My Experience With The Elite Franchise

[nigeljk]

Had to reply. Was totally hooked on Aviator (a 3D wireframe simulator from Acornsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acornsoft) then came Elite. Got to Elite multiple times. It's a pity that Tech savvy US citizens didn't riot to get their hands on decent kit The Archimedes range out stripped everything and was technologically advanced (Acorn Risc Machines was spun off to form ARM ltd and is now the largest producers CPU in the world, not to mention a ROM based GUI OS). The Arc Elite (with solid 3D) was far superior to any other version (up to that point).

If you fancy a true Acorn based Elite experience (from the original to Arc Elite) then get yourself a raspberry pi and download RiscOS and follow these (2012) instructions:

https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi

http://kimondo.co.uk/elite-making-a-game-that-looks-as-good-as-the-box-art/

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Nice story, OP. +Rep!

Edit. Bah, need to spread the love a bit. Virtual rep!

I never played the original Elite.
My introduction to the Elite Universe was when my best friend at the time, introduced me to Frontier: Elite II on his Commadore 64. He later got it for his windows/DOS PC. And we used to play it side by side as if we were in space together. I still love the intro movie for it.
He'd been playing the game a lot longer than me, so I really struggled to catch up in terms of money.
But in terms of skill, I blew him out of the water. He could only dock using the docking computer, and I could win fights with sub par equipment he would run from. Lol
After a while I think I annoyed him by being better (although, I never worked out how to trade, and often ran out of fuel!), and we stopped playing.
I continued to play it by myself, eventually moving on to other newer games, like wing commander, X:BTF, Tachyon the Fringe, Freespace, and my personal favourite, I-War.
I didn't return to FE2 for ages, until I stumbled upon an open source version, Pioneer. Played that for a while (still absolutely sucking at trading!), when I hard rumours of Elite Dangerous.
Several years went by, and I completely forgot about Elite, and went back to I-War 2, and other space games.
Then in late 2015, ED popped up on sale on Steam. Unsure if I'd like it, (considering I sucked at all trading), I watched seemingly endless YouTube videos of gameplay footage.
I was hook, just watching the videos, and soon got the game for myself.
Around 1000~ hours later, still playing it, and Horizons, as my main game.
I love it, and it only gets better. Although I do take the odd healthy break from it to play other games I've neglected.

And I still suck at trading, especially without using external tools. Lol

Some things never change.

I can see myself playing ED for many more years.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

the list of games played reads like mine. wing commander series - killed by EA (they bought origin and as per usual practise then asset stripped the talent and discarded all games it worked on) and origins founder just so he could make a flop of a wing commander movie that never came close to the games. series killed after the cliffhanger ending of prophecy. xwing vs tie fighter. i played those too. i played the original elite with the fly by newtonian physics in combat being totally frustrating, then i played the zx spectrum and amstrad 6128 versions with much better playability for the combat. got to dangerous on spectrum and deadly on the amstrad.

Elite: Dangerous i came to late; but its gotten under my skin. right now im not playing because i have some in bubble goals but i feel a very strong urge to leave the bubble and head for Sag A*, and if i log in now i may be 10k ly out before i start beating myself up for not finishing what i wanted to do before going out again.

 

[dognosh]

Hey all. I'd like to take a moment here and regale you all with the tale about my life long flirtations with the Frontier Elite franchise.

First of all, I'm an American (yes I know, booo). I was also born in '84, the year Elite was released. So I didn't experience it until years after it's release. Here in America, the BBC Micro never took off. At all. The Amiga and the Commodore were relatively known, but almost no one actually owned one, and Acorn wasn't even known in the States at all.

The two big dominant PCs of the 80's here in the States were the Apple II and the IBM Compatibles like the i386 and the i486. after that Intel took over with the Pentium and throughout the 1990's, at least until Apple's big come back with the iPod, the Powerbook G4, and the iMac, the only real PCs on the market here were Intel Pentiums with Microsoft Windows throughout the 1990's.

