the laughin devs

[Tas Devil]

Yes, I tend to get annoyed when a person who lacks knowledge of something tells someone who's been there & done that "Are you sure you have any idea what you are talking about?" Yes I have, and you showed you haven't.

Have I ever said that the gaming market of 1982 had same/more money than today's? No, of course. But please, please, try to understand the logic of this simple sentence "..at that time, they were giants". Can you grasp that? OK, I'll try different approach: at a certain time in the past, a Roman legion was a formidable fighting force. Could crush tribe after tribe, and just 2-3 legions went to pacify entire regions. And a certain tribe managed to beat a Roman legion. Can you see that as an achievement in the historic context? Or would you say "naah, a Roman legion? So what? A simple infantry company with machine guns can wipe them out". Yes, but at that time...

So at that time Thorn EMI Computer Software was freakin EA of today. Now we got that cleared for you, can you comprehend the rest of my post?

It's nice to see you try to explain it and make such a large mistake.

While humans have always fought and always will and one can indeed make the point you made about roman legions being the giants of their time in terms of fighting capability and prowess, this analogy cannot be applied to elite 1984.

Humans have always found ways to entertain themselves but back then, 30 years ago, humans were not playing video games in mass. It was a totally fringe form of entertainment. Kids played role playing games and board games with cardboard and paper...not games on their TVs. The video game industry meant nothing to the gaming giants of the day.

Yes, video games came to disrupt established models and with this disruption took on the centre stage of entertainment surpassing even motion pictures as a main form of entertainment. But that does not make Elite 1984 and it's team giants of their days in terms of the relevant industry which was entertainment.

If you suggest back then, Thorn Emi Computer Software was the same as EA today you are missing a key element, the environment in which these 2 entities existed/exist. Video games are a huge part of the entertainment industry today, they were not back then. And before we go down this route the only relevant part of the company we are discussing is that involved in the entertainment industry. Conglomerates were the beasts of the time and have completely collapsed in recent years. But that's another topic of conversation all together.

Ultimately this is beyond the point we made and which you so doggedly try to avoid. We are all for embracing our own goals. We are all playing ED because we liked the sales pitch and the promises. Because we don't want a rigid game but like an open ended tale that we can write a part of, ourselves, but the game still needs mechanisms and tools to allow us to turn our goals into realities within the game.

What if I dream to be an assassin or a bodyguard in ED ? How does that work with no contract mechanism, in game, between players ?

What if I want to be an explorer amazed by the diversity and richness of 400 billion stars and systems ? How does that work if the only in game mechanism for exploring is at best described as a click a 'ping' button followed by a 'stare long enough at object to identify it and name it' routine. You really think there is a lot of fun to be had doing that 1,000 times in a row ? And as the OP pointed out going back to share my discoveries with the community and having to sell 1,000 discoveries individually because no one thought about implementing a sell all button ?

What if I want to create a Mercenary group which sells itself to the highest bidder in the wars between the Empire and Federation ? How do I do that when communications in game are pathetically non-existent or bugged ? When no minimal system of player organisation mechanics exist in game ? When meeting people in game is a tedious chore that soon means NO ONE talks to each other within the game environment ?

I'm still waiting for your amazing list of 'goals' you set yourself. I'd really like to hear them so we can see if the game mechanics will even allow them.

 

[voodoodad]

I think Jengo Fett said it best; "I'm just a simple man trying to make his way in the universe."

 

[Spiridon]

Humans have always found ways to entertain themselves but back then, 30 years ago, humans were not playing video games in mass. It was a totally fringe form of entertainment. Kids played role playing games and board games with cardboard and paper...not games on their TVs. The video game industry meant nothing to the gaming giants of the day.

Yes, video games came to disrupt established models and with this disruption took on the centre stage of entertainment surpassing even motion pictures as a main form of entertainment. But that does not make Elite 1984 and it's team giants of their days in terms of the relevant industry which was entertainment.

If you suggest back then, Thorn Emi Computer Software was the same as EA today you are missing a key element, the environment in which these 2 entities existed/exist. Viceo games are a huge part of the entertainment industry today, they were not back then.

Ultimately this is beyond the point we made and which you so doggedly try to avoid. We are all for embracing our own goals. We are all playing ED because we liked the sales pitch and the promises. Because we don't want a rigid game but like an open ended tale that we can write a part of ourselves, but the game still needs mechanisms and tools to allow us to turn our goals into realities within the game.

