Fiction Elite : Reclamation

Susimetsa

Susimetsa
Continuing from this, Drew's approach to treating gender as mere "colouring" of characters is in many ways a good choice. It takes into account the fact that individual people may profess more or less "feminine" or "masculine" traits to an extent that there are no real differences between the genders (on average).

It could, however, do a disservice to socially constructed gender identities. There are many cultures, even western ones, that clearly differentiate between men and women and provide them with different roles in a society. The genders are not equal in any way and there's a clear and existing demand from some additional feminist influence to bring these social constructs to a more equal footing.

In short, Drew's choice is one way to support the process of making sexes more equal, even though it may fail to correctly describe the real social differences and injustices that exists between them today in our society.
 

Darren Grey

Darren Grey
Susimetsa said:
In short, Drew's choice is one way to support the process of making sexes more equal, even though it may fail to correctly describe the real social differences and injustices that exists between them today in our society.
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Except he's not talking about women in today's society! Here's hoping to an end to gender imbalance in 1000 years... Yeah, okay, hopeful I know :-/
 

drew

drew
This is a very good point. My approach is a compromise overall and I am aware that I have a personal bias.

I was brought up in quite an old fashioned, almost Edwardian environment. I've had to 'undo' a lot of childhood indoctrination (for lack of a better word) that told me that females needed to be cosseted, protected and chaperoned.

My grandparents were responsible for a lot of my upbringing (born in 1908 and 1912 respectively).

In my first book to feature a lady protagonist, I was extremely nervous that I wasn't writing effectively from a women's perspective, but was pleased to discover that women identified well with my character overall.

Referring to the society point, I'm making a call that gender bias is less of an issue in 3300 AD than it is today. There is still discrimination in my story, though it's concerned with class, background and standing - my story is set within the Empire primarily, so that's what's driving that thought.

Anyway - another update today, this time about the writing again >

http://www.wagar.org.uk/elitereclamation/progress-report/points-of-view/

Cheers,

Drew.
 

Minti2

Deadly, But very fluffy...
Minti2
drew said:
This week's update: Usual progress, a setback or two and an announcement...

http://www.wagar.org.uk/elitereclamation/progress-report/a-change-of-scene-and-an-announcement/

Cheers,

Drew.
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I wont be there, but will be interested in hearing the recording of the prologue, liking what you said "will give you a taste of how I see the Imperials" be good to get your angle on this. :)

PS i understand your dilemma so much about cutting words from your novel, its just as hard for me to with our 100 word drabbles! :p
 

Captain N

C
From what I recall, FE2 was quite... divisive when it came out, to say the least. And FFE simply slipped past the radar for most people who weren't hardcore fans of FE2 (or didn't have a PC at the time).

They do things, however, which no other game out there really does, which might explain why their fans are still sticking around. The original Elite, while arguably the better game, is not all that unique. There is simply no modern replacement for Frontier.

FFE was originally developed as an expansion pack for FE2, which explains the similarities.

The combat is slightly easier once you internalise the habit of pausing the game (Esc key) the instant you hear the klaxon sound. This gives you time to look around for the enemy, assessing whether to fight or to jump into hyperspace (yes, you can run!) and to target the enemy for missiles. FE2 was also easier than FFE because the pirates hardly ever attacked in groups.

It's also quite possible to navigate without autopilot. It's not even particularly hard, just tedious - accelerate for half the journey, then turn around and keep thrusting in the opposite direction. You'll miss the target, but if you keep repeating the process at smaller scale you're guaranteed to reach your destination eventually.

Sorry. Nobody can explain Sonic the Hedgehog.
 

Cody

Cody
drew said:
As an original Elite player I take a long hard look at FE2 and FFE...
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I'm also an original Elite player, and though I bought FE2, it never really grabbed me. I'm trying to treat Elite: Dangerous as an entirely new game, and have deliberately not immersed myself in the Frontier universe. None of my experience in Elite (or Oolite) will have any bearing on Elite: Dangerous, so I approach it with a blank slate. I'm hoping that this new game will present itself well, without any prior knowledge needed.
 

Selezen

Selezen
An interesting rumour I heard wayback when Frontier first came out springs to mind when reading this thread.

When Frontier came out, there was a rumour that it had been developed as a completely separate game by Braben et al, not related to Elite in any way but based on Mr Braben's experiences developing that game. It was a two-faction space game whose main feature was that it procedurally generated a mostly accurate model of the Milky Way galaxy.

