I plugged the route that Gihzmo shared into a visual tracker if anyone is interested in trying it out: HERE EDIT: Guess it stores it as a cookie or something, edited link to take you to the site and you have to put the list in and save it yourself! I agree Magnus, I go through phases with Ed. Play for 10-20 hrs one week, next month I play for 2-3 hrs max. Its hard to play consistently for long periods of time without any real engaging content beyond the physical immersion. It'd be cool to see Frontier do more community events like the starbase construction!
I prefer to rescue* Imperial Slaves from pirate pilots (by shooting their cargo-doors off). *Rescue being a relative term. Are they dead or stranded in the wreckage of the badguy ship I just blasted to quarks? No. Are they going right back into the market to which they (probably) put themselves? You bet. 100% profit. And I get to pat myself on the back.
Btw folks quick question, as an old school space sim nut how much is this game worth it? It really reminds me of games like X-BTF, X2, and others. Not sure how many hours I have to dump into a game but it does tempt me.
It is a fun game. It does get a little grindy, as your main "objective" in the game will be to do whatever it takes to get enough money for the next ship, but the combat, flying, and general feel are great. They are also planning to continue expansion and add extra features for quite a while, so it's no telling how the game will be in another year. Keep in mind though, there is no structure other than what you give yourself, so if that turns you off, it probably isn't for you.
Gameplay is your traditional sandboxy fight/trade/explore/mine space game, in a giant galaxy with modern game mechanics, more realstic feeling physics, and incredible immersion. As haki said, Frontier does plan to add a lot more, and we've seen that with Wings and the community events over the few short months the game has been in release. Watching some of the official videos you can tell Braben is passionate about evolving the game so I've got high hopes for the future, but yeah currently its pretty standard gameplay for a space sim but packaged in a beautiful game engine. BTW, anyone around Aulin right now, there's a really good, short trade route I've been running in my cobra the past 30 minutes:
I honestly can't recommend it over something like X Terran Conflict... for right now (excluding the multiplayer of course). That being said, Elite does A LOT of things right in terms of space "simulation" aesthetics. The big issue right now is that once you get past the initial wow of the atmosphere, the day to day experience is extremely flat. Missions are very bland and all too often frustrating to complete. Like Haki said, beyond grinding up to the next ship, there is disappointingly little to do. Bottom line, can't really recommend for $60... right now. Just needs a bit more to do.
Thanks for all the responses! I really liked X3TC, and I was hopefully this would scratch the itch that Xrebirth did not. Do they have any history of releasing post launch updates? Or is it pretty slow?
so far their track record with updates has been pretty good. as mentioned before, they just released "Wings" which basically allows you to group with friends (like all things in elite, it doesn't hold your hand with it, though). they also have a lot more supposedly coming down the pipeline soon. I would recommend waiting, but keeping a close eye on it. If you haven't grabbed X: Albion Prelude, I can highly recommend that. It is cheap and should fill your needs for at least a couple of months (results may vary).
Hey guys, Just got this on steam... have we grouped up in this game under the borg banner? Would be happy to have some wing mates in between MWO.
Hi TG. I know people still play on occassions, but due to reasons previously mentioned here in this thread, we aren't what I would say "organized" with anything. Personally, I'm still waiting for a bit more to do in game beyond cash grind. I recommend hopping on our TS and find people to play with there.
Hi all, For the space cadets like myself, I can recommend this game to anyone who is on the fence. At the very least it will give you more play time of fun than most of the titles out there. It is also a good break from waiting on SC. I agree there is a lot of grinding in the longer term play, but I have not reached that point yet, and I have been playing for a few days now (total time is about 15 hours). Personally, I am not the type of person who likes to be driven by a story or hand held through the game, and this is definitely not that type of game at all. Here is a small cut of what happened to me last night: I arrived at a remote, graffiti covered, tin can outpost. I am in transit of another dull LHS run, dropping off a cargo of tea bags from my sidewinder, and feeling the strain of a hard day of trading. I was just about to load some clothing for the trip out, when I feel the usual late night urge for some refreshments. I figure there is just enough time for a small break while I wait for re-fueling. I am quick to find a hole in the wall, order a glass of beer, and I am soon disturbed to find my tab has already been paid by a shady creature at the dark corner table (of course). I walk over, offer my thanks, but I am cutoff by a proposal. He offers to pay me 50K to find him some slave labor. Before I can take this in, he follows the offer further with stories of more work, the start of a reputation with his company, and more wealth than I can imagine if I am able to do this job for him on time. This unexpected rendezvous was just the ticket I needed. I pulled out the folded Zorgon Peterson advertisement from my pocket, take another long deep breath, and replay the dream of pulling in 22 crates of cargo in a shiny new hauler. My attention however is quickly averted, as my friend slams his hand on my back, and asks if I am up for it. I pause, disregard all caution, take his offer and proceed to click accept on his digital trade contract. I am now fully obliged to drop off this illegal cargo in 5 hours. I do not care to fathom what will happen if I fail