Ironhound its difficult to get the gameplay of something like Elite across to people you obviously understand it as you play Oolite which is a fan driven open source tribute.

As far as I can tell Oolite is the passion of a bunch of Elite players who could not live without.

The gameplay of Elite is the gameplay of Oolite

hundreds of star systems

great 3d feel to it

The tracking of the players on the hud which was revolutionary - I still haven't come across a system that is as intuitive in modern games. (Vendetta Online is actually quite good)

and it had economics and physics which really had never been implemented in a game before.

Its hit 11,000 backers with something like 200 joining every day and will go past £500k in the next few days possibly today. That must place it right at the top in terms of KS backers.

Given that its more UK based and the site has only started up in the UK it probably has a smaller pool to draw from than SC. Nonetheless the figures are very impressive.

Financing always comes with a bit of risk to an extent that's the fun part. There's a chance that it might not get there and who knows maybe the implementation might not be what we all hope for. But that's true of any implementation.

I would prefer it was made and I didn't like it than it was never made and yes that is possibly I bias on my part.

Que?

I think they will make their goal as they still have 47 days to go but It will be at the low end if they don't pick up the pace a bit.

Very good point the Elite IP has been pretty much dead for the last 15 years unlike the Wing Commander games which made the break out to a movie, TV series, books ect which has kept it in the public eye. Also the Elite games are not as well know in the US as they were only released on the 16 bit computer like the Amiga and ST which were not as popular in America as they were in Britain and Europe.

Frontier missed a huge opportunity to reintroduce the games to a new generation of game-players a couple of years ago when Elite had it 25 anniversary

I know, Pinback and didn't we half howl about it at the time over on the Frontier Forum. A Golden chance that was.........

Yes... with one important difference: Oolite is not player-centric! There is other stuff going on out there... pirates killing traders, police killing pirates, and the player can choose to get involved... or not!

Watch the number on the kickstarter page.

11,280. This is the number as I'm typing this. Watch it over the next few days, it fluctuates. Somtimes its 230, sometimes its 340. Its jumped since I've been watching it. Some people leave, some poeple stay.

Don't get me wrong, I WANT it to succeed, but it just seems to be on really shaky ground. That being said, I contributed.

Exactly my thoughts. Maybe the Kickstarter page gets some more love during the x-mas holidays but at the moment, when compared to Star Citizen, it is just hilarious what Mr. Braben has to offer.

But even with that bad marketing in mind, I don't want ask myself later if I could have done more to make Elite IV possible. So I backed this project and hope that it will succeed. =)

This whole business with their Kickstarter reminds of Elite's anniversary in that they spent most of the year denying or just ignoring it only for their to be a mad scramble about a month before when they realized their was more media interest than they thought.

I completely agree, and it makes me scared, since I feel if it doesn't meet its requirements Elite is going to dissapear again. DB just hasn't put forth much effort to create Elite IV until now, which leads me to believe his heart just isn't in it.

I think DB pretty genuine in his desire to do the game, I think the problem may be that they don't have anything to show apart from some tec demo like the generation of clouds. We will just have to wait and see if they post anything more substantially in the next few weeks.

True Pinback, but this is why Chris Roberts knocked a homerun with Star Citizen. He came prepared to get his game funded and was probably one of the most updated and content driven funding programs I have seen. Just the concept videos alone would have sold this game, but the provided concept art on ships, sectors and gave descriptions and some lore behind them. Nice work, and Elite has to do the same or they risk not meeting funding. Because I think anyone that has loved Elite in the past has probably already pitched in, so now that leaves DB with pitching this game to people that have never played the original and to convince that you should spend money here too even though you bought into Star Citizen too <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

They NEED to show more on the kickstarter and be interactive with the community.

Hey Darkone, now that SC (WC/Privateer in all but name) is funded and Elite is getting there..sort of, did you ever think when you started this site that two of the biggest franchises in the genre would ever attempt a comeback? It's funny now to look back at a time when most people though that space sims were a long dead genre.

Well ive backed it with £50/$80 pledge, but must say atm im more looking forward to Star Citizen which ive backed with over £200. But hopefully now publishers and other devs will see that space games are what people want, plus i hope it gets funding as more space games the better <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wild.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//fans.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//biggrin.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

I wouldn't underestimate procedural generation. It could be so done so well and complex that our brains would never be able to notice the patterns. I personally can't wait to see what Braben is baking. He basically invented procedural generation in games and it is yet to be reveal whether he still is the master of it.

Hand made sectors don't guarantee quality content either. There are only so many sectors that a human can make before he/she runs out of ideas and starts repeating things. The sectors in X3, for example, feel very generic to me. They all feel like a bunch of randomly placed space stations with gate around them and some planets in the backround. Exploration in that game just isn't fun to me.

Freelancer, on the other hand, had a pretty diversified space. No system felt the same (partly due to sector-specific music). But after I explored them all a few times, it felt like I was running out of fun. I simply wanted more.

It would be awesome if players and NPCs were able to build their own stations on planets and asteroids. That would spice things up a little bit.

I don't think it is realistic to expect a good space sim from a large publisher. Space sims are best when they're sophisticated and large publishers have abandoned the hardcore crowd a long time ago. They'd try to make it a casual idiotproof experience => lacklaster experience in every area and no magic.

I also don't think that they own any studios with people who know what makes a good space sim, let alone how to make one. Except for THQ which has Volition.

small update from Frontier: a new bit of art work and the FAQ added too.

I'm not so optimistic. 554 thousands pounds and only 43 days to go. But I hope, Elite Dangerous will be funded...

Nearly three weeks in and I guess we are in the slack period now, although they are still pulling in about £50K+ a week.

Just wanted to ask any one out side of the UK what they think about the price of the pledges as in too expensive or just about right.?

I'm outside of the UK and I pledged £100. Prices are a little on the expensive side.

They have changed the pledges now and added a boxed edition at £60 for the standard one and £90 for the deluxe one, which has given me more incentive to up my pledge to £90.

A nice new vid (in-game too) - dogfighting amongst rocks with projectile weapons! Very cool!

Like the idea of damage models spilling there cargo as the fight continues also the bit about the ship giving off a bigger radar signal.

Hope the asteroid belts have moving rocks like the asteroid chase in Empire.

[media]

[heresy alert] I'm sorry... that SW clip just looks so naff! Terrible acting! [/heresy alert]

snip

Dunno if already said...but there this Dev-Vid with ingame action is something that should have been posted at the very beginning of the pitch!

Signed. I'd like to write more, but I have nothing more to add. :/