Elite Dangerous

[DigDog]

Star Citizen looks impressive. Tbh i think they are overextending, with all the features they claim will be in the game. If they actually release it as claimed, ED might as well pack it up and call it a day.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Star Citizen looks impressive. Tbh i think they are overextending, with all the features they claim will be in the game. If they actually release it as claimed, ED might as well pack it up and call it a day.

Star Citizen promise everything, lets see if it can actually deliver anything. And when/if it delivers as well. Personally I say Star Citizen is overhyped to the sky.

Elite Dangerous is in Alpha 2.0 stage with people actually playing.

 

[norseamd]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDWnBJYTFgs#t=292

so what does this mean will be in the game. trading? quests?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Just read the info on their site.

http://elite.frontier.co.uk/

 

[BrightCandle]

I don't think Star Citizen is likely to drop this year whereas Elite dangerous just might do so.

 

[Whitestar127]

The sense of scale looks awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGf9OPot8Sc

Looks like the progress is quite good in this game, compared to Star Citizen.

 

[HitAnyKey]

Thank you Whitestar127 for the link. Game looks promising and fun. Hopefully they can pull it off.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

The sense of scale looks awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGf9OPot8Sc

Looks like the progress is quite good in this game, compared to Star Citizen.

It's further along in development process, however the scope and quality levels of the game are significantly different. I'm enjoying the E: D beta quite a bit, but it's definitely not on the same level as SC in terms of fidelity and scope. Note: I'm absolutely NOT saying E: D doesn't look great or isn't of high quality, like I said, it's definitely an enjoyable experience even in its current phase.

It's control scheme is also significantly better than SC at this point (I'm not able to deal with the current HOTAS input "lag" in SC), and the flight-assist off mode is a blast.

 

[futurefields]

It looks bigger better and more polished than Star Citizen. Sort of like the difference between how DayZ is looking and how Sony's H1Z1 looks.

 

[Revolution 11]

Judging by the Arena Commander module released recently, Star Citizen is definitely not measuring up to the hype. It definitely is not worth the hundreds of dollars many players are putting into the game, before a single instance of gameplay has been released.

I was looking forward to the beta but I think I will wait until 6 months post-launch to see if this is any good. I have heard good things about the Elite game so will also check that out when it releases.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

Judging by the Arena Commander module released recently, Star Citizen is definitely not measuring up to the hype. It definitely is not worth the hundreds of dollars many players are putting into the game, before a single instance of gameplay has been released.

I was looking forward to the beta but I think I will wait until 6 months post-launch to see if this is any good. I have heard good things about the Elite game so will also check that out when it releases.

Disagree, the SC AC module is extremely well polished and is one of the best looking things on the market. For the small sliver of what SC will become, I was very impressed. As for it being "worth" $100s, that's absolutely misunderstanding the point of backing. SC will end up being released at standard price I'm sure, and will be worth every penny. Same with E: D, it's not "worth" $150, but I gladly paid it to support the development of a previously "dead" genre.

 

[Revolution 11]

Well, the SC AC module is disjointed because immersion is continuously emphasized over convenience. I mean, is it really necessary to watch yourself go into the cockpit every single time just to play a match. What is wrong with menus that skip all the unneeded animations? Why not just put a option to disable the animations? Or at least let us hit escape to skip to the combat.

I get it is alpha stage but it is the philosophy behind these flaws that concerns me. The flying itself seems janky, the ships slip and slide all over the place and there is no sense of speed.

Joystick players are punished even more because certain weapons can aim separately of the ship's orientation, rewarding K/B players over joystick users. Which is bizarre considering the heavy focus on simulation and immersion like the unstoppable animations. To rub more salt in the wound, many joysticks are not supported yet or require extensive tweaking. But why bother with all that work if you will have a inferior shooting experience compared to keyboard/mouse?

The graphics are nice, the cockpit layouts are very geeky, I like these elements. But the developers are confused or at least don't have a crystal clear vision on what the game should be. So I can't recommend the game if it continues to try and meet all players' expectations, if it tries to be a jack of all trades, but master of none.

