Dear FDev

[Mikelore]

These I can also get behind, though in the case of player controlled NPCs I have no idea what you're on about. NPC means non-player character. If it's player controlled, it's now not an NPC.

Sorry that wasn't too clear. What I meant are NPCs that can be told what to do for e.g. join your wing or back you up in a fight.

But if the core is not fixed, and I mean very soon,, I am afraid to say that players will abandon this game in droves, I have seen it many times over the course of the last 18 years since online gaming was born. It is an online game, and it requires players participating to make it work.

This is exactly what I'm afraid of. If we lose momentum there will be very little of us left. I think it's already happening, there are whole player groups/clans dropping out due to the issues I mentioned and general disillusionment especially since Powerplay was touted as a patch that would provide the needed content. Lots of empty ED TS servers that used to be buzzing.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Two and half years ago there was no SOLO, but OFFLINE mode where players were supposed to have OWN copy of galaxy. OFFLINE + separate (living) OPEN would be best (I still hope for it). Yet FDEV, probably too cut on cost, killed OFFLINE, and decided (IMO wrongly) to have SOLO mode influencing (this is 'wrongly' part - of course, just my (and hundreds others) opinion)) OPEN galaxy. Q.E.D. due to breach of promise and wrong decision we have this SOLO/OPEN thread, everybody is pushed into not to discuss, but to silence. It's indisputable fact that OPEN/SOLO is the biggest hot topic among players

If you think that two and a half years ago there was no Solo mode contained in the stated game design then you really ought to refresh your memory as to the content of the Kickstarter pitch:

Fight, trade, hunt your way across a giant galaxy of billions of star systems, starting with a basic starship and a few credits. You can make money from trading goods between the many star systems, by destroying pirate ships (and collecting bounty), or even by attacking traders and collecting their cargo (which in turn will get a bounty on your head!). There will be missions too, and exploration. Most people will do some combination of these things. Upgrade your ship and specialise in one activity - have a trader with a huge cargo bay, or use the space for weapons and maneuverability.

Real Freedom - Go where you like, be what you like - pirate, bounty hunter, trader, assassin, or some mix of all of these.

Trade - Buy low, cross dangerous space lanes, evade or destroy pirates en route, then sell high, if you make the journey!

Fight - Take on the pirates or be one yourself

Progress - Get your pilot rating all the way from "Harmless" to "Elite"

Explore - Head out to the far reaches of space and discover amazing sights

And the best part - you can do all this online with your friends, or other "Elite" pilots like yourself, or even alone. The choice is yours...

How does multiplayer work?

You simply play the game, and depending on your configuration (your choice) some of the other ships you meet as you travel around are real players as opposed to computer-controlled ships. It may be a friend you have agreed to rendezvous with here, or it may be another real player you have encountered by chance. All players will be part of a “Pilot’s Federation” – that is how they are distinguished from non-players – so you will be able to tell who is a player and who is a non-player easily.

You will be able to save your position in certain key places (probably just in space stations, but possibly while in hyperspace too, if we feel it is needed). A save-and-quit option will be freely available at those points, as will the subsequent reload, but there will be a game cost for a reload following player death. Your ship will still be intact in the condition it was when the save occurred, but there will be a game currency charge (referred to as an insurance policy) for this. This is to prevent the obvious exploit of friends cooperating and killing each other to get each other’s cargo. If you can’t pay, then it will accumulate as an in-game debt, and the police may chase you!

There are no multiplayer lobbies, and the game will be played across many servers, augmented by peer-to-peer traffic for fast responses. Session creation and destruction happens during the long-range hyperspace countdown and hyperspace effect (which is a few seconds only), so is transparent to the player.

We have the concept of “groups”. They can be private groups just of your friends or open groups (that form part of the game) based on the play styles people prefer, and the rules in each can be different. Players will begin in the group “All” but can change groups at will, though it will be possible to be banned from groups due to antisocial behaviour, and you will only meet others in that group.

Last updated: Wed, Nov 14 2012 12:52 PM BST

Please note the date in that second quote, by the way.

