Elite: Dangerous – Mind numbing fun

So, if you follow me at all, you know I have gotten into playing a game called Elite: Dangerous. (http://store.steampowered.com/app/359320/)

It was recently released for XBox One as well. This matters later.

A little background on the game.

1. It’s huge. I mean, mind boggling HUGE.
2. It’s a space simulator. You fly around in a ship. One of my favorite game styles.
3. It has bounty hunting, smuggling, trading, mining, and exploring.. Almost a “What do I do?!”
4. It’s an MMO. Yet, you can play in a private group where you only see those in your group and NPCs.
5. No monthly charge. You got it. Pay once, and play until expansion.
6. Expansion has some nice features soon.

Ok, so..

Huge. What do I mean by huge?

It is the whole universe. I mean, every discovered star in the Milky Way as well as some that we have not discovered. They are even working on other universes so you can go from one to another. (Edit: I forgot to mention, that the images are based on what NASA and other organizations have. So those updated pictures of Pluto, they are in the game now.)

That’s big. Yet, that’s still not HUGE.

When you are flying towards a planet under normal thrusters, you see a measurement. Mm. Million Meters. You spin around and target, say, another planet in the distance. You see, Ls. Light Seconds. You decide to engage your Frameshift Drive and target another solar system, and you see. Ly. Light years.

Here is where it gets huge. If it was not for the Framshift Drive, those numbers, are actual game distance. Under the distance is time to get there at current speed, and there are times it says years. Yes, years. I have personally targeted something that said it was an hour away and just kept my current speed to check. Sure enough, it took an hour to get there.

HUGE.

Yes, you just fly around in a ship. A lot of people don’t like that. They want to actually get out and walk around. Sadly, that is not this game. Yet, you can fly in a wing with your friends. You can work together on things even. Heck, when the expansion comes out.. getting ahead of myself.

It is an open “world”. Meaning, while there are different jobs, you are not tied to a job. You can change at anytime, if you have the credits to afford the ship build that will let you live doing it. I was an explorer as example. Yet, the latest patch messed up exploring, and while they have fixed it, I have gotten into mining. I will stick with mining for sometime, and then go back to exploring after I have enough credits to not worry.

I did do bounty hunting for sometime, and while I am decent at it, the risk is too high for me. After all, if your ship is blown up, you have to hope you have enough credits to pay the insurance bill to get one matching it. Otherwise, it’s either a loan, or you start over in the sidewinder everyone gets for free at the start.

It is a Massive Multi-player Online game. There is a decent population of people in the game even, to the point they have faction wars that actually change what solar systems are under what faction. You can even join factions, but I don’t talk about this as I have not gotten that far into it. It’s another aspect of the huge I am learning.

The nice thing I like though, as with any MMO game that is based on credits and gear, is that I can get away from those who kill for sport and just play in a private group, or even solo. What you do in that group, in solo, or even “open play” where people can hunt you down and kill you for kicks, can be moved to any of the areas. The save for your character is applied to all forms of play.

This means, what I do in solo, is automatically there in the others. You are not tied to a specific style of game play. You can do solo until you have what you think you need to survive in open play.

Back on the huge, you can also go to the fringes of space where people go all batty. There is less people, and less chance of being hunted.

No monthly charge. This is just like Guild Wars. You buy the game, not the playtime. I love this, as being in my current job stance, or lack there of, I can play a game and not feel completely guilty.

Like Guild Wars, it does have expansions and even items you can spend real money on. I don’t buy items with real money, but I will be getting the expansion.

Why will I get the expansion?

At this time, you can’t land on planets. You can’t fly a ship with your friend in the co-pilot seat. You can’t fly a carrier with other ships. Well, that last one isn’t completely true, but it’s a small carrier and the ships are sidewinders. The starting ship.

The expansion, gives us all of this, and even opens up other professions. It’s going to be amazing.

Now, they released a new patch that did introduce some bugs. Things that they are working on fixing as fast as they can.

It is expected though, as what this patch did.

They had a worldwide release of the game on the XBox One, as you could already use your XBox controller on Windows 10 to play the game, it was a natural jump. The servers, are shared.

This means, your friend who has the Mac version, and your friend who has the XBox One version, can play with you while you are on your PC.

Another amazing feature. Also, expected to introduce a few bugs as that’s a big change in the game.

So, as you know, I am doing Twitch streams. So, if you ever want to get a bit more detail, hop on over when I am live. Ask me a few questions, and I will let you know what I know. As I am still learning. Even better, if I am not “too busy”, if I don’t know, we can figure it out and you can watch what I see as we do.

Until next time.

-Z