Elite (video game)

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Elite
Cover art for Firebird releases of Elite
Developer(s)	David Braben and Ian Bell
Publisher(s)	Acornsoft (1984), Firebird (1985)
Designer(s)	David Braben and Ian Bell
Platform(s)	Acorn Archimedes, Acorn Electron, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari ST, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, IBM PC, MSX, NES, ZX Spectrum
Release date	1984
Genre(s)	Space trading and combat simulator
Mode(s)	Single player
Media	Cartridge, Cassette, Floppy disk
Input methods	Keyboard, Joystick

Elite is a seminal space trading computer game, originally published by Acornsoft in 1984 for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers. The game's title derives from one of the player's goals of raising their combat rating to the exalted heights of "Elite." It was written and developed by David Braben and Ian Bell, who had met while they were both undergraduates at Jesus College, Cambridge. Non-Acorn versions of the game were published by Firebird, Imagineer and Hybrid Technology.

Elite was one of the first home computer games to use wireframe 3D graphics with hidden line removal. Another novelty was the inclusion of The Dark Wheel, a novella by Robert Holdstock which influenced new players with insight into the moral and legal codes which they might aspire to.

Elite's open ended game model, advanced game engine and revolutionary 3D graphics ensured that it was ported to virtually every contemporary home computer system, and earned it a place as a classic and a genre maker in gaming history. Elite was a hugely influential game, serving as a model for more recent games such as EVE Online, Freelancer, Jumpgate, Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Wing Commander: Privateer and the X series of space trading games. When sales of Elite reached 100,000 copies, it was a news story on BBC television evening news.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Inspiration, development and launch 2 Gameplay 3 Technical innovations 4 Conversions and clones 5 Open release 6 Sequels 7 Screenshots 8 References 9 See also 10 External links

[edit] Inspiration, development and launch

According to Braben and Bell, Elite was inspired by a range of sources. Much of the game's content is derived from the Traveller RPG, including the default commander name of Jameson.^[1] The developers also cite 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the original Battlestar Galactica as influences. Braben also cites the works of Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert L. Forward, Isaac Asimov and Orson Scott Card as influences.^[2]

When the two developers met at Jesus College, Cambridge, Bell was already working on a game for Acornsoft called Freefall. Braben had started writing a game called Fighter, but had not yet completed it. The two projects were sufficiently similar that Braben and Bell compared notes, and after seeing Star Raiders on the Atari 800 they decided to collaborate to produce what eventually became Elite. The project was initially offered to Thorn EMI, with whom Braben already had a contract, but was rejected. The developers went to Acornsoft instead; although a project such as Elite was very different from the company's usual fare, Acornsoft's executives liked what they saw and agreed to publish it.

The game took two years to write, during which time Acornsoft set in motion a large-scale publicity campaign and commissioned a presentational package for the game that was far more elaborate than normal. Games were usually sold in an ordinary cassette box with a printed inlay. Acornsoft packaged Elite in a box the size of a paperback book, complete with a novella, a manual, a chart and some stickers. Marketing activities included a launch party at the Thorpe Park theme park (holding such an event for a computer game was almost unheard of at the time) and a competition to be among the first to achieve the status of "Elite."^[3]

Elite received very good reviews on its launch and sales of the BBC Micro version were exceptional, eventually reaching 150,000 sold copies, a figure that matched the number of BBC Micros in the world at that point.^[3] The great commercial success of the BBC Micro version prompted a bidding war for the rights to publish Elite in other formats, with British Telecom's software arm, Telecomsoft, eventually winning the rights.^[3] It was eventually ported to virtually every contemporary home computer system and even to the NES console.

[edit] Gameplay

Elite has often been treated as the yardstick by which subsequent space trading games have been measured. However, it was not the first such game; the genre-defining Star Trader had been written as long ago as 1974. The space trading genre combines space-borne combat with a "buy low, sell high" freight transport system and the ability to use the profits to purchase ship upgrades. It was, however, the first 'open-ended' game, which provided a virtually unlimited universe for the player to explore.^{[citation needed]}

The player, initially "Commander Jameson", starts at Lave Station with 100 credits and a lightly armed trading ship, a Cobra Mark III. Most of the ships that the player encounters are similarly named after snakes, or other reptiles. Credits can be accumulated through a number of means. These include piracy, trade, military missions, bounty hunting and the mining of asteroids. The money generated by these enterprises allows players to upgrade their ships with such enhancements as better weapons, shields, increased cargo capacity, an automated docking system, and more.

