The issue with ED atm is lack of localised content. They have fixed (to a degree) the emptiness by allowing us to group up in multiplayer wings, but the unique benefit of ED over any other game remains a huge galaxy. Which is a remarkable achievement, but hard to appreciate if you want to do anything other than exploring.
I have explored substantially, to the point where 150-180 stars now bear the 'First Discovered by Nyninch Anaconda' tag, but have decided to live the mercenary life for now, fighting in the proxy wars and border skirmishes of the great nations. The main issue is a sense of detachment - missions feel a little cookie cutter, though this is offset by grouping which adds some chaos to the otherwise template fights. Outcomes and politics are most definitely player driven, I've seen dedicated supporters of freedom, tyranny and everything in between get their agendas pushed through in various systems, but this is mostly experienced through the 'who owns what and how' interface - there's a telling distance there.
Now we should most definitely not think that we should be the big fish in this galaxy, Elite has always been about space jockeys fighting against the odds to get their cut and make their mark, but more variety in the automatically generated content is required.
Long story short, i remain exceedingly positive about Elite, but it is a work in progress (as most MMOs or games approaching MMO status are). All of the foundations are there: ships, careers, pvp, pve, auto generated story line content and progression rewards. Community events to build new stations by holding off pirates and ship in goods add an additional collaborative and competitive element. All FD need to do is build on these and add more depth to the breadth of their universe.
A games journalist (I forget which) summed it up succinctly: Oceans of fun, but only knee deep.
I have great hopes for 1.3, PowerPlay, which has not released official details, but is rumoured to make the military and political activity in the game a lot more dynamic and deep. Just what we need, really.
As for explorers, we have planetary flight to look forwards to within the next 8-18 months by my guesstimate, which will add a lot more in the way of visuals and navigational hazard for those solitary daredevils trying to map out the galaxy.
Highlights of what we have now:
1. The Cobra Mk 3 remains the iconic workhorse of the pilot's federation. Multirole space calzones are pretty swish.
2. Combat shps and fuel are about to get slashed in price, making trigger happy careers more viable.
3. Big universe, big politics, but with room for independent system stories such as the Onionhead drugs embargo and the current Lugh seccession bid. The galaxy feels very much alive.
4. Flight mechanics aren't newtonian, but the mix of pseudo-newtonian (capped drift speed in flight assist off, but maintain momentum) and arcade flight (with flight assist on) makes for some very complex and thrilling dog fights. Even big ships can benefit from drifting one direction while bringing their heaviest facing to bear.
5. Last but not least, group content. wings are well implemented and fulfilling to be in. Strong signal sources are amazingly hard even with just AI opponents and you really have to coordinate to get some giant-killing done unless you're willing to risk your pimped out Fer de Lance, Anaconda or Python in such encounters.
ED: great game, lacks depth, makes up for it in beauty and execution.
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Topic: Elite: Dangerous (Or: Why has this thread not been made yet!?) (Read 39331 times)