Elite released on Steam

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49rTbird
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Elite released on Steam

Post by 49rTbird »

I did try Oolite at one time but can't remember what went wrong as I don't have it on my old machine now either.:(
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ulukinatme
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Re: Elite released on Steam

Post by ulukinatme »

Old space sim pilot, started with TIE Fighter back in the day. Played a number of other space sims, including JTL for Star Wars Galaxies before it shut down. I bought one of the starter packs for Star Citizen years ago hoping that would be my next space fix, but I'm not convinced they'll ever deliver on everything that's been promised...and by the time they do I'll probably have to upgrade my PC AGAIN (Did it once when early specs were released). So, earlier this year I decided to pickup ED on sale, no way I was paying the full price tag. I had high hopes after watching some videos and reading a few inflated reviews.

After about 40-50 hours I was thoroughly disappointed with ED. Graphically it was pretty good and didn't push my system too bad. Everything else about the game felt awful. As some have said, it felt like a 100 mile long lake with a depth of 1 foot, just a very shallow game. Worse yet there were a number of bugged missions, which was a real nut kicker. I did some searching online, thinking maybe I wasn't doing them the right way, only to find that there were a number of bugged missions that you can't complete or you need some random luck for things to go the right way. That was incredibly frustrating, and the fact they had been out for some time and unfixed was a serious knock against Frontier.

So, they waste your time with bugged missions, but they also waste your time trying to complete legit quests. It seems you spend an inordinate amount of time searching systems for NPCs for your quests. Sometimes they're easy to come across, other times you have to chase them all across the system through Super Cruise. Sometimes you're doing a quest to chase down a convict and take him out, and you may chase him all over a system before he jumps out...only to have him jump back with his bounty/crime cleared! Why Frontier does that, I can't say...but if you're a new pilot and not aware you'll kill the NPC and become kill on sight with the local police! That's a really stupid game mechanic and effectively breaks quests once again. Crime/Punishment is kind of screwed up as it us...I got interdicted WAAAAAAY too much by local police forces to have my cargo scanned, despite the fact I never did any smuggling or had a criminal record. In the end, you end up doing a LOT of waiting in ED, whether you're sitting at a POI waiting for your NPC to show up, or you're searching every inch of a sector for your quest target.

There were plenty of other issues I had with the game. For instance, the quest balancing is often terrible. As a novice pilot you should NOT be given quests to take out 7+ NPCs by yourself, especially if you're in a starter ship and they're better outfitted than you. There's far too many galaxies in the game too. Their universe is impressive, but it's also empty and lifeless. I was incredibly shocked if I ever came across another player, they were few and far between. When I did come across one I tried to converse, but they were often not social. When that happens you might as well make a Single Player option like Evochron has. Lastly, it seems Frontier does a crappy job listening to their player base. From what Beta players have said it was promised that planet based content would be part of the initial release, but they packaged it as a pricey DLC later and screwed everyone over.

Eventually I got fed up with everything listed above (Not to mention a number of things I'm not going to bother listing) and I uninstalled. I happen to read the "Mixed" reviews for ED after the fact and noticed how a LOT of players were suggesting Evochron if you were disappointed with ED. I decided to check out EL recently and I've been very happy. Everything just works, there's not a bunch of contract bugs, and the combat is balanced and fun. When I do find myself outnumbered I can always hire some backup, which is nice. I never feel like I'm playing with a time sink either, there's little wasted action in the game. You can jump directly to all quest waypoints and get right to work, no searching the ends of earth and heaven for a needle in a haystack. I'm a patient person, but there's a point when searching and endlessly flying becomes a chore and not fun. Just glad I found Evochron, and I guess I can thank ED for leading me here lol.
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Re: Elite released on Steam

Post by ulukinatme »

Oh, and this is by far my favorite review of ED on Steam. It's true, every bit of it:
"Oh... my... God. Is it really you? Commander Zigglepants?"

"Yeah. Heh. Nice to meet a fan."

"I can't believe it. I've always wanted to be a space pilot like you. You've done EVERYTHING. How did you get started?"

"Well, believe it or not my first job was doing delivery runs."

"Really? That must have been tedious."

"It was. And the pay was terrible. You'd accept a mission in one star system and do nothing but hop from star system to star system for an hour or more before accepting your tiny payment.

"Sounds pretty bad."

"Yeah. I only did that for a short time before I got into smuggling."

"Oh, cool. Sneaking into heavily armed facilities with illegal cargo? That sort of thing?"

"Exactly. Although you only do the sneaking at the end bit of your journey. The rest of it was just as dull as the deliveries. And even the sneaking was only fun the first few times. After that it became pretty routine. The pay was a lot better, though."

"So how did you become a famous bounty hunter?"

"I'm afraid the stories are exaggerated. I took my first contract at my local station. It told me to fly to a nearby star and hunt down a notorious pirate."

"Did you get him?"

"No. I showed up at the star and he wasn't there. I flew around scanning promising signals, but each one turned out to be a dud. To make it worse, it took about 10 minutes to fly between each signal and there wasn't much to do in the meantime. After a few hours of this, the contract expired."

"That's too bad."

"Yeah, the next few contracts turned out the same so at that point I gave up, bought a warrant scanner, and decided to go freelance."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, it means you sit in one place next to a navigation beacon or resource extraction point, and hope to catch pirates if they show up."

"Neat. How many did you catch?"

"None. It took me about an hour to pick up the scanner and fly to a promising system. Then I waited around for a few hours scanning ships but no pirates showed up. Well, a couple did... but none of them came out of supercruise. After a few nights of this, I decided to dump the stupid scanner into the sun. When I got home, I received a strange message. Someone wanted to hire me to carry some mystery cargo to a certain sector and wait for further instructions."