What if I dream to be an assassin or a bodyguard in ED ? How does that work with no contract mechanism in game between players ?

What if I want to be an explorer amazed by the diversity and richness of 400 billion stars and systems ? How does that work if the only in game mechanism for exploring is at best described as a click a ping button followed by a stare long enough at object to identify it and name it. You really think there is a lot of fun to be had doing that 1,000 times in a row ? And as the OP pointed out going back to share my discoveries with the community and having to sell 1,000 discoveries individually because no one thought about implementing a sell all button ?

What if I want to create a Mercenary group which sells itself to the highest bidder in the wars between the Empire and Federation ? How do I do that when communications in game are pathetically non-existent or bugged ? When no minimal system of player organisation mechanics exist in game ? When meeting people in game is a tedious chore that soon means NO ONE talk to each other within the game environment ?

I'm still waiting for your amazing list of 'goals' you set yourself. I'd really like to hear them so we can see if the game mechanics will even allow them.

For the first green: Mate, are you nuts?!!!! (said in a friendly manner, honestly, as a commander to a fellow commander) Oh man, how wrong you are!! We were heads over heels for video games, that was a thing for all of my class, for absolutely everyone I knew! All we talked about were the latest video games. It was the cutting edge of entertainment! With numerous magazines, adds and stuff. It was post-punk age, the new wave was out, new romantics and electro ruled, MTV started... you mixed that generation with the early Beatles era.

Second green: all those objections are true, and I stand for them. There is a lot, A LOT more to be done here. I've never said that this is a finished product perfect in any way. I applaud every good suggestion that would lessen the grind feel. And I might join your mercenary group to throw down an evil emperor/president/whoever. Be patient, this is not even a month old. Will talk on this matter for New 2016, OK?

Third green: I don't have "an amazing list of goals". My bottom line has already been met. I can fly a freakin spaceship in a freakin galaxy which looks magnificent. Trade, explore, kill a bad guy or two. So far so good. Maybe will circumnavigate the galaxy. Maybe will become the richest player in the game. Or with my wing hunt Thargoids ih witch space.

PS
I'm chilling out WoT, and this empty space suits me just fine.

EDIT:
Just now seen this line "Ultimately this is beyond the point we made and which you so doggedly try to avoid. We are all for embracing our own goals. We are all playing ED because we liked the sales pitch and the promises. Because we don't want a rigid game but like an open ended tale that we can write a part of ourselves, but the game still needs mechanisms and tools to allow us to turn our goals into realities within the game."

Not all of us are playing ED because we liked the sales pitch & the promises. I play it because it already is what I was hoping for all these years - modern recreation of my all-time-favourite. I'm not avoiding that. It's just you have huge hopes for this-and-that, and I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. Not me. I got what I want.

 

[spe3d]

I don't have "an amazing list of goals".

I guess this belongs to another posting of J.M.Breahe who means, he has a list of goals and it's all tuffy taffy and anyone but him has problems with themselves, if goals they have doesnt work.

I have a whole LIST of goals that I wish to fulfill. The difference between my goals and yours, prioritization based on capability. Whether that be mechanically or fiscally. If I CANT do it yet for one reason or another, it goes down on my list. There's plenty of other things for me to do in the meantime.

 

[withnail]

Sorry, the OP said "my asp is broken". Has no one picked up on that?

<ers>

 

[Spiridon]

I guess this belongs to another posting of J.M.Breahe who means, he has a list of goals and it's all tuffy taffy and anyone but him has problems with themselves, if goals they have doesnt work.

Yes, I was taken aback with the request for "my amazing list of goals". Never discussed on that subject, but since he asked...

 

[Ref Minor]

There were big gaming companies 33 years ago ? Are you sure you have any idea what you are talking about ?

I am guessing you are fairly young with a shaky grasp of gaming history?

An obvious example would be Atari whose annual sales grew from $75 million in 1977 to more than $2 billion in 1980.

A simple Purchasing Power Calculator would say that $2bn sales revenue is worth about $6bn in today's money. This answer is obtained by multiplying $2bn by the percentage increase in the CPI from 1980 to 2015.

For reference Blizzards sales for 2013 were $4.3bn.

 

[Nomadski]

I am guessing you are fairly young with a shaky grasp of gaming history?

An obvious example would be Atari whose annual sales grew from $75 million in 1977 to more than $2 billion in 1980.

A simple Purchasing Power Calculator would say that $2bn sales revenue is worth about $6bn in today's money. This answer is obtained by multiplying $2bn by the percentage increase in the CPI from 1980 to 2015.

