There’s an oft-asked question, in varying amounts of rudeness and passive-aggressiveness, regarding why some players only play solo. It’s often assumed to be because solo players object to being targeted and killed by other players. Imagine that.
There’s a lot of truth in that claim. But in the interest of clarity, I play solo because I’m an introvert.
I have plenty of credits. It's not the rebuy, it's the intrusion into my personal space. And by personal space, I mean ALL of it. The entire universe. I like people, honestly I do... but from a distance. Playing in solo is the only place in my entire life I've felt isolated enough not to be stressed. It's all mine. Not one single other person in the whole universe, and it feels... beautiful.
The truth is, Elite Dangerous is my personal meditation, my time to be free of the stress of billions of people sharing this planet with no elbow room to be alone. It’s like stepping into a decompression chamber.
Back when Elite Dangerous was a Kickstarter, it sounded exciting already but the thing that sealed the deal for me was the promise of solo off-line play.
It was a promise, and I bought in.
It might not have been intentional, but David Braben and Frontier lied. They broke their given word. (https://www.eurogamer.net/david-braben-responds-to-outcry-over-elite-dangerous-ditched-offline-mode)
I don’t hate them for it. Braben is a god with a voice of thunder and shattering planets with his stride. His vision made my life immensely better. But breaking your given word… I still struggle with that.
I once made a promise I couldn’t keep. My boss told me nobody keeps those kinds of promises, it’s just part of the motivational process of the job, and he didn’t really expect anybody to keep that promise. But it’s the only promise I can recall in my whole life, that I broke. It still bothers me.
Sometimes things happen beyond your control. But broken promises linger. They taint the air.
My biggest hope is that, if Elite ever shuts the servers down, they at least create a working stand-alone version. I’d even pay money for it.
Nothing in this life gives anything close to the feeling of isolation that Elite gives. It would be devastating to lose that sense of peace, quiet, and distance. Even in the years I couldn’t play, it was comforting to know Elite was there, just waiting for me to return.
I still fondly remember flying to Sagittarius A. This was 2015, before engineering, and it was a one month, one week, and one day, round trip. When I got there, the feeling of being far from humanity was incredible. Even the trip back was cathartic. Being out there left me perfectly at peace, with nothing but space in every direction.
It's odd, how wonderfully solitary exploration can be. Still at home, sitting at my desk, just a mile from work and all it's stresses. But the game world pulled me in and took me to the most isolated places I could imagine. It refreshed my spirit, and prepared me for the next day. That feeling of isolation was enough to make me want to fly back out to Sagittarius A again. Or somewhere else far far away.