Travel between planets is constrained to those within range of the ship's limited fuel capacity (7 light years); fuel can be replenished after docking with a space-station in orbit around a planet - a challenging task without a docking computer, as it requires matching the ship's rotation to that of the station. Players can upgrade their equipment with a fuel scoop, which allows raw fuel to be skimmed from the surface of stars - a dangerous and difficult activity - and collecting free-floating cargo canisters and escape capsules liberated after the destruction of other ships. While travelling in "witch-space" (the game's term for hyperspace), Thargoid invasion ships may trap the player, forcing their ship into normal space to do battle. If the player does not have enough fuel to continue their journey, they are effectively stranded in interstellar space.

An extremely expensive one-shot galactic hyperspace upgrade permits travel between the eight galaxies of the game universe. There is little practical difference between the different galaxies. However in some versions it is necessary to travel to at least the second galaxy in order to access the missions.

The game includes several optional missions for the Galactic Navy. One requires tracking down and destroying a stolen experimental ship; the other involves transporting classified information on the Thargoids' home planet, with Thargoid invasion ships doing their best to see that you do not succeed.

[edit] Technical innovations

The Elite universe contains eight galaxies, each galaxy containing 256 planets to explore. Due to the limited capabilities of 8-bit computers, these worlds are procedurally generated. A single seed number is run through a fixed algorithm the appropriate number of times and creates a sequence of numbers determining each planet's complete composition (position in the galaxy, prices of commodities, and even name and local details — text strings are chosen numerically from a lookup table and assembled to produce unique descriptions for each planet). This means that no extra memory is needed to store the characteristics of each planet, yet each is unique and has fixed properties. Each galaxy is also procedurally generated from the first.

However, the use of procedural generation created a few problems. There are a number of poorly located systems that can be reached only by galactic hyperspace - these are more than 7 light years from their nearest neighbour, thus trapping the traveller. Braben and Bell also checked that none of the system were four-letter words.

Since there is no memory overhead for creating extra worlds, the game was originally intended to contain 2⁴⁸ (approximately 281 trillion) galaxies. The number was limited to eight when Acornsoft noted that such a gigantic number would make the artificiality of the game universe evident to the player.^{[citation needed]}

On the original BBC Micro, screen 'modes' were used to specify colour depth and resolution, with subsequent memory implications. Elite used a technique of splitting the screen to allow a lower resolution, colour display for the console, and a higher resolution, black and white screen for the gameplay.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Conversions and clones

Originally there were 3 versions of Elite released: Acorn Electron Tape, BBC B Tape and BBC B Disk. The BBC B Disk version is referred to as Classic Elite and was the only one of the three to feature missions, of which there were two. These are colloquially referred to as the "Constrictor" and "Thargoids Documents" missions. One BBC version is notable for being able to work with an upgraded BBC Master computer, using the optional second processor unit and additional memory; the performance increase allowed the game, among other things, to use colour graphics on the BBC platform.

The game was quickly ported to a wide range of home computer platforms, including the Apple II, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and MSX. The only console version was released in 1991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Some of the ports had slightly altered gameplay or other characteristics.

The Amstrad CPC port has fewer ships than other platforms, lacking the Anaconda and Transport, along with some minor differences in missions and titles.

The Commodore 64 conversion introduced Trumbles (creatures based on the tribbles in Star Trek: The Original Series.) Also, when the docking computer is activated in the Commodore 64 version and some other versions, a musical rendition of The Blue Danube Waltz is played, which is a nod to a spaceflight sequence in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. This music was arranged by David Dunn.

ArcElite, the port to the Acorn Archimedes written by Warren Burch and Clive Gringras, widely regarded as the best conversion of the original game, added intelligent opponents who engage in their own private battles and police who take an active interest in protecting the law. The game world no longer seems to be centered around the player; freighter fleets with escorts go about their own business, pirate formations patrol lawless systems looking for cargo to loot and mining ships can often be found breaking up asteroids for their mineral content. Unlike the mythical Generation Ships of the original, rare occurrences really can be found in ArcElite - geometric formations of space beacons; hermits living among the asteroids; abandoned ships towed by police (although Dredgers and Generation Ships are confirmed not to exist in ArcElite).^[4]

In the late 1980s there were several attempts to create Elite-like games. The most hyped of these was FOFT (Federation of Free Traders) produced for the Atari ST and Amiga, the leading game machines of their day. However, FOFT was largely panned by reviewers and was not a commercial success.^{[citation needed]} Other respected space simulations were released for the ST and Amiga, such as Starglider 2, Damocles (Mercenary 2) and Warhead. These games are more limited in scope than Elite, in which the player could freely trade around the galaxy.

