No Single Player Offline Mode then? [Part 2]

[Silanda]

I just talked this over with a lawyer on this very subject (just cuz I was wondering from this coming up a short time ago) and he says it's the same as buying a Warranty. You are paying for something that MAY happen. Since it is a 1-off payment it is technically non-refundable. You can't get your money back an a Warranty, it's a form of insurance.

EDIT: They don't HAVE to, but they could... always worth trying.

Is your lawyer friend a contract lawyer versed in English law, and would he care to state what legislation and legal precedent would be applicable with regards to the pre-order of season passes? I'm genuinely interested.

 

[aMinDAmoK]

I think a lot of you are missing the point. You, the player, are what is evolving the galaxy. There isn't a background simulation of you evolving the galaxy. Because of this, the game requires players to make it work and thus an internet connection. What has happened is they discovered they can't actually simulate you and still have a playable game. NPC's could probably do all the things that you can do. But, at what cost? Development time that could be better used to improve the game and reach the goal of producing a compelling game. C'est la vie.

 

[bsolar]

Whatever you though the beta test would be is irrelevant. Joining a beta test grants no guarantees. You pay to join to get early access to code to play test.

You didn't purchase the game, you purchased a pass into beta. You are getting the game for free as a thank you for that.

If I offer you a stay in a hotel, dinner included, I cannot then claim that you only purchased the stay and the dinner was not part of the deal. The dinner was purchased as part of the package you bought, even if advertised as "free" or if the price was not visible as standalone item. If you asked me whether I offer gluten-free menus before your purchase and I answered "yes", you would be less than impressed later to find out gluten-free menus are not available, and would surely have the right for a refund.

The case at hand is exactly the same: the beta program included the full game in its price, some customers checked whether the full game would have an offline mode, and made their purchase based on that information.

 

[StuartGT]

I have to say I agree I certainly have been put off backing any more games on kickstarter. I back 2 around the same time Elite Dangerous and Godus. Godus is shaping up into a bit of a turkey but they are kind of delivering what they promised so I can't really complain and Elite Dangerous is looking good generally accept for pulling a fundemental promised feature at the very last minute because they didn't keep it in mind throught the design and development and tried to jam it in as an after thought at the last minute.

So all in all no I won't be backing anything else on kickstarter.

Oh man, I feel for you after the god awful mess (pun intended) that was Godus. Bad luck on you wanting Offline-ED. Have some rep+

 

[Vlodec]

I did not change the meaning at all. Your claim was that it would've fizzled out - apart from sporadic eruptions, sure. However, since the topics I mentioned make up more than what can reasonably be assigned the term "sporadic", I fail to discern sufficient semantic support for your assertion that I edited your post, especially as such as to alter the meaning.

The addition of "sporadic eruptions" does not significantly alter the meaning of your statement. My leaving it out was purely for the sake of brevity. I stand by my statement.

As it was my statement I feel comfortable deciding whether or not your edit of it changed the meaning.

But I have nothing more to say on the subject and as is my custom in these circumstances will let you have the last word.

 

[Zuikaku]

Forcing everyone into this one thread is pointless and self defeating, it is not calming down the situation it heating it up. I've had a thread closed, posts deleted and 2 warnings and I'm starting to get sick of it. I've already been mistreated by Frontier over this whole issue and now it seems the forum is trying to effectively silence people by pushing everything into this one thread which makes it utterly unmanageable and meaningless to try and discuss any nuisance.

I'm sorry people are taking things to far (talk of threats which is always unacceptable) but most of us just want to have our voices heard and be able to discuss the matter properly. Trying to do that in just one thread is as impossible as discussing the entire game in a single thread. If you really must have it off your main board create a sub board called Offline mode discussion and let us create threads in there. If you agree with this please feel free to copy and paste and/or quote it in your own posts as otherwise it'll just get buried like everything else.

I saw your petition. First they send in the white knights to kill any constructive discussion and then they just close the thread. Think I had enough patience to settle this whole issue peacefull. Now I'll request refund and make sure nobody repeats our mistakes (trusting software developers over nostalgia when they need money for their projects) ever again!

 

[CMDR Beardie.D]

I have setup a petition to FD to re instate the offline mode or at least shortly after release, it IS possible to have the mode hence we have been using it in BETA, obviosly some features wont work such as comms BUT all previous Eltes were offline and great so why cant this version be. An offline version will be different but still great.

Please if you agree sign this petition

Additionally please feel free to pass the link around

 

[EbolaConundrum]

I think a lot of you are missing the point. You, the player, are what is evolving the galaxy. There isn't a background simulation of you evolving the galaxy. Because of this, the game requires players to make it work and thus an internet connection. What has happened is they discovered they can't actually simulate you and still have a playable game. NPC's could probably do all the things that you can do. But, at what cost? Development time that could be better used to improve the game and reach the goal of producing a compelling game. C'est la vie.

This isn’t the point; they said from the start the galaxy would be static by comparison in the off-line mode. They said that when they promised it so what changed?

Keep in mind that with the size of the galaxy in Elite Dangerous even if it’s static one person could literally travel through it for their entire life and not visit the same system twice if they didn’t want to. So the dynamic nature of it is not all that important and was not expected or promised in the off-line version of the single player game. That’s why it makes no sense as an excuse for not including it.

 

[WeirdWizard]

Forcing everyone into this one thread is pointless and self defeating, it is not calming down the situation it heating it up. I've had a thread closed, posts deleted and 2 warnings and I'm starting to get sick of it. I've already been mistreated by Frontier over this whole issue and now it seems the forum is trying to effectively silence people by pushing everything into this one thread which makes it utterly unmanageable and meaningless to try and discuss any nuisance.

