Elite/Frontier could return! Elite 4 on kickstarter

[b1gdeano]

For those of you who dont know, David Braben of Frontier Developments is running a kickstarter to help fund Elite 4!

If you remember the original games from the 80's & 90's then it will need no introduction, and for those unfamiliar it is worth a look!

Lets get the original open world space trading game back!


I am unable to link as under 20 posts, but check out kickstarter and search for elite!

[Proteus_MST]

Now known as Elite: Dangerous, which gets its Beta 2 in 8 days ... and provides stunningviews of space (with star systems that are as close to reality as possible)

Here a small album with screenshots:

http://imgur.com/a/boFTd#0

[Aeson]

Looks like Freelancer? (which was awesome)

[Proteus_MST]

Never played Freelancers, but from the description on Wikipedia, yes, very similar.

You can trade, do asteroid mining, take part in wars of the 2 major interstellar powers (Imperium and Federation), can explore the galaxy (and gain money by selling data on unknown star systems), have random encounters (which may be good (like canisters full of gold), neutral or bad (like a band of pirates lurking).
In later versions (partially after release ... maybe in expansions) you are also supposed to land on planets and maybe even leave your spaceship.


Compared to Freelancer it may be just a ehm "little bit" larger
Beta 1 (which is what currently runs) has 55 star systems ...
Beta 2 (released in 8 days) will have 500 star systems ...
the final release is supposed to have the whole milky way ... that means ~400 Billion star systems (although most of them procedurally generated ... in contrast to those star systems about which there exists real astronomical data (especially the local neighborhood around Sol) which are modeled close to reality

Also the game is more or less multiplayer ... space is divided into cells and if players are in the same cell, there is a chance that they will met each other (although this can be switched off, for example if you don´t want to risk running into human pirates ) ... but even if this feature is switched off, there is still supply and demand for goods in each star system, which is calculated by the trading transaction of the whole player base.

[Proteus_MST]

Steam announced an official release date ... Dec. 16
It is also the last chance for people to join the ranks of the Beta-Backers ... ... only posilble till Nov 22.
The advantage (aside from being able to play before Dec. 16) is, that you can visit the Sol-System from the beginning on (whereas "normal" players have to gain reputation with the Federation first before they are allowed entrance to the Sol-System (the Sol-System, cradle of mankind, has become a holiday paradise for the rich and famous ... Beta backers already are famous enough ... normal players first have to become famous )

Here btw. a few additional albums from October:

http://imgur.com/a/e3wK0#0

http://imgur.com/a/jM3m0#0

(think I will make an aditional one soon about the joys of exploration and mining)