Elite on Kickstarter...

[adam]

it's the score arranged for 3 lutes and barbershop quartet, players will be able to turn off the game music and invite their local medieval band and singing barbers round to provide live atmosphere and crash cymbals when there are explosions

[Darkflame]

That actualy sounds fantastic.

*files mentaly in the "things to do when rich" box*

[adam]

would make an ideal kickstarter £5000 reward for anyone planning to do one.

[Jamesac]

Stupid lovely cloud video. Backed it. I want to play in the atmosphere of gas giants and graze the surface of suns.

James

[Istar]

I want to play in the atmosphere of gas giants and graze the surface of suns.

Yeah, me too. To be honest, Brabens' comment about players wanting to visit richly-detailed and populated cities on planets didn't resonate with me. Yes, I'd like to visit planets, and fly over them to collect fuel, or Tibanna Gas, or something, and it would be good if they have varied and interesting landscapes with the odd technical outpost to land at.

But I don't want to disembark and wander around dozens of cities just because it's possible - I want to fly around amazingly-rendered star systems, cruise asteroid belts, watch attack ships on fire off the Tanhauser Gate...

I want to visit strange new worlds, meet interesting people, and kill them.

With a beam laser.

EDIT: by the way, anyone playing this before Frontier spot it and have Apple yank it?
http://www.gamerealism.se/

[Darkflame]

Procedral citys would also probably take a whole separate kickstarter project to fund. You could burn a million pretty easily going into fractal detail on the layout,buildings,wear and tear etc.

[Flojomojo]

I want to visit strange new worlds, meet interesting people, and kill them.

With a beam laser.

EDIT: by the way, anyone playing this before Frontier spot it and have Apple yank it?
http://www.gamerealism.se/

I have the iPhone game, it's quite nice (and free, too). It's been there for months. It doesn't seem like Braben is going to do anything about it (nor should he, since HE isn't making a nice little iphone clone of the ancient game). I don't really know how to play (the glyphs are a big obtuse to me) but I know I'll get around to it sometime.

Your wishes neatly describe the conundrum -- does one ...

a. rely on a lot of procedurally generated worlds, creating the illusion of a really big space -- that is kinda samey and obviously computer generated? (Elite, of course. Starflight feels like this to me as well)

or

b. create a bunch of cinematic set pieces, with lots of detail, dialogue, and character -- that is expensive to create and is typically on rails, with little player choice other than to succeed or repeat the missions? (early 2000's spectacles like Rogue Squadron or linear books in a sandbox map like Grand Theft Auto)

or

c. a little of each, maybe text boxes delineating lots of fetch quests in a seemingly open but obviously crafted world, like so many MMOs that say "kill 47 bugbears and bring me their skins"

Chris Roberts' Star Citizen promo reel shows a lot of vacuously empty, meticulously detailed space and that's supposed to be thrilling. The Bioware games feature maps to explore with preset dungeon dwellers against whom you roll dice for effect. David Braben wants you to give him lots of cash for some vague promise of a return to form.

Can't someone just remake Wing Commander with a new soap opera plot and some online elements for a mobile phone, without turding it down with in app purchases? Galaxy on Fire 2 is the closet thing to what I want right now. These mega-Kickstarter reboots seem like they are going to disappoint.

[adam]

we may have touched on some procedural stuff before, could be a bit mud style, where players can make their own planets, though their own ships and space stations might be easier here, somewhere people can chat and nice looking planets to fly round would be enough, don't know if detailed cities are necessary, though might be nice to fly amongst skyscrapers etc

just looking at his concept paintings and thinking it'd be nice to have the game graphics rendered in a painterly style

[Christian]

I have the iPhone game, it's quite nice (and free, too). It's been there for months. It doesn't seem like Braben is going to do anything about it (nor should he, since HE isn't making a nice little iphone clone of the ancient game).

Well, technically DB can't do his own version of the original Elite for the Iphone without sorting out the copyright. He could do a version of FFE but that might not sell so well. Maybe an Iphone version of Elite:Dangerous will be a stretch goal.

Christian.

[Flojomojo]

I have the iPhone game, it's quite nice (and free, too). It's been there for months. It doesn't seem like Braben is going to do anything about it (nor should he, since HE isn't making a nice little iphone clone of the ancient game).

Well, technically DB can't do his own version of the original Elite for the Iphone without sorting out the copyright. He could do a version of FFE but that might not sell so well. Maybe an Iphone version of Elite:Dangerous will be a stretch goal.

Christian.

Hi Christian -- I liked your stuff. How close is Unknown to TNK?

Obviously I'm no copyright lawyer. I'm just referring to my own sense of entitlement, not what's legal. :-)

[Dio]

Procedral citys would also probably take a whole separate kickstarter project to fund. You could burn a million pretty easily going into fractal detail on the layout,buildings,wear and tear etc.

But that would be overkill for this project. You only need broad-brush strokes, and that's the beauty of procedural generation, you can simulate to only the scale you need.

[Christian]

How close is Unknown to TNK?

I don't have an iPhone so haven't tried Unknown. However, looking at the screen shots it looks like it is based on TNK but heavily enhanced and modified. The local star chart and data on planet are unmistakably from TNK, no other version of Elite does them exactly like that.

Christian.

[Christian]

Procedral citys would also probably take a whole separate kickstarter project to fund. You could burn a million pretty easily going into fractal detail on the layout,buildings,wear and tear etc.

But that would be overkill for this project. You only need broad-brush strokes, and that's the beauty of procedural generation, you can simulate to only the scale you need.

The trouble with a lot of procedural planet demos I've seen is that they look pretty but they are basically water and mountains. Having thousands of procedurally generated planets is bit pointless if they all look like uninhabited mountain ranges. There needs to be some signs of habitation at various levels of technology. Doing roads and stuff is a lot hard than clouds.

Christian.

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

Just do road shaped clouds

[Darkflame]

Roads can be done, thats not too bad, this thing makes nice city layouts:

(by the Darwinia people)

Its the idea of walking about that ramps up the requirements beyond pretty roads and nicely sized buildings.