Elite Dangerous - Yay or Nay?

[Burning Bridges]

Oblivion is a work of art, taught a million kids about OBScript programming, computer graphics, 3D modelling and animation, and includes a few life lessons to boot.

For example how to deal with an arrow in the knee.

 

[Inconceivable]

Only a complete moron would begin a list of quality top games with Witcher 1,2,3.

Only a self-gratifying piece of shit rips something out of context to direct a pointed insult.

 

[Burning Bridges]

So which "life lessons" did you learn from the Witcher?

 

[Inconceivable]

So which "life lessons" did you learn from the Witcher?

My 4y-o kid wanted to climb up a steep incline just a few days ago. My fatherly instinct told me to stop her, because she might fall and get hurt, so I began to talk her out of it. Then I remembered the Witcher 3, and how I got the good ending by not being overly protective of Ciri, but instead by strengthening her self-esteem and allowing her to take on challenges. I had already almost convinced her to go back, when I actually shifted my tone and told her that we should try it together, because it would be an adventure. We climbed up through the trees, it became a small adventure and we had fun and something to talk about in the end. Afterwards she excitedly told a few people of the adventure we had climbing up the forest.

Afterward I could practically feel from her demeanor how elated she felt at taking on the challenge. I'm convinced I strengthened her confidence and resolve a bit after that experience. Made the right call thanks to remembering about Ciri.

 

[Inconceivable]

God, man, I sincerely hope you are trolling here. Implying that educational-entertainment games are greatest artistic and technical achievements of our times, or saying that witcher games include a few life lessons is rather bold.
What next, you'll be praising star wars as deep drama?

You can perhaps be forgiven. Most people have no idea what goes into making a game. Even a "simple" indie game means hundreds of hours of work. An AAA game has dozens if not hundreds of developers and artists working on it for years - 3D models, textures, landscaping, animation, design of cities, NPC's, objects, game design, the writing, the music, the coding, the AI, the plot... a modern game is an amalgamation of so many disciplines and specialists, many of which can be considered artistic endeavors. The process of writing a modern game engine is one of the most difficult technical challenges again requiring the coding capabilities of programmers of various different disciplines, with a very high degree of efficiency, due to the hard performance requirements.

So, no, I'm not trolling. A well-crafted modern game is the culmination of a vast array of artistic and technical capabilities.

 

[Inconceivable]

God, man, I sincerely hope you are trolling here. Implying that educational-entertainment games are greatest artistic and technical achievements of our times, or saying that witcher games include a few life lessons is rather bold.
What next, you'll be praising star wars as deep drama?

Also, for the record, I was not implying that *only* educational-entertainment games are the greatest artistic and technical achievements of our times. But well-crafted games in general.
SpaceX building reusable rockets and Tesla creating AI for self-driving cars is also very impressive. But in several ways, creating an AAA game has more challenges in a greater variety of disciplines, and of course a much higher artistic component.

Just look at the credits of all the people involved in the Witcher 3 and their occupation for christ sake:
https://www.igdb.com/games/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/credits

 

[Burning Bridges]

Profound!

 

[Burning Bridges]

I have learned important life lessons from Arma, for example that you never stand behind someone firing a rocket launcher.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

What have I wandered into?

So video games = rocket science now?

 

[Fedora Master]

ED is the perfect game to sperg about realism because we all know it is so damn realistic with its flight model.

Last DLC utterly killed the game anyway.

 

[Fedora Master]

ED is the perfect game to sperg about realism because we all know it is so damn realistic with its flight model.

Last DLC utterly killed the game anyway.
View attachment 20895

Every time I think ED has reached the lowest available decline, Braben and K somehow find a way to fail even worse.

I have the feeling they want people to drop the game so they can save on server hosting costs. They made a game that requires a permanent online component with no way to generate new money from it except decals which only the fattest of whales would buy.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Braben has his own built with the gameplay from the 8bit Elite that is actually fun. He just hates people who play his games.

Just imagine how fun it would be to buy machinery and computers on an industrial planet and sell them on another that is backwards for a small but significant profit, be able to slip through a gauntlet of space pirates that do not see your every move from lightyears away and send you chat messages, and speculate with some Platinum along the way.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

They made a game

See there's their problem. Star Citizen didn't do that that's why its more successful.

 

[Silva]

What have I wandered into?

So video games = rocket science now?

Nope. But videogames, like most media, can be both educational and a vehicle for the expression and consumption of art. Despite what grognards say.

Btw, What Remains of Edith Finch has a better story than 90% of recent books and movies I've seen. As does SOMA.

 

[Trojan_generic]

What have I wandered into?

So video games = rocket science now?

Nope. But videogames, like most media, can be both educational and a vehicle for the expression and consumption of art. Despite what grognards say.

Btw, What Remains of Edith Finch has a better story than 90% of recent books and movies I've seen. So does SOMA.

Yes, and that says a lot about recent books and movies.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Exactly my thoughts. Fuck "recent" books and movies and What Remains of Edith Flinch.

Go to a library and get some decent books, they are not just there for homeless people.

