attention and then I'd know exactly what long-term gameplay there is but I just haven't seen SC discuss it.
There is progression via earning in game cash and getting new ships but your fear of SC is well earned. after 4 months you can get burn out and run out of content to do. It comes down to is Star Citizen worth 45 bucks to you. If you are expecting a complete experience, I would say no. If you want to be apart of a community with open development then maybe.
 
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Since Odyssey came out (and all the related pain and grief that came with it...or didn't) I took a look at a few videos on YouTube concerning the subject (because they suddenly popped up on my recommend list for some odd reason). Some interesting notes:

  • Legs - they have it already. Nicely done, not unlike the way NPC's walked in Skyrim, maybe even a little more natural.
  • Artificial Gravity - If you're going to spend months and months in space, your body is affected by a lack of gravity. Spend a year in space in zero-G and then go down to a 1 G planet - your legs are like rubber. Hardly realistic if you intend to get out of your ship and explore. Yes, it's "hand-wavium" - so is the way your SRV is lifted back into your cargo bay. It's a game, science-fiction. If it was ok in Star Trek or Mass Effect, it wouldn't be that horrible a thing in ED, either.
  • You walk a lot. You get up, I assume you make your bed (or a droid does that, I don't know), hang out in the cafeteria, walk down a lot of halls to a terminal to deal with missions and find out what ship you use (and you buy your ship with real money!!!). Then you walk and walk and walk to your ship, go through an airlock, then walk more and more until you get to your ship. You get in and walk and walk and walk until you get to the controls, punch a few buttons and go. While I enjoyed the immersion, I think that would be enjoyable two, maybe three times. Then it gets old. I get it - it's like a second life but walk, walk, walk....
  • You do get a ship that has a pretty specific design and a more specific mission. A fighter is just that - a fighter. Strap on tons of things to shoot, go out there and kill the enemy. Hauling cargo? Use THAT ship instead. It has a BIG DOOR in the rear where you would shove cargo in. It's not a "concept" like "cargo racks" - it's an actual space for that purpose. You can put military vehicles in it and use it to transport that to a battle but you're going to need friends in FIGHTERS to cover you. To me, that's logical.
  • Limited lives. In ED we get a rebuy and a rebuy and a rebuy. In SC you get a few rebuys and a new body each time. But, as I understand it, you also set up your beneficiary when creating your character. After 4 or 5 deaths, you're dead. Period. Now you control the beneficiary. In a way, it makes sense, though I realize not everyone's cup of tea.
  • SC is NOT a 1:1 recreation of the Milky Way. I doubt it ever will be.
  • ED is an actual, living, breathing game, whether you love it or hate it. SC, as long as it continues to receive Kickstarter money, seems happy to remain in Alpha status.
  • Odyssey will not be the killer of Elite Dangerous. It got off to a very, very bad start. So bad, in fact that people have removed it (most removed it on a temporary basis) and received a refund. So bad that Steam reviews are so negative right now it will take something major to turn it around. I can only hope that "Patch 6" pulls the stick back hard enough to get back in the air.
  • Both games have potential to be fantastic. I built my current PC specifically to run SC. I expected it in 2014. We all know what happened with that, don't we?
  • As I see it, SC, in the fact that you buy your ships with actual money, is more like "Pay-To-Win." I could be wrong about that since I don't have it and won't until it actually gets released but that's just my take on it.
  • I like the idea of "taking damage" meaning "Rear starboard lateral thruster is damaged" and your ship is no longer flying the way you'd like it to fly because thrusters are not responding. Imagine the salt here if that happened with our ships.
That's just my own take on this whole comparison. I know a number of ED players have gone over to SC and I get the "why" of that. But it's still in Alpha . But for me if it wants to be a viable alternative it would have to be a fully released game. And include the Milky Way (because now I've enjoyed it and I'm spoiled).
 
There is progression via earning in game cash and getting new ships but your fear of SC is well earned. after 4 months you can get burn out and run out of content to do. It comes down to is Star Citizen worth 45 bucks to you. If you are expecting a complete experience, I would say no. If you want to be apart of a community with open development then maybe.
If Squadron 42 ever goes live then I think there will be a lot more in the progression side of things and should make the whole SC experience much more varied. I wouldn't spend my money in advance hoping it will show though especially considering how long people have been waiting for it so far.
 
Well, I thought a lot about SC, just like the folks above, but then I just decided to go ahead and just jump in and try it out... and am I glad I did! Many of the things mentioned above are quite valid, but just having the experience of landing on some of these planets is just fantastic! Landing at a remote station on an ice planet in the middle of the night in a gale is... interesting, to say the least. Yes, there are a limited number and type of missions, but just seeing some of these places is more than worth the price of admission. IMHO, of course!
 
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