Guys, thanks for all the responses, they’re great! Feels like I’ve been initiated into a club..... Particularly liking the comments on the ‘original’ explorers who made it to far flung places with pre-engineering ships.... simply awesome stuff, must have been an amazing accomplishment for the first few. (I somehow imagine them in black and white with Victorian moustaches and pipes, but in spaceships...)
Also the comments around the peaceful experiences and moments of video game solitude, and the ‘I do this because I want to’ moments. Yes, I certainly have a calling back to the black...
I have been trying to compare this experience to other ‘transcendental’ moments I’ve experienced in games (if I can call it that without coming over all pretentious) where you simply say ‘wow’, and I am struggling to find many examples. There are a few, but none quite have the convergence of experiences as Elite has provided for me... particularly in senses of scale and literal exploration. You’re really ‘out there’ ...with no safety net. It’s like an uber survival sim disguised as a space adventure.
When I said ‘it’s mad’ it’s partly because at one scale the game mechanic is quite basic, yet on another it is extremely complex, emotive and involving. It shouldn’t work, but it so does.
Staring into the heavens knowing I was so extremely far out, in game terms and in ‘real life’ terms of personal investment, was a not a little awe inspiring.
I am definitely eager to try this again.... hopefully soon.
I read somewhere that next time I should ‘just go up’.... a reference to the galactic plane... I think I will do just that.
Aspy the Asp has done me proud on this voyage, but the next one may well be in a bigger brother, perhaps beginning with K....
