Maybe.. Sometimes we need a reminder that it's actually pretty darn good.

[CMDR Harada]

It's actually been a while.. About 6 months since I've flown in Elite. Not fired the game up and poked around.. but FLOWN : broken out the VR rig, popped in the prescription lenses, set up the HOTAS, and experienced the game. I've had issues. My T16000 stick broke. The new HOTAS took a while to order, install, adjust, map, and get the feel of it.. And VR was a PITA to try and use while I was busy doing all that. Add in that I'm one of the idle rich with nothing to do.. and well, the time piled up.

But tonight I ran out of excuses. The HOTAS was perfect, no mapping, no tweaking dead zones or responses curves. The wife and kids were asleep. I didn't have any deadlines at work, tomorrow was a dead day and I could show up late if I wanted. The house was quiet and dark. So I got out the rig. Cleaned the lenses.. and just played.

I took out my Vulture. I spent 20 minutes buzzing about Jameson, running thru FA off exercises, rotating with the rings, testing the HOTAS. It was beautiful. I took off into the system, testing my ship at a few SS's.. taking down a dangerous Annie, staying in his blind spots, giving the "death of a thousand cuts", craning my neck to keep him in my field of view. It felt GOOD. I did barrel rolls around convoy ships, marveling at the detail. I went to the HazRES and duked it out with a few NPC pirates. And I completed my short tour by buzzing asteroids in 6 degrees of freedom. Finally, I parked back at Jameson and watched traffic come in and out for a while, looking at my cockpit anew, with all the superfluous hatches and stenciled warnings. I was amazed, once again, by the detail of tiny things we take for granted. Like the scorch marks on an asteroid of you fire your lasers at it. Or the glowing burns on the hull of a DBX as it whips past you.

And I realized.. Elite Dangerous is a pretty darn good game. Sure, there are things we don't like. There are things we hate. We wish things were better. Maybe as a group we get caught up in the negativity ( and I include myself ) of the forums.

But as it stands right now.. It's a winner.

 

[Stealthie]

But as it stands right now.. It's a winner.

I think "survivor" is probably more accurate.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

It's actually been a while.. About 6 months since I've flown in Elite. Not fired the game up and poked around.. but FLOWN : broken out the VR rig, popped in the prescription lenses, set up the HOTAS, and experienced the game. I've had issues. My T16000 stick broke. The new HOTAS took a while to order, install, adjust, map, and get the feel of it.. And VR was a PITA to try and use while I was busy doing all that. Add in that I'm one of the idle rich with nothing to do.. and well, the time piled up.

But tonight I ran out of excuses. The HOTAS was perfect, no mapping, no tweaking dead zones or responses curves. The wife and kids were asleep. I didn't have any deadlines at work, tomorrow was a dead day and I could show up late if I wanted. The house was quiet and dark. So I got out the rig. Cleaned the lenses.. and just played.

I took out my Vulture. I spent 20 minutes buzzing about Jameson, running thru FA off exercises, rotating with the rings, testing the HOTAS. It was beautiful. I took off into the system, testing my ship at a few SS's.. taking down a dangerous Annie, staying in his blind spots, giving the "death of a thousand cuts", craning my neck to keep him in my field of view. It felt GOOD. I did barrel rolls around convoy ships, marveling at the detail. I went to the HazRES and duked it out with a few NPC pirates. And I completed my short tour by buzzing asteroids in 6 degrees of freedom. Finally, I parked back at Jameson and watched traffic come in and out for a while, looking at my cockpit anew, with all the superfluous hatches and stenciled warnings. I was amazed, once again, by the detail of tiny things we take for granted. Like the scorch marks on an asteroid of you fire your lasers at it. Or the glowing burns on the hull of a DBX as it whips past you.

And I realized.. Elite Dangerous is a pretty darn good game. Sure, there are things we don't like. There are things we hate. We wish things were better. Maybe as a group we get caught up in the negativity ( and I include myself ) of the forums.

But as it stands right now.. It's a winner.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[Rubbernuke]

If I could run the game without it crashing I might be able to judge these days.

 

[Frank]

I was out in a Vulture last night. I see what you mean by "death of a thousand cuts". Those 2 hardpoints don't pack too much punch compared to my Corvette. Ships which would've just dissolved in front of me in seconds now became a seriously long bout

But it did give me time to admire the scenery. And as you say, the scenery in VR is quite astonishing

 

[CMDR GRAEME COWELL]

I gotta say i've missed more than one mission deadline by doing a go-round just to get another look at the terminator on an earthlike or CME's on a couple of binary stars slowly circling each other. I can be pretty especially out in the dark with no NPC Pirates scanning you then running off.

