So it's like Diablo 3 in that sense?
Elite, Braben, Kickstarter!
- Thread starter jimbo75
- Start date
cheapchips
Veteran
Not really. The hook for always online is a living galaxy sim, rather than a real money auction house. The 'living galaxy' is shared between single and various flavours of multiplayer. The story of the galaxy is the same for everyone.
At launch, I'd say the background sim didn't expose itself to players in a way that made it feel necessary. They could have cheated the visible political and economic effects in an offline mode instead.
I think elements they added during the first year, with galactic powers and community goals have nudged the sim forward. It shows lots of potential as newer features hook into it.
Unlike D3, where AH utimately turned out to make the game less fun and they just kept trying to fix it until they gave it up as a bad idea.
Evil Activision conspiracies aside, I do think it was a worthwhile experiment. A chance for ordinary players to make real cash from playing must crop up in some future title?
I have almost always played the game in solo mode (none of my regular gaming buddies play it). Mainly because I still feel like a newbie at the game.
Rather than full on multiplayer, you can have private groups where you only see and interact with members of that group. There's one I'm a member of which has a strict PvE only policy, but I've not played much since I heard about it a few weeks back. The name is Mobius. It has over ten thousand members so should be fairly well populated. Just apply to it and they'll let you in if that's what you're looking for.
Here's their website with some more info.
Rather than full on multiplayer, you can have private groups where you only see and interact with members of that group. There's one I'm a member of which has a strict PvE only policy, but I've not played much since I heard about it a few weeks back. The name is Mobius. It has over ten thousand members so should be fairly well populated. Just apply to it and they'll let you in if that's what you're looking for.
Here's their website with some more info.
Last edited:
Not from Blizzard, I'd think. They typically do not re-cycle bad ideas down the road.
Other titles have this stuff implemented already of course, where pay-to-win is an integral (if deeply cynical) design element of the game...cheapchips
Veteran
Not from Blizzard, I'd think. They typically do not re-cycle bad ideas down the road.
I'm not talking about PTW. As you point out it's deep cynical and I'd argue amoral in many cases.
D3 was an attempt at allow players to accrue value from playing and profit from it, with the Dev earning just from transaction charges. Unfortunately, it breaks the epic item pursuit gameplay of Diablo.
I'm sure there's good mileage in the idea for the right game. There's got to be more to player derived economies than Team Fortress hats.
Yeah, that's what I was getting at. The intent was not PTW, but that was the end result of it.
TF2 has some PTW aspects to it, in that many class weapons are very integral to the game and affect gameplay a lot, and the only way to reliably acquire them is to buy them from Valve. Cosmetic items on the other hand do not impact gameplay (unless you fall out of your chair laughing at the ridiculous appearance of your enemy player's toon, leaving your toon defenseless...
)Cosmetic items (mounts, pets and so on) seem to be the "safe" way to bilk your player-base of additional monies without raising the dreaded spectre of PTW. Even myself do not even mind this THAT much, heh!
Prophecy2k
Veteran
I'm looking forward to the Horizons expansion. Already got it pre-ordered.
Bought my first Python finally. Managed to fully A-Spec it out. It's worth Cr200m+ now
I really enjoy this game, but I am starting to feel like they need to hurry with the 1.5 update that brings the new ships.
Bought my first Python finally. Managed to fully A-Spec it out. It's worth Cr200m+ now
I really enjoy this game, but I am starting to feel like they need to hurry with the 1.5 update that brings the new ships.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
By 'interacting' do you mean 'banging' and by 'NPCs' do you mean 'space prostitutes' ?
Prophecy2k
Veteran
By 'interacting' do you mean 'banging' and by 'NPCs' do you mean 'space prostitutes' ?
I think you're thinking about mass effect, mate.
For anyone who doesn't have it yet, it's just £10 at the moment. If you decide you like it enough to get the expansion, you get £10 off the expansion price for owning the base game. Pretty good deal!
https://www.elitedangerous.com/
https://www.elitedangerous.com/
Just got it as it was on my wish list but hesitated to purchase at the full price as I'm not sure how much time I will be able to dedicate to this game.
For £10 It's a no brainer and I'm looking forward to playing this over Christmas break!
Prophecy2k
Veteran
Gents, if you're playing on PC, get yourself a HOTAS. I used the Thrustmaster X. It's fairly inexpensive (about £40-50) and it gets the job done nicely.
I'd also recommend a few resources for new starters:
eddb.io - absolutely invaluable for finding trades, weapons/parts/ships etc.
coriolis.io - for specc'ing out new ships you want to buy, working out how much you'll need to save for your new whip.
community.elitedangerous.com - for community goals, which are basically tasks that the community of players can contribute to in order to win big payouts. These come in the form of bounty hunting CGs, mining CGs, trading CGs, combat zone CGs and treasure hunting CGs.
For new players, CGs are basically free money. For some of the good trading ones, you only need to drop off a small amount of whatever is the asked for commodity at the specified station and you can walk away with a good few million credits in the bank to get you your first serious ship.
A good recommended ship upgrade path imho is as follows:
Starting sidewinder --> Cobra/Viper --> Imperial Courier --> Asp/Vulture --> Federal Assault Ship --> +50mCr uber ship (e.g. Python/FDL/Fed Gunship/Imp. Clipper) --> Anaconda/Fed. Corvette/Imp. Cutter
It all depends on what you enjoy doing more in the game, between mining, combat or trading.
