No Single Player Offline Mode then? [Part 2]

[Captain Henna]

I really do not see how anyone thought that an offline version of this would be possible. Like the majority of massive content online based server games there is no offline version.

What astonishes myself though is how many who have been happily playing beta online think they are entitled to a refund due to an offline version not being available. You have downloaded, installed and played the game its not trialware or similar and if a change or upcoming change of your circumstances alters your internet access that is not the responsibility of FD.

I fully support the decision and the announcement in the latest newsletter regarding refunds.

 

[Joe Spivey]

Everything has already been said many times over. Whichever side of the argument you are on it's essentially just View attachment 1897 now.

Oh let them argue, it gives me time to sneak in and strip mine the galaxy

 

[m000]

You make the same mistake many make... you never bought anything if you are beta. There is nothing to refund. You paid for a idea that comes with a copy of the game when it is don't. But the money was support for a idea, not to buy a game. That's why there is no refund, you paid for a idea, and the part of the idea you liked go removed (doesn't matter why, just when) but you still paid them to have an idea. It is technically a donation, but since they are not non-profit you can't claim it on your taxes.

Picture this. In a room of investors and partners. You see and overview of what they hope to make. So you say, good idea, here's my cash, build it. So they build on the idea, but one of the parts doesn't want to work, and if you force it the whole idea is messed up... for the idea to be ready to sell that chapter of the plan has to be edited out... which is not fun, it has potential but just can't work.. shame that... BUT... the idea is sent out. Your money has produced the idea and done... but you liked that part that got coy. Can't be helped, it just refused to work without breaking everything. You are mad, but you paid for the idea to be built as best as they could.. and here it is. You didn't give money to own the final idea, you game money to put the idea together.

This is why the refunds for the Alpha, Beta, Backers is usually a NO, because, bluntly said, they legally don't have to.

You must be American
In the EU you can claim all of the above but the EU probably won't buy them. Even if FD has your signature in blood over the EULA, this won't count.
The whole argument be treated as an attempt to defraud people while making it appear legal.
The EU will not buy it and FD will be lucky to get away with only refunds and not a hefty fine on top of them.

Expect this coming if the subject stays afloat long enough to catch the eye of someone in the EU parliament. You may even see legislation to explicitly address cases lke this - which may spell bad news for the KS model.

 

[Only]

I really do not see how anyone thought that an offline version of this would be possible. Like the majority of massive content online based server games there is no offline version.

What astonishes myself though is how many who have been happily playing beta online think they are entitled to a refund due to an offline version not being available. You have downloaded, installed and played the game its not trialware or similar and if a change or upcoming change of your circumstances alters your internet access that is not the responsibility of FD.

I fully support the decision and the announcement in the latest newsletter regarding refunds.

So many posts like this one totally missing the point, nobody has to justify why they wanted an advertised offline option don't just assume its due to lack of or poor internet.

It was an option now isn't and people aren't getting what they bought and want a refund simple really.

But hey if your not bothered by offline then you won't care anyway.

 

[-c-s-]

Yet again you prove yourself to be terrible at reading small print.

"For projects that launched before October 19, 2014, please see our previous Terms of Use."

Edit: also there's nothing within the rewards section about offline mode.

Except that there is no way to have a "Physical DRM-free collector's premium boxed edition" reward if the game is now always-on DRM

 

[Jonbe54]

I think perhaps a word or two of perspective from an older poster regarding David Braben and the place he holds - or has held until this last few days - may help some of you understand the more acidic attacks on him and FD.

I trace my computing days back to BEFORE the advent of 64kb personal computers - back to the days of the very first video game tables and such lost and forgotten names as the colecovision system.

My first true home computer was a Commodore 64, complete with an accessory pack of a tape player, a copy of Elite and a copy of Civilization.

I was fortunate for such an introduction Braben and Mier have been giants of the industry along with such notables as Lord British and a few other lesser lights.

But it was Braben and Mier that led the way out of blocky little blobs and bleeps towards the promised land we now enjoy.

Elite is the archetypal seminal game, it launched a genre and convinced many that the home computer had a future as an entertainment medium as well as complex calculators and word processors. Braben proved to be an innovator and a maverick that refused to be typecast or stifled by preconceptions of stereotypical expectations. He forged an independent and moral career refusing to be sidetracked by developers who insisted on cuts and accelerated deadlines. His public fights with management and backers are many and legend, this is what has given him his enviable reputation for independence and integrity within the gaming community and the wider computing sphere.

I played Elite and Elite Plus until my fingers fell off and my keyboard keys started sticking, sometimes for 48 or even 72 hours at a stretch with only breaks for toilet shower and food/drinks. I also played Frontier and First Encounter extensively - though they didn't have quite the same emotional appeal to me.

