Elite Turns 25 159
satellite17 writes "The BBC notes that the classic space combat / trading sim Elite is 25 years old today. Elite was one of the first 3D games produced for a home computer and also one of the first open-ended games. Odd as it sounds now, this meant that even though it was popular with friends of the creators, David Braben and Ian Bell, they initially struggled to find a publisher. 'They just didn't get it; they wanted a high score and they wanted players to have three lives,' Braben said. It is also credited with influencing quite a few modern classics."
I've been waiting since 1998... (Score:2)
I wish they'd get working on Elite 4. :(
Elite spiritual successor- Infinity: QFE (Score:5, Interesting)
Until Elite 4 comes out (ahem, cough) Infinity: Quest for Earth looks to be its spiritual successor (yes there's seamless space travel to planetside, as showcased in the trailer)
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp8WOCuR_pQ [youtube.com]
Site: http://www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity/ [infinity-universe.com]
Can't wait for this to come out... Frontier First Encouters with a DirectX engine just isn't cutting it anymore....
Some would call X3 the successor... (Score:2)
... if you could actually figure out how to play it that is...
Re:Some would call X3 the successor... (Score:5, Insightful)
X3 doesn't have seamless planetside travel, does it? I think the last review I read said it didn't... although technically that means I'm looking for a "Frontier: Elite II" or "Frontier First Encounters" successor... the original Elite had no planetside stuff
Until the day I can warp into a system, take my ship that's in space 10,000 AU from the nearest planet, point it at that blue looking planet over yonder (all the while dealing with Newtonian physics), and fly down to the surface (without cutscenes or whatever), then fly around some mountains, notice a weird looking tribe staring at me, then fly back out to space I won't consider a game Elite's successor.
Yea I'm a little bit religious about a damn good realistic game set in space
Re: (Score:2)
"warp into a system, take my ship that's in space 10,000 AU from the nearest planet, point it at that blue looking planet over yonder (all the while dealing with Newtonian physics)"
That might take some time [tads.org]... perhaps you want to handwave in some non-Newtonian (and non-Einsteinian) physics instead?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ehhhh... I think with the statement "warp into a system" he has already decided he wants to add in some non-Newtonian physics... (though it would have been nice if he noticed that ;)
In practice, he wants what everyone wants with the holy grail of space sims - seamless transitions between extraplanatary, solar system, and terrestrial environments. Ideally with seamless transitions between "inside the ship" and "outside the ship", whether it's on a space station, planet, or just ejected into the void. Hones
Re:Some would call X3 the successor... (Score:5, Informative)
What made it bearable were two concessions: You could alter the flow of time in the game, when nothing interesting was happening, so hours would tick by like seconds... and ships could accelerate at (ahem) hundreds of g's. So it had some outlandish elements, but the mechanics were thoroughly Newtonian.
It was beautiful. You could thrust toward Saturn, then cut your engines, point any direction, and just slingshot around... start accelerating again when you're headed at the sun, to approach the Earth. I would buy a modern equivalent, even if it wasn't a game at all, just a space flight sim. With the same infinite number of procedurally generated solar systems.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why planetary exploration should be done by AIs loaded into high thrust nuclear rockets... as soon as we get AIs and high thrust nuclear rockets.
Re: (Score:2)
In the time it takes for us to get AIs and high thrust nuclear rockets, we could send a fair number of robots to Pluto a few times
Anyway, I think we should figure out how to make space stations with artificial "gravity" and decent radiation shielding. Once we work that and other little details out, it doesn't matter how long it takes to travel. You could then build a space colony where humans can live in i
Re: (Score:2)
That's why planetary exploration should be done by AIs loaded into high thrust nuclear rockets... as soon as we get AIs and high thrust nuclear rockets.
Even then, accelerating at 100g for 6 days is implausible, due to the fuel mass requirements. Even with just a 1kg payload, your fuel to accelerate it is going to weigh millions of tonnes.
This is why I prefer Elite's original solution to the problem, the jump drive: point in the right direction and engage a non-newtonian drive that stops working when you're
Re:Some would call X3 the successor... (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed... and Newtonian manoeuvring just doesn't work too well in the human brain.