We never really had anything from Acorn, BBC, or Commodore. Though as an anecdote, after their big return to form, Apple and their Macintosh line of PCs has become more popular here on the Pacific West Coast than even Windows PCs now. I know that's not the case in the UK. But here, we love Apple's developer tools and APIs. We're a very tech savvy bunch here on the west coast of the U.S.

Anyway, back to my story. The first time I was exposed to Elite was as a port on the Apple II in the late 80's. As a small child I loved space, so when my dad brought home a video game about it, I was ecstatic to say the least. It really wasn't long before I was docking like a champ. I had entire pages filling the study we kept the computer in. Pages of lists of systems and station names, all places that had good inventory stock of various commodities to trade.

Even as a small child, I was utterly engrossed in the sheer magnitude of the game.

But then the Apple II died of old age and was replaced by an Intel Pentium 2 PC, and my days with Elite faded away. I always had fond memories of the game, but I moved onto other games like Mechwarrior, Descent, FreeSpace, X-Wing, Wing Commander, and Homeworld. I was the outsider in my circle of friends. While they were all busy playing games like Doom, Quake, and Unreal Tournament (which were absolutely huge games here in the States), I was playing Mech sims and space games.

Then in the late '90's and early 2000's, right about the time I was in my last years of highschool, Blackberries and Palm Pilots became very popular, and I got myself a Handspring Visor Edge running PalmOS. In my search for games to play on the device, there was one game for PalmOS that spread through my circle of friends like wildfire. It went by the name of Space Trader.

Now, Space Trader was just a simple 2D space trading game. There was no flight sim gameplay involved. But from the moment I booted it up I was struck with this nagging feeling. I started out in a system called Lave... Surely that had to just be a coincidence? But no. The next system over was Leesti!

I knew these systems! But from where? This question haunted me for days. The longer I played this silly 2D trading game where all I did was tap, the more familiar it seemed. The ships themselves were new, and had different names, but the cargo space capacity... The weapon mounts... These were identical load outs to a space game I'd played before. I just knew it. But despite all the tapping involved in the game I couldn't quite place my finger on it. Nevertheless, I continued to play Space Trader, and it developed it's own special place in my heart as one of my favorite mobile games of the early 2000's.

A couple years later I'd bought my first laptop on my own from money saved from my job. One of the first space games I found for it was an open source game called Oolite, a fan-made remake of Elite. It was at that very moment, when I read the word "Elite" that all the dots connected in my own mind. All these years, all the space games I'd played and held in such high regard, Freespace, Wing Commander, Space Trader, most all of them had some ties to Elite. The game that started it all. It was at this point that I learned once and for all that Space Trader was a fan-made spiritual successor to Elite! That's why all the systems had the same names!

Fast forward ten years later to around 2013, and I'd added all of the original Elite games to my game library thanks to modern ports or DOSBox. I'd relived the childhood of wonder with Elite and brought it back with me into my early 30's.

Then I learned about a brand new kickstarter project called "Elite: Dangerous". And yes. It was the same Elite I'd fallen in love with twice in my life, and had been flirtatiously dancing around without even realizing it for most of that time. I have played almost every day for the last 3 years, and I don't intend to stop anytime soon.

Today, I'm buying an Oculus Rift just for Elite Dangerous while it's still on sale. I don't expect I'll be disappointed.

+1 rep.
Huge post, normally my scroll wheel smokes with these long ones...read every word
(many adventures here too,but it's your post )

 

[Hadarmil]

Haven't played any of the old Elite series. Was more of a wing commander/x-wing kid and gobbled up the Mechwarrior series. Some fighter sims and pretty much all interplay's RPGs. Single player story mode thank you very much.

Then I heard about Oculus.

I remember going to a VR arcade in 95 I think, and was completely blown away. Of course it was expensive and you only got a couple of minutes for your money...but ever since it faded I was just waiting for it to come back. Then I learned Elite will support it...


And now I'm much poorer, but I'M FLYING A FRAEKNIG SPACESHIP!!!

 

[[VR] Frank_G]

Rift + Elite = Childhood dreams fulfilled, basically. Sure it'll get better, but where it is NOW is delightful.

