Why I think Elite Dangerous is going to dominate the Space MMO/Space Sim genre

[AndyJ]

FFE was a fantastic game, I played it for a long time.

I suspect that article is a rant about the state it was released in, if I remember rightly it was very buggy.

What was that from anyway?

Well I doubt yaip will reply as that user account was clearly only created to post that picture. Such helpful visitors we seem to be attracting to the forums these days...

[off topic]

Spoiler

The article was from PC Zone, issue #30 and yes it was criticizing Gametek for releasing the game in such a state, then compounding the problems with a botched US release and a patch disk that was essentially a copy of the game files. The photo has been sourced from Ian Bell's website, it's in the "Elite Archives". direct link to image here if you wish to read it. Clearly yaip didn't given the factually incorrect statement of "one space game before".

And I agree, FFE was fantastic for it's time - even with the bugs that remained after patching. Being part of a story and mentioned in the newspaper articles was a great innovation over Frontier, and really helped make the player feel a little more involved in the universe. The procedurally created 3d planets with hills and also texturing to generate shorelines, snow-caps etc was very clever too. It's a pity that the planetary cities and star ports placed themselves on a flat plane and often ended up floating or submerged - they were seemingly generated/positioned in the same way as the in predecessor Frontier, which only had to plonk them on a spherical planet. (still problematic though)
Whether that was something due to be replaced, or accepted as a technical limitation, I guess we'll never know.

 

[Sir.Tj]

Will keep an eye on that..

Ahem...

FFE was fantastic.. will always be my favourite...esp thanks to the likes of Andy and the modders out there.

 

[Varrag]

FFE was good game, but for me FE2 has been the best Elite so far and pinnacle of the franchise.

 

[lysan]

FFE was a final released game, remember that, it too had a lot of bugs.

ED is a different beast and is planned to be developed over a long period of time, I'm very pleased with it so far, even with the huge warts attached to it.
Season 3 will be interesting for sure as this is where I believe the game will become more complete.

 

[burzum]

Firstly it's fully released and works (yes it has bugs needs more contact) but Star Citizen is no where near being released and No Man's Sky has no multiplayer on release and that's having issues too. Evochron Legacy is nice but I found after a couple of hours if offered nothing different over this game. For all it's problems we know why Elite works and we know pretty much where development is going.

Fully released on paper. The "full release" was the last beta. They had huge trouble around new year with their servers. "Wings" we're added month later. A somewhat, still insufficient mission system even more month later. Seriously, this should be still called "early access"!

Star Citizen just feels like several mini games and modes not quite connected or ready yet. Elite has launched with the bare basics and they are adding things over time. Star Citizen don't get me wrong this is an epic idea for a game but how much has this cost and do they really have much more to show? Elite shows us exactly how hard creating a game on that scale is going to be.

Quiet funny, I feel exactly the opposite. The whole content of ED makes no sense and is shallow. Power Play is almost useless and disconnected from the rest of the game. The arena game mode is even a separate game, totally disconnected from the universe. The missions make no sense. Why the hell would somebody ship biowaste over 140LY? The whole relationships between minor factions make no sense. Why does one faction seem to exist only in a single system? I would expect something more logical like "Ship X tons of X from our dispatcher facility in A to our production plant on planet B in system C." Right now missions are totally random and have no real meaning in the game world.

The scale with procedural generation is not hard, but it's hard to fill the PG universe with life and interesting things that make sense - so far ED fails hard on that.

It's blindingly obvious Star Citizen is going to launch to a world of issues because a closed test environment can never ever create or prepare for the sheer amount of people, data and connection issues incoming.

There will be issues as usual in software development, just how sever they're going to be... Closed test environment? What the hell? From where did you get that idea? *Everybody* can already download and play the alpha releases. This is pretty much the opposite of "closed".

I just feel by the time Star Citizen actually gets to a stable working release Elite Dangerous will include most of the features that we are being promised by Chris Roberts like first person mode and walking around things. In 2 years of Elite we've had so much added and in another 2 just think where we are going to be.

You compare an alpha with a so called finished product? Pretty unlogical. But fine. I think you have no clue about whats going on with SC. You can walk around on stations, do EVA and have FPS action for some time now. Where is that in ED? Oh, it's missing!

