No Single Player offline Mode then?
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Yup, rather than counter his points, let's just go ahead and attack him?
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Adhominism is not tolerated. I may disagree with many in this thread, but I've attempted to be as civil as possible - as have the majority.
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I said that always online is not equal to DRM.
The MAIN reason ED is going to be online is due to the shared universe everyone is playing in. That it also can be used as a form of DRM is as you said yourself a side effect...
I've just seen a couple of comments around the forum from people claiming that the reason they've done this is to be able to implement DRM into the game...which is false IMO. That is why I addressed it.
While it is no doubt true that there is money assigned to the servers, that doesn't really allow them to give us an accurate number about how long they will be up. I suppose they could say something like 'A minimum of X amount of time', but given that the company is probably banking quite a bit on the income from launch for doing things like maintaining servers into the future and paying developer salaries, it would probably end up being a really short span of time, which would no doubt result in even more PANIC responses.
The good news is that as long as the company remains solvent, the distributed connection model that is being used here most likely requires significantly less bandwidth and processing power than a typical MMO to maintain. That means as long as they don't end up getting too many backers who pull their funding, and the game doesn't flop at release, they will most likely be able to afford to keep the servers up for a very long time.
It is? I must not have got that memo. Looks a bit of a lean version right now with all those DDA features missing, and little multiplayer content. It is an updated version of what I played in '85 though. I'll grant you that
I may be online, but I also have a machine that has 6 cores, each running over 3000x faster, and with 300,000x more memory than the one I first played Elite on. Surely some of that processing power and memory could be used to run a half convincing single player simulation?
If it quacks like a duck and it implements single player always-online DRM like a duck...
It was. It's certainly not now.
Except on those situations & circumstances (and there are many) when we are.
We didn't live in that world 2 years or 2 weeks ago either, when offline single player still was a thing with FD.
Guess somebody told them.
I would have believed that two months ago, but I'm one of the guys not believing in magical internal builds that will fix all the problems.
How can you polish something that doesn't exist?
Or... You could just play the bloody game and enjoy it. Unless there's a Meta here I'm not picking up on... You paid, what, you said about 200 quid for this? And we can safely assume a minimum of probably 5 years of gameplay? Assuming about 5 hours a week, a modest estimate, that's oh... 1300 hours of gameplay? A 2-hour movie ticket is... oh, twelve quid? So that's what... six quid an hour for entertainment? Seems like you'll get your money's worth if you actually take a moment to enjoy the game instead of the new griping meta... Must have missed that patch note...
I like it here. It's cozy and gives me the warm fuzzies. Also I get to show off my amazing lack of wit.
Lord almighty on a pogo stick.
Is that a rhetorical question? If not, it is quite useless. How would anyone without a magic crystal ball be able to answer such a question, except for "as long as we possibly can"?
Pixy Dust? I think I have some around here somewhere...
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Exactly, Commander.
Let me help you get your point across:
NEWSFLASH: MULTIPLAYER GAME REQUIRES INTERNET CONNECTIVITY
World, un-shocked. Apart from Bob, on Forum A. Who is increasingly worried about government-intervention in to his purchasing habits. Bob may have been drinking at the time he made those statements.
Next tonight, however, it's Sam with the weather.
No it's not. I've never wanted a game I couldn't play offline.
No, they explicitly said "probably".
No, they didn't promise that, they put it forward as a proposal, which was rejected by the people they proposed it to... then they came up with something else, which was accepted. No promises made, or broken.
They "promised" to release the game in March this year. They "broke that promise"...which I think most people where quite happy with...heck, a lot of people probably want them to "break the promise" of releasing the game on Dec 16th...not me though...gimme gimme gimme...
That's the only one you may have a point with.
However, even if we accept your post as written then all you're really saying is "it's fine to make and break promises". Good going!
Of course always online is DRM. Have these people forgotten the Simcity online desaster? They sound like the EA PR department.
Dead in ten years ? So let's say you get 10 years of inproving play from ED is that not worth the investment you made ?
I for one think that would be well worth my money, most people don't expect to get that sort of longevity out of a motorbike these days and they cost a lot more.
Most games don't get two years, COD and battlefield are a case in point. yes EVE and WoW have and I think ED will be the same as those.
I have had no issues with FD or Elite so far and I will be able to play online virtually all of the time.
I cannot and will not defend FD over this decision.
