A question: has it been established how often "from time to time" means as far as a connection to the servers? Also, has it been established how crappy/undependable one's internet connection will be able to be and still play online solo?
No Single Player offline Mode then?
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Not to say this isn't a first class terrible post by itself, but what's really pushes it over the line is that FD themselves have cheaped out on hosting so that their idea of "the cloud" is one specific host in one specific geographic location.
If it is anything like the beta, if you lose internet for 1 second or more, even just sitting in space doing nothing, u get dropped. I know that from experience.
Yes, there is - Michael has covered this point many times in the other thread, so I'll try boil it down here.
When Frontier did the KS, one of their design goals was to have an offline component for the game.
As development has gone on over the two years, the scope of the project - like any software development project - has changed. They have had engineers work on the problem, but have come to the conclusion that for Elite: Dangerous to succeed on a commercial level, they cannot support two games - which is basically what would happen if they continued down this path.
They had to make a hard decision - release only a single player game, or release only a multiplayer game. The second path was already too far traveled, so a business decision was made to no longer put the time and resource into single player - or the whole project might fail.
Everyone needs to take a step back - Frontier have not failed to deliver their Kickstarter, they have in many ways succeeded, something a lot of KS projects can't actually boast.
(Disclosure - I backed at the Premium Beta level, so for me the promises of the KS are not as relevant)
If people read the offline support as gospel truth that it would come, they will be disappointed. More pragmatic people read it and realise it was an aspiration and that in two years things have changed along the way to the point I make above - they simply don't have the resources to meet that aspiration.
It seems people want to see Frontier fail completely now because of this, which is actually a rather nasty attitude to take, rather than take all the positives that have come out of this and make it so much better.
I throw one or two out every few months. Seriously.
The game has evolved beyond the realms of that possibility. It was always an online game first. What you wanted might have been possible had the game not evolved.
I'd be really disappointed if the game winded up being limited to a static game just to be playable offline. And expecting fd to create two games is unreasonable.
It's a shame but it's competently understandable.
Folks, listen to this wise person. He does his awatar justice.
At the same time I feel disgussed about some people here who just don't want to understand and patronise on others.
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I love internet statistics 99% of the time because they're 100% pure guesswork.
Anyway, DiabloIII can now be played offline. On the PS4 I don't have to log in first... it perfectly conforms to the PS4's offline modus. I love it to bits.
You need a good connection cause all request (trade, missions and all) need a server transaction. Hope it answer to your question.
Then people who bought the game from the store directly on this basis can request a refund. If they backed the Kickstarter, they have to assume the risk that all KS projects come with.
Why do you start a post with "Not being rude" then immediately insult people?
While I get the reasons given for cancelling offline I'm very disappointed that I'll not be able to play the game whenever FD turn the servers off. Thinking I'd have a beautiful version of Elite to fly around in for years and decades to come was one of the reasons I upped my kickstarter contributions and bought into the Alpha.
So as "always being able to play the game even if FD go bust" is not now on the table I'm voting with my wallet and not giving any more funding to FD by buying skins, game extras etc. from now on.
So as "always being able to play the game even if FD go bust" is not now on the table I'm voting with my wallet and not giving any more funding to FD by buying skins, game extras etc. from now on.
Thats good for you, unfortunately thats not an option for some.
Looking at the latest Ofcom stats, it shows that only 77% of the UK population have Broadband. Now I'm not for one moment saying all the other 23% want to play ED, of course not. But some might. but now they cant?
I can play it, I will play it and I love it but also I try to think of others and how upset I would feel in their place. and I would be very disappointed indeed
Why did you read it and reply to it?
To answer your question - because the point in the OP is not well-made elsewhere (or if it is I have missed it). Given that FD claim to have designed offline out of the game, I don't have much hope they will change their minds. But a pledge reward's fit-for-purpose matters. You would not order a gas cooker if you knew you didn't have a gas supply. You would not pledge for a game you knew you wouldn't be able to play.
FD can take a lot out of Elite: Dangerous without placing their kickstarter on very shaky ground, but not its playability.
Edit: and all the debates about whether the game is better/worse online/offline/multiplayer/solo or how many people have reliable internet access or how many people even have internet access are irrelevant. FD could count their potential online players on just one hand and have no case to answer if they had not stated (many times) that the game would be playable offline. "We don't know" that would have been fine.
Offering to refund pledges to backers who can't play online would also be fine imo.
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+1 rep, exactly what I feel, although their reasons for cancelling are suspect.
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It's not just about the quality of your internet connection, it's about the uptime for the servers at the other end too. Sim City fell foul of that in a big way - it took almost a week from launch for people to be able to connect to the servers reliably: http://kotaku.com/5991077/your-complete-guide-to-the-simcity-disaster
And WoW: Warlords of Draenor is suffering similarly: http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/11/14/warlords-of-draenors-launch-failure-and-where-responsibility-li/
So you might have the best home internet connection money can buy, and still be unable to play the game because of game bugs, or server downtime, or DDoS attacks, etc.
It's highly unlikely that they realised this within the last few days.
The design decisions made which brought us here would have been piling up over time as they moved more and more of the functionality out of the client and into the server and the problem would have been seen for quite some time, probably months. As to when the decision was made no-one knows.
Given that Michael has said that to create an off-line mode of operation would require a completely new program, it seems as if off-line was not really taken into consideration until it was too late.
The best way the Frontier could have dealt with this would have been to flag up the problem in a statement when it was clear that there was a major issue stating that because of the difficulties off-line mode may have to be sidelined and possibly abandoned, giving the reasons. Later, once the decision had been made again making a straight forward and clear announcement, showing sorrow for the failure to be able to create it.
Yes, there would have been wailing and gnashing of teeth but it would not have been at the current level. Indeed, if one of the issues had been man-power no doubt some people would have tried throwing their cash at Frontier to help them out. Overall though, the decision would have been generally understood and seen as honest and open.
The unfortunate repercussions of the manner that this news was sneaked out are many, including many people now not believing a word either Michael or David say. This is the worst possible outcome and could have so easily been prevented.
That does suck. I'm surprised you bought into the beta with a crappy connection as you seem to have, and didn't just pre-order (banking on the now-mythical "offline solo"). Have you asked for a refund given this news?
Of course, they might be able to fix it such that one's connection could drop for a few minutes at a time and still catch up once re-established.
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