BBC interview with creator of Elite

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2011/03/david_braben_-_an_elite_gamer.html

by whyleyc • 15 years ago

51 29 15 years ago

bbc.co.uk

wladimir4• 15 years ago

One of the comments on that article really hit home with me:

I personally think this just highlights everything that is wrong with the games industry at the moment.

Genius creator of an epic, brilliant, open-ended, proper clasic game is reduced to making cutesy, family-friendly gimicks that (here's the big sell) uses a motion controller. Woooooo - Big deal.

No games pubslisher nowdays would ever take a punt on what might end up being the next Populous, Civ or Elite games. Braben should be livid with the stagnation.

Sure, I understand the market mechanics behind the game industry these days, and do see he has little other choice. But it does make me feel a little sad inside. Things have changed so much in gaming, I don't think we can expect an Elite 4 ever.

reitzensteinm• 15 years ago

Woah, I think you're overreacting a bit there! Just like any other entertainment industry, money has entered the gaming industry and it has matured. Mainstream big games cost tens of millions of dollars to make.

But there are more cool projects happening on the fringe than ever before, led by small teams of indie and commmercial developers, willing to take on a whole bunch of risk and try new things. Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, Braid and the like basically are the Elites of the 21st century.

The most expensive games to produce are basically formulaic safe bets, but that should not take away from your enjoyment of the great games being made every day. In much the same way as the music charts being topped by pop rubbish shouldn't take away from enjoyment of the many great innovative bands with small(er) followings.

I think there's a good middle ground, too, which I think creates substantial value. Lots of high quality games take elements from existing successful games, and reshape them to make something fresh (but not innovative). This is basically what I'm attempting to do with my gaming startup (see: http://www.bigblockgames.com). But this approach is inherently cautious - I know it's not going to make me stumble on the next Minecraft!

wladimir4• 15 years ago

Ok, you are completely right there. I hadn't thought about that. I was just a bit awash with one of my childhood hero game developers now making shallow toys :)

jalada• 15 years ago

I would've asked: "Where's my Elite 4?" :(

iwwr• 15 years ago

The next Elite is stuck in development hell, delayed indefinitely.

However, I would think the next Elite should come in the form of a MMO.

stuhacking3• 15 years ago

You mean like Eve Online? :-)

http://www.eveonline.com/

Actually, this response is directed towards shogunmike also. Just in case you haven't heard of Eve, it's a spaced themed MMO very much to the tune of Elite. You can make a living mining, trading, fighting. The factions are split onto two levels: Corporations (companies that employ/hire individual players) and Alliances (gropps of corporations with similar vision/goals)

The ecomony is almost entirely player driven.. the materials are mined by players, the equipment is built by players from those materials. You are free to engage in hostile activity even in controlled space, although the penalty is severe.

It's worth a look. The freedom of play has allowed some players to gain notoriety even in the mass media (Note: exchanging game money for real world currency is a violation of the rules):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7256069.stm

wladimir4• 15 years ago

No no no not an MMO, please. Just a single player game with a huge world to explore and a nice immersive storyline. Like the original Elites.

Why does everything have to be MMO these days. MMOs usually revolve around doing repetitive 'work' to gain points so you can buy better stuff than other players, I find that boring.

(yes, EVE online is nice, CCP did an excellent job, but IMO we don't need another one of those)

shogunmike2• 15 years ago

Although there were basic market dynamics in Frontier and First Encounters, I always felt it was too straightforward to fly between Sol and Barnard's Star selling robots without any risk.

Market forces in an Elite-themed MMO environment would make it such an enjoyable experience. One can imagination hunting around star systems affected by war, supplying them medicine (or even black market weapons!), having to compete with other players to get the best deal.

Do I upgrade my trade capacity to make more of a profit or do I install a laser bank to reduce the risk of making any? What will the other guy(s) do? Can I hire somebody to protect me who will take a share of the profit?

Infinitely more fun than the 'grind...grind...grind...' dynamic that plagues MMOs these days.