Many attempts to develop clones of Elite have been made, but most have been abandoned before completion or have otherwise failed to come to fruition. Elite: The New Kind, was developed by Christian Pinder by reverse-engineering the original BBC Micro version of Elite, but was withdrawn from the main distribution at David Braben's request^[5]

However, not all attempts failed: Oolite, initially an OpenGL Mac OS X reimplementation first released in July 2004, has since been successfully ported to Linux, and Microsoft Windows. The latest evolutions have seen ports for SGI IRIX and FreeBSD on Intel architectures made available.

The open source game Vega Strike is similar to Elite and shares some gameplay features with it. Coming full circle, an Elite mod for the Vega Strike engine is in the works.^[6]

In 2004, the commercial product Elite Starfighter was released in Germany. Starfighter is an Elite clone that features modern graphics. Since it duplicates the original gameplay, it has been criticized as being somewhat dull by today's standards, but Elite enthusiasts might consider it worth taking a look.^[7]

In interviews, the senior producers of CCP Games have cited Elite as one of the inspirations for their acclaimed EVE Online MMORPG.^[8]

[edit] Open release

In 1999/2000, a dispute occurred between Ian Bell and David Braben regarding the former's decision to make available all versions of the original Elite. The dispute has now ended; the various versions are available on Bell's site. The two Frontier games are available for download from Braben's Elite Club website.

[edit] Sequels

Main articles: Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters

A pseudo-sequel, Elite Plus, was released for DOS in 1991. Whereas the original Elite for the PC used CGA graphics, Elite Plus was upgraded to take advantage of EGA, VGA and MCGA. It was coded entirely in assembly language by Chris Sawyer, who later wrote RollerCoaster Tycoon.^[9] Elite Plus had a ninth galaxy and a new title, "Archangel", for the player to earn. Archangel is reached by undertaking a special mission to destroy a space station in a system invaded by the Thargoids. The player's reward for completing the mission is to receive the title Archangel and obtain a device that is capable of emulating anti-ECM broadcasts. The ninth galaxy can only be reached by hyperspacing into Witch Space. Elite Plus was published by Microplay.

A variant of the original BBC Micro Elite with many extra features, originally titled Elite III but now known as Elite A to minimize confusion, was created by Angus Duggan in the late 1980s by disassembling and modifying the 6502 code from the commercial release. It includes many more ship types, more ship types flyable by the player (who begins in the less capable Adder), cargo delivery missions, some extra equipment items and numerous gameplay improvements. Elite A was released publicly in 1997. Like the original game, it can be downloaded free from Ian Bell's web site and played under emulation.

Two official true sequels were created: Frontier: Elite 2 (1993) and Frontier: First Encounters (1995), both produced by Braben's company Frontier Developments. Bell had limited involvement in the first sequel, and was not involved in the production of the second. Both games were a considerable advance on the original Elite, with filled 3D graphics, missions and a complex economy. This time, the player was not confined to orbit but could land on and explore or mine planets. The number of flyable ships was greatly increased, and a new political backstory was introduced enabling the player to gain ranks in competing interstellar empires. The games appeared on the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and IBM PC.

Both games were, however, significantly flawed in a number of respects. They had a notably unfriendly copy protection system which was compared unfavourably to the infamous Lenslok device used on the ZX Spectrum version of the original Elite.^{[citation needed]} Both games had many bugs, First Encounters in particular, due apparently to being published in an incomplete state, and First Encounters had to be extensively patched; this became the subject of a three-year lawsuit between the publisher - GameTek - and Braben.

The sequels employed a realistic flight model based on Newtonian mechanics rather than the original arcade-style engine. While this was more realistic, many players also found it frustratingly difficult, particularly in combat. Most space trading games since Elite have stuck to an arcade-style flight model, in which the ships behave as though they are flying in an atmosphere.

A new sequel, Elite 4,^[10] is currently in a lengthy development phase which started in 1998^[11] and is 5 years overdue from its original scheduled release date.^[12] It is not currently scheduled for release, with Braben stating that full production will commence after the release of The Outsider.^[13] The Outsider is expected to be released by Christmas 2009.^[14]

[edit] Screenshots

BBC Micro (1984)

Acorn Electron (1984)

ZX Spectrum (1985)

NES (1991)

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• History of computer and video games
• Illuminatus - An April Fool's joke about a computer game similar to Elite.
• Oolite

[edit] External links

The external links in this article may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links.

• Elite at MobyGames
• The Elite Home Page by Ian Bell
• The EliteWiki project
• alt.fan.elite newsgroup
• Firebird Elite documentation on BirdSanctuary.co.uk
• Firebird's Elite: A Look Back at the Greatest Game Ever Made - article about the game
• Elite at World of Spectrum
• Masters of their universe - an excerpt from Backroom Boys: The Secret Return Of The British Boffin, by Francis Spufford.