No Single Player offline Mode then?

[Fasty]

Just a friendly reminder to everyone that your newly online-only game won't be playable on its release date, due to server overload. You might be able to play it the following day if your'e lucky. Failing that, the day after that.

Just hope it's not a catastrophic failure like Driveclub, that has the full weight of Sony behind it. That game's online mode is still unplayable months after release. Luckily, Driveclub has a limited offline mode that people are still enjoying while they wait for the online mode to be fixed.

Just be happy you didn't take the day off to play the game on release, like people did recently to play the Halo re-release online, or Asassin's Creed online, or Call of Duty online etc etc etc. All games that have offline modes you can enjoy while you wait But that will be fine, it's only a game, get over it. Go outside, enjoy life then come back and play it when ther servers are back online, right?

 

[kenny_brocklestein]

You know exactly that the current state of ED is only a snapshot. They will soon add a lot of improvements and expansions. That means that if they would create a separate "offline-version" they would need to do a lot of parallel work due to the incompatibility of those two versions.

So now i ask you:
Do you really want to have an offline-verion on the expense of a having less resources for all those great expansions like planetary landing and so on? You can't be serious on this.

lol you're hilarious. How big of a snapshot? How soon will they add all these amazing improvements and expansions? Enough to save them from being scourged by review sites for releasing a buggy, incomplete, misadvertised game? What faith you have.

 

[Juniper]

Actually the way I remember it was when the Mac version was announced in the last few days or weeks maybe......That in my opinion saved it.....long after offline mode was given the ok

There were a number of things. Offline mode was one. Mac version was another (although that was a stretch goal announced after the campaign had started to gain some serious momentum).

I certainly remember there being a consistent jump when offline mode was announced, because on the day previous, the numbers hardly moved at all and we all thought the sky was falling.

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous/

 

[Deyn]

Everybody thinks he will have a super stable and performing connection in the future?

...may be you will, but I'm interested to see what happens, when major parts of the pro online community have trouble getting a decent connection during the years to come.

As many may have already noticed IPv6 is currently implemented. It is especially implemented in the backbone of major providers.

Now if parts of the routers and switches for what ever reason need to "translate" IPv4 into IPv6 or tunnel the connection, well, let's not go into details, just say the performance/lag could be interesting...
now mix in a bunch of people that have native IPv6 and some that need more than one translation or the packages get tunneled through a provider network that does not send a "packet too big" ICMP6 message you will never get a stable connection.

This scenario happens currently in germany, as major providers need to migrate their whole infrastructure and in the years to come, until every component and network is capable of native IPv6 or dual-stack we will see problems, performance issues, strange phenomenons and so on.

As of 2014 about 20% of the registered networks announce an IPv6 prefix! That does not mean they just "have" addresses, they really use it...

I doubt this is the best of times to actually launch an "online only" game at all.

Of course there are always others to blame, your provider, the other provider, the cloud provider for the Frontier servers, etc. somebody will have to take the blame, when a lot of people can't reach the servers, or the connection is so horrible it isn't acceptable.

I sincerly hope Frontier has prepared their cloud and servers and game client for the upcoming changes, because IF they have trouble to keep the "galaxy cloud" and databases available for the majority of players in an online only game it might be a shortlived experiment...

I don't say they did not think about this, or they are ot prepared, but to my knowledge even major internet companies and providers struggle with the shear complexity of the changes they need to implement and first troublesome experiences for end users pop up.
Just google "DSLite" or "Carrier Grade NAT" and "session limit" and if you like "stateful vs. stateless adress filtering" as an example.

 

[Pille]

This isn't about technology or user experience. It's about money.

Remember: a credit store is mentioned in the Kickstarter FAQ. And in-game ads are in the EULA.

