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I embarked on Elite: Dangerous, the successor game, recently. It has its share of problems, granted, but nonetheless is a pretty amazing experience. Seeing the

I embarked on Elite: Dangerous, the successor game, recently. It has its share of problems, granted, but nonetheless is a pretty amazing experience. Seeing the continuity of game elements from the 1984 version (which I also sunk hours into) is weirdly moving. Seeing the same game objects like the ships and especially the Coriolis station transformed from vector graphics on a 16K memory-mapped screen (SOTA at the time!) to fully rendered 3D at 4K/60fps was more of an emotional ride for me than I expected. Finally experiencing the detailed Coriolis interior complete with advertising hoardings, plant and docking gear moistened my eyes somewhat I don't mind admitting. Despite current difficulties the game is a precious institution, I really hope it sticks around in some form or other!

matheusmoreira 3y ago
I really enjoyed Elite Dangerous as well. Haven't played it since they dropped consoles. I really miss flying those ships with friends despite all the grinding and shallowness. Manually docking a spacecraft to the sound of Blue Danube is always a relaxing experience. I wonder why space simulators and games always end up being so problematic. Elite Dangerous just seems to be going nowhere. Star Citizen is apparently a perpetual beta. Even KSP2 turned out to be a disappointment. Sigh.
- xioxox 3y ago
  I enjoyed X3 and X4 quite a lot. However, I didn't like the UI and lack of jump drive in X4. It also has its share of bugs and the universe can get slow when the game progresses. It's still a very engrossing game, however.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation. I was under the impression the X games were strategy games for some reason. I'll definitely check it out.
- NikkiA 3y ago
  > I wonder why space simulators and games always end up being so problematic. Elite Dangerous just seems to be going nowhere. Star Citizen is apparently a perpetual beta. Even KSP2 turned out to be a disappointment. Sigh. Feature creep. Everyone wants a space simulator.... then it must have atmospheric behaviour, and cities.... and well, we should be able to walk around on the ground... and shoot things.... make it a first person shooter, oh, and lots of aliens, make it a diplomacy simulator too. And on it goes.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Corollary: The type of designer who likes to build space simulations also has little ability to self-regulate feature inclusion. Solution: Never let such a designer run a project themselves, and instead pair them with a practical and empowered project manager.
  - CaptainFever 3y ago
    The ultimate game genre has the ultimate allure.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    No Man's Sky managed to pull most of that off. The diplomacy stuff is a little lacking, but it's there.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    I don't want a first person shooter. I was very disappointed when Elite Dangerous started going in that direction. I bought the game to fly sweet space ships, possibly in formation with friends. I just want to do cool space stuff. I think there's a case to be made for galaxy-wide sandbox gameplay. The truth is that space is empty and it's up to us humans to make it not so. The Subnautica-like basebuilding found No Man's Sky is a major source of fun in that game. It's what makes the galaxy feel alive and dynamic. Elite Dangerous lets you land on planets but there's nothing to do but admire the scenery and take screenshots when you do. Kerbal Space Program is a single player game which also has mostly empty worlds but it's also a sandbox game. I can build and launch a space station piece by piece. I can later use that space station as an orbital refueling station to reach more difficult planets. I can land on nearby planets and set up a mining operation to refuel the station for the benefit of future space missions. It goes on and on... KSP2 was disappointing not because it didn't have FPS or diplomacy gameplay but because it launched without these features of the original as well as massive peformance regressions.
- ttctciyf 3y ago
  I think it's a mistake to call the game shallow, there's a deep 9-year struggle for political dominance, for example, that links up to many different game systems. If you take the time to talk with time-served veterans it's astonishing what depths are present in the game.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    Well the in-game story is very interesting but the gameplay itself is rather basic. The "game system" is just a tally of points which you increase by doing little tasks and the "economy and power system" decides if you won or lost territory at regular intervals based on those points. Most people only participate in that part of the game to get the faction exclusive weapons. The real game most people play consists of buy low sell high space trucking in order to buy ships, then degenerates to seemingly endless grinding for ship engineering components. Then at some point people amass a fully upgraded fleet of ships. Then they start killing other players for fun since there isn't much else to do. There's a functionally infinite galaxy to explore but no player run economy that lets us colonize far away systems with player or squadron built space stations. Our reward for exploration is sweet screenshots and our names on the discovery. That's awesome and I spent a lot of time doing it but it could have been so much more. I used to play with one of the biggest squadrons in the game and at the end of the day it was nothing but grinding resources or little tasks to increase numbers so the economy simulator didn't decide we lost territory or something. Would've been a lot more fun if groups could build strongholds deep in the galaxy and you had to literally attack them to take them out instead of grinding missions.
    - ttctciyf 3y ago
      I've listened in on planning sessions for the "rather basic" "tally of points" (BGS) system, and it's far from basic, there's plenty of strategy and tactics involved and political thinking and negotiations with other player groupings are part of it - it's more like 3D Risk than what you describe. I've listened in on discussions of relative merits of ship builds for the current anti-xeno initiative and they are deep and far-ranging. I've watched combat streams from players who've practiced for literally a year to master the intricacies of no-flight-assist piloting. There's a lot more to the game than "space trucking". After immersing myself over a couple of weeks in the various aspects and sub-communities it's amazing to me that people fall for the facile "mile-wide-inch-deep" truism. It's that critique that's shallow and uninformed, to my mind.
- rideontime 3y ago
  I'm sorry to be That Guy, but Blue Danube only plays when you're auto-docking.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    It's a toggleable feature of the autodock computer, no? I used to always autodock my huge transport ships but fly my fighters manually. It's been a while so I'm probably misremembering.
hypertexthero 3y ago
I’ve spent a lot of time playing Elite: Dangerous since the open beta. A beautiful game, with phenomenal sound design. Some thoughts I wrote 9 years ago: https://hypertexthero.com/elite-dangerous-education/ https://hypertexthero.com/elite-dangerous-education/ The Odyssey expansion is fun, too, and I hope they add EVA space walks and 0-G missions at some point!