 

[Decado]

I have 1,660 hours in the game, but I haven't played in a while and I'm on the fence about the newest expansion.

I will say that throwing some headphones on and plopping down in front of nice monitor, just cruising around, was quite relaxing. I could do it for hours.

 

[.Pixote.]

I haven't touched it since I became Elite in the 3 fields (Combat, Trade, Exploration) that's been 12 months now. With the new expansion (Odyssey) I've been watching the shitshow slowly kill the game, I think the developers have committed the greatest sin, alienating their audience. People have been asking for interiors for years, complaining about the mindless grind, wanting new ships...nothing, and yet they thought running around going "pew pew" was the answer. The game still has many beautiful elements if players just want to explore the galaxy.

 

[Decado]

What they need to do (and I'm not kidding here) is hire some decent quest designers from the RPG world. Write an actual plot and implement it through newscasts, etc.

I think Odyssey was a slight misfire but it is a recoverable error. The key draw of the game is the simulation -- so deepen it. Do interiors, but also do other shit. Create an actual radio station and transmission chatter, stuff like that. Let me land on a station and have a cup of coffee in a diner at the edge of a star. Hire some C-list celebrities to do decent voice acting.

The problem is that the world feels sterile. I think that's a natural problem with being a space-focused game, but it is fixable. The game isn't EVE Online and nobody wants it to be, but find the happy medium.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I've tried to play this game like 5 times and I don't understand the point.

 

[AN4RCHID]

The point is flying around and enjoying the flight model and sound design. There is no other point.

 

[Decado]

The point is flying around and enjoying the flight model and sound design. There is no other point.

To a large extent this is exactly it. You can do stuff -- go exploring, combat, trading, etc. But the only reason to do those things is to do them and make money . . . to buy bigger ships, upgrade your stuff, so you can do harder/bigger explorations, trades, combats. . . to make more money, to buy better ships, etc. It is not unlike your average "looter shooter" in this regard; there is obviously no end of the game to be seen.

But they could fix this. There's no reason why the game can't have a plot and a reason to fly all over the place, doing these things. At least for a little while.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The point is flying around and enjoying the flight model and sound design. There is no other point.

To a large extent this is exactly it. You can do stuff -- go exploring, combat, trading, etc. But the only reason to do those things is to do them and make money . . . to buy bigger ships, upgrade your stuff, so you can do harder/bigger explorations, trades, combats. . . to make more money, to buy better ships, etc. It is not unlike your average "looter shooter" in this regard; there is obviously no end of the game to be seen.

But they could fix this. There's no reason why the game can't have a plot and a reason to fly all over the place, doing these things. At least for a little while.

yea but I play lots of pointless MMOs and don't have this issue
this game is just something else, like there's no carrot on the end of the stick, I don't really get how people are interested in it

 

[Decado]

The point is flying around and enjoying the flight model and sound design. There is no other point.

To a large extent this is exactly it. You can do stuff -- go exploring, combat, trading, etc. But the only reason to do those things is to do them and make money . . . to buy bigger ships, upgrade your stuff, so you can do harder/bigger explorations, trades, combats. . . to make more money, to buy better ships, etc. It is not unlike your average "looter shooter" in this regard; there is obviously no end of the game to be seen.

But they could fix this. There's no reason why the game can't have a plot and a reason to fly all over the place, doing these things. At least for a little while.

yea but I play lots of pointless MMOs and don't have this issue
this game is just something else, like there's no carrot on the end of the stick, I don't really get how people are interested in it

There something captivating and relaxing about playing the game in a certain way, but you gotta do it right.

For me, it is:

1) A nice big, high quality screen.
2) Good quality, surround sound and/or 3D audio headphones
3) An above average flight stick.
4) A comfortable chair you can sit back in

If you get all this going, it is a very immersive and relaxing experience. Flying around, scanning planets, blasting the occasional pirate, landing on a rocky planet to putz around a little bit . . . it's quite fun. There's not another game like it, imo.

Playing it on a TV with a shitty console controller? I don't know anyone enjoys it.

 

[Perkel]

Pad is actually great for space games, much more so than mouse and keyboard because it is cheap dual stick setup. It lacks precission and it is not as fun as stick but i often used left side of pad as replacement for second stick when i had just one.

People who say there is no end game are right. But that is not really the main reason why it sucks. The main reason is that progression is hollow. It means that your next ship is just bigger ship than last one, there are some differences but there is no fundamental difference between ships. All of them can be retrofitted to anything you want. There is some dedication to some ships but they don't really matter in the end. Moreover getting "best ship" in game is not really an achievement, it is just mindless grind and there is no reason to ever use sidewinder.

Other games usually do it differently meaning that each ship has its hard specialization and fighter ship won't become suddenly trading ship. So the progression feels hollow because what ship you have is your kit rather than ship itself deciding that.

The other issue is that everything feels the same. For first 10 hours or so you see everything there is aside maybe from black hole or some neutron star. There is some variation in missions but they all feel like they are there because game requires them rather than interesting set of missions that are pretty open ended in how you approach them. If you look at same selena type of planet non stop it is no wonder you don't want to play it.