Elite: Dangerous looks better already!

TRiPWiRE · Post by **TRiPWiRE** » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 04:56

I remember playing this as a black and white wireframe vector type game on a Commodore 64 when I was a kid. Then I played it to death on an Amiga 500 when that version came out.

If they can capture some of the greatness of those early titles, I'll be buying this and shelving Rebirth for good.

Oh... It won't be a pre-purchase though. Egosoft taught me that's not a great idea.

SteveMill · Post by **SteveMill** » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 07:52

The difference between ED and XR is that ED development is being done in the open. Anyone can join the forums and discuss features. ED is being alpha and beta and then gamma tested extensively without the cover of an NDA.

By the time this goes on sale there will be non-company videos and reviews a plenty. There will be beta testers like me screaming from the rooftops if they are releasing shit and calling it sugar.

It's only Evil-doers who fear the light, as we have found.

ED will not creep out without reviewers getting pre-release copies. It will not come out trailing claims that are not even remotely true and it won't take seven years and be designed for a console either.

I've been happy to contribute to the kickstarter fund as the Elite series has always been my fav in the genre.

vahadar · Post by **vahadar** » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 10:37

installing the alpha rightnow, cant wait ^^
Those past days were great with betas and alphas coming out, this, wastelands 2 and Shroud of the Avatar, its xmas already ^^

Nomenluni · Post by **Nomenluni** » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 12:33

ED will be huge, mark my words.

X:Rebirth even in a years time will not come close.

These are good times for the Space simmer.

SteveMill · Post by **SteveMill** » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 12:53

Nomenluni wrote:ED will be huge, mark my words.

X:Rebirth even in a years time will not come close.

These are good times for the Space simmer.

I would love XR to be made good but I fear that Elite will kill it stone dead long before then.

With XD and Star Citizen inbound XR really needed to be something awesome right out of the box. Shoving an alpha build out the door in time for Xmas was I fear, a company destroying mistake. One of the reasons I pre-ordered was the belief that they must know they couldn't afford to pull their usual stunt this time.

Well, little did I know.

Elite, Star Citizen, Starpoint Gemini 2 .... it's looking great. But I still will miss the old X series game-play and it's a bit sad it has come to such a sorry end.

ScorpiusX · Post by **ScorpiusX** » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 14:21

Given how many times David Braben has started his next Elite instalment, and then had it fizzle away to nothing, I won't hold my breath. Yes ED looks nice, but until its in my hands and running on my PC, afaic its a non-existant game. Whats more given how many times the next Elite has been started and abandoned, I'm wondering how long any bug fixes etc will take, a week, a month or something more inline with how long I've been waiting for the next Elite, like MORE THAN A DECADE?

Now don't get me wrong here, Elite and Frontier are my two favourite games of all time. I still own an Amiga1200 and Frontier is intalled on its hard drive (a whopping 128mb monster HDD

) and I still play it occasionally. I will be getting ED when its released, but like I said I won't hold my breath.

Alee Enn · Post by **Alee Enn** » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 14:53

"given how many times the next Elite has been started and abandoned"

Once. In all the years I watched for news on Elite IV, I only heard on one occasion that development had started and been abandoned. Then they launched their kickstarter on the 5th November 2012 and revealed they had been working on it for a while, that has not been abandoned. Of course, only David Braben and one or two others at Frontier really know for certain.

Sorry to be picky and correct you, but you did make a statement.

brucewarren · Post by **brucewarren** » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 14:56

I'm hoping that with no publisher trying to shove it out the door before it's ready, that this time all the bugs will be thoroughly squashed by the time of release.

Personally, I don't mind a delayed release as long as it works when it hits the shelves.

I'm also hoping Mr Braben brings his knowledge of astronomy to bear. Sun skimming etc. in Frontier was cool

SteveMill · Post by **SteveMill** » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 15:14

Alien Tech Inc. wrote:"given how many times the next Elite has been started and abandoned"

Once. In all the years I watched for news on Elite IV, I only heard on one occasion that development had started and been abandoned. Then they launched their kickstarter on the 5th November 2012 and revealed they had been working on it for a while, that has not been abandoned. Of course, only David Braben and one or two others at Frontier really know for certain.

