If this game doesnt have the Elite/Frontier magic why not - what does it need?

[Patrick_68000]

I think that the wonder can not be the same that there is 20 or 30 years. The computer has become generalized and the people are accustomed to having high-tech games. This also comes from the fact that the promises of the kickstarter and the advertising for the game do not represent the actual game. But with time, there will be improvements, for sure

 

[Llewelyn]

I'm tending towards the lack of community in the game, there's no easy way for people to work together (yeah, wings are coming - but we don't know what that entails yet). So taking what we have no, you have freighters hauling stuff who are no match for a well kitted out pirate, and frankly no challenge as far as PvP goes. You have bounty hunters seeking out pirates and smugglers - and while a BH v Pirate is probably a challenging fight, it's not one a pirate wants to get into, because there's no profit in it for them. What's lacking is traders teaming up with combat pilots for escort, or multiple traders forming convoys, groups of pirates needed to hunt organized groups. It's not there right now, there's no ability for a white knight to swoop in at distract a pirates nefarious goals, or to rescue a crippled/fuel-less ship - it's something that created a community in Earth & Beyond, it was a driving reason to participate in a open galaxy. In general we have individuals flying around in a large sandbox meeting other individuals.

 

[TheArtist]

I see a lot of posts complaining about this game saying is dull, basic etc. So what happened? Why isnt this game as good as the old Frontier game of old that we all loved?

Simple: Its no longer 1993. I would really love to see that "living universe" today. For me its not exactly represented by repeative, generic missions to raise influence numbers or generic warzones, etc.

 

[Commander Silex]

I see a lot of posts complaining about this game saying is dull, basic etc. So what happened? Why isnt this game as good as the old Frontier game of old that we all loved? What is the magic ingredient that is missing here that was present elsewhere? Was the original Frontier all that deep really? Was it all that immersive? Did you really play Elite for months or just for a few hours?

Because if I am honest with myself I cant remember playing Frontier a great deal - I think I played FFE more actually. And even then I didnt play it as much as I played EF2000 or Falcon 4. I remember some wonderful moments jousting with other ships and sitting on spaceports watching the sky change in speeded up time. But did I actually play it THAT much? Maybe this whole thing is just a load of nostagia tinting our expectations for something that really had no chance of ever being made a reality?

What do you think? Too pessimistic? Are are we kidding ourselves here? Are we ever going to get the game we really want to see?

I think this game has the balance and general feel and flavour of Elite, with the scope of Frontier, which is probably the best of both worlds. If it's lacking anything, in my personal opinion, I'd say effective Multiplayer grouping tools, missions and MP quality of life functionality.

Multiplayer is the biggest fresh angle that the game can bring over previous iterations, and until it is working in a fluent and accessible fashion I'll personally feel the game is lacking something vital.

 

[Stench]

Too much time in supercruise and watching fancy mechanics in a space station is an issue to me. In Elite, you'd just hit the jump button a few times and be in orbit. Now we can have an x (or xx!!) minute session just watching a bright dot and a number counting down. Hitting launch and sitting watching the same machinery moving over and over and over... Nice animations. Double up the speeds. Something. ANYTHING. Make supercruise speed up and slow down faster to spend less time just watching a dot...

 

[N6MAA10816]

And that is my question. How would that be achieved?

Nats, this 'game' we are in now, is just the fabric, the engine, the container for more content to come....
FD's and OUR imagination, is the only limit for what CAN BE DONE here!
Iv'e said once before in another post, what we have here is a brand new, fully finished house...
They/We have to furnish it....IMO

 

[CMDR Texas Stu]

I can't really speak for the Frontier magic but it has the Elite magic.

One thing I truly miss though is chasing down cargo canisters. And losing some as they got too far off/lost. I hope they bring that back instead of canisters with inertial dampeners.

 

[Khavi]

I played the original Elite with my brothers back when we were kids. Spent hours and hours competing with one another to see who could get the most money and get to Elite fastest. We played all the various versions that followed and the original Elite still has a special place in my mind. As for Elite Dangerous...it is a great start. It has the ground work in place, the foundation is set and from my point of view it plays a lot like the original Elite and that is a great thing. David has said repeatedly that this game will continue to be a work in progress. They have plans to expand the game play, add more ships, more stations, add planetary landing, walking in stations, EVA's to explore derelict ships. Just as EVE online had very simplistic game play when it first released over the years the developers added to the game. Elite has just as much for a player to do as we could in EVE when it first released. To make a game great takes time. EVE was not made in a day. Neither was any decent MMO.

Even single player games that were great, like Skyrim, only got better with time. A game I still play to this day - a single player game!

I'm greatful that Braben kept his word and delivered us a playable game that plays as well as it does considering how small of team he has working for him. Elite Dangerous will grow and it will get so much better. Things will be changed, things added...but one thing is for certain - never in 100 years did I ever think that I'd be playing an online multi-player version of Elite, and I for one will continue to support Mr. Braben and his team of visionary developers for bringing us what will be the single best multi-player online persistent virtual universe.

 

[Leermeister]

Allow the players to BUILD stuff. Factories, colonies, stations, capital ships. Allow the players to impact the world more. I know some people are against it because they want to feel small and insignificant in the universe, but it would bring long term goals to everyone else.

Yep, game wont survive long unless something like this is in it. It will compete with star citizen which will have some form of these, and everything elite does only it will do it better. Unless Elite became a true sandbox where players can interact in the universe and economy i don't see the game lasting outside a few people that will play it in single player , for reasons unknown to me.