Movies depicting space travel with Newtonian manoeuvring are regarded as artsy. Movies with "etheric rudder" (to borrow the Star Wars term) have exciting space battles.
Battlestar Galactica (the original) used etheric rudder. The re-imaging was Newtonian, but got away with it by making things about strategy rather than tactics (and people rather than ships), and obscuring combat in a haze of gunsmoke and camera shake.
Games are the same way. Playing I-War is hard. Playing the X-Wing series isn't easy, but the curve is less steep, because it's like air combat, but the vector of gravity has been removed, simplifying the flight model.
I was certainly impressed by the Newtonian mechanics in the Frontier series, but I enjoyed the combat in Elite a lot more.
Space combat with laser weapons in a world of Newtonian mechanics just isn't interesting, because it consists of
Victory is entirely determined by who has the most power behind their shields and lasers. You spend the majority of your time in the early stages of Frontier avoiding combat because you'll be whiffed out of existence like a water balloon hitting the sun. Then when you have enough cash to beef up your ship, you are effectively untouchable.
Short-range particle bolt weapons and etheric rudder may not be realistic, but they are a lot more fun.
Re:Some would call X3 the successor... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why the "realistic" space sim zealots will never be happy. If a company ever actually gave them the game they wanted, one that was truly realistic as per our current understanding of physics and such, it'd be way too boring to actually play. They do not actually want what they believe they want. Goes double since realistically, a pilot would have almost nothing to do with combat. A computer would be doing all the controlling, the pilot would simply press a button to let it know that it was weapons free.
We already see this with air craft today. When a pilot goes on a bombing run, they don't fly the plane, it flys itself. Its route has been programmed in to the on board navigation computer. The plane lets them know when they are near the target, and when to signal for bomb release. When they do signal, it doesn't actually drop the bombs, just lets the computer know that it is allowed to drop the bombs when it calculates the time to be right. The bombs then guide themselves according to their navigation computers, as the plane moves on.
This sort of thing would apply to space combat to an even larger degree. A computer would be handling all the complex aspects of moving the ship and aiming the weapons, a human would only specify targets and destinations and such.
So thanks but no thanks, I'll take highly unrealistic, fun games.
Re: (Score:2)
it'd be way too boring to actually play.
Then the game design was crap. Games do not get boring when you use realistic physics, they get boring when you cram realistic physics into gameplay that was designed for StarWars-type physics. The reason why space flight with lasers can't work with real physics in a game is simply that it can't work in reality either. Physics in space just aren't any good to emulate normal airplane behavior. The solution of course is to simply go away from completly unrealistic gameplay situations and back to something mor
Re: (Score:2)
We already see this with air craft today. When a pilot goes on a bombing run, they don't fly the plane, it flys itself. Its route has been programmed in to the on board navigation computer. The plane lets them know when they are near the target, and when to signal for bomb release.
That'd be a simulation, not a "realistic space" game.
Re:You just described EVE Online... (Score:2)
This sort of thing would apply to space combat to an even larger degree. A computer would be handling all the complex aspects of moving the ship and aiming the weapons, a human would only specify targets and destinations and such.
So thanks but no thanks, I'll take highly unrealistic, fun games. ...except that it is fun, but EVE is about politics more than Newtonian physics simulation.
You as the pilot simply set destination and targets and when to fire, but you'd be amazed at the complexity of the game.
You o
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why the "realistic" space sim zealots will never be happy. If a company ever actually gave them the game they wanted, one that was truly realistic as per our current understanding of physics and such, it'd be way too boring to actually play.
BS. There's a reason MS Flight Simulator succeeded though it was rather boring to most people. There's a reason IL-2 Sturmovik is still making money. Realistic sims sell, just to a much smaller niche market. Boring for you and other 12 yr olds? Probably. Most of them can't even get a plane off the ground in IL2.
http://www.fasterlight.com/exoflight/ [fasterlight.com]
Exoflight is a sim based on realistic newtonian physics. Kinda fun. No combat. Space Combat by the X-Plane guys is fun too but the "combat" part is lame
Re: (Score:2)
This is why the "realistic" space sim zealots will never be happy. If a company ever actually gave them the game they wanted, one that was truly realistic as per our current understanding of physics and such, it'd be way too boring to actually play.
