What's the deal with Elite:Dangerous?

[SLU Aequitas]

Morning catch-up. Because this thread is Relevant to My Interests

Why all the hate between SC and Elite? They're different games and yes you could own both. I bought into SC's kick starter and did not with Elite. This does not mean I don't want both to be successful.
Why all the nerd rage?

I haven't seen much on here at all. Most of it seems to reside in the SC thread lol. I'm happy to have backed both and like both of them; they're different enough to complement each other. It's like having two sexy ladies who just gave me the wink and started caressing each other and...erm...where was I? Oh yeah, it's like having cake and ice cream, or kicking ass and chewing bubble gum...except I can do both at the same time.

i'm loving the way you play "lets ignore the reasonable criticism";

How is it reasonable? The flight model is relatively realistic based on the ship design and gameplay mechanics. Engaging opponents in a truly realistic fashion AGAIN would NOT be a fun game (or even really a game).

The main issue that seems to reflect most threads is, that Elite Dangerous is nearing completion and delivering everything on time with a much smaller budget. While Star Citizen is barely in what you can call alpha stage with a massive backing. If I had invested 100s of $ in spaceship pixels in Star Citizen and seen the (mis)management of the project. I would worry too.

One game will come out in 2014. The other maybe in 2016 if it doesnt turn into another Duke Nukem Forever.

1.) Dave already had an established studio up and running, which helps A LOT.
2.) Already had a capital base established and has/had private funding as well which helped close the gap
3.) Scope and fidelity are vastly different.

I think both projects are being managed well and doing well. For the record I'm at $250 pledged (NOT INVESTED, WE ARE NOT INVESTORS!), and I'm not worried at all. Following the many updates provided by CIG (they're very open about their development process), they've been focused on making the foundation and building out their fundamental building blocks, which will help them in the long run.

E: D simply has a smaller scope and is not as advanced graphically (it's still darn purty though), which cuts down on dev time.

 

[Red Storm]

This is somewhat my position. I didn't invest hundreds of dollars. I invested $45 in SC two months ago. It was, admittedly, and impulse buy. But now that I've spent two months researching and following the development, I've come to the conclusion that SC will never be released. We might get lucky with Squadron 42 (which is what I'm really more interested in anyway) and see it in 2016 or 2017. Maybe.

The problem with SC, in my opinion, is that they can't seem to say "no". They're spending time/money on all this useless shit people have asked for. Examples:

fishtanks with exotic space fish
space plants that bloom
jukeboxes in your hangar

I think the next stretch goal is to hire a linguist to create new alien languages!

Honestly I am hoping, that the $50 million stretch goal is:

Hire a bunch of talented project managers and finish the fraking game this decade.

But it won't be. It'll be something like: a commercial for furniture inside your expanding room hangar concept!

I don't understand, where did you get the impression that SC was ready to be released this year or next? It was revealed at the very beginning stages of development, these games take years to finish. I remember when Dragon Age was first announced very early on in its development, it was another 4-5 years before the game actually released.

ED (which at first was Elite IV) was first announced back in ~2001. 13 years later, it's in beta.

 

[ShintaiDK]

This is somewhat my position. I didn't invest hundreds of dollars. I invested $45 in SC two months ago. It was, admittedly, and impulse buy. But now that I've spent two months researching and following the development, I've come to the conclusion that SC will never be released. We might get lucky with Squadron 42 (which is what I'm really more interested in anyway) and see it in 2016 or 2017. Maybe.

The problem with SC, in my opinion, is that they can't seem to say "no". They're spending time/money on all this useless shit people have asked for. Examples:

fishtanks with exotic space fish
space plants that bloom
jukeboxes in your hangar

I think the next stretch goal is to hire a linguist to create new alien languages!

Honestly I am hoping, that the $50 million stretch goal is:

Hire a bunch of talented project managers and finish the fraking game this decade.

But it won't be. It'll be something like: a commercial for furniture inside your expanding room hangar concept!

It seems to me that SC is more about raising money and less about making a game. Heavy delays even for basic parts because the focus is elsewhere. There is absolutely no project management and everything is done adhoc.

And you are completely right about the inability to say no. I assume due to the issue of not getting as much money. And it can only backfire.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

It seems to me that SC is more about raising money and less about making a game. Heavy delays even for basic parts because the focus is elsewhere. There is absolutely no project management and everything is done adhoc.

