Newcomer / Intro So Solo Play Won't Let You Pause The Game???

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Why, can't you just exit to menu like everyone else?

This is the newcomers forum. I think it would be sensible here to allow new players some time to wrap their heads around the way this game works before we expect them to really comprehend the technical limitations preventing standard single player features from being available ED's Solo mode.
 
AND they removed the word "PAUSE" from the menu screen itself. Nice!

Now if they'd just make it look a little less like the game is paused we might see fewer of these posts. :)

The menu item in the pause^h^h^h^h^h menu screen still says "Resume" though.. how can you "resume" if nothing was paused / suspended.. ;)

They really could avoid all this confusion with one piece of warning text on the game menu, maybe put in a ticking clock too to show the world is still going on. Not doing so - when it's such an easy fix - seems almost a bit petty. It's almost as if they want people to mess this up, then laugh at them.
 
The only viable pause is to save to the main menu. If you go AFK while the game is operational, it might bite you.
 
The menu item in the pause^h^h^h^h^h menu screen still says "Resume" though.. how can you "resume" if nothing was paused / suspended.. ;)

They really could avoid all this confusion with one piece of warning text on the game menu, maybe put in a ticking clock too to show the world is still going on. Not doing so - when it's such an easy fix - seems almost a bit petty. It's almost as if they want people to mess this up, then laugh at them.

I think a visual cue would help a lot too: rather than dim out most of the screen, just block out the portion necessary for the visible text. That would highlight for the newer players that the game was still chugging along.
 
AND they removed the word "PAUSE" from the menu screen itself. Nice!

Now if they'd just make it look a little less like the game is paused we might see fewer of these posts. :)


Yep, even with the word removed, it looks a lot like a pause mode, and is an obvious trap for the unwary. Maybe making the underlying game more visible while in the menu might be a start, so people can see stuff still going on without them.. This one comes up way more often than the tools who fly without insurance and make stupid ragequit threads, which makes me suspect that in this case folks have a legitimate concern- after being mislead by poor UI design.
 
No it's not. The galaxy lives in real time, celestial bodies orbit other celestial bodies, everything moves, community goals are fulfilled, wars are happening, governments collapse etc. How do you imagine a "pause" acutally? You just freeze in motion and the universe keep moving? And then you're what - teleported to bring you back in line where you should be if the game wasn't paused? Drop you out of the pause in the same place you've paused? What if there is a planet in your spot now, because the universe is not paused?

Understand that you're connected to one and single universe in all the modes, the difference is that in Solo you don't SEE other players, but they're still there having an effect on the world you play your game in.

It's not rocket science really.

All good points, and I would add that if you were to introduce the ability for NPCs to magically ignore the player while 'paused' in solo mode, this would strengthen the arguments of those who say that players should not be allowed to move freely between open, private group and solo play. Clearly AIs can't be paused in multi-player mode, so to allow this for solo players only would give a significant, concrete advantage to playing in solo. I am very much against any restrictions on moving between modes, I think the current system is good, and I think any solo only 'pause' mode would call this into question.
 
This is the newcomers forum. I think it would be sensible here to allow new players some time to wrap their heads around the way this game works before we expect them to really comprehend the technical limitations preventing standard single player features from being available ED's Solo mode.
Which would be quite reasonable if people came along and asked courteous questions instead of stamping their feet and assuming that everything was a poor design choice/irrational/broken/incomprehensible. It would be nice to see a question along the lines of "hey guys, I can't see any obvious reason why we can't pause the game in solo mode, am I missing something?"
 
Only single player games can be paused.

This is an MMO. The Solo mode simply hides the other players from you and you from them.
 
Which would be quite reasonable if people came along and asked courteous questions instead of stamping their feet and assuming that everything was a poor design choice/irrational/broken/incomprehensible. It would be nice to see a question along the lines of "hey guys, I can't see any obvious reason why we can't pause the game in solo mode, am I missing something?"

We're supposed to be coming here to help new players. Some of those new players will just be discovering how willing ED is to kick them in the teeth if they let it. Right or wrong, some of them are going to be pretty unhappy when they come here, and they're going to be looking for someone to blame. There isn't a good reason for the more experienced players, who ostensibly are coming here with the intent of HELPING, to come here without a level head and a bit of patience.

If you want to go have at someone and Defend Your Game, the Dangerous Discussion forum has no shortage of opportunities for that. :)

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Edited to due to Whoops.
 
