Yeah I'd be surprised if the game last 5 years. Elite Dangerous is going to flop pretty hard is my prediction.

^^ So much this. The game is worth buying just to show support, but the improvements change the experience for the better without deviating from the original experience in any harmful way.
It truly is the best of both worlds.


EDIT: Also, Evochron Mercenary is the shit. I personally hate it as it is a space sim/sandbox game, but it is deep and incredibly fulfilling if you like those types of games.

I'm glad that you are enjoying it, it is a good game and is worthy of the praise it has received for over 25 years, I used to play it at school on a Beeb., HOWEVER.. if I can just switch to cynical mode for a sec...If I was a conspiracy betting man I'd have to consider your post a 'plant' because your timing is either very coincidental or it's very suspicious.. now understand I mean no insult in this post, except to the devs, I am simply forwarding a thought that I was instantly struck with as soon as I saw your post and when it was posted.

You see, there is a sequel to this that will be out soon and which was funded on kickstarter, now the fact of Kickstarter is that it has been fuelled largely, and has been a huge hit for, nostalgia based projects and this sequel is no different, but it has also received most of it praise for DRM-FREE (meaning for a lot of people NOT online) based gaming which goes hand in hand with the whole nostalgia thing.

This project managed to complete it's funding BECAUSE of that DRM-FREE promise, there is no doubt that a lot of projects fall into this category and without that specific condition would not have succeeded in their campaigns.. and this is where it all falls apart.

Elite:Dangerous (as the sequel is called) traded on the promise of being an offline DRM-FREE product, and succeeded because of the that, it wouldn't have received the hype, or willingness to fund if that hadn't been part of the deal, I can say this because I know the nostalgia based audience being, myself, thoroughly up to my neck in it, yes other's who might not care either way funded it, but the nostalgia audience got the ball rolling and kept it going, yet within the past 36 hrs it has been announced that the developers making the sequel have reneged on that legally binding agreement, changing the status of the game to ONLINE ONLY, to the detriment of the very people who funded this and without whom the very game would never have been made. This is scandalous. I understand that the new gen who are growing up now have no concept of what non-internet dependant gaming means, however that fact is not an excuse for their arguement against it and their vocal acceptance of this situation, the fact is that this was a promise made and has now become a promise broken.

Do you see where my point lies? You have made a post, expounding the virtues of a game, prompting comments of 'whoop' for the sequel with no mention of current controversy at the very time that the whole issue has gone to hell... Do you see where my suspicions come from?

I would have to consider this post, or at least 'the thought has crossed my mind', almost certainly erroneously so, that this is nothing more than a damage control exercise meant to drum up interest in the now badly marred sequel lending to the obfuscation of the actual issues, or what SHOULD be the actual issues, at hand.

As far as I'm concerned the whole matter has become a LIE,... now I understand the whole "not a lie because of lack of intent" issue, HOWEVER if one makes a promise, a legally binding promise remember that, and thinks so little of their word that breaking it down the line is even an option regardless of the circumstances, then the promisemakers have such little regard for the intent of their promise as to make it a "promise made IN BAD FAITH".. it doesn't matter their excuses down the line, their promise, their very word at the time of making it, means so little to them that they consider themselves to have the option of reneging on that promise/legally binding agreement if they feel like it, and that MAKES IT A LIE by any other words.

So yes, while the original Elite was a worthy game, the developers should not gain any kudos for a sequel, because of what has turned out to be their 'lie', their obfuscation, their funding under false precepts.

I, personally.. and remember this is all simply opinion, would like to see the developers penalised for this, actually I'd love to see them dragged through the courts by their hair.. opinion remember, by means of very bad press and a failed disaster of a sequel project... The unfortunate case being that the majority of the market no longer care about integrity, keeping one's promises, or in fact DRM-FREE products, and this is horrible because behaviour and obfuscation such as this will continue because of that. This is bad overall for the expected and agreed public expectation of future projects. It is bad news and a bad thing to do.

Please don't buy their sequel.

..we now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcasting...

Amen.

soo by that logic most racing games
the sims 1 2 and 3
most sports games
and most beat em ups are worthless too ?

because apparantly they dont have an ending

...alrighty then


that so ?

hmm we wil have to see i suppose

http://thebitpulse.com/2014/11/elite-dangerous-isnt-an-mmo-yet-and-may-never-be/

Looks like it yeah and we probably don't have to wait and see, it's barely a month until release and the game doesn't even have a functional multiplayer. Let alone MMO.

Check the video of two players just trying to find each other. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

a sad state in modern gaming where the promises and hype are nto delivred and where the much vaunted multiplayer is piss poor ?

say it aint so !

...let me dig up star control on my megadrive instead

It seems they knew for while that they won't have an offline mode.

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=8fa47cadc166a816&id=8FA47CADC166A816!60536&v=3&ithint=photo,PNG&authkey=!ANh_YPbOPTho524

Sadly there is no date on the forum post.

The Elite I played back then had an end. Sort of, at least storywise. You have to find and fight the pirate/bounty hunter who killed your father.

Oh no! Please please don't misunderstand my post! I am completely against the sequel! The only reason I discovered Elite was because I heard how bad the new one was, so I wanted to see what it was supposed to be like, and was blown back by it! This is in no way to promote a sequel, I am serious!!

Elite and Elite II were and are pretty amazing games. I remember reading about Elite II when it came out.. it looked really cool back then.

Then you have good taste in games. :)

Yeah, I only heard of their online-only model in the past few days and I must say I think that's an incredibly bad move on their part. Eve already fulfills that role for many people interested in online space-sims. The ability to have a world to yourself and not have the figurative carpet pulled out from under your feet *when* the servers are taken offline (let's be honest, it's a matter of time) made the game have longevity far beyond what "flavor of the month" trendy MMO's typically do. I guess it's time to try out X3 or Freelancer.

Wow. Frankly I always thought the game was originally made by David Braben alone, I wasn't aware of Ian Bell. Seems that they haven't been on the best terms since they made it.

Anyway, thank you very much for sharing this Elite Homepage. I wasn't aware of it. I think I may actually fire the game up these days. Haven't touched the original Elite since the mid-90's (when I was kinda too young to understand it), and it was only the Amiga 500 version I've played. Interesting that Bell seems to consider the NES version the best one.

I'd say an analog stick or at least a gamepad is preferable. The game really benefits from analog controls, like when you try to match your rotating speed with the base during manual docking.

I just tried Elite Plus a bit also with a keyboard and mouse, it seems to have support for both as well (you have to select mouse support during flight, Esc and F3).

Keyboard: I guess it is ok, the controls are just not as smooth as with an analog controller. I guess it feels somewhat similar to those Elite versions without analog stick support (pretty much all the versions besides the PC and Archimedes versions, I guess).

Mouse: Due to lack of auto-centering, it was a bit disorientating to me. Maybe you can get used to it, not sure. I was mostly spinning uncontrollably. :)

Elite Plus seems very finicky about the machine speed. At first it seemed to run too fast, luckily in DOSBox changing your emulation speed is quite easy (Ctrl-F11 = slower, Ctrl-F12 faster).

Just got Starflight, and I love it to death. That is my new favorite space game. It is like a more advanced version of Star Control 2.