Elite: Dangerous. I broke down.

[JudgeDredd]

lol

I just imagined you on the forums saying "Nah...that's fine", "Works for meeee", "Not broken my end" and people getting all    about it  ;)

[undercovergeek]

thats EXACTLY what was happening

[Bletchley_Geek]

Noted.  If it is Dec 23, I hope the team sticks around for a few days to make sure the servers don't crash or to fix some other awful calamity that will prevent me from playing my Christmas gift!  I recall the time when I purchased X3:TC and the awful Tages DRM server crashed, preventing anyone from playing the game until after New Years.   

That's true but they're based on the London area, and from what I remember when I played Eve On-line - also hosted at some massive data center there - there were pretty capable to function 24/7. I wouldn't expect that Frontier doesn't opt for a similar kind of service. Also, Frontier has had ample time to collect data on how their current server setup is handling the load of the Betas and see what hardware upgrades they do require if any. I am sure they have projections of load and necessary capacity, but I wouldn't be surprised they scale up over the course of months after release. I am not privy to the costings, but usually, server farms setups with state-of-the-art connection to the Internet are very expensive stuff and it's not like David Braben - OBE or not - can walk into Buckingham Palace and ask the Windsors for some cash-ola to splurge on hardware which isn't going to be using 100% of its CPU time 24/7.

[Bletchley_Geek]

Given the standard for "release" these days, this game is already heads and shoulders above most. I'm hard pressed to imagine why people would be arguing that it is not ready.

Mp issues mainly and then the usual plethora of bugs, missions disappear mid flight leaving you stuck with the cargo, literally stuck, it won't leave the hold, a host of other mission bugs and some people still cannot get in game

I've stopped reporting that none of this has happened to me because I sound like a smug twat I suppose

Most people are 'meh', quit, restart and reload but for some it is genuinely the end of their world

Noticing a massive gap in the 84 crowd and the 14 crowd, so many kids asking for  a dock button, a mine button, a arrive at destination button, a trade button - basically a please play this game for me button whereas the old duffers are loving it

I enjoy your very dry posts on the Frontier forums, geek :)

There are some bugs there, some of them seem to be quite adamant at not going away easily. On the other hand, of all the Early Access stuff I have been involved, Frontier does have an actual framework to gather players' feedback on bugs and problems in the game. They're very organised and engage with you over their help desk, trying to get from you further information from logs etc. so they can nail down the causes for a given issue and fix it.

Let me go back to the bugs.

Since Beta 2 landed, Elite has been crashing hard - requiring a reboot or rebooting itself - my machine at seemingly random times (browsing station services, steering away from stars after hyperjump), even after installing the latest NVIDIA drivers that allegedly offer support for Elite (with that kind of support, mate, you don't need enemies). It's not a heat issue, as I keep my box clean and sometimes it happens just like after 3 minutes of playing. Things work now for me after setting the Elite executable to enforce Windows 7 compatibility. I realized that such random crashing tends to happen across most games using DirectX 11 (curiously, not Civilization). Doing some research on the Internet, I see that's an awful lot of people pissed off with NVIDIA drivers stability on Windows 8 and 8.1. Looks like some calls to DirectX have a different behaviour on different Windowses, and that has been a pain in the arse for devs and driver vendors alike.

The mission system works, but there are some odd things, like Courier missions with deadlines that are physically impossible to meet (I saw two missions available with a 0h 0min deadline). I have focused mostly on Trading - and especially the "speculative" trading missions where the NPC factions ask for X of some particular commodity, and you have to figure out how to get them and how to maximize profit by doing side trades or side missions. Last night I did something like 8 or 9 of those missions, and only *one* became bugged, as I got disconnected from the server while jumping and the missions (and cargoes) were wiped out when I relogged. So at least that part of the game - oddities with deadlines, disconnections and payments aside - seems to be fairly complete and functional.

The PVP is amazing, more so with the full introduction of the interdiction gameplay. I have played Eve On-line for years, and man, Elite is a game of "real" skills. I have evaded quite a few human interdictions - it's really tense, as the attacker tries to keep you in his sights, and you try to keep in your sights a "escape vector", so the best pilot comes on top - something which is very hard to pull out on Eve On-line (very hard meaning that you need to match character skills or in other words, time as a subscriber, equipment and numbers, so good luck with that). The NPCs are obviously cheating though (you get insta-interdicted more often than not), so I expect some people to get very infuriated :)

On the one hand, I agree with UGeek that there's a lot of teenage angst on those forums. But there's also some quite well argued concerns regarding a general "lack of depth" in the sense of "having a purpose" or player actions' having "meaning". There's indeed a lot of man-children who want to play the Saviour of the Galaxy/Star Tycoon thing and went to the wrong game for that. Yet it's true that with the threat of data wipes and the obvious disconnection between the players and the "background simulation" (i.e. the NPC's simulated galactic society), it's hard to see what's going to be the long term appeal (now). So I refrain from expressing my impatience for having the whole thing as soon as possible, as I understand that the "background simulation" is a major and complex game system. But it worries me that we haven't seen really much of it during the Betas - just bits and pieces, with moderators "injecting" events in the game, markets behaving more or less as explained in the Design Discussions Archive.