I'm sorry people are taking things to far (talk of threats which is always unacceptable) but most of us just want to have our voices heard and be able to discuss the matter properly. Trying to do that in just one thread is as impossible as discussing the entire game in a single thread. If you really must have it off your main board create a sub board called Offline mode discussion and let us create threads in there. If you agree with this please feel free to copy and paste and/or quote it in your own posts as otherwise it'll just get buried like everything else.

I saw your petition. First they send in the white knights to kill any constructive discussion and then they just close the thread. Think I had enough patience to settle this whole issue peacefull. Now I'll request refund and make sure nobody repeats our mistakes ever again!

Thanks but the petition thread wasn't actually mine (although the petitions threads closure was what pushed me to post that) my thread was an attempt at some constructive discussion around the technical challenges of building an offline server (for us or them). In case your interested https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61064

 

[Seonid]

Please if you agree sign this petition

That's got some interesting bits in the ToS and PP...

 

[EbolaConundrum]

Oh man, I feel for you after the god awful mess (pun intended) that was Godus. Bad luck on you wanting Offline-ED. Have some rep+

Thank you to say Godus was disappointing is an understatement indeed.

 

[foxpur]

Is your lawyer friend a contract lawyer versed in English law, and would he care to state what legislation and legal precedent would be applicable with regards to the pre-order of season passes? I'm genuinely interested.

He is a contract lawyer versed in English law. I'll ask him tomorrow at the party I being "Forced" to attend in Camden (the joke here is the one forcing is an incredibly lovely lady I could never say no to), send me a PM reminding me please.

 

[CMDR Beardie.D]

Thanks but the petition thread wasn't actually mine (although the petitions threads closure was what pushed me to post that) my thread was an attempt at some constructive discussion around the technical challenges of building an offline server (for us or them). In case your interested https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61064

The petition thread was mine, and im disgusted firstly at those that cant read and decided to turn it into a slanging match, it was supposed to be a petition count. But here is a proper petition for anyone to sign if they wish HERE

 

[Daffan]

I, and I imagine most others against always online DRM, would be more than happy to shut up if we could just get our refunds.

A lot of people have theirs as under investigation as they make up some pseudo-excuses about product/beta. Shame really

 

[WeirdWizard]

I have setup a petition to FD to re instate the offline mode or at least shortly after release, it IS possible to have the mode hence we have been using it in BETA, obviosly some features wont work such as comms BUT all previous Eltes were offline and great so why cant this version be. An offline version will be different but still great.

Please if you agree sign this petition

Additionally please feel free to pass the link around

Signed. I can't hurt I suppose.

 

[Riandor]

I have setup a petition to FD to re instate the offline mode or at least shortly after release, it IS possible to have the mode hence we have been using it in BETA, obviosly some features wont work such as comms BUT all previous Eltes were offline and great so why cant this version be. An offline version will be different but still great.

Please if you agree sign this petition

Additionally please feel free to pass the link around

...Because many features would need to be redesigned probably from the ground up. yes its a design decision, because, yes it COULD be done, but in order to get the core game mode to work as intended sacrifices had to be made and this is unfortunately one of them. Maybe FD will revisit at a later date, maybe not, but no petition will change it for release.

 

[EbolaConundrum]

Signed at least I think so for some reason the form to sign was in german.

 

[Magic Man]

If I offer you a stay in a hotel, dinner included, I cannot then claim that you only purchased the stay and the dinner was not part of the deal. The dinner was purchased as part of the package you bought, even if advertised as "free" or if the price was not visible as standalone item. If you asked me whether I offer gluten-free menus before your purchase and I answered "yes", you would be less than impressed later to find out gluten-free menus are not available, and would surely have the right for a refund.

The case at hand is exactly the same: the beta program included the full game in its price, some customers checked whether the full game would have an offline mode, and made their purchase based on that information.

If you are offered the option, your choice, for a fee, of staying in the hotel to test out facilities and are given dinner at the end of your stay as a courtesy for doing so, you cannot claim a refund on the dinner because they changed beans for pees. You didn't specifically pay for the dinner and so can't really complain when it's changed.

For the record, I have nothing against a single player mode. That's how I enjoyed the original way back when on the BBC B's at school, on my Spectrum a year or so later and on my Amiga a few years later still. Only ever got to dangerous though...

 

[StuartGT]

Is your lawyer friend a contract lawyer versed in English law, and would he care to state what legislation and legal precedent would be applicable with regards to the pre-order of season passes? I'm genuinely interested.

There is no legal precedent of season/expansion passes that the industry has heard of so far. Insurance would be the most applicable equivalent: as the number of expansions to be added is unknown to the buyer, the buyer is effectively buying insurance to cover 'the cost' of any expansions that are released.

 

[CMDRElJal]

I have setup a petition to FD to re instate the offline mode or at least , it IS possible to have the mode hence we have been using it in BETA, obviosly some features wont work such as comms BUT all previous Eltes were offline and great so why cant this version be. An offline version will be different but still great.
Please if you agree sign this petitionAdditionally please feel free to pass the link around

I will sign the petition. As I said you have my sympathy and my support, but I have to say that I am satisfied with FD explanations and I appreciate their efforts. I don't agree with their decision but I understand. I hope that a possible Single player version of ED as a new game or expansion may be available in future. After all mr Braben didn't exclude it

offline single player experience has always been possible (and still is) but would be a separate game with its own story content.