Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter Launched

I’ve enjoyed it and put many hours in. I just have to be in the right mood to play. Now that we are chatting about it I will probably reinstall and fly around. I was closing in on my elite explorer last time, and just finished elite trader.

That really are top notch here. The audio is some of the best I’ve heard in a video game and with a VR headset you do get transported away.

If you distill a game down to the feelings it evokes, Elite Dangerous is the first game since Tau Ceti on the Amstrad that has made me feel isolated and small. Like I’m an ant in a giant universe, mostly surrounded by vast beauty and emptiness. It is amazing.

Yeah I played Tau Ceti on ZX Spectrum and it was amazing immersive thing to my young brain. And I loved Pete Cooke’s other famous game ‘Tower of Babel’ as well.

I similarly love Elite Dangerous, in spite of these alleged bland gameplay elements!

Do we know if this new expansion is paid? It’s currently priced ‘N/A’ on Steam but I guess that’s because launch is a fair way off yet and they may not have set a price.

(not that it affects me directly, I sprung for the ‘all future expansions’ option waaaay back)

The short version is you used to be able to explore a system fairly easily and with some pleasant in system travel time. You would scan, then move closer for a detailed scan of interesting planets.

They then worked on an exploration update for a year which added no new content to explore just added some mini games to take more time to explore the same content. So the flow became system mini game scan, then mini game scan each planet. The mini game consists of pattern matching.

So as a game designer that offends me. Adding no new content and adding mechanics which are simply and transparently time wasters with no progression nor interesting decisions is poor work in my view.

Context, when you scan an object you can sell that scan data for credits later. Bonus if nobody else has scanned it before etc. If first to discover you also get your name tagged next to that object so other players see it. I really like that core design but was disappointed by their adding friction to access it.

Odyssey will definitely be a paid expansion (they have dropped the “seasons” concept now). It will also be free for lifetime pass holders.

That’s exactly what the trailer says to me it will be.

It’s been five years already, it will be over six years when this comes out, and still no sign of landing on earth-like planets. It only took nine years between between Elite and Frontier, for fuck’s sake.

Isn’t the solution self-evident? Farm your customers for content! When you get out of the ship in Elite you arrive on another random player’s Coaster Planet, Zoo Planet, or Dino Planet.

Problem solved.

They could license that new static hot dog asset technology CIG has crapped out.

Source: ANNOUNCEMENT - Elite Dangerous: Odyssey Announcement | Page 63 | Frontier Forums

Not sure I can go back to E:D without VR :-(

I was concerned about that, too. I guess this means that none of the expansion will be VR-compatible rather than just the walky bits being a no-go.

Wow, that sucks. VR with Elite is incredibly immersive.

Ouch. Way to kill my desire to log back in for the expansion.

They really did do a fantastic job of VR in Elite. Whether ground combat is supported or not if you have a headset then you really should try Elite in VR at least once. Its still one of the top VR experiences out there imho.

Thanks for the explanation. That certainly doesn’t sounds like a positive change.

Ouch, that really blows as that is probably the best thing about ED.

Yup. I’m out. ED in VR is one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. Very sympathetic to the challenges of mixing vehicular control with first-person shooter controls, all in VR. But I can’t go back to Elite in 2D.

E:D is cursed by being a multiplayer-centric title. Everything has to be scaled back and flooded with grind to balance out the universe. They just can’t let everyone be a hero. Which sucks.

The thing is, it’s never felt very multi-centric to me either. You couldn’t even group up with someone until the did the big Wings update and even then it was cumbersome. There also really wasn’t much in the way of multiplayer content. It is (or was, I haven’t played in a long time) a weird pseudo-online experience that made sacrifices to the SP experience while not offering even a bare minimum of multiplayer features as well we a ton of weird issues due to the fact that very little runs on the server, most everything is instanced to player hardware.

Right, it’s run peer-to-peer (but managed centrally), but for some reason they felt the need to keep the multiplayer-ish balance where only the most dedicated players in the game get the best ships. Which makes no sense, or is just bad design. Multiplayer-oriented games give enough rewards to keep you grinding even if you’re never going to be the best, whereas single player games just let you get to the top ships and live out your fantasy of being a hero without grinding forever.