Ever since first hearing about this game, to be honest, I seriously thought the title was a CoD ripoff. I paid it no mind, since I don’t like CoD. Whenever I saw the name I just completely ignored it. I never looked at screenshots or videos or anything. Any article that came up…”Elite: Dangerous is…” *Next page*
It wasn’t until as I was scrolling through the internet and it said, paraphrasing here, “Elite: Dangerous adds cool Hyperspace effect.” See…now THAT got my attention. Anything to do with space, I’m interested. So upon watching a clip I realized how much of a bloody fool I was to ignore it all this time and to be quite honest, every time I so much as look at this game I have to keep my inner child from just screaming and/or fainting simply because the amount of “HOLY FRAK!” this game gives me, makes me feel like saying….
As I was saying……what was I saying?
OH YEAH!
Dis Game Doe….my gawd dis game. To those who haven’t looked it up or paid little attention to it, here are the major notes that must be said.
- Latest installment of a game series, first “Elite” was 1987.
- Original creator working on current game
- E:D was in development before it started a Kickstarter campaign
- Will support and currently supports Oculus Rift
- Current stage of development is Beta, Patch 3
- Beta Stage will close 11/22/14 except for people who bought into the beta
- Game will officially launch on 12/16/14
- Preorder now for cheaper price ($50 now, $60 at launch)
- Full launch will include 30 ships, 1:1 scale of the actual Galaxy, 400 Billion systems
- Is NOT an MMO nor do you need a monthly subscription
- Technically classified as an MMOG
- Will continue to add content to game after launch
- Planned expansions will include (In no particular order):
- 1. Landing / driving / prospecting on airless rocky planets, moons & asteroids
- 2. Walking around interiors and combative boarding of other ships
- 3. Combat and other interactions with other players and AIs in the internal areas of star ports
- 4. Accessing richly detailed planetary surfaces
- 5. Availability of giant ‘executive control’ ships to players
- Planned expansions will need to be bought
I will admit, that’s a lot to hold on to, very Star Citizen-esque. But since that won’t be out until the year 2525…don’t get me wrong I’m looking forward to it…I’ll play E:D until SC comes out. Granted the whole “pay for the base game and you’re done” (Ignoring expansions) is very appealing to me. I hate monthly subs and I hate “planned DLC’s.” But please note, in this particular instance I’m not hating planned DLC’s simply because the SCALE of the upcoming DLC’s with E:D are so big that they could be considered another game…to the point that any other game company, such as another company that rhymes with “Me, Eh?” would just stop supporting the current game then add a number on one of the DLC’s and call it a game…that I’m honestly okay with Frontier Developments and there what I’m going to further call Expansions.
From what’s explained, all the stuff they’re planning was a part of all the previous titles of Elite games. Granted, the previous games no more occupied one or two floppy disks/1 CD disk and the graphics from the time consisted from the first person equivalent of Asteroids or Missile Command. In today’s modern standards and graphics, to put it simply they have a METRIC F***-TON of work to do to not only to get this stuff done but to deliver their promises. Since Star Citizen plans to do all this…and I’ll be yelled at if I don’t add the next part in italic and bold…AND MORE, but supposedly it’ll all be there from the beginning with no DLC….again SUPPOSEDLY. But if any of you have noticed the game play videos of Star Citizen and they’re sequence of landing on a planet, it’s exactly that, a scripted sequence. You press one button, go to a cut scene, watch your ship fly by, land, and you’re on the ground. Don’t get me wrong that’s an awesome cut scene and all but Elite: Dangerous plans on the manual version of all that. Meaning yes I’m sure you can screw up your landing, break your ship and/or neck if you’re not paying attention.
Again I must point out that supposedly Star Citizen will have all this….AND MORE…right out of the digital download box. But again since there’s no official release date yet so it could be a very, VERY long time before we get that AND there’s no explanation on whether or not there’s a subscription or not nor will there be paid DLC.
My personal choice, as I’m sure I said before is to play Elite: Dangerous, get the Expansions and when that’s done, MAYBE Star Citizen will be out and we’ll compare that to each other which will undoubtedly happen no matter what by every news outlet, blog forum, person with a twitter account.
