Dr Wookie

Yowch! Who would have thought that the fastest selling media product of all time would be popular? No need for extra servers around launch

Great news !Did you get it on steam? If so, do you notice any advantage? I might get a second account so I can go really far into the galaxy while still being able to connect with civilization (yes, I probably do need help ) My Premium Backers' box set arrived yesterday, and it looks fantastic... a relief given how shonky some of the initial merch was. Last night I decided to aim for the lightest, jumpiest asp I could, and was so proud that I got 35 ly on a full tank. One jump into the black, I realised I hadn't put any scanners on! Oopsie!

I didn't watch the video, but I think it's an odd thing for PC Gamer to publish. While it's true that there are other equally bad, or worse, things that you can do (and I can think of at least two worse things that Trevor does as part of the story), posting a video saying "look what I can do" for any of those would be in poor taste too, as far as I'm concerned. I spent an age trying to get it to work, but finally managed it by disabling my nvidia graphics card first, then launching the game and quickly enabling it again... good job R* ! The good news is that when I did finally get in, it looks magnificent ! I just did the first mission, so I could get to a save point; going into first person mode makes a drastic difference! I often find first person driving in games to be clunky and weird, but it feels really good with a controller; R* have made it so you can seamlessly go from mouse and keyboard on foot to controller in vehicles. Racing through the traffic is a total blast, and probably easier to judge than in 3rd person.

Try this: https://github.com/domdavis/ch-products-elite-map Good luck!

The PC version is now unlocked (in theory, the game's not doing anything although R* allowed preinstalling). I bought this game for 360 and finished, but want to experience the world on PC, with first person view, video creation and mods. I'm not too fussed about progressing the story, just soaking in the world. I don't want to do murders in first person... I saw video of a guy stabbing another guy and that was horrific... I'll be parachuting and doing sweet tricks

Thanks Doc, are you trying to take my job ! I am very excited about the missions overhaul... I've been waiting for this for a long time! Expecially the rank based ones... the founder exclusive missions were part of the kickstarter rewards, so it's great to see them make it in now. The extra fuel tank option is also great news, and not just for explorers. There was a very succinct Ars Technica post that sums up the current game nicely [Edit this has now turned into a two-page review]: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/04/review-elite-dangerous-is-the-best-damn-spaceship-game-ive-ever-played/ "To find Elite: Dangerous a good game, you have to like what it is: the greatest "I feel like I’m flying a spaceship" game that’s ever been made up to this point in the history of computer gaming. Meticulously planning out your trade routes and then hauling cargo for hours at a stretch has to be its own reward. Flying thousands of light years out into the black to see what no human has ever seen has to be its own reward. Blowing up dozens and dozens of criminals to snag their bounties has to be its own reward. The journey has to be worth it for you, because otherwise, Elite: Dangerous is a monotonous grind-fest with no destination."

To be honest, the lack of detail in the DK2 bothers me, and if I recall correctly, the latest prototype has similar resolution to the DK2 and uses optics to mitigate the screen door effect. I am worried that this update will effectively blur the text further. At the moment, text can be difficult to read unless you lean in for a closer look; while this is a fun novelty, it could be really tiresome after a while. Ships, planets, nebulae etc are all significantly degraded by the DK2. I am seriously considering getting a rift, because I am starting to see other games I'd like play that way (see my Albino Lullaby thread). However, I imagine that I would only spend maybe ~30% of ED time in the Rift even if I had one (the immersion IS fantastic).

The guy who won the 10,000 GBP triple Elite prize used an X52 Pro for well over 1000 hours, but not without damage: There is a youtube comparison of Saitek vs CH with ED here: The video is from early alpha, so some things are out of date (the restriction of only one device is removed, and more buttons can be assigned). Next you'll be getting track IR ! Although if you do think about head tracking, one of the ED community has designed their own head tracker called EDTracker, which can be bought prebuilt or in kit form at http://www.edtracker.org.uk/index.php/shop/products. I am seriously thinking about getting an EDTracker after I move back to the UK .

Heh, Yahtzee (Zero Punctuation) has done quite a fun video on ED for his "Let's Drown Out" series where he plays a game, but talks about other stuff entirely with his friend Gabe. He reviewed the game when it came out (one of the very few positive review's he's ever done ), but has clearly not played much since... still, he has quite a fun adventure Review Let's Drown Out

Gah! I'm suddenly locked out of

Yep, exploration rewards have been substantially buffed since 1.2, in order to balance the careers a bit; the cash needed for rank progression has increased too. I had a jaunt yesterday where a single system gave me 200 k .

The whole idea of chanters is that they are able to do chants while attacking etc that buff your party. If you overlap chants you get more than one buff at once. After doing the chant 3 times, you can set off a spell. A long chant might give a bunch of awesome buffs but with less frequent spells; a short chant gives more spells and less buffs. Chanters can fight fairly well too

Unlikely, but then what does steam really give you if you already have the game? This is a genuine question, since FD have said that the two versions are functionally identical.

Huh! Elite Dangerous is now on Steam (added April 2), for those who want to get it that way

Albino Lullaby (http://albinolullaby.com/) is a first person horror exploration game with no gore or jump scares. It is being made by Ape Law, after a successful kickstarter; it will be released in as 3 episodes, with the first being due this spring. It is made in Unreal Engine 4, and is Oculus Rift ready. There is a demo available to people who preorder either the first episode ($10), or all three episodes ($25); you also get the soundtrack. I had an interesting chat with one of the developers at PAX East, and I plonked down $10 for the first episode, giving me access to the demo. This is bought from IndieGameStand, and involves setting up an account with them, although this is automatic when you make the order. I found the demo very interesting, although it crashed and I probably need to play it through again in order to finish it. The atmosphere is really great, creepy yet very colourful; everything looks a bit like a pencil sketch. You wake up in a VERY strange place after a car accident, and must escape. Without saying too much, the place changes drastically according to your actions. I'm going to stick a video and some screenies in spoilers, as it's probably best to know as little as possible. I was slightly disappointed that I couldn't find a run button on the game pad, and had to use the shift key, but am looking forward to finding out how the full game plays. I think it has a lot of promise, but it's too early to say whether it will capitalise on that, especially since it's episodic. I didn't play it on the Oculus, but I think it would be incredible .. the website gives a good impression of what it looks like in the rift, and the art style was clearly chosen with the rift in mind. It's a New England based team, led by a guy who did level design on new Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite. The game won the Epic Epic Award at the most recent Boston Festival of Indy Games, for narrative and world building.

In today's dev update, they said that there will be a big announcement on Powerplay in about 3 weeks' time, which is shaping up to be the biggest update so far. This will include a new way to interact with the galaxy, as well as more balancing of the different types of career. Also, drones are being introduced that will allow collection of minerals or cargo for miners or pirates respectively. It looks like the drones will expire after use; we will be able to select a target for collection, otherwise the drone will get what it can within a set area. Fuel drones will allow players to transfer fuel to each other too. I've been trying out bounty hunting; I stripped my Clipper of gear, and this was enough to buy a Vulture with some fairly decent equipment without selling the hull. Wow that ship is vicious! I have two gimballed Class 3 burst lasers, and they just maul my targets... I went pirate hunting in a resource extraction site, and had a lot of fun zipping around, dodging rocks, and making tens or hundreds of thousands of credits at a time; unlike previous versions it seems that we get paid even if we don't get the last hit, so if there's a fight going on in the distance, we can pile in and get paid. The Vulture is a fun puzzle in that the power plant is cannot support everything at A or even class, so you have to experiment to find out what works best for you... a vulture with a bigger powerplant would be ridiculously overpowered.

MAC BETA RELEASED! The Mac version is now in beta for alpha or beta backers... cross play with pc version will be tested in a few weeks. Recommended spec is as follows: 27 inch iMac (Purchased in 2015, current line) 3.4 GHz quad core intel i5 8 GB RAM Nvidia GeForce GTX 775M with 2GB / AMD Radeon R9 290X with 2 GB Mac OS 10.10 There are optimisations planned, and the final specs are expected to be lower. Tested specs include 2013 13" Macbook Pro with Intel 4000 at 35-45 fps 2012 Macbook Air i7, 8GB, Intel 4000 19fps in station, 20-40 fps in space

Fantastic(k)! I am tempted to get a HOTAS when I go back to the UK in a couple of months, but am a bit concerned because I'm a lefty. I've used X52s at E3 and PAX East; the throttle is great, but my crappy hand tells the craft where it's pointing, and I'm not sure whether that is better than just using a gamepad, like I have been up til now. Then again, the HOTAS setup *feels* amazing... I love having the safety switch over the "unleash hell" button, and on the Giant Bomb Quicklook, Drew said that throttling up to engage hyperspace was his favourite part, andI kinda agree. Back to me now, and I am extremely impressed with how fast the Clipper is- I only have 6C thrusters, and I can haul 170 tons of cargo at >400 m/s! Very 6C . I've gone back to the shield and run approach to interdictions for now while I build up my ship... there's very little that can keep up with me, so I don't even try to engage. When I load up on eventually load up on guns (or bring my friends ), I might work on getting my combat rank above Novice

In regards to that very hard fight

A glowing blue and purple one actually ! Thanks!

One part of the main quest I stumbled across while exploring makes it considerably more difficult if you're a certain race, thanks to restrictions. I would have thought that the devs would have written it so perhaps you could send someone else instead, but no joy :-(.

I've spent the last few days currying favour with the Imperials, and have finally got my sweaty mits on an Imperial Clipper! I've been totally irresponsible in getting it with only a few million left over, so I thought I would take it exploring. As it happens, the Alliance are planning expansions, and are paying for exploration data over the next 2 weeks (check Galnet for details). Here is a gratuitous shot of my clipper at the edge of a nebula (slightly ruined by facebook compression, but never mind)

Another thing to note is that the rogue is more a sneaky damage dealers than a thief... anybody can can sneak and pick locks, but only rogues can backstab by the looks of it. I didn't twig that my Monk was "duel wielding" punching, despite such obvious clues as having two sets of damage stats and performing the long range attack thing twice. Sometimes I am an idiot .

I've nudged it up to normal now... as the description says, this affects the number and type of enemies that show up rather than the stats. I'm rolling with 6 people now, including the made-to-measure rogue I hired from the tavern. I've finished Act I, but it looks like all of the related side quests are open for collection later. There's certainly plenty to do! I think I might have a go at some of those before pressing on with the main quest. I'm still really enjoying everything ~8 hours in .

Without the gaps, type [ spoiler ] text [ /spoiler ] By the way, I am playing on Easy this first time round... That is what is recommended for people who are new to CRPGS, or haven't played them in a while. I find it fairly challenging already, but there's plenty of scope to make it more so. I might bump it up later in the play through when I get used to it