Let's not forget Frontier are experienced at space games and though Elite isn't perfect it's pretty incredible for a small company. Anyway preparing myself for the incoming hate but have a nice weekend everyone!

I'm pretty disappointed with FDEV, they're not a small company and for the size of company they're ED is very underwhelming. AFAIK No Mans sky started with just a handful of people. Look at many other indi games like Subnautica, Space Engineers, you can do great stuff with just a handful of people.

 

[Earthshine]

@Burzum

I'd agree that FD have not been totally successful with ED....they've definitely made mistakes and (to my mind) produced some facets of the game that seem a bit of a waste of time and money. CQC and Powerplay being the offenders. Engineers is far from perfect (especially the engineers bit) but there's evidence to suggest they aren't just leaving it. As for whether it's original release (v1.0) was a full release rather depends on your definition of "full release". Personally I think it was a full release simply because FD said "This is version 1". It's pretty hard to nail down a "full release" otherwise....is it the contents of everything they want to include? Is it what you, as a customer, expect the "full release" to be? Customers pretty much universally want more. And faster.

I'm happy that there is "more coming". Whether I'll like all of it and whether it will be a bit messed up (especially when it arrives..) is another matter.

I don't even see the point of comparing ED with SC at the moment. ED works and is cohesive, SC simply isn't yet. There's plenty of talk but what it currently amounts to is a buggy demo (I use the word demo in the sense of old demo disks, where you could play a little bit of a game) that has a mere fraction of the activities promised. SC might end up better than ED (by better I mean hitting more of its own goals) but right now I see no point in a comparison.

 

[Insomnia]

I don't even see the point of comparing ED with SC at the moment. ED works and is cohesive, SC simply isn't yet. There's plenty of talk but what it currently amounts to is a buggy demo (I use the word demo in the sense of old demo disks, where you could play a little bit of a game) that has a mere fraction of the activities promised. SC might end up better than ED (by better I mean hitting more of its own goals) but right now I see no point in a comparison.

SC is in alpha stage.
ED is a released product.

No, comparison between the two isn't fair as SC is in alpha, but a comparison is inevitable nonetheless.
Personally, I found SC to be fantastic once landed. Flying is a whole other story, and a pretty bad story even...

 

[Jools]

You really need to remove those rose-tinted specs.

Done

It still looks pink`ish though

FFE was good game, but for me FE2 has been the best Elite so far and pinnacle of the franchise.

My feelings exactly

 

[lysan]

Fully released on paper. The "full release" was the last beta. They had huge trouble around new year with their servers. "Wings" we're added month later. A somewhat, still insufficient mission system even more month later. Seriously, this should be still called "early access"!



Quiet funny, I feel exactly the opposite. The whole content of ED makes no sense and is shallow. Power Play is almost useless and disconnected from the rest of the game. The arena game mode is even a separate game, totally disconnected from the universe. The missions make no sense. Why the hell would somebody ship biowaste over 140LY? The whole relationships between minor factions make no sense. Why does one faction seem to exist only in a single system? I would expect something more logical like "Ship X tons of X from our dispatcher facility in A to our production plant on planet B in system C." Right now missions are totally random and have no real meaning in the game world.

The scale with procedural generation is not hard, but it's hard to fill the PG universe with life and interesting things that make sense - so far ED fails hard on that.



There will be issues as usual in software development, just how sever they're going to be... Closed test environment? What the hell? From where did you get that idea? *Everybody* can already download and play the alpha releases. This is pretty much the opposite of "closed".



You compare an alpha with a so called finished product? Pretty unlogical. But fine. I think you have no clue about whats going on with SC. You can walk around on stations, do EVA and have FPS action for some time now. Where is that in ED? Oh, it's missing!



I'm pretty disappointed with FDEV, they're not a small company and for the size of company they're ED is very underwhelming. AFAIK No Mans sky started with just a handful of people. Look at many other indi games like Subnautica, Space Engineers, you can do great stuff with just a handful of people.

Its ok to be disappointed, however the fact is that NMS and SE are not the same type of game other than its all in space.
FD managed something no one has done before in a game! 1:1 Galaxy with orbiting mechanics, planets made with clever PG including Tectonic plates and gravity. Sure its not perfect, and there are some big mistakes made, however the core of the game is rock solid. VR, controls mechanics are top notch and only a very few games masters this today.