This ^, exactly.

And thank you for sharing your experience OP. I had the opportunity to play Elite in its first iteration right from 1st release. I played the two following games in the 90s and i was immediately caught and kept by this game, when it released in 2014. And Elite and the Rift are made for each other... you will be blown away!

See you in the void, CMDR! o7

 

[Synthetic Frost]

...and gobbled up the Mechwarrior series.

That's one series that just doesn't get enough public attention, in my opinion. Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, a standalone prequel to Mechwarrior 2 and it's Ghost Bear's legacy expansion, is probably the best video game in the entire Battletech franchise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at9hxU864Fg

That intro is STILL just as badass today, and keep in mind this was released in 1995. Nothing looked that good in 1995. The start of the campaign picked right up where that intro ends. The first thing you do is listen to a voiced audio message from your commander that just died in the intro, and then you get to decide what to do with the C-bills she's left you. If you want to, you can sell your starting mech and buy a different one and then configure it with a huge range of weapons before even starting the first mission.

After that, you can go to the computer terminal and then decide which mission contracts to take and which lancemates (wingmen) to hire. One thing that might not be obvious at first is that the mission dates are actually important because depending on the finishing date of your last contract you might be able to fit in a few one-off contract missions before one of the bigger long term contracts which consist of multi-mission campaigns. And you have to pay close attention to the contract details because you can't come back and restock until the contract is over, so if a mech arm and the weapons in it get blown off mid-contract, and you didn't bring extra spares, you're out of that equipment for however long that contrat lasts before you can buy replacements. Ultimately, you have to be careful with what contracts you take on. This results in branching mission paths, meaning you can go on different mission paths every time you play the game, adding a ton of replay value. None of the other Mechwarrior games pull this off anywhere near as good as Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries did.

Of all of the video games made in the Battletech universe (Mechwarrior, Mech Commander, Mech Assault, etc) the three Mechwarrior 2 games and Mechwarrior 3 were easily the best. MechWarrior 3 just had this weight and sway to each step that later games like Mechwarrior 4 and Mechwarrior Online just don't have. In Mechwarriors 2 and 3, you FELT like you were in a 100ton walking nuclear reactor. There was purpose and weight with each step. You just don't get that in the later games after FASA stopped being involved with the development.

I'm a sucker for mechs in sci-fi. Japanese mecha genres like Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion and American mech franchises like Warhammer 40k are fine, but Battletech in particular just has this dark, serious grim dystopian tone to it that makes the absurdity that is giant walking mechs seem not only plausible, but realistic. It's very similar to Elite in that regard.

The games are a little tricky to run on modern systems. They run pretty well through DOSBox, but you have to use the software rendered version of the game instead of the 3D accelerated versions. Honestly though, the graphical difference was minimal. If anyone looks these games up, just avoid the Mechwarrior 2 Titanium Edition. The Titanium Edition had enhanced graphics, but it utterly broke certain weapon and salvage balances, and was so buggy it barely ran even in it's heyday.

 

[Hadarmil]

That's one series that just doesn't get enough public attention, in my opinion. Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, a standalone prequel to Mechwarrior 2 and it's Ghost Bear's legacy expansion, is probably the best video game in the entire Battletech franchise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at9hxU864Fg

That intro is STILL just as badass today, and keep in mind this was released in 1995. Nothing looked that good in 1995. The start of the campaign picked right up where that intro ends. The first thing you do is listen to a voiced audio message from your commander that just died in the intro, and then you get to decide what to do with the C-bills she's left you. If you want to, you can sell your starting mech and buy a different one and then configure it with a huge range of weapons before even starting the first mission.

After that, you can go to the computer terminal and then decide which mission contracts to take and which lancemates (wingmen) to hire. One thing that might not be obvious at first is that the mission dates are actually important because depending on the finishing date of your last contract you might be able to fit in a few one-off contract missions before one of the bigger long term contracts which consist of multi-mission campaigns. And you have to pay close attention to the contract details because you can't come back and restock until the contract is over, so if a mech arm and the weapons in it get blown off mid-contract, and you didn't bring extra spares, you're out of that equipment for however long that contrat lasts before you can buy replacements. Ultimately, you have to be careful with what contracts you take on. This results in branching mission paths, meaning you can go on different mission paths every time you play the game, adding a ton of replay value. None of the other Mechwarrior games pull this off anywhere near as good as Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries did.