The SOLO/OPEN thread, where players are pushed, is like you can't protest your government in a public gathering in capital city, but there is designated one remote location you can go and talk about. Or that there is only one newspaper which can critisize goverment, or only one TV channel. All others must praise the lord (read: faulty design) and behave like everything is fine. In real life, we would call it censorship. Sadly, here we have it. And bare with me, moving some clear discussions there, or merging them is fine, yet moving any discussion which slightly touches OPEN/SOLO is (IMO) silencing uncomfortable truth, that current OPEN/SOLO situation drives players mad.

Moving threads that also discuss the Solo / Open / Private Group debate into the main thread designated for that purpose is simply to stop new threads popping up with "new" ideas from players that are not familiar with the game design. Likening keeping a privately run forum tidy to government censorship is a bit of a stretch.

Yes it drives me mad that for competitive reasons(sic!), players move to SOLO to grind (i.e. harm) other/own (sic!) powers, and you can't do much against it, while they're executing their actions specifically to compete, beat and sometimes purely to anger you (observe Aisling Duval 5th column of preparation discussion, happening for last 4 (four!)cycles). So we have SOLO mode, to prevent players harming players, and this SOLO is now used by players to harm players. Yes, in different way. VERY FUNNY!

It would be interesting to know who is actually carrying out these undermining exercises - it may be those players who seek to Min/Max and will choose a mode that they would normally reject simply to maximise their output. We've been told that Powerplay and Community Goals are for all players in all modes - that has now extended to all platforms with the introduction of the XBox One version (and probably the PS4 version later) - players that we will most likely not be able to play with / against directly as there is not expected to be crossplay between platforms.

 

[Alien]

edit: on 2nd thoughts, I don't care.

 

[rdslw]

If you think that two and a half years ago there was no Solo mode contained in the stated game design then you really ought to refresh your memory as to the content of the Kickstarter pitch:
[...]
Please note the date in that second quote, by the way.
[...]

Portions quoted by you does not change (in our discussion) anything.

I think we can agree on:
* some form of SINGLE PLAYER was promissed (kickstarter)
* OFFLINE mode was promissed (kickstarter)
* MULTIPLAYER mode was promissed (kickstarter)
* OFFLINE mode was cancelled - to huge public outcry

It's quite logical conclussion (at least for me and heck a lot of other games release so far) that SINGLE PLAYER mode does not inflict any changes on players playing in MULTIPLAYER mode. Here (in ED) few things happened:
* OFFLINE was cancelled
* SINGLEPLAYER SOLO was designed (due to have lower cost: confirmed by the FDEV(sic!)) to use the same instance of galaxy (hereby influencing MULTIPLAYER (here OPEN)
* SOLO gamers purposely use it to harm players in OPEN (more to that later)

English is not my mothers tongue, so that's why me crafting easy to asses statments as above to narrow discussion and our opinions. I'd happily listen where I'm wrong with above points?

Moving threads that also discuss the Solo / Open / Private Group debate into the main thread designated for that purpose is simply to stop new threads popping up with "new" ideas from players that are not familiar with the game design. Likening keeping a privately run forum tidy to government censorship is a bit of a stretch.

I agree that *very* often this is good action. I'm also tired of multiple discussions. But for example it happening from time to time, as one of the bullet points in new discussion it's not a problem for me. Yet I saw few situations where it was used to 'silence' discussion. Especially ones not happy with current design. ALso, I find argument 'this is to direct new players there' as *very* untrue. Very very. Many of such discussions are started by seasoned players (like me).

Anyway, this is not very important for me, and I dont feel that my opinion is the only correct on this stance. This is what I feel and thats all.

It would be interesting to know who is actually carrying out these undermining exercises - it may be those players who seek to Min/Max and will choose a mode that they would normally reject simply to maximise their output. We've been told that Powerplay and Community Goals are for all players in all modes - that has now extended to all platforms with the introduction of the XBox One version (and probably the PS4 version later) - players that we will most likely not be able to play with / against directly as there is not expected to be crossplay between platforms.

As to the platforms: I play from mac. So far only main platforms, being PC and Mac can and do crossplay.

As to the root of discussion: powerplay is competitive as hell. I know what I see in my group of 30 players, and what is discussed on reddit (which became main PP source of discussion). There is a huge amount of competition. BTW: I dont' find it wrong nor right. What I whole hearty protested is that elite is not (or was not designed) as competitive between player. Wheck, POWER play it's named. And power is all about competition.