They marketed their fundraising at a group of middle aged folk who had played FD games offline for 30 years or more . When challenged by the backers during the fundraising process about the availability of an offline version they assured them there would be one and updated their kickstarter page to confirm this.
The studio owner and developers have repeatedly referred to the offline version since that time. Discussions have taken place about it on their own forums and in interviews.
Then 1 week before gamma launch they casually toss into a newsletter the fact they are going to renege on this.
Many people do not have constant internet connections. Salesmen, oilmen, sailors, soldiers, people who live in remote areas. These people are quite rightly upset about this u-turn
I find it sad that people try and defend this behaviour. It is simply wrong and should not be stood for by anyone.
I for one will not be spending a penny more with FD, I don't buy EA games as I don't tolerate their business practices. This is of a similar level of disrespect to people who helped fund their game when they asked.
I cannot and will not defend FD over this decision.
They marketed their fundraising at a group of middle aged folk who had played FD games offline for 30 years or more . When challenged by the backers during the fundraising process about the availability of an offline version they assured them there would be one and updated their kickstarter page to confirm this.
The studio owner and developers have repeatedly referred to the offline version since that time. Discussions have taken place about it on their own forums and in interviews.
Then 1 week before gamma launch they casually toss into a newsletter the fact they are going to renege on this.
Many people do not have constant internet connections. Salesmen, oilmen, sailors, soldiers, people who live in remote areas. These people are quite rightly upset about this u-turn
I find it sad that people try and defend this behaviour. It is simply wrong and should not be stood for by anyone.
I for one will not be spending a penny more with FD, I don't buy EA games as I don't tolerate their business practices. This is of a similar level of disrespect to people who helped fund their game when they asked.
It's completely indistinguishable from DRM from the point of view of the user, though, so why argue semantics?
Lord almighty on a pogo stick.
Is that a rhetorical question? If not, it is quite useless. How would anyone without a magic crystal ball be able to answer such a question, except for "as long as we possibly can"?
they must have an idea of a minimum worst case scenario, after all they know what revenue they currently have, how much development has cost so far, they know their overheads, staffing costs, marketing they know how much their servers cost, beyond that it may prove difficult with factoring in estimated sales etc but I bet they have a pretty good idea based on the KS and alpha/beta/gamma pre-orders when they have to start cutting back spending.
Yes, because they will make next version. For FD intention is to keep ED alive as long as possible, trough updates and expansions.
I can understand people not being able to have online connection, but these speeches "how long ED will be online" are nonsense at this point. ED IS oneline game! It's sole purpose and value is extended period of being online!
Seriously.
Just some general thoughts about this after skimming through the thread... (Not that this comment will make any difference really...
It's a well thought out and constructed post and thus deserved to be read and responded to.
You touched on many points that I mostly agree with, but there is one major point that you missed out on and another one I am starting to disagree with.
This omission has broken the game for some people; those who don't have reliable internet access, or who have intermittent access to the internet, (e.g. me, due to work). The simple fact is that these people have been shafted, whether it's because of technical reasons, development reasons, game play reasons or more likely political/financial reasons, (see my next point).
This is just conjecture that I do not agree with, (see some of Michael's responses in this thread, in particular to a question of mine).
- Firstly your analogy to Supercruise changes is a poor one, any changes to Supercruise were not part of the fundamental design of ED for the last two years as Offline mode was. Offline mode was a given and most people expected it to be included at some time if not at release.
- Offline mode does not affect any of the other modes in any way whatsoever, apart from the resources/finances/manpower needed to implement it, (but this was allocated for and included in the functional specification and detailed design documents for years, right?) and therefore it had no bearing on "development or the majority of players".
- There are no technical reasons for offline mode not being implemented, (Michael himself said that offline mode is not impossible just impractical).
- It has become increasingly obvious that FD want to protect the Server IP, it's design, it's infrastructure and it's data.
I personally think there is something afoot with a radical change in FD's plans, whether it's planning more of a MMO structure, or there has been a large influx of money from a 3rd party, or it's being prepared for consoles due to new interest, who knows.
To me it seems the Server, the way it functions and it's data has now become a prized possession of FD and it must be protected at all costs. If so then that explains why "offline mode" >/dev/null, as you can't have a client based version of your critical server and all it's protocols sitting on home machines being analysed and hacked by every Tom, and Harry.
If not then this post >/dev/null
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