Of all of the video games made in the Battletech universe (Mechwarrior, Mech Commander, Mech Assault, etc) the three Mechwarrior 2 games and Mechwarrior 3 were easily the best. MechWarrior 3 just had this weight and sway to each step that later games like Mechwarrior 4 and Mechwarrior Online just don't have. In Mechwarriors 2 and 3, you FELT like you were in a 100ton walking nuclear reactor. There was purpose and weight with each step. You just don't get that in the later games after FASA stopped being involved with the development.

I'm a sucker for mechs in sci-fi. Japanese mecha genres like Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion and American mech franchises like Warhammer 40k are fine, but Battletech in particular just has this dark, serious grim dystopian tone to it that makes the absurdity that is giant walking mechs seem not only plausible, but realistic. It's very similar to Elite in that regard.

The games are a little tricky to run on modern systems. They run pretty well through DOSBox, but you have to use the software rendered version of the game instead of the 3D accelerated versions. Honestly though, the graphical difference was minimal. If anyone looks these games up, just avoid the Mechwarrior 2 Titanium Edition. The Titanium Edition had enhanced graphics, but it utterly broke certain weapon and salvage balances, and was so buggy it barely ran even in it's heyday.

Have to spread the love around... so can't rep. Ahhh... ghost bear...

I have reserved some optimism for mechwarrior 5. But it won't have the stone rhino, so not much

 

[Gen-Han-Solo]

I played all of those games and because I'm much older than most people realize I because ELITE in all the versions of ELITE did not really play oolite though not sure why really, life gets in the way some time's.

My friends and I got in to Freelancer in a very big way and at one point I was playing on every Freelancer server modded or not that I could log in to my Cmdr Name was always the same on every server I was and still am Han Solo.
I missed only one server because one of the group setting up the server used my game tag so I logged in using [Cmdr] Gen Han Solo as soon as he saw me online he deleted his account so I could use the name I always use, we became very good friends until he passed away. The only online game that said I could not use Han Solo as it is normally displayed is ELITE DANGEROUS that's why I had to make it look silly and display it like this Cmdr -Han_Solo-.

Any Way back to plot.

And I was running six different modded server's for freelancer all at the same time and helped a lot of other players set up servers, sadly I only shut down the last server a few months ago the last ever version of the Rebalance mod.
Server name Rebalance Experiment v4.0 with random missions edited command structure and some random game content so even some of the old experts of freelancer got stuck, we even made it possible to fly every ship in the mod.

We would have run an ELITE server and would probably still be running one if it was a multi player game. So as you can all guess I'm ELITE through and through and have not one or two PC accounts but I have FOUR.

I also have an account on Star Citizen not because I heard about the kickstarter but because Criss Roberts heard about me and my friends and sent us an invite to join him on his adventure to create the next big multi player Space Game, so as we were all very heavily in to freelancer we all jumped in some of the modd teams now work for his company but just before we started testing I heard about ELITE and as it was the first game I ever got in to here I am.

One thing I would like to confirm if frontier ever stop supporting ELITE DANGEROUS I will finally get the chance to run an ELITE server, so as long as I'm still around I will be playing ELITE on a multi player server.

All of these going on a retro gaming computer I just built with top-tier (for 1999) parts for about $200USD (emulators and virtual machines all have their problems).

I have, and play, every Mechwarrior game made; I ran a MW server & played it in the first 4-man "battle pods." It's that close-up, blow-the-leg-off-it thrill of metal rending & plasma crackling that gets me every time. I even made my own gaming chair/rig to go with it (force feedback, internal subwoofer, swing-arm monitor stands, custom controller).

Descent... that game introduced me to thinking in 6 directions at once. It also weirded out my eyes after playing a 4-hour session.