As one of those "Space Realism Zealots" I can tell you flat out that you're wrong. Realism doesn't make the game boring, it makes the game different, and what I'm seeing you do, is equating different with bad.
A good example of how you can make realistic space combat fun would be the tabletop wargame Attack Vector: Tactical [adastragames.com]. Here [adastragames.com] are [adastragames.com] some [adastragames.com] battle reports to give an idea what it plays like.
Heck, the biggest complaint against AV:T has more to do with the rules being fairly complex than anything about the
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My combat algorithm was somewhat less refined than yours. I couldn't keep track of the enemy in flight, so I developed:
1) Lock autopilot onto enemy
2) a) If enemy is flying away, shoot at him.
2) b) If enemy is shooting at me, break lock and fly in another direction until he stops
2) c) If enemy launches missile, lock on autopilot, shoot, and hope missile bites it
3) If enemy is still alive, return to 1
As you can probably guess, about half of my encounters resulted in mutual destruction by collision.
Re: (Score:2)
I think I was idealising it somewhat .. perhaps it would have been like that if it had been better balanced...
In actuality I remember pretty much what you describe.
It didn't help that most of the ships had reaction drives capable of of fairly excessive acceleration ; I think they topped out at about 12g. Again, human brains are optimized for lower accelerations. And because there was no upper limit on relative velocity, there was a lot of "jousting". And if you used the autopilot, collisions :-).
Terminus (Score:2)
Space combat with laser weapons in a world of Newtonian mechanics just isn't interesting, because it consists of
Victory is entirely determined by who has the most power behind their shields and lasers. You spend the majority of your time in the early stages of Frontier avoiding combat because you'll be whiffed out of existence like a water balloon hitting the sun. Then when you have enough cash to beef up your ship, you are effectively untouchable.
Short-range particle bolt weapons and etheric rudder may not
Re: (Score:2)
I encourage you to get a BBC emulator and play it.
Elite wasn't Newtonian. It was "etheric rudder". It had a short-range FTL "warp" drive for intersystem travel. Combat and docking were like flying a plane with no gravity. Enemy ships bank, roll, and climb. The throttle control governed velocity, not acceleration. And for all that, it was notoriously difficult, particularly the fine manoeuvre of docking, but fun.
The "Frontier" sequels used Newtonian mechanics are (IMHO) much less fun to fly, because you rely
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't that a matter of the type of energy conversion?
If we use an 2H_2 + O_2 => 2 H_2O reaction we get about 1.56×10^7 J/kg of energy.
If we use nuclear fission, we get about 1.5×10^13 J/kg
If we use nuclear fusion, we get about 6.3×10^14 J/kkg
If we use matter-antimatter, we get 9×10^16 J/kg
The gains in energy density results in a massive reduction of weight (or increase of payload).
Now, I tried
Re: (Score:2)
Even then, accelerating at 100g for 6 days is implausible, due to the fuel mass requirements
Isn't that a matter of the type of energy conversion?
IANARS (I am not a rocket scientist), but I do know a little about the field, so take this with a small pinch of salt:
Energy balancing is the wrong approach here, as you can quite easily violate fundamental limits without noticing it when performing the calculation in this fashion. It comes more down to the requirement that the acceleration of the ship be produced
Re: (Score:2)
I wrote: For Isp here
Ahem. What I meant to write was:
For Isp < 2.55e8 (ie 85% of the speed of light) this is actually unattainable (the mass of the non-fuel portions of the ship would need to be negative).
There's a handy table of Isp for some thruster technologies, both real and proposed, here [projectrho.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Is that necessarily a big issue?
