Elite: Dangerous - Info and Stream

Uteunayr · #1 12-14-2014, 03:28 PM

Greetings all!

I want to share about a game that is launching this Tuesday, December 16 called Elite: Dangerous (Launch trailer here, but note that like most launch trailers, it hardly summarizes what goes on). Some of you may know it, some of you may not. For those of you who do not, hopefully I will be able to introduce you to the game and convince you that it is worth your time to look at.

"Show me some neat things, quick! You don't have enough of my attention for me to read this crap!"

For those of you that don't want to read this, here's some gifs that show what the game feels like, taken from reddit user Nukeclears.

Sexy menu system
Blow your mind with scale
Lighting a criminal up
A hyperspace jump with a jab at the size of the world in Destiny
Taking Off
Criminal at a space station
Newbie trying to fly without training wheels (flight assist)
Getting killed. Canopy breaks, oxygen shield comes up, but the ship blows up anyway
A Hyperspace Jump
A close escape
Almost got him!

If these look awesome to you, then read on!

What is Elite: Dangerous?

Elite: Dangerous is the fourth installment of the Elite Series, a game series that goes back to the 1980s, and is basically the progenitor of sandbox games. It is the foundational game that lead to games like Eve, No Man's Sky, GTA, and the like.

The game takes place in a 1-1 scale replica of the Milky Way Galaxy, wherein three major factions are fighting: The Alliance, The Federation, and The Empire.

The game is technically a MMO, but has no subscription, and a cash shop only for cosmetics like paint jobs (no buying ships). You can play solo (in an instance of the galaxy all to yourself), or in private instances with just your friends, or in the world open server.

What can I do in ED?

The basic idea behind Elite: Dangerous is to give you the galaxy, and let you do what you want. The most similar game I can think of is Star Wars Galaxies. If you played that MMO Pre-NGE, then you know what Elite: Dangerous is like. Imagine Jump to Lightspeed, but without being limited to the small area around each planet.

There is no main questline, just like EverQuest and most early MMOs. It doesn't say "Go here, collect 10 bear assholes, bring them back, turn in the quest, receive quest to collect King Bear asshole, turn in, receive new quest...", etc. Instead, you are dropped into a starport with a standard, loaner ship (the Sidewinder). You have 2 targeting pulse lasers, a basic discovery scanner, a cargo hold, and a shield generator. Good luck! You can do missions if you like, or you can go do your own thing. Gain money, buy more ships, and better items for your ships to let you do more (My ship) of whatever you decide to do.

Here is a brief list of the basic, overall roles you can fill. Keep in mind that these are not static, you can go from one to the next in a heartbeat, or do multiple at once:

Bounty Hunter
Crime is rampant in space, and it is difficult to police such vast, open territory. So instead, crimes are punished not by arrest, but by placing bounties on people.

Bounty Hunters are people that will search for criminals with bounties on their head, and hunt them. A bounty hunter will do this by using a Scanner, scanning for wanted people, flying up to them, "interdicting" them (knocking them out of supercruise, near/over light speed, but not hyperspace), and then killing them.

Pirate
Maybe instead of interdicting people for bounties, you feel like killing them and stealing their stuff. Go for it! Using a cargo hatch hack, you can interdict people, and then force their cargo holds to open, releasing their cargo. Kill them, use your cargo scoop, and sell it!

However, selling it is no easy task. Bounty hunters will be after you, and the security vessels will try to scan you as you go into the star ports that have black market access. You will find yourself needing to shut off your systems and drift into a starport quietly to avoid detection so you can sell your goods without getting a bounty on you for more than the goods are worth. Remember: If you have too high a bounty, players are going to come for you!

Smugger
Maybe you don't want to kill people, but you do want to trade in illegal goods. Some goods, like slaves, are not legally accepted in every part of the galaxy... but there's still a market among the rich in those places. If you're ballsy enough, you can smuggle these past political borders, and sell them on the black market for a high price.

Courier
Maybe illegal goods isn't your thing... Maybe you just want to be a space trucker. Euro Truck Simulator 2 in space. You can do that too. Load up your ship with cargo space, and then take jobs to deliver from one starport to the next. You wont run into trouble with the law, but don't be without your guns... Pirates will be after your precious cargo.

Trader
Maybe you really don't like the idea of hauling other people's crap. Maybe you're the type of person that LOVES the economy in games. Well, you'll be happy to know that ED has a detailed one! You go to Starport A, and you find they have a lot of a certain material, so the supply is high, and prices are low. As you travel around, you find Starport J has a high demand for the items Starport A has. You just founded a trade route!

So you start exploiting it, making money, but as you do, prices start to drop as the demand is being sated. Maybe when you come back, you find it is even lower than you thought: Other players have also been trading to those stations, driving down prices. Being a trader will require you to have a pen and paper, constantly mapping out trade routes and finding the best way to exploit the ebb and flow of galactic economy.