And you are completely right about the inability to say no. I assume due to the issue of not getting as much money. And it can only backfire.

Wrong. On so many levels. Anyone who has spent even a little time following the MANY progress updates (transparent development process is great) knows that you're just spouting FUD right now.

 

[rivethead]

I don't understand, where did you get the impression that SC was ready to be released this year or next? It was revealed at the very beginning stages of development, these games take years to finish.

I never had that impression. I did have the impression that SQ42's first episode would be released in December 2014. And that the beta for SC would be out in 2015. Those were from threads in the RSI forums.

Neither of those are going to happen.

CIG is fantastic at keeping us up to date with progress reports. There is no denying that. But there is no accountability (that I can find) to timelines. I know these things take time. But I would be much more comforted if they published a timeline with stated goals.

Again, I don't think they'll ever finish the game because they can't seem to say "no". There will ALWAYS be something else they can add ("hey lets add a new hospital variant to the Constellation line". etc.). At some point they need to say "no" to new things and just finish the game. I don't think it will ever happen.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

I never had that impression. I did have the impression that SQ42's first episode would be released in December 2014. And that the beta for SC would be out in 2015. Those were from threads in the RSI forums.

Neither of those are going to happen.

CIG is fantastic at keeping us up to date with progress reports. There is no denying that. But there is no accountability (that I can find) to timelines. I know these things take time. But I would be much more comforted if they published a timeline with stated goals.

Again, I don't think they'll ever finish the game because they can't seem to say "no". There will ALWAYS be something else they can add ("hey lets add a new hospital variant to the Constellation line". etc.). At some point they need to say "no" to new things and just finish the game. I don't think it will ever happen.

The thing is, you have no idea if the additional features affect the timeline at all. A common problem in game development (and in many business projects) is that some areas will finish their objectives/projects before other teams finish theirs. In game development, this can mean artists are sitting around at best doing Q&A and at worst sitting around untasked. So what may look like feature creep or a delay to you may have zero effect on actual game timeline. If an artist is done with their main work, there's no effect on timeline by adding in another Freelancer variant.

As for the additional goals, it's been pretty clear that these additions aren't going to have a big effect on timeline, since they're either trivial (engine tuning kits, hangar fish) or will be accomplished with additional resources and wont require game modification (linguist helping with alien languages).

Finally, going back to ship design, CIG has noted that the first ships served as "guinea pigs" of sorts, in establishing damage states, desired level of fidelity, PBR, design-->flight mechanic. This was good game development and I'm glad they spent time on it, as it's shortened their concept-to-in-game dev time to between 3 and 6 months total. Now that they've got the base framework in place (the major reason why the alpha was pushed so far back), they can continue to churn out ships through the entire dev process, and add additional features in a much shorter time frame.

I've been following the whole process pretty closely, and I would argue that CIG is very well managed considering the sheer size of all studios and the size and scope of the game.

 

[rivethead]

Wrong. On so many levels. Anyone who has spent even a little time following the MANY progress updates (transparent development process is great) knows that you're just spouting FUD right now.

CIG IS great about the progress updates. But I wouldn't say any of this is FUD. It was simply an opinion (one I somewhat share).

I DO think that CIG is in money raising mode right now. I mean shit, they're spending time on creating/selling tshirts and dogtags on the website. I would have much rather that capital be spent on more PMs and QA. Even if it meant AC patch 12.5 is released one day earlier.....that's money better spent.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

CIG IS great about the progress updates. But I wouldn't say any of this is FUD. It was simply an opinion (one I somewhat share).

I DO think that CIG is in money raising mode right now. I mean shit, they're spending time on creating/selling tshirts and dogtags on the website. I would have much rather that capital be spent on more PMs and QA. Even if it meant AC patch 12.5 is released one day earlier.....that's money better spent.

The people working on shirts/dogtags aren't coders. It doesn't affect timeline. Dogtags were also something in (really) high demand by backers. Again, it doesn't affect the timeline.

And before you respond with "Well, fire the people doing shirts and hire more coders!"
1.) CS reps aren't paid as much as coders
2.) All companies (and especially ones as large as CIG) need a support infrastructure. They're needed and not going anywhere.


EDIT: Also, we can/should probably bring this to the SC thread lol Granted I love both and think they're related (hell, E: D's KS success was because it was heavily advertised/supported on the SC website/forums), but still...