There is probably no one more disappointed than me in this. This was going to be the game of the decade for me, finally a space sim that promised as much fun as Tie Fighter did in the late 90's. I have waited a long time for a game like this, but the hype is getting killed by delays, poor design choices, and less-than-stellar execution.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

Well, the SC AC module is disjointed because immersion is continuously emphasized over convenience. I mean, is it really necessary to watch yourself go into the cockpit every single time just to play a match. What is wrong with menus that skip all the unneeded animations? Why not just put a option to disable the animations? Or at least let us hit escape to skip to the combat.

I get it is alpha stage but it is the philosophy behind these flaws that concerns me. The flying itself seems janky, the ships slip and slide all over the place and there is no sense of speed.

Joystick players are punished even more because certain weapons can aim separately of the ship's orientation, rewarding K/B players over joystick users. Which is bizarre considering the heavy focus on simulation and immersion like the unstoppable animations. To rub more salt in the wound, many joysticks are not supported yet or require extensive tweaking. But why bother with all that work if you will have a inferior shooting experience compared to keyboard/mouse?

The graphics are nice, the cockpit layouts are very geeky, I like these elements. But the developers are confused or at least don't have a crystal clear vision on what the game should be. So I can't recommend the game if it continues to try and meet all players' expectations, if it tries to be a jack of all trades, but master of none.

There is probably no one more disappointed than me in this. This was going to be the game of the decade for me, finally a space sim that promised as much fun as Tie Fighter did in the late 90's. I have waited a long time for a game like this, but the hype is getting killed by delays, poor design choices, and less-than-stellar execution.

The menu issue I'm assuming will be resolved...yes, it's annoying, but I don't see it as an end-product issue. What DOES annoy me, as a X-55 HOTAS owner, is the current control issues (input lag causing oscillating due to overcorrection and the mouse advantage with independently tracking class 2 weapons), but I'm also confident they will be ironed out. E: D's control scheme is beautiful in its current stage and I do enjoy E: D quite a bit and I'm glad I've backed both projects.

 

[BrightCandle]

I personally thought the SC AC module had dreadful control in general. I tried it with KB+M, joypad and then a X52 joystick and I hated them all. On the KB+M I had the most luck, but you constantly have to push the mouse too far past the target to be able to get it to turn quickly enough to keep up with a target going sideways and you can't then shoot them as its not in the magic middle area. That was less of an issue with the joypad but I found aiming generally was much harder with that. Then the joystick was just hard to aim with period as it didn't really account for the difference in aimpoint.

But really my main issue is how unresponsive/janky the whole movement was. The ship jerks and jumps and takes ages to start moving and that really doesn't feel great. I just don't feel I am in control of it at all.

The hud is hard to read. The cockpit isn't actually that useful without an Oculus rift but it sure obscures a lot of the screen view. Despite having indirect flight I seem to have little to now actual awareness around via systems of obstacles. I am pretty certain I hate the AC module, its bad, really really bad and nothing like the Wing commander games I played all those years ago. They had tight responsive controls with fast paced combat. This felt clunky, slow paced and just unresponsive. Not good.

So I am now debating how far to go with Elite Dangerous. Elite was one of my favourite games on the Amiga, but £100 is mighty pricey for a game.

 

[DigDog]

Thats not really a question, is it? When ED is ready, it will sell for £40, or £35 or something like that. Just wait for it.
(same goes for SC. when it comes out, we'll see if its well done or not. early beta builds seldom represent the finished product)

 

[preslove]

for me, it all boils down to how "arcade-y" the game is. there's been tons of trading sims with toms of options each; because, in the end, it's just "pirates" + "wings" rolled into one.
and given they have their head in the clouds (really, call this Elite, why ? because its 1988? because 40yo players are your market?), i fear this will come out as a simplified version of X3. And that is something im really not interested in.

back to wing commander. it had *everything* you could wish in a game like this.
1) different weapons, ship systems handling
2) a campaign with a story and real characters
3) upgrades in ships and weapons, vith visible results
4) an interesting universe with different enemies, ships, factions.

Uh, but with outdated graphics. I missed all the great space sims before the genre died. There's a lot of pent up demand for space sims.

 

[Revolution 11]

But really my main issue is how unresponsive/janky the whole movement was. The ship jerks and jumps and takes ages to start moving and that really doesn't feel great. I just don't feel I am in control of it at all.