Here is the crunch though, computer gamers of my generation grew up with the image of David Braben as a white night in shining unsullied armour, willing to take on the gaming giants for the purity of his vision and delivering it to his fans.

The person responding so slickly to concerns lately is either an imposter or David Braben has totally sold out.

For those of us who grew with the infant computer gaming industry that is not only a tradgedy but a travesty.

Infinite sadness.

 

[-c-s-]

For the beta, which you got.

Technically, the pledge was for the final game, which we haven't got yet, regardless of how slippery Frontier is with how they document delivery of the rest of the contents of the reward.

 

[eeps]

Anybody in this, or the previous, thread who attempts to mention receipts, disclaimers, definitions of 'beta' or anything similar fundamentally misunderstands law. The law, in whatever country you are from, supersedes on every occasion and under every circumstance any attempt made by anyone ever who sells something to a consumer. period.

here, I'll say it again. The law, from the country you are from, supersedes any disclaimer under any and all circumstances.

If you dont understand this, or insist that FD is more superior than the magistrate or supreme court in any jurisdiction is just fantasizing. Its just absolute rubbish.

So please, before you try and recommend that FD is somewhat superior to the law, and somehow the law doesnt apply to them, then I have a couple of pieces of property under some power lines you might be interested in.

Internet lawyers, they suck at understanding the law. The law on the other hand, well they are pretty good at understanding the law, since they make it, uphold it, and fine the crap or imprison those who break it.

A simple example, I write receipts and invoices every day, so if I write at the bottom : "Upon agreeing to this purchase you must cut the throat of your first born child and supply me with the blood" then I should be starting a blood bank yes? No. You cannot contract away your rights, and your contract cannot break further laws. Even the most backward, draconian, 'stupid people in power' countries do not allow this. The law is the law, a receipt is mostly worthless.

gosh

 

[-c-s-]

I appreciated your perspective, @Jonbe54

I played Elite and Elite Plus until my fingers fell off and my keyboard keys started sticking, sometimes for 48 or even 72 hours at a stretch with only breaks for toilet shower and food/drinks. I also played Frontier and First Encounter extensively - though they didn't have quite the same emotional appeal to me.

David Braben can't take sole credit for those games though, right? There is Ian Bell and also Chris Sawyer that had pretty big parts to play as I understand it.

 

[stamasd]

I really do not see how anyone thought that an offline version of this would be possible. Like the majority of massive content online based server games there is no offline version.

What astonishes myself though is how many who have been happily playing beta online think they are entitled to a refund due to an offline version not being available. You have downloaded, installed and played the game its not trialware or similar and if a change or upcoming change of your circumstances alters your internet access that is not the responsibility of FD.

I fully support the decision and the announcement in the latest newsletter regarding refunds.

How about for those of us who have not downloaded, installed or played anything?

 

[Krait_79]

If you go to the store and see 2 bottles of soda on the shelf, one is 2x the size and full (and never needs refilled), the other is empty to about 1/3 and both the same cost... Most will want the larger one.

So many posts like this one totally missing the point, nobody has to justify why they wanted an advertised offline option don't just assume its due to lack of or poor internet.

It was an option now isn't and people aren't getting what they bought and want a refund simple really.

But hey if your not bothered by offline then you won't care anyway.

I've played plenty of games where they changed things after purchase making it not the game i bought. Can i claim refunds on all those as well?!

 

[Wolframium]

I've played plenty of games where they changed things after purchase making it not the game i bought. Can i claim refunds on all those as well?!

What changes, exactly?

If the changes are limited to a patch to fix a few minor bugs and glitches, then no. If they scrap a game mode that to many players is pretty much the only mode they were interested in, before you even got a chance to play it, then I'd say yes, absolutely.

 

[-c-s-]

I really do not see how anyone thought that an offline version of this would be possible. Like the majority of massive content online based server games there is no offline version.

The recent disclosure that only 10kbps is required for "solo" play is actually really strong evidence that it is simpler than you might think.


The economy data is just simple store and forward keyed by node. There are no calculations on the data retrieval side of the transaction. There are relatively minor calculations that happen on the write side of the transaction.

The only code that takes non-zero time happens at the "commit" of a transaction; it is the code that updates the demand stats by visiting the dependency graph of the commodity. The results get written to a distributed cache, ready to be read.

Reads happen considerably more often than writes. This amount of data is peanuts and is what I describe as the bitstream of the logical event stream.


The transform calculations are transforms that are known ahead of time and they take negligible CPU time. This could easily be done client side to support the offline mode.

The only reason it isn't done client-side is because they want to force every player to share the same global event stream so they can't trust the calculations done on the client. This is why they say that "servers are required".


But there is actually a little more nuance. When they said "It is a creative decision" to justify removing offline support, they are telling us that they include modifications to those transform calculations when visiting the dependency graph of non-commodity events in the event stream.

Again, nothing precludes this from being done offline. There is nothing special about the code running on the servers that would prevent it running locally; it isn't special.