Sorry to be picky and correct you, but you did make a statement.

Quite. And we get to see what's been done at each stage and help test it.

It certainly won't still be an alpha build when released.

kurush · Post by **kurush** » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 19:49

TRiPWiRE wrote: Oh... It won't be a pre-purchase though. Egosoft taught me that's not a great idea.

Preorder is not. Kickstarter is/was a different animal. They have to prove you they are making something you will be interested in and basically that's what got both ED and LT projects going. The publisher/developer model seems to produce too much garbage because they have to prove their concepts to some rich ***hole sponsors instead the ppl who will actually play it. Let's see if we get anything decent from crowd-sourcing.

ScorpiusX · Post by **ScorpiusX** » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 23:27

Ok, my statement may have made it sound like Elite had been abandoned more than it actually had. To my recollection its been abandonded twice, 1st in 2000 when the MMORPG version of Elite IV was abandoned and again around 2011/12 when Frontier Developments removed Elite IV from their in development section. Its also possible the game was abandoned between 2000 and the announcement of The Outsider (another Braben game thats been in development since around 2005), I say this because Braben said in interviews in the early part of the 2000's that they were developing Elite IV, yet then said in 2006 that they would commence development of Elite IV after they had finished The Outsider (development of The Outsider has ceased as of 2011 but has not been abandoned, or so Braben says).

I would also point out that the last Elite game Frontier: First Encounters was released in a state described as incomplete and full of bugs (wow does that sound familiar or what) and this lead to a Lawsuit between GameTek (the publisher) and Braben which was settled out of court, and finding details on who sued who and for what is next to impossible. All I'm saying is don't hold your breath and don't place ED on a pedestal cos I fear you'll be just as disappointed with ED as with XR.

To me, the fact that the developer of 2 of the greatest games ever made (granted thats my opinion, but its not one I'm alone in holding), has to resort to crowdfunding for the next episode of Elite, speaks volumes. But is it that Braben lost faith in publishers or did publishers lose faith in Braben? Also look at the disparity between how much money ED has raised and how much Star Citizen has raised, have players lost faith in Braben to that extent too?

When ED is released I'll buy it, when SC is released I'll buy that too, just like I did with XR it'll probably be on release day too. Then and only then will either of them get my money, Guild Wars 2 taught me that pre-ordering a game just cos the previous one was awesome is a mistake.

Alee Enn · Post by **Alee Enn** » Sat, 14. Dec 13, 00:08

From what I have heard, David Braben has not lost faith in publishers or them in him. You are right not to put ED on a pedestal, but my faith in it from over a year ago is proving to be justified. I am confident I won't be disappointed in the final game, but we shall see.

Lyth · Post by **Lyth** » Sat, 14. Dec 13, 10:05

I'll be honest, of the big games I am looking forward to playing at the moment, Elite hasn't been one of them.

Limit Theory isn't likely to be budged from the top of my list as it has all the empire management & construction stuff I want to play and Star Citizen will be going on the LAN asap regardless.

That said, the clip and insight into how combat works was wonderful, thank you for sharing. Looking nice doesn't really do anything for me but to know their is some thought behind it means alot and great to see that it was flight stick designed too.

Def' going on my shopping list now.

Rudinho · Post by **Rudinho** » Sat, 14. Dec 13, 21:20

All i can say is that the screen that appears on the right for changing weapons is how should it work in rebirth..

edqe · Post by **edqe** » Sat, 14. Dec 13, 21:59

Looks pretty good. I'm not a huge fan of space shooters so I hope the game has much more than that.

I think there's easily enough room for many space games at the moment.

Hob Anagerik · Post by **Hob Anagerik** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 13:58

Rudinho wrote:All i can say is that the screen that appears on the right for changing weapons is how should it work in rebirth..

One of the things that's great about it is how fast all the menus work. Very slick and you are able to scoot up and down those menus turning sub-systems on and off very quickly. Even in the heat of battle should you choose to.