 

[rivethead]

The thing is, you have no idea if the additional features affect the timeline at all. A common problem in game development (and in many business projects) is that some areas will finish their objectives/projects before other teams finish theirs. In game development, this can mean artists are sitting around at best doing Q&A and at worst sitting around untasked. So what may look like feature creep or a delay to you may have zero effect on actual game timeline. If an artist is done with their main work, there's no effect on timeline by adding in another Freelancer variant.

As for the additional goals, it's been pretty clear that these additions aren't going to have a big effect on timeline, since they're either trivial (engine tuning kits, hangar fish) or will be accomplished with additional resources and wont require game modification (linguist helping with alien languages).

Finally, going back to ship design, CIG has noted that the first ships served as "guinea pigs" of sorts, in establishing damage states, desired level of fidelity, PBR, design-->flight mechanic. This was good game development and I'm glad they spent time on it, as it's shortened their concept-to-in-game dev time to between 3 and 6 months total. Now that they've got the base framework in place (the major reason why the alpha was pushed so far back), they can continue to churn out ships through the entire dev process, and add additional features in a much shorter time frame.

I've been following the whole process pretty closely, and I would argue that CIG is very well managed considering the sheer size of all studios and the size and scope of the game.

That's a fair point. But I also believe that money can increase production speed (to a point). If your artist finishes ahead of schedule, you thank him/her, fire him/her and then spend the capital on an additional QA team member or network engineering to resolve issues to get the game to deployment faster. You don't retain the artist and have them continue to create ships....which then need to be modeled, which then needs damage modeling, flight physics, etc, etc. etc.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The people working on shirts/dogtags aren't coders. It doesn't affect timeline. Dogtags were also something in (really) high demand by backers. Again, it doesn't affect the timeline.

And before you respond with "Well, fire the people doing shirts and hire more coders!"
1.) CS reps aren't paid as much as coders
2.) All companies (and especially ones as large as CIG) need a support infrastructure. They're needed and not going anywhere.


EDIT: Also, we can/should probably bring this to the SC thread lol Granted I love both and think they're related (hell, E: D's KS success was because it was heavily advertised/supported on the SC website/forums), but still...

You only have to look at the team size to realise anything takes time from the game.

Just look at Chris alone. He is the director, he is a programmer and he is a designer. And he will spend a lot of time in meeting rooms dealing with accessories sales and everything else not directly game related.

The game is way behind the original goal. And while updates are nice, but as said before, there is no timelines for anything. Its adhoc development and its a terrible way and spells disaster. Whenever Chris says yes to the next random promise to raise more money. Everything else in the chain gets affected and set back.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

You only have to look at the team size to realise anything takes time from the game.

Just look at Chris alone. He is the director, he is a programmer and he is a designer. And he will spend a lot of time in meeting rooms dealing with accessories sales and everything else not directly game related.

The game is way behind the original goal. And while updates are nice, but as said before, there is no timelines for anything. Its adhoc development and its a terrible way and spells disaster. Whenever Chris says yes to the next random promise to raise more money. Everything else in the chain gets affected and set back.

Try reading my post again. CS Reps don't code. Companies need an infrastructure backbone, including non-IT personnel (even accountants like me ). That's like saying the audit work I perform somehow means that the company I audit isn't able to produce as much. It's a naive and ridiculous assertion, but you're free to make it.

The game is significantly expanded in scope, the original timeline obviously needs to be modified to accept the major changes made early on. One of the biggest (and positive) changes was pushing the Alpha back in order to not only show off the engine and test various flight models, but more importantly be incorporated into the overall PU network infrastructure. It was a good (and the correct) move.

This is the first time we've been exposed to game development at this level. Game development isn't linear, and everything I've seen from SC has left me encouraged that it's in capable hands, not this "ad hoc" "terrible" thing you're suggesting.


On the topic of Elite Dangerous, micro-transactions confirmed. Cosmetic but still a giant mehhhhh from me. I've plopped $150 down on this, I'd rather not have to play the micro-transaction game to get a paint job...
http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=c5e7202cb7

 

[ShintaiDK]

This is the first time we've been exposed to game development at this level. Game development isn't linear, and everything I've seen from SC has left me encouraged that it's in capable hands, not this "ad hoc" "terrible" thing you're suggesting.

I assume you never have tried to manage a larger project before? Ad hoc is the undisputed road to disaster, delays and higher cost.