If you want to successfully implement in-game advertising and microtransactions, you need to have your player base online and connected. In the Kickstarter FAQ it says they do not plan to use a subscription model. (Plans can change though, if ads and microtransactions don't over all costs.) Yet, they need a cash flow to keep servers and development running. So they are trying to do in-game ads and microtransactions instead of a subscripton fee. And for that to work out they need everyone online. How can they make profitable advertising contracts if they have to admit that their players can avoid the ads? They can't. How can they sell credits if you don't notice other players have an advantage because they paid for credits? They can't. You need to be in the same universe as everyone else to notice your disadvantage, you need to be exposed to localized ads. If Frontier has everyone online they have a strong advertising opportunity to sell.

Now, realize that we technically already agreed to an ad-filled universe with P2W mechanics. They wouldn't be breaking any promises if it came to that. The only promise they needed to break to make this model profitable was: offline mode.

Anyone else think it's really funny that the EULA still says that you should play offline if you want to avoid advertising? Yeah...


Sources:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...ject_faq_42659
We do not plan to make it subscription-based. Once you have purchased the game up front, you will be able to play thereafter for no further cost. Everything in the game will be purchasable with in-game Credits, earned from trading, bounty-hunting, etc. We will probably allow the supplemental purchase of Credits with real money, for those who want to accelerate their progress through the game. We do plan to charge for additional updates, to be available sometime after the original release. These will offer additional content, features and gameplay.

https://store.zaonce.net/ed-eula/
8. In-Game Advertising
The Game may incorporate technology (which may be provided by Frontier or third party service providers engaged by Frontier (each a "Dynamic Advertising Provider")) which enables advertising to be uploaded into the Game on your PC, and changed while the Game is being played on-line. In order that the Dynamic Advertising Provider is able to direct advertising appropriate to your Game and geographic region, as well as to the correct location within the computer game, certain non-personally identifiable data and information may be retrieved and retained by the Dynamic Advertising Provider including your I.P. address, geographic location, in-game position, and information concerning the appearance of advertising visible during your gameplay (for example, the length of time an item of advertising was visible, the dimensions of the advertisements). In addition, the Dynamic Advertising Provider may assign a unique identification number which is stored on your PC and which is used to monitor and calculate the number of views of dynamic advertising during gameplay. None of the information collected for this purpose including the identification number can be used to identify you.

The technology employed by Dynamic Advertising Providers may be located outside your country of residence (including outside of the European Union).

Where a Game incorporates dynamic advertising technology, the technology which serves the provision of dynamic in-game advertising is integrated within the Game. This means that if you do not want to receive dynamic advertising, you should only play the game when you are not connected to the Internet.

 

[beelbeebub]

No, english is not my native language but understand it pretty well (although im not that good in writing, so i apologise for that). Here is what is problem:

I guarantee you your English is better than whatever your native language is! The point is that non-native English speaker (even good ones) often struggle to see the subtle "tomes" of native English speakers. I say this as someone whose mother speaks English as a second language and even though her English is superb (nearly 40 years in the UK) she still sometimes struggles with getting the "tone" of a conversation.

- how on earth can offline mode be harder than MP? asside that offline doesn't have to be synched and do not need all the feature. Not to mention that they once did offline game (FFE) and it worked. And we loved it. So it is not impossible.

If I may give an example: you in charge of creating an online children's interactive learning site and somebody asks you to produce an offline version. It's not just a case of dumping the site to a local hard disc, because lots of the content is pulled from servers to download the latest info (celebrity faces for you to throw coconuts at, background music based on the top 10, weather backgrounds based on the weather where you are etc). So the content for the offline site has to be reworked so that all the pictures, music, stories etc. come from a local source, which then has to be created and packaged. Things like the weather background need to be removed and replaced with local backgrounds based on the internal clock. Then, as you cannot patch problems on the fly, you need to test every one of the pages and games to make sure there are no major bugs. You are no longer developing one web site but two.

- In all of the newsletters and news they simply ignored offline mode and on every question regarding it they shifted the subject to "how excited they are about multiplayer" and tried to convince us that multiplayer is better. So, were they working on it at all? i think that is a reasonable doubt.

