WOW Elite: Dangerous Revealed on Kickstarter!

[nats]

Still can't quite believe it Elite: Dangerous (or Elite 4 as we all know it) has finally been announced on Kickstarter by David Braben !!! :

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous

This is a day that will long be remembered - it has seen the end of .. sorry getting carried away there.

Been waiting for this announcement for, oh I dont know, ten years or more! I am as excited as I was when I first played Elite Frontier way way back when I was 27 in the 1990s. Please pledge all you can and ensure Braben does this one perfectly!!!

Very exciting times!!!

I know this has absolutely nothing to do with Traveller but for me Elite and Traveller go hand in hand as two of the most important things in my life (along with my family). Hoorray!!

Time to get drunk.

 

[Carlobrand]

Ummm ... what is Elite?

 

[nats]

Ummm ... what is Elite?

Only the best ever space exploration and trading PC game to be developed. It took years of my life. It was by far the only game I ever considered was anywhere near to Traveller
in terms of similar concept and execution, and I played them both around the same time of my life. So I sort of see them as being joined at the hip even though they are completely different media.

A lot of what you can do in Traveller - assassinations, trading, exploration, piloting, courier missions, bountry hunting pirating etc you could do in Frontier Elite, the only restriction was that you were permenently in your ship. But the new game promises even more similarities because I believe Elite Dangerous will revolve around you as a 'character' rather than as a 'spaceship'. So its exciting.

Lots of contenders to the elite crown have come and gone but none have come anywhere close to Elite games as far as I am concerned.

What with a new Star Wars sequel, a new Traveller version and now Elite 4 being announced recently these are amazing times. I am fully expecting that tomorrow we will see aliens land in Trafalgar Square, the Loch Ness monster to be captured, and Elvis to be found alive in the Mojave Desert!

 

[BeRKA]

I am Elite!

I think I must support this...

Here is my version of the Old Worlds Subsector.

 

[aramis]

Elite was the first majorly successful merchant ship/trading game, and the first true 3D space game for home computers. Written by Ian C Bell and David Braben. Wireframe graphics. Non-newtonian but 3D flight. Really awesome combat.

Was available for almost all major platforms of the era - BBC Micro, Spectrum, Apple II, C64 - except C/PM (because CP/M had no default graphics support). It was only later ported to MS-DOS... because MS-Dos wasn't out when Elite was released. And it was also ported to the NES.

If you want to know how Elite played, look up Oolite

Frontier was "Elite 2: Frontier" - and done with only half of the original dev team. Bell and Braben have had a bit of a war for years... and Frontier was Braben by himself. It was for the MS-DOS PCs... and was much prettier, but many consider it not as good a game as Elite.

"Elite 3" was retitled "Frontier: First Encounters" and was for MS-Dos as well.

Ian Bell has helped the Oolite dev team get it as close to the original as possible.

Or, one can go get the original at http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/archive/index.htm

 

[nats]

Elite 2: Frontier

Yeah I actually didnt play the original Elite at all I only had a Spectrum when I was around 15-19 and I would have been at Polytechnic when it came out in 94/95. So I didn't get into Elite until Elite 2: Frontier, when I got an Amiga 600, and then later First Encounters, when I got my first 486 25MHz PC. But god did I love those two games, Frontier a lot more than FE though. Frontier always looked sharper than FE to me. But they were both good.

I still clearly remember in Frontier, landing at a minor starport on the basic landing pad on a small ice covered world and just sitting there watching this massive gas giant rise up over the horizon with the systems star in the distance. God it was beautiful. Its that kind of gaming memory that can define your existence and they rank alongside having my kids and getting married etc.

If the new game recreates that even to a small extent I will be as hooked as I was when I was 27. Good times are back again.

He had better get it funded.

 

[aramis]

Yeah I actually didnt play the original Elite at all I only had a Spectrum when I was around 15-19 and I would have been at Polytechnic when it came out in 94/95. So I didn't get into Elite until Elite 2: Frontier, when I got an Amiga 600, and then later First Encounters, when I got my first 486 25MHz PC. But god did I love those two games, Frontier a lot more than FE though. Frontier always looked sharper than FE to me. But they were both good.

I still clearly remember in Frontier, landing at a minor starport on the basic landing pad on a small ice covered world and just sitting there watching this massive gas giant rise up over the horizon with the systems star in the distance. God it was beautiful. Its that kind of gaming memory that can define your existence and they rank alongside having my kids and getting married etc.

If the new game recreates that even to a small extent I will be as hooked as I was when I was 27. Good times are back again.

He had better get it funded.

http://www.oolite.org/old//home/aegidian/public_html/oolite is a near-true clone of the original. I MUCH prefer it to Frontier. Much more Traveller-like.

 

[nats]

http://www.oolite.org/old//home/aegidian/public_html/oolite is a near-true clone of the original. I MUCH prefer it to Frontier. Much more Traveller-like.

Yes I have to agree that Oolite looks superb, I've never looked into it before now. The add-on textured ships expansion pack that you can get look fantastic:

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Griff_Industries

Might have to give it a whirl now!

 

[GRNDL]

No one remembers that there WAS a connection to Traveller?

The default pilot name in Elite was "Commander Jameson" - sound familiar to CT players?

 

[ravells]

Wow, thanks for posting! Pledged and spreading the word.

I'm looking forward to having dinner with David Braben and having a star system named after me (in my dreams!)

 

[torus]

No one remembers that there WAS a connection to Traveller?

The default pilot name in Elite was "Commander Jameson" - sound familiar to CT players?

Yes I believe Braben and Bell were Traveller players. They wrote the game while students in Cambridge, c. 1981. I remember seeing it running on a BBC micro (the machine it was written on) and being astounded. Never seen a better computer game.

 

[Ran Targas]

All I know is there sure are a lot of Elite inspired ships running around MTU! Thank you Mr. Braben!