What were you doing when you heard the news?

[Mars]

When I was a small boy I read about the NES version of Elite in a magazine, and was just WOW, you can do all that in a game. It seemed vast and epic, and sure enough, come Christmas day when I was handed my copy I found it was. But by the time of Frontier and First Encounters the WOW effect was back but multiplied, what amazing games such richness, so epic.

Then I waited. And then Google was invented, so I used to search for the next Elite every few months and found nothing, and then nothing, and then nothing….eventually after reading yet another article on why another Elite would never happen I gave up. I tried to get my fix from the X series and EVE, but these were hollow and empty compared to the richness of Elite. Freelancer was definitely OK, but not epic.

Then one day I was middle aged man in my dressing gown cooking some eggs and bacon and hash browns and mushrooms and toast (as one does) on a normal Saturday morning when Sky News behind me casually mentioned that a new Elite gaming was being made but only if they raised enough money on Kickstarter.
-Somehow I managed to remember to take the bacon off the heat before lunging to my PC grabbing my wallet off the counter as I went.

Where were you when you heard the news and what were you doing?
Also, share any memories you like of the first game(s)



P.S. The eggs where <ahem>.

 

[JeffRyan]

I was at my computer in February last year doing my bi-annual search on 'Elite 4'. If I'd done it three months earlier I'd probably have a writers pack.

 

[Mars]

If I'd done it three months earlier I'd probably have a writers pack.

I hear that, I only found out a few days before the KS ended and I raised my pledge about five times. If I had found out at the start of the KS I can well imagine I would have gone writer pack.

 

[ZeeWolf]

ah you could also have asked for peoples memories of the first Elite game like yours. My father bought my Brother and I an old second hand Amstrad CPC 464 with a huge box of games. We weren't allowed the computer until Christmas day but he let us look at what was in the box in the back of the car... there was a huge black box with a gold eagle on it and a manual on how to fly this cobra spaceship...and the novel..the ship identification chart... We were totally hooked.

I know people don't consider the CPC version to be that great but it does have one nice feature, full colour planets... after the limitations of the Dragon 32...seeing Lave for the first time as a filled red circle move around the screen was jaw dropping!

Sadly my Brother, a huge Elite fan, is no longer with us. I secretly hope to run into him in Elite dangerous

As for the new game...I was probably at work or something..not as nostalgic and I was massively sceptical that they could pull it off. I backed it immediately and pretty much ignored the newsletters. Then I saw the Alpha and woah..that's it..I'm here!

 

[cassius]

I was at work, errr... 'working'

It was pure luck that i found out about the kickstarter. Every few months or so i'd come and lurk around the Frontier forums to see if there was any news. It just so happened that i popped in on day two of the KS... made a muffled squeal that raised a few eyebrows at work, dropped what i was doing and went to pledge

 

[I_am_Jon]

I was in bed checking BBC news on my phone the day the Kickstarter launched. I knew about Kickstarter but had never backed anything before. Had a "take my money" moment and was straight in at £50, think I was in the first 100 or so to pledge. I've been following the various Elite sites and forums for news since I first got online in about 1995.

The first I heard about the Frontier launch was in a Amiga magazine. Could of being this one http://www.frontierastro.co.uk/Files/frontier_misc.html see bottom of page. Then I bought every magazine with a mention of it. Watched the demo 100's of times and started obsessing about upgrading to a 1200 so it would run smoother. Was queuing up outside the shop on launch day. Remember having to post my disk back to get the patch, of course I took a copy first so I could keep playing.

The original Elite launch was a bit before my time but it was the most played game on my Amiga 500. Didn't really follow the FFE launch as I didn't have a PC at the time. I picked up a copy a few years later though.

 

[PvtTUX]

It was my brother who alerted me about the kickstarter, when I saw it i was blown away and proceeded to chat for over an hour just reminiscing about the original and how I never quite made Elite and he did !

It was like we were wee boys again, getting all excited about trade runs etc and who was going to kick who's **** first online and steal their precious cargo !

I'll have the advantage there as im still a big kid when it comes to games, i wont underestimate him though as he is a Physicist and knows a thing or two about a thing or two, bloody boffin !

