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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 14:06 
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Zio wrote:
They've designed it so that even though entering and dropping out of supercruise is obviously intended to partially mask the loading of instances, it's not necessary to use the supercruise function to fly places (it just takes a colossal amount of time to travel large distances without supercruise). For instance, I was interdicted once on my way to a station and forced out of supercruise a few hundred km from the station - still well beyond how far you'd appear from the station by supercruising there normally. Once I'd dealt with the encounter I decided to just use conventional flight to go the rest of the way to the station to see what would happen - and sure enough, once I was close enough I could see the station far in the distance, getting closer.

Ooh I was planning on testing that once I get back into a Viper. I have previously managed to get down to the "surface" of planets from the minimum drop out distance, which takes something like an hour or more depending on the size (and therefore the initial distance) of the planet.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 9:47 
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Yesterday, I had a quick go on a "F1 Simulator" at the Grand Pier in Weston-super-Mare. Three monitors in front of you, you're strapped in and the whole thing shifts you around with force feedback etc. and tilts you to simulate G-force etc.

I came off feeling incredibly motion sick, and I've never experienced motion sickness before - on anything. I'm attributing it more to the low frame rate on the displays and the lack of "effect" when braking more than anything else, but it has made me wonder if I'll get on with the DK2 in Elite... :/


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 12:10 

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Well, if you don't get on with it, I'll have it off you! :-D

I've found that I did get pretty motion sick on some of the FPS-style demos using Oculus, when moving around with the keyboard and mouse. For some reason the fact that I was physically sat or stood still, but walking around in the demo, really messed with my head and made me feel incredibly nauseous. Elite: Dangerous never gave me that problem once though, largely I think because you're meant to be strapped to a chair in the cockpit of your ship all the time. So your body isn't moving either in real life, or in the game.

The refresh rate of the DK2 is 75Hz and you need to try and get frame rate parity with that if at all possible. That said, I don't think our demo station here was able to hit 75FPS very much and yet I still found the experience just fine. A few others here gave E:D a go too and had no issues with it, even though other demos did make them motion sick.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 13:55 
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Get an Elite 'remake' for free this weekend

http://www.vg247.com/2014/09/17/classic ... -download/


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 15:03 
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zaphod79 wrote:
Get an Elite 'remake' for free this weekend

http://www.vg247.com/2014/09/17/classic ... -download/

Elite: The New Kind used to be freely available, until it was taken down by "request" of David Braben.

I wonder what's going on here. Has David Braben been asked, or is this Ian Bell giving him the finger?


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 0:16 
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I'm getting a serious "uncanny valley" vibe from Elite on the DK2.

You know how, when you close your eyes and hold your arm out in front of you, your brain knows exactly where your hand is no matter how much you wave your arm about?

Kinda like that. I can't see *shit* in the real world when I'm wearing the DK2, but when I'm in the cockpit of my ship and I look down at "my" body, holding the joystick and throttle (more or less in exactly the same location as they are in the real world) it feels like I'm looking at my own body parts.

Indeed, if I look at "my" hand on the joystick, and then use my left hand to take the goggles off, I see that the game's positioning of "my" arm and hand matches my actual limbs almost exactly.

It's really fucking unnerving, yet cool all the same.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 7:48 
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GazChap wrote:
You know how, when you close your eyes and hold your arm out in front of you, your brain knows exactly where your hand is no matter how much you wave your arm about?

Ooh! Ooh! I know this one!

That's called 'proprioception'.

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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:20 
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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 18:45 
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With 2 weeks left until the next major update, and only 2 months until the planned (and recently reconfirmed by Braben) deadline of the final release, Elite: Dangerous is currently bugged to hell, even unplayable for some. It is rather infuriating, because the game was running very smoothly before Beta 2 was released a couple of weeks ago.

On the forums, fanboys are furiously trying to convince the people complaining that there is nothing wrong, oh no, the game works just fine, everything will be fine, people are just imagining it because it works fine for us so it must work fine for everybody, and hey, we are beta testing after all, so just shut up and file a ticket, please.

I hope everything will be fine, and I'm possibly just sour because I am one of the many people currently refusing to play it due to a serious graphics bug that makes everything look completely shit on some PCs.

But I don't like the direction this has taken.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 21:16 
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Given the size of the changelogs they post whenever they release a substantial update, I'm not worried.