We know from DB that season 3 and 4 are in the works, so the team is working on the expansion of the game. FD is also working on other games, so not all of FD's employees are dedicated to ED.

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

This post is bound to divide opinion and create some arguments but I firmly believe Elite Dangerous is going to be the dominant multiplayer space sim. I just feel Frontier have already started and gotten ahead in the space sim/space mmo modern genre and they are going to start to pull away from the competition. Why you ask!

Firstly it's fully released and works (yes it has bugs needs more contact) but Star Citizen is no where near being released and No Man's Sky has no multiplayer on release and that's having issues too. Evochron Legacy is nice but I found after a couple of hours if offered nothing different over this game. For all it's problems we know why Elite works and we know pretty much where development is going.

Star Citizen just feels like several mini games and modes not quite connected or ready yet. Elite has launched with the bare basics and they are adding things over time. Star Citizen don't get me wrong this is an epic idea for a game but how much has this cost and do they really have much more to show? Elite shows us exactly how hard creating a game on that scale is going to be. It's blindingly obvious Star Citizen is going to launch to a world of issues because a closed test environment can never ever create or prepare for the sheer amount of people, data and connection issues incoming.

I just feel by the time Star Citizen actually gets to a stable working release Elite Dangerous will include most of the features that we are being promised by Chris Roberts like first person mode and walking around things. In 2 years of Elite we've had so much added and in another 2 just think where we are going to be.

As for No Man's Sky this looks very good but I feel this is more of an exploration and sandbox game than Elite Dangerous.

Let's not forget Frontier are experienced at space games and though Elite isn't perfect it's pretty incredible for a small company. Anyway preparing myself for the incoming hate but have a nice weekend everyone!

Don't agree .... And thats coming from a massive Frontier/Braban/Elite fanboy .. Not to mention (a very small) shareholder.

There are too many other games nipping at the heals of ED now, and ED has way too many gameplay problems currently. Its going to be a good 2 or 3 years before we even get to land on earth likes, let alone anything else. By then other games will be out and will be doing it better. Great for gamers, not so great for Frontier.

 

[lysan]

Don't agree .... And thats coming from a massive Frontier/Braban/Elite fanboy .. Not to mention (a very small) shareholder.

There are too many other games nipping at the heals of ED now, and ED has way too many gameplay problems currently. Its going to be a good 2 or 3 years before we even get to land on earth likes, let alone anything else. By then other games will be out and will be doing it better. Great for gamers, not so great for Frontier.

Just out of curiosity, if we haven't seen how FD will do Earth like planets, how would you know if other games will do it better?

 

[SlackR]

Elite dangerous has always had the feel of "a work in progress"... There were questions when it was released in the state that it was but to me it has always been an "Alpha" prototype, much like Star Citizen is- just with a different funding model. So much has changed since launch that, if you were to compare then and now , you could easily justify calling that launch an unfinished game. For me though it is still very much unfinished and I am enjoying watching it grow and develop (at least until recently). I do think though that work needs to be done on the numbers side of things as it is in serious need of balancing.

I agree with OP that Elite is and will remain to be the goto space sim game, but mostly because it implemented VR from day one. I backed this at the alpha stage and have seen the VR experience grow and grow as the headsets improved and the GPUs evolved.

SC is playing a dangerous game IMO leaving it so late to implement VR, as experience now shows that a game needs to be made with VR in mind and not as an add on. I think this will be the deal breaker ... At least for me.

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

Just out of curiosity, if we haven't seen how FD will do Earth like planets, how would you know if other games will do it better?

You only need to see the current state of ED to see that its not going to win any awards. Don't get me wrong I love ED to bits as a game and have sunk many hours into it since Alpha. And FD will get there eventually, but the issue is they have dug themselves a pretty big hole with making the game an MMO (of sorts) in the first place. If it had been a single player experience it would probably be a lot further along by now. The point being by the time they get there, there could easily be a lot more out there.

I am just going on experience up until this point, of course nobody has a crystal ball, but the odds are against ED being the premium space trading / sim game, it certainly isn't going to dominate like the OP suggests.