If we go back to matter+anti-matter reactions, you'd need some matter to annihilate. Any human expedition will have to carry food and water in large quantities, and if we can annihilate the human waste directly, we can save weight on toilet facilities. If we use large amounts of water as a shield against radiation, we get "free" radiati
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Have you tried Celestia [shatters.net]? It does have some rudimentary flight controls. Probably not exactly what you're after but might be a bit of fun. And it's FOSS, so there's chance for a fully-blown space flight sim.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That said I absolutely love the game, and do think of it as the spiritual successor to Elite (and even Frontier). The amount of stuff you can do in the game, from trading, to fighting, to salv
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm reading over your description maybe I'll get a box together capable of running X3... it does sound pretty good
Re: (Score:2)
Spoilers abound (but you need to spoil yourself quite a bit to learn X3 anyway IMO) and it is written for other players, so some of it may not make much sense for someone who hasn't played the game. It should give you a real idea of the possibilities of the game however - the author is an inveterate pirate, which makes for good reading, he is also very, very good at the game
Re: (Score:2)
I just read the first post (damn cliffhangers!) but yea, appetite successfully whetted :) I'll read the rest after work
X3 definitely does have the Elite feel from what I've seen... I really love being able to fly down to a planet seamlessly though... it really cranks up the "suspense of disbelief" factor IMO
I played Vendetta Online for a while, but the skyboxes didn't do it for me (you can see the planet and other stuff off in the distance, but don't you dare try to fly to it or anything - you're in a box,
Re: (Score:2)
The X3 games are sector based games, so there are over 200 sectors connected together by Stargate-style jumpgates. Each sector, while technically unlimited in size, has all its interesting things within a box that varies between about 60km a side to 300km a side (with a few things scattered off the beaten track to reward the curious). To give you an idea, here is an X3:TC Universe Map [x3tc.ru] (I wouldn't study i
Re: (Score:2)
Oh nice description. I have x3:runion collecting dust. I liked the idea of it and got all psyched up to play it, but the upfront work confused the living hell out of me and I kind of let it just go before I could really get myself into it. That and securom! :) I'll take a look at the terran conflict game since I didn't catch its release or anything. Thanks!
Re: (Score:2)
Why can't I hit anything with my lasers?
- You need to buy Fight Command Software Mk 1 and then toggle the autoaim on. Oh and this doesn't work with the mouse button controlled firing which aims at your cursor (new in TC IIRC) but only with the bore-sig
Re: (Score:2)
You need earthsim2 .. it's in alpha right now though, but it's sweeeeeeeeet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xwGucH-e_o [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
One game that really should have been patched to support multiple cores fully.
The rest of the galaxy (out of sector) could have been done really well on extra cores.
Or even better, an add-on to support offloading OOS processing to networked machines too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Too bad it is a MOO, so it will never be a fun game to play. Just a space grind.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes I actually remember seeing a lot of people on Infinity's forum gnashing their teeth because it will be MMO... hopefully that doesn't sap all the fun out of it...
Re: (Score:2)
I found this video showing off combat [youtube.com].
Made me think "damn, I would love to see what a Serenity (Firefly) type battlescene would be like in that engine.
Hundreds of ships, big and small on either side just duking it out and you in the middle trying to get to the space port on the planed.
Lol ... just got to the end where the pilot docks the plane. Now that's a neat trick - don't think it'd work so well with a carrier group though.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Oolite [oolite.org] is the most obvious one. It faithfully recreates the Elite gameplay, but updates the graphics (slightly) and provides a simple way for others to expand the game. It is basically what you would end up with if you tried to write Elite (rather than 'some space trading/combat game') today.
Vega Strike [sourceforge.net] has broadly the same gameplay mechanics as Elite, but is much richer; lots of different things to trade, different things available at diff
Re: (Score:2)
I concur on Vega Strike. Been following its development for years, it's actively developed and maintained, with an active base of players/beta-testers, and of course it's open source so if you want you can fork it and customize any way you want. And of course it has been very playable for years. Only wish it were more widely known.