Second thing we discussed is that SOLO is used by players to harm (almost grief, not fully, but close) other players. And I find it funny. Karma is always back they say, and for me this is the example. I see it on daily basis, feel yourself invited to AislingDuval subreddit - there is plenty of information (and proof) of it happening. HECK, I DID IT and used solo to compete with other power. People I asked did it. People we opposed TOLD US in comms they are and continue do this. People OPENLY suggest using this as a way to be more effective. I dont know what more is needed

 

[R Wilco]

Everybody has an opinion on what's broken and how to fix it. The problem is there is a million opinions on what is broken and how to fix. I've been in the forums since December and find less and less value in these threads...

Just play the game and enjoy it. Stop trying to change it to "fix" issues that are broken in your opinion, but not in the opinion of others.

And if you find a legit bug, follow the documented bug reporting process. Op-Ed pieces don't qualify as bug reporting.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Portions quoted by you does not change (in our discussion) anything.

I think we can agree on:
* some form of SINGLE PLAYER was promissed (kickstarter)
* OFFLINE mode was promissed (kickstarter)
* MULTIPLAYER mode was promissed (kickstarter)
* OFFLINE mode was cancelled - to huge public outcry

It's quite logical conclussion (at least for me and heck a lot of other games release so far) that SINGLE PLAYER mode does not inflict any changes on players playing in MULTIPLAYER mode. Here (in ED) few things happened:
* OFFLINE was cancelled
* SINGLEPLAYER SOLO was designed (due to have lower cost: confirmed by the FDEV(sic!)) to use the same instance of galaxy (hereby influencing MULTIPLAYER (here OPEN)
* SOLO gamers purposely use it to harm players in OPEN (more to that later)

English is not my mothers tongue, so that's why me crafting easy to asses statments as above to narrow discussion and our opinions. I'd happily listen where I'm wrong with above points?




I agree that *very* often this is good action. I'm also tired of multiple discussions. But for example it happening from time to time, as one of the bullet points in new discussion it's not a problem for me. Yet I saw few situations where it was used to 'silence' discussion. Especially ones not happy with current design. ALso, I find argument 'this is to direct new players there' as *very* untrue. Very very. Many of such discussions are started by seasoned players (like me).

Anyway, this is not very important for me, and I dont feel that my opinion is the only correct on this stance. This is what I feel and thats all.




As to the platforms: I play from mac. So far only main platforms, being PC and Mac can and do crossplay.

As to the root of discussion: powerplay is competitive as hell. I know what I see in my group of 30 players, and what is discussed on reddit (which became main PP source of discussion). There is a huge amount of competition. BTW: I dont' find it wrong nor right. What I whole hearty protested is that elite is not (or was not designed) as competitive between player. Wheck, POWER play it's named. And power is all about competition.

Second thing we discussed is that SOLO is used by players to harm (almost grief, not fully, but close) other players. And I find it funny. Karma is always back they say, and for me this is the example. I see it on daily basis, feel yourself invited to AislingDuval subreddit - there is plenty of information (and proof) of it happening. HECK, I DID IT and used solo to compete with other power. People I asked did it. People we opposed TOLD US in comms they are and continue do this. People OPENLY suggest using this as a way to be more effective. I dont know what more is needed

Given that there was no offline play at all in the original Kickstarter pitch, the only form of Solo play initially was online, sharing the same galaxy state as the other modes. I understand that this may have been overlooked by players who are not used to the flexi-player nature of Elite: Dangerous.

While some of the players creating new threads on this old topic may not be new to the forums - then there's no real excuse for not simply adding to the existing thread for the topic - I haven't seen a new argument point on the topic since the introduction of Powerplay.

Powerplay has not been designed to be played in a single mode - from that perspective players can choose from which mode to make their contributions. Even if it seems to be competitive on the surface, it is not designed in such a way that players can always stop other players doing something - they can only stop those who play in the same mode and counter those who don't play in the same mode.

 

[rdslw]

Given that there was no offline play at all in the original Kickstarter pitch, the only form of Solo play initially was online, sharing the same galaxy state as the other modes. I understand that this may have been overlooked by players who are not used to the flexi-player nature of Elite: Dangerous.

While some of the players creating new threads on this old topic may not be new to the forums - then there's no real excuse for not simply adding to the existing thread for the topic - I haven't seen a new argument point on the topic since the introduction of Powerplay.

