Five Whole Years
It seems fitting I start this thread as I was here so long ago. This forum was dying. We had a couple of hundred registered members, but only about a dozen or so actively lurking and maybe a handful of posts each day, if that. We had not long had avatars and signatures. This forum looked very different to how it does now.
Frontier back then were publishing Lostwinds, their own title, a Wallace & Gromit game and Kinectimals for Microsoft, utilising Microsoft's Kinect hardware. We read in a games review site that The Outsider had been cancelled. This was big news at the time as it was rumoured that Frontier would work on Elite IV after they had finished The Outisder. If that game was cancelled, what was happening with Elite IV?
I pushed Michael Brookes for information. As you might expect, he didn't reveal anything. I can't say I blame him, Frontier was a lot smaller back then compared to now. It is interesting (to me anyway) that Frontier still have not made an official statement regarding the status of The Outsider. It is probably safe to say it'll never happen now.
I happened to be lurking one night in November 2012, when I refreshed the forum and a thread by David Walsh popped up ...
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/2704-Watch-This-Space
I read that post and the two or three of us lurking stayed glued to the forum for a solid hour. At midnight, David announced the kickstarter.
I had never heard of kickstarter or crowd funding. I registered with the site and backed for £20 but within an hour I had done some sums and worked out I could afford to back at the £150 level.
This forum literally exploded overnight. We watched the kickstarter all day, every day for sixty days. It seemed like forever. Would it get funded? Would it fail? I tracked each day's funding level like a hawk.
Looking back on it all, I am glad it happened. I've made some great friends, had some great times. I've made mistakes too, I'm not perfect, but I'd like to think that I've learned from them.
I thank you all, and here's to another five years.
Alien.
It seems fitting I start this thread as I was here so long ago. This forum was dying. We had a couple of hundred registered members, but only about a dozen or so actively lurking and maybe a handful of posts each day, if that. We had not long had avatars and signatures. This forum looked very different to how it does now.
Frontier back then were publishing Lostwinds, their own title, a Wallace & Gromit game and Kinectimals for Microsoft, utilising Microsoft's Kinect hardware. We read in a games review site that The Outsider had been cancelled. This was big news at the time as it was rumoured that Frontier would work on Elite IV after they had finished The Outisder. If that game was cancelled, what was happening with Elite IV?
I pushed Michael Brookes for information. As you might expect, he didn't reveal anything. I can't say I blame him, Frontier was a lot smaller back then compared to now. It is interesting (to me anyway) that Frontier still have not made an official statement regarding the status of The Outsider. It is probably safe to say it'll never happen now.
I happened to be lurking one night in November 2012, when I refreshed the forum and a thread by David Walsh popped up ...
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/2704-Watch-This-Space
I read that post and the two or three of us lurking stayed glued to the forum for a solid hour. At midnight, David announced the kickstarter.
I had never heard of kickstarter or crowd funding. I registered with the site and backed for £20 but within an hour I had done some sums and worked out I could afford to back at the £150 level.
This forum literally exploded overnight. We watched the kickstarter all day, every day for sixty days. It seemed like forever. Would it get funded? Would it fail? I tracked each day's funding level like a hawk.
Looking back on it all, I am glad it happened. I've made some great friends, had some great times. I've made mistakes too, I'm not perfect, but I'd like to think that I've learned from them.
I thank you all, and here's to another five years.
Alien.