Elite Dangerous - Yay or Nay?

[Burning Bridges]

But it came from the developers of Hellion.

I don't know what is true, but using Unity was a an exceedingly dumb idea not matter what. They failed to realize the requirements of their sim (servers needed to restart and garbage collect ca every 30 minutes and other spacecraft positions jumped all over the place, which meant you couldn't dock at times) and now they can't even give it to a highly interested community (at least that's what they said)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

They were given the source code? Last I heard was that Unity forbids that.

That sounds like crazy talk, mostly because Unity doesn't own the source code of any project, only the Unity engine, so I can't see how that would work, seeing as Unity is a free engine.

You can pay for access to the source, but the source code itself is still owned by Unity(the company.) If the game relies on modifications they've made to the engine itself, then there's no way they could release it to the public.

 

[Burning Bridges]

It's possible that they tried to fix Unity themselves in order to make Hellion work, in that case they cannot release those parts of course.

 

[DraQ]

I don't know what is true, but using Unity was a an exceedingly dumb idea not matter what. They failed to realize the requirements of their sim (servers needed to restart and garbage collect ca every 30 minutes and other spacecraft positions jumped all over the place, which meant you couldn't dock at times)

I could have told them that.

And pretty much any general purpose game engine is going to be immensely shit for properly scaled space game.

 

[Mortmal]

I have 100 hs played and I still don't understand what I'm doing in this game or what for. Like someone said the fun part is docking and landing but... The flying itself gets so boring imo and I even like Eurotruck simulator.

I get theres nothing in space but maybe lie a little or introduce something to do other that the continuous jumps? Too late I guess.

I'm slightly interested in new atmospheric planets but deep down I know I will end up bored in no time. It needs more gameplay and less screenshot simulator.

That's all you are going to get, a screen saver coupled with an excel spreadsheet to keep track on the loot you need combine for crafting. Thats all they are able to provide, nothing innovative, fun or new .By all means no emerging gameplay ever, player interaction is forbidden.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

 

[urmom]

What SC wants (or claims to want) to achieve is a lot better than ED but to get a product out the door that actually works they're going to have to scrap 75% of that which they're never going to do. Plus they're going to need to steal the "negative latency" tech from Stadia. LOL

 

[Twiglard]

ETS is actually more fun, even if not my kind of thing. ED is just going between stations in a black void with a starry wallpaper, then slowing down at the last time to save some seconds, or put the station on a beam (equivalent of high yo-yo) to slow down later. The multiplayer combat arena thing had good gameplay, and the rover shooty action was decent as well. They should've replicated that kind of feeling, unlike the sleepiness of popping rats and grinding useless delivery missions.

I'd play Evochron if it had more content. But space combat games are definitely worse in visual-range engagements without a source of gravity. Even ED flight physics handle better when flying over a planet.

 

[Hellraiser]

I wouldn't mind the rather lackluster fedex gameplay, uninteresting exploration and other disappointments ED brings to the table, if the fucking travel within a system didn't take so fucking long while consisting of merely "point at destination, hold FSD acceleration button". Every fucking time I try to get into this game and I honestly try to enjoy it, that just turns me off.

If they wanted to go with immersion and delude themselves that they are making a simulator so much they should have made navigation more involved, even go full autistic forcing players to do some math or whatever to plot a course according to made up space magic physics. Anything just not this shitty 5 minutes of doing nothing while the ship goes in a straight line across a binary system. There's no reason to stray from the path or adjust course or do anything (unless you get interdicted). It's just fucking brainless busywork, even burger flipping is an intellectually stimulating and challenging endeavor by comparison. And at least doing burger flipping pays you minimum wage or allows you to eat a burger. Says a lot about ED's value as a game if a fucking fast food wageslave job experience sounds more appealing, rewarding and enjoyable than fucking ED.

