Is ED played by mostly "Old Ducks" like me?

And if you are young, young enough not to have played the original Elite games, I'm curious - what draws you to Elite Dangerous? This is a sincere question, as I think many of us older folk (I am old enough to have played Elite on C64 as a kid) play at least partially out of nostalgia.

I am 'young' (31) so I never played the original games. What draws me to Elite Dangerous? Mostly that almost all other modern games suck, just like modern movies. They all try to do the same thing, while Elite often tries things differently (not always better, sometimes worse, but still more interesting).

Some of my most favourite games:
Jagged Alliance 2
Gothic 1+2
Medieval 2
Mount & Blade
The Witcher 1
Deus Ex 1
Max Payne 1
Need For Speed Porsche
TES Morrowind
Mass Effect 1
Star Wars Kotor 1+2
Neverwinter Nights 1

Some of these games have a sequel that I didn't mention, that's because they suck. Technically The Witcher 3 or Skyrim are better than their predecessors, but they aren't as revolutionary. It's just the same game with better graphics, sometimes it's even the same story just with changed names...

Just like the games in the list above, FDEV has a vision and ambition for Elite. I don't know if they will ever get there. But I prefer an unfulfilled vision over no vision or ambition at all (CoD, BF, AC, etc.).
 
47 here. Played the original up to Deadly, dabbled in Frontier, and played First Encounters up to the thargon find.

What was I talking about? Oh yes, I enjoy ED. It's beautiful in VR, although I managed to enjoy on a flattish ultrawide screen before I took the leap too.

:D S
 
Well what is an Old Duck? 56 here and also an 84 vet. Arthritic with multiple long term health issues to manage makes me a wrinkled duck who moves like a tortoise. Thankfully not a dead duck - yet.
 
I acknowledge the revolutionary ideas behind Elite, Frontier and First Encounters. At the age of 17 I played them all on a borrowed Amiga500 (FFE on my 486) . I put a sht ton of hours in Frontier, but NEVER I could imagine that one day in the future at the age of 41 I would have played Elite in V I R T U A L R E A L I T Y!!!!

So shut up you old farts. You can keep your C64 Elite box on the bedside table next to your denture 😎
 
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48 years young, At 14 I got a Commodore 64 from my parents for Christmas and that opened a world of gaming and coding (My profession) for me. Elite was my most prized game on the C64, Honestly I nearly failed school cause of the addictive nature of the game. And here we are today with the latest incarnation of Elite. Elite is fun, engaging, beautiful and at times frustrating, but it still is the best Spaceship Simulation game on the market. The best thing is even my children love Elite, all my kids play with me ( 5 boys and a girl), I have my own personal armada :)
 
29 here. Never heard of Elite before ED, but glad to be here now. I’ve been obsessed with all things space since I was 6, so my interest in this game came naturally. Almost missed it, though. I heard about ED by pure chance while looking up cures for Eve Valkyrie-induced motion sickness after I got my Rift.
 
Got my first computer in 85 an atari st and started playing elite. I was 30 at the time.
I still have this game and my mega 2 ST. Gonna have to break down and hook it all up one last time.
 

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I don't think it makes much sense to judge a new game based on the standards of a by-gone era.
That right here is a young one!
I am not. I'm 42 (which is a good age for a nerdy person obviously).

- rant mode initiated -
The problem with the "standards" is, that today's are utterly rubbish because the gaming community is mostly a pile of biowaste. People often don't judge a game, but grab anything within the game to complain about and try to pin it on any person involved with making the game, or more broadly, the devs.
Apart from this practice being social vandalism, it also immediately pushes the topic on a meta level (like I do right now with the quoted sentence) and is more like looking for opportunities to verbally attack, be outraged or negative in other ways. So instead of just enjoying a game or not, and then leave it be, it's degrading comments on a gaming forum which most of the time are so far from constructive criticism, that you just need to swap "devs" for "my parents" and "the game" for "my life" to get the real message, in some cases.
- rant end -

Maybe you just meant just comparing graphics, in which case you're quite right. Can't really compare wire frames with ED's graphics today. Though I have to say, that I still played a lot of First Encounters a few years back, when all the other space games (like the X series, Freelancer and so on) didn't feel as good as being a free pilot in our simulated Milky Way. Graphics have been much worse, but it was much more fun. So in this case, I really think the standards of a by-gone era have been the much better ones. No hand holding, no stupid achievements, no hate for developers (who gave us the game in the first place), no gameplay compromised by the pressure to cater to the trolls.
The graphics, well, yeah, that's better today I guess. :D

- a guy from a by-gone era
 

OOoh.. you're missing out by avoiding a few sequels from that list.. Max Payne 2 is a thing a beauty, same with witcher 2 + 3.. though 2 is skippable by todays standards certainly.. definitely not 3. Witcher 1 was one of those games of its time, but i find it kinda crap today. Witcher 3 i was so impressed at how brave they are telling story.. specifically the content itself and the duration of the dialogue and cutscenes. It is a few years old now though so wouldn't be surprised if they're doing that more since. If you're quite in witcher lore, id recommend 2 after 3. They have a narrative style of not filling in the blanks and just assuming you're the character, so the more you can soak up before playing 2 the better.

i like elite.. ff7 showed me what an rpg was. by chance for me, elite showed me what a sandbox was.. linear experiences are tough once you get it.
 