 

[Jason S]

Still I would not like to bet more than a tenner on the leader 10 years away, and it could be a game we have not heard of yet or even Elite V that takes the lead.

No one with flesh and bones can know at this point.

 

[Iskariot]

FFE was mindblowing for me.
It changed my view on what games could be.
I still have the original box with all the content, including the starmap.
For me the only other game that gave me that same vibe is Hardwar (1989).

For me in many respects ED is FFE on steroids.
We still miss a few things that FFE brought to the table, but considering the staggering difference in detail between the games I completely accept that ED takes so much more time to create.

 

[Iskariot]

By then other games will be out and will be doing it better. Great for gamers, not so great for Frontier.

I doubt it. There currently is no other game in the making, that I know off, that will be able to surpass ED within the timeframe you mention.
Games like this can't be conjured out of thin air.

SC is a big question mark, and most importantly it's approach to the simulation of the galaxy is much more limited. The way ED does things is quite unique.
Of course No man's sky seems to be a nice game, but it's much more unrealistic cartoony approach to universe generation, spaceships, flight model etc., puts it in an entirely different league of it's own that does not compete with ED.
As far as I know the same is true of everything else that is currently out there, or being worked on.
ED sits very nicely in a niche of it's own.

 

[lysan]

You only need to see the current state of ED to see that its not going to win any awards. Don't get me wrong I love ED to bits as a game and have sunk many hours into it since Alpha. And FD will get there eventually, but the issue is they have dug themselves a pretty big hole with making the game an MMO (of sorts) in the first place. If it had been a single player experience it would probably be a lot further along by now. The point being by the time they get there, there could easily be a lot more out there.

I am just going on experience up until this point, of course nobody has a crystal ball, but the odds are against ED being the premium space trading / sim game, it certainly isn't going to dominate like the OP suggests.

However that is not how the Gaming press sees it, nor is it how the ED community sees it. Some like it, some don't, its not uniform.
How are we going to measure it? I have not seen anything that will give me comfort in predicting how FD will do the atmo planets.

I know what can be done. then again I've not seen it done in any space game yet. SC are so far behind that we need to see what they can do, those space ships is not going to do it any day soon.

The Tech FD use in ED are in the front, that is a fact. They are not behind anyone ATM. Is it perfect? no however still we have not seen anything from any space game, released or not, that can take the lead right now.

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

How are we going to measure it?

Well if the game has as many active users that something like CS:GO has in ten years time (6 years now I guess) then it could be classed as a success from that point of view. From a sales point of view it has done what it neeed to do, but gaming has moved on and so have gamers. Games like Elite do not gel with the masses these days. Taking that into account FD have done very well with ED.

Some people here really do have the blinkers on though. In the end ED can coexist with any other game that comes out, as they all do it slightly differently. From that point of view I am sure ED will still be around for a considerable amount of time, but the definitive game in the genre? Nope.

 

[milligna]

gel with the masses? It was always intended as a niche game for specific audiences, hence the kickstarter to gauge interest. Your eagerness to class it as a failure because it isn't a hit on the order of Minecraft or CSGO is laughable. It's OK for ED to remain a niche title serving it's fanbase while bringing in $ for FD. Did what it needed to do was right: Frontier managed to transition into self-publishing!

I don't see any other games getting close to it's formula for a long time either. SC is just a bloated vanity project, NMS will be a momentary trifle that will net very similar negative reviews from the masses it fails to gel with. ED will continue to be the definitive space sim - nailing VR support and a 1:1 scale galaxy for the first time. It's the current benchmark.

 

[lysan]

Well if the game has as many active users that something like CS:GO has in ten years time (6 years now I guess) then it could be classed as a success from that point of view. From a sales point of view it has done what it neeed to do, but gaming has moved on and so have gamers. Games like Elite do not gel with the masses these days. Taking that into account FD have done very well with ED.

Some people here really do have the blinkers on though. In the end ED can coexist with any other game that comes out, as they all do it slightly differently. From that point of view I am sure ED will still be around for a considerable amount of time, but the definitive game in the genre? Nope.

well for now ED are leading, however regarding the future its still up in the air, so we have to wait for that judgement.