Re: (Score:2)
Vega Strike is a good open source example... good point. I heard they're working on moving to Ogre too... should be interesting. I played around with Vega Strike a couple of years ago, but it felt like it hadn't "cooked" long enough so to speak
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/Development:Ogre [sourceforge.net]
Investing in new ideas feared back then (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
it becomes tougher to get people to invest in an idea that isn't safe
Yeah, maybe cause ideas that are not safe are not safe. Innovative ideas are a crapshoot, no matter how brilliant it seems you can't tell if it's going to stick or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes the safe bet isn't the right bet
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, I know what you mean, I myself have taken risky bets that have paid off. But it's usually hard to convince anyone to take a piece of your own risk pie.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The BBC Micro version was first and best (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember getting Elite on my BBC Model B back in '84 on cassette. It took quite a while to load but was well worth it. When I upgraded my machine with Opus DDOS and an 800K double sided, double density 5 1/4" floppy drive I was able to get the floppy version which loaded my more quickly. You really needed the analogue controller too. I stuck an old Scalextric controller on top of mine to give me a full hand grip and I could fly rings around other ships.
I tried other versions like the C=64 and PC versions but they really didn't work as well as the version for the BBC despite the fact that there was little use of colour (only the dash) but the mode 4 high resolution monochrome graphics were much crisper and animation was faster on the BBC than other platforms. The BBC Micro was a real gem for quality games. The versions of arcade games like PacMan, Defender, Scramble and so on were in many ways better than their arcade equivalent. The BBC had some really nice hardware acceleration features such as hardware scrolling (both vertical and horizontal) and a very configurable video ULA which is how they were able to do the mode switching part way down the screen in Elite where it switched from mode 4 (320x256 1 bit colour) to mode 5 (160x256 2 bit colour).
It was a real slog to get to "Elite" but worth the journey. Very few games today are anything like as enjoyable despite the improvements in technology. I guess GTAIII was the first time since Elite I had anything like the same feeling of freedom and the thrill of just being bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Always waiting for the magic trip into Witchspace
Re: (Score:2)
Is this a Star Raiders clone/enhancement? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Nope, ArcElite was the best version, but then again the Archimedes was also a "BBC Micro" (well at least the A300-series had the BBC logo) :P"
Although I never played the Arc version I have to say I'm not convinced by the solid polygon models. I still think the old wireframe style of the original looks best.
Re: (Score:2)
There was a patch for the Archimedes version to give you fluffy dice in the cockpit and a 'My other ship is a Thargoid' bumper sticker. This alone makes it the ultimate version.
Re: (Score:2)
how did they do that ? ( It always bugged me)
As time progresses between vsyncs, the CRT electron beam scans left-to-right, then moves down a line, then left-to-right, until it hits the bottom-right - then it starts again at the next vsync. You set the video controller registers to mode A before the first line hits the CRT. A bit later, but before it reaches the bottom of the screen, you push new values into the video controller registers changing it to mode B; all the remaining lines are sent to the CRT in the new mode. You just have to make sure tha
hardware requirements (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA:
I wish more developers would do this with today's games. Then perhaps i wouldn't have to upgrade my computer so often when i wanted to play a new game. I know the article only mentioned memory usage, but i'm sure this goes for cpu / video power as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Personal computers back then were more akin to consoles with keyboards, with a standard configuration and hardware features making it possible to optimize.
Re: (Score:2)
That simply isn't true -- at least, not of the BBC Micro, which came in a number of different configurations and was easily upgraded.
And just how many models of Apple II were there, again?
And let's not even get into the MSX, which was produced in dozens of variations by different manufacturers.
Re:hardware requirements (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and then you also wouldn't see games released for about 10 years too.
The kind of memory and CPU cycles you can free up by these kinds of optimizations, compared to the amount of memory and cycles available just makes it not even worth it. The amount of time required to do this level of optimisation on games of the size and complexity we have today would add many years to development time.
This coupled with the fact that compilers nowadays do a better job on the fly than most developers can anyway means it's really a pipe dream to have all your games completely and thoroughly hand optimised from start to finish, and amusingly you'd likely only see a couple of fps benefit, and maybe a few mb of memory savings. It's just not justifiable.
From a commercial standpoint it would be suicidal too, everyone else would be developing as normal, and by the time you'd finally released your perfectly hand optimised game, the optimisations would be irrelevant as your game would be 5 - 10 years old and everyone would've bought far more powerful PCs anyway.