"Did you take the job?"

"Of course! It seemed like the first interesting thing that had happened to me as a space commander. Yeah, I accepted the job and headed out to the sector they named. Took a lot of time to get there. Then I started waiting for my contact."

"Who was it?"

"I dunno. He never showed. I waited around for a couple hours and eventually the mission expired. I did get to fight some pirates, ironically. It seems like they really wanted that cargo, whatever it was. They should have just asked. After waiting around for a few hours, I tossed it into the sun too. Hold on, I have a customer."

Commander Zigglepants turns away and talks into his headset.
"Hello, welcome to McSpaceport. Can I take your order? Combo #2? That will be 4,000 credits. First window, please."
He turns back. "Sorry about that."

"No problem. So you work a drive-through window now?"

"This is WAY more fun. Trust me."

"What about the Close Quarters Championship? You know. Arena mode? Did you ever compete?"

"Oh, yeah! I actually hold the world record."

"No way! What's it like?"

"Well, the Close Quarters Championship is a screen with the words 'Searching for Match' and a little spinning circle. The winner is the person who can sit and watch the screen the longest before closing it. I broke the previous world record with a time of 90 minutes before I got bored and went for a snack. The majority of commanders can't make it any longer than 10 minutes. It's actually not as -"

"Wait! Aren't there, like, space ships and stuff in the arena?"

"Hmm.... I doubt that very much. If there are, I never saw any."

"You know what, I still think I want to be a space commander."

"Suit yourself... but can I offer a word of advice?"

"Please!"

"You're going to spend most of your time travelling and waiting around, so bring a video game to keep yourself entertained."

"Got it."

"...and make sure it's NOT Elite: Dangerous."
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Re: Elite released on Steam

Post by hank »

I'm a current ED player still. I left EM to try ED when it was in early release. I'm starting to burn out on it but two things have been pushing me away from ED recently; one old and one new.

As many have said, the ED flight model is not good imho. For me, the EM / EL flight mod is so much better. ED just nerfed the heck out of newtonian flight early in the development. This I did not like but I kept playing anyway.

The second thing that has me shelving ED for a while is the latest update, Engineers; something about it just does not feel right. I bought and enjoy the Horizons update because of the planetary landings but with all the new problems that Enginners has brought, its not enough at this point to keep me interested.

One "game" I recently started playing is Space Engine. Its not really a sim or a game I suppose but its more of a space exploration tool. And a really cool tool. You can go to anywhere in our universe based on some well respected astronomy data. As far as using ships, I'm not there yet. Ship flight is hard for me to figure out but having a ship in is not needed to enjoy exploring.
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Re: Elite released on Steam

Post by DaveK »

Sounds intriguing! Exploration throughout the galaxy without a ship would certainly take the pressure of flying your ship out of the equation!

Something I found recently in EL is a toggle so that when you fly Newtonian you continue with whatever turn and spin you set when you release the stick - you can recreate 'The Last Starfighter' fighting manoeuvre :)

:)

ps - it doesn't work in real combat like it did in the film! :o
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Re: Elite released on Steam

Post by Marvin »

??? The problem with Space Engine is ... you are totally alone in the universe. :o
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Re: Elite released on Steam

Post by robberer »

I wish i had saved my money on ED. I've bought it on release date. Had a travel to "sagittarius a" got my way back. After that some trading and a LOT of conflict zones. After 3 Months I had 3 billions in assets. Nothing more left to do except grinding for other things. Burnout , even the Horizon update could'nt get me back on track.

In November 2015 i've bought me into Rogue System. Best investion in a space sim so far. I play it almost every day for an hour, less or more, although there is not much to do. But the programmer of this game is a genius, one man show too. Space Simulation done right.

Another casual spacegame i liked a lot is Empyrion Galactic Survival (451 playhours), very good but the flight controls are horrible.

Now i'm more than satisfied with Evochron Legacy. Took me a while to find it on Steam. It has its own charm. A little bit retro, but i like that. (I'm playing computer games since 1992 (amiga 600))
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Re: Elite released on Steam

Post by Walker »

Well Folks, just to add my 2 cents worth to an old topic ::) ....... I picked up both games at the same time about a month ago. Both are installed, and only one has been played so far. Yep that's right I have been so consumed learning Evochron, I just have not even turned on Elite! And the funny thing is, I turned this one one due to the 3rd person view of my ship that Elite does not have. And to be honest, so far, I am very glad I started here.

I am hoping more folks start playing the online servers a bit, though the more I go in one player, the more I am liking it. In fact, I even got a friend mine to buy the game and he is also playing. All this said I guess one day I will give you an honest review of "the other game" but till I am bored with this, it must wait. I just have so much more to learn about this one. And if I get a server of my own going... I may never play the other game :)

Hoping to see some of you out on the servers!
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Re: Elite released on Steam

Post by Marvin »

Walker wrote:And the funny thing is, I turned this one one due to the 3rd person view of my ship that Elite does not have.
Probably because 3rd person view gives the player an advantage over those flying the cockpit during player(s) versus player(s) combat. Even though 3rd person really destroys game immersion (deadly for a program like Elite which, from what I read, is really more of a simulation). In Evochron Legacy, Vice has done a fairly good job of creating a balance between 1st person and 3rd person views. Not an easy thing to do.
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Re: Elite released on Steam

Post by matchbox2022 »

Elite is supposed to be pretty.

I get a feeling that Evo is supposed to or accidentally just feels retro.
Different things entirely. Like more of a simulation.
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