Elite: Dangerous launches final Alpha phase

[stevenhowlett]

The remake of classic 80s game Elite has entered its fourth and final Alpha phase and is preparing to enter Beta on May 30.

There's a new press release on their website: http://elite.frontier.co.uk/

Super, super excited about this one.

Edited May 18, 2014 by stevenhowlett

[Reaperman]

I've always liked the idea of Elite more than actually liking Elite itself, but I will give them a ton of credit for making the trailer look nothing like what I remember it being. Of course that trailer also doesn't look muck like a video game either. Here's one from youtube that looks much more like the same old elite:

 

http://youtu.be/q04axMTIIO8

Edited May 18, 2014 by Reaperman

[Albert]

Coincidentally, I saw some video of this game yesterday and I may have started drooling on my keyboard. Very much looking forward to this!

 

..Al

[Jess Ragan]

I read that as "Ellen DeGeneres reaches final phase." Guess she's old enough for menopause...

[Mord]

I hope anyone looking forward to the game was looking forward to it being online-only, despite kickstarter promises of a drm-free offline singleplayer mode. The "solo mode" they've added instead still requires to call home to the servers.

 

Apparently a lot of people are up in arms about it in their forum, since it was only announced they were axing attempts at making an offline mode on the 14th - barely a month away from the final release date. (The forum thread in particular has already swelled to over 472 pages in just 4 days.)

 

Glad I never bothered to back it myself, I rather hate bait and switch tactics.

[TPA5]

I've been watching this game since the days of its Kickstarter. I never backed it, and for some reason I could never bring myself to plunk down the cash for the alpha. Now I'm glad I didn't, it angers me to my very core when companies pull that kind of nonsense. They promise, which I guess doesn't mean very much these days, that 100% offline DRM-free will be available. Then, hidden away in a newsletter a month before release they let everyone know that "Oh, surprise! Your game will actually need to phone into our servers. Sorry, but hey we already have your money so we don't give a shit!"

 

And people wonder why so many are growing disillusioned with the conduct of some (some) modern developers.

 

I was excited for this game, but it's hard to support a company that treats their customers like that.

[Reaperman]

I've been looking forward to this one for the last few weeks--basically as soon as I knew it was actually close to release. It should keep me busy for a bit. Probably not long enough to make it to star citizen, or even it's FPS alpha or Arena Commander 2.0, but I'll probably get a week or so out of Elite.

 

It's a bummer to hear of the offline fans getting screwed. It really is pretty bad for them. However that's a feature I've never had any interest in, and had no money in, so I really can't get too upset over it.

 

I'm currently using Roccat's Power Grid on the touch screen in my space sim setup. They have multiple pages of pre-made Elite grids. I highly recommend it for anybody with an obsolete/cheap tablet just sitting around.

Edited November 29, 2014 by Reaperman

[Tickled_Pink]

I was looking at the Roccat Power Grid the other day. Looks cool. Might get some cheap Chinese Android tablets just for that.

 

From what's been posted in interviews with Braben and the rest of the Frontier team, they have a long wish-list to expand Elite. This includes allowing players to explore space stations and spacecraft, landing on planets, etc ... So this could be the first iteration of many for Elite. Presumably they're going to make so much money out of it that it's going to keep them going long enough to work on future expansions. I'm just wondering whether at some point in the future they might decide to make it subscription only. Running the servers isn't going to be cheap.

 

I suspect it could spell the end for games like EVE Online. I never really got into that game as it was too slow and tedious to play. When I first played it, I thought it would be like Elite. I was disappointed.

 

I played the combat demo a couple of days ago. Not that easy with the mouse/keyboard. The demo doesn't seem to allow other controllers so couldn't try my Xbox 360 controller. Really want a Saitek X52 Pro controller and Oculus Rift DK2. Can't afford either at the moment, though.

[TPA5]

I'm currently using Roccat's Power Grid on the touch screen in my space sim setup. They have multiple pages of pre-made Elite grids. I highly recommend it for anybody with an obsolete/cheap tablet just sitting around.

 

That is awesome, I have an android tablet kicking around that I wasn't sure what to do with and that looks perfect!

[Tickled_Pink]

Tick ... tock ... tick ... tock ....

 

Release the damned thing already!

 

 

I'm just wondering how long the servers will be down for when hundreds, if not thousands, of people try to download it at once.

[Tickled_Pink]

Ha! Didn't take long.

 

Neither the elitedangerous or frontier sites aren't loading. And it's only 12:03 ... game was due to be released at midday.

[Mord]

You'd think they would have prepared for that, but I guess they refused to learn from the mistakes of every developer that came before them.

