No Single Player offline Mode then?

[Voivod]

look, not everyone has the ACCESS to play online all of the time, its not about money, its not about any socio-economic factor ..

believe it or not, some people have intermittent internet - that means their net is not reliable, their lag is terrible, their ping is woeful, and they cant maintain a stable connection. not everyone lives in a big city with 100% net access 100% of the time.

*sigh

I live on a island and my internet is fine most of the time.
If sometimes I get disconnects and I can't play Elite, I won't firestart some awesome drama.

What part of the playerbase is like you describe?
They had to make the decision to axe offline mode, would you rather they spent months/years more developing the game just for a small minority of gamers?

 

[PrometheusDarko]

This is exactly why the decision to drop offline mode should have been made public at the time the decision was made.

Yeah, except this has been addressed. They wanted to make absolutely sure it wouldn't be a possibility, since they are fully aware it was a promised feature. Things change in development. Sometimes big things.

 

[Dosse]

Where you really planning on playing the game without an internet connection?

I am forced to due to the place i rent during the weeks near work does not have any internet connection, and refuse to get one. And a dongle is out of the questions since the phone companies here are so greedy there is no flatrate options available, not to a sensible price anyway. So as it is now, i will only be able to play ED during the weekends.

 

[ecgallagher]

I doubt that would work, he can't even get a mobile signal in his house he has to go into the back garden to make a phone call lol. But hey.. You're going to suggest he moves house now huh?

Can he keep his computer at your house then come over there to play?

 

[Quietman]

Pretty sure servers will still be online and if not I'm pretty sure FD will release their server software for download if they stop supporting the game.

Sorry, but this is one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever read in any forum ever.

Even FD are unsure of how long their servers will last and when or even IF the servers will ever become public domain, there is just no way for them to guarantee any of your statement with anything even remotely approaching accuracy at this point in time, (and given the rather dramatic proceedings of the last few hours I am not sure how reliable that information would be anyway).

But you as our modern day Nostradamus have the situation completely under control, carry on!

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Well maybe this backlash will highlight to you that the game you are setting out to do is not the game your community wants. The majority of people aren't interested in multiplayer in the way Frontier are seemingly obsessed with it. The design decision should have been full on offline mode with the option of a 8 player co-op or something less ambitious.

Sorry, but that's not true. Forums are echo chamber. This is just a bunch of highly annoyed people. 99% of players really don't care about offline mode (they might care about single player mode, which is still there). It doesn't make hurt to go away but it's harsh truth people should recognize.

EA/Maxis set out to make the game they wanted to make but quickly had to u-turn. How on earth did you not look at that situation and not learn from it?

2 years aren't u-turn, and neutered offline mode of Simcity 5 is really not worth the price. Simcity was still best earning game for EA in that year.

I welcome your replies on the forum but you seem to be dismissing the fact that most of the anger and disappointment is fueled not by the lack of offline mode but in the secrecy behind the decision and the way it was underhandedly snuck into a PR newsletter. Surely you knew this was going to be a BIG deal?

Personally I think it would be much worse would it be announced and discussed on forums. Forums are visited by very tiny fraction of player base (6k out of 140k). I don't like way it was written - someone should have read that loud before sending out - but overall it said what they had to say.

 

[Juniper]

Show me where offline mode was ever deemed as critical part of core spec, and reason why they would have to decide to gut online version. Please.

Such proof has already been posted by others throughout this thread. You'll have to read it. Sorry.

I personally think that FD shouldn't have promise offline mode during KS, sorry, they were worried themselves during those early discussions. I was wondering myself how they will do that and was worried later how modes will differ, what kind of cheats this introduce and really what's the point besides having two games instead of one (never good idea when you have big project to complete).

No they most certainly should not have promised it during the Kickstarter. Serious money changed hands as a result of that, and given Michael's offhand replies & reasons given for it being dropped, it seems fairly clear to me that they had no intention of fulfilling that promise.

If that wasn't the case, and they really cared about providing an offline experience (whatever cut-down form that might take) then they wouldn't have designed themselves into a corner. It would have been taken into account at every step of the way.

EDIT: To be clear, as an active DDF member, I'd just like to point out that at NO point was it ever hinted at that offline mode was going to be a problem.

 

[eeps]

And honestly, Solo Mode's tax on the Network is not that bad... For those people, who still need to be able to patch the game anyway, to play, I recommend they utilize it.

And what if they went on deployment where there is no net at all, like at a mining site, oil rig, remote island processing immigrants, etc etc the list goes on... sure its a minority, but thats no excuse to 'cut and run'

people with these kind of jobs bought the game based on its offline capability. yeah sure every now and then they come back to town and have access again, but the point is that audience (for example) purchased the game based on its offline claim.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Could you please address whether any level of refund will be available to Kickstarter backers? I am not interested in a full refund, but I wouldn't have pledged as high as I did without an off-line mode. And the boxed copy is now a worthless piece of junk rather than something I could install ten years down the line for a bit of nostalgia.

I don't have any details for that. At the moment all refund requests are dealt with on a case by case basis.