This exactly. The basic feel of the space travel and movement is not satisfactory.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Audited development with proper project management. Thats why Elite is advancing fast and solid with everything on track. While SC is entirely opposite and a farce when thinking on the funding.

Elite also had no problem getting bank IPOs. Something that requires you have more to show than another ship for the next million $. That may just be another copy of a previous one.

Elite will be released in Q4 2014 at 40£.
https://store.zaonce.net/elite-dangerous-cat/elite-dangerous.html

I doubt SC even have a chance of release before 2016. And it wont be the game people dream about.

 

[Red Storm]

I supported both Elite and SC because I want the space genre to thrive. I personally am MUCH more excited about SC, the scope is going to be much bigger which obviously means a much later release date (there will always be those who don't understand this simple concept). I am not a fan of Elite's space flight though, it feels like I'm flying an airplane in atmosphere, not like what I expect a spaceship to feel like.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

I supported both Elite and SC because I want the space genre to thrive. I personally am MUCH more excited about SC, the scope is going to be much bigger which obviously means a much later release date (there will always be those who don't understand this simple concept). I am not a fan of Elite's space flight though, it feels like I'm flying an airplane in atmosphere, not like what I expect a spaceship to feel like.

Exactly the same reason why I funded both

As for the space model, I far prefer what SC is going for, however Elite's space flight model reminds me a lot of IW and IW:2, and I do like both.

Also, reading into the "laggy" inputs (makes it near unplayable for me with my HOTAS) on SC, apparently a good chunk of it is due to the full simulation of thrusters, particularly the rotating nozzles. It can be fixed by making them snap to faster as well as allowing for more graduation of response. I'm very hopeful on both projects.

 

[BrightCandle]

Also, reading into the "laggy" inputs (makes it near unplayable for me with my HOTAS) on SC, apparently a good chunk of it is due to the full simulation of thrusters, particularly the rotating nozzles. It can be fixed by making them snap to faster as well as allowing for more graduation of response. I'm very hopeful on both projects.

To me this is one of those differences between the funding level of the projects and the coolness factor combined with how much difference it actually makes. How much do we think those moving thrusters have cost? They had to modelled, animated, effects added and coded delays in the controls etc etc. They probably cost 200k at least to develop. Yet for all practical purposes they are useless. They look pretty, they have the cool factor but because of them the controls feel terrible. Elite doesn't have the funding to throw in stuff like that, and for it its control scheme is responsive. I think that difference and how it practically plays out is what matters.

I personally wouldn't have focussed on moving thrusters over and above the best of the game at this point. The problem is that there are more important things for SC to be making progress on. I just don't agree with how they are spending the money, especially when the end result is kind of poor. I played both these games as a kid and I preferred Elite back then, elite was actually not really something you directly controlled at all it was mostly auto targeting and mouse clicking. Funny how Elite seems to be getting this right and SC is getting it wrong and one has a lot more money than the other to experiment.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

How'd you play SC as a kid? Also, I disagree regarding dev cycle, CR has a large team and the AC was rightly delayed so that it would represent the base of the entire game. I'm impressed with their dev pipeline. As I've said before the scope of SC is significantly greater than ED, which does not mean ED is a small undertaking, like I've said, I am playing ED right now vs SC due to controls. I do expect the controls to be ironed out, and it's fine with me as I enjoy the full physics sim behind it.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Sorry to bring this back from semi-dead thread, but looks like all offline gaming has been dropped from Elite: Dangerous. I think that really sucks personally, especially for longevity of the game. Now the game goes away when all the servers shutdown (as have been seen time and time again for MMO's). This was one of the things that ED had right.

 

[Red Storm]

Sorry to bring this back from semi-dead thread, but looks like all offline gaming has been dropped from Elite: Dangerous. I think that really sucks personally, especially for longevity of the game. Now the game goes away when all the servers shutdown (as have been seen time and time again for MMO's). This was one of the things that ED had right.

Yeah it's a bummer, but I don't see the game dying off anytime soon, so there's that.

Good to know that SC will have the capability to host your own server (with modifications as well!), so worst case we'll still be able to host our own universes should the company go under.

 

[DigDog]

i dont see it as a problem. they will just release a sp patch *when* the game dies .. in a few years. 3 years? 5 years? something like that. i think it's reasonable for a game.