 

[Joss C. K.]

I don't play Elite very often, only a few hours this year, but I love it for what it is, I am looking forward to the years to come and will buy any extension.
I can attach the HOTAS to my office chair, have a VR rig and VoiceAttack set up - it feels like I have f###ing spaceship parked at home!!

 

[Viscera]

The game itself is great.

Some of the odd implementation of events and things... Not so great.

Wish they would mix it up a bit sometimes.

If cg's are the only thing in the arsenal, change them up a little sometimes.

Make a material based donation cg. Make those players get out and find materials to donate rather than buy stuff in a space station.

Make a cg based on donating credits. This is a good one for unlocking something. No monetary reward. But instead a feeling you have helped the pilots federation out. Maybe an arx reward for the biggest donations.

I dont know. Just a little variation here and there i think would make things much more engaging.

 

[Wolf Starslayer]

I suggest the happy customers buy more ARX ; helps us all in the end .

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I think "survivor" is probably more accurate.

I dedicate this song to this post:

And I hate this song, but for the OP.

 

[Riverside]

I don't need a reminder, I play every day and have done for years. But there are problems that need to be addressed too.

 

[WR3ND]

Game's been good since 2015, planetary landings in 2016 were pretty sweet and still are. Other than that... I think the game has generally gotten worse over the years.

I'd drop the current version of the game for 2.0 in a heartbeat. Just saying. There have been other improvements here and there since then of course, but too much of a mixed bag in terms of compelling game-play potential as an intragalactic sci-fi spaceship dude for me.

Still a great game though. Not sure what to expect from 2020.

 

[Iskariot]

It's actually been a while.. About 6 months since I've flown in Elite. Not fired the game up and poked around.. but FLOWN : broken out the VR rig, popped in the prescription lenses, set up the HOTAS, and experienced the game. I've had issues. My T16000 stick broke. The new HOTAS took a while to order, install, adjust, map, and get the feel of it.. And VR was a PITA to try and use while I was busy doing all that. Add in that I'm one of the idle rich with nothing to do.. and well, the time piled up.

But tonight I ran out of excuses. The HOTAS was perfect, no mapping, no tweaking dead zones or responses curves. The wife and kids were asleep. I didn't have any deadlines at work, tomorrow was a dead day and I could show up late if I wanted. The house was quiet and dark. So I got out the rig. Cleaned the lenses.. and just played.

I took out my Vulture. I spent 20 minutes buzzing about Jameson, running thru FA off exercises, rotating with the rings, testing the HOTAS. It was beautiful. I took off into the system, testing my ship at a few SS's.. taking down a dangerous Annie, staying in his blind spots, giving the "death of a thousand cuts", craning my neck to keep him in my field of view. It felt GOOD. I did barrel rolls around convoy ships, marveling at the detail. I went to the HazRES and duked it out with a few NPC pirates. And I completed my short tour by buzzing asteroids in 6 degrees of freedom. Finally, I parked back at Jameson and watched traffic come in and out for a while, looking at my cockpit anew, with all the superfluous hatches and stenciled warnings. I was amazed, once again, by the detail of tiny things we take for granted. Like the scorch marks on an asteroid of you fire your lasers at it. Or the glowing burns on the hull of a DBX as it whips past you.

And I realized.. Elite Dangerous is a pretty darn good game. Sure, there are things we don't like. There are things we hate. We wish things were better. Maybe as a group we get caught up in the negativity ( and I include myself ) of the forums.

But as it stands right now.. It's a winner.

Elite is unique. The best spacesim in town. It has an awesome galaxy, but I do want more, and I do not mean walking around, or some other huge new features.
I would be extremely happy with more diversity: new space station models for example. So much could be done in that regard to enhance our experience.

Also a good npc crew system should have been implemented long ago.
A few new SRV models?
Actual planetary mining?

Stuff like that should not be too difficult to add.
It is very mysterious to me why development is so slow.

The 2020 update really needs to be good to make up for the long wait.

 

[Chaparral]

I absolutely agree with the OP that combat vs. NPCs, the sound design, the visuals are wonderful. I wrecked tons of Elite Annies and other Elites in my overengineered dual plasma vulture during the last CG.

My concern with the game design is around why we engage in this mechanic. How is the player/character invested in the activity other than activity process itself.

From a grinder's point of view killing these targets allows for the collection of resources used to further overpower your ship. From a achiever's point of view, I eek closer to triple elite on yet another account. From a socializer's point of view, if I'm lucky, I can wing up with some like-minded players - but it is not a requirement of the activity. From a killer's point of view, I'm not really afraid of npcs any more.