This ain't no Star Citizen.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 23:39 

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To be fair though, it *is* a beta, and does have a lot of time to between now and final release to sort out a lot of the bugs. I do hear you with the graphics bug - on mine the gamma seems to go wrong and things appear much too bright. Going in and out of the galaxy or system maps resolves it temporarily though.

I'm confident. Beta 2 is really decent compared to Beta 1. I got very bored of Beta 1 after a time, but I've been sinking hours and hours into Beta 2.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Fri Oct 17, 2014 20:15 
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Zio wrote:
I do hear you with the graphics bug - on mine the gamma seems to go wrong and things appear much too bright. Going in and out of the galaxy or system maps resolves it temporarily though.

This is one bug. There is another that only affects some graphics cards (a rather large range of nVidia cards it seems). It cannot be fixed in this way, and it is much worse in its effect.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 16:56 
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I just watched a demo of someone using Voice Attack to fly the ship. I am dead of sploosh.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 17:27 
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If only we could watch the video, too!

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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 17:39 
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http://bit.ly/1DGRw1E


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 17:41 
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Let me explain how Google works for you - it searches for a video, but I don't know if that's the one you saw.

HTH HAND

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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 17:44 
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All he did was control the speed ?:|

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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 17:53 
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I watched this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dnJ--pSjdE


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 19:13 
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Yeah, I used Voice Attack until I bought the X52, although I'm tempted to get it back up and running again because trying to find some of the X52's buttons when you can't see what you're doing is a right 'mare.

Being able to just say, "Computer, landing gear" or "Computer, request docking" has its benefits.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 20:21 
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Could you say "request docking"? I noticed that he did it manually in the videos I watched.

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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 20:25 
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Yeah, you set it up as a macro so it presses the key that brings up the left panel, then moves across to the relevant tab, then selects the station (which is always the first one in the list) and then goes to the request docking option.

Only problem is, with the DK2 it wouldn't work for me because the keys to bring up the side panels don't work when using it.

Never mind though, eh?


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 14:09 
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I got the beta, I enjoy scudding about in my Sidey, but there are still lots of bugs. The 'launches but doesn't actually launch' thing merely being the most annoying.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 17:59 
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At least they finally got rid of that graphics bug, the fix for which they for some reason couldn't be bothered to put in a patch for nearly a month, so now I can actually play again without losing my will to live.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 18:28 
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GazChap wrote:
Being able to just say, "Computer, landing gear" or "Computer, request docking" has its benefits.


Attachment:
HelloComputer.jpg


Thinking of getting a new computer to run this. Also, my desktop PC is about four years old and I'm fast running out of hard drive space for all this photography. :)


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:28 
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Now that there is an actual release date, i've done a pre-order.

I need joystick thingy to go with it I expect, I want a reasonable one for cheap monies, any recommendations?


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:33 
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Trooper wrote:
Now that there is an actual release date, i've done a pre-order.

I need joystick thingy to go with it I expect, I want a reasonable one for cheap monies, any recommendations?

I've got a Thrustmaster Hotas, which is cheap and most good.

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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:34 
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This one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thrustmaster-T- ... B001CXYMFS

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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:35 
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Trooper wrote:
Now that there is an actual release date, i've done a pre-order.

I need joystick thingy to go with it I expect, I want a reasonable one for cheap monies, any recommendations?


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:41 
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ugvm'er at heart...

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Grim... wrote:


Ta, that looks alright. I shall see if I can get a preloved (virtually brand new, only inserted once!) one from ebay, but £40 won't break the bank if I can't. :)


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:44 
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29939113

Looks like there are a number of similar games in the pipeline now.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:46 
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Star Citizen is still a long way away.

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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 12:47 
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Quote:
However, he said, it faced strong competition from another title, Star Citizen,... Star Citizen is scheduled to be released in 2016 though some parts of it are available to backers already.
This is THE WORST WRITING.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 15:19 
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The game works really well with a 360 pad, by the way.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 15:20 
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And a keyboard, one would imagine.

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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 15:31 
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Only thing I use the keyboard for is lateral thrust (ie only when landing), landing gear, and jump drive. Everything else is on the pad.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 17:22 
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360 pad has the same number of buttons as our flight stick, Grim.... One less analogue axis though.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 17:24 
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Pundabaya wrote:
Only thing I use the keyboard for is lateral thrust (ie only when landing), landing gear, and jump drive. Everything else is on the pad.
Even stuff like
"select highest threat target", "max power to weapons", "lower cargo scoop", "release chaff", "activate silent running mode"?


