You may want to direct some of your remaining attention to Limit Theory.
How is that project going, McLane? I've given up trying to follow it on the forum (it's mostly beyond me).
The prototype is out since beginning of May, and it looks pretty impressive. Here's a list of videos. I haven't watched them all.
One of the latest additions (post-prototype) are stunningly beautiful fractally generated nebulae. The current look of the planets isn't too bad, either.
Braben has seriously annoyed a lot of hard-core Elite fans by promising things in the past, not delivering and not even apologizing for the fact. I hope the new game is good but considering the 'history' a degree of scepticism is entirely understandable.
I still have one foot in this camp, to be honest, but since this venture is the first time DB has directly involved the fans and really put his reputation on the line, I don't think he can afford to let us down this time.
Now I've stopped laughing....
E:D is irrelevant to the future of Oolite. It is a commercial enterprise drawing on some heritage that Frontier developments has for marketing purposes. Anyone reading the threads on E:D will see that it will actually have very little in common with Elite except the name. It will be multi-player and almost everything I've read suggests that the game and the gameplay will be nothing like the original Elite.
Oolite is a self-contained community which has broadly stayed true to the spirit of Elite and has maintained the canon and interest in the game for many years. I see no reason why that should change, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if in years to come Oolite is still flourishing long after E:D has been superceded by the Next Big Space Sim.
Hi everybody,
I can join to this. I found this game just a few months ago but I do not seen anywhere these expandability which provided by the OXPs. I am a programmer and up to now I played more with the .js making than the game itself (so some new OXPs will be coming soon ).
<meta>I just love how the Oolite community completely ignores the trollish nature (obvious controversy in all caps) of the topic</meta>
It never occurred to me that this was in any way intended as trolling . Initiating a discussion or making an observation, yes, but not trolling. No such thing on this board.
I'm probably a bit naive in that respect though.
"A brilliant game of blasting and trading... Truly a mega-game... The game of a lifetime." (Gold Medal Award, Zzap!64 May 1985).
<meta>I just love how the Oolite community completely ignores the trollish nature (obvious controversy in all caps) of the topic</meta>
It never occurred to me that this was in any way intended as trolling . Initiating a discussion or making an observation, yes, but not trolling. No such thing on this board.
I'm probably a bit naive in that respect though.
A testimony to the character of this community.
I feel much the same as Gimi. When visiting these boards it doesn't even occur to me that somebody could be intentionally trolling. Questionable choice of words, yes. Misunderstandings, yes. Overexcitement, yes. Even a bit of immaturity from time to time, yes. All these happen, and have happened in the past. But trolling, that's just not an option in this pocket of sanity on the intertubes. I mean, we have members coming back after three years of absence and apologizing for their possible lack of maturity back then. This is not the same universe as the one where trolling is an issue.
I backed Elite: Dangerous, and I'm eagerly looking forward to it. But I don't think it'll compete directly with Oolite. Oolite, despite all its new features and extra eye-candy, still feels to me like playing the original Elite. I'm expecting E:D to be more like a total reboot of the Elite universe that'll keep some broad similarities to the original but have its own distinct spirit.
I actually got into Oolite as an indirect result of the E:D Kickstarter campaign (a friend and I were excitedly talking about E:D at a party, and ended up downloading Oolite to show another friend what the original Elite was all about). So we might even see an increase in interest in Oolite, from players who want a taste of "classic" Elite but also enjoy things like the modern graphics, upgraded AI, and fan-made expansion packs.
This could have been written by me if you hadn't got there first
).
Looking forward to them. 
. Initiating a discussion or making an observation, yes, but not trolling. No such thing on this board. 