Frontier Dev have done a reasonably good job of making the many activities in the game feel rewarding (albeit some moreso than others).
I'd also recommend a few resources for new starters:
eddb.io - absolutely invaluable for finding trades, weapons/parts/ships etc.
coriolis.io - for specc'ing out new ships you want to buy, working out how much you'll need to save for your new whip.
community.elitedangerous.com - for community goals, which are basically tasks that the community of players can contribute to in order to win big payouts. These come in the form of bounty hunting CGs, mining CGs, trading CGs, combat zone CGs and treasure hunting CGs.
For new players, CGs are basically free money. For some of the good trading ones, you only need to drop off a small amount of whatever is the asked for commodity at the specified station and you can walk away with a good few million credits in the bank to get you your first serious ship.
A good recommended ship upgrade path imho is as follows:
Starting sidewinder --> Cobra/Viper --> Imperial Courier --> Asp/Vulture --> Federal Assault Ship --> +50mCr uber ship (e.g. Python/FDL/Fed Gunship/Imp. Clipper) --> Anaconda/Fed. Corvette/Imp. Cutter
It all depends on what you enjoy doing more in the game, between mining, combat or trading.
Frontier Dev have done a reasonably good job of making the many activities in the game feel rewarding (albeit some moreso than others).
+1 on the HOTAS recommendation.
An an alternative to the Thrustmaster X with the potential of a good upgrade path I'd recommend the Thrustmaster T16000M (£36) to start with. Later you can decide to combo it with either a seperate throttle (I use the CH Pro, it's amazing for Elite with an analogue thumbstick for lateral thrust) or go the dual joystick route and switch the T16000M to it's left handed grip. In the meantime you have a fairly basic slider throttle on the base to keep you going. The stick itself is very high quality, with hall effect sensors deriving great fidelity and accuracy from your inputs.
If you will use a 360 controller go straight for the advanced configuration that uses modifier button(s). It may be slightly harder to learn but a lot nicer to use in the long run, with a lot less time moving between controller and keyboard.
Head tracking is also a huge boon in this game for both immersion and tactical awareness. It also has a very nice benefit of opening important menus simply by looking in their direction, which is not only very cool but also frees up a button or two for other things. If you don't already have a system and aren't interested in buying one, have a look around for the free face tracking options. As long as you have a webcam you should get fairly decent results at no cost.
An an alternative to the Thrustmaster X with the potential of a good upgrade path I'd recommend the Thrustmaster T16000M (£36) to start with. Later you can decide to combo it with either a seperate throttle (I use the CH Pro, it's amazing for Elite with an analogue thumbstick for lateral thrust) or go the dual joystick route and switch the T16000M to it's left handed grip. In the meantime you have a fairly basic slider throttle on the base to keep you going. The stick itself is very high quality, with hall effect sensors deriving great fidelity and accuracy from your inputs.
If you will use a 360 controller go straight for the advanced configuration that uses modifier button(s). It may be slightly harder to learn but a lot nicer to use in the long run, with a lot less time moving between controller and keyboard.
Head tracking is also a huge boon in this game for both immersion and tactical awareness. It also has a very nice benefit of opening important menus simply by looking in their direction, which is not only very cool but also frees up a button or two for other things. If you don't already have a system and aren't interested in buying one, have a look around for the free face tracking options. As long as you have a webcam you should get fairly decent results at no cost.
Last edited:
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
£10 is a no brainer. I also bagged Bully for about £2 as I never finished it on the PS2.
cheapchips
Veteran
If also 2nd the t16000 as a good stick. Using it with the keyboard for throttle and lateral thrust.
Had a play with the old EDtracker that someone gave me. Never had much luck with calbration unfortunately. Was cool while it worked though so will probably get an EDtracker Pro at some point.
Had a play with the old EDtracker that someone gave me. Never had much luck with calbration unfortunately. Was cool while it worked though so will probably get an EDtracker Pro at some point.
Prophecy2k
Veteran
I generally do "big comfy couch"-based PC gaming, with my PC outputting on my 50 inch LED Bravia in my living room. I'm about a good 6-7 feet away from my TV. Is head tracking still viable for me? Or do I need to be playing sat up against a monitor on a PC desk?
I've only used TrackIR 5 and Rift DK2 tracking personally, and they're both fine with that sort of distance. You'd have to check for the others.
The DK2 wants to be further away than a typical monitor. It can be used up close but restricts your movement somewhat, compared to what you get when it's further away. The TrackIR 5 worked well sitting 9 feet away from my 120" projection screen.
The DK2 wants to be further away than a typical monitor. It can be used up close but restricts your movement somewhat, compared to what you get when it's further away. The TrackIR 5 worked well sitting 9 feet away from my 120" projection screen.
Last edited:
Dammit. I'd been resisting buying this. I through my gaming days were over, I sold my joystick and my 30" monitor, and dismantled my main PC to turn it into a hackintosh.
£10 later, I spent all day yesterday trying to figure out the best joystick to buy, drooling over the new Dell 30" 4K lovely and wondering what graphics card I need to buy to drive it :/
I wasted so many hours on Elite on my BBC Micro.
£10 later, I spent all day yesterday trying to figure out the best joystick to buy, drooling over the new Dell 30" 4K lovely and wondering what graphics card I need to buy to drive it :/
I wasted so many hours on Elite on my BBC Micro.
