Oolite Bulletins

yeah very true, what can elite 4 really offer and improve upon, the big mistake egosoft made when they kept on releasing X games, was to make them all pretty much the same, the problem is, I think planet landings will be a problem, yes some games do have it, but not all that great, if elute 4 was to have it, then it would be very resource hungry, saying that I have seen a vid of a dark basic feature that that may include fractal generated planets, which does look pretty impressive, as the camera zooms into the planet, you can see mountains and fractal generated surface

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StAT0q4N ... r_embedded

eye popping or what, so I guess anything is possible,

but still, I aren't holding my breath for elite 4, it needs to be focused on GAMEPLAY!!!!! if its just centred around graphics then it will fail just like duke Nukem, and to be honest with you, wouldn't surpirse me if that hasn't already happened

ps there is a very good article on what went badly wrong with Duke Nukem, and well worth a read, I will try and find it, as the site I got it from is down at the mo


found it

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/f ... ukem/all/1

how not to make a video game, makes me laugh really, all they cared about was getting DNF on the best engine possible, they forgot a simple rule that many are making, its gameplay that makes or breaks a game, graphics second, it wouldn't have mattered if they had released it on the quake 2 engine, it would have sold, or the unreal one, after which move onto a sequel, but they never did, and they paid a price for that, serves them bloody right

I like the player investment ethic of oolite, that the only thing limiting the experience of this game is any one persons ability to get their hands dirty and make it better.

That's going to be difficult to top.

matthewfarmery wrote:

yeah very true, what can elite 4 really offer and improve upon, the big mistake egosoft made when they kept on releasing X games, was to make them all pretty much the same, the problem is, I think planet landings will be a problem, yes some games do have it, but not all that great, if elute 4 was to have it, then it would be very resource hungry, saying that I have seen a vid of a dark basic feature that that may include fractal generated planets, which does look pretty impressive, as the camera zooms into the planet, you can see mountains and fractal generated surface

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StAT0q4N ... r_embedded

eye popping or what, so I guess anything is possible,

but still, I aren't holding my breath for elite 4, it needs to be focused on GAMEPLAY!!!!! if its just centred around graphics then it will fail just like duke Nukem, and to be honest with you, wouldn't surpirse me if that hasn't already happened

ps there is a very good article on what went badly wrong with Duke Nukem, and well worth a read, I will try and find it, as the site I got it from is down at the mo


found it

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/f ... ukem/all/1

how not to make a video game, makes me laugh really, all they cared about was getting DNF on the best engine possible, they forgot a simple rule that many are making, its gameplay that makes or breaks a game, graphics second, it wouldn't have mattered if they had released it on the quake 2 engine, it would have sold, or the unreal one, after which move onto a sequel, but they never did, and they paid a price for that, serves them bloody right

Andrew Braybrook the C64 programmer of Paradroid and Uridium fame, in an interview claimed he wrote his games initially with no sound and only three colours - when they were horribly addictive then he added sound and snazzy graphics. Got to admire that.

It isn't that much difference between 3 colours and 16

Lucidor wrote:

It isn't that much difference between 3 colours and 16

11 -> 10000

Quite a big difference - it just depends on how you see it (and all of ABs games had fantastic interfaces - even Alley Kat which I think I was perhaps one of the few people to like)

Lucidor wrote:

I hope they don't make an mmorpg of it, or keep it as an option.

One of the only snippets of real information from David Braben in recent interviews, is that when Elite IV comes out, it will be in two versions. A single player version will come out first, followed later with a massively multiplayer version.

Myself I will probably buy anything that is released, but its the massively multiplayer game I've been dreaming about for the last 25 years.

In the nineties I used to dream about playing against all other Elite players on a network too, but when such games arrived I realized how badly it works in reality.

I'd much rather have smart NPCs now.

Give me intelligent NPC's and an in-game IRC client for the Oolite-dev channel. I'll be happy.

Or I'd take a dedicated-server version for private hosting. If it were normal MMO, I'd pass entirely.

An mmo wouldn't work for many reasons, the main one is that only massivley rich companies like Blizzard can afford to keep the servers running long term, most all new mmo's die after about a year.