For reference Blizzards sales for 2013 were $4.3bn.

Yeah, like I said in my post anyone who thinks 'games', 'computer games', 'video games' or whatever you want to call them weren't huge business in 1984 needs to google some stuff! It may not have had the same level of acceptance with the washed masses it has now (which Sony did an awful lot to help bring about from 1995 onwards) but as an industry it was enormous. Like we both pointed out, if you do the math, the BIG companies involved in games back then were even bigger turnover wise than the biggest names today.

 

[Antidepressiva]

Elite (1984)

I see what you did there and i really like it
Have some rep my friend. +1 for you.

Never surrender !

 

[Khushrenada]

well i had a good laugh at this post
also it is in many ways painfully true...

and can people please stop saying things like "its only released for a month, give it time"... its a decease of the recent years, releasing unfinished or buggy products and just put a label with early access or beta on it and the whole community just accepts it.

this is a fully fledged released game, that charges money from the players to be played and so it should have the advertised features working, at the release day and not half a year later!

flying together with a friend? sure, show me the grouping mechanic... you can fly around together by plotting the same course but in populated systems you may very well end up in different instances and are not able to see each other...
your actions change the galaxy around you... well until the recent patch the background mechanics that supposedly do that were buggy and not working correctly/at all. if they do now... nobody knows.

i know there are a lot of things that will be introduced later and i don`t have a problem with that at all, but the advertised core features simply have to work, before you release a game!

but since enough people nowadays simply don`t see (or don`t want to see) how they are catering to the industry in releasing even more buggy and bad releases by their tolerance of these practics, things will get even worse... and people will still buy the games and still defend them to the death...

that said i backed the game and i believe it might become something good, but right now i tried a lot of things, as mining, exploring, bounty hunting, getting my rep up, getting my rank up, hauling cargo from a to b, doing missions, but some things get boring pretty fast (mining, hauling), others are mind boggingly tedious (ever tryed to cash in 100 explored system datas?), others are rightout bugged (kill rewards not added, missions get lower payout at higher faction rank: example, haul 50 fish to planet a, here you have a generous 4k credit payout for it... yeah right...).
a lot of things named in this thread would help a lot like seeing which systems you have explored or visited, where you actually left a trail in space, but as it was pointed out already, nothing like this is there.

right now i run out of goals... i play it from time to time for like 2 hours and then i get bored by repeating the same things over and over... maybe i just wait for the next patches.

 

[lysan]

The white knights cannot counter your points with valid arguments because mostly you are correct.

So they shift the conversations to nostalgic reminiscence of 1984 and claim that the success of Elite in 1984 is a good benchmark and starting point to judge the success of this 2014 game.

When we make the point that it's all well and good for a game to let players make their own goals but that they need the ingame tools and mechanics to achieve this you'll notice they shift the conversation again and try and suggest that because 1984 Elite had few mechanics and few goals yet was a huge success 2014 ED MUST also be a success and great as is.

It's quite normal. It's what mostly happens to old men as they grow old. They take roots and hate change.

 

[Nomadski]

Oh, yes indeed there were. Some very big. Maybe not big by today's (inflationary) standards, some still survive: Atari Corp, Namco, Taito, Imagine, Melbourne House, Durell, Elite Systems, Bally, Williams, Midway, Psion, Thorn-EMI, Mirrorsoft...

Electronic Arts

 

[Dethmunk]

I think spe3d you are the one missing the point.... lets see what games have no particular goals (open ended games shall we say) ..... in the past..... well there was ELITE! oh and then there was ELITE 2: Frontier... oh hang on then there was First Encounters: Elite 3. Pacman and Space Invaders have goals according to you, to get high scores...mmmm lets see Elite Dangerous has 3 goals - Become ELITE in Combat, Trading and Exploration. Then there are the Story elements such as the Empire wars, get involved, join the fight? or Bounty Hunt, Mining (not for everyone, but its there if you want to mess around in asteroid fields), Trading which is the backbone of the ELITE franchise. That takes skill knowing what to buy and sell or going out to find the Rares. Exploration is rubbish because you have to use your imagination?!? what exactly are you wanting... to be able to suddenly find some sort of Sci-Fi planet thats half destroyed or vast derelict mega ships with specific handcrafted fps missions? well to be honest that does sound awesome and who's to say that isn't on the cards from Frontier. Just because its not there from day 1, give it time. It's only been out a few weeks. Jeez.
.
To be honest it sounds like you want to play Star Citizen with its 50 hrs of handcrafted missions (although that won't be around for a year or two). Then when you've finished that you can move on to some other mission based game. Just sayin...