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 18:28 
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Yep. Chaff can be set up on LT. Power distribution is on the D-pad. Cargo Scoop and silent running are on the right hand in-cockpit menu (I believe, I've yet to actually use any of these.) My only combat experience apart from the tutorials is running the fuck away from a NPC pirate who massively outgunned me.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 15:59 

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If you use the Advanced Control Pad profile, virtually everything is mapped to the 360-pad, via a combination of holding a face button and pressing a direction on the d-pad (ie, off the top of my head landing gear is B+down, cargo scoop is B+up, target ahead is Y+up, target hostile is Y+down, FSD is X=left, etc). The only thing that doesn't seem to be mapped that I ever use, and even then only extremely rarely, is the starship exterior lights.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 17:05 
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Apparently the lights are good to stop people crashing into you when docking. Also they look boss as fuck.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 19:28 
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For those hoping for an option for a 100% offline game, it seems the latest newsletter basically rules out that possibility, unfortunately.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 21:53 

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lasermink wrote:
For those hoping for an option for a 100% offline game, it seems the latest newsletter basically rules out that possibility, unfortunately.


I noticed that, but all throughout the game's development they've been saying there will be three modes: an online multiplayer mode, an online single player mode and an offline single player mode. So I'll be extremely surprised if they back down from that now.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sat Nov 15, 2014 4:05 

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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Sat Nov 15, 2014 10:52 
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Zio wrote:
lasermink wrote:
For those hoping for an option for a 100% offline game, it seems the latest newsletter basically rules out that possibility, unfortunately.


I noticed that, but all throughout the game's development they've been saying there will be three modes: an online multiplayer mode, an online single player mode and an offline single player mode. So I'll be extremely surprised if they back down from that now.


They have.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 14:09 
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So yeah, Elite: Dangerous is now all but officially an MMO. Although, to be honest, that was clear to me the first time I saw the launcher. Also, anyone who has played the beta has experienced how you get booted out of the game if there is any server trouble at any point in the game.

A couple of things spring to mind. First of all, Frontier doesn't have any experience with online games AFAIK. So the launch is almost certainly going to be a major clusterfuck where no one will be able to play, maybe for hours, maybe for days, maybe even longer - because no offline. They can prove me wrong here, of course, but bigger and more experienced companies have failed.

Secondly, people are still playing Frontier: Elite II, 20 years after it was published. No one will be playing Elite: Dangerous 20 years from now - because no offline. Maybe we get lucky and someone figures out how to fake the server end, but it's not something we can count on. I was conservative and only backed the minimum to get the game, but I ended up paying for the life time expansion sort of to make up for my small contribution - I feel a bit stupid now. Imagine the poor sods who put 5k into this thinking they'd be getting the ultimate Elite to last them a couple of decades or even the rest of their lives.

Frontier is explaining this decision with "technical issues", but I am not sure I am buying it. I gather that the game's budget is now somewhere around 10 times bigger than what they got from Kickstarter. Frontier need to please some major investors, and it is my guess that a DRM-free game ended up being out of the question. What backers want simply isn't all that important, at least in terms of economics. In fact, it seems pretty obvious now that the Kickstarter was merely a tool to convince other investors.

Frontier now has to recuperate 10M somehow, and that's while paying for servers as well. My guess is they aren't going to get much more money from backers after this, so Lord knows how they plan to make this work. I don't even want to think this, but I feel that a subscription is going to be unavoidable. They are going to be pressured into going full on MMO sooner or later. Maybe it will be free for backers, maybe it won't. In any case, they are going to have to convince those people who aren't die hard Elite players (who have already "bought" the game) that this is actually an MMO worth playing. They are going to have a tremendously hard time doing that with the state the game is in at the moment.

I am very depressed about this right now, because I seriously doubt they will be able to keep this going for even a year - this could very easily end up being another Lego Universe. And then it will be lights out - because no offline.