In my opinion, Elite falls flat on creating player/character rp connections to the activities. NPCs are clearly rng generated cells on a spreadsheet. Their personalities are less interesting than an equation. The true challenge for FDEV is whether or not they can procedurally generate an npc personality that you want to engage with. My gut feeling is they would rather focus on reproduction rates of ostrich sprites, and the price of biowaste in a system with a population of 1500.

 

[WR3ND]

Elite is unique. The best spacesim in town. It has an awesome galaxy, but I do want more, and I do not mean walking around, or some other huge new features.
I would be extremely happy with more diversity: new space station models for example. So much could be done in that regard to enhance our experience.

Also a good npc crew system should have been implemented long ago.
A few new SRV models?
Actual planetary mining?

Stuff like that should not be too difficult to add.
It is very mysterious to me why development is so slow.

The 2020 update really needs to be good to make up for the long wait.

Main reason I want space legs is for further fleshing out of the game world setting, not necessarily the typical FPS game-play associated with that sort of thing. You know, checking out and interacting with the interiors of ships and stations (especially Jaques Bar) and bases and the surfaces of worlds. That sort of thing.

Also, I completely agree that retractable tank treads on my Vulture would be awesome... Not sure if you mentioned that specifically, but I connected the dots.

 

[CR33P]

It's actually been a while.. About 6 months since I've flown in Elite. Not fired the game up and poked around.. but FLOWN : broken out the VR rig, popped in the prescription lenses, set up the HOTAS, and experienced the game. I've had issues. My T16000 stick broke. The new HOTAS took a while to order, install, adjust, map, and get the feel of it.. And VR was a PITA to try and use while I was busy doing all that. Add in that I'm one of the idle rich with nothing to do.. and well, the time piled up.

But tonight I ran out of excuses. The HOTAS was perfect, no mapping, no tweaking dead zones or responses curves. The wife and kids were asleep. I didn't have any deadlines at work, tomorrow was a dead day and I could show up late if I wanted. The house was quiet and dark. So I got out the rig. Cleaned the lenses.. and just played.

I took out my Vulture. I spent 20 minutes buzzing about Jameson, running thru FA off exercises, rotating with the rings, testing the HOTAS. It was beautiful. I took off into the system, testing my ship at a few SS's.. taking down a dangerous Annie, staying in his blind spots, giving the "death of a thousand cuts", craning my neck to keep him in my field of view. It felt GOOD. I did barrel rolls around convoy ships, marveling at the detail. I went to the HazRES and duked it out with a few NPC pirates. And I completed my short tour by buzzing asteroids in 6 degrees of freedom. Finally, I parked back at Jameson and watched traffic come in and out for a while, looking at my cockpit anew, with all the superfluous hatches and stenciled warnings. I was amazed, once again, by the detail of tiny things we take for granted. Like the scorch marks on an asteroid of you fire your lasers at it. Or the glowing burns on the hull of a DBX as it whips past you.

And I realized.. Elite Dangerous is a pretty darn good game. Sure, there are things we don't like. There are things we hate. We wish things were better. Maybe as a group we get caught up in the negativity ( and I include myself ) of the forums.

But as it stands right now.. It's a winner.

100%

 

[znôrt]

I was amazed, once again, by the detail of tiny things we take for granted.

I'd drop the current version of the game for 2.0 in a heartbeat.

funny that i completely agree with both these views. the setting of the game is just amazing, the experience you can have in vr is unparalleled.

however, we had that already in 2015 and the subsequent 'fleshing out' has been rather poor in comparison. true, for free: i say this because in the last part of horizons and beyond the game hasn't really evolved, just got added different secondary bits and polish, with some features that didn't took off and were just left there. none of the core issues have been addressed, though: networking still sucks or has even gotten worse, instancing is still just as crazy as on day 1, gaping holes like combat logging are still open, the 'living galaxy' story has been irregular to say the least, the most enticing activity is still ... a predetermined cg? ... this is foundation level stuff that should have been worked on and the game would have truly evolved to a new stage by now and would have seen new gameplay emerging. so for me the game has been just stalled all these years, what i would call 'maintenance mode'. or the realization: planetary landings was it, the end of the line.

and that's the catch: the setting is so damned good that you actually want stuff like that to work. to really be in a thriving world with other players involved in different agendas, antagonizing, cooperating or just surviving, stuff happening, rather than just running scripted missions for goal x that become routine quick. it's amazing what players have come up with even with abysmal tools, lack of player agency is really a stopper.

for me, what there is is truly magical, but devoid of real life so gets 'samey' fast, it's best experienced in short sips.

 

[BDelacroix]

One of the things I like about Elite (aside from I can fly starships) is that while it is a mmo technically, it isn't setup such that I have to run the treadmill every day just to keep up.