Powerplay has not been designed to be played in a single mode - from that perspective players can choose from which mode to make their contributions. Even if it seems to be competitive on the surface, it is not designed in such a way that players can always stop other players doing something - they can only stop those who play in the same mode and counter those who don't play in the same mode.

ad1. You're wrong that, "only form of solo play initially was online". The very kickstarter page on FAQ in bottom of the page says: "However it will be possible to have a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server.". They mentioned that online solo is (also) planned. But not ONLY as you said. So no, you're wrong and you didnt know you're wrong for last two and half years LINK: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous/description#project_faq_43734
Besides it was also confirmed by the fdev in the 'no offline decision' and money refunds on this.

ad2. One argument is (IMO there is more, but you asked for one : you can't easily talk in group of 500 people and 5000 posts. We, humans, prefer to gather and discuss in smaller numbers, because our comprehension level is limited. Ammassing discussion to one thread prohibits effective communication, and silence, in result, this topic. As I said: often this is done for good. But often for wrong. And opinion that this is the only and best solution is form of censorship. Not talking about something does not mean it does not exists.

ad3. I find it amusing that SOLO is being used now to harm other players - and it can't be denied. In addition, and as you said, powerplay was not designed for single player. Yet it is available for SOLO mode, mostly because of one reason: It would create quite a mass outcry (*) of current solo users that they're not given sth others are. (*) that can be easily concluded for the size of threads after 'no offline mode' decision from frontier. You're moderator: you know it was one of the biggest, noisy event, with refunds given right and left. Aftermath of 'no offline mode' being ongoing SOLO/OPEN debate. Still easily solvable with one of the OP solutions in regards of OPEN/SOLO. Coming back to the reason I'm writing: I also agree that SOLO should not influence OPEN. Let both group of players cook in their own sause.

 

[Robert Maynard]

ad1. You're wrong that, "only form of solo play initially was online". The very kickstarter page on FAQ in bottom of the page says: "However it will be possible to have a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server.". They mentioned that online solo is (also) planned. But not ONLY as you said. So no, you're wrong and you didnt know you're wrong for last two and half years LINK: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous/description#project_faq_43734
Besides it was also confirmed by the fdev in the 'no offline decision' and money refunds on this.

ad2. One argument is (IMO there is more, but you asked for one : you can't easily talk in group of 500 people and 5000 posts. We, humans, prefer to gather and discuss in smaller numbers, because our comprehension level is limited. Ammassing discussion to one thread prohibits effective communication, and silence, in result, this topic. As I said: often this is done for good. But often for wrong. And opinion that this is the only and best solution is form of censorship. Not talking about something does not mean it does not exists.

ad3. I find it amusing that SOLO is being used now to harm other players - and it can't be denied. In addition, and as you said, powerplay was not designed for single player. Yet it is available for SOLO mode, mostly because of one reason: It would create quite a mass outcry (*) of current solo users that they're not given sth others are. (*) that can be easily concluded for the size of threads after 'no offline mode' decision from frontier. You're moderator: you know it was one of the biggest, noisy event, with refunds given right and left. Aftermath of 'no offline mode' being ongoing SOLO/OPEN debate. Still easily solvable with one of the OP solutions in regards of OPEN/SOLO. Coming back to the reason I'm writing: I also agree that SOLO should not influence OPEN. Let both group of players cook in their own sause.

Look at the date on the single player FAQ answer - it's over half way through the Kickstarter....

How will single player work? Will I need to connect to a server to play?
The galaxy for Elite: Dangerous is a shared universe maintained by a central server. All of the meta data for the galaxy is shared between players. This includes the galaxy itself as well as transient information like economies. The aim here is that a player's actions will influence the development of the galaxy, without necessarily having to play multiplayer.

The other important aspect for us is that we can seed the galaxy with events, often these events will be triggered by player actions. With a living breathing galaxy players can discover new and interesting things long after they have started playing.

Update! The above is the intended single player experience. However it will be possible to have a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server. You won't get the features of the evolving galaxy (although we will investigate minimising those differences) and you probably won't be able to sync between server and non-server (again we'll investigate).

Last updated: Tue, Dec 11 2012 9:56 AM BST

Compare that to the date the Kickstarter was launched: 6th November 2012.