If upgrading your PC is a problem, and you're not bothered about the above side effect of having games behind the times that hand optimisation of a complete game would cause, why not just buy last gen games rather than trying to play all the latest and greatest?
The fact is, those skills have been lost for a reason- they're just not important in modern game development where the pressure is on to produce ever more code and content than before and where that level of optimisation offers so little benefit when taken with the fact most game/renedering libraries (DirectX, OpenGL), and most compilers ensure this optimisation is done for you already where it matters. I certainly think we're at risk of losing low level programmers, and that's not a good thing, but this is certainly not an area where their loss matters- I'm more concerned about the loss of people who can do low level stuff to support reverse engineering of DRM, proprietary protocols and that sort of thing.
This is not to say games don't need optimisation at all, of course they do, there is still plenty of scope for that, but to hand craft each byte of content and machine code? Not worth it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>>This is not to say games don't need optimisation at all, of course they do, there is still plenty of scope for that, but to hand craft each byte of content and machine code? Not worth it.
I remember going to a talk held by the SOE people in San Diego back in the Everquest days, and they said that just saving one byte off one of their status updates would save them X millions of dollars every year in bandwidth costs. So they really did inspect and handcraft every bit that went out over the network.
Re: (Score:2)
Your last two sentences are true but do not refute what he was saying. Compilers do a better job of translating C [say] into machine code on today's architectures than a typical programmer would. Of course the programmer is responsible for using the right algorithm but that is easier in C/C++ than assembly.
Re: (Score:2)
Back then, your 6502/Z80 home computer had around 64K RAM at most. 8K to 16K of that would be for the OS. The screen would take 8K. That leaves you with 32K of bytes to play with. Instructions would take anything from 1 to 3 bytes, so you could write at most 30,000 instructions.
You are going to need to reserve some memory for your graphics library (drawing points, line, triangles, text, pixelmaps, circles and ellipses). You can't use floating point maths, so will need your own fixed point 16-bit library for
Let's not forget the road to these stars was paved (Score:5, Informative)
There was a bug in the Spectrum version (Score:4, Interesting)
If you launched, then spun round and re-entered the dock hitting hyperspace at the same time, you appeared, docked, at your destination.
Saved all that tedious trading until you could buy lots of weapons etc.
Re: (Score:2)
If you launched, then spun round and re-entered the dock hitting hyperspace at the same time, you appeared, docked, at your destination.
Saved all that tedious trading until you could buy lots of weapons etc.
That wasn't the only bug in the Spectrum version. It also let you save your game from the screen that appeared after you had died; if you did this, then reloaded it, you would appear inside the station in the system you died in, with full cargo etc.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not a bug, that's a feature!
I used this "feature" countless times to get a new pilot started, you know, get enough credits to buy decent equipment instead of getting blown out of the sky on the first trip. Good ole times.
Re: (Score:2)
To go one step further on the Spectrum when you loaded the game for the first time, rather then starting the game hit save instead. Then load that back in and you had max amount of cash and elite status.
Re: (Score:2)
Cool, I played for so many years and didn't know this. Of course, the catch is that you also become a fugitive, and the sun you're orbiting around is going nova... (yeah, I just had to try it)
the Modern version oolite rocks! (Score:3, Interesting)
I found oolite a year or two ago and was amazed at how much fun this game still is!
My C=64 (Score:4, Interesting)
If there is one thing I miss about my old C64, it's Elite. I lost many, many hours on that game. How they built such a large universe on such a small platform I'll never figure out. Thanks guys!
Re: (Score:2)
Seeding! The huge universe was generated, procedurally, from a one-byte-or-so seed. The procedure is deterministic so the universe always turns out the same provided the seed is the same, but it's essentially arbitrary.
Re: (Score:2)
If there is one thing I miss about my old C64, it's Elite. I lost many, many hours on that game. How they built such a large universe on such a small platform I'll never figure out.
It was all produced from a random number generator. Ian Bell has released C source code [clara.net] that's equivalent to the original 6502 assembly version, if you really want to know.
Re: (Score:2)
Took me about 9 months to reach Elite. I dont remember any special screen or anything.
IIRC, it pops up a message that says "Congratulations, Commander" across the bottom of the screen.
