@Benny_a: Omg thank you for linking that, I didn't know Danny left Gamespot - no wonder this site has become very shite (all the good ones left). Now I have a link to all his stuff, thanks! :D
He's also written a detailed list of improvements can be made to the game but due to the toxic community, they treat "suggestions" very harshly as if the game is good as it is and Frontiers are the good samaritan.
@Smosh150:Thank you, that means a lot -- well many of us "older generation" players (yes the years hasn't been good to me :D ). We grew up on Elite on the BBC Micro; I had so many hours and escaped reality many times. However, the current "Elite Dangerous" feels very empty -- it's also a huge grind as there is no goal to work towards; currently, you work towards buying more ships and credits which is it.
Wings integrate horribly with the game, mining has no purpose as you cannot use it to craft modules for your ship or customize your ship however you like; releasing contents as updates and labelling them as expansion is an insult (wings and crafting should have been included in the base game) and the missions feels like an chore, they are randomly generated -- there is no persistence in the galaxy what-so-ever.
The game feels like it hasn't made any progress compared to the gamma version they released a year ago and this game was in development (on and off development) since 2008, apart from the GUI changes of course, which is minuscule; now they are bringing on "human voices" as an update... You know where I'm going with this...
I do feel sorry for most of the new customers as they bought a game that is very empty and shallow also charged AAA pricing for it; later they labelled Horizons as early access but also charging AAA price for it (the same price as Elite Dangerous)... I also do have the life time expansion as I contributed £1,500 for the development of the game. The reason why I contributed a huge sum because Elite had a huge impact on my life; I pursued a career in programming because of it and have very fond memories.
However, Frontier's Elite Dangerous just seems very shallow in comparison. Since you've also bought the life time expansion, I do suggest you to wait a couple of years for Frontier to include features that are very critical in modern age space sim such as able to walk around in ships and in space stations (God knows when it'll be released).
@whiskeywhiskers: 2011 - for the prototype including 20 developers overall, massively SMALL compared to the 300+ today. Active Development on Star Citizen began little over 3 years ago for the newly modified engine (still ongoing development for their engine). Star Citizen are going to release what Frontier are hoping Elite has in the "finished" version of the game, hence why one game is out and the other is not. Frontier has already developed their engine and they are still making modifications to it this day for their upcoming expansions, unlike CGI they didn't use CryEngine; so they had the flexibility to start from ground up -- they are able to use their own API and not rely on third party sources like CGI. Obviously, you won't understand the time and constraints on using third party API if you haven't experienced it yourself.
"then you should probably show the same courtesy to E:D's development time, and not disingenuously stretch it out." -- I did not stretch it out, if you knew anything about Frontier at all, they did start development on Elite Dangerous years before the kick starter; they only had small number of developers working on Stellar Forge; which is the base framework for Elite Dangerous. And what Frontier has released is absolutely appalling, the released version of Elite Dangerous is no different from the Gamma I've played. (if you're not a backer of Elite Dangerous, you can't relate).
Releasing "wings" and "crafting" as expansion packs (they are really updates but Frontier calls them Expansion Packs" is a slap in the face to all the backers and the actual depth that has been put into Elite Dangerous is awful if you're releasing a game with AAA pricing in today's standard. And please don't get me started on what they've done to Horizons, labelling it as Early Access... Elite is meant to be the classic 80's remake, which it does well; it's very nostalgic but it doesn't cut it when the game is a huge grind.
As a developer's point of view, what Frontier has accomplished with Stellar Forge is amazing, probably one of the most innovative in game's development; I don't think you'll know unless you're a developer yourself ;)
P.S I honestly don't understand why you're responding to a comment that wasn't made to you when I've written it days ago to someone else.
TonnFool23's comments