 

[Kalin]

Bro just play Frontier: First Encounters, it's as good as ever and never gets old.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I wouldn't mind the rather lackluster fedex gameplay, uninteresting exploration and other disappointments ED brings to the table, if the fucking travel within a system didn't take so fucking long while consisting of merely "point at destination, hold FSD acceleration button". Every fucking time I try to get into this game and I honestly try to enjoy it, that just turns me off.

My patience with ED ended when I looked for undiscovered planets with pristine rings, started to mine and got attacked right away by the same old pirates. This is shit.

And that's the problem with the whole game. They don't know what they're doing. Simulate a universe or generate superficial action that works like a gumball machine.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it might be, but you can't shoot at police cars with lasers and missiles in ets.

 

[Razor]

Didn't they say only about 3% of in-game space was visited by players?
If you have a whole galaxy to fuck around with that was to be expected and they need to somehow funnel people so that you'll actually have a chance to meet other players.

I am approaching my finish stretch in my big galactic tour I started about two years ago. Bubble->Formidine Rift-> Colonia-> Sag A-> Beagle point-> Erikson's Star-> Colonia-> Bubble. Currently approaching back to Colonia and after which its only left the final treck back towards the bubble. No I am not a BDSM fanboy I just like to fiddle around with something when I am watching youtube.

Trust me when I say that the "only 0.03 galaxy discovered!" is just a empty marketing slogan. This is the entire unmarked galaxy put into a single image:

Spoiler

The most interesting things to see are when you luck out from time to time and get things like ringed water worlds orbiting ringed gas giants which is a nice view to do some casual mining (yes I am carrying around mining equipment in deep space).

I mean FFS was it really that much of a deal to make some random Thargoid structure and contact spawns in deep space pockets? They already did it with the blue alien structures- there are pockets of them in nebula here and there between the colonia-bubble axis. Spent quite a bit of time mapping the entire nebula and all the systems surrounding the alien worlds.

Put this shit offline, give some basic modding tools and support to users and let the players populate the game world with more interesting takes. Not spread resources even more thin with babbys first FPS which does not even give you the main thing the foot fetishist wanted- ship interiors. Instead its literally SRV deployment without the SRV.

 

[Curratum]

Elite Dangerous is about as much a game as Star Citizen.

It's a massive disservice to the truck sims to compare this convoluted, empty, pointless junk to a game that has tons of handmade maps and assets.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Well, I finally got that Federal Corvette I've been wanting since the beginning. It has level-5 engineered everything, plus a Guardian jump booster. And now that I have everything I wanted, it just kind of feels like I've beaten the game.

I had jumped into the game expecting to play as a bounty hunter and mercenary through most of my career. Then I discovered that if you don't have the best everything, you might be able to handle random pirates, but you'll get torn apart in combat zones. So I did my time grinding everything--mining, exploring, trading, rescuing survivors--to get access to the engineers and Federation ships, and now that I have the ultimate combat ship, it just feels like there's nothing else I need to do. I can go crush the enemy in a combat zone if I want, but to what end? I don't need the credits. I don't really see any of the factions or powerplay leaders as any better than the others for establishing peace and prosperity throughout the galaxy. So maybe I'll just log in once a month to earn 750 powerplay points, get a new module, and then defect.

 

[Razor]

It's a massive disservice to the truck sims to compare this convoluted, empty, pointless junk to a game that has tons of handmade maps and assets.

Thats the rather big stinky elephant in the room. If they went the sane route and not this World-Of-Braben always online bullshit with mod tools then comparisons to the truck sims would be probably justified, because by this time it would also have lots of user maps (systems) with god knows what else gameplay and user quest/level/lore etc mods could have come up with. Certainly miles above what the incompetent gameplay FDevs could muster. For revenue they could have sold new expansion ship packs (no the .jpeg but actual 3d kind) plus whatever the retail sales numbers of new copies.

Well, I finally got that Federal Corvette I've been wanting since the beginning. It has level-5 engineered everything, plus a Guardian jump booster. And now that I have everything I wanted, it just kind of feels like I've beaten the game.

If wombats your thing have you given the Thargoids solo a chance? Its been a while but the last time I was in their nebula they just released the red medusa thingamajigs which were reported to be mini raid bosses as in incredibly difficult for solo players.