So my advice right now is to enjoy this game while you can.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 15:00 
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lasermink wrote:
Frontier now has to recuperate 10M somehow, and that's while paying for servers as well. My guess is they aren't going to get much more money from backers after this, so Lord knows how they plan to make this work. I don't even want to think this, but I feel that a subscription is going to be unavoidable.
The game is fundamentally architectured around the principle that all player-to-player "serving" is done by one player's machine, not by centralised server farm; similar to how, say, a CoD match is negotiated when you start it up. So the server bill for E:D will be orders of magnitude smaller than for a traditional MMO.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 15:10 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
lasermink wrote:
Frontier now has to recuperate 10M somehow, and that's while paying for servers as well. My guess is they aren't going to get much more money from backers after this, so Lord knows how they plan to make this work. I don't even want to think this, but I feel that a subscription is going to be unavoidable.
The game is fundamentally architectured around the principle that all player-to-player "serving" is done by one player's machine, not by centralised server farm; similar to how, say, a CoD match is negotiated when you start it up. So the server bill for E:D will be orders of magnitude smaller than for a traditional MMO.

People say that, but I believe those traditional MMOs already do this sort of thing. They certainly keep server interaction to the absolute minimum required to prevent cheating, because there is simply no other way the games could work with millions of players.

Also, Frontier's main argument right now for no offline play is that a significant portion of the game is now on the server side. All transactions like buying/selling stuff, jettisoning cargo, anything that changes the player's current state has to go through the server. That all sounds very familiar to how MMOs work in general.

I have worked as a server engineer on social games, where server interaction is similarly kept to the absolute minimum required to prevent cheating and keep players in the illusion, and watched how quickly server costs spiral out of control regardless and become the major expense to keep the game running.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 15:16 
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More fundamental than that is the simple fact that without the 'master' server or servers, (even if they're only there for initial authentication), the whole thing just stops working, however streamlined they make it and/or offload the load to P2P style transactions.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 15:28 
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Hearthly wrote:
More fundamental than that is the simple fact that without the 'master' server or servers, (even if they're only there for initial authentication), the whole thing just stops working, however streamlined they make it and/or offload the load to P2P style transactions.

If it was purely a matter of authentication I wouldn't be worried one bit, because that could be circumvented, either by crackers or Frontier themselves if at some point they have to shut the servers down. But from what they are saying now, this does not seem to be the case at all.


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 Post subject: Re: Elite
PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 15:55 
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This RPS article sums up pretty well what Frontier have said on the matter.

Quote:
When Frontier took to Kickstarter to fund Elite: Dangerous in 2012, netting £1,578,316, they said folks would be able to play an offline singleplayer mode. They weren’t entirely sure how it’d work, given that many of their space sim plans involved an online and interconnected galaxy, but they said it’d be in there. With Elite’s official launch less than a month away, Frontier have now said that won’t happen. It’ll have an online singleplayer mode, as always planned, but no offline support.

“A fully offline experience would be unacceptably limited and static compared to the dynamic, ever unfolding experience we are delivering,” creator David Braben said in last Friday’s Elite newsletter. Naturally, players wanted to know what exactly that meant, so executive producer Michael Brookes took to the forums to answer loads of questions.

Offline singleplayer will “probably not” ever get added, Brookes said. “We have put considerable time and effort to try and make this happen, but we’ve had to make this decision to make the game we set out to do. We would happily support offline play if it were possible for us to do so.”

An offline mode “is impractical rather than impossible, but circumstances mean that it cannot be done,” he explained. They can’t simply release a separate version without universe syncing, he explained, as so much of the game is server-side. “To make that happen we’d essentially have to create two games. The servers handle more than just the data, they handle all the key processes for interaction in the game, so trading, mission generation and background simulation to name a few.” And they don’t want to release server code to folks “as it contains the secrets of the galaxy.”

As for why Frontier have let people believe for so long that offline was coming, Brookes said “Because we wanted to be certain before announcing.” Reading his responses and Braben’s statement, though, it seems they’ve been fairly clear for a while about the game they’ve wanted to make – which, as they say, doesn’t really allow for offline singleplayer.

If you’re unhappy with this, Brookes pointed out that they offer refunds. They don’t have a firm policy in place for backer refunds, as everything is dealt with on a case-by-case basis. They should probably be a bit more proactive about that.


So they are meeting backers' concerns with a "get a refund if you're unhappy" sort of policy. I think it tells a pretty good story of where their concerns lie.


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You are using the 'Ted' forum. Bill doesn't really exist any more. Bogus!
Want to help out with the hosting / advertising costs? That's very nice of you.
Are you on a mobile phone? Try http://beex.co.uk/m/
RIP, Owen. RIP, MrC.

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