🚀 go-pugleaf

On the 5 Nov 2005, Shingen <shingen@aolsuks.sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> On Wed, 2 Nov 2005 16:22:50 -0000, "Nats"
> <nstutt@nstutt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

<snip>

> Sure, Elite was the first of it's kind, as was Frontier/FFE, but
> also so was BC3K! 
> 
> If I remember correctly, Frontier was horribly flawed out of the box

You're going senile. ;-) The full-retail Amiga version of FE2 (the one
DB did) was rock-solid out of the box, with the exception of Beta
Lyrae (which you couldn't reach in normal gameplay anyway), scanning
your own arrival cloud and a bizarre arrival cloud bug I once
encountered.

The PC conversion was undertaken by Chris Sawyer, of Transport Tycoon
and Rollercoaster Tycoon fame.

Elite Trivia: in some versions of FE2 and/or FFE, an advert for "Chris
Sawyer's New Transport Game" can appear at starports. The game in
question is  

> as was FFE. Frontier was at least playable. FFE wasn't playable for
> several patches.

The sad thing is that, after v1.06, FFE was actually more stable than
Privateer 2 (which I bought after cancelling my BC3K order). FFE is an
example of a game that was screwed by its publishers, Gametek UK. Note
that the UK release of BC3K was also being handled by them.

<snip>

> David left Elite with FFE. John Jordan MADE the game playable!

While I obviously commend JJ's efforts with JJFFE, FFE v1.06 was, IME,
very stable on its target platform (DOS). Difficulties people encounter
getting the official version working on XP are more to do with
Microsoft than DB.

Funny thing is, I never did manage to get X-Wing working on Win95 OSR2.
It remains the only space sim I've not even been able to start playing.

-- 
Jades' First Encounters Site - http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
The best Frontier: First Encounters site on the Web.

nospam@jades.org /is/ a real email address!