They did what?
I've gathered some reactions from non-backers over the last couple of days. I just warned a friend that the game she pre-ordered for her gamer husband to play when he travels for work and doesn't have reliable internet access won't have an off-line mode after all. She had no idea until I told her. (I suspected this would be so because I pre-ordered three copies myself to give as Christmas presents, and had no word from the store to alert me of this key change and offer a refund if needed. I only know because I'm a backer). To describe her response as "mad as hell" doesn't do it justice.
I wonder how many other customers who are not backers are going to get a shock? But, as another once potential buyer put it - "FD just screwed over half their backers. Why wouldn't they treat their ordinary customers worse?" Ouch.
My take at this point is that FD don't understand what a big deal cutting offline mode is. If they did, they wouldn't have released the information as spin in the backers' only newsletter at such a late date, with no apology, no offer of recourse for those affected, and no alert to ordinary customers who have pre-ordered from their store.
Out by Default?
Similarly, if they understood how important offline mode is, they wouldn't have lost it. It struck me that they never asked the Design Decision Forum about offline play. In nearly two years of discussions about all kinds of subjects - from weapon/shield mechanics to intrasystem flight to comms, groups, how slavery works, mission suggestions, ironman mode, sanctions for naughty players, cosmetic enhancements and everything between these varied topics - not once did they propose how offline mode works and ask for our input. No what's essential? what's desireable? what can we do without? Apparently, they didn't consider offline play important enough to talk about. The only time I can remember offline mode coming up was in the context of groups, and the finalised proposal that online characters could move offline but not vice-versa. Which makes me wonder now, did they just not write for it, so they've written it out by default?
Perhaps a failure to realise the impact of what they now propose is also responsible for their apparent failure to realise that you can not in good conscience ask people to pledge money for a game, which for nearly two years you repeatedly tell them they'll be able to play, then tell they won't a month before launch; without apology; without offers to compensate. I usually avoid hyperbole because too much loses its impact, but that part is scandalous.
Holy smoke!
I'm also saddened by the loss of potential that ditching offline means. Over the past year I've watched some folk in education get very interested in Elite: Dangerous. I'm thinking especially of the primary school teachers I know who have relationships with other schools in Commonwealth countries and beyond that. I'll paraphrase one - "Wow, this is brilliant: the representation of distance, of orbits, of classes of stars and planets - I can get them to appreciate scale with this, I can get them excited by gravity and centripetal force and... omg, flight assist off? Intertia! Holy smoke!"
Key point - the offline mode was what they wanted. Schools located where utilities are unreliable even if they exist could make use of this. Multiplayer wasn't the point. If anything, it distracts. But the offline mode has really been drumming up interest. More than that, another friend who gave up a career in marketing to take one up in game design (truth!) virtually salivated when she observed, "Imagine millions of school children seeing the Frontier splash-screen every week before they watch something cool and exciting and immersive. You can't buy marketing like that."
Having learned that FD are ditching offline, the latest remarks are along the lines of "Kiss goodbye to all that," "It's dead, Jim," and "Well now that's all kaput."
omg, grown-ups...
Then there's my thirteen-year-old who, with his best mate, has his own funded Kickstarter project for a game they're making. Quote: "We all [he and most of his pals] paid for Minecraft because we can play it online when we have internet but can still play it when we haven't. Don't these grown-ups realise how common that [decision] is?"
No plan B... plan A? A is B... what?
Finally, the loss of offline mode puts a heck of a lot of pressure on the online mode to work out of the box. I live in a town with fibre optic and I pay for very good internet speed (I have teens. You know their priority for wifi exceeds both food and cash). My set-up copes with three, four and sometimes five intensive gamers at once (Mincecraft, Guild Wars 2 and World of Warcraft). I have been testing Elite when I have the house to myself to give the game its best shot, and while I expected problems in Alpha and early Beta, the loading times and jitteriness this close to release, even in solo, make me worry a bit. Knowing that offline was an option, especially if there were teething problems in the first few weeks, mitigated that. Not so now. The online mode had better be sweet, efficient and seamless if that's all there is.
Given that Michael described offline mode as "not impossible", just "impractical", I wonder if the developers are far more suited and equipped to solve that type of impracticality than the many and varied new ones their decision has generated.
Loyalty is not a one way street.