this task, nor what will happen if the local authorities find out what I am doing with imperial slaves in my hold. Like the trained dog-trader I am, I have soon pulled out the trusty trade calculator, found the nearest station offering imperial slaves, and have auto-jumped my way over to make the deal. The jump proceeded to be uneventful on the way out. However, the trip back turned a hot as finding a rouge neutron star. Someone, or something, tried to kick me out of my jump. This was not covered in merchant academy. Was this even possible? Where was my handbook? No time. In the heat of the moment, and with adrenalin soon rushing to my brain, I was able to see a hole on my HUD in the blue jump field that said "escape". What was that? A gift from the engineering team of the jump drive? Who cares, alarms were ringing, and I needed to act quickly. Escape it is. I end up fighting my joystick and pedals, pushing the skib back and forth. Screams are coming from the cargo hold. The cargo!? I soon find my hand on the cargo eject button, as I continue forward, into this virtual escape hole in the blue jump field. This goes for what feels like an entirety. I feel my chest accelerating the pumping of beer through my liver, and quickly feel the resulting head ache. I see that I am winning this unknown game of jump struggle, and am blasted back into my original heading and speed. Thank space Borf. Soon I am back at the outpost, cargo still moving, and I am back at the hole in the wall, and have punched out the deal. I am just in time for another beer to calm my head. I chug it down, and turn to thank my friend, not yet considering the promise of more work and wealth, but he is gone. I feel somewhat relived to have finally have distance from the cargo. I wipe the droplets of blood from the hold, load the clothing, and plug in my coordinates to the nearest star station hosting a Zorgon Peterson ship lot. My first impression was that I would be in some very hot combat in my sidewinder from the start, but this is far from what happened to me. I am still running away from most battles with the AI, as they are usually more powerful and better skilled. No to mention my love of jump drop avoidance. I have yet to let out the inner pirate, as I have some bounty on my head for killing myself in some stupid system, while trying to take down a whale of a cargo ship, I will never return to again. Need more credits and a better ship before I really let myself go. For now, I will just grind with my hauler and look to up my reputation to get the better work/jobs. I recommend a good joystick, throttle and some pedals (or if you like yaw on the joystick, use that). The yaw is critical for combat. /TG
just to clarify my previous statement, the lack of story is not my issue either. i equally enjoy sandbox and storyline driven games. my issue is that i'm just plain bored with our rather short list of things to do in the game. barring the stupid rotating mail-slot docking hangar (which makes no sense, honestly), the "space-simulation" aesthetic is great. it's just once you get past the honeymoon period there is CURRENTLY not much to do beyond running trade routes (which gets boring quick) or rather generic (and frustratingly vague) missions of "go here, find/kill/transport this". you can make a decent income exploring and selling your data, but once you've been to 20-30 systems, you realize its all just more of the same. you can also gain reputation with factions, but other than changing names of ownership and some ships turning friendly/hostile to you, nothing significant changes (you can also get faction-specific ships, but they don't bring anything significant to the general experience). if i wanted to knit-pick, i could also go on about how "elite" level AI has a tendency to cheat in combat (super-sized Anacondas out-turning you even when flying the most nimble Eagle), but again, that's knit-picking. and don't be discouraged if you dont own a full desk of simulation peripherals. the default mouse +keyboard settings kind of suck, but after about a day of fiddling with them, I was able to come up with bindings that felt pretty natural (i have limited desk space and can't use a full joystick setup). as i said before, this game still has tons of potential, but if feels a bit undercooked for now. that being said, it is still fun as it is in short durations of play with friends, but it has yet to show me anything that really holds my attention. bottom line: for a premium price of $60, I just can't in good conscience recommend it (right now). however, if you are a hard-core space sim nut, i will admit you could do a lot worse than this. P.S. - maybe if i was more into PvP ganking i would have more fun with it, but I'm not a dick like that.
1.3 Powerplay Details Announced http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=b0a8ebba0b looks pretty interesting, still holding off on buying the game until there is more to do but this might be it for me. have always loved territory control in pvp games, creates great rivalries and a banner to rally groups under. here's hoping they do it right
I'm loving these updates. I know Elite gets a lot of flak for being a "husk" of a game set in an absolutely stunning game engine, but props to them for continuing to add very large gameplay updates periodically. Game's only been live for 4 months and it's nothing like it was at release! Still glad I gave them $75 back in july for the mercenary beta package.
Frontier Development just released their quarterly sales reports ( publicly traded company) and for the game Elite Dangerous, they have over 500,000 total game sales. Personally i feel Elite Dangerous could have benefited greatly with another 6 months of Alpha/Beta testing, i will say that each and every update they have released has pushed the game forward. ( some of the updates were kinda Meh in content, but advanced the game behind the scenes) also , as everyone here knows... i'm an Elite fanboi.
David Braden Powerplay AMA is currently happening on the FD forums https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=140032 also, this totally unrelated video is epic
