It’s not worth it. I paid £5 for the base game, and I think that’s a fair price. The game is lovely to cruise around in your spaceship, maybe shoot some pirates, and that’s it. Basically at that point you’re done.
It can be fun at first, barely having any money, scraping together upgrades and saving for a new ship…but once you get enough money and think, “What’s next?” and realize the answer is ultimately “Nothing,” then it becomes just an exercise in sadness.
Serious question : how is this different in any other open ended space sim, like Evochron, X series, etc?
Most open space games have a game loop that supports those with a lot of money, like in those two games you mentioned, you can build stations, start trade routes, etc.
In Elite, having a lot of money means a bigger ship and nothing else.
I fixed that for you. No no, no need to thank me.
Anything? Like what? Make more money that makes no difference in the grand scheme?
That would fall under the category of anything, yes.
But it isn’t anything, is it? I can’t effect the economy. I can’t effect anything politically. I can only affect how much money I have and where my ship goes. Even what my ship does when it gets to where its going is suspect because it’s all instanced anyway and nothing sticks, so who cares?
What are you looking to do? Run for office? Be CEO of some corporation? EVE Online is over that way.
And is a far, far, far more compelling game because they player has far more agency in that game beyond just flying their pretty ship around.
And for people who like to fly their pretty ship around, Elite: Dangerous is a nice option.
Sure, as a spaceship flight simulator, it’s really fantastic. But as a game with things to DO? Severely lacking.
So what they need is what the good flight sims do: add an enemy race and create a dynamic campaign. Why aren’t they doing that?
Because gameplay-wise, they apparently think the gameplay ripped directly from the original 1982 game is good enough. It certainly was good enough…in 1982.
So for the resurgence of the space genre, we got one dev who just wants to hobnob with celebrities and take luxury vacations grabbing all the money, and another, who thinks of gameplay as being an elaborate tourist ride through space, grabbing whatever’s left. What a bummer. Where is the new Freespace? Where is Falcon 4.0 in space? How is this niche still so underserved?
Yeah, while space games have had a great comeback, first-person space sims and combat games are sorely lacking. Besides Elite, we have the X games, the Evochron games, and some indie projects like House of the Suns or whatever that one was, Hypergate and so on.
Guys, do not make me pull this bargain thread over and come back there!
;-)
Are the platforms mentioned? Aspyr is a Mac publisher, but all these title were released on PC too, of course.
Usually in these cases, keys unlock both PC and Mac versions.
Thanks!