Elite Dangerous

[Lasiien]

So imagine a few of you like me played elite 'back in the day', anyone getting excited about Elite Dangerous yet ? https://elite.frontier.co.uk/

Starting to look quite good from what I've seen. Don't want to pay ?100 to beta test though :p Release hopefully this year.

Also if you missed this worth pointing out Star Citizen (which is Wing Commander kinda reborn, though not out until next year or later i think)......https://robertsspaceindustries.com/about-the-game

[eKo]

I used to play some of the later Wing Commander/Privateer games and also Elite (on my Atari ST no less). Used to love space sims, Freespace 2 is still my favorite, but seems like there are hardly any made anymore and then suddenly there's Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous .

It looks like both games will become what I though Eve would be, an MMO Space Sim. You don't pilot your ship in first person in Eve which was a huge disappointment for me.

Ars Technica has a review of the current beta.

[eKo]

I bought it this weekend after Las talked me into it (not really, didn't realize there was so much to do in beta already) and the mouse/keyboard controls are indeed sucky. Been playing with my PS3 controller which is okay for normal flying, but is horrible in combat. So I ordered a cheap(ish) joystick since I will try out Star Citizen sometime too. And I might replay Freespace 1, its expansion and Freespace 2 again with Freespace Open (Volition gave away the source code to the engine and it's made to run at high resolutions on modern hardware). You do need the Freespace 2 installer, but it can be bought from GoG for cheap.

Only played a few hours and only in solo mode for now, but the game looks stunning. Tried some of the tutorials, but while they tell you what to do, they don't really tell you how to do it, so I was constantly looking at the controls on how to do some things they tell you to (been a long while since I had to do that ). Still no clue on how I have to do the combat tutorial vs the 3 normal ships and 1 hard ship (supposed to use silent mode, but my ship overheats stupidly quick and then I get shot down) .

Decided to just jump into the game and did some cargo/courier missions which earned me enough money for a new ship: an Eagle. It looks cool, but hardly has any cargo space which is why I decided to get into a conflict zone with disastrous effects. Luckily I had enough money to afford the insurance and get my Eagle back.

[Lasiien]

ahh cooooool someone to play elite with :-)

I've not really played it much yet and am trying to pace myself a little, as it's only beta don't want to get too far as it will inevitably get wiped. I am also having to rebuild my pc and can't get the joystick working again doh..... It really is much better with the joystick and throttle but as you say I only bought the cheapo thrustmaster one (which seemed fine when it was working !........pretty sure it's not the stick itself but a problem with my ancient usb hub).

Am sure I will be playing Star Citizen too, I got a thing to get into parts of the beta with a new gfx card but unfortunately it's not the full game Didn't think about Freespace but yeah it might be worth a look.

p.s. before someone says ?100 for a beta are you mad?!>!? The price went down to ?50 beta+release (game on its own will be about ?35 I think), and it's very playable already - just your progress won't be saved.

[Cernos]

I'm definitely interested in Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen when they are released, but I think I'll pass on the betas for now. Keep us posted on how it's shaping up, definitely excited for both of these.

Fond memories of the original Elite - never has so much fun been had chasing tiny dots around a screen with two straight lines

[eKo]

Guess I got the same joystick then, the Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X (joystick + throttle). Seemed the only decent one that's not stupidly expensive.

Yeah for the full price you get access to beta + the full game and some additional extras for the game (like an Eagle spaceship, some paintjobs, ...).

Star Citizen is launching in steps, so far they only have the hangar and dogfighting/arena afaik (important bits, but not yet worth getting imo).

I did get a new GFX card last week (MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G which is an awesome card), so needed something to show off . Also got Divinity: Original Sin since it was on my wishlist and I needed something to replace PS2 since I'm now playing it less.

[Lasiien]

Cool Cern, look forward to seeing you there too

Yeah eko, same joystick. It's pretty good value I think, providing I can get it to work again

Grats on the the gfx card Nice one! Divinity is also awesome as we discussed, only thing I didn't like about it was a bit too much inventory management (but some ppl like that stuff). Really like the tactical combat, very nicely done and often ended up doing things I didn't quite expect to do (try a tank with the talents 'zombie' and healing in blood pools, makes for an interesting game where poison mobs heal your tank and bleeding damage heals them too! Especially good if you run with a witch with that bleeding damage spell which essentially becomes a really dangerous healing spell....lol).

I'm sure I'll revist PS2 (I always did the original) but yeah  a bit on hold for now (especially seeing as you said PTMC are less active).

[Cernos]

Just seen Elite Dangerous is in the Steam summer sale with a 25% discount.

Has anyone been playing this much? What are your thoughts? Reviews seem generally positive, but it does sound like a bit of a huge time sink and lots of changes / nerfs while the game settles down.

Also, is a joystick essential to be able to fly with any competence?

[Lasiien]

Hiya Cern, sorry guess this reply is a bit late for the steam sale.

I found it was pretty fun at first but like you say it's quite a time sink. I found that RL would take over a bit and I wouldn't play it for a few weeks then had to go back and re-educate myself a bit on things. So in essence i started playing it a few times but got distracted

Think the joystick is pretty much essential yeah, you can try and play with keyboard but it probably won't be quite the same. eko and I both got the Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X which is perfectly fine, I wouldn't splash out much more on those real flight sim ones (although I don't doubt they are good, the price difference is huge).

[Cernos]

No worries Las. I decided not to take the plunge just yet, largely for the reasons you mentioned.

When you discard the reviews by fanboys and haters, the balanced view seems to be as you'e said - that it's a good game and lots of fun at first, but that interest can start to wane due to the time sink involved and the steep learning curve.

Perhaps I might have a look if it comes back up on sale at a later date. I bought several other games in the Steam sale (Saints Row IV, Europa Universalis IV, Telltale Game Of Thrones) so got plenty to waste my time with

I have an old Xbox 360 controller which might be a reasonable halfway house between keyboard/mouse and a joystick. It doesn't seem to work natively with that many games but I would imagine ED will support it.

[eKo]

A controller works, I used my PS3 controller for a bit and it was ok, at least way better than mouse & keyboard.

It's a fun and extremely pretty game, but it is quite a timesink. The main issues for me are the sandbox nature of the game meaning you have to give yourself some goal and the time involved in doing anything, even just flying from planet to planet doing delivery missions can take quite a bit of time.

I should give Elite Dangerous another try, but I got into the Witcher 3 now, so it'll have to wait (a long time since the Witcher 3 is huge).

I've loved all the Telltale games I've played so far (The Walking Dead seasons 1 & 2 and The Wolf Among Us) and I certainly plan to pick up the GoT & Borderlands one eventually.

Saints Row IV is just silly & fun, sort of a mix between GTA and a superhero game with crazy over the top action and lots of humour.