Graham24• 15 years ago

I sorry, but what does he mean by "reintroducing into schools the kind of basic programming skills he learned".

He would have been a school in the 1970s, what school taught programming then and what on?

I don't believe that there was an actual computer class at any ordinary school in the UK at that time (outside of Eton or something) that'd teach you how to program.

Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

arethuza• 15 years ago

I started at Secondary school in '78 and there was at least one dial up terminal that was used by a few older kids - this was probably connected to a mainframe/mini somewhere.

By my later years at school (from '80) onward we had ZX-80s, ZX-81s and a couple of Apple IIs.

rwmj• 15 years ago

In the 1970s, my school (in Liverpool) taught computing on 30 or so terminals connected to an Elliott. Possibly an Elliott 803[1] although I'm not precisely sure.

In 1982/83 the Elliott was scrapped and replaced by ZX Spectrums connected via the proprietary and strange Interface 1 network, and a couple of years later by BBC Model Bs connected via Econet.

[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Elliott_803

creatorix• 15 years ago

I think you've got the right end of the stick, with one detail missing: yes, there weren't any computer classes in the 1970s/80s. But in some fee-paying schools in England, there were computers around, like BBC Micros.

Thus a few pupils learnt how to program without interference from teachers.

timclark• 15 years ago

It wasn't just fee paying schools that would have had BBC micros, the government was actively promoting computing in schools during the early eighties - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microelectronics_Education_Prog...

knotty66• 15 years ago

The history of Llamasoft by Jeff Minter is a great read.

Not exactly what you asked for as he begins in 1978 as a 16 year old just starting college and he learns most of it by himself rather than being taught.

http://www.wayoftherodent.com/guests/bob_yak2.htm

iujyhgtfhj3• 15 years ago

1981 my comprehensive in South Yorkshire had computer classes on an RML 380Z, by the time I did computer O level in 1984 we had BBC micros

squinn• 15 years ago

He recounts to Francis Spufford here

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Backroom-Boys-Secret-Return-British/...

that he learned to program on an Acorn Atom.

Still got mine :)

cletus• 15 years ago

I played Elite a lot on the Commodore 64 back in the day. Great game but at some point it was a little too directionless.

If anyone in the modern gaming era has captured that (semi-)open game play it's Rockstar with its Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series (and also Red Dead Redemption, which is just a mouthful).

My particular favourite type of game is turn-based strategy. I spent hundreds of hours playing the original Civ (not so much 2 or 3 but an awful lot of 4 due to the Fall From Heaven 2 mod and almost none of 5). Heroes of Might and Magic was another big one.

Frankly RTSs annoy me as they descend into "how fast you can click". I realize there's skill there but it's just not for me.

Anyway, it's easy to lambaste the game industry with it's cookie-cutter FPSs/RTSs and the samey console titles (although I for one don't share the same nostalgia for old NES/arcade/Atari games that some fervent zealots do).

But the fact is, it's never been more possible to write indie games than it is right now. Successes like Minecraft should tell you that you don't need a big studio $30 million budget for art. Nor do you need the latest, greatest 3D engine. Mobile gaming has a plethora of smaller developers.

I, for one, would dearly love to see an Elite-style game but no one has made one (worth talking about), be it single-player or an MMO. Yes there's Eve Online but, for me at least, it falls short. It's aimed at the raiding crowd really.

But think about it: how amazing could Elite be as a game you play on your iPad?

rsaarelm• 15 years ago

I, for one, would dearly love to see an Elite-style game but no one has made one (worth talking about), be it single-player or an MMO.

Have you taken a look at Egosoft's X3? It starts out like Elite, but eventually you can apparently end up buying the stations you used to trade in, building your own factories that make the stuff the stations sell, and using the ensuing wealth to build your own war fleet.

pella• 15 years ago

"Elite (video game)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(video_game)

"The Making Of: Elite" http://www.next-gen.biz/features/the-making-of-elite

wnoise• 15 years ago

Reimplementation/extension here: http://www.oolite.org/

BBC interview with creator of Elite

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