Slashdot Mirror

Robotron23 writes: The developers behind the sequel to legendary video game Elite have, to the anger and dismay of fans, dropped the offline single-player mode originally promised. The game is due for full release in under a month. With the title having raised about $1.5 million from Kickstarter, and millions more in subsequent campaigns that advertised the feature, gamers are livid. A complaints thread on the official Elite forums has swelled to 450+ pages in only three days, while refunds are being lodged in the thousands. It is down to the discretion of Frontier, the game's developer, whether to process refund requests of original backers.

zborgerd writes "Linux Game Publishing has announced the opening of their beta test for X2: The Threat. X2 was featured on Slashdot last month in LGP's mystery game contest. Linux gamers can apply for the beta at LGP's beta testing site. Per their usual policy, everyone who pre-orders the game from one of their resellers is automatically qualified to enter the beta test. X2: The Threat is Egosoft's epic space simulation that is often said to be greatly influenced by the the classic games of the Elite series. A third game in the series, X3: Reunion, will soon be available for Windows (and hopefully Linux and OS X as well, if the X2 ports attract a reasonable number of fans on these platforms)."

skabb writes "Is Elite 4 back in development? The game, rumoured back in 2001 is a sequel to the popular Elite series, with a multiplayer version planned!"

skabb writes "Is Elite 4 back in development? The game, rumoured back in 2001 is a sequel to the popular Elite series, with a multiplayer version planned!"

Thanks to BBC News for their article featuring a counterpoint to the view that games are just for 'geeks and guys', a point of view recently given publicity by Microsoft's Laura Fryer. The respondent, David Braben, co-creator of seminal 3D space title Elite, argues for the importance of empathy, and suggests that "the 'shoot-it-if-it-moves' mechanic of games like Quake [is] a fundamentally empty experience, unless you're fighting people you know well", even commenting that "...in Elite, we made shooting another space craft illegal, so the player had to think before opening fire." He also discusses his company's forthcoming Sony-published PS2 title, Dog's Life, a mainstream-aimed title which "seeks to create [an] emotional bond with the player" through cute, endearing dog interaction, and, uhm, a 'Smell-o-vision' mode.

Thanks to BBC News for their article featuring a counterpoint to the view that games are just for 'geeks and guys', a point of view recently given publicity by Microsoft's Laura Fryer. The respondent, David Braben, co-creator of seminal 3D space title Elite, argues for the importance of empathy, and suggests that "the 'shoot-it-if-it-moves' mechanic of games like Quake [is] a fundamentally empty experience, unless you're fighting people you know well", even commenting that "...in Elite, we made shooting another space craft illegal, so the player had to think before opening fire." He also discusses his company's forthcoming Sony-published PS2 title, Dog's Life, a mainstream-aimed title which "seeks to create [an] emotional bond with the player" through cute, endearing dog interaction, and, uhm, a 'Smell-o-vision' mode.

David Braben of Frontier, the co-author of Elite, the author of Elite 2 and Zarch (later renamed Virus on the Atari and Amiga), wants to know whether people would buy a Linux port of his new game V2000. Given that Elite and Zarch were great games (with the emphasis on Games), I expect V2000 to be good fun. Link courtesy of freshmeat.