Elite on kickstarter
polycounter lvl 18
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous?ref=live
Elite has gone down in history as one of the most successful games of the 1980s. It was the first open world game in which the player can freely roam a vast space. It was the first true 3D game too, and set many other benchmarks. Ian Bell and I set out to make a game for ourselves rather than for some imagined market. We were sick of games with three lives then a new life every 10,000 score; we wanted something new.
Mostly Harmless.
The original Elite fitted into around 22K of memory, out of a total of 32K on the BBC Micro Model B computer on which it was launched (8K was needed for the screen, 2K for the system). This is less than a single typical email today. In it were eight galaxies each with 256 star systems. Each planet in those systems had its own legal system, economy and so on. Clearly some magic had to happen to fit it into 22K, and that magic was procedural generation.
Competent
Frontier followed in 1993 on 16 bit computers, and pushed these procedural techniques further. In it I made a model of the whole of the Milky Way galaxy with all 100,000,000,000 or so star systems, and many more planets and moons, each of which you could visit. It is something I am really proud of, as it was as scientifically accurate as I could make it, and provided a great backdrop for a game. I loved the richness of the galaxy, but with the benefit of hindsight I think the way the ships flew detracted from the joyous immediacy of those in Elite.
Dangerous
Imagine what is now possible, squeezing the last drop of performance from modern computers in the way Elite and Frontier did in their days? It is not just a question of raw performance (though of course these elements will make it look gorgeous), but we can push the way the networking works too something very few people had access to in the days of Frontier.
Frontier Developments, the company I founded in January 1994 (and whose first product was a version of the Frontier game for the CD32 console), is now a very well established game development company with 235 people in the UK and Canada, with its own technology and tools and a great team of game developers. We have a long track record of delivering high quality games on time and to budget, both published by ourselves and through big publishers like Microsoft, LucasArts, Atari, and Sony.
Elite: Dangerous is the game I have wanted Frontier to make for a very long time. The next game in the Elite series - an amazing space epic with stunning visuals, incredible gameplay and breath-taking scope, but this time you can play with your friends too. I want a game that feels more like the original Elite to fly, and with more rapid travel (to allow for the multi-player nature of the game) so you travel quickly using local hyperspace travel rather than by fast-forwarding time but with the rich galaxy of Frontier and more, so much more.
Ill be frank - we have had a couple of false starts on this over the years, where progress wasnt as good as I wanted. Also, understandably, other projects have been prioritised projects with announced dates or other commitments. Up to now Elite has been worked upon by a small team as a skunk-works activity in the background as availability permits. Nevertheless, we have been preparing; laying the technology and design foundations for when the time is right. And that time is now.
Elite has gone down in history as one of the most successful games of the 1980s. It was the first open world game in which the player can freely roam a vast space. It was the first true 3D game too, and set many other benchmarks. Ian Bell and I set out to make a game for ourselves rather than for some imagined market. We were sick of games with three lives then a new life every 10,000 score; we wanted something new.
Mostly Harmless.
The original Elite fitted into around 22K of memory, out of a total of 32K on the BBC Micro Model B computer on which it was launched (8K was needed for the screen, 2K for the system). This is less than a single typical email today. In it were eight galaxies each with 256 star systems. Each planet in those systems had its own legal system, economy and so on. Clearly some magic had to happen to fit it into 22K, and that magic was procedural generation.
Competent
Frontier followed in 1993 on 16 bit computers, and pushed these procedural techniques further. In it I made a model of the whole of the Milky Way galaxy with all 100,000,000,000 or so star systems, and many more planets and moons, each of which you could visit. It is something I am really proud of, as it was as scientifically accurate as I could make it, and provided a great backdrop for a game. I loved the richness of the galaxy, but with the benefit of hindsight I think the way the ships flew detracted from the joyous immediacy of those in Elite.
Dangerous
Imagine what is now possible, squeezing the last drop of performance from modern computers in the way Elite and Frontier did in their days? It is not just a question of raw performance (though of course these elements will make it look gorgeous), but we can push the way the networking works too something very few people had access to in the days of Frontier.
Frontier Developments, the company I founded in January 1994 (and whose first product was a version of the Frontier game for the CD32 console), is now a very well established game development company with 235 people in the UK and Canada, with its own technology and tools and a great team of game developers. We have a long track record of delivering high quality games on time and to budget, both published by ourselves and through big publishers like Microsoft, LucasArts, Atari, and Sony.
Elite: Dangerous is the game I have wanted Frontier to make for a very long time. The next game in the Elite series - an amazing space epic with stunning visuals, incredible gameplay and breath-taking scope, but this time you can play with your friends too. I want a game that feels more like the original Elite to fly, and with more rapid travel (to allow for the multi-player nature of the game) so you travel quickly using local hyperspace travel rather than by fast-forwarding time but with the rich galaxy of Frontier and more, so much more.
Ill be frank - we have had a couple of false starts on this over the years, where progress wasnt as good as I wanted. Also, understandably, other projects have been prioritised projects with announced dates or other commitments. Up to now Elite has been worked upon by a small team as a skunk-works activity in the background as availability permits. Nevertheless, we have been preparing; laying the technology and design foundations for when the time is right. And that time is now.
Replies
Exciting !
Its almost like "hey i have this super idea, to make the best MMO ever, give me 100 mio $ its gonna be awesome, really!"
He has history, however, it doesn't take much time or money to put together a prototype showing gameplay, or some aspects of what he wants to create, especially as he's a veteran. Or even some artwork, so show something visual.
