Elite: Dangerous

[Bereta_Eder]

5 days to go

[C0ckney]

so i've pre-ordered it. i'm waiting for the combat demo to download; from the length of time it's taking i doubt i'll get to play until tomorrow.

[C0ckney]

finally downloaded the combat demo, going to give it a try now.

edit: ooh, pretty graphics

[Proteus_MST]

Elite: Dangerous has been released

[C0ckney]

yay, downloading now. i'll see you guys in the new year...

[Guynemer]

So, any thoughts on the official release for those of you who are playing it?

Worthwhile for someone who will primarily stick to single-player, who still plays Freelancer?

[Proteus_MST]

So, any thoughts on the official release for those of you who are playing it?

Worthwhile for someone who will primarily stick to single-player, who still plays Freelancer?

Hard to say. It depends on your expectations from the game.

If you want a rapid progression through the ship types (i.e. frm the weakest to the most powerful one) then this game probably isn´t something for you. In E: D you start (unless you bought a certain founders package) with a simple tiny sidewinder and a few hundreds of credits.
The next freighter costs 50k Credits, the next best Multiporpose ship 380k Credits. And all this is dwarved by the costs for the AFAIK at the moment best ship, the Anaconda, which costs 146 million credits
And that´s just the cost for the Hull + some basic equipment ... my current ship, an Asp, for example, has a worth of 13M CR. Of this just 6.5 M are for the ships hull ... the other 6.5 M are for enhanced equipment (like advanced explorers equipment, better shield, frameshift drive, reactor, weapons and so on). (on the downside this also means that, if my ship gets destroyed, I have to pay an insurance fee of 400 kCR in order to get it replaced)

This leads to another reason why one wouldn´t want to play the game ... and that is, if one wants to just return to a previous save after messing up (and having his ship destroyed).
Not possible in Elite: Dangerous. If you have enough money (IIRC 4% of the ships+modules worth) you can pay this money as an insurance fee after your ships destruction and get your ship replaced. Any cargo and unsold scan data you carried at the moment of your ships destruction is lost, however.

You also don´t want to play the game if you are dependant on a storyline. Elite: Dangerous is almostb totaly sandbox. You set your own targets (like exploration of stellar structures/systems, doing bounty hunting, taking part in military actions and so on) and while there also are injected events that form storylines (at the moment, for example, the emperor of the empire (one of the 3 human power blocs in the galaxy) is dying. It is expected that his death will lead to a large civil war within the empire for his succession) such storylines form only a tiny part of the activities possible within the galaxy.

Well, after the reasons why you wouldn´t want to play the game now for the reasons you want to play the game

It features the whole ****ing milky way ... 400 billion stars ... with the stars in the solar neighborhood, as well as most other well known stars being made correctly in accordance with their RL counterparts (together with any real planets that are known).
To get a glimpse of its vastness you just have to fly from Sol southwards ... even if you are 1000 lightyears south from terra you will still find stars everywhere. Even more if you want to fly towards the center of the galaxy (for example the supermassive black hole Saggitarius A*, which also is in game) ... you have to fly 25000 light years to get there and could go the same (or a longer) distance further into this direction, to find out what the arms at the other side of the galaxy have to offer.
I might mention that space is ****ing beautiful. While, for scanning, it isn´t necessary to get into visual range of most planets (much of the scanning takes place between 10-20 light seconds ... the planet is just a bright light at this distance), it may be a good idea to get nearrer to some of them ... they are beautiful. Likewise the rings around many of the planets ... if you drop out of supercruise within a ring, you experience millions of chunks made out of ice, rock or metals (depending on the ring type) silently glittering in the sun
Here 2 galleries with impressions:

http://imgur.com/a/gztT1#0

http://imgur.com/a/Vxs8i#0

While there are already lots of things that can keep you occupied (at least for a while) it is just the beginning. Aside from the selected storylines the game also is stioll improving ... there is supposed to be planetary landing and multi crew spaceships (dunno if as expansion or as free update) and EVA (both in stations as well as on planets) (this one definitly as part of an expansion) and boarding of other ships

So, I´d say the question can only be answered by yourself, depending on your style of play

[Guynemer]

Like I said, I'm a big fan of Freelancer, so I am interested, but it sounds like some more features could stand to be implemented.

I also have little interest in multiplayer.

[Hauldren Collider]

Like I said, I'm a big fan of Freelancer, so I am interested, but it sounds like some more features could stand to be implemented.

I also have little interest in multiplayer.

Did you ever play Freelancer multiplayer?

[Proteus_MST]

Like I said, I'm a big fan of Freelancer, so I am interested, but it sounds like some more features could stand to be implemented.

I also have little interest in multiplayer.

Well, lack in Multiplayer is no problem ... even in Open Mode most of the ships you meet are NPC ships (the 2 pirates I fragged for example were NPCs ... the only human player in those galleries was the friend I met ship to ship (which was recognizable by the "Cmdr" in front of his name ... only player characters have this in front of their names)).
There is also a Solo online mode, where everyone you meet in the galaxy are NPCs.
(and a group mode where only players you invite to your group can come into the group universe)

So, playing the game Single Player is absolutely no problem

[Guynemer]

Did you ever play Freelancer multiplayer?

Nyet.

[Hauldren Collider]

Oh. I played the hell out of it. Had a blast.

[C0ckney]

the download finally finished and i've played a few training missions. i think i've (almost) got the hang of docking. however, i'm off tavelling for 3 weeks tomorrow and i have lots of loose ends to tie up today, so no ED until 2015.

[Bereta_Eder]

Freelancer is quite story driven.
Elite (didn't get the new one yet but I suppose the basics haven't changed) is as Proteus said a sandbox game.
Think X Rebirth with a much more friendly much more easy and more immersive system. (or better yet think of a very much more polished and developed Evochron Mercenary)
The aim in Elite is to "progress" from a status of "harmless" to "elite". (very difficult to do and will take you a very long time)
You get to do that by trading (or pirating), getting better equipment for your ship, get a better ship, travel and be more efficient in space fights.
One very nice aspect is that you'll also get to travel in the real milky way and not through made up systems.

[Proteus_MST]

...
The aim in Elite is to "progress" from a status of "harmless" to "elite". (very difficult to do and will take you a very long time)
You get to do that by trading (or pirating), getting better equipment for your ship, get a better ship, travel and be more efficient in space fights.
...

This is one thing that has slightly changed from before ...
in previous versions you had only one Elite-Stat ... now you have 3 different ones, which is combat, trading (amount of money earned by trading) and exploring (amount of money earned by selling can data from unknown systems).
So, theoretically, peaceful players in E: D might get to in Elite in 2 of the stats without having fired a shot (although it is rather improbable, considering the agressive nature of the NPCs ... in the "civilized" systems it is more than probable that you get interdicted at least once between the end point of your hyperjump (which always is the main star of the system) and your target station (with the NPC pirates often seem to be rather suicidal ... at least I cannot interpret it otherwise when I sit in a fully armed Asp and the NPC tries to attack me with a sidewinder )