 

[StuartGT]

Electronic Arts

Bad language is not tolerated on the forums

 

[spe3d]

Trading which is the backbone of the ELITE franchise.

Yea it is. In 1984 it was kind of interesting and new. This trading in EliteDangerous...oh pls, now go on and explain me, that its complex and hard to understand
This trading here is so huge, that you have to find a route between 2 points and fly back and forth, back and forth. Man this really is complex and a backbone of all trading systems in game ever made

Exploration is rubbish because you have to use your imagination?!?

Did i write that? Really? Or is it just that you can't read? I talked about the reward system to it and it's bad design, not about how it feels to go out and explore. I do understand it. I already climbed up some levels on exploration. But this try&error you find everywhere in this game is not an "awesome game design". It's simply nothing. And as i said in my first sentence, there is a border between give em freedom or give nothin. Where is the problem, to insert informations into the stations? Where players have a knowledge data base with 1st level informations to understand more? Or just simple quests, that give me a feeling about, what is important to scan and what is not?

And just for the records. I am deep out in space, scanning, exploring and i enjoy it! It's great. I am thinkin' about a Ocolus Rift just to dive more into Elite! But that does not change it.

 

[Nomadski]

Bad language is not tolerated on the forums

Hehe repped as it made me chuckle.

BUT! [Self Redacted Company Name] were not always the spawn of Beelzebub. They started out with a VERY different philosophy to todays [Self Redacted Company Name]. They actually had a very different philosophy to EVERYONE else.

They just turned to the Dark Side once Trip Hawkins left.

 

[StuartGT]

Hehe repped as it made me chuckle.

BUT! [Self Redacted Company Name] were not always the spawn of Beelzebub. They started out with a VERY different philosophy to todays [Self Redacted Company Name]. They actually had a very different philosophy to EVERYONE else.

They just turned to the Dark Side once Trip Hawkins left.

Desert Strike & the earlier Need For Speeds are great examples of what they've lost

 

[PacalB]

In EVE i choose to minor and produce things. I learned skills, bought ships, setup a corp to get assistant and we were great and successful in what we've done. The game supports your way of playing with different tools, ideas, challenges. After 2 month we were a perfect team, produce many things, getr profite, had fun.
In Elite i choose to minor and ......made some credits. In 2 month i simply do the SAME as before, there is NO improvement, NO growing, NO tools and NO challenges. I still fly into the same belt and do exactly the same as now, because this game has nothin to offer. You say "find your own path" there IS NO PATH.
EVE made many paths to choose, Elite says so, but did not.

Yes, yes, yessss... we get it, we get it! You're a bored EVE player who's desperately missing his tabs and offline skill climbing. Yes, yes, yessss ... you're 43 years old yet seem to not have any inkling of what the past Elite games were about or how they played out. Oh yes, and you've played it all. I get it, others here get it, you've come on the forums to whine and moan about how unlike EVE this game is. How unfair it is that it isn't exactly what you personally want in a game, yes, yes, yessss. we get it.

Of course, there is a rather vocal band here which aspire to follow your path of complaining and whining, I am sure you will find solitude in the fact that they will happily slap you on the back and say; "Here! here! old chap! well put! Well done there!" I have an idea, maybe you could start a, "Whiners Group Anonymous"! A private Elite whiners forum where you all can "bleat, bahhh and protest" till your hearts content! Just think of it, you're very own private bleating halls! That would be just wonderful wouldn't it?

You guys could all stand around and be just like this:

[video=youtube_share;QcE5aDTszrY]http://youtu.be/QcE5aDTszrY[/video]​

Or ...... you could just play Elite Dangerous let the game evolve and cut your bleating.

 

[baael]

[video=youtube_share;QcE5aDTszrY]http://youtu.be/QcE5aDTszrY[/video]​

seems more valid for the other side of forum writers

 

[PacalB]

seems more valid for the other side of forum writers

No, what you see here are the flock, the flock of disheartened EVE sheeple.

NB: Just to note, I'm an ex-10 year EVE sheeple myself, thus I understand them all too well. Fortunately, I have gone through a good de-weaning program and have come out healthy and in sound frame of mind on the other side. Also, I have actual knowledge of past Elite games.