Or present a timeline, and the features you want to implement, and have some kind of idea on the order you intend to implement, it gives more confidence than just presenting a grand idea.
And from I've heard, he's been trying to make this off and on in his free time for a while, and failed a number of times, or wasn't happy with the out come or something.
There's a lack of procedural space-sims in the likes of elite which does warrant the gambling in this case, especially with elite 2 sporting a galaxy of space-to-planet seamlessness on a floppy, in 93'
[ame="
umm to be blatant ... Robert Space Industries is Lightyears more advance than this "elite" kickstarter.
http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/
the reason I love how RSI shows trailer/teaser and conceptart before telling ideas. to prove that he is not just an "idea guy" in kickstarter
It is, but again, starcitizen isn't intending to go down the elite route, it's going down the freelancer one.
So even with as good as it is looking it'll never scratch that procedural final frontier itch where you go from space to planet and jump around a galaxy-sized world (as far as I know)
Not working on elite 4 has been what has kept the studio alive. It was stuck in development hell entirely due to publishers for realistic reasons not wanting to have anything to do with such a game.
We can throw the kick-starter fraud line around all day, but every studio gets a chance to either win the crowd or spoil their reputation forever, and £20 for a chance to get a new elite is a tiny price to pay compared to the reputation the studio will have to gamble with.
That goes for every big name kickstarter project.
Btw, i didn't know this "elite" game. I'm not that old LOL
Ive backed enough to participate in the Dev forum.. will be lurking there to see how things shape up..
almost £300k ..
That is true, but remember when looking back that the big double-fine adventure was basically a video and no game or even idea of what it was going to be about, DF has also been in the position of having made party games to keep alive with no publisher wanting to touch their adventure games or psychonauts sequel.
Kickstarter is not so easily killed as you would believe, there are enough successful projects on there to make even a failed big one seem like nothing, and to me the cost of a backing is the same in a 2 million or 30 thousand budget project.
The Ouya, for example, could cause the kickstarter apocalypse if your theory is right.
Again, The first thing I reacted on was the lack of a video, but the price for a person is quite small for a chance of a new elite, which again had another direction than many o the new spacetrade games.
Their reputation is really all that is at stake, most backers wont really stop backing projects if one fails amongst the others that succeeded.
definitely a personal thing i guess ^^
I think it's the belief that kickstarter has to net you a GOOD game, I haven't been under any illusion that obsidian will create a 10/10 rpg, but I know they'll be able to create an rpg, bad or not.
3rd update with vid on procedural generation
So we can visit a star system and find its controlled by a hostile species, or maybe a cartel has expanded throughout another system. rather than what we found in frontier, where a few hundred systems had life, then nothing at all in the rest of the galaxy. Im sure you get what i mean.
The way they sold Star Citizen to the public suggests the developers are really passionate about their game, where as Elite is all... "Hey guys, well yeah we like this game we made and want to make it again."
Captain inspiration he is not....
Good luck to them though.
Again though: star citizen is more comparable to freelancer, it's not going to have space to planet interaction or an entire galaxy, and it doesn't have to, it's not trying to be elite.
They're two different branches on the same tree.
Having stuff like gas-giants with an atmosphere shows that they're intending to go even further down the route that elite 2 started with.
I think you missed my point.
If you compare the method of inspiring people to fund the 2 projects -- Star Citizen is doing it bloody well, Elite is lack lustre...bordering on amateur.
All I see is a brand being trotted out with little to no proof of concept.
Starcitizen has been beating every other major project on that though, doublefine adventure, wasteland2, project eternity, all these are projects with nothing to show until after the kickstarters finished. Just videos and grand words.
It's been the most complete pitch-video with an actual game to show with it, this is rare in kickstarters, and it's not even a must with kickstarters when we see the trend.
The Elite 4 kickstarter got off to a terrible start as even I mentioned, with NO video and just text, one was added later though and updates have been promising, so I really don't see this one as being any worse or better than other kickstarters, they want to do that space-game no one is doing and that's the space-game I want.
[ame="
new vid..
I can tell your as impressed as I am...
I really want to like this but they're really fluffing it.
The guy is a doofus.. terrible marketing..
the KS hit 50%..
I love the comments page.. its got this ecosystem of mostly british spacesim geeks... so amusing..
another video 700k on KS now.. 24 days to go ....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=44K9bnjcUSc
http://youtu.be/44K9bnjcUSc
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/44K9bnjcUSc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
i played, Frontier: Elite, for so long in my childhood... i played it on a DOS/Windows 3.2 based pc.
but nothing that i've seen so far comes close to showing what they used to have... i don't really care about state of the art graphics or anything, that's not what the game is about (to me), but they're absolutely not capitalizing on the advertisment of what should be their biggest selling point.
You guys all know that they're not showing a finished game, here. This is obviously a very narrow vertical slice of a tech demo they're putting together at the very start of the project, both for the proving of their initial ideas, as well as being something to entice potential pledgers.
Not sure if everyone here is aware of the legacy of Elite (Generic sci-fi space game? It's the sci-fi space game. The original), but if you added multiplayer to the X series of space games, I think that's pretty close to what this'll be, with more open-worldy (universy) stuff.
The idea of that game gives me a joystick in my pants, if you know what I'm sayin'.
I loved X and I cant wait for this, I only played Frontier briefly all those years ago and for ages it was one of those games that I always wanted to sit down and play properly.. I hope they dont cock it up so I can play the new one.