Oolite Bulletins

With Elite Dangerous (ED) around the corner (which release is uncertain of course) it will be interesting to see in what way this new game influences (or not) the future of Oolite.

Will Oolite go down in history as the game that 'bridged the gap' between Elite in the past and ED in the future?
Will the community leave en masse and play ED?
Or do you think Oolite will be going strong and will offer a strong platform besides ED.
I know that 1.77 is the next release with lots of new goodies. But what is the path after 1.77?

All sorts of questions that come to my mind in relation to Oolite when I look at the ED project.
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For myself the answer is that I will keep a close watch on the Elite Dangerous project but everything I like is already in Oolite.
So I keep supporting Oolite. Besides I do not have a very new PC and I'm currently not in the situation that I can grab a new system. So Oolite will be my home base.

I'm also worried that the wow-factor will be short lived. Although some commercial titles have managed to keep me playing. Freelancer and Galaxy on Fire 2 (on IOS).

But I'm curious in what way Oolite will continue to develop
What do you think? I ask this question out of pure curiosity and I would hear your opinions. Bear in mind that this question is meant to be an open discussion and not a game wish list. That is also the reason that I did not post this question in Suggestion Box but in Discussion.

Hopefully Oolite will continue.
With all of the work that has been put into it by developers and oxp writers I am sure it will as long as users keep enjoying the game.

I can't see an exodus from OOlite to E:D. Many may well end up playing both, but no matter how good E:D is, it is not likely to be able to approach the flexibility and mod-ability of Oolite.
Also, it is far from clear at this point thet E:D is going to be cross-platform, and it ain't going to be Free in any sense.
As for Oolite, I hope it continues developing as it does now, maintaining the canon of Elite but with improvements. For the future (probably after a complete re-write ) I'd like to see much higher limits on things like maximum entity numbers and further inprovements in graphics rendering. Bigger, more complex and more realistic stuff is what I'd like to see.
1.77 is going to have some big changes in some important areas, so I'm waiting for that before I want to think too far ahead.

The strongest part of Oolite is its community.

I know no other game where, for example, a "I would like an integration of the ClearHUD with Sniper Sight" post on the forum has as result that I can just download what I asked for within a week.

pagroove wrote:

Or do you think Oolite will be going strong and will offer a strong platform besides ED.

I think they're likely to be sufficiently different games that there will be plenty of room for both. From what's been said so far it seems that ED will be much closer to Frontier than to the original Elite in terms of setting and game mechanics - Sol and human-centred galaxy, newtonian flight, consistent scale, etc. - none of which are likely to be considered desirable features for Oolite.

Other than a few ship designs and a common heritage and sandbox-style I don't expect them to end up as particularly similar games.

pagroove wrote:

I know that 1.77 is the next release with lots of new goodies. But what is the path after 1.77?

Fix the bugs that come out as people play with 1.77, let the OXPers stress-test the new features a bit, and then release a new stable release as 1.78. (Which is not what you were asking, I know. I'll talk more about my ideas for new 1.79 features once 1.78 is out and I have time myself to think about them in more detail)

Smivs wrote:

I'd like to see much higher limits on things like maximum entity numbers

While the hard limit is still 2048, trunk does cope a fair bit better than 1.76. In 1.76 I generally got a frame rate of around 30, limited by the CPU - in trunk I'm pretty much always running at 60 (which is the limit of my cheap graphics card and monitor) with plenty of CPU time to spare. Optimisations will continue, of course.

I will probably end having a go at E:D. I might even end up playing it on a regular basis. I will not, under any circumstances decommission "Precarious Penumbra". The community and adaptability of Oolite is what has kept me coming back. I don't think E:D will have that.

This may come across the wrong way and sound slightly creepy but personally I *LOVE* having control.
I can see sand box elements in E:D but not to the level we have.

This does not mean that we should not be behind the production however. We are Darjeeling, E:D is Assam. Both tea, fundamentally different yet the same.

I leave you with this thought. David created the raspberry PI to make access to computers affordable so there is a possibility of a second Renascence in programming. Give the children the toys and they WILL play. We have a game, but that's just there to get people interested. The REAL game is the sand box.

We share the same ideal, but the money (and perception of money lost) keeps on getting in the way to the detriment of ALL.

I've met good and smart friends here, I've built ships and maps I didn't even think I could create. I've challenged myself with a significant workload and not only completed it but gotten MORE than enough praise for doing so. I doubt I would have gotten such benefits from E:D. Also: I like spending time with fellow digital socialists (and if your here, then you CAN do, and ARE being, digital socialists). Psychologically, what is done here and what is allowed to be done by others is incredibly important for a wider sense of well being, achievement and accomplishment.

This is a game for the soul. Which can be played on several levels. That is its virtue, it's genius and why it cannot be allowed to die.

Thank you. For posting ideas and thoughts so far. Keep them coming...
So so far: very lovely to see that the community is what makes and defines Oolite. I think the same way.

Secretly I hope that we have a little bit influence on names, planets, ships in E:D. So anyone who pledges jus ask on David that he plays Oolite (with OXP's) for a bit of inspiration.

pagroove wrote:

So anyone who pledges jus ask on David that he plays Oolite (with OXP's) for a bit of inspiration.

Sometimes I wonder if David Braben or Ian Bell are not here already, hiding behind some innocuous alias.

We are, after all, their "fan base".

Gimbal Locke wrote:

pagroove wrote:

So anyone who pledges jus ask on David that he plays Oolite (with OXP's) for a bit of inspiration.

Sometimes I wonder if David Braben or Ian Bell are not here already, hiding behind some innocuous alias.

We are, after all, their "fan base".

That could be. true .

I won't stop playing Oolite. I have been very tight on money and despaired of having anything nice... Then I found open-source, which led me to Oolite.
This game has shown me that the entire world of gaming is NOT commercialized, that a single-player game is still capable of absorbing one's attention, and that with enough determination the problems generated by commercialized games and platforms can be easily sidestepped.

Oolite is the best game I've ever played, and the only game I can say that I've helped improve in conjunction with other players. That means a lot to me.

I'm very curious about E:D, but I seriously doubt that will have two characteristics that are very important for me: to be free software and to work under gnu-linux.
Without them, it will remain a curiosity for me.
At the moment, I'm happy with Oolite and Pioneer. Two games that have a very active and costant development. It's very exciting playing a game that evolves constantly.

Gimbal Locke wrote:

Sometimes I wonder if David Braben or Ian Bell are not here already, hiding behind some innocuous alias.

Ian Bell is in fact a member of this forum - he never posts, but he is a member.