Oolite Bulletins

I think Elite earns its place as being the first action game to move away from the "three lives and you're out" arcade mode. In this respect it was gound-breaking, and changed the world (of computer games) by recognising that home games were different animals to arcade games. You could play, make progress towards goals you set for yourself, save it off, and come back again later to pick up from where you left off. Every other action game before then was just an arcade clone, or at best perhaps a closed story that progressed towards a pre-determined conclusion.

And, while I'm at it, where's Populous?

Off-topic, Oolite got a namecheck in Friday's Grauniad crossword!

22 across: E. John's backing out of Italian rock

Answer: OOLITE

(OK, it was this kind of oolite, but still...)

I agree with Disembodied. Elite was the first 'open-ended' game ever. Every other game on the market at that time had a set goal, that once achieved, sent the player to the start of the game to do it all again. With Elite you kept going on and on and on. Other games were predetermined, "You must go here, then here, then here". Elite said "Go where you fancy." It was far and away more ground-breaking than any game that came previously. I mean if it didn't 'change the world' how come the first run sold 150000 units, which meant one for every BBC Micro in the world. That would only be matched if a company released a game that every PC, Mac and Linux user went out and bought. I think that's pretty much world changing.

Captain Hesperus

elite was also, I think, the first game to really do 3d in a decent way. I think it was also, at the time the "biggest game", due to the large number of systems and galaxies which were generated rather than stored (sometimes described as Fibonacci based).

I think it was also kind of unusual as it wasnt really developed by a studio, but rather by a couple of undergrads.

Q.

Iirc there was a game in the 80s which was the first to introduce the multi-player element of gameplay called M.U.L.E. I think it had something to do with land ownership on a new planet.

Is this correct?

Cmdr James wrote:

elite was also, I think, the first game to really do 3d in a decent way.

There were a number of 3D arcade games (using wireframe graphics on vector storage tubes, resulting in vastly better graphics than Elite). The first and probably best known is the original Battlezone (1980), whose hardware (no wussy software engines back then) was largely reused in pseudo-flight-sims like Red Baron (1980) and Star Wars (1983). I believe the idea of 3D vector flight sim games was explored before 1980 on high-end computers, but obviously that wasn’t mainstream.

Anyway, being the first 3D game wouldn’t constitute “changing the world”. Wolfenstein 3D wasn’t the world’s first first-person raycaster, but it and Doom made the genre dominant.

I think it was also kind of unusual as it wasnt really developed by a studio, but rather by a couple of undergrads.

That wasn’t very unusual in the eighties.

Battlezone was also modified by the US Military and was used to help train Bradley drivers...

Still, to this day, Star Wars (sit down version) is my favourite arcade machine of all time. I even had the chance to buy one a few years ago - but it was sooooooo expensive!

this list was probarbly voted for by 10 year olds (no ofense anyone who is ten) who only ever heard of pong, pac man and doom, and the rest are all modern ones, and guitar hero!!

WTF!!! thare are band games for the N64, such as that Samba Samba, guitar hero isnt a game that changed gaming.

and i beleive that Elite should be there because it was one of the first £d games, if not the first, where lines behing a "solid" section would dissapear.

Captain Hesperus wrote:

I mean if it didn't 'change the world' how come the first run sold 150000 units, which meant one for every BBC Micro in the world. That would only be matched if a company released a game that every PC, Mac and Linux user went out and bought. I think that's pretty much world changing.

Word.

O.K., not a game, but my point remains the same.

wackyman465 wrote:

Word.

O.K., not a game, but my point remains the same.

True, MS Word has had a great deal of impact on the world. Mostly holding it back, but that’s definitely impact.

wackyman465 wrote:

Captain Hesperus wrote:

I mean if it didn't 'change the world' how come the first run sold 150000 units, which meant one for every BBC Micro in the world. That would only be matched if a company released a game that every PC, Mac and Linux user went out and bought. I think that's pretty much world changing.

Word.

O.K., not a game, but my point remains the same.

Not really the same, since OpenOffice is a port of Mi¢ro$oft's Office for non-PCs (and PCs obviously), created by Sun Microsystems. MS Word is not compatable with Macs and Linux's without additional software. Elite, on release, sold one copy of the game for every compatable computer at that time.

Captain Hesperus

Captain Hesperus wrote:

MS Word is not compatable with Macs

If only.

Ahruman wrote:

True, MS Word has had a great deal of impact on the world. Mostly holding it back, but that’s definitely impact.

gogz69 wrote:

Q.

Iirc there was a game in the 80s which was the first to introduce the multi-player element of gameplay called M.U.L.E. I think it had something to do with land ownership on a new planet.

Is this correct?

M.U.L.E. is a game I played on a Nintendo game system. Players were prospectors/explorers developing the resources on a planet. There was an artificial economy in which players attempted to use their Multi-Use Labor Element(s) to gather minerals or grow food. Players then sold their generated commodities for credits (money) which was used for score keeping purposes.

http://www.worldofmule.net/tiki-index.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.L.E.

Ahruman wrote:

Frame wrote:

Guitar Hero, No. Wishful thinking, but it is mostly kiddies that wants this), adults use the real stuff ;-. well most do... Guitar hero is for people who either can't play or hates getting blisters...

A completely ridiculous statement. You may as well say that racing-themed arcade games are for kids who can’t drive for real, or Oolite is for people who can’t be bothered to do the work required to become astronauts. The purpose is not to substitute the “real” activity but to evoke the sensation for entertainment. Guitar Hero has a significant market of young–middle aged adults using it as a party game, which is an entirely different experience to sitting around playing guitars.

Now you cant quite compare a guitar to a sports car, or a guitar to a rocket/and or the education price for becomming an astronaut

They are at completely different price tags.. .

You can however compare Guitar Hero to the price of a standard classic Guitar+ the books and videos to learn to play...

Regarding the market.. maybe where you are at, but not where I'm at.. I still see it as a kid toy, and so too does a lot of my freinds, they would diss me so much if I ever bought it.. But that may be because we can all play the guitar.

.oO {The Kid in me would like to try the drums though...}..

So completely ridiculous no...

Frame wrote:

Now you cant quite compare a guitar to a sports car, or a guitar to a rocket/and or the education price for becomming an astronaut

They are at completely different price tags.. ;-).

That might have been relevant if I’d mentioned simulators, which I very explicitly didn’t. You don’t play a racing arcade game as a surrogate for real racing, you play it to have fun (and, to some extent, to invoke the general sensation of racing). You don’t play a space flight game as a surrogate for real racing, you play it to have fun. And you don’t play a guitar-playing arcade game as a surrogate for playing guitar.

I do both, and it would be very hard to confuse the activities. :-)