Pedasc writes:
> I'd be one of the others. I was one of the people who were hoping for a bit more of the single
> player component that was removed. ...
Me too initially.
> ... I didn't become as vocal as some as I understand the decision but it made the game less attractive for me. ...
Thankfully, the private groups more than make up for this. There are large ones like Mobius, but many others. IMO the only useful extra that's missing is the option for a group to include an auto-friend linkage when a new member joins.
> ... If I had a decent group of friends who wanted to play this I can see it being better
> but I tend to play sporadically and odd times. ...
Wrt when I can play, very much ditto.
> ... I found the interaction with the universe to be a bit sterile when not dealing with real people
> and real people aren't always fun to deal with either. They obviously have been working on it,
> I may give it another shot.
All I can say is you're welcome to join the private group I'm in (ChaosWulff, search for it on YT, FB, and there's a dedicated forum site, link is on the FB page), the only core rule is pvp killing is not allowed. I've gotten to know a great many very cool people worldwide, definitely recommend using TeamSpeak for excellent entertaining banter with other players (I use a Corsair H2100), whether it's just in general (since they're all over the place on the map), or in sub-groups for wing chat, etc. I can't include the URLs here (not allowed), but easily findable via Google and of course on FB/YT search. In the game, just group-search for chaoswulff from the Friends/Groups menu and send a join request, he accepts all requests by default, checks every few days.
If you do want pvp action though, then there are other many groups. Mind you, it's not exclusive, many members sometimes play in Open aswell, as does ChaosWulff himself for some of his yt vids.
Before joining, I only used Solo. Since joining, I've not used Solo at all. Having fun doing dodgy cargo missions (made 3M last night), sometimes wing up at a RES, saving for an Asp atm after which I'm off out to the deep dark...
At its heart, Elite was never about combat. It was about exploration, with combat rolled into it via trading, piracy, etc. I think those who just wanted pew pew in space are unsurprisingly left feeling disappointed (even though I doubt they've properly explored what's possible in the game), though perhaps the CQC expected soon will provide what they want.
Ian.