Sorry for my digressions. Anyway, current game play of E:D is honestly too much fun for an audiophile like me. The current game sizes is about 3GB’s which will no doubt increase on launch, but the current audio system, even the music, is very good. The sound effects of jumping to hyperspace, hearing an enemy engage boost whiz by you, hearing yourself breath as your environmental controls fail. I refer you to the top title and gif to explain my simple reaction. Yes for you hardcore reality space nuts out there, there is no sound in space and all but as explained, you have “sound emulators” in your cockpit so you can hear things outside your ship. Granted even if they didn’t include that, guess what people? Star Trek? Star Wars? Put any other “star” or “scape” out there…ignoring Firefly, except I think Serenity…and they all have sound in space and I have no problem with that. Every ship has its own sub-light engine sounds, which just adds to the amount of drooling this game gives me. Every type of weapon has its own distinct “pew pew” of lasers or “pow pow” of cannons. Light cannons sound light while heavy cannons sound deeper.
Sounds aren’t the only thing, the graphics…my goodness the graphics. Sometimes a sun makes me turn into a mosquito and I just want to keep flying towards it until I burn up. The solar flares a majestic just like the real thing, granted a real solar flare takes hour upon hours to actually finish and so the game replicates that. You are also able to “scoop” fuel from suns…and soon from nebulae…if you’re exploring and run out or you just can’t make that last jump to civilization. Yes your ships run on fuel but you have a main and reserve tank so it’s very hard to run out unless you just never dock. And if all else fails you can use a distress call and HOPE that the person/persons that come to help you are nice and don’t just blow you up.
The scope of the game is very Eve Online like. Right now there are no clans/corps/fleets integrated into the game…which doesn’t mean you can’t make one anyway. Want to make an easy buck by blowing up freighters and stealing cargo? Go ahead; just be prepared to be running every time the space police show up. You have a bounty on your head and they want to bring you in. Want bounty hunt and/or be a part of the local military/police force? Be my guest, every wanted person you bring in brings in money for you, just be sure to turn it in at a local star port.
There is no actual “choose your profession” in this game. There are no skills to unlock or buy or what have you. It is strictly a sandbox game: “Here’s a starter ship and some credits, have fun.” Credits are the only thing you work for, finishing a mission or killing a pirate with a bounty, you get credits, loose a ship, you have to spend credits on insurance to bring back your old ship OR just live with a free starter ship. You can make money on exploring. Fly around to uncharted territory and scan planets, moon, stars, etc. Gather enough data and turn it in back home and make money. The more detailed the scan…detailing meaning you got a better scanner system…the more money you make and the possibility that system might be colonized.
The economic model for the galaxy is simple and realistic: haul something raw from one place to a place that can refine it and up the food chain it goes. You can do it, NPC’s do it. The more items taken to a particular place, the better the economy of that system will be. You might start hauling things to a small outpost with barely anything to sell and after a while that outpost you’ve been use to might now be upgraded to a big star port. The economy is all simulated, unlike Eve Online. In Eve, for those of you who don’t know, everything in the economy must be manufactured, EVERYTHING: Ships, weapons, ammunition, sensors, everything. No NPC ever makes anything in the game other than giving you missions to “explore this,” “move this,” or “kill that.” In Elite: Dangerous, the economy is “simulated” in that while you can’t make everything in the game, if you haul stuff to a star port or it has a big enough economy, the missions, items such as weapons, and ships it can offer has far more variety than say a small poor system with almost nothing. Flying to an anarchy system that’s run by the local mob only offers basic items such as simple weapons and one ship, while a system that has the main economy of agriculture will have enough for some more advanced items but not by much. This agriculture base would offer more items but the ships would mainly be freighters and some minor fighter escorts.
All systems have they’re allegiances. There are three major factions in the game.
Federation: Home base of Sol System (Earth,) authoritarian. Corporations back bone, military, heavy reliance on technology. Corruption and bribery, rumors of corporation having more power within the Federation than is known, such as rigging elections. The Federation tolerates the Alliance, Federation is hostile towards the Empire.
Empire: Grandiose, glamor, totalitarian. Less reliant on technology, use of slaves mainly for workforce while all other factions use machines. Cloning is seen normal, other factions outlawed it. The Empire despises everything the Federation stands for even though a treaty has been in effect for many centuries.