Maybe that's what Gamma is about - getting all the components of the  background simulation running together and expose to player input (and most definitely, substantial and frequent vandalisation). Eve On-line first went after a mixed model of player and NPC driven economy and world story, but they eventually gave up and put most of the responsibility (and the blame for massive market crashes and totally out-of-character behavior breaking the "storyline") on the shoulders of players, rather than spending time and resources at a very hard balancing act which would piss off or alienate a substantial proportion of Eve subscribers.

[undercovergeek]

Agree with all from BG, regarding my comments on there I have to keep a tight rein sometimes, I already have 3 yellow cards for been mean

Noted.  If it is Dec 23, I hope the team sticks around for a few days to make sure the servers don't crash or to fix some other awful calamity that will prevent me from playing my Christmas gift!  I recall the time when I purchased X3:TC and the awful Tages DRM server crashed, preventing anyone from playing the game until after New Years.   

That's true but they're based on the London area, and from what I remember when I played Eve On-line - also hosted at some massive data center there - there were pretty capable to function 24/7. I wouldn't expect that Frontier doesn't opt for a similar kind of service. Also, Frontier has had ample time to collect data on how their current server setup is handling the load of the Betas and see what hardware upgrades they do require if any. I am sure they have projections of load and necessary capacity, but I wouldn't be surprised they scale up over the course of months after release. I am not privy to the costings, but usually, server farms setups with state-of-the-art connection to the Internet are very expensive stuff and it's not like David Braben - OBE or not - can walk into Buckingham Palace and ask the Windsors for some cash-ola to splurge on hardware which isn't going to be using 100% of its CPU time 24/7.

With reference to this, it's my understanding there's nothing server-side beyond saved games, profiles and data.... everything else is generated in game from the players own networks including the PvP islands which is the cause of some people's problems

[sandman2575]

RPS is reporting full release is Dec. 16

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/11/07/elite-dangerous-release-date/#more-248195

[undercovergeek]

yeah just came out on newsletter

[mikeck]

Yep:
"We are delighted to announce Tuesday 16th December as the release date for Elite: Dangerous!"

[bob48]

Hot Damn! - I'll be getting it as a late birthday / early Christmas pressie  ;D

[Yskonyn]

Ok this might be a dumb question but I havent kept up with all the huah here;

As I can see the game can be bought in two flavours at this time:
-Beta pack for 60 euro's which will give you the Merc Edition of the full game upon release.
-Merc Edition preorder for 40 euro's, but doesn't grant you beta access.

The confusing part however is the note at the end of the beta pack description : the beta does not offer you access to expansions for free.

As I can see neither does the Merc preorder? Is that comment a remnant of a pledge deal that ran earlier which includes all expansions or such?

In other words: there is no pack WITH those expansions anymore is there?

[undercovergeek]

Afaik you're right, beta 1 pledge was standard or for extra cash was all dlc free - this package is no longer available

[Yskonyn]

Would you recommend jumping in now for 60 euro's and be able to start playing now (if it gets delayed you can play already) or would you wait for release now and jump in at 40 euro's because beta is almost over anyway?

[undercovergeek]

Personally I'd say now, I have 200 hours logged, and it's now all I play, for me they could release it this evening and say it's finished and I'd be happy - it's pretty much 84 elite now, the whiners are the new crowd who want cod in space, medals, skins, upgrades and dead bodies floating after an explosion - when told you have to make your own story and use imagination they're totally baffled by this concept

[Yskonyn]

Elite Frontier has been my favorite game for a long time when I was a kid. Very fond memories, but I was not willing to shell out the insane amount of cash they asked in the beginning.
60 euro's is a PS4 game, so if Elite: D is that good I am ok with buying it at that price.

Just a last reality check; I have seen some complaints about repetetive gameplay and lack of variety in space stations. Is this a fact or just a whine?

[undercovergeek]

the repetitive gameplay comes from the kids who think its about racing to be Supreme Commander General of Space, find a lucrative route between 2 stations and just grind, and grind and grind until they have the ££ to get the big ships, and then realise theve burnt out and thats not what the game is about#

There are about 6-7 different kinds of station at the minute, but i find its like different guns in FPS, youre that concerned with shooting and living you dont really notice what the gun looks like, same with stations, dock, and attempt to land, there is no time to be sight seeing, but even then 7 is enough for me