On the topic of Elite Dangerous, micro-transactions confirmed. Cosmetic but still a giant mehhhhh from me. I've plopped $150 down on this, I'd rather not have to play the micro-transaction game to get a paint job...
http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=c5e7202cb7

Star Citizen will have microtransactions as well. Its simply the norm these days.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

I assume you never have tried to manage a larger project before? Ad hoc is the undisputed road to disaster, delays and higher cost.

You're the one claiming their development model is ad hoc, I've been saying it isn't and have been providing examples of good management decisions made by CIG. And while I personally haven't managed a project that large (please let me know if you have personally managed something the size of either of these developers) I do get to play with a couple of Fortune/S&P 500 companies and see their management style/strategies

Star Citizen will have microtransactions as well. Its simply the norm these days.

They've said that pretty much from day 1, Elite hasn't said anything until today, which is why I posted it. It still sucks regardless.

 

[Kev]

You're the one claiming their development model is ad hoc, I've been saying it isn't and have been providing examples of good management decisions made by CIG. And while I personally haven't managed a project that large (please let me know if you have personally managed something the size of either of these developers) I do get to play with a couple of Fortune/S&P 500 companies and see their management style/strategies



They've said that pretty much from day 1, Elite hasn't said anything until today, which is why I posted it. It still sucks regardless.

Why do you continue to waste typing energy arguing with the brick walls?

 

[Fallen Kell]

The people working on shirts/dogtags aren't coders. It doesn't affect timeline. Dogtags were also something in (really) high demand by backers. Again, it doesn't affect the timeline.

And before you respond with "Well, fire the people doing shirts and hire more coders!"
1.) CS reps aren't paid as much as coders
2.) All companies (and especially ones as large as CIG) need a support infrastructure. They're needed and not going anywhere.

Add to it that someone should read "The Mythical Man Month". You can't just add developers and get something done faster. In fact, adding more developers past a certain point makes things take longer as more and more of the veteran devs on a project spend more time getting the new developers up to speed and fixing the problems they introduced because they don't know the codebase that well.

I am a developer. I have been there before, many times. As a developer, I also can see when a feature is something that is trivial to do vs ones that would require a complete re-thinking and architecting of the code in order to fit. Adding additional variants for ships is TRIVIAL. Putting in some art asset is TRIVIAL. Adding First Person Shooting combat to a First Person Shooting combat game engine is TRIVIAL. Making a fishtank (art asset) with fish (art asset) is TRIVIAL. Everything you and many people are talking about are things which are TRIVIAL to do. Converting a single player game to be network multiply is NON-TRIVIAL. Changing your game engine is NON-TRIVIAL. Switching from a server centric to distributed client side mode is NON-TRIVIAL (for your knowledge, these last couple are why "Duke Nukem:Whenever" took so long and failed because they changed game engines multiple times, and tried to add in multiplayer when they didn't initially design for it). Everything they have been adding and discussing adding are things that are trivial to do in terms of development time and even artist time.

And as has been said previously, different groups of people do different things. If your 3D modelers/artists are sitting around twiddling their thumbs, you might as well have them make a new variant of something, or start level design of a new spaceport/planet landing/asteroid type/station/plant/fishtank....

 

[SLU Aequitas]

Why do you continue to waste typing energy arguing with the brick walls?

Because I grew up on mech and space sims. I loved FS & FS2, I:W and I:W2 to death, and I love seeing the genre's current revival. I'm also happy to see so many agree, and that BOTH projects have been delivering. I also have a better sense of game development (and patience) than a lot of people, so I don't mind spending a little time on the forums explaining some items. Some people really get the wrong impression about the two projects' development times, and I'd rather not leave it unchallenged and let it get carried on via word of mouth.

That, and my ma always told me I should have been a lawyer lol.

Add to it that someone should read "The Mythical Man Month". You can't just add developers and get something done faster. In fact, adding more developers past a certain point makes things take longer as more and more of the veteran devs on a project spend more time getting the new developers up to speed and fixing the problems they introduced because they don't know the codebase that well.