Or this is just evidence that they regarded multiplayer as the core game? True the manner of announcement was clumsy but sometimes people make mistakes, people make jokes they think are funny in their head and someone ends up insulted. Did that person mean to insult them or was it a clumsy mistake?

- why they were not happy with offline mode? They gave us no details at all. So i find that answer inadequate. Maybe we'll be happy even with offline play they are not happy with. But they did not even consult the comunity about that and just scrapped it. after foundrising was over (sorry but it looks bad)...

MB has said that they couldn't get the galaxy to "live" and they felt that was unacceptable. Ultimately, it's their game, they are the creators, they get to decide if they are happy with the product.

- If they didn't want the offline mode, they should have been honest from the start (Kickstarter) and said that they are very excited about making MMO Elite only. People who are not "excited" by idea of MMO Elite woul'd not pledge and we woul'd not have a problem now. And questions rising about deception.

But MB has stated they did want to do offline and tried to keep it but had to conclude they couldn't. If they decided a week or two ago (or even last month) it might still take some time to arrange an announcement.

- DRM free promises are broken by "smells like Sim city spirit" alway online

There is an ongoing debate about the difference between DRM and something just requiring online to work. Does twitter have DRM? What about Facebook or Gmail apps? The apps can be open source with no DRM at all but they are useless without online.

 

[kenny_brocklestein]

Just a friendly reminder to everyone that your newly online-only game won't be playable on its release date, due to server overload. You might be able to play it the following day if your'e lucky. Failing that, the day after that.

Just hope it's not a catastrophic failure like Driveclub, that has the full weight of Sony behind it. That game's online mode is still unplayable months after release. Luckily, Driveclub has a limited offline mode that people are still enjoying while they wait for the online mode to be fixed.

Nah bro it's cool we can totally just play the tutorial missions again and again and again! Hours of fun!

 

[Urban Warrior]

Just like it was your choice to take our money.

I want a refund.

It's a choice we've had to make and so we've taken it.

Michael

 

[psyron]

Does it have to be? Not beeing the complete experience and not beeing acceptable to have a cut down offline experience is something relative. I would be happy to have one.


The game would set the 2 factions (race1 (possible Federation, Empire or Alliance or an independent system (Eridan as example)) at a war state and only calculate strength in the areas. No ships, etc. If you keep in the area, the ships will still be calculated. The war can come to an end, depending on some triggers, or still be in progress. If it is in progress, the game would know it and would recalculate a war zone if you return.
The key here is not to simulate, more to calculate.


The game would calculate the remaining in a plausible way based on facts and randomization. But only in a more upper part. For the body part, you would simulate the overall condition of the body, but not every cell in regions you arent in.
Yes it might be possible, or more it is, that it isn't 100% as accurate as a complete calculation. But for the offline mode its better as nothing. And you will still have your offline experience. And if they calculate it well enough, peoples wouldn't even notice an difference. If there is such a ship there in the area or some other ships when you return after some days, isn't so important for me. And strength of factions should be calculated and depending on this aswell the strength of npcs in systems. For example by pirates, that could be simulated as clusters in an area. So many pirates in this and this area, or less ones in this areas. And many things only have to been calculated in the known space. I doubt, you will see Federation ships or pirates 1000 light years away from home.

Yes, but again: They figured out that this would mean they have to develope TWO separate games in parallel. This would require a lot more of resources. It's simply not true what many people think that it's easy to translate the current ED that FD have created into a more static/randomized version.
And as i said: The development is not halting but will continue the next couple of years. We will see planetary landing and so on. All this effort would be jeopardized by having to develope 2 completely different and incompatible games in parallel.

 

[psykokow]

Just like it was your choice to take our money.

I want a refund.

Im not sure, thats accurate..... it was your choice to give your money surely?

 

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

There is an ongoing debate about the difference between DRM and something just requiring online to work. Does twitter have DRM? What about Facebook or Gmail apps? The apps can be open source with no DRM at all but they are useless without online.

Not sure if serious or trolling. Are you seriously attempting to compare internet based web applications with an installed piece of software?