 

[Higher Game]

They need to get a grand strategy gaming studio in charge of the more strategic and economic aspects of the game.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

the game is a good infrastructure, but we've grown as players, a sequel to elite is not enough in current year, we need at least a proper sequel to elite 2. what really kills the game is the absolute lack of interaction with the world. it was acceptable, actually unthinkable otherwise, 40 years ago, but now it's just a glaring missing piece. being "prince" 30 years ago was a title and access to a couple of harder missions and a piece of equipment or two, today it *must* mean systems changing ownership. at least. instead we have a billion stars. a billion of immobile, immutable stars. what for?
it's not like it'd be something hard to code.

 

[Fedora Master]

All they'd have to do is take a look at the economy in Eve. But their players despise EvE and actually WANT as little agency as possible.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

the game is a good infrastructure, but we've grown as players, a sequel to elite is not enough in current year, we need at least a proper sequel to elite 2. what really kills the game is the absolute lack of interaction with the world. it was acceptable, actually unthinkable otherwise, 40 years ago, but now it's just a glaring missing piece. being "prince" 30 years ago was a title and access to a couple of harder missions and a piece of equipment or two, today it *must* mean systems changing ownership. at least. instead we have a billion stars. a billion of immobile, immutable stars. what for?
it's not like it'd be something hard to code.

All they'd have to do is take a look at the economy in Eve. But their players despise EvE and actually WANT as little agency as possible.

Couldn't put it better myself. ED Dads are pathetic little cucks. I say, capitulate to them and make Elite 5 a single player game with optional multiplayer. Maybe dedicated servers similar to NwN so you can make what kind of MMO experience you want with mods. That or go completely the opposite and make "Eve but good" I'd play that too. ED's current system is somehow more barebones and bland than Eve's mission system. At least a real person looked over and wrote some of the Eve Agent missions. I believe ED is ALL proc gen, right?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

eve economy would be unnecessary. the game needs scope. the only way to spend money is ships, so as demonstrated in this very page, once you get the ship you want and equip it, you're done. scope doesn't necessarily mean powercreep, far from it. community goals for global results would work and are the easiest solution, both as idea itself and implementation, but they have to be automated, i don't want to be forced by that single event put together by a lone forgotten intern, which is going to funnel asshole, trolls and server lag.
"pick a planet, bring/mine materials, build a base, spawn some fake trade caravan here and there to make it look alive". how hard can it be if even the starsector guy in his spare time could make it?

 

[Fedora Master]

I hold up Eve as an example of good player agency, even if the individual systems aren't necessarily perfect. As it stands nothing the individual or indeed a group of people does has any impact on the wider universe. Hell, people have to beg Fdev just to have minor factions in a system renamed so they can pretend to be part of it. That's insanely backwards.

In a well designed game the individual activities would interact and support each other. Explorers go out into the black to find valuable asteroid belts, miners buy the exploration data to get there and mine, pirates are attracted to defenseless mining operations, bounty hunters are hired to keep the RGO safe. Easy and logical and wouldn't require too much effort to implement.

 

[spectre]

Easy and logical and wouldn't require too much effort to implement.

how hard can it be if even the starsector guy in his spare time could make it?

You guys seem to be forgetting we're talking about Frontier Developments here.

Another station walk video is up. I don't like the candy colors compared to the previous one, other than this the layout seems unchanged.

You can still do most of the shit you would do at a station from the ship's computer.
However, there's actually an incentive to leave the ship because you can negotiate mission terms face to face with npcs.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I was actually thinking of buying this because I'm bored until I read they banned the slavers. First interesting thing I've read about this game and people got banned for it.

 

[spectre]

They actually banned them? Talk about no fun allowed. They could have exploited the situation for the game's benefit, setup some kind of event and let other players intervene, mount a rescue operation, fight the slaver fleet, etc. etc.
Plenty of opportunities to larp. But that would require putting some actual thought into it.