I am a developer. I have been there before, many times. As a developer, I also can see when a feature is something that is trivial to do vs ones that would require a complete re-thinking and architecting of the code in order to fit. Adding additional variants for ships is TRIVIAL. Putting in some art asset is TRIVIAL. Adding First Person Shooting combat to a First Person Shooting combat game engine is TRIVIAL. Making a fishtank (art asset) with fish (art asset) is TRIVIAL. Everything you and many people are talking about are things which are TRIVIAL to do. Converting a single player game to be network multiply is NON-TRIVIAL. Changing your game engine is NON-TRIVIAL. Switching from a server centric to distributed client side mode is NON-TRIVIAL (for your knowledge, these last couple are why "Duke Nukem:Whenever" took so long and failed because they changed game engines multiple times, and tried to add in multiplayer when they didn't initially design for it). Everything they have been adding and discussing adding are things that are trivial to do in terms of development time and even artist time.

And as has been said previously, different groups of people do different things. If your 3D modelers/artists are sitting around twiddling their thumbs, you might as well have them make a new variant of something, or start level design of a new spaceport/planet landing/asteroid type/station/plant/fishtank....

Yep yep, game engine changes are a HUGE (biggest?) time-sink. I watched Starsiege 2485 die because of it (and because of incredibly poor project management). Incidentally, there has been a good chunk of time spent converting CE3 to double precision (to allow larger maps) which is another GOOD reason for pushing the timeline back a bit.

Everything I've seen from SC and E: D's teams has been pretty darn professional and I'm happy with both.

 

[Elcs]

Despite playing Elite as a young lad and taking the Frontier Elite 2 manual away on a family holiday with me when I was 10... neither of these games even slightly enthused me enough to donate.

Near dead genre with not so clear, often changing goals and massive names attracting large amounts of money via crowdfunding? They just turn me off paying even further.

Personally I'm giving games like these the same cautious outlook as I would any AAA or similarly hyped up game with long term media attention. Wait til they're released, see how it is then and make another decision then.

 

[flexy]

>>
that gameplay is ancient now.
>>

I could argue this with a ZILLION "do this, go there, retrieve that" type of games.
People play MMORPGs and do tedious, mindless things for days, months...and they STILL do it..this is not more "ancient" that flying from Zaonce to Lave and selling stuff

I for my part would be looking forward to this "ancient" concept of trading/fighting in space etc..this is 1000x more exciting for me than grinding some points in WoW or attending 20x raids on Wednesday to get some purple item....or even playing Divinity: Original Sin with TONS of texts you need to read.

100% science accuracy? I could care less. I don't want a SIMULATION of space travel, I want an entertaining game that is as "as realistic" as is feasible for a game.

 

[flexy]

>>
Near dead genre
>>

Uhm...name me one MMORPGish space trader/dogfight game? EVE doesn't count, this is something for nerds.

You say it's a dead genre, I say it's a genre which is EXTREMELY under-representated seeing that we get 100 FPS shooters vs. 1 such game. The success with people donating to those both games seems to contradict your statement that this genre is "dead".

 

[rivethead]

Add to it that someone should read "The Mythical Man Month". You can't just add developers and get something done faster. In fact, adding more developers past a certain point makes things take longer as more and more of the veteran devs on a project spend more time getting the new developers up to speed and fixing the problems they introduced because they don't know the codebase that well.

I am a developer. I have been there before, many times. As a developer, I also can see when a feature is something that is trivial to do vs ones that would require a complete re-thinking and architecting of the code in order to fit. Adding additional variants for ships is TRIVIAL. Putting in some art asset is TRIVIAL. Adding First Person Shooting combat to a First Person Shooting combat game engine is TRIVIAL. Making a fishtank (art asset) with fish (art asset) is TRIVIAL. Everything you and many people are talking about are things which are TRIVIAL to do. Converting a single player game to be network multiply is NON-TRIVIAL. Changing your game engine is NON-TRIVIAL. Switching from a server centric to distributed client side mode is NON-TRIVIAL (for your knowledge, these last couple are why "Duke Nukem:Whenever" took so long and failed because they changed game engines multiple times, and tried to add in multiplayer when they didn't initially design for it). Everything they have been adding and discussing adding are things that are trivial to do in terms of development time and even artist time.

And as has been said previously, different groups of people do different things. If your 3D modelers/artists are sitting around twiddling their thumbs, you might as well have them make a new variant of something, or start level design of a new spaceport/planet landing/asteroid type/station/plant/fishtank....

I understand what you're saying, but.....

IF Chris Roberts had said: "I'm building a game. It will have 3 different types of spaceships in it." then the Arena Commander module would be almost finished rather than (what I suspect is) a year or more away from being complete (if ever?).

If adding ship variants is trivial, then why has the AC module been limited to only 3 ships (out of 20?, 30?) since release a month ago?