Sadly my Brother, a huge Elite fan, is no longer with us. I secretly hope to run into him in Elite dangerous

That brought a tear to my eye, nice memory you have of your brother and Im sure he'll be with you on that maiden voyage

Ryan

 

[ZeeWolf]

That brought a tear to my eye, nice memory you have of your brother and Im sure he'll be with you on that maiden voyage

Ryan

Cheers dude, he went down to vicious pirates called Huntington's. I did think about pledging for the £500 kickstarter to have a system named after him...but....nah..five hundred quid? I don't remember him *that* fondly

 

[Chock]

Like many original Elite and Frontier gamers, for years I wished that there was a version which would run on a modern system and which had the looks and capabilities which modern computers allow. So, again like many, I would every once in a while check up on Google to see if anything was forthcoming, stuff like tweaked up versions of Frontier running on DOSBOX were not really what I wanted, so I flirted with EVE, X and all the other efforts which were a bit like Elite and Frontier, but every single one of them left me wishing it was like Frontier and they never quite filled the vacuum, being merely pale imitations of what i really wanted, and this is coming from someone who has two characters on EVE which are now ten years old.

It was during one of those periodic 'net searches that i discovered Elite Dangerous was coming. I just missed out on learning this when it was a Kickstarter, so I missed that chance and would have gladly thrown endless amounts of money at that had I known. But I did get in there with the 80 quid pre-order at the end of last year. When I found out ED was coming, I was absolutely overjoyed and indeed still am. It is THE game as far as I'm concerned.

I liked Elite, but to be honest, it is Frontier on the Commodore Amiga, though somewhat flawed, which is still there in my memory as my favourite ever computer game, it has a special place in my heart, and always will have. I liked the fact that it was based on our own universe with the planets we all know, which we could land on - this is something I will really be looking forward to when it arrives in ED at a later date. The fact that it was based in our 'known' universe seemed to ground the fantasy of being a dashing space pilot in a somewhat convincing reality.

So if Elite Dangerous comes even close to being as much fun as Frontier was, then it really will be something very special for me. Let's be honest, we all want to be Han Solo, and Elite Dangerous is going to let us live out that dream, and in combination with Occulus Rift, it's damn near going to be a dream come true.

 

[Philip Coutts]

Was at work on the BBC website during my lunch hour (coughs loudly) and saw the David Braben interview. Straight to the new-fangled Kickstarter site to sign up and back.

 

[JeffRyan]

we all want to be Han Solo, and Elite Dangerous is going to let us live out that dream

Amen bro, Amen.

 

[Cody]

Let's be honest, we all want to be Han Solo...

Well no, not all of us - certainly not me, anyway.

 

[Chock]

Okay, nearly all of us then

 

[ZeeWolf]

Well no, not all of us - certainly not me, anyway.

yeah I'm hoping to put together a virtual galactic touring production of Aidan Bell's "Elite the musical"...

..oooh I am Elite...do de do doo

 

[drew]

Badgered my parents for the original Elite for the Spectrum during the run up to Christmas 1985... and it was the best Christmas ever.

Joined the Kickstarter on day 2 after seeing a BBC article on it and noticing the logo... "Hello, that's the Elite logo."

Backed at £40, sent an email about writing books and...

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Patrick_68000]

I was at my computer in February last year doing my bi-annual search on 'Elite 4'.

Similar for me, but in December 2012, during my annual or bi-annual search (since a few years)

 

[izzy]

I was at work in early november (few days after the beginning) when I knew that FD has launched a KS for ED.
I backed in 1st round beta then in the founder member of elite
I bought a copy of the game to my brother

 

[Gibbonici]

I'd just moved house and had spent two weeks waiting for my internet to get connected, so I spent most of that time reading Iain M Banks novels and belting round the dales on my mountain bike. When BT finally got me connected I went to see how Star Citizen was developing and whether it would satisfy my recently rediscovered sci-fi tip.

I stumbled across a thread there that was basically "LOL @ Elite kickstarter". I'd given up on there ever being another Elite game years ago, so when I saw that there was going to be a new one after all I almost regretted spending all my money on moving out of my old flat in a crappy part of Leeds and into my two-bedroom house in lovely little Otley. Almost.

Anyway, I spent the next six months getting the moving debts paid off as quick as possible so I could drop some money on the backer's app before it ended. A week before it ended I managed to knacker my mountain bike (bottom bracket, rear hub and chaindrive - it was a mess), so when it came to it I had a choice - get my bike fixed or back ED.

I love my mountain bike, but it was a no brainer.

My bike's still knackered and I've put on 5lbs, but I'll be in Beta 1. Whaddayagonnado?

 

[Amos]

I was talking to my friend and he was talking about star citizen so I told him about Elite he had never heard of it, So I gave him a history lesson I searched on google for it and elite dangerous popped up so I looked into it and wow I couldn't believe my eyes.

This was at Christmas 2013 previously I had given up on Elite, so now I have to try and educate them as they are only 20ish so still young pups compared to me haha

 

[Geraldine]

I was on here. We also have a similar thread to this one. Have a look here. The threads are slightly different in their questions so I will "resist" the urge to merge at this time.