There's no point having many different discussions on the same topic - if they are to remain coherent. Having a single discussion thread on the topic stops people repeating themselves in many threads and the discussions becoming disjointed.

It is hardly surprising that the Min/Max players have started to use Solo / Private Groups to maximise their productivity. I did not say that Powerplay was not designed for the single player, read my post again - I said that Powerplay has not been designed to be played in a single mode, i.e. it has been designed to be played in all game modes. I was not a Moderator at the time of the cancellation of Offline. Looking back at that time, Frontier cited the fact that they did not think that an unevolving, offline, galaxy would give the player the play experience that Frontier wanted to give as one of the reasons for cancellation and pointed to the existing Solo (Online) mode as a way for players who wanted to play Offline to play without encountering other players but sharing the same galaxy state.

 

[Robbie Rocketpants]

ad1. You're wrong that, "only form of solo play initially was online". The very kickstarter page on FAQ in bottom of the page says: "However it will be possible to have a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server.". They mentioned that online solo is (also) planned. But not ONLY as you said. So no, you're wrong and you didnt know you're wrong for last two and half years LINK: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous/description#project_faq_43734
Besides it was also confirmed by the fdev in the 'no offline decision' and money refunds on this.

ad2. One argument is (IMO there is more, but you asked for one : you can't easily talk in group of 500 people and 5000 posts. We, humans, prefer to gather and discuss in smaller numbers, because our comprehension level is limited. Ammassing discussion to one thread prohibits effective communication, and silence, in result, this topic. As I said: often this is done for good. But often for wrong. And opinion that this is the only and best solution is form of censorship. Not talking about something does not mean it does not exists.

ad3. I find it amusing that SOLO is being used now to harm other players - and it can't be denied. In addition, and as you said, powerplay was not designed for single player. Yet it is available for SOLO mode, mostly because of one reason: It would create quite a mass outcry (*) of current solo users that they're not given sth others are. (*) that can be easily concluded for the size of threads after 'no offline mode' decision from frontier. You're moderator: you know it was one of the biggest, noisy event, with refunds given right and left. Aftermath of 'no offline mode' being ongoing SOLO/OPEN debate. Still easily solvable with one of the OP solutions in regards of OPEN/SOLO. Coming back to the reason I'm writing: I also agree that SOLO should not influence OPEN. Let both group of players cook in their own sause.

I hope you're not with Winters as I smashed in so much Fed-Aid and made 615 powerplay points in undermining expansion of that system in a glorious 90 minutes of SOLO action the other night. You'd have been fuming!

Good job I didn't do it in Open, can you imagine the difference that would have made? *

(* hint: none.)

 

[DjordjeDtW]

Coming back to the reason I'm writing: I also agree that SOLO should not influence OPEN. Let both group of players cook in their own sause.

This word has a unique price.
On the basic's of invisible influence - Solo influence's Open interaction.
It would be a shame to exclude Solo as a solution. Far from it. To be that Invisible influence an excuse to exclude Solo game mode.

 

[Cowboy Bats]

The type of player that wants to play in Solo does not care about the multiplayer aspect, there is no need to give them the ability to influence the players playing in Open.

Epic fail. Please do not speak for solo players as you obviously have no clue. I AM a solo player, and I enjoy both community goals and powerplay. Like a great many solo players, I'm not against multiplayer, just player versus player combat. I love the concept of the galactic game of risk that I can contribute to in solo.

 

[flosculus]

I sit here with my x55 on my desk, but i rarely use it because I rarely play this game. I played for a good while, eventually bought and upgraded a Python, reached elite combat rank and thought; "I win, this python sucks", sold it and wondered what to do next.

Frankly I think this game is too big for its own good, a lot of people rarely leave their local area and there is little to do even around there, so why would I go somewhere else to do more of the same?
Also I was quite excited about power play. But its like this; In EVE, we could fight for our alliance, spend weeks sieging a station and have a jooly afterwards, the Mitani even game a final 30 minute speech to his army before we delivered the final blow!
Nothing like that in this game, sure powerplay is a bit like Faction Warfare, but even in EVE no one really cares about gaining territory for NPC factions.

I traded my Python in for an ASP hoping to do some exploration, but I haven't started yet because I just know whats going to happen. I'll just see more stars and planets that look the same as all the rest. Make some money I don't need by selling the locations and do it all over again.
At least during the period after release there was a concentration of people to shoot at near the core systems, but everyone has now either dispersed or just left so I can't do that anymore either.

