Well, I have been playing the 'open', so called, Elite Dangerous for several days now - and sadly, so far , I am unimpressed with 'Elite Dangerous'. I've played Elite from the early days - from the Spectrum 48k, Amiga to PC - and every game released - to Frontier First Encounters. Sadly, Elite Dangerous', currently, does not match its predecessors in many areas. (I stumbled across Elite Dangerous the other day and bought the download - no box version was, nor is yet, on offer - so the £40.00 price tag is pretty disgusting, in my view.)
Firstly, I'd like to have a complete breakdown of what Frontier Developers, and David Braben have remaining to add to this incomplete game. As it stands I feel I have been ripped off by £40.00 for an unfinished game with many missing features.
Clearly the graphics are greatly improved, and the combat is certainly a lot better than Frontier Elite II where the auto pilot was necessary to fight all your battles. However, certainly in 'open play' there seems to be little, if no combat at all. In the original Elite games it was a fearful experience entering a Feudal or Anarchy system - you knew that it would be a constant battle for your life until you reached the safety of the Station. In this game it is pretty much plain sailing all the way, perhaps one encounter (if you are lucky). There was the ability to send taunts to NPC, but there appears to be no way to return taunts in this game (a minor element, but they all add up).
There is no way to look out of other 'windows' as there was in certain previous games; and there appears to be no way of controlling turrets, as was possible in previous games - perhaps in the bigger ships (Anaconda) it must surely be possible to use turrets on this ships - because to expect a player to manoeuvre a slow moving ship to keep pace with an Eagle MK II would be completely ridiculous. But having turrets around the ship would make sense (player controllable ones were available in Frontier Elite II).
Then there is the lack of ability (although apparently it is just being added) to look externally at your own ship - never mind the missing 'windows' or rear, or side, viewing ports. Even when docked there is no way to have a camera view outside of your ship to see it sat on the docking bay - and there is certainly no 'combat advantage' while docked! So, after paying £40.00 for an unboxed, incomplete game the company then asks people to pay several pounds for 'custom' paint jobs for various ships - and yet you cannot see the ship in the first place! (The price of these custom paint jobs is also ridiculously expensive at £10.00 a pack - a disgusting price tag for a feature that should really be free as part of this game with so much else missing).
The lack of ships in the game in comparison to previous games is a disgrace. In Frontier II there was a good variety of ships to choose from that allowed a steady progression to the better ships. A quick search on the net reveals many of the missing ships:
Interplanetary Shuttle, Lifter, Osprey, Falcon, Hawk Airfighter, Kestrel Airfighter, Eagle Mk. I, Eagle Mk. III, Krait, Gecko, Cobra Mk. I, Moray Starboat, Constrictor, Lion Transport, Tiger Trader, Imperial Courier, Imperial Trader, Puma Shuttle, ?Boa?, Panther Clipper. (And I would have loved to see the reintroduction of the Fer-de-Lance as a BOUNTY HUNTER ship).
So, all theses missing ships, some of which were great in their own right - the Moray Starboat and the Tiger Trader being great little ships - and the ability to obtain some of the higher end ships fairly quickly because the TRADING is so ridiculously easy. Originally starting with 100 credits it was a real slog to start making cash, but now you can be making thousands of credits in hours and have a good ship relatively quickly - probably due to the lack of ship availability.
And what happened to the ability to start in different locations? (It seems that everyone is forced to start in the Federation in the 'open play' game.) And who moved Lave into the Alliance part of the galaxy?
It appears that all the human players are up in the Federation sector of space, probably due to being made to start there. Whereas, it would surely make sense to offer multiple starting locations to spread players out a bit.
Obviously there is no landing on planets, no flying around planets and definitely no more MB4 Mining on planets! The planets themselves, while looking pretty, appear to be motionless - no rotation - and no animations on the planets themselves (moving atmospheres). And the Gas Giant rings look plain awful.
Progression in the Military is pathetically easy - whereas before it required many missions to improve rank, now just deliver a couple of packages and a promotion awaits. (There is no announcement when a rank progression has been achieved - no notification - and this applies to progressions in the 'Elite' status either.) There were some great recon missions in the Frontier, such as taking photographs of military installations, but nothing of the sort on this game.
Cargo Bay life support has been removed so there is no transporting of groups of people, some of whom were fleeing - which meant that when taking these persons you could be guaranteed to have to fight a battle. D
Docking fees have been removed for some reason. But trying to dock in some ports requires multiple docking requests as no docking queueing system is available. And smuggling is slightly more improved than before - no more random fine for landing with stolen good, but only getting caught when a ship is scanned by security patrols. (Although the mining ports rarely have any security and so are the best places to smuggle stolen goods and slaves - basically trying to dock at a normal station with illegal goods is not worth the risk; just go to a mining station.)
Ship Yards and there tech levels are unclear - its hit and miss as to what the 'Outfitting' section might offer, no clues are given any where, it seems. You have to waste time going down into the outfitting section just to discover that it hasn't got what you need since the Level of Tech offered has been removed it appears. (And what happened to the fancy stations at Achenar and probably Sol? - now they are the plain old stations found everywhere else!)
As for the 'Conflict Zones', what's the point? Apparently you can simply fly through a system at war without any risk and fly into a conflict zone and remain unmolested. The stations, especially the mining type stations, are completely unprotected, but the war doesn't come to the stations at all - even 'pirate' stations remain unmolested and conflict free when in a state of war.
I have to say that I like to new 'interdiction', this is a great addition to the game - as well as the ability to escape interdiction. But with so much more missing, and the price tag for pointless 'add-ons' (paint jobs), I'm afraid this game is just not good enough as it stands. (I'd be even more appalled if FRONTIER asks for further money for future additions, new ships, for example, which should already have been in the game).
So, from what I have seen so far, Elite Dangerous is actually Elite EASY. There is no real challenge to the game in any area, and you have to pretty much go looking for a fight as, in 'open play' - especially when away from areas with lots of human players - the fights are few and far between. Probably the reason that these pointless 'conflict zones' have been setup - for NPC ships to be re-spawned endlessly allowing a player to improve his Elite status and cash while probably doing nothing to end the conflict.
This game has potential, but is clearly an unfinished product that has had many things stripped out. Hopefully they will eventually be added to the game, and without further cost. I'd also like to see certain systems become fearsome places again, many more ships added, trading balanced to make progression more difficult etc., etc.
Also, I'd like the ability to play OFFLINE with out any need to connect to a server - I have bought the game haven't I? So why do I need to login to a server to play a game I own? What happens if this company goes broke and/or the severs get shut down?
Finally, an offline, Solo play game, could be opened up to modders who could do a lot more to improve this game. In the meant time I will keep an eye on updates and releases to see if Frontier can sort this game out and restore it to its former glory - perhaps even eclipsing its predecessors, which it does *not* do at present.
Thanks.