Nostalgeek

Mate I know what you mean, but really my point is to see it this way:

I discovered this game yesterday thanks to you guys did read a lot about it, how the development started in 2004 and not much excepted a few amazing shots and tech videos did came out until now, and that the project was lead by a single guy doing..EVERYTHING by himself. Yes, my internal alarm went "vaporware"-crazy after that.

Then I did read that news.

And honestly, this news just changes everything: IF that game is ever released, it's more likely to happen now than before the news. That's still too small to build any kind of real trust, but it's still an improvement

pubzombie

I am wondering whether there is enough of a fanbase for this to do a Minecraft?
ask them to release a very cheap payfor Alpha that could supply them with income to complete and we 'fans' of the genre take a gamble and put our hands in our pockets.
If the game that should have been made by Lego can do it becuase of a simple but clever mechanic, sure an iconic game such as this could go viral?

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Nostalgeek

Mmmh...actually I thought about it too but in the end I don't think it could do a Minecraft.

Reason is, when Minecraft was released and even if it was alpha or even pre-alpha, you still had a good skeleton of a game with stuff to actually do: explore of course, but also craft, dig, create, construct - you name it...it was a real single player sandbox game already. Ok it was buggy and poor in content and got boring after a while as you had not much to achieve - it catched enough players for them to spread the word and get it viral. Then it was easy..the core of the game was already good enough so only thing needed was to fix bugs and add features and content gradually. And I love Minecraft btw

Now back to Infinity, the problem is the kind of game it's supposed to be makes it difficult. It will be an MMO, and it's a goddamn ambitious one. Basically the only alpha or pre-alpha version that could quickly be released would be: having a universe generated and explore around it, see awesome planets and stuff. Good enough? I don't think so. As amazing as it would be for a little while, it would eventually get old. And once it is launched, you have to be pretty reactive adding stuff quickly for the interest not to slowly die out. It was quite easy for Minecraft...another story for Infinity. Player interactions, combat system, planets surfaces, basically giving the players stuff to do, nothing is done yet. Well, there is an old combat playable prototype, but it doesn't feel and look at all like the 2010 Tech Demo.

I for one would love to play such a Tech Demo, but I believe the way they finally decided to go is probably the better one in the expectation of playing a real game one day, so I keep my fingers crossed

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pubzombie

yeh I agree - good points. I would be perfectly happy with a non mmo elite clone. Just frontier for a new age would be nice

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The Truth is a Construct; War is simply the '...continuation of politics and policy with the admixture of other means.'

Djay

The prototype is built on a much older build, it is only used for the coder to test network protocols

The latest version of the alpha is very different to renders of the game engine which make up most of videos on YouTube...

... It been a long time coming, but is been viewed by the public for a long time, enough time for forum goers to discuss gameplay mechanics, dynamic stock market and hell, whether you should be able to paint your ship pink! The coder has listened hard to the awaiting fans and their influences and desires has helped shape the game

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Commander Breakpoint - Elite: Dangerous

pubzombie

Just downloaded an indie game on xboxlive, called Final Rift [came out 07/02/11] and the blurb states
it seems to be a very good frontier clone.
http://www.xblaratings.com/component...728-final-rift
Final Rift costs 80 Msoft points. less than half a pint of beer!!!!! got to be worth a try, i will spend more time with it tomorrow but it seems to be very good at first glance
It seems more objective based in the long game than frontier - less openended perhaps but seems sandbox and epic in scale. will let u know

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NovaCoder

David Braben - Elite's 25th Anniversary

pubzombie

UPDATE - this game I really love, its more intuative and consequently not as deep as Frontier and Elite, until you get a few hours in. But it is VERY VERY GOOD. cant recomend it enough
for about 50pence

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Geraldine

Hi Folks
I've noticed Pioneer gets a few mentions in this thread so I just thought I would let you know the project has just had a new alpha 24 release. I've just finished updating it's page on ModDB with the windows version, so do drop by if your interested. Here is a link http://www.moddb.com/games/pioneer

Linux (32 & 64 bit) and Mac OSX versions also available from Pioneer's own site here http://pioneerspacesim.net/download

There is also a section for Pioneer, Oolite and FFE3D (amongst other things ) over at Space Sim Central here http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/for...ming-projects/

Have fun out there people!

Oh and here are some screen shots

Attached Thumbnails

   

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Geraldine

john1979

64 bit prebuilt for Linux. Doesn't get any better than this

Reading this thread has got me thinking about trying Frontier Elite for the first time (never played it back in the day). Can anyway tell me if the frame rate will be acceptable on an A1200 with some fast RAM? (no accel).

