I just want to share my first impressions of the game. I purposely waited until release to purchase the game, so that I would be getting as feature a complete game as possible. Given the nature of today's not-so-feature complete games, I'm glad that I waited. I run the game with one monitor, keyboard and mouse, and no head tracking system. Though I do have a joystick and throttle on the way.
My first impressions of the game are generally negative, with one very important exception. The simulation of travelling through real space is intoxicating. Frontier really did a spectacular job of showing what our own Milky Way looks like at a scale that we would otherwise never have the opportunity to experience. Well done!
That said, let me say, that I am only still playing the game because of three reasons: 1. I paid for it, and it's a novelty, so I'm going to stick with it for now. 2. The promise of future improvements to the game. Frontier appears dedicated to continuing to develop the game, so we'll see if they can deliver. 3. The aforementioned space simulation. This feature is compelling, but like any novelty, it will become boring with familiarity.
I've rated everything on a scale from 0 to 10, with ten being best. Everything is prioritized with what's most important at the top:
1. Character (Rating 0.1): There's no doubt about it Elite Dangerous is very Eve like, and not in a good way (see below). I get that the game is a labor of love, procedurally generated, and nostalgia for the original game is a primary consideration, but since I never played any of the previous games, I'm not living the dream.
You've had your moment of reliving past glories, but it's time to move on. Let's start with adding some character to the game in the form of interesting NPC's along the lines of the space trading game Gazillionaire, space ports with Star Wars like gritty realism, space anomalies like Star Trek, and aliens along the lines of Farscape.
2. UI (Rating 1): The UI in Elite Dangerous is just drop dead gorgeous, but, and this is a very big but, it is stupid beyond measure. Perhaps it makes a bit more sense with an Oculus Rift, or maybe a head tracking system, but for a one monitor screen setup, it sucks!
First off, does it really make sense to have windshields in a spaceship, even a small dogfighting ship like the Eagle? No. Star Trek got this right fifty years ago, when they introduced the view screen. Agents of Shield did a great job with their holographic table, so why does ED have windshields? Give me view screens or a holographic table please.
Secondly, stop forcing me to change my view to the left or right, and allow me to throw up fully customizable semi-transparent front facing HUD screens. Think digital dashboards made of widgets. Is Ford and GM still designing the cockpits of the 34th century?
3. Features (Rating 2): Speaking of the 34th century, do you think that they will rediscover the tech of the 20th? Like digital zoom perhaps. So, I'm flying around the system and there's another ship or planet that I would like to take a closer look at, so I reach for my 20X zoom button but I can't find it. So I instead turn to bring up a full screen tactical picture of the system (like in Eve), and I can't find that button either. Why did the game designers spend so much time making the ship models so pretty if all you ever see in the game is little dark silhouettes?
Seriously, the game lacks so many of the basic features which Eve possesses that it's really not funny. Not funny at all. How come when I select a star that's several jumps away, that I don't get a list of jumps, a total jump distance, and other pertinent information?
That said, the game does at least have a complete, if not fully fleshed out, game loop. Better than most early access games which I've played. I'm looking at you Landmark and MechWarrior Online.
4. Galnet (Rating 4): This is actually a feature which Elite Dangerous does better than Eve. Galnet gives you the game's overall story arc is one succinct location. Kudos for that. Still, the articles are childish and unrealistic, and really detract from the emersion of the game. Whoever is writing those reports should be immediately reassigned to the mail room. Reporters don't report on political news stories like that, and politicians don't give speeches like that, not even wacko dictators like Kim Jong-un. Frontier needs to hire an authentic reporter with real world experience coving politics, or a politician with real work experience writing and delivering political speeches.
Secondly, has the 34th century given up on video and audio? I get that those feature are very expensive to implement, but I hope that they are the roadmap. If you're going to deliver the news, than you ought to at least have a youtube channel.
I apologize if my criticisms are overly negative. I want to love this game. I wanted to love Eve. What I want is a game of exploration which delivers an epic adventure. Whereas Eve refused to move away from their grand corporate political intrigue gameplay and toward a game of exploration, Elite Dangerous at least seems to be moving in that direction. Let's hope that the gray and drab nature of procedurally generated systems doesn't kill the attempt.
