What do you think of this:http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/680942/Elite-IV-The-Next-Encounter/Product.html Too optimistic?
Elite / Frontier Elite IV release date?
- Thread starter alsakari
- Start date
Michael Brookes
Game Director
They just post a 'likely' date and then shift it backward as it suites. I personally think that it is dishonest and a dodgey way to skim money off people.
The guys here are most likely to be the source of a correct release date and as The Outsider has priority it's going to be a little way down the line.
Elite in dev.
I just go this email the other day from frontier.
We suspended development on the next Elite game early in 2001 as we were not happy with the on-line infrastructure that existed at that time, upon which the game design depended. Development of the game is being restarted at the moment, and we plan to post further news/ details on our website as the project progresses.
To: <enquiriesx@frontier.co.uk>
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 3:33 AM
Subject: Elite 3
Hello, Just wondering if David B and you fine folks at Frontier are going to ever make a new Elite ??? A simple yes or no and approximate time frame would be sufficient.. We have only been waiting about 10+ years. Please just an answer any answer.
Thanks
Chris
I just go this email the other day from frontier.
We suspended development on the next Elite game early in 2001 as we were not happy with the on-line infrastructure that existed at that time, upon which the game design depended. Development of the game is being restarted at the moment, and we plan to post further news/ details on our website as the project progresses.
To: <enquiriesx@frontier.co.uk>
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 3:33 AM
Subject: Elite 3
Hello, Just wondering if David B and you fine folks at Frontier are going to ever make a new Elite ??? A simple yes or no and approximate time frame would be sufficient.. We have only been waiting about 10+ years. Please just an answer any answer.
Thanks
Chris
Ah the first post of a new person to the forums. First of welcome. Second congratulations on asking exactly the same question and phrasing it in pretty much the same manner as every other new person to these forums.
The answer you got in the email seems pretty emphatic to me.
"Development of the game is being restarted at the moment, and we plan to post further news/ details on our website as the project progresses. "
That's about as clear as it gets. Basically if you had used the search function when you first got here you may have found the same info in many of the similar threads from first posters.
Not meaning to be rude or anything but the search is your friend. You can be pretty sure that David and Frontier have had exactly the same question posed to them on many an occasion and the answer has yet to change. It's in Dev, however their time and resources are currently going in the game 'The Outsider' of which the underlying technologies and open-ended structure is as much a test bed for E4 as it is an integral part of The Outsider.
So the long and the short of it is that E4 is not a from scratch development but it is a hell of a long way from being a finished product.
Hope the helps a little.
The answer you got in the email seems pretty emphatic to me.
"Development of the game is being restarted at the moment, and we plan to post further news/ details on our website as the project progresses. "
That's about as clear as it gets. Basically if you had used the search function when you first got here you may have found the same info in many of the similar threads from first posters.
Not meaning to be rude or anything but the search is your friend. You can be pretty sure that David and Frontier have had exactly the same question posed to them on many an occasion and the answer has yet to change. It's in Dev, however their time and resources are currently going in the game 'The Outsider' of which the underlying technologies and open-ended structure is as much a test bed for E4 as it is an integral part of The Outsider.
So the long and the short of it is that E4 is not a from scratch development but it is a hell of a long way from being a finished product.
Hope the helps a little.
Don't rush it...
Take your time.
I don't know, if Dave and those guys from Frontier do realize, what responsibility they have:
The world is waiting.
Or perhaps some 20-100 millon players (mostly men?) worldwide who are dreaming and hoping.
It is more like the homecoming of the so much loved girl who left us so many years ago... and finally send us a letter: "I'd like to come back home. Do you still love me? Wait for me when the sun goes down...Kisses, Elise"
We are overwhalmed and asking ourselfs:
How will she look?
Will she still be the number one for me?
What about her sophisticated conversation?
The creativity in her thoughts?
So: we all hope, she won't come back as an old and wasted women - where the name is the only thing left she has (like in "The Buddenbrooks" from Thomas Mann) to earn the family some money.
You guys have all the time in the world: Take it!
Make it PERFECT!
And if you need some money: I know at least one billionair here in Hamburg, Germany, who loves that old girl so much, he would surely pay you some interstellar credits for the development - I mean: makeup - to make that homecoming an event we all are waiting for.
Take your time.
I don't know, if Dave and those guys from Frontier do realize, what responsibility they have:
The world is waiting.
Or perhaps some 20-100 millon players (mostly men?) worldwide who are dreaming and hoping.
It is more like the homecoming of the so much loved girl who left us so many years ago... and finally send us a letter: "I'd like to come back home. Do you still love me? Wait for me when the sun goes down...Kisses, Elise"
We are overwhalmed and asking ourselfs:
How will she look?
Will she still be the number one for me?