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There isn't a good reason for the more experienced players, who ostensibly are coming here with the intent of HELPING, to come here with a level head and a bit of patience.

I'm probably misreading this but is that really what you meant?
 
I was just running the training missions yesterday, and when you hit escape there, it has warning text about "Escaping to Menu in game play does not pause the game". Or something to that effect, I don't remember the exact wording.

It wasn't very prominent though, it would be easy to miss. And it wouldn't hurt to add it to the in-game menus.
 
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I'm probably misreading this but is that really what you meant?

Oops. What I meant was "I probably shouldn't be posting to the ED forums while I'm in a meeting with my boss".

Or:
There isn't a good reason for the more experienced players, who ostensibly are coming here with the intent of HELPING, to come here without a level head and a bit of patience.
 

Gilmour

Banned
No it's not. The galaxy lives in real time, celestial bodies orbit other celestial bodies, everything moves, community goals are fulfilled, wars are happening, governments collapse etc. How do you imagine a "pause" acutally? You just freeze in motion and the universe keep moving? And then you're what - teleported to bring you back in line where you should be if the game wasn't paused? Drop you out of the pause in the same place you've paused? What if there is a planet in your spot now, because the universe is not paused?

Understand that you're connected to one and single universe in all the modes, the difference is that in Solo you don't SEE other players, but they're still there having an effect on the world you play your game in.

It's not rocket science really.
Well duh, All we need to have paused is our own little solo instance, the worlds do not need to stop spinning lol, that's just logic. So you think that an NPC that is in my solo instance is also in all other instances at the same time, and if we are in combat every other player can see that NPC but not see me because I am in solo?? That makes no sense, you may need to rethink that one.

Also if I am still in your universe but you can't see me, I could, in theory, make your ship visible to me but keep mine invisible to you and blast your socks off and you could do nothing about it, that sounds like a good way to build a game.
 
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rootsrat

Volunteer Moderator
Well duh, All we need to have paused is our own little solo instance, the worlds do not need to stop spinning lol, that's just logic. So you think that an NPC that is in my solo instance is also in all other instances at the same time, and if we are in combat every other player can see that NPC but not see me because I am in solo?? That makes no sense, you may need to rethink that one.

Also if I am still in your universe but you can't see me, I could, in theory, make your ship visible to me but keep mine invisible to you and blast your socks off and you could do nothing about it, that sounds like a good way to build a game.

Ok, but what about the orbitting planets?

What's wrong with exitting to Main Menu anyway? It's not like it takes some ennormous extra effort.
 
So I know it's supposed to be online all the time (even though Braben promised us single player offline) but I was just playing Solo Play and got caught short... Opened up the esc menu to pause the game and went to the loo... came back just in time to see the game had kicked me out of the menus and a pirate was hammering my cargo laden ship.

SAY WHAT????? If you are in Solo mode you should be able to pause the damned game!!!! Can anyone tell me the reason why not?

I loved the original Elite... but this game has given me almost as many screaming fits than Frontier II did... maybe even more. I won't go into how many design errors are in the game because I would be here all night but if it says Solo play it should at least warn you that you cannot pause the damned game if you are in space. And the number of times it has taked over 60 seconds just to open the local system map... why the hell does it need to look online every time for something I had looked at previously. It should be cached locally. :S

I keep wanting to like this game but just when I find myself enjoying it, along comes a glitch or a bug or a design error (can someone tell me why the hell I hear a slow down noise WHEN THE SHIP SPEEDS UP and vice-versa lol). The only reason I got the game after Frontier II was that FD did a good job with Screamride (Love that game to bits).

Maybe Star Citizen will be better.
I went for a pee just 5 minutes ago, and came back to my Keelback, to read 'Ship destroyed by Professor Cambray'. Nice. Cost me 600,000 for the rebuy. Full of two hours of core mining. I've learned an expensive lesson, as well as finding a new reason to save for a combat ship.
 
I went for a pee just 5 minutes ago, and came back to my Keelback, to read 'Ship destroyed by Professor Cambray'. Nice. Cost me 600,000 for the rebuy. Full of two hours of core mining. I've learned an expensive lesson, as well as finding a new reason to save for a combat ship.

If you spent more time paying attention to the game and less to searching for old threads to necro* then you might make more progress. :rolleyes:


* (One a week at the moment.)
 
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