Although if the mmo super-giant World of Warcraft ever dies, there'll be a chance for another company to swoop in and fill the void, but I doubt it would be a space simulation the masses will flock to.

And thats what an MMO needs to survive, the masses pay the bills for the servers, quite simply, there aren't enough Elite fans out there to make an MMO version of Elite feasible.

Even when EVE online dies (it will, it's already showing the warning signs of a failing mmo) if Braben were shrewd and released this theorhetical Elite-MMO at that time, it would still suffer the same fate.

However, if it were to go the non-mmo online variety with dedicated servers, it would be profitable. Even without dedicated servers it could still sell, Modern Warfare 2 did quite well without it.

The biggest issues for me, if I will the single player game or not are; A: Will it be modifiable? B: will it have Newtonian physics? C: will they "reimagine" Lave and other classic elite worlds into OUR universe as they did with FFE?
If the answers are A: No B: Yes C: Yes to any of the above, I will forgo buying it.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Andrew Braybrook the C64 programmer of Paradroid and Uridium fame, in an interview claimed he wrote his games initially with no sound and only three colours - when they were horribly addictive then he added sound and snazzy graphics. Got to admire that.

And then they ported it to the ZX Spectrum, at which point they took all but 2 of the colours away again and swapped the sound for vague beeps.

But Uridium and Paradroid were still hideously addictive in those formats too...

Those fractal planets videos were very cool - made me realise Braben was sort of doing this kind of stuff in Zarch!

Griff wrote:

Those fractal planets videos were very cool - made me realise Braben was sort of doing this kind of stuff in Zarch!

Cor Zarch! Now we're talking, I actually played 'Virus' the forerunner of Zarch on my Sixth Form Art Department's Achimedes (my first intro to a mouse until I bought my Amiga a year later)

man, being a fan of the series since the original Beeb daye, i was DYING for Elite IV. they teased alsorts, getting out of the ships and walking around planets/stations. they had lush animation tests using dogs.
and nowt came out.
i got hacked off that he just did cack (to me) like rolloercoaster tycoon etc.
now there's rumours that Newtonian stuff etc is in the game. i've lost all interest. if he does the biz, it'll convert me and kncok my socks off, but at the mo, i simply don't care about Elite IV, espectially since i probably won't be able to make Vampires and Venoms for it!

ADCK wrote:

The biggest issues for me, if I will the single player game or not are; A: Will it be modifiable? B: will it have Newtonian physics? C: will they "reimagine" Lave and other classic elite worlds into OUR universe as they did with FFE?
If the answers are A: No B: Yes C: Yes to any of the above, I will forgo buying it.

I'm guessing they will build on Frontier if they ever get around actually making the game. That would mean the same universe as in Frontier and Newtonian physics. Modifiable, that's a maybe. Probably not.

What you are asking for is a commercial version of Oolite. Why would you want that?

It should be quite easy to implement an "original elite flight computer" and make the ships fly as aeroplanes as an option though.

ADCK wrote:

Although if the mmo super-giant World of Warcraft ever dies, there'll be a chance for another company to swoop in and fill the void, but I doubt it would be a space simulation the masses will flock to.

10% of WoW's player base would be enough to keep 2 decent sized MMO player populations going.

Nothing is going to kill WoW in the medium term short of an asteroid colliding with the earth.

ADCK wrote:

Even when EVE online dies (it will, it's already showing the warning signs of a failing mmo) if Braben were shrewd and released this theorhetical Elite-MMO at that time, it would still suffer the same fate.

EvE hardly qualifies as a failing MMO. In MMO terms, it has been around for donkeys and the playerbase has been steadily growing. I'd be interested to know what the signs of EvE being a failing MMO are. By all accounts, it has been a very successful MMO and there is a difference between a successful MMO which is nearing the end of its life (doesn't look likely for EvE) and an MMO that is failing (definitely not EvE, something like Age of Conan might be a more accurate look at a Failing/failed MMO).

That said, all MMOs do eventually die, because people eventually get bored of computer games, thats just how things are. The problem with MMOs is once the interest goes, you don't have the player population to sustain the cost of running servers or updating the game.