How far have the Elite games progressed?

Hooplah

Hooplah
Greetings,

Not withstanding the first basic Elite versions were programmed for 19 different computer platforms starting with an Acorn Electron in 1984. I'm guessing as the software vendor was Acornsoft but probably the BBC micro version was the most popular released at the same time. I discovered Elite on the Commodore 64 in 1985. Elite went to the final Nintendo NES console version in 1991 then Elite Plus was released in the same year on the IBM PC.

For comparison here are two intro videos between Frontier: Elite II (a DOS game) released in 1993 and an excellent fan remake using the Elite Dangerous graphics in 2016. Note that we still had beige planets back then. The original used an Imperial Courier with the later an Imperial Clipper.



FE2 with imagination is still just as playable and fun as it was in 1993. The comparison is a kid growing up in a house everything is big. Years later they grow up becoming adults, maybe get married and return to that house to see their parents. Everything is so small and seems outdated! But we remember those moments and reflect on how our life turned out because of them. We learn something about ourselves. Playing the Elite games over many decades has the same results.

Today in 2020 kids have awesome graphics and need less or no imagination to play amazing games developing their abilities to adapt and adjust to a changing world. That world scares me for our kids as what will it look like in 30 years? ED may not be around then. Many post on the Forum not happy with Elite Dangerous tells the story. Maybe looking at the past will help kids in the future.

Meanwhile many think that an Imperial Clipper is useless? Right. Keep thinking that. PvPers love you in Open mode! Have lots of rebuys unless you figure out a Clipper in PvP combat with a few friends works pretty well. Get a comms headset on Discord. The bad guys do.

Regards to All
 
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ethelred

ethelred
The potential for something greater is there.

As an original 84er on the good ol' Speccy, and installing Frontier on an msdos machine, the galaxy in Frontier felt much more alive than even the current one.

My memory maybe patchy but didn't we have second hand ships, servicing and a dynamic bulletin board?

Technically, the universe looks and feels amazing, the soundtrack is fab.

What's missing is a positive loop of activities, plus interacting with a living breathing universe.

I bang on about careers and the long overdue overhauls of PP, smuggling, piracy and terrorism, but really I want to be able to prank call some one looking for a lost relative...
 

Lobstris

Lobstris
Showing a Frontier: Elite II just makes me think of things that are in that game, but not in E: D. <Waves at landing at a city on an atmospheric world with clouds in the atmosphere in a ship that required the hiring of NPC crew>. Of course there are many things in E: D, that weren't in Frontier: Elite II, like 'PowerPlay' and 'Engineers', for example! :/ Hmmmm…
 

Lobstris

Lobstris
ethelred said:
The potential for something greater is there.
As an original 84er on the good ol' Speccy, and installing Frontier on an msdos machine, the galaxy in Frontier felt much more alive than even the current one.
My memory maybe patchy but didn't we have second hand ships, servicing and a dynamic bulletin board?
Click to expand...

Yes, second hand ships, and a bulletin board, with missions that made sense, with reward payments that wern't completely over the top. Of course with Frontier: First Encounters we got cheezy FMV with the Bulletin Board too! "Hallo Sweetie!" still haunts my nightmares...
 

Hooplah

Hooplah
etherled it was a dynamic bulletin board back then using very slow modems only texting playing this game and sometimes we got together starting a lore about Elite and and we all added to the story. The more players imagined to the story the better it became. I miss those days of creativity.
 
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Navigare Necesse Est

Navigare Necesse Est
Elite was always about procedural generation. First because of memory restraints, now to populate vast 'worlds', as in open world. Iit has come far but procedural tech doesnt make a game of itself but it can valuably augment gameplay with autonatic content. It still has way to go and will probably see more development - not just in Elite but the whole gaming.
 
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