Thargoids. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, yeah, they were. You just had to have played long enough.
It took me a long time (Apple ][ version) before I encountered them by chance. Still wasn't sure it was real the next morning. Then a couple of weeks later, the Galactic Navy found me. Had some papers they wanted delivered.
And then "Thargoids. Why'd it have to be Thargoids?"
It wasn't a story arc by modern standards -- but after countless hours of play that stood on their own as just plain fun -- to have something like that pop out of nowhere, and to have the rarest "random encounter" spawn chase me more than halfway across the galaxy... was something I remember to this day.
It wasn't until DOOM came out that I had dreams about a video game.
Happy 25th, Elite. I still have that Apple ][, and I'm digging out that disk this weekend.
Re: (Score:2)
Riedequat is a tedious world (Score:2, Funny)
but plagued by mutant tree frogs.
If you liked Elite... (Score:5, Informative)
...you may like Oolite, an Elite tribute. It has the goodness that ArcElite has too - it is not player centric, you can encounter epic battles (I've seen three or four distinct groups of ships battling it out, with the Police mixed in there too). The game is open source (GPL) and expandable with expansion packs (so now you can have Generation Ships and Space Dredgers, as well as scenes from the Dark Wheel like the Tionisla Orbital Graveyard). It's available for OSX, Linux and Windows (it was originally developed for OSX).
http://oolite.aegidian.org/ [aegidian.org]
Latest version is 1.73, and there is a wiki for the game at http://wiki.alioth.net/ [alioth.net]
Re: (Score:2)
Mod parent: +1 ELITE (Score:2)
I've been wanting an Elite clone for some years now... never worked out whether Vega Strike was that; it always ran too slow.
Oolite, moreover, is in the Ubuntu repositories! Clearly someone out there is thinking...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I went and downloaded it.
First it tried to install into c:\oolite, completely disrespecting the past fifteen years of application development for Windows. I have no idea where it's going to save files, but I'm willing to bet it's not nowhere near my profile folder.
After it got installed, it opened a readme file that said how to edit .GNUstepDefaults (what?) and somewhere near the end of the file - which I can't find anymore - it said that exiting the game is done through Shift+Escape (huh?), plus a whole bu
Great Elite article (Score:4, Interesting)
Francis Spufford's book The Backroom Boys has a chapter about the creation of Elite, and a fair chunk of it is on The Guardian's website [guardian.co.uk]. One of my favourite bits is, after they came up with the procedural method for creating the universe, how they picked the seed:
"Braben and Bell called the starting number for a galaxy "a seed" and, in truth, creating the game this way was more like gardening than deliberately constructing something. You had to plant the seed and see what grew. It was another sense in which they were ceding direct control over the game in favour of working indirectly on the player's experience. But they did want to start the player off in a reasonably friendly bit of space, where the pickings were good and they wouldn't get instantly clobbered. Since there was no way to edit a galaxy, you just had to try galaxy after galaxy, seed after seed, until something suitable grew. "I remember thinking it was very wasteful," Braben says. "You'd type in a number, a birthday or something, and see what galaxy that came out with. 'No, I don't like that. No, I don't like that. That cluster looks horrible'." They also decided they had better check the 256 system names in the galaxy where the player would be plunked down, in case any of the four-letter words were actually four-letter words. "One of the first galaxies we tried had a system called Arse. We couldn't use the whole galaxy. We just threw it away!""
Hyperspace Malfunction (Score:2)
---
3D Shooter Games [feeddistiller.com] @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
If you liked the game... (Score:2)
...then watch the musical [clara.net]!
No, really, go and look --- it was written by Aiden Bell (Ian Bell's brother) and Brian Phillips. Okay, you are going to have to stage it yourself, but the full book's there.
There's lots of other good stuff on Ian Bell's Elite website [clara.net], including versions for most microcomputers, actual source code for the original BBC Micro version (which is damn scary, by the way), concept art, lots of reviews and interviews, a version of the trading engine written in C that's compatible with
history changes, human nature doesn't (Score:4, Insightful)
'They just didn't get it; they wanted a high score and they wanted players to have three lives,'
Funny how that drives games development until this day. It's not 3 lives, but in the MMO market, for example, few dare to deviate from the "Level 60 cap, classes, crafting and grinding" concept. And those that do are almost always the minor players.