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Geraldine

Hi John
You should be ok with that setup, although you might try reducing the detail level a bit as that will help too.
Also don't forget to try out the Special Edition of Frontier available here at EAB. Here is a link to save you digging http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=57905 (Frontier Elite II Special Edition)

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Geraldine

Buzzfuzz

Ahh the good ol' days of Frontier, yeah I used to play it a lot and even the shown screenshot FFE3D on the PC, buggy as hell, but well worth the play.

But it just can't compete with the X-line, like X3 Terran Conflict.
That is just so much more and so more advanced.

But if I feel up to it, I will start a new game in Frontier.

jamotide

X3 is great, has better gameplay,depth and the economic part is amazing. But the atmosphere is crap, the galaxy feels very artificial. In that regard it cant compete with Frontier, where you can land on real planets and watch the suns go up and down or travel to the stars you can see at night. Thats why I still fire up Frontier once in a while.
I have often tried to play Frontier First Encountersbecause of the better graphics, but combat seems impossible, whats up with that?

Geraldine

FFE used a similar Newtonian flight model to what Frontier uses, although I always felt that Frontier ships were better to fly. If you want to play FFE in almost it's original form, I would recommend you get hold of a copy of JJFFE. This is a modded version of the game that improves the flight dynamics (amongst other things) by linking each of the thrusters dotted around the ship to the numeric keypad.

And yes combat can be tricky to learn but persevere! Once you get the hang of it, you will realise that is how combat in space would actually be like, remember your not flying an aircraft

Here is some tips straight from Frontier veteran DraQ: http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showpos...06&postcount=5

Here is a link to JJFFE (plus all the other remakes of Elite III, including GL FFE and FFE3D)

JJFFE (closest re-make to the original game, the videos only work in this version): http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/fil...ory/154-jjffe/

GLFFE (slightly improved visuals over the original and big increase in resolution): http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/fil...ory/153-glffe/

FFE3D (full on graphical makeover, new ship models, new panel, still to be finished but playable): http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/fil...ory/41-ffed3d/

Hope that helps you jamotide

EDIT: Just remembered about GL Frontier! This was an early re-make of Frontier that was based (shock/horror ) on the Atari ST version. This is more or less the original Frontier but with some graphical improvements and runs on Windows & Linux. Tom Morten, the creator of Pioneer did this conversion too. Source also available if anyone fancies porting it to something else

Anyways here is a link to that http://tom.noflag.org.uk/glfrontier.html

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Geraldine

lordofchaos

Cool thread, I too have been playing frontier recently, it's a game I always come back to because it's just so dam good! Anybody tried out Evochron mercenary yet? I bought a copy from steam yesterday, so far I like it, seems very Frontier like indeed. The only gripe I have about this game is the interface, at times feels too cluttered.

john1979

Thanks for taking the time to link me to the Special Edition.

Geraldine

I only tried out the demo and yes, very "Frontier like", there just seems to be something missing though, mmmmmmm not sure what

Hey your welcome John, have fun with it, but watch out for the set speed bug. Put in double the speed you actually want. This is a well known bug that effected the CD32 versions. I really wish some elite coder would come and fix it

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Geraldine

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wlcina

I am playing Evochron Mercenary, its very similar to Frontier, www.starwraithh.com is the website, if I remember correctly

Cherno

My brother once played Elite II: Frontier many years ago and the infamous warp bug happened to him (it's desribed in the wiki article, basically the program has a programming error where a simple math calculation can result in a wrong value under certain circumstances), he wanted to jump between two near systems and got transportet literally to the other side of the galaxy! When he opened the star map, he was like 20 screens/quadrants away from the point he originally wanted to go to.. Fun times!

Geraldine

Oh no Cherno, thats not a bug, its a miss jump. It can be avoided by getting the hyper drive service regularly, I used to do mine every 6 to 10 months or so. However, there was a bug in 1.01 versions of the game that allowed jumps of 650, 1300, and so on light years. This "Worm Hole" bug was removed from later 1.05 versions though.

Another bug was the "Cargo Space" bug, buying a ton of rubbish (or was it water ) and clicking just below the jettison button while in flight, wouldn't eject the cargo but would register it in the available cargo space calculation. So, you could have a ship of unlimited cargo capacity and be able to say fit a class 7 hyper drive to an Eagle, giving it an unlimited jump range and the most powerful weapons.

Finally since I am on the subject of Frontier cheats, there is a game hack for floppy disk versions of the game on the Aminet by Andreas Kardin. You can fly any model in the game, from missiles to Long Range Cruisers and everything in between, change thruster ratings, cargo space and so on, here is a link

http://aminet.net/package/game/patch/FrntTrn2

There are also other hacks and useful info on Aminet too like this one for playing Frontier on non 15 KHz displays

http://aminet.net/package/game/patch/Frontier2AGA

Have fun!

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Geraldine