Is Elite: Dangerous Beta worth buying into at $75?

It all boils down to

1- do you have 75 bucks to spare?

2- do you care enough about the game to test it out while it's not finished?

if the answer is no to either of the questions I'd say wait till the final release, it will be cheaper and you'll have a completed game to play.

edit: I'm not in the beta though... that's just my opinion.

It's like the old Elite games and it only involves flying, trading and ship combat. There's no leaving the cockpit or anything like Star Citizen promises, at least it's a long way off. Depends if you feel it'll be decent value but you might want to check how far off it is. The beta is highly priced to gate it and it's probably worth going into the full release blind.

It really depends:

1) If you happen to have an Oculus Rift then Yes. It is the best Oculus rift experience available.

2) If you're a fan of the Original Elite, Frontier or Frontier: First Encounters then probably.

For anyone else I would say, this is a fantastic game, but hold off for the full release. It will be $25 cheaper and a better experience. Having said that the game is shaping up brilliantly and I would put the final release on your 'must buy' list.

I'll agree with this. If you have an Oculus and a hotas it is incredible but anything less than that and you will find the current content lacking.

I have so many other games in my backlog spending $75 bucks now just doesn't seem right. I really enjoyed the original Elite back on the C-64 back in the day, and from what I have seen this new one looks like it will be great. I will wait for release though and save myself $25 bucks and have a fully working game at that time. I'll be patient this one time.

@jazz_bcaz: Just a little heads-up. They are planning pretty much all the same features in Elite as what SC has planned. (apart from the single player campaign)

They just do some of that (like leaving your cockpit and landing on planets) in expansions, because they want to do it right and they feel that if they rush it into the game from the start it won't be as good as they can make it be.

I'm very excited for Elite Dangerous, but paying extra for the "privilege" of playing a broken game rubs me the wrong way. I'd recommend buying the retail version (even pre-ordering if you want) and getting a product that you will enjoy playing instead of being suckered into doing beta testing.

Then just buy the full version! They aren't trying to trick you, in fact, they are charging extra for the exact opposite reason - they want to put off people who aren't already super excited and serious about the game. It's why the premium alpha was £100. If you think the game is cool, definitely wait and play the full version for a better experience. It's what they want.

Saying "it doesn't have this thing that this other game is promising... but also doesn't have because its even less of a game" is a little disingenous. In fact, Elite already hope to include planetary landing and leaving the cockpit in future expansions.

The game will be much cheaper if you just wait until launch. Kickstarter backers who only opted for the game, but not beta access only had to pay $40, instead of $75. I'm sure the price of the final release will be somewhere around $40-50, like what the backers paid for it.

It's basically euro truck simulator in space right now, there is the combat and it's a blast but you're not going to get much money to buy new ships with combat. You only get money from ship kills if you get the last shot in so you gotta be good. I'm enjoying it but then again I also enjoyed euro truck simulator but there's no French 80's radio stations here. Also, I'm from aus so it was like $80 for me and that's a little under rrp for new games here so it wasn't exactly an outrageous price for me.

Every pre-release game I've ever played has been a disappointment, I don't do it at all any more.

Wait for it to come out proper, there are plenty of other games to hold you over till then.

I say 'other' because there are so many variables. There's an advantage to waiting, at the very least you get to have your first experience be more complete.

I have a rule to never spend more than $20 on an unfinished game. I was really drunk the other night while watching a friend play it on Twitch when I ordered a flight stick and purchased the game. The stick arrives Monday, so I haven't installed the game yet. I figured I'll just learn the game with the stick instead of playing with controller/keyboard for a few days. I knew it was the type of game that I'd buy anyway, and I'm not hurting for an extra $15-25 to mess with it early. Can't give my impressions until I actually play it, though.

Don't do that. That's a raw deal.

Makes sense. Good luck.

I'm debating with myself if I should go full hog into this one. Get a stick, TrackIR (or maybe better to wait for consumer Rift) and just dive in. I already wanted it when I saw how the hyperspace travel worked. And I recently learned that you can control a lot of the ship systems with your voice. Just think about it. Blasting some '70s hits while aligning my ship, then actually saying "Rocinante, engage" to go into hyperspace. I feel like a little giddy kid just thinking about it.
But as it stands, even getting the game is to much for my wallet.

@jaqen_hghar: Some players are choosing to use programs like Voice Attack, that's how they are using voice commands.

Also, it seems unlikely we'll get a consumer grade Occulus any time soon, so really if that's your thing then you have to decide on head tracking while to wait for a proper VR set or asking them for a dev set now.

@crash_happy: Oh! I was under the impression the voice commands was in game. Damn, makes me look silly!

And yeah, might take a while. But at least that means I got time to save up for it...
Still managed to hold out by not buying it yet, but I feel my resolve is eroding away.

Well I've no idea what the OR guys are up to, but since they're now saying that they know what the specs for the the consumer version are it's possible that they are closer to making one than I'd previously thought.

Stop buying into fucking betas you fools.

Just wait for the fucking game. At the rate idiots keep throwing money at stuff that shouldn't be paid, we will soon all be paying for every little thing.

It's hard to disagree with such a well thought out and fastidiously reasoned point of view.