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Someone posted the following in another thread of mine (abbreviated):

This, along with various other threads and photos from the meet-ups make me wonder if we are all "Old Ducks" playing this game. Ironically I'm actually relatively young compared to many in this forum. My "Old Duck" PSN name was in relation to the average demographic on the Playstation - so when I'm playing Overwatch or Fortnite, the "Old Duck" is very fitting (and earns me some good laughs), whereas I'm beginning to think that I'm a "Young Rooster" when it comes to Elite Dangerous.

I do find the "ED on PS4 is better than Elite on Commodore 64, so what's all the fuss about bugs and graphics?" mentality to be a bit frustrating. If ED is played mostly by a bunch of old guys happy it's better than the C64, then it probably will never rise to the expectations of this "Young Rooster". After all, the original Elite had flickering graphics, so why complain about the terrible flickering shadows on PS4?

And if you are young, young enough not to have played the original Elite games, I'm curious - what draws you to Elite Dangerous? This is a sincere question, as I think many of us older folk (I am old enough to have played Elite on C64 as a kid) play at least partially out of nostalgia.
na, fam im like 20, dabs
 
OOoh.. you're missing out by avoiding a few sequels from that list.. Max Payne 2 is a thing a beauty, same with witcher 2 + 3.. though 2 is skippable by todays standards certainly.. definitely not 3. Witcher 1 was one of those games of its time, but i find it kinda crap today. Witcher 3 i was so impressed at how brave they are telling story.. specifically the content itself and the duration of the dialogue and cutscenes. It is a few years old now though so wouldn't be surprised if they're doing that more since. If you're quite in witcher lore, id recommend 2 after 3. They have a narrative style of not filling in the blanks and just assuming you're the character, so the more you can soak up before playing 2 the better.

i like elite.. ff7 showed me what an rpg was. by chance for me, elite showed me what a sandbox was.. linear experiences are tough once you get it.
I played The Witcher 2+3 and Max Payne 2 (didn't play the 3rd part though). They are nice games, saying they suck is probably a bit harsh. But in the end they are still just modern versions of their predecessors.
 
35. Never played the originals.
Had a NES for Christmas in '88 and have been gaming ever since.
The draw to Elite Dangerous is the freedom this game gives from stuff in real life. Can switch off and chill out in space.
I was a regular FPS player up until the PS4 release and NMS was the biggest let down, so I was quite sceptical about how Elite would pan out for me. A friend of mine at work who also felt let down by NMS suggested it to me, and I've played very few games since us PS4 players got Elite.
 
I'm 41 with three kids and nowhere near enough time to play video games as I would like.

On another thread recently I wondered what the average age is for Elite gamers. Given the type of game it is I'm not totally surprised the average age is a bit older. Looking at the breakdown the median seems to be around late 30's/early 40's.

For example a Google search tells me that the average age for Overwatch is 22, of Fifa is 31, but acknowledges that this is raised by Dad's playing with their kids - I know my eldest son beats me every time and he's 11!

Also never play Rocket League with a kid who has lots of practice time...
 
12 years old in 1982. Commodore Vic 20. 16k rom cartridge upgrade. Played on a black n white portable tv.
I never enjoyed the original Elite. I liked the idea, but I was drawn, even back then to visuals and graphics. Wasnt long before I upgraded to a C64.

PSI 5 Trading company was my go to spaceships game.

I couldnt really afford games, so i would often just get stuff that was on sale, i know lots of people used to trade/share games because cassettes and easy to copy, but I wasnt an overly friendly kid and the other wierd kids that were like me were all spectrum fan boys... And people say todays toxicity in online forums is bad...
Pfft fights beween geeks over commodre v spectrum were real back then, i had many a bloody nose and left many a black eye...
Ok, maybe only the once, but it was pretty vicious.
I remember wanting to play the early star wars games and stuff, but I did start to lean towards rpgs and similiar, side scolling shooters and combat games. Yie ar kung fu!
I really do enjoy ED, i just find most of the gameplay extremely frustrating, so its mostly just flying, visuals and exploration for me.
So for me, age has nothing to do with it, Im a gamer, i play and have played lots of games and what ED does well, it does incredibly well, unfortunately games have so much more depth and complexity, and have matured in a lot of ways and I think thats half the problem... ED isnt a game, its an experience, and as far as experiences go... Id rather ride my bike and leave ED for rainy days.
 
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