So when was your First Encounter (fnarr, fnarr) of Elite

[Micha]

<snip>
Location Location Location & commercial spots... so it needs an investment as these cost real life currency...

Why the 'location' problem? Couldn't you just do this from home on your regular computer? After all, it's a 'virtual' business we're talking about here...

You need a good location inside the virtual world where you're going to be selling those virtual products to advertise/sell those vprods - and the good locations these days cost real-world credits because they're all taken.

[JohnnyBoy]

In the UK the self-employed have to pay VAT at 17.5% plus....

All so true. And all so depressing...

You need a good location inside the virtual world where you're going to be selling those virtual products to advertise/sell those vprods - and the good locations these days cost real-world credits because they're all taken.

I see your point Micha, and you're absolutely right. I've just tried to secure the domain name that I wanted, only to find that it's already taken. The cyber-squatter who is sitting on it will relinquish it for $1960.

[polyh]

In the UK the self-employed have to pay VAT at 17.5% plus....

In germany it's 19%. And we have complex tax laws, too. Just look at EU laws to get a hint. They're german bureaucracy combined with french work morale. German bureaucracy is as great as french work morale, combined they are pure awesomeness.

[reills]

Just found the box for my C=64 Elite in the attic this weekend (fall cleaning). I must have a look inside, find my ole 128 and see what I can do... (I should prove to be "Harmless")

[nijineko]

i am a late-bloomer. found oolite first, and haven't looked back. well, except for when i have some pirates riding my tail... (eat rear military laser, pirate!)

[Real Socialdad]

Elite Frontier on Amiga 600
I had had several computers before this - BBC Micro, Spectrum+, Commodore 64 Amiga600

I literally spent hours on the Amiga on 2 games - Elite Frontier, and when I wasn't flying round the Universe I was whipping Jimmy White in Snooker.

So are we saying that OOLITE is now being played by 40 something nostalic blokes recapturing the teenage years ...........?

[DaddyHoggy]

So are we saying that OOLITE is now being played by 40 something nostalic blokes recapturing the teenage years ...........?

Not quite, late-30-somethings (in my case) got my first C64 when I was 13 _ I cringe now at how much money my folks paid for it (£299 just for the 64 another £40 for the datasette - lest you couldn't load or save anything - CBMs lousy sale's approach as ever)

[Sarin]

So are we saying that OOLITE is now being played by 40 something nostalic blokes recapturing the teenage years ...........?

hey, that is totally untrue. For example, I never played original Elite...I'm in fact younger than the game itself (I think, or about the same, born 1987). It began for me a year or two ago when I had too much free time, and started browsing some abandonware sites...adn came across F:FE. It was fun, for some time...then I almost forgot about it, but when I later had to install Linux cause my 5 year old WinXP CD collapsed, I browsed available applications and found Oolite....

[TGHC]

So are we saying that OOLITE is now being played by 40 something nostalic blokes recapturing the teenage years ...........?

Young whippersnappers...........

[Star Gazer]

heh, heh, heh...

[drew]

So are we saying that OOLITE is now being played by 40 something nostalic blokes recapturing the teenage years ...........?

Not quite... 38 just gone!

Was the proud owner of Elite for the Spectrum from new though, Christmas 1983. Oh, the memories. I was only 13!

Oddly enough, 1983 was a bit of a banner year for me. My car (a Mk1 Golf GTI) was made in that year too - didn't own it at the time though!

Cheers,

Drew.

[Ensa]

First Played Elite on BBC at school in break, also I was the school geek (they were rare then) so I got to spend a lot more time in the computer room when I should have been in other lessons, and stay after school for a couple of hours.
I then bought it on disc (5 1/4!) so I could play 'properly' but a friend of mine corrupted it when I lent it to him.
I then didn't play it at all as I never had a Beeb and I didn't fancy getting elite for my electron or speccy as I thought it would be crap, until I caught one of my friends playing it on a C64 about 8 years later, so we spent the next year or so just taking it in turns playing an hour each, one flying one 'co-piloting' which means basically trying to out-do each other with our flying.
We were both fanatical 'if you die you are dead' (I still am, haven't seen him for 10 years at least) players so I am proud that I got to be Elite On C64.
Later I moved into a house and there was this guy living there who had Elite on an Amiga, so that was about another winter gone playing there, sleeping different shifts so we could get max playing time.
I then had an Elite Nostagia Episode maybe 3 years ago and spent ages putting together a DOS boot disk with an An Amiga emulator and an Image of Elite that you could boot and run from a single 1.44 FDD (it extracted to the HDD to actually run) I was totally chuffed to bits with that, but while searching for all the tools to do that I discovered Oolite.
I was quite in to coding and modding at the time and thought I would get quite involved in that side of things especially as development was happening more then but RL happened, so I had to leave it for a couple of years.
Now I am back.... Maybe......

[Goomsnargh]

I first saw Elite on a BBC at Secondary School...I stood there going "wooooh" for most of my lunch break.
I've played Elite on the Speccy, CPC464, Amiga and PC but never went past Deadly.
On the 464, I used to get incredibly frustrated with being boarded and killed by pirates ("Your ship is boarded by pirates, they leave no survivors") immediately after docking. It happened so often, I gave up playing that version.
I played both Frontiers, but not to anywhere near the extent I played Elite.

Now I'm impatiently waiting for the Oolite Wiki to come back online so I can grab some OXP goodnesses and start reading up on ship modelling

G

[DaddyHoggy]

Welcome - hope you don't have to wait too long for the wiki to come back up!

[JohnnyBoy]

Ahh, the CPC464 -- probably had the best keyboard feel of any of the British home computers.