TinkerToy · Post by **TinkerToy** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 23:26

In XR you no longer run factories, you own them. The AI manager runs the factory, and the factory can't effectively run without an AI manager. That seems to apply to most of the "empire building" in XR. You don't really "need" a fleet, because the Skunk can kill anything in the game.

The review of the ED alpha gameplay that RPS did was really good. The combat is complex and tactical, with shifting energy to shields, weapons or engines and being able to switch off components to reduce your heat signature to enable stealthy tactics. Faaaar more involved combat than any X-game has ever had or probably ever will have.

ES have squandered the advantage they had by spending 7 years developing a game that has more bugs than consistently working features. The earlier X-games were not great examples of "action" games, and X:R has proven once again that ES are average to poor in that genre. Their strength lies in strategy, not tactics.

Rabiator der II. · Post by **Rabiator der II.** » Mon, 16. Dec 13, 00:26

ScorpiusX wrote:Given how many times David Braben has started his next Elite instalment, and then had it fizzle away to nothing, I won't hold my breath. Yes ED looks nice, but until its in my hands and running on my PC, afaic its a non-existant game. Whats more given how many times the next Elite has been started and abandoned, I'm wondering how long any bug fixes etc will take, a week, a month or something more inline with how long I've been waiting for the next Elite, like MORE THAN A DECADE?

Now don't get me wrong here, Elite and Frontier are my two favourite games of all time. I still own an Amiga1200 and Frontier is intalled on its hard drive (a whopping 128mb monster HDD ) and I still play it occasionally. I will be getting ED when its released, but like I said I won't hold my breath.

So Elite:Dangerous is released as alpha to its backers.

If one believes the forum, X:Rebirth could be considered beta quality right now, if you are generous.

It seems to me the gap is pretty small

.

Chips · Post by **Chips** » Mon, 16. Dec 13, 08:44

TinkerToy wrote: ES have squandered the advantage they had by spending 7 years developing a game that has more bugs than consistently working features. The earlier X-games were not great examples of "action" games, and X:R has proven once again that ES are average to poor in that genre. Their strength lies in strategy, not tactics.

Just to put it into perspective, Elite has been in development for well over 1 year - probably 2-3 years.

In that time, they've produced a playable alpha with some ship models and the ability to fight in space. However, the video I've seen does look a lot more fleshed out (using 1st person, with a cockpit and nice graphics of said cockpit along with better ingame graphics) than one they published a year ago... but otherwise the same. I am also under no illusion that the hope is the Alpha will persuade a jump in the numbers of backers. It could potentially be a lucrative decision.

I'm not trying to sound overly dismissive, but I am trying to put some semblance of perspective upon it. All I've seen is a far more polished version of ingame footage shown a year ago. Obviously what's been released does not show the sum of their development at all. But then again, perhaps the rest is as buggy as crap

But the idea that they've made such stellar progress since announcement is misleading. There was a significant amount of work done prior to the initial announcement (given the videos).

I look forward to seeing more, as I do with Star Citizen - and I still hope (have faith) that Rebirth will improve dramatically over time.

Oldman · Post by **Oldman** » Mon, 16. Dec 13, 12:13

Alien Tech Inc. wrote:From what I have heard, David Braben has not lost faith in publishers or them in him. You are right not to put ED on a pedestal, but my faith in it from over a year ago is proving to be justified. I am confident I won't be disappointed in the final game, but we shall see.

I'll be more than happy if Frontier Dangerous keeps to the core elements that are found in the two previous titles, namely a varied choice of ships, a realistic universe mechanic, and a similar trading/mission structure.
It won't be a totally complete game for me though until the Planet environment feature is added some time hopefully in the near future.
Saying that though, I'm still really looking forward to the first release. Trading and fighting hard to upgrade or buy the next variation of ships was one of the key elements that I liked in the last games. With every 'step forward' even on this level of the game structure, it gave me an immense feeling of satisfaction of having achieved something that was worthwhile.

Oldman

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Elite: Dangerous looks better already!