 

[beelbeebub]

I pledged on the last KS day... I pledged almost entirely based on the promise of an offline mode.

There would have been others.

I'm not denying that some people will have pledged because of the offline, simply pointing out that the pledge rate doesn't support the hypothesis that without offline ED kick-starter would have failed. The pledge rate before the 3 week announcement was the same as after, which is not what you would expect to see if the number of "offline" pledgers was significant.

 

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

Yes, but again: They figured out that this would mean they have to develope TWO separate games in parallel. This would require a lot more of resources. It's simply not true what many people think that it's easy to translate the current ED that FD have created into a more static/randomized version.
And as i said: The development is not halting but will continue the next couple of years. We will see planetary landing and so on. All this effort would be jeopardized by having to develope 2 completely different and incompatible games in parallel.

Yes, yes it is that easy, patches can be made galaxy seed agnostic and the core elements can be handled content agnostic as well, you simply reduce the size of the galaxy right down and simplify the simulation.

 

[vonFelty]

Im not sure, thats accurate..... it was your choice to give your money surely?

Are you saying FDev was forced to take customers money? It takes two to make a transaction and unless someone is forced to take money then I don't know what you are saying.

I mean people chose to give FDev money because they had promised offline support until last Friday.

 

[beelbeebub]

Not sure if serious or trolling. Are you seriously attempting to compare internet based web applications with an installed piece of software?

No not web apps, I mean a twitter client like tweetdeck or an email app like thunderbird.
-
Thunderbird is a good example (i think). It is an application installed on your computer to read email. It is open source (and thus DRM free) , but is totally useless (except as a note taker maybe) without an online connection to an email service.

 

[cfs3corsair]

Well so far Frontier doesn't appear to have responded, so far, to the anger and confusion expressed by many fans.
This doesn't bode well

 

[Pille]

I'm not denying that some people will have pledged because of the offline, simply pointing out that the pledge rate doesn't support the hypothesis that without offline ED kick-starter would have failed. The pledge rate before the 3 week announcement was the same as after, which is not what you would expect to see if the number of "offline" pledgers was significant.

This line of reasoning assumes that all the potential backers who pledged because of offline mode actually read that announcement and immediately decided to pledge. There is no room for people who pledged because of offline mode but heard about the game and offline mode some time after the announcement or did read the announcement, but decided to pledge a little later, but still did it because of offline mode.

 

[Juniper]

You know exactly that the current state of ED is only a snapshot. They will soon add a lot of improvements and expansions. That means that if they would create a separate "offline-version" they would need to do a lot of parallel work due to the incompatibility of those two versions.

So now i ask you:
Do you really want to have an offline-verion on the expense of a having less resources for all those great expansions like planetary landing and so on? You can't be serious on this.

I don't buy the "resource" argument. If the game is successful (as I think it would be if they delivered on all their promises... unclear now) and is a big focus for the company, then resources can be added. One does not preclude the other. But it's not for me to say how Frontier handle their internal resourcing.

But an offline mode was promised, the game was sold under those conditions until very recently, and they will face consequences in the marketplace in the short and medium / long term as a direct result of not delivering that.

People have long memories, and they will not soon forget this. Just like people boycott EA, or Maxis, or Ubisoft, or Egosoft for their various transgressions... Frontier will now be added to that list. That is the real damage done to the game, and the company as a whole.

 

[jabokai]

I'm not denying that some people will have pledged because of the offline, simply pointing out that the pledge rate doesn't support the hypothesis that without offline ED kick-starter would have failed. The pledge rate before the 3 week announcement was the same as after, which is not what you would expect to see if the number of "offline" pledgers was significant.

Then providing a full, unconditional refund to anyone who wants one (including kickstarter backers) shouldn't be an issue... Yet I suspect we will be told where to go!

 

[kenny_brocklestein]

Im not sure, thats accurate..... it was your choice to give your money surely?

I'd offer you some gasoline but it looks like you've already got all that you need.