Miner
Buying and selling other people's stuff not for you? Don't like being a courier of other people's goods? Nah, you want to work with your hands (well, your ship anyway [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]). Grab a mining laser, and a refinery, and head to the nearest asteroid belt! Start cutting through asteroids and finding out what materials lay within. Find gold? Platinum? Something valuable? Keep blasting, and use your cargo scoop to collect the raw material. Use your refinery to convert it into usable resources, and go sell it to the highest bidder!

But, you ask, how do you find high valued resources in a place as large as the galaxy?! That's where...

Explorer
... comes in. Do you simply like exploring? You don't want to get involved in much fighting, you don't like economy, but you do like seeing beautiful star systems, seeing suns with planets burning, pulsars, white dwarf stars. If you love seeing the beauty and want to explore the galaxy, then look no further than being an explorer.

Armed with a wide range of scanners, you jump around from star system to star system, discovering new planets, new resource belts, new asteroids, and the like. As you do, you build an archive of maps. Drop by a star port, and sell your information. The better, more detailed the information (from a better scanner, more time taken to make sure you scan every celestial object), the more money your information is worth.

When Can I See Elite: Dangerous?

There is a lot of information out about Elite: Dangerous, to the point where it may just be too cumbersome to easily break into. I know I have had issues finding reliable information about the game because of the beta process and different information. I will be streaming on and off at www.twitch.tv/SurrealSage, but the servers have been going up and down in preparation for launch.

menadwen · #2 12-14-2014, 05:23 PM

eve...

Uteunayr · #3 12-14-2014, 05:57 PM

Yup. Eve is based off of the Elite series, blended with a heavy focus on PvP as the main driver of content. There are a number of stark differences between the game and Eve, however, the most major one being that you're actually piloting.

"The game that most captured me on the Commodore 64 was Elite, the prime motivator of EVE." -Thorolfur Beck

"'The founders had two passions which they wanted to join,' explained Richardsson. 'The sci-fi feel and vastness of space from Elite and the social interaction of massively multiplayer and player vs. player gaming from Ultima Online.'"

Conscript · #4 12-14-2014, 06:06 PM

You had my interest until it wasn't on Steam.

Uteunayr · #5 12-14-2014, 06:11 PM

Yup. At least for the time being, the game is being distributed through their own site at http://www.elitedangerous.com/.

It may one day come to Steam, but it doesn't look like it will before launch. You can add it through Steam, and the Steam overlay, streaming, etc. will all work for the game (it wont for some non-Steam games launched through Steam).

However, what it doesn't do is make you install UPlay or Origin as a launcher to launch the game's launcher. Works like most MMOs, you just run the program off your harddrive.

MrSparkle001 · #6 12-14-2014, 10:56 PM

Preordered this the other day and I only first heard of it last week in STO chat. I liked what I saw in youtube videos but this stood out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlU8abkdJU0

Now I have to find a boom mic to use with my sennheisers.

Cookiefist · #7 12-15-2014, 01:32 PM

So, this isn't just a trading and landing simulator? You can actually fly around space and not be directed to A->B->C?

Getting mixed signals from different people.

Uteunayr · #8 12-15-2014, 01:36 PM

It is up to you. If you want to simply trade, you can do that. If you want to just explore the vastness of the Milky Way, you can do that.

You are dropped into a space station, and you're free to go do whatever you want.

Yes, you can fly around space in a 1-1 scale of the Milky Way. You are not directed, nor forced along any path. You could go around and just hunt people to make money if you want to. You could stay just in a few small systems, or you could go exploring nebula and shit. The entire Milky Way is at your disposal, have fun.

MrSparkle001 · #9 12-15-2014, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uteunayr [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It is up to you. If you want to simply trade, you can do that. If you want to just explore the vastness of the Milky Way, you can do that.

You are dropped into a space station, and you're free to go do whatever you want.

Yes, you can fly around space in a 1-1 scale of the Milky Way. You are not directed, nor forced along any path. You could go around and just hunt people to make money if you want to. You could stay just in a few small systems, or you could go exploring nebula and shit. The entire Milky Way is at your disposal, have fun.

and that's only for now. Word is the first expansion they want to work on will be planetary landings.

Pyrion · #10 12-16-2014, 05:45 AM

Yea, and i am sure they will be able to do it (they have done it before), but the game is very nice even without it. In a way it's like early EQ: a huge open world, nobody holding your hand, unforgiving mechanics... for example if you somehow can't get out of a station because you fumble with the controls, you will not only damage your ship but will get fined by the station and possibly blown up because you block the entrance!

I like it. It behaves like a real world, not like an amusement park like other games. If a huge open world is your thing, try it.