 

I mean seriously, they knew how many people had preordered and were playing the game even with the fallout of breaking their promises of an offline mode. (Yeah I'm not going to believe them for a second about "oh no we're still considering an offline mode despite everything else we're saying about it not being part of our vision, honest!" until I see them actually deliver it.)

 

Did they honestly think people would line up to download it rather than hit their site up at exactly noon?

[Tickled_Pink]

It turned out that their forum was working just fine. Also turned out that if you already had the Combat Trainer installed then all you had to do was run it and it would update to the full game.

 

Pretty painless in the end ... unlike trying to play it before a bunch of demanding females have gone to bed. Just discovered that if you pause it when being disturbed in the middle of a battle, you're still in the game and you'll lose your ship.

[Reaperman]

So, it's been out for a good little while, what's everybody think?

 

I've wanted to love Elite games (mostly the first one) on numerous occasions in the past, but I have always found them a bit 'routine' and am really on the fence on this one. I have no doubt that someday I will own this game, but is it a full price purchase for somebody like me?

 

I've been enjoying the graphics in youtube videos--especially the detail in the stars and wow, those stations. ED really is a beautiful game. The place I feel it is lacking are the ship models which seem a little too traditional for my taste. In vehicle sims, I really do get hung up on the vehicles themselves. I keep watching youtube videos thinking I want in, but I keep reminding myself that they're highly edited, and there's a good chance I'll just be bored. Even edited, the combat time-to-kill seems awfully high for my taste, which is right in line with what I remember of the original.

 

IGN's got a review out that seems to go pretty deep, but it seems the reviewer is sitting on the same fence I am. Well that's no help.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-zt7FhyS_s

[Pixelboy]

Even back in the day, Elite wasn't for everybody. And the more hyped up Elite Dangerous gets, the more there will be people who will say they got caught up in the hype of a game that they found quite boring in the end. Elite is a game that you have to adopt and commit to. It's not for casual gamers looking for a quick space battle fix. It's just not that kind of game.

[goldenegg]

This is absolutely a fantastic game and is made even better when played with a Oculus Rift and a good flight stick. It's such an immersive experience.

[fujidude]

I hope anyone looking forward to the game was looking forward to it being online-only, despite kickstarter promises of a drm-free offline singleplayer mode. The "solo mode" they've added instead still requires to call home to the servers.

 

For any folks who want a great single player Elite experience done all modern, for free, check the Oolite project.

[Tickled_Pink]

I dunno. Been playing it pretty much solidly for the past few days. Had a night off from it tonight. Like the original, it does take time to actually get anywhere in it.

 

I've been playing it since release and there have been times I've been thinking ... is this all there is? I have no doubt it's a better experience with Oculus Rift. However, the more I've played and got into it, the more I've started to enjoy myself. The stars are graphically stunning but the sense of awe wears off pretty quickly. The planets are less impressive. A lot less work has been done on them as they look like spheres that have just had a texture painted on them. I haven't noticed any movement of the clouds on gas giants, for example.

 

Elite is still a work in progress, and it shows. It's absolutely riddled with bugs. You can't have a session without running into at least one bug it seems. It's why I still consider it to be a Beta. I haven't seen so many bugs in a game release. That's probably because I haven't played AC: Unity yet.

 

Something I thought was a bug until yesterday was that ringed planets often had what looked like big gaping holes in their rings ... until I realised they were deep shadows.

 

Early on the game isn't much of a challenge. Takes a while to figure things out but once you investigate signal sources and start hunting pirates you realise that it starts off real easy. The pirates don't offer much of a challenge. It's only when you get to the third rank, Novice (my current rank), that it becomes more challenging and enemies react more aggressively like they do in the Combat Training demo that was released a couple of weeks prior to release of the full game. While it's no fun to nearly get jumped by an Asp and Anaconda while in your newly acquired Cobra Mk III, it stops you being complacent when you manage to jump to safety with just 5% hull integrity remaining. That's when you know that from here on in you have a fight on your hands.

 

Trading is pretty damned pointless. The mission system kind of renders it a waste of time. I'm not sure if it was a mistake on Frontier's part or not. Trading was a big part of the original game. In your initial Sidewinder, you have very little room for cargo. When you get to a Cobra, that's when things start to take shape if you want to trade.

 

Surprisingly, one of the fun things in the game is exploration. If you have a mission that requires a few jumps to get to your destination, you will invariably go through systems that you haven't been to. It looks to me that only uninhabited systems can be explored. Your ship comes equipped with a Basic Discovery Scanner. This allows you to scan a system for astronomical objects. It has a limited range, though. So even if you think you've found everything, there's no guarantee that you have. You can sell system information on stations 20+ light years away. It's an interesting way to make extra cash. I can easily spend half an hour or more trying to find as many objects in waypoint systems as I can during a mission.

 

I know Frontier have a wish-list. But they need to sort out the bugs first.