Always Online, Yet A Lonely Solo MMO
When the development of Elite: Dangerous was in its infancy there was some promise for a single-player mode to be available at some point. Since then, Frontier Developments has changed their stance on this feature, and for a good reason, in my opinion: A space game as large as this, with simulations, a changing story, and faction conflicts is going to be more enjoyable with an online data streaming component than without. However, I think that Frontier Developments needs to make the rolling story more engaging and faction/influence mechanics much more refined before this decision can be fully justified. I have also heard of promises regarding landable planets and explorable space station interiors; these would certainly make star systems and areas feel livelier since there isn’t a single visible NPC character model in the game right now, but we’ll see.
“Finally, some action! This is extremely rare, really.”
From the perspective of a follower since the beta and now as an active player, I think Frontier Developments has improperly marketed and handled Elite: Dangerous as an MMO. My reasoning for this are two-fold: firstly, there are no co-op missions or co-op mechanics whatsoever, and second, seeing another player naturally during open-play mode is extremely rare.
Though there is an option to play the game as a private group, presumably to play with people like a party, the only effect this has is exclusively seeing fellow group members when in the same system or local space – no other players can appear. As far as coordinating or cooperating with another player, options are incredibly limited: There is no way to give credits or easily give cargo to another player, players cannot give or share fuel, players cannot share bounties that they cooperatively put effort into, directly chatting to another player in-game with either text or voice requires an annoying amount of menuing and a very small range, and following another player, be it friend or foe, is nearly impossible even with the assistance of a frame shift drive wake scanner. Besides talking over a third party program, it’s frustrating to do anything with another player. In a recent forum post and series of tweets, Frontier Developments promises that these co-op issues will be addressed in a forthcoming update titled “Wings,” but until then, the issues remain.
Though space is a very big place, stations and outposts display how many player ships have been in the area in the last 24 hours; near Sol, this number is usually in the thousands.. In all of my time playing, and even in the Gamma build with “over 100,000 players playing,” I have only seen two other players during open-play – clearly something is amiss with this being labeled as an “MMO.”
“My co-pilot’s chair, never sat in.”
Elite: Dangerous is lonely, too. If you travel more than 500 LY from Sol you’ll only encounter uninhabited star systems devoid of any faction influence, stations, or even pirates. Many ships have multiple cockpit chairs, and no way to populate them with AIs or other players. Socially, Elite: Dangerous feels very outdated and playing it feels empty and dead.
Conclusions and Take Aways: Good – 3/5
I want to love and recommend Elite: Dangerous because the combat, control options, and scale is so great and technologically advanced, however, the faction and influence systems are clearly not up to snuff and trading rare goods endlessly for near meaningless credits is a chore. Despite it being an MMO, it is the loneliest MMO I have ever played. The game is incredible at first, but once you have tried everything a few times it grows very boring with the only exception being the combat, to a point.
“Hello, empty space Vegas. At least it has palm trees?”
Frontier Development is doing great with minor updates on a near daily basis and communicating well with patch notes and forum posts, but the big issues that I’ve seen with the game don’t have a public timeline for fixing, and it seems I’m not alone in my findings looking over the subreddit and forum. Elite: Dangerous didn’t release to much fanfare, but it’s worth noting it’s a AAA looker, a technological feat, and that it was one of the few games released in 2014 without any major server issues and downtime. I’d say come back to it in six months and see where it’s at; maybe it just needs some grind time to reach Elite status.