It was very late in the development process that any elements of Elite got added to the game so that it could be marketed as a sequel, and those elements were limited to some ship designs and names and 11 worlds named and positioned after ones in Elite. That's why GalCop, Thargoids and so on aren't mentioned in the game or in the literature.

The extended rumour is that adding Elite-related content was a late marketing scheme (by Gametek) to build on Elite's success and sell more copies of the game to that market.

I'd be interested to know if this is indeed true. :)
 

Darren Grey

Darren Grey
Hah, that's just silly in my opinion. So much of Frontier is Elite-related, including commodities, ships, weapons, gameplay elements. Sure it was a departure in many areas, but it has so so much in common. I do view it more as David's vision - taking Elite but removing some of the wackiness and laying the realism on thick. But in many ways it's a natural progression from the previous game, doing procedural stuff that the original couldn't.
 

Susimetsa

Susimetsa
Darren, we must truly combine our FE2/FFE loving forces against this seeming horde of fans of the original...

As I said in my response to the blog, I loved Elite when I was 12, but I loved FE2 and FFE even more when they came out. The simple majesty of a vast galaxy, the multitude of missions... All of it was so astounding in a game at the time.
 

Selezen

Selezen
Multitude of missions??? Ha!

It was either passenger transport or being a postie or shooting ships down. They weren't missions, they were JOBS!

Elite's missions were more diverse, even if they were less frequent.

I'm not a Frontier hater - I'm a Frontier disliker. It did a LOT of things better than Elite (better ships, more ships to fly, more ways to make money, bigger galaxy, astronomy wet dream etc) but none of those things made the game more fun to actually play. It became a chore to fly between systems, and combat was "joust" NO FUN!

And I think the atmosphere was different too. Gone was the unique and mysterious GalCop, and here was the cliche and over-used "Empire vs Federation" setting. Yawn.

Oh, and BLUE SPACE!!

;)
 

rgmarett

rgmarett
I read on wikipedia that I'm always right, so I can safely say Frontier is better than Elite.

And the blue space gave it a nice aesthetic too.

:D
:p
 

Susimetsa

Susimetsa
Selezen said:
Multitude of missions??? Ha!

It was either passenger transport or being a postie or shooting ships down. They weren't missions, they were JOBS!
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Taking down military satellites and bases on planets were definitely what "we in the service" would call _missions_ ;)

But, yes, there's lot to improve, of course - I'm not denying that.
 

Darren Grey

Darren Grey
Selezen said:
And I think the atmosphere was different too. Gone was the unique and mysterious GalCop, and here was the cliche and over-used "Empire vs Federation" setting. Yawn.
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Unique and compelling cold war setting! I've yet to see another big multi-faction sandbox game that so explicitly avoids good and evil. For me it was much more interesting than the boring "GalCop controls all" setting. Plus it had all the added flavour of the frontiers and the variety of independent worlds.

Also, if you rise high enough with the Imperials you become a Prince!

I loved the music in Frontier too. Can never have too much Mussorgsky...
 

Selezen

Selezen
Darren Grey said:
Unique and compelling cold war setting! I've yet to see another big multi-faction sandbox game that so explicitly avoids good and evil. For me it was much more interesting than the boring "GalCop controls all" setting. Plus it had all the added flavour of the frontiers and the variety of independent worlds.
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The avoidance of good and evil just made everything feel bland and "samey". There was nothing really filling in the gaps of what made the societies unique. The "Empire" was made out to be the inhumane one (more of the bad guy) with their policy of wiping out indigenous species in their expansion, whereas the Federals just became a very grey, dull background voice. There was no tension.

I would disagree with the "GalCop Controls All" quote strongly - there was the war with the Thargoids for a start! An actual, honest conflict to set a focus for the back story, but a conflict that was happening largely behind the scenes with the occasional invasion ship encroaching into the main spacelanes. The frisson of excitement and dread when the octagonal lines of a Thargoid hove into view was a feeling that was never replicated in Frontier. An encounter with a Thargoid ship was unique (thanks to the Thargons). The Federal, Imperial and Independent ships (and latterly the Alliance) were all just a set of stats with hulls built around them. Nothing unique about the jousting combat, which was largely the same no matter what ships were involved (although conversely the smaller and faster ships were more of a challenge than the big dangerous ones).

I just hope that ED has some variety to the organisations and that they have some personality to them. The early indications are good, at least visually, and the background stuff is interesting but the test of all that will be the behaviour of the representatives of those organisations in the game.

Darren Grey said:
Also, if you rise high enough with the Imperials you become a Prince!
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Don't get me started on that. I thought "Prince" was a hereditary title, not an "award" to be handed out. It never really rang true.
 
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