Once again, the only reason that it isn't client side is because Frontier is dead set on forcing everyone to share a single global event stream. The modifications to the transforms have to reside where the calculations run, so therefore, they now have to be on the server.


It should be clear now, that the hurdle that "killed" offline support was Frontier's mandate that all players must share the global event stream; that there must be only one unique Elite universe.

I would argue that by that single design decision, they stopped being an open sandbox and become just a large theme park.

 

[Jonbe54]

I appreciated your perspective, @Jonbe54



David Braben can't take sole credit for those games though, right? There is Ian Bell and also Chris Sawyer that had pretty big parts to play as I understand it.

Most definitely -c-s, both highly regarded men at that time in their respective fields, it's just that it was Braben that took the spotlight and ran with it, and of course it is he that is being attacked at the moment.

To those of us who started out computing with his elite it feels like he has traded on his reputation to sell the idea of this game and then cashed in on it and denied those last few backers their moral right to a refund.

It certainly would be well within the budget constraints for so few numbers but he seems to have become enamoured with the corporate model of 'admit no fault'.

As I said infinte sadness for those of us who have gone the complete journey.

 

[stamasd]

The person responding so slickly to concerns lately is either an imposter or David Braben has totally sold out.

I am not in the gaming industry, but my history with Elite is similar to yours (s/C64/Spectrum)

David Braben is not the saint people here hold him to be. You probably are familiar with the history of his relationship with Ian Bell, the co-creator of the original Elite. If not you can read it at Ian Bell's site. There were also other signs, along the years, of his real personality - in particular one specific episode that led to the premature termination of at least one Elite-like game on a mobile platform, where he acted, let's say less than chivalrously.

I am not surprised at today's David Braben. Unfortunately.

 

[BBcokeley]

WOW, cant believe your all still debating this, refunds will be given to those, who truly cant play, the rest of you, are just jumping on the band wagon, let it lay.

 

[Wolframium]

I really do not see how anyone thought that an offline version of this would be possible. Like the majority of massive content online based server games there is no offline version.

How anyone thought an offline game would be possible, you ask? Shall I go fetch the links to all the various statements by David Braben and Michael Brookes where they reassured us, time after time, that it would indeed be possible to do exactly that? We trusted them, that's how we thought it would be possible. Had it been just a rumour, I could maybe understand what you are saying, but this came directly from the founder and the executive producer. Are we to assume that they are not reliable sources and do not know what's going on with their project, or worse, that they deliberatly lied to us? I'd like to think not.

What astonishes myself though is how many who have been happily playing beta online think they are entitled to a refund due to an offline version not being available. You have downloaded, installed and played the game its not trialware or similar and if a change or upcoming change of your circumstances alters your internet access that is not the responsibility of FD.

But it is their responsibility to deliver the product we paid for. Also, what about those of us, like myself, who never even had the option to download the game because there wasn't even an active link in the store page?

 

[jabokai]

REDACTED

You could maybe argue that our naivety and trust were taken advantage off, but scammed suggests they meant to do this from the start and I think nobody (sane) believes that.

It's about integrity - they have more than enough not to be "evil" (scam) but not enough to be "good" (refunds/alternatives)... like pretty much every other business out there, it's primarily about money. We'll know better next time.

 

[CMDR Don't Shoot]

The recent disclosure that only 10kbps is required for "solo" play is actually really strong evidence that it is simpler than you might think.


The economy data is just simple store and forward keyed by node. There are no calculations on the data retrieval side of the transaction. There are relatively minor calculations that happen on the write side of the transaction.

Wow, that makes so little sense I actually felt sad reading it.

It's like saying that getting a computer to tell you if it' going to rain or not in your city is super easy because it's a yes/no answer. The bandwidth it takes to get you the answer is NOT a way to find out how much work goes on in the server end.

Ask google how much work it takes to get you a single page of results.

Man, did you really think nobody was going to call you out on that drivel?

 

[Jonbe54]

I am not in the gaming industry, but my history with Elite is similar to yours (s/C64/Spectrum)

David Braben is not the saint people here hold him to be. You probably are familiar with the history of his relationship with Ian Bell, the co-creator of the original Elite. If not you can read it at Ian Bell's site. There were also other signs, along the years, of his real personality - in particular one specific episode that led to the premature termination of at least one Elite-like game on a mobile platform, where he acted, let's say less than chivalrously.

I am not surprised at today's David Braben. Unfortunately.

I am familiar with the Ian Bell relationship but trying to untie claim and counter claim as an outsider with no direct knowlege of either the people involved or the circumstances described turns it into a 'he said, he said' scenario. It's obvious that he had a forceful personality otherwise he could not have lasted the numerous headclashings with industry and supporters - as to specifics I wasn't aware there were any indisputably inedpendent proveable facts available.