 

[N6MAA10816]

I wonder if it is an "uncanny valley" problem. The Uncanny Valley occurs when a simulation of humans is too realistic to be a cartoon, but just not realistic enough to be believably human. At that point, the character feels uncanny, creepy; as if you're looking at a animated corpse.
.
The evolutionary explanation is that we are really good at spotting when something looks off about someone --whether they are ill, or dead (in which case you wish to avoid contact with them as their condition may be catching). So we recognise cartoons as cartoons, and can relate to them as living characters because we anthropomorphise (another evolutionary trait). We recognise real people as real people. But almost real people look... off, somehow. Creepy.
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I wonder whether in the same way we can relate to blocky, primitive 8-bit graphics because they are non-specific and 'blank' enough for us to project our own imagination on them. With real-life imagery we don't have to do that --it looks real and we accept it as real. But very realistic graphics are in the uncanny valley: too detailed for us to impose our own fantasy, but nor realistic enough to fill the gaps otherwise filled by our own imagination. The gaps therefore become jarringly apparent.
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The challenge of current computer games is that they are now just on the other side of the uncanny valley and are now forced to leap the gap. But they can't do that yet. So they are paradoxically experienced as more wanting and less immersive than the primitive graphics of yore.

Just Brilliant!

 

[TheArtist]

Allow the players to BUILD stuff. Factories, colonies, stations, capital ships.

Bah, lets scrap ED and play X instead!

 

[kurush]

for reasons unknown to me.

Because that is what many people were actually looking for when pledging on kickstarter. Sure, some want the MMO things. I couldn't care less and I would actually be happy if the game somehow manages to purge the MMO crowd. I think they've made a good start in this direction with no gen chat or auction house

Bah, lets scrap ED and play X instead!

If only they didn't mess up X:R that much And you do get tired after several thousand hours of X3 play.

 

[Patrick_68000]

There's a few things.
One is that Frontier was genuinely incredible for its era. Even from the demo, seeing that courier flying down from space, to a spaceport, past stations and cruisers.. the galaxy with millions of stars, being able to watch moon rise or a gas giant set from one of its moons.. unbelievable in the early 90s.

E : D is fantastic in many regards, but it is not so far removed from its peers to have that same wow factor today (in Oculus Rift it gets the closest).

Then there's the lack of mystery. In many ways that can be attributed to the internet, and to the open development from Kickstarter model - so that everyone knows what's out there without having to go and see it. In Frontier I always had that feeling that there could be things out there that I just hadn't found. It even did - I thought I'd seen it all then I found there were missions to spy on planetary bases. Thought I'd seen it all again then found I could nuke them.. etc. But it's not only the mystery factor - there really is lack of sufficient diversity and genuinely rare or unique stuff. While the detail of things has increased dramatically (but only on par with other games), the diversity hasn't, and that's important in a procedural game.

There are some small details which better helped suspension of disbelief in Frontier. For example, assassination missions gave you a target, a time and a place. They would be there.. you could even go there early and watch them arrive in open planet surface ports. You could follow them when they left, etc. It gave the impression of a living universe with real people who moved around. Now, you get a mission and you randomly stop at points of interest, seeing a handful of people until miraculously you happen across the exact person you needed. It makes it feel much more like an MMO instance than a living universe.

Some of the important things that will help a lot are not finished or fleshed out yet - like the dynamic galaxy and the news feed. They are quite flat and do not pull in enough interesting information to make it seem like life is really going on around you. I fully expect this to improve.

Very correct analysis. Missions of Assassination in FE2 was extraordinary. And as you say "Gave it the feel of a living universe with real people Who Moved around".

 

[DYSEQTA]

?

ED in it's current state is exactly what I expected for a perpetual development title; minimum viable product at release. That is to say that ED right now is the backbone of the game I really want to see. ED will evolve over time.

Patience drive charging. 4...3...2...1...Engage!

 

[N6MAA10816]

what will be the single best multi-player online persistent virtual universe.

That's just so well said!

Respect!

 

[boringnick]

I actually played lots of Frontier and FFE.

What definitely helped were the accompanying manuals. There were greatly written and made the game world feel alive. Same with the newspapers in FFE - I really wanted to do every mission to get my commander's name in the papers.

What I remember is that there was a strong feeling of progression. It was quite a work to climb up the military ladder and it was exciting to discover the new type of missions, like planetary bombing and spying. Those were truly unique with the Newtonian flight model.

 

[Tradesman]

Stop the pointless arbitrary NPC number-juggling and give power to the players. Add player-driven manufacturing and trading. Allow players to build stations and claim systems, form corporations and alliances, issue missions and bounties. That's the "EVE" way of doing it, and honestly, I don't really see any other way. I can't imagine how this game could become an interesting single-player experience, there's only so much you can do interacting with only NPCs. I personally wouldn't mind ED being singleplayer-oriented, but I really can't see how this game can become good without player interaction.

You should try and be original, not port over ideas from another game.
Frankly those games never really survive.
The Elite and Elite Dangerous franchise got its own gameplay and idea of space simming.
If any content is need, it should be built around that and not Eve-online.

 

[Patrick_68000]

I actually played lots of Frontier and FFE.

What definitely helped were the accompanying manuals. There were greatly written and made the game world feel alive. Same with the newspapers in FFE - I really wanted to do every mission to get my commander's name in the papers.

What I remember is that there was a strong feeling of progression. It was quite a work to climb up the military ladder and it was exciting to discover the new type of missions, like planetary bombing and spying. Those were truly unique with the Newtonian flight model.

Nice description, very realistic. Happy Days

 

[Protoplasmic traveler]

At the very, least stick an animated NPC pilot into the other ships so that when you look in through their canopies you can feel like the universe is actually inhabited - you know, basic little things like that and then work up

 

[Antmax]

It's a natural evolution of the Original with a few features from the later games. But essentially Elite evolved. This game will not be complete till planetary landing is done and there is a lot more content. But it's a great start and I'd rather have what we have now than have to wait 2 years for a DLC's.