Freespace, and the awesome FS2/Open mod, are where I still go when I want that feeling of flying next to an energy beam that is spitting and whining and for a real feel of small ship/fighter vs behemoth action.

Homeworld... I bathed in that game. I played it heavily for a long time. It was the game I'd show off to "wow" people about state-of-the-art space gaming. So beautiful. Sad that they bollixed the remake. Please don't mention Cataclysm.

Star Lancer/Freelancer, I still play them. You're nobody unless you can do the entire campaign in a Rhino

 

[Synthetic Frost]

Freelancer

I played it's prequel, Starlancer on the PC and Dreamcast. I need to play that game again. I always used the Shroud. Paper thin fighter, but cloaks ftw.

 

[Frank]

Today, I'm buying an Oculus Rift just for Elite Dangerous while it's still on sale. I don't expect I'll be disappointed.

Wait until you are approaching Lave Station in a Cobra Mk3 in VR. It's something special.

 

[Synthetic Frost]

Wait until you are approaching Lave Station in a Cobra Mk3 in VR. It's something special.

Can't wait. When I went to the store to pick one up, they were out of them. I still bought one, but I have to wait for it to ship. Should be a few more days.

 

[relayer]

That's one series that just doesn't get enough public attention, in my opinion. Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, a standalone prequel to Mechwarrior 2 and it's Ghost Bear's legacy expansion, is probably the best video game in the entire Battletech franchise.
... None of the other Mechwarrior games pull this off anywhere near as good as Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries did.

You're right. That is the game I come back to most often in the Mechwarrior series. The branching mission system is cleverly designed & interwoven with story-stuff. For graphics, when I got MW3 I almost creemed my jeans watching the arms blow off a Timberwolf.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at9hxU864Fg

"Look at the bright side, kid: you get to keep all the money."

I can occasionally be caught saying "There's still room in Hell for your sorry carcass" in other games, to other foes.

Part of my learning to hack code was to extract the audio files from MW2/Mercs/3 from the game files, which was not easily done at that time. I still have them on a set of CDs that I pop in while playing other games. Great stuff.

The games are a little tricky to run on modern systems. They run pretty well through DOSBox, but you have to use the software rendered version of the game instead of the 3D accelerated versions.

Hence, after long tribulations with controllers, emulators, virtual machines, etc, it was much more fun and very cheap to put together a retro system of top-shelf-at-the-time parts for $200 or less. It's huge fun & plays all the old games like a champ [and yes, the MW games are the first ones I loaded ]

Just for fun:
MechWarrior Cinematics Collection [I, II, III, IV, MWLL, (V), MWO]

"Alpha Assault, this is HQ. What is your situation? Please comply!"

 

[TFB Daerist]

Great post & read OP.

Got me nostalgic.

BBC-B, 1984 started. My folks had got it for themselves and to help me with my studies... Totally hooked, was a quantum leap from Frak, Zalaga, Daley Thompson's SinclairKeyboardMelting Decathlon, Elrond the lunchmaker's The Hobbit, Manic Miner, Chucky Egg and the other games I played at the time. Played at my folks house before going to University, Big Country blaring through my Walkman and obsession in my heart. Got to the point that their budgie in the conservatory next to where the computer was started to replicate the sound of the lasers. Got to Elite, went to Uni, and other then a couple of go's at my Dads FE II (didn't like the creepy people piccies at the stations, or flight model) that was it for me and Elite until last year.

Not a huge games player. Star Wars Rogue Squadron and that series, Baldurs Gate and those spin offs, and FBPro 98, have held my attention to lesser degrees. Heard from my folks that Elite was being red-one, for the VR age. Wasn't until a friend started playing and talking about it, that I had it bought for me by my son for Christmas 2015. Didn't start it for a few months even then (had really not played PC games for ages, and have other things to fill my time). But boy was I hooked!

My friend incidentally stopped playing shortly after getting an Annie via the humongous CG payout last year. Last week he bought an Occulus. Is back to Elite and I will get to see what it looks like in VR. By all (most) accounts, a whole new Galaxy of wonder.