What about her sophisticated conversation?
The creativity in her thoughts?
So: we all hope, she won't come back as an old and wasted women - where the name is the only thing left she has (like in "The Buddenbrooks" from Thomas Mann) to earn the family some money.
You guys have all the time in the world: Take it!
Make it PERFECT!
And if you need some money: I know at least one billionair here in Hamburg, Germany, who loves that old girl so much, he would surely pay you some interstellar credits for the development - I mean: makeup - to make that homecoming an event we all are waiting for.
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Your whole post nails it, but these two sentences just about sums it up for me - also, don't let a greedy publisher push you to release before your ready. This could be something special and may be remembered ( and played ) for a long, long, long-long time.
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Having played the original Elite in the 80's, I've been watching the 'development' of this game for a few years now.
To me the problem with this industry now is the high cost of developing games and the speed the industry moves and any Elite style game getting old before its released.
Also whats already out there? To me the current biggest game effecting any release of a future Elite game would be Eve Online (to me a game that took the Elite ideaology and took it a step further). How do you get a big enough market share to make development of a similar game worthwhile. Theres going to be comparisons on any release by the press so yes, I think it would really would have to be perfect and have to jump into new frontiers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_4
Still its good to see Frontier Developments has survived and not been swallowed up by one of the big companies. eg like Bullfrog, Origin systems and so on..
To me the problem with this industry now is the high cost of developing games and the speed the industry moves and any Elite style game getting old before its released.
Also whats already out there? To me the current biggest game effecting any release of a future Elite game would be Eve Online (to me a game that took the Elite ideaology and took it a step further). How do you get a big enough market share to make development of a similar game worthwhile. Theres going to be comparisons on any release by the press so yes, I think it would really would have to be perfect and have to jump into new frontiers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_4
Still its good to see Frontier Developments has survived and not been swallowed up by one of the big companies. eg like Bullfrog, Origin systems and so on..
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I may be out of line here, but i think it's pretty unfair to say that Braben and Co. have a responsibility to produce Elite 4. They have a responsibility to make it good, IF they chose to make another one. To be honest, it's hard to think where E4 would fit into the market at the moment, due to the aforementioned slowness that would be inherent in the game.
Plus, you couldn't have the whole time shifting mechanism in the game, because how on earth could you make that work? It'd have to be an EVE Online style of jump-drives or autopilots or whatever...
Then you have the woes of being called a clone. Despite the pedigree. How many kids do you know who have played Elite, Frontier, or First Encounters today?
I just ran out of rant juice.
Plus, you couldn't have the whole time shifting mechanism in the game, because how on earth could you make that work? It'd have to be an EVE Online style of jump-drives or autopilots or whatever...
Then you have the woes of being called a clone. Despite the pedigree. How many kids do you know who have played Elite, Frontier, or First Encounters today?
I just ran out of rant juice.
What about micro hyperspace jumps? With the technology advancement that have happened between E3 and E4 it should be possable to either "burrow" deeper into Hyperspace or better control the entry/exit points. That way a few minutes in hyperspace (real time) could be the same as if you had traveled hours in real space real time.
Not sure if that really makes sense, well it does to me LOL
Then the piracy goes out of the window.
I'd disagree with that. One could limit microjumps to a certain distance from a habitable volume of space; or introduce a shipboard "jump suppressor", or give players the ability to chase each other through hyperspace.
I've seen comments which assert that the huge volume of space will mean encounters will be extremely rare, but this is unlikely imho; most of the player activity would take place near stations/inhabited planets.
Chrs
This is either or situation:
EITHER the distance will be large enuogh to permit piracy and prevent microjumps from being more than a gimmick, OR the distance will be short which won't permit piracy. Can't have your cookie and eat it.
Intercepts. Hyperspace cloud analysis.
Uh, I meant that one of the constraints of microjumps could be that you cannot initiate or emerge from a jump within however many thousands of k from habitation. The length of the jumps can be pretty much arbitrary.
Sure, makes sense.
What I envision is, trans-system hyperspace functions as in FE2, except without the time delay. I.e. you materialise a few AU distance from the system's centre of mass.
Then, you set your target, say Paris. You perform a microjump. Your destination can be anywhere that is at least 100,000km from a station/planet. To make it easy on the players it's prob better to constrain this to the point on the straight line from you to your destination, that is at least 100,000km from any habitation. You emerge from microjump moving at whatever speed relative to your target that you had when you entered. You thrust/coast the rest of the way. The time spent in hyperspace during a microjump could depend on your engines, mass etc.
This means the universe can be as big as you like, microjumps are still useful, and piracy is possible. The above parameters can be tweaked depending on how players react in beta
I guess the trick is find something that isn't exploitable, but does not require a Deus Ex Machina intervention to eliminate
