Cast your mind back a few long months. Back to the weeks leading up to the launch of space sim Elite: Dangerous near the end of last year, to be a little more exact. Developer Frontier offered up a challenge to the most dedicated players, with a hefty sum of prize money to incentivise everyone. The four milestones have been hit, and four Elite: Dangerous legends are rather wealthy for their efforts.
The challenge involved achieving Elite rankings (the highest honour the game gives) in the three individual principles the game offers – Exploration, Trade and Combat – before anyone else. A bigger, fourth prize was then offered to the first player to achieve Elite in all three, which should roughly take around three times the time. Surprisingly though, the winner of the ultimate honour actually managed to surpass everyone else in the running by a light-year.
Appropriately named user Onepercent snagged the grand prize, with an Elite rank in all three principles. During his play time he visited more than 10 000 unique star systems, blew up 9000 other ships and bartered over 835 000 tons of goods. It took him around 1029 hours of in-game time to achieve this, which is staggering considering the game came out in December last year. But all worth it I’d bet for the $15000 prize.
The other three awards were just as impressive. Commander Tequila picked up the Exploration award, travelling 190 000 light years and visiting just under 8000 unique star systems. The award for Trade went to Lordkee, who kept his books relatively clean and traded over 830 000 tons of cargo. The most feared pilot in Elite: Dangerous is Fromtonrogue, who racked up 8500 kills over his playtime. Each of these players received a share of the prize pool too, which totalled $20 000.
I have to applaud the dedication of these four players, but also shed a tear for those who dedicated close to as many hours but just lost near the end. That must be truly heartbreaking.
Last Updated: March 25, 2015
Hammersteyn
March 25, 2015 at 12:02
@Sageville:disqus could have done this, but us console peasants held him back XD
Blood Emperor Trevor
March 25, 2015 at 12:04
You should all club together & do something nice for him, it’s the right thing to do. 😉
Hammersteyn
March 25, 2015 at 12:05
The prize was in Zim dollars right? RIGHT?
Corrie
March 25, 2015 at 12:25
He could convert it to zim dollars but I don’t know what he’d do with it
Maybe pull up to the Safta’s and stacks of cash fall out only for people to realize it’s zim dollars which is even more worthless than photocopied paper
Lord Chaos
March 25, 2015 at 12:37
Pay for his TV license?
Sageville
March 25, 2015 at 12:26
Yawl are just Jelly of my PC!
Corrie
March 25, 2015 at 12:27
Don’t you mean potato?
Sageville
March 25, 2015 at 12:31
No-one ever means potato, ever!
Corrie
March 25, 2015 at 12:34
Shall I mean Mash , boiled, chopped, jellied?
A c?o?n?s?o?l?e? potato is still a c?o?n?s?o?l?e? potato no matter what.
RinceThis
March 25, 2015 at 12:05
How do they do this? No job? Living in basement?
Hammersteyn
March 25, 2015 at 12:10
Multiple users using the same account? Palying in shifts? Aliens?
*Grabs tinfoil hat
RinceThis
March 25, 2015 at 12:11
The Chinese!
Admiral Chief
March 25, 2015 at 12:09
Imagine missing out by like a few hours
Alessandro Barbosa
March 25, 2015 at 12:11
INORITE. All that effort, just for nothing.
Because I highly doubt people were grinding this hard for fun 🙂
Admiral Chief
March 25, 2015 at 12:12
NO SOUP FOR YOU! By a few hours. I’d just die
Hammersteyn
March 25, 2015 at 12:15
Now that he’s the elite of elite what is he gonna do now? Play outside?
Blood Emperor Trevor
March 25, 2015 at 12:16
LOL!
Admiral Chief
March 25, 2015 at 12:16
He’d have to put on at least SPF 9k
Alessandro Barbosa
March 25, 2015 at 12:17
With a fresh $15000?
Cocaine. Definitely
Corrie
March 25, 2015 at 12:19
Or a new rig….
Those pixels are like crack man
Hammersteyn
March 25, 2015 at 12:46
Awesome idea!
Corrie
March 25, 2015 at 12:21
No that’s the really elite dangerous, I mean outside has work and real people and *Gasp* relationships*
Kids stay indoors it’s good for you, guy made $15000 inside what would he make outside huh?
Hammersteyn
March 25, 2015 at 12:46
hahahaha
Mistake Not...
March 25, 2015 at 12:23
$15000/1029h = 14.58 $/h.
So he got like R150 for each hour he played. Liken that to a 8 hour work day that’s R1200 per day.
So he basically got a monthly salary of about R24000.
Worth it? I don’t know. Maybe. Then again, money is money.
Admiral Chief
March 25, 2015 at 12:27
I’d game for R24k pm
Corrie
March 25, 2015 at 12:29
Who wouldn’t imagine the dream wake up 10, put the PC and jam Elite till around 6 have dinner watch a movie and finish off with a 2 hour session , rinse and repeat…till apparent suicide
Sageville
March 25, 2015 at 12:33
Sounds about right.
Corrie
March 25, 2015 at 12:38
That’s how I planned today out…minus the apparent suicide part…..need my GPU and that also GTA V
Trotar
March 25, 2015 at 21:02
The best way to destroy your joy of a hobby it to turn it into a job :p
Lord Chaos
March 25, 2015 at 12:40
Exactly what I was thinking
Gareth Smith
March 25, 2015 at 12:41
wonder if he got taxed. =/ cos on R24k the government takes a fair wack
Nico
March 25, 2015 at 13:02
I do wonder if it was one guy and not a team as their has only been 2880 hours since the games launch in total. Which means he had to play roughly 10 hours a day since it came out.
fleshtwister
March 25, 2015 at 13:32
“How do you kill that which has no life?”