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I'm financially backing ED, SC, and I'll buy Valkyrie when it's released, but I have the most hopes for ED because ED is a truly libertarian game:
1) Goodbye daily quests, goodbye themepark quests. Say hello to randomly generated universes (planets, suns, solar systems, animals, plant life, etc), say hello to human-crafted quests and plots that you may-or-may-not come across, or that you may-or-may-not start or even complete.
2) In SC, there is no such thing as 'the best ship' - they are all balanced and have favored roles (how boring!). In contrast, in ED you can fit any ship however you want and it's all about being 'elite' - it might well be possible to make the perfect beast of a ship! However, the universe is so vast you can probably hide from the 'beasts'.
3) The game should be ready before SC or Valkyrie. In addition, you will be able to use ED with Oculus Rift when this is released towards the end of this year.
Comments
Elite won't have one "best" ship, since some ships are rather specialised in their task. Valkyrie doesn't interest me much since it seems to be more of a lobby-based experience. I think Star Citizen is looking very promising, but there's just something magical about the scope of Elite's massive and completely seamless universe.
Rift already looks amazing running Elite. Immersion will be through the roof.
I disagree - You definitely can make a 'best ship' - but what's amazing is that different people have different definitions of what 'best' is. However, once you've found your 'best ship' it will be definite - there is none of that tedious changing ships to get the 'right tool for the right job' - which is what happens in Eve Online - and I find that very irritating.
For example, a survey was done of ex-players of the old Elite II and Elite Frontier games. Here it is: http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1849
Generally speaking, the best all-round ship is the Cobra Mk III. The Asp is good for dogfighting.
However in my opinion, when you try the Imperial Courier, there is something about it which makes it better than everything else. But, I remember it being expensive, difficult to get hold of, and having the limitation of a class 5 jump drive.
If you use Oculus Rift (I will) then field-of-view in the cockpit might come into play.
What is astonishing is that some people prefer the huge ships, such as the Panther - so best is not always the Imperial Courier. I find it astonishing because once I came across a pirate with military lasers and I was a sitting duck in my Panther.
The older Elite games weren't exactly well balanced and aren't comparable in gameplay wrt Elite: Dangerous, especially the bigger ships don't turn so well anymore, so don't expect to stand a chance in a turning fight with an Imperial Courier against a Sidewinder.
I think I'll choose the ship that works best with Oculus Rift, e.g. - benefits most from a sense of immersion.
By the way, I'm slightly concerned that Elite: Dangerous isn't subscription based - ideally, I would like to see it continuously developed with time.
I reaslise that MineCraft is still getting developer love, but MineCraft has done unusually well.
All the ships will work the same wrt Oculus Rift.
Elite: Dangerous uses a mix of Client/Server and Peer-to-Peer networking so there is less server resources needed, also they will earn money from selling the game and expansions.
I don't think Minecraft is comparable to Elite: Dangerous
A subscription would probably piss people off too much considering the players will be hosting the game sessions. I don't think there's ever been a game like that with a subscription model. That would be a new standard for greed I think
No. The game has no marketing.
Very sad
I think there have been MMO's with a hybrid C/S P2P network topology with subscriptions, there would be nothing greedy about it and you wouldn't notice the difference.
Unless of course we're talking a really cheap subscription and the developer regularly rolling out free game additions to the subscribers, but then it would probably just be easier and more popular to sell game expansions, which happens to be the model they've chosen.
The game isn't hosted by players, there is a still a server running the background simulation of the galaxy, dealing with persistence and doing the matchmaking.
Yes and no. There is a server handling matchmsking and persistence, but the brunt of the workload is done by the players' computers. So there's no server park like in World of Warcraft or Eve. ED having a subscription would be like StarCraft 2 having a subscription. Preposterous, which is why ED doesn't have a subscription cost.
Starcraft multiplayer uses lock step P2P and doesn't have a seamless running ongoing persistent universe like E:D, you also don't hop from session to session within minutes or even seconds during normal gameplay like in E:D during hyperspace.
Just kidding. Elite does indeed look awe inspiring. Whether or not it will "beat" Citizen or Valkyrie, I have no idea. I like some things I've read about Elite, others I'm not so keen on. I'll probably give this one about a year before I realistically consider checking it out.
I also recommend having a look at Vendetta as another 6DoF game in a persistent galaxy that also supports the Oculus.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance