privateer is still nothing compared to First Encounters

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incognito

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privateer is still nothing compared to First Encounters... only nice gfx is the advantage of privateer, nothing more, sorry guys
 
Never tried First Encounters. I'm downloading it now. I'll give it a whirl, than come back and let you know what I think.
 
For those unfamiliar with it, First Encounters is a game in the Elite space sim series. It's generally seen as the weakest of the series, mostly because it's incredibly buggy. I haven't played the Privateer Remake, but as long as your ship doesn't randomly explode for no reason, I'd say it's at least a notch above First Encounters.
 
First Encounters is sequel to Frontier which is sequel to legendary ELITE released sometimes in 80's.

Anyway, First Encounters is relative old game, you will need JJFFE program to run it under Windows. Find it here http://www.jaj22.demon.co.uk/

Full game itself is here http://frontier.klasyka.do.pl/download/index.htm
and here http://www.eliteclub.co.uk/download/

Very useful info about the game (including large FAQ) is here
http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm

Even some novel is based on Elite game! And I think that Privateer was inspired by Elite saga as well, what you think?
 
with regards to buggy First Encounters, most of the bugs were fixed by 1.06 patch and others by JJFFE...
 
I would say all spacetrading sims were inspired by Elite...

Frontier and its sequel First Encounters are my all time favourites, but both hadn´t Privateers rich atmosphere and FFEs storyline is a joke. Also combat was really, really boring. The feeling due to the huge systems/planets and the newtonian flight dynamics are still great, though.


My personal rating:


First Encounters

Combat: -- (boring, tedious)
Atmosphere: - (no bars, landing pads etc. just a bulletin board)
Fictional Universe: - (not enough factions, not enough ingame background)
Flight Dynamics: ++ (realistic feeling)
Story/Plot: really, really bad!
"I´m in space" feeling: ++ (huge realistic solarsystems, you can manually land on planets)

Freelancer

Combat: - (same speed for all ships, shoot ´em up feeling)
Atmosphere: ++ (factions are really different in style, hidden bases, unique solarsystems)
Fictional Universe: + (nice background story, many factions)
Flight Dynamics: + (I like the trade lanes and the cruise mode)
Story/Plot: - (nothing new, sudden end, the fate of the Hispania not part of the plot)
"I´m in space" feeling: - (very small planets, small solarsystems, fake 3d)

X2

Combat: + (real dogfight, many different ships, you can command a whole fleet, but bad AI)
Atmosphere: -- (no bars, landing pads etc. just a bulletin board, you cannot visit planets)
Fictional Universe: + (not enough factions, not enough ingame background story--> but more interesting than FFE)
Flight Dynamics: 0 (travelling is either boring or distances are meaningless due to the jump drive, but overall O.K.)
Story/Plot: -- (nothing new, very short, no real end, bad cutscenes)
"I´m in space" feeling: very bad! (Old Infocom text adventure feeling: "You are in Argon Prime, Exits are N,E,S,W you see a trading station, a shipyard, ..., what do want to do? >w You are in Ringo Moon, Exits are N,E,S you see a trading station....")

Privateer
Combat: 0 (real dogfight, but not enough ships)
Atmosphere: + (real frontier feeling, but not enough different stations/planets)
Fictional Universe: + (Well, it´s Wing Commander :), but not enough factions)
Flight Dynamics: + (Although I prefer newtonian, they are simply good)
Story/Plot: ++ (no, this time there aren´t any aliens that want to annihilate us, good old WC2 storytelling style)
"I´m in space" feeling: - (small planets, small solarsystems, fake 3d)
 
Sky777 said:
"I´m in space" feeling: - (small planets, small solarsystems, fake 3d)


honestly, if a sprite engine were to be done in this day in age, with all our rendering kick assery....i gaurentee it'd change the worlds minds. photo real sound good? it should...

Brad Mick
 
I do not see any use of this discusion. Fight? Elite:FE vs WCU:pR ? What the hell?

who needs it... defenetly not me. Privateer was remade by the fans and brought for everyone's pleasure, saying that it didn't become better again from the original is kinda... wierd. If you never liked Privateer, you would never like Remake. It's the question of preferences and saying that one game is better than another is just silly.
So I think this debate should be stopped.

Personaly First Encounters is the most weak game of all Elite series (my personal opinion). The only Elite i really like was the original one. Than came WC and Strike Commander and the Privateer 1. (I hate Privateer 2 cause it's hmmm different privateer.. lol).

my two cents
 
Different games for different feels

Privateer for fun, with that 'I'm a good guy, but I still got my sleazy side' feeling.

Independence War for that 'I'm just a little guy, don't kill me, *man* the Universe is a huge, unfeeling vasty deep!' feeling.

Independence War 2 for that 'I'm a wrongfully-accused ex-con vengeance-bound to kill some dude, but in the meantime, my fat associate here will retrieve the cargo left behind when I spattered you into plasma, but *man* the Universe is a gorgeously rendered yet huge, unfeeling vasty deep!' feeling.

FFE for that, 'Man, this kicks ass in a *really* retro kind of way, but how come my autopilot just shot me into the surface of a planet and I can't finish my mission because some kind of timewarp has destroyed all causality in the universe?' -type feeling.

Tradewars for that, um, warring and trading feeling.

Me, I'm just waiting for the Legos space MMORPG, with that 'take your massive space craft down to the surface of a perfectly rendered Lego planet, kill off a bunch of horse-riding primitives with your custom-built plasma turrets, enslave their village, mine their ore blocks, burn their homes, and get home just in time to fight off the Space Cops'-kinda feeling :)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Wait, your impressive claim is that someone wrote fanfic about your game?


you really don't want to compare the game in terms "how many novels were written about the game", do you? lol
 
Incognito, this is a pretty good way to risk having the people and especially the admins of this forum turn against you, which may result in, say, having the whole of Masaryk University's IP range banned from this site for a couple of days (not that I could do anything like that, or that something like that has ever happened before, or that I'm hinting at something here..).

Why don't you pick up the discussion and tell us why you like FFE above more recent games (or P:R in particular)? People could learn from your ideas, take them up in future projects, and we all would have the benefit.

I rather liked FFE too; the Stardreamer was a nice idea, the navigation map is unique and the videos on the CD version are classically funny - but those may not be your reasons. So stop play hide and seek (which will sooner or later get on people's nerves), and tell us what you think.
 
criticalmass said:
So stop play hide and seek (which will sooner or later get on people's nerves), and tell us what you think.
Sooner or later? Too late.

You rather politely call it "playing hide and seek". I call it trolling.
 
criticalmass said:
Incognito, this is a pretty good way to risk having the people and especially the admins of this forum turn against you, which may result in, say, having the whole of Masaryk University's IP range banned from this site for a couple of days (not that I could do anything like that, or that something like that has ever happened before, or that I'm hinting at something here..)


hey, where are you from that you think that a discussion is good reason to be banned? that was totally inadequate reaction...
 
you really don't want to compare the game in terms "how many novels were written about the game", do you? lol

I believe you brought up the subject.

And yes, this is the Wing Commander community and not some open source love-in. We're more than happy to ban the whole of the Czech Republic to get rid of one troll.
 
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