For me it's something like 5/10.
Immersion is great at start, but all too soon you realize how shallow everything is. All NPC ships are just staffage, they are not doing anything useful on their own, they are just being spawned to give you something to look and shoot at. Basically they are like sprites in an 80's shoot em up.
Trade is like a neat front end of a static excel table. You get no insight into production chains or consumer markets, and I highly doubt that things like that are simulated in the background. So trade is nothing more than searching for a low number, then searching for a higher number.
Same with mining and exploration. Just repetitive chores to get more credits. Credits you can only use to buy bigger ships and equipment to get the same things done more effectively.
Sid Meier once said that a good game should give the player a constant chain of interesting decisions to make. And ED falls flat in this respect.
And re:"it's a sandbox, it's meant to give you the freedom to do anything you want!"
No, ED isn't a sandbox game. A sandbox game gives you a set of rules that define a framework for your creativity. It requires a game world that reacts to your actions in a dynamic, foreseeable way. Currently the 'ever unfolding' universe of Elite does not care the slightest about you. The trail you blaze vanishes right behind your ship.
Immersion is great at start, but all too soon you realize how shallow everything is. All NPC ships are just staffage, they are not doing anything useful on their own, they are just being spawned to give you something to look and shoot at. Basically they are like sprites in an 80's shoot em up.
Trade is like a neat front end of a static excel table. You get no insight into production chains or consumer markets, and I highly doubt that things like that are simulated in the background. So trade is nothing more than searching for a low number, then searching for a higher number.
Same with mining and exploration. Just repetitive chores to get more credits. Credits you can only use to buy bigger ships and equipment to get the same things done more effectively.
Sid Meier once said that a good game should give the player a constant chain of interesting decisions to make. And ED falls flat in this respect.
And re:"it's a sandbox, it's meant to give you the freedom to do anything you want!"
No, ED isn't a sandbox game. A sandbox game gives you a set of rules that define a framework for your creativity. It requires a game world that reacts to your actions in a dynamic, foreseeable way. Currently the 'ever unfolding' universe of Elite does not care the slightest about you. The trail you blaze vanishes right behind your ship.
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