Alliance: Self-described “beacon of human rights and democracy.” Multiple independent systems working together. Military is separate but work together, led by the six strongest admirals and can act swiftly without needing government approval.
Along with your reputation in each system, your reputation with the faction you choose is important. Not only will it give you access to navy ships you can only get from that side, but also give you more privileges, such as discounted items and specific story missions pertaining to that side. Please note as of the current beta, the story missions of the game have yet to be added but will be on launch. Your personal title, i.e. how good you are, is shown to everyone and gives you a gauge on how good of a pilot you’re going against. “Harmless” being the easiest to kill especially for AI’s while “Elite” is the most dangerous and you should watch just how long, or short your life is in the presence of this person.
My personal thoughts right now of the game are….can you guess? Yeah I’m having a blast playing this but I’m not honestly going to give it a proper review until it’s officially out, which won’t be long of course. And I know Wiggin would yell at me for reviewing a game before it’s out, especially since I have “early access.” So I’ll be waiting to post my actual review. As of now, I can’t wait to see how far this game will go. From what I can tell so far, before I was playing it that is, they’ve been totally transparent about the process of making this game. Everything they’ve started with their Kickstarter campaign has been going smoothly and any major bug that crops up in a new patch is attacked within 24 hours, sometimes less, and the bug disappears within a week.
You gotta like that, am I right?
Granted again, I’m sounding like a fanboy and I totally admit it and yes, I know this whole “Kickstarting” and “Early Access” stuff is a gamble. There’s no contract or anything like that that says “THIS WILL HAPPEN.” Granted I didn’t spend thousands of dollars on Kickstarter, just $75 to get into the Beta. And yes ANY OTHER GAME out there I would never Kickstart a game, never have, never will, but I did a lot of research into this and looked at the value of the game. $100+ or more, no. $75 was pushing it but it was my birthday and I figured “why the hell not.” And yes the stuff they’re promising in the future…oh gawd I hope it happens, I really god. I would love to see this game compete with Star Citizen. Which of course ANY GAME loses to Star Citizen because $60 Million Kickstarter and it fans F***ING SAY SO DAMNIT! But I would love to see how this plays out.
Who is going to be more value of money? Who is going to pull a major compromise first?
Will Star Citizen make you pay a monthly sub while you just pay another $60 for a major expansion to an already huge game? Will I have to upgrade my computer when Star Citizen comes out in 2525 in order to play it? Will Elite: Dangerous keep adding current generation technology as in the next DirectX version?
Either way, again, I’m personally having a good time with this game in its current state. Every week they release information on what they’re working on and let us know what to expect in the next major patch. So far they’ve added another 5 ships to their list of what will be available on launch…it was originally only 25 ships, now 30.
I’m still personally trying to strike it rich somewhere. Mining is a bit too much effort for little return, bounty hunting is fun but when you’re competing with 3 other bounty hunters, it turns into a race, which is fun or annoying depending on your mood. Hauling cargo is simple if you like to play…as the internet calls it…Parking Simulator. Going from one place to another, picking up and dropping of cargo, boring, until a pirate rips you out of super cruise and tries to steal your cargo. Exploring is very easy, fly around and scan, hoping again that pirates don’t try to steal your data.
I’m bouncing around between all these things trying to find my personal favorite. Bounty hunting honestly is the most fun so far. Granted missions of blowing up a specific pirate gives you 3 times more credits but it’s really hard without help. Patrolling a system looking for bounties is fun now that you can personally yank people out of super cruise.
If this has at all peaked your interest and would like to play it, at the very least just do your research. As how ALL pre-orders
should be in for ALL games in the bloody world, pre-ordering now gives you $10 off until launch and of course some in game pluses. Cheaper insurance for life, free second ship on launch, unique decals, free access to 1 of the 5 new ships they’re adding and free access to the Sol System. They might add more perks but we’ll have to wait and see.
One last thing to note about the game right now, there is CURRENTLY no Third Person view. All actions are done within the cockpit but they are working on an external view for beauty and glamour shots. As described stuff like that will NOT give you an edge in combat or otherwise. For example they don’t want to give you the third person ability like the Battlefield series does on vehicles to give you that advantage. External view will be strictly for shiny bits.
Until launch and everyone’s account gets reset, gonna try and get my freighter and make some money on milk runs and see how far I get.
Thank you Archer for summing this game up.
