Science Fiction Aficionados discussion

I'm sure I'm not the only sci-fi fan who enjoyed Elite, Frontier: Elite II and Frontier First Encounters in the 1980's and 1990's who are still enthused about the game series. It was the ultimate Space Opera game (at least in my imagination) where you could travel the stars, trying to survive and find your own fortune.

For others like me, I'd recommend turning your eyes towards David Braben's Kickstarter attempt to develop Elite 4:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...

I spent hours playing Elite when I was a kid (on my CPC-464). Weirdly I didn't realise there were any sequels beyond Elite II.

I played Eve Online a few years back and always thought that was based very much on Elite. Trading/Mining/Missions/Combat all feature heavily in it, but I wasn't that keen on the control system.

I hope Elite 4 lets you keep direct control of your vessel. Eve never felt like I was piloting the ship myself.

Kickstarter is one of the best things to happen to gaming in a long while IMO. Lots of old school cRPGs and space sims are being developed because of it.

There's also Star Citizen to look forward too.

It very successfully finished its Kickstarter campaign a few days ago, and the one on their own site is still going. They're over 6.5 million in combined funds now! Making it the most successful crowd funding campaign for a game so far. (That record has been broken 4 times this year already.)

http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com...

It's from Chris Roberts, the creator of Wingcommander and Privateer, and is the spiritual successor to the series.

Yup, I backed Star Citizen as well, but his older games never had quite the same amount of freedom and room for imagination as Elite did. In Elite (and especially in the sequels), you could pick a direction and start exploring, finding new star systems with new planets and fantastic sights every step of the way.

Privateer was always more confined and Wing Commander was especially so (I admit I did not play them that much).

They just released a nice dogfight video in an asteroid field:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5JYRy...

Well worth listening to the narration over the video on that one. David Braben has some excellent ideas going into that game.

Wrote up some of my thoughts on what should be in the game here:

http://www.hookedgamers.com/features/...

I loved Elite but I found the sequel to be boring due to the implementation of Newtonian physics.

I'm just a bit confused by the youtube video, the kickstarter page says that the Elite: Dangerous will have Newtonian phyics but the physics in that video don't look Newtonian to me.

I think I read somewhere that they will "hide" most of the Newtonian physics from the players (computer-assisted flying, as in modern day fighters). Remains to be seen how that will actually work, but I hope it to be better than how it was implemented in Frontier: Elite II and Frontier First Encounter.

Is it good or bad that I'm more excited that they will also release a sequel to the Dark Wheel (the novella that came with the original release of Elite) than I am about the game?

Hehe, I actually posted them a wish that they'd release all the previous novellas and short stories in a new "Complete Elite" edition. You _can_ find them scanned online, but I'd really prefer a real scan-error-free ebook or paperback edition.

And, you should not miss this Kickstarter either:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...

The author provides his earlier stories as Kindle-friendly editions as well, so you can check his writing style from those. ;)

The Kickstarter mentioned in the above post was just successful which means that we'll have an Elite book to enjoy in a year or so.

I had a chance to interview the author of the Kickstarter tie-in novel this week and here's the article:

http://www.hookedgamers.com/features/...

There's a Kickstarter running for eager authors who want to write a short story anthology set in the Elite universe. Feel free to visit, read the updates (which include author interviews) and pledge, if you find the goal worthy:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...

I too loved the original Elite. I also enjoyed the novella and wished more games did that. I still have my copy for the C-64 (and still play it once and a while). I haven't got Elite: Dangerous yet, ah well one of these days. At one time I thought that No Man's Sky was going to be better, but now I guess Elite still is the better choice. Should have known with David Braben.

I remember playing the original on my Commodore 64. I purchased the new game from Steam but haven't tried it yet.

Update: I really suck at this game.

Can't get a feel for the controls at all.

It takes some getting used to - and you'll probably end up configuring the controls for yourself completely differently from what the game's basic settings are. And, of course, you need a good stick to play with, preferably a HOTAS if you don't happen to be left-handed, like me.

I'm just using the keyboard and mouse. I can't even get through the docking tutorial. No matter how lightly I press a key the movement overcompensates to a ridiculous degree. Maybe I will try a stick...

Stick is necessary. Even a game controller is better than joystick, but an actual stick is better.