Oolite: A British Phenomenon?

General discussion for players of Oolite.

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Seawolf
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Post by Seawolf »

1984 School BBC. While teachers not looking. Things don't change much do they?
1985 Home spectrum. Serious cause of family rows about who's playing next.
1995 PC FFE - very disapointing.
2004 PC elite - still rather disapointing
2004 emulated spectrum on symbian mobile - cool. A few Russian clones added non player centric features.
2005 Elite ank
2005 elite platinum -nice
2006 oolite - I'd been drooling over screen shots for about a year before the PC port was bestowed upon a grateful world. Brilliant.
praxis22
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Post by praxis22 »

Somebody dropped me a link to oolite in nostalgic comment I made about Elite on the Darkstar One forum at Gamespot.

I'm a Brit, played Elite on the Spectrum, and the Amiga, but I hit deadly, (once) and then dangerous, (second time around) on the C64. Never could get on with the spectrum version, more because of the frustrations of lenslok than anything else.

20+ years later a mate and I still discuss this game, same with Halo, some games just stick with you I guess. The only quirk I had with the game was that due to an accident involving my 64 and the cupboard door, I lost my "run/stop" key, which meant I had no pause. this meant if I got into a fight, got caught short, or dinner was announced, I had no choice but to fight my way into the next station.

Used to run loaded with around 10t of precious metals, to atract pirates and thargoids. Never travelled empty, as then I could pay for my fuel and missiles, etc. I actually made more money speculating in gold really. buy at one price, sell at another. Made a small fortune that way, but it was a real bitch when you had to use the esacpe pod to bail, as then I usually lost around a quarter of my wealth too.

Luckily I have a gentoo box to play on, as well as my primary XP box. I shall download and have a blast.
teedeepee
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Post by teedeepee »

I played on the school BBC and then on our own BBC in around 1984/5.

I used to have it set up on a desk and I'd drape sheets / sleeping bags all over the place creating a kind of tent that I of course saw as my ship.

I'll never forget the feeling when Commander Carruthers of the Space Navy sent me that message asking me to go after the Constrictor. I think I played right through the night after that!

Anyway, regarding my location, I was brought up in Southport near Liverpool and I lived there for 30 years before moving to Drogheda in the Republic of Ireland where I still am to this day.

I'd been playing Elite - The NewKind on the laptop, but I've just stumbled across Oolite and I must say that I'm impressed.
Forgiveness is the scent that the violet throws upon the wheel that has crushed it.
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Post by rowlie »

Actually I am from Leesti. But I have flown so long it makes it irrelevant.
My first ship was a Spectrum Type 1 which I upgraded to a Type 3 later on.
Later I bought an Atari cruiser which became a 1040 later on. Now I'm back- so watch MY space.
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Post by RVSJimbo »

I'm British, Currently living on the Isle of Wight.

First played Elite on the BBC B with cassette drive at the computer store that used to be on Bold St (I think) in Southport, whilst on break from my BEC/TEC National diploma course at Southport Tec.

Played later with Beeb + floppy drives, first a friends, then my own at North Staffs Poly.

Even later, found a version that would run on the Amiga 500, and the Beeb with a 6502 second processor. Now I HAVE a 6502 second processor (and at least three Beebs of different types) I can't find 6502 second processor Elite, so if you know where I might find it... :-)

And now, I'm into Linux, but I actually ended up running Oolite on XP because I'm having sound issues right now :-(

TTFN!

Paul
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cleopas
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Post by cleopas »

I'm from London

Progression has been from:

Acornsoft Elite on Acorn Electron (made it to Elite)
ArcElite on Acorn A3000 (Elite status)
Oolite on PC (only made a few kills so far, trying to find the spare time)

I found oolite by accident after spending the day searching google for a version of elite for my palm PDA. It is certainly a well kept secret
tomythius
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Post by tomythius »

I'm a Brit. I'm from Leicester but have family all over the place.
Off to Brighton in September to study at Sussex Uni.
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Sabreman
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Post by Sabreman »

Brit here too, from Nottingham :)

Raised on Speccy Elite, refined on the Amiga version, then lost in the wilderness for years before rediscovering the genre recently with things like Freelancer and the X games. The New Kind always had a pretty permanent spot on my HD though.

The funny thing is, in looking for the best modern Elite-type game I ended up coming full circle to Elite itself (or rather Oolite, of course). It's just the best, plain and simple. Others try to add too much or force a storyline on the player and the thing that's great about it gets diluted.
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Wunderbear
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Post by Wunderbear »

Hi there!

I'm also a brit - unfortunately, too young to have ever played the original Elite games when they came out (born 1990). I only got into gaming about 5 years ago.

Just recently spotted Oolite, having been searching for a version of Frontier, Elite 2 (The planetary landing is something that amazes me, no modern games have ever tried it). Just now started playing Oolite, and am just getting the hang of it.

In fact, just now, I was travelling to Zaonce to start off with. Spent 10 minutes jumping to the station, every so often zooming up close to other ships and ooh-ing and ahh-ing at them (much nicer looking than all these modern curvy ships). When I got to the station though, I got a bit... overexcited. I tried jumping the queue of ships and zooming past a Boa, I ended up as a 1-inch layer of shrapnel coating the side of the station. :D

Anyway, I will hopefully improve. So hello there!
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drew
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Post by drew »

Wunderbear wrote:
unfortunately, too young to have ever played the original Elite games when they came out (born 1990).
Grief, that's scary! :cry:

Welcome to the ranks of Oolite though!

Cheers,

Drew.
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Star Gazer
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Post by Star Gazer »

...you should worry... ...that's the same age as my niece's daughter... :shock:

but, anyway... ...it's good to see it attracting another generation! Enjoy... :wink:
Very funny, Scotty, now beam down my clothes...
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Wunderbear
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Post by Wunderbear »

Star Gazer wrote:
...you should worry... ...that's the same age as my niece's daughter... :shock:

but, anyway... ...it's good to see it attracting another generation! Enjoy... :wink:
We are the future. Panic.

Yes, I am glad. And I do seem to like the harsh shapes of Elite more than the pansy curves of the new generation. These, indeed, are the IKEA ships. :D
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Roberto
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Post by Roberto »

A man after my own heart - I like my ships angular and brutal! :)

(I got my first taste of Elite on the BBC B - first in black and white, then in colour thanks to a brick-sized 32K add-on! And I used to play Frontier on my old Pentium, before I embraced the ways of Mac.)
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Wunderbear
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Post by Wunderbear »

Roberto wrote:
A man after my own heart - I like my ships angular and brutal! :)

(I got my first taste of Elite on the BBC B - first in black and white, then in colour thanks to a brick-sized 32K add-on! And I used to play Frontier on my old Pentium, before I embraced the ways of Mac.)
Frontier still looks great. Now, it just looks like art deco instead of realistic. It looks real fun to play; the only other game that I know that has real-time atmospheric landings is Orbiter, and that's a REAL simulator so that's hard, and there's no spaceports. *bah*

I might do a Elite Ship Pic. I dabble in art; Deviantart link in my sig.
//My Deviantart//

Look on, and BEWARE!
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Rxke
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Post by Rxke »

Nice artilleryMechas, Wunderbear! 8)
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