It's the biggest complaint on the RSI forums (i.e. I bought "x" and can't fly it yet). I think everyone backing would be more comforted if they could see a timeline from CIG (i.e. we'll release the Freelancer to the AC module in August 2014, the Mustang in September 2014, etc.). But we don't see any of this accountability. I'm not saying they're not transparent (because they are), I'm saying it appears they really don't have a plan.

And I think it's this disorganization that will prevent the game from every really being released. Yeah, we'll probably get more pre-alpha modules. Maybe something will make it to beta, but never a fully finished product.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

I understand what you're saying, but.....
<snip>

And I think it's this disorganization that will prevent the game from every really being released. Yeah, we'll probably get more pre-alpha modules. Maybe something will make it to beta, but never a fully finished product.

You keep repeating this same line, without anything to back it and despite me and others providing examples showing this simply isn't true.

 

[ixelion]

If you were to buy the Standard beta + Expansion pass, you would end up paying $125. If you wait for release the game will be $50 plus maybe $30 for an expansion costing you only $80, $110 for two expacks.

At this point I cannot justify buying the expansion pass considering you can buy 2 of em and still be below the Season pass "deal". Mind you these two expansion packs probably wont come out until the year 2017, and there is no guarantee that you will care about the game in the year 2025 where I imagine quantum computing and hover-boards will become the norm.

Overall, I think the most sensible thing to do is to spend the $50 on the core game and buy each expansion as it comes out. The only scenario in which the season pass is a good deal is if you are still actively playing the game a decade from now and they are still making expansion packs.

But let's be honest E : D is not World of Warcraft, nor is it Call of Duty, the future of the game is uncertain so asking me to pre-pay for years worth of content that may or may exist or be any good is ludicrous.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

If you were to buy the Standard beta + Expansion pass, you would end up paying $125. If you wait for release the game will be $50 plus maybe $30 for an expansion costing you only $80, $110 for two expacks.

At this point I cannot justify buying the expansion pass considering you can buy 2 of em and still be below the Season pass "deal". Mind you these two expansion packs probably wont come out until the year 2017, and there is no guarantee that you will care about the game in the year 2025 where I imagine quantum computing and hover-boards will become the norm.

Overall, I think the most sensible thing to do is to spend the $50 on the core game and buy each expansion as it comes out. The only scenario in which the season pass is a good deal is if you are still actively playing the game a decade from now and they are still making expansion packs.

But let's be honest E : D is not World of Warcraft, nor is it Call of Duty, the future of the game is uncertain so asking me to pre-pay for years worth of content that may or may exist or be any good is ludicrous.

Oh, I agree, from a purely economic standpoint, it's not a "good deal". It's not marketed that way, if you're simply looking at it from that perspective, the final game is marketed at your price range, and that is what they're selling.

I spent $150 on the Premium beta, not because I thought I was getting a deal, but because I wanted to support Elite Dangerous, and more generally, the revival of the space sim genre. I also had a lot of fun with the Premium Beta, and I'm looking forward to the reset/opening of general beta.

Speaking of which, beta opens tomorrow (probably US AM as they tend to release builds in the afternoon/evening UK time). They highlighted a couple of additions/changes (trade routes in particular), but I'm really looking forward to the new systems

 

[flexy]

Just FIY, jumped the gun and bought the Beta (Standard). The Beta is limited to a bunch of SP scenarios but only before TODAY, because today they will launch the official beta which means it will add MP and a lot more stuff. (So basically I was playing the Alpha and have not seen a lot yet)

From what I saw, even with the very limited Standard Beta, I liked it a lot.

Right now I am looking into better controllers, looking into either a Thrustmaster 16000m joystick and at a later time an extra throttle like the CH Pro Throtle. (Thrustmaster Hota X would be another alternative but everyone says the 16000m is the better and more precise stick). For this game, you WANT a precise joystick

Probably the perfect game especially for an Oculus Rift. (Here I am still holding out for the CV1). Looking at some of the rigs people have for playing ED or SC for that matter, pretty crazy. Some people spend $1000s just on controllers, head trackers etc. Fun, fun. I can see me getting into this game big time.

I also like it's running decently (actually very well) on my aged PC with a 660 TI.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

Looking forward to all these space games. I haven't backed Elite yet but have been following it. Also backed Star Citizen and Limit Theory. Good to see the genre thriving again.