My first impressions of the game are generally negative, with one very important exception. The simulation of travelling through real space is intoxicating. Frontier really did a spectacular job of showing what our own Milky Way looks like at a scale that we would otherwise never have the opportunity to experience. Well done!
That said, let me say, that I am only still playing the game because of three reasons: 1. I paid for it, and it's a novelty, so I'm going to stick with it for now. 2. The promise of future improvements to the game. Frontier appears dedicated to continuing to develop the game, so we'll see if they can deliver. 3. The aforementioned space simulation. This feature is compelling, but like any novelty, it will become boring with familiarity.
I've rated everything on a scale from 0 to 10, with ten being best. Everything is prioritized with what's most important at the top:
1. Character (Rating 0.1): There's no doubt about it Elite Dangerous is very Eve like, and not in a good way (see below). I get that the game is a labor of love, procedurally generated, and nostalgia for the original game is a primary consideration, but since I never played any of the previous games, I'm not living the dream.
You've had your moment of reliving past glories, but it's time to move on. Let's start with adding some character to the game in the form of interesting NPC's along the lines of the space trading game Gazillionaire, space ports with Star Wars like gritty realism, space anomalies like Star Trek, and aliens along the lines of Farscape.
2. UI (Rating 1): The UI in Elite Dangerous is just drop dead gorgeous, but, and this is a very big but, it is stupid beyond measure. Perhaps it makes a bit more sense with an Oculus Rift, or maybe a head tracking system, but for a one monitor screen setup, it sucks!
First off, does it really make sense to have windshields in a spaceship, even a small dogfighting ship like the Eagle? No. Star Trek got this right fifty years ago, when they introduced the view screen. Agents of Shield did a great job with their holographic table, so why does ED have windshields? Give me view screens or a holographic table please.
Secondly, stop forcing me to change my view to the left or right, and allow me to throw up fully customizable semi-transparent front facing HUD screens. Think digital dashboards made of widgets. Is Ford and GM still designing the cockpits of the 34th century?
3. Features (Rating 2): Speaking of the 34th century, do you think that they will rediscover the tech of the 20th? Like digital zoom perhaps. So, I'm flying around the system and there's another ship or planet that I would like to take a closer look at, so I reach for my 20X zoom button but I can't find it. So I instead turn to bring up a full screen tactical picture of the system (like in Eve), and I can't find that button either. Why did the game designers spend so much time making the ship models so pretty if all you ever see in the game is little dark silhouettes?
Seriously, the game lacks so many of the basic features which Eve possesses that it's really not funny. Not funny at all. How come when I select a star that's several jumps away, that I don't get a list of jumps, a total jump distance, and other pertinent information?
That said, the game does at least have a complete, if not fully fleshed out, game loop. Better than most early access games which I've played. I'm looking at you Landmark and MechWarrior Online.
4. Galnet (Rating 4): This is actually a feature which Elite Dangerous does better than Eve. Galnet gives you the game's overall story arc is one succinct location. Kudos for that. Still, the articles are childish and unrealistic, and really detract from the emersion of the game. Whoever is writing those reports should be immediately reassigned to the mail room. Reporters don't report on political news stories like that, and politicians don't give speeches like that, not even wacko dictators like Kim Jong-un. Frontier needs to hire an authentic reporter with real world experience coving politics, or a politician with real work experience writing and delivering political speeches.
Secondly, has the 34th century given up on video and audio? I get that those feature are very expensive to implement, but I hope that they are the roadmap. If you're going to deliver the news, than you ought to at least have a youtube channel.
I apologize if my criticisms are overly negative. I want to love this game. I wanted to love Eve. What I want is a game of exploration which delivers an epic adventure. Whereas Eve refused to move away from their grand corporate political intrigue gameplay and toward a game of exploration, Elite Dangerous at least seems to be moving in that direction. Let's hope that the gray and drab nature of procedurally generated systems doesn't kill the attempt.