So I play quite a lot of Elite Dangerous, I believe I currently have over 2 weeks of playtime wracked up on my account and I have several things that I love about the game and a LOT of opinions about where I feel the game currently is and where I would like it to be. Please note that everything written below are my opinions and what I have gleaned from reading the Newsletters and a small amount from developer only posts on the Frontier forums.

Elite Dangerous – Current State

In it’s current state, Elite currently offers 29 different flyable Ships, 2 different faction systems, reputation grinds, an economy system, PVP and PvE combat, Mining, Trading, a mission system, cooperative play systems, exploring and a galaxy so large it terrifies the heck out of me. I don’t think I have missed much out there, but if I have i’m sure someone will remind me.

Elite is a very diverse game and for a Sci-Fi nerd it’s a fantastic experience. Anyone who says “there is nothing to do” in the game is clearly talking out of their arse or has only been looking at trailers or gameplay on youtube. I’m going to hesitate to call the game an MMO here but it essentially is, the cost of some of the more expensive ships can take the layman player days of gameplay to earn (I should know I fly an Anaconda) but it’s not just the time requirement of the game, as it can be played in Solo mode to avoid encounters with other players, but in my opinion that is in some ways defeating the point of the game. The majority of experiences with a player that happen outside of the stations in the game can be compared to meeting players in multiplayer open world zombie survival games. you both see each other and think “is this person going to try and shoot me, can i escape?” Equally well, the other person is thinking the exact same thing. However I have rarely been attacked by other players, other than in Combat zones where I have selected the opposing faction and other players give themselves the challenge of fighting me, instead of the 50 or so NPC ships flying around.

Currently Elite is a game that offers players a fantastically beautiful world to explore and exist in, with some minimal plot to loosely tie it together. I will dive into it more in the next section, but the story they are currently weaving regarding the president and how the entire political system is changing is very interesting. The community events also offer small snippets of story, this is how I would continue to add to the game and adding character is also something that I think the game needs more of.

The other character building segment of the game is the Powerplay system, which gives commanders the choice of 10 different characters/factions to fly under, and also gives players another way to earn money in the form of a ranking system, with each weekly cycle awarding the player money depending on their current rank up to a maximum of 5.

The final bit of “character building” is very much a community driven aspect of the game, which is the player created minor faction system, allowing players and groups to create their own factions, the most well known of which (at least to me) would be Kate Russell’s Hammers of Slough group, currently residing up at Slough Orbital. (Also if you haven’t read Kate’s book Mostly Harmless you really should, it’s fantastic) although I will admit, i’m not sure what players can do with these factions, beyond simply earning rep.

So for the majority of players, the game is all about the ship they choose to fly around, and setting their own goals based on what they want from the game. If a player decides they want to be a bounty hunter, they may want to set their sights on the powerful Fer de Lance which I was flying for a while, If a player decides to go full trading they they may choose to fly the Type 9, before graduating to the Imperial Cutter or Federal Corvette, if they can get over the Rank grind to fly those ships.

Elite Dangerous – The Future?

Okay, at this point I think I have managed to cover most of the game’s systems and what it currently is, Now we are going to start dipping into opinion land, as well as some of the Newsletter items.

Engineers

Engineers is the big upcoming feature that is still in development and at the time of writing is not even in Beta, although has been discussed in several recent newsletters. This new system will allow players to gain reputation with various engineers around the galaxy, these engineers will have their own portraits, much like the powerplay faction’s leaders. it was also put out in one of the recent newsletters that Players will be able to design their own avatar’s, possibly in preparation for the upcoming updates allowing players to move around their own ships, and public areas. In my opinion (that word again) This is exactly what the game currently needs, more character, more story. The Elite universe is ripe for storytelling possibilities (See Kate Russell, Allen Stroud and Drew Wagar) which I sincerely hope frontier get stuck into.

Future Expansions

One particularly exciting prospect that frontier will be adding Atmospheric Planets into the game, right now we are limited to moons, which while pretty to fly down into are little more than more mission hubs, with SRV being another vehicle and bit of fun to drive around on planets, although it has given us a precursor to the upcoming crafting system to be introduced in the Engineers update. One thing I am really hoping Frontier do Implement is the one feature that i believe was first mentioned back in the premium beta. The idea of passenger transportation missions which were intended to be Multi-stage missions that would take commanders across multiple systems collecting different cargo and data packages along the way, and the ability for commanders to have passenger accommodation instead of flat cargo space. This is one feature I REALLY hope Frontier do return to as it could have such a big impact in terms of spicing up the variety in the current mission pool. Another thing I would like Frontier to consider adding (although this is pure player desire and will probably never happen) Is the idea of player customized housing, this would give players another reason to feel more like the exist in the world, rather than just piloting a ship around. I am well aware that player housing has been a requested feature in every game of this ilk, with some developers implementing it as a central mechanic (see Wildstar and going back further than that the original Guild wars with Guild Housing) but I think this is something that players could potentially funnel money into as well as their Ships.

In conclusion, Elite Dangerous is a game I will probably never stop playing. I may leave it for a few weeks but because the game has no central storyline, campaign or anything like that it forces the players to make their own goals, like the Distant worlds expedition, or just that one guy who wants the newest shiny ship in their space garage. Elite is a game whose development is influenced heavily by it’s playerbase, and Frontier have been very good at listening to that base and I am very confident that they will continue development in a healthy manner, not rushing features just for the sake of it.

I hope I have done a good job of summing everything up here, If you would like to send me a message about this please do, Either on the blog itself, or on my twitter which is @portchd. Or you can email me with your opinions and ideas, which I will potentially be writing a follow up to this article at some point with responses and further ideas. I can be contacted at portchd@outlook.com if you would like, I heartily welcome any and all feedback.

I will also be doing more writing on games, gaming and the games industry so stay tuned to this blog and hopefully one day I could be doing this for a living! (Pipedream? Maybe…)