matheusmoreira 3y ago

I really enjoyed Elite Dangerous as well. Haven't played it since they dropped consoles. I really miss flying those ships with friends despite all the grinding and shallowness. Manually docking a spacecraft to the sound of Blue Danube is always a relaxing experience. I wonder why space simulators and games always end up being so problematic. Elite Dangerous just seems to be going nowhere. Star Citizen is apparently a perpetual beta. Even KSP2 turned out to be a disappointment. Sigh.

xioxox 3y ago
I enjoyed X3 and X4 quite a lot. However, I didn't like the UI and lack of jump drive in X4. It also has its share of bugs and the universe can get slow when the game progresses. It's still a very engrossing game, however.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation. I was under the impression the X games were strategy games for some reason. I'll definitely check it out.
NikkiA 3y ago
> I wonder why space simulators and games always end up being so problematic. Elite Dangerous just seems to be going nowhere. Star Citizen is apparently a perpetual beta. Even KSP2 turned out to be a disappointment. Sigh. Feature creep. Everyone wants a space simulator.... then it must have atmospheric behaviour, and cities.... and well, we should be able to walk around on the ground... and shoot things.... make it a first person shooter, oh, and lots of aliens, make it a diplomacy simulator too. And on it goes.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Corollary: The type of designer who likes to build space simulations also has little ability to self-regulate feature inclusion. Solution: Never let such a designer run a project themselves, and instead pair them with a practical and empowered project manager.
- CaptainFever 3y ago
  The ultimate game genre has the ultimate allure.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  No Man's Sky managed to pull most of that off. The diplomacy stuff is a little lacking, but it's there.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  I don't want a first person shooter. I was very disappointed when Elite Dangerous started going in that direction. I bought the game to fly sweet space ships, possibly in formation with friends. I just want to do cool space stuff. I think there's a case to be made for galaxy-wide sandbox gameplay. The truth is that space is empty and it's up to us humans to make it not so. The Subnautica-like basebuilding found No Man's Sky is a major source of fun in that game. It's what makes the galaxy feel alive and dynamic. Elite Dangerous lets you land on planets but there's nothing to do but admire the scenery and take screenshots when you do. Kerbal Space Program is a single player game which also has mostly empty worlds but it's also a sandbox game. I can build and launch a space station piece by piece. I can later use that space station as an orbital refueling station to reach more difficult planets. I can land on nearby planets and set up a mining operation to refuel the station for the benefit of future space missions. It goes on and on... KSP2 was disappointing not because it didn't have FPS or diplomacy gameplay but because it launched without these features of the original as well as massive peformance regressions.
ttctciyf 3y ago
I think it's a mistake to call the game shallow, there's a deep 9-year struggle for political dominance, for example, that links up to many different game systems. If you take the time to talk with time-served veterans it's astonishing what depths are present in the game.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Well the in-game story is very interesting but the gameplay itself is rather basic. The "game system" is just a tally of points which you increase by doing little tasks and the "economy and power system" decides if you won or lost territory at regular intervals based on those points. Most people only participate in that part of the game to get the faction exclusive weapons. The real game most people play consists of buy low sell high space trucking in order to buy ships, then degenerates to seemingly endless grinding for ship engineering components. Then at some point people amass a fully upgraded fleet of ships. Then they start killing other players for fun since there isn't much else to do. There's a functionally infinite galaxy to explore but no player run economy that lets us colonize far away systems with player or squadron built space stations. Our reward for exploration is sweet screenshots and our names on the discovery. That's awesome and I spent a lot of time doing it but it could have been so much more. I used to play with one of the biggest squadrons in the game and at the end of the day it was nothing but grinding resources or little tasks to increase numbers so the economy simulator didn't decide we lost territory or something. Would've been a lot more fun if groups could build strongholds deep in the galaxy and you had to literally attack them to take them out instead of grinding missions.
  - ttctciyf 3y ago
    I've listened in on planning sessions for the "rather basic" "tally of points" (BGS) system, and it's far from basic, there's plenty of strategy and tactics involved and political thinking and negotiations with other player groupings are part of it - it's more like 3D Risk than what you describe. I've listened in on discussions of relative merits of ship builds for the current anti-xeno initiative and they are deep and far-ranging. I've watched combat streams from players who've practiced for literally a year to master the intricacies of no-flight-assist piloting. There's a lot more to the game than "space trucking". After immersing myself over a couple of weeks in the various aspects and sub-communities it's amazing to me that people fall for the facile "mile-wide-inch-deep" truism. It's that critique that's shallow and uninformed, to my mind.
rideontime 3y ago
I'm sorry to be That Guy, but Blue Danube only plays when you're auto-docking.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  It's a toggleable feature of the autodock computer, no? I used to always autodock my huge transport ships but fly my fighters manually. It's been a while so I'm probably misremembering.

hypertexthero 3y ago

I’ve spent a lot of time playing Elite: Dangerous since the open beta. A beautiful game, with phenomenal sound design. Some thoughts I wrote 9 years ago: https://hypertexthero.com/elite-dangerous-education/ https://hypertexthero.com/elite-dangerous-education/ The Odyssey expansion is fun, too, and I hope they add EVA space walks and 0-G missions at some point!