Missions (Score:3, Funny)
I cant even begin to imagine how many hours my younger brother and I put into this game on the C64. I was hooked from the start, with the fabulous novella that came in the instruction manual. I pity those that only ever had a pirate version, the box set/manual/novella were a huge help in fuelling the imagination.
I still remember the day though when I came back home and my brother said 'oh I was playing Elite and it said something about 'Do you want to accept this mission' so I said no'
He still has imprints of my hands around his neck. I never ever saw a mission appear when I was playing.
Anyone else get through the missions? They still remain one of the greatest mysteries around that game to me.
Happy Birthday Elite (Score:3, Funny)
Not strictly on topic... but Elite is mentioned and I just have to post this as this entire thread reminded me of the following animation;
http://www2.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/heyhey16k.swf [b3ta.com]
Awesome... and good old days. Damn... now I'm going to fill the rest of my week of vacation playing Oolite... thanks, Slashdot :P
Memories :) (Score:2)
I must say that Elite is one of the earliest computer games I played on a PC. I never managed to get the C64 version which is a shame, but around the time I (or my parents rather) upgraded my C64 to a new PC (a nice shiny 486 20Mhz with 2MB of RAM and an 80MB hard drive), Wal-mart had a ton of their old stock of PC games on the floor clearances for $2 each. I remember getting Elite and Millenium from that stash, and both were a blast. There may have been an old Commander Keen game in there too - can't
Re:I learned about some history today. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well according to David Braben hardly anything said online about Elite 4 is true... argh... damn cock tease
"Braben did, however, allay fears that Elite 4 may never see the light of day by confirming it is in development.
âoeThere is absolutely tons of stuff about Elite online,â he said. âoeHardly any of it's true! Some of it is, but I'm not going to say which. We are working on it and it's very exciting.â"
http://www.videogamer.com/news/hardly_any_elite_4_online_info_is_true_says_braben.html [videogamer.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I've been hearing this for at least 10 years... How about the "preview" stuff on F.D.'s website a few years ago, that was then hastily taken down and never spoken of again?
I guess now that D.N.F. is out of the picture, Elite 4 is the next best candidate for the vaporware award.
Re: (Score:2)
"Hastily taken down"? It was up there for about seven years. [archive.org] It listed the Dolphin as a possible platform when it was first written up and the only change was swapping out "GameCube" then killing the platforms list completely. You can hardly accuse them of an elaborate campaign of deception.
Elite IV has a much better chance of being made than DNF ever did, because Frontier hasn't been working on it. That sounds stupid, but a developer that's shelved a project for ten years and works on other things isn't go
Re: (Score:2)
I was talking mostly of the E4 "concept art" that was hosted at one point on FD's web site, showcasing a scantily clad female running around the corridors of a spaceship. Kinda like Jolene Blalock did a number of years later.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, it inspired me to do a little research into my own favorite space trading game from way back when. It turns out Trade Wars [wikipedia.org] turns 25 this year too! It was a BBS door game so it didn't really have much in the way of graphics (and definitely not 3D like Elite!) but i sure wasted a lot of time on that game in my youth
And i guess that both games were at least partly inspired by Star Trader [wikipedia.org], a gam
Re: (Score:2)
Although Final Frontier was extremely impressive coding for its time (despite the bugs).
They had a 3D game you can fly in space, land on planets with millions of star systems and missions/ships/etc. All on one 3.5" floppy disk.
Prior to that you were looking at a swapping CDs mid game to get anything halfway decent.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with the sequels was that they went all out for realism, whereas the original went all out for fun.
So in the original, to fly to another system you undock, hyperspace, and apply your jump drive a few times. If you meet opposition, you engage in an exciting dogfight with usually several enemies.
In Frontier, to fly to another system you undock, fly outside hyperspace range, hyperspace, and then spend the next twenty minutes slowly accelerating and decelerating across an entire solar system. If y
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
*opt 1,2