Michael

 

[mbpoblet]

the only question is .. @Mr Brooks "Can solo play runn while not online?" if solo play cannot run offline for periods of time then alas the newsletter is a tad misleading.. if it can then i see no issues!" that everyone should be the bigger question

Almost surely not:

The online servers provide all of the data and processing for the galaxy, interactions between players and all transactions of value. Without it there isn't a game. We always intended that the way to play the game would be online. We had hoped that we could do an offline variant, but as the game progressed the online requirement superseded that. It wasn't an easy choice to make, but to stay true to the game we set out to make we had to make this choice.

Michael

 

[Voivod]

I am forced to due to the place i rent during the weeks near work does not have any internet connection, and refuse to get one. And a dongle is out of the questions since the phone companies here are so greedy there is no flatrate options available, not to a sensible price anyway. So as it is now, i will only be able to play ED during the weekends.

Well I would be disappointed if I were in your shoes... and I feel for you I really do.
But you must understand that you are in the vast minority and if you were FD you would have made the exact same decision.
It's a shame things turned out like this.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

look, not everyone has the ACCESS to play online all of the time, its not about money, its not about any socio-economic factor ..

believe it or not, some people have intermittent internet - that means their net is not reliable, their lag is terrible, their ping is woeful, and they cant maintain a stable connection. not everyone lives in a big city with 100% net access 100% of the time.

*sigh

As far as I understand what FD will offer - I am speculating here, because this is nowhere cleared up - is low tick semi offline version. Thus something which is single player, and is still playable even with shaky connection. Unfortunately everyone concentrates on absolutely offline mode, and didn't ask Michael how they will handle low quality connections for single player mode (solo).

 

[Jackruss]

I have been posting on one of the other thread so this needs to be asked here.
As a further point in this sad turn of events I still have questions.
If I am playing in offline mode, changes to the galactic prices on goods are irrelevant because I can only effect a local change and only by serious grinding at that. I would not be concerned about the price of fish a hundred or a thousand light years away.
The price of upgrades is pretty well static so no problem there.
If I want to upgrade the Missions in 6 months I could go to my friend’s computer a lot of miles away and download it there. (I mention this example because someone in Alpha had this problem)
Or is this to do with your actions in a mission producing several outcomes which have to be catered for and changes made accordingly, but again what can One Pilot do to influence the games structure.
The System information is already decided, I believe, when the current Galaxy is initialised otherwise we would all find different things in the same system. So that would not be a big thing to sort out.
So what is the difference between Solo and Offline except the physical connection?
What makes it impossible to have a separate offline mode?

 

[Michael Brookes]

No that's not what "time to time" means. WAY more than you're thinking.

Single player online does require a consistent connection.

Michael

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I don't have any details for that. At the moment all refund requests are dealt with on a case by case basis.

Michael

Michael, so what's status with low quality connections people wanting to play? Is there will be such mode where they can try to play as it will require not so intense connection with server or will those improvements merged in solo mode?

Thanks.

 

[jabokai]

Sorry, but that's not true. Forums are echo chamber. This is just a bunch of highly annoyed people. 99% of players really don't care about offline mode (they might care about single player mode, which is still there). It doesn't make hurt to go away but it's harsh truth people should recognize.

If the numbers you've just made up are indeed the truth then there should be no harm to FD in offering good will, full refunds to those that want them... No?

 

[Ccrazed]

You can still play solo, it will need to talk to the servers for transactional data - market, missions, etc. Give it a try. If you can download the game then it will work I would imagine.

I will try that, but its been an hour and I have only downloaded about 5% so far. So it may mean that I have to start the game a couple of hours before I actually want to play, so it can download all the data it needs. Still, it should be worth it if it works.

 

[Michael Brookes]

I have been posting on one of the other thread so this needs to be asked here.
As a further point in this sad turn of events I still have questions.
If I am playing in offline mode, changes to the galactic prices on goods are irrelevant because I can only effect a local change and only by serious grinding at that. I would not be concerned about the price of fish a hundred or a thousand light years away.
The price of upgrades is pretty well static so no problem there.
If I want to upgrade the Missions in 6 months I could go to my friend’s computer a lot of miles away and download it there. (I mention this example because someone in Alpha had this problem)
Or is this to do with your actions in a mission producing several outcomes which have to be catered for and changes made accordingly, but again what can One Pilot do to influence the games structure.
The System information is already decided, I believe, when the current Galaxy is initialised otherwise we would all find different things in the same system. So that would not be a big thing to sort out.
So what is the difference between Solo and Offline except the physical connection?
What makes it impossible to have a separate offline mode?

It's not just the data on the servers, it's the processing of everything that happens in the galaxy - so generating missions, trading, events, exploration - the core of the game.

Michael

 

[eeps]

They had to make the decision to axe offline mode, would you rather they spent months/years more developing the game just for a small minority of gamers?

er, its not like its 'months/years' of work, its has been working in offline mode up until now .. so they cant just give them a hybrid of beta 2.0x to play, albeit dumbed down, just to appease them?

I dont see the fact that they are a minority reason enough to exclude them, and not since they were enticed to the game in the first place by the claim of offline mode.

 

[SJT]

Single player online does require a consistent connection.

Michael

So I can pull my ethernet cable and the game will continue?