What do I do??? And before you suggest planetary exploration will be a revolution, think very carefully about how quickly you might get bored of that as well as you fly over yet another barren extraterrestrial canyon.

 

[Jaeger]

it's about powerplay and this part is competitive.

It's not competitive, it's adversarial by design. Imbalanced combat where one player gets to victimize another, a cut throat galaxy. Penalties for playing and becoming a victim, rewards for being the aggressive adversary.

CQC is competitive.

 

[flosculus]

It's not competitive, it's adversarial by design. Imbalanced combat where one player gets to victimize another, a cut throat galaxy. Penalties for playing and becoming a victim, rewards for being the aggressive adversary.

CQC is competitive.

This game needs a story campaign, with cutscenes, instanced raid, set pieces, boss fights. Not a mechanic where we gain a system for a faction one at a time out of 500 billion... boorring!

 

[Cowboy Bats]

This game needs a story campaign, with cutscenes, instanced raid, set pieces, boss fights. Not a mechanic where we gain a system for a faction one at a time out of 500 billion... boorring!

I'm not bored with it. Seems like some groups like Mobius are likewise full of players still having fun. Maybe it's just not for you? That's not a slam. I think Eve is the most gawd awful game I've ever seen, but I get that just means it's not for me, not a reflection of the game itself. Lots of players love that kind of stuff. Just lots of us don't.

 

[Lobstris]

Sigh. The moment the game added community goals, it became 'competitive' in some respect, and even more so with PowerPlay. Hence, even though I'm currently playing at the rear-end of the universe in solo, and haven't seen another player in two days, I would humbly suggest that working multiplayer *might* just be a priority for those involved with such competitive goals, and *as ever* it seems utterly bizarre to me to allow people to slip into solo from open, and vice versa. But hey, that ship's long sailed. It doesn't need cut scenes though.

 

[rdslw]

I hope you're not with Winters as I smashed in so much Fed-Aid and made 615 powerplay points in undermining expansion of that system in a glorious 90 minutes of SOLO action the other night. You'd have been fuming!

Good job I didn't do it in Open, can you imagine the difference that would have made? *

(* hint: none.)

LOL^2, DIFFERENCE: you weren't be able to do it or it would be much harder, because Felicia players would be in system and actively hunted you. Heck, we (empire) did it in our own systems being preped, while the system was bad prep choice, and were trying to catch/warn/kill-if-needed our own cmdrs (sic!) - to no (BIG, as I personally killed two!) result - most of them are in solo.

It's hard to think that a system blockade is so hard to imagine by people.

BTW: looks like you're in my power LOL^3

 

[Skvala]

FD need to make a stand against Thatchers children, who seem to think it is still a single "me me me" world.....

Really? You seriously think that's the sort of argument needs making here?

 

[rdslw]

Look at the date on the single player FAQ answer - it's over half way through the Kickstarter....



Compare that to the date the Kickstarter was launched: 6th November 2012.

There's no point having many different discussions on the same topic - if they are to remain coherent. Having a single discussion thread on the topic stops people repeating themselves in many threads and the discussions becoming disjointed.

It is hardly surprising that the Min/Max players have started to use Solo / Private Groups to maximise their productivity. I did not say that Powerplay was not designed for the single player, read my post again - I said that Powerplay has not been designed to be played in a single mode, i.e. it has been designed to be played in all game modes. I was not a Moderator at the time of the cancellation of Offline. Looking back at that time, Frontier cited the fact that they did not think that an unevolving, offline, galaxy would give the player the play experience that Frontier wanted to give as one of the reasons for cancellation and pointed to the existing Solo (Online) mode as a way for players who wanted to play Offline to play without encountering other players but sharing the same galaxy state.

ad !?!?!?! You're wrong:
* a game was not release for another year till alpha
* it was few weeks comparing to few years (before correction of this by 'no offline mode message')
* it was MID campaing, so this WAS part of campaign (e.g. half of people pledge with this message)
* Frontier itself confirmed it was an original goal
* It was discussed in comments on kickstarter even before this date
* You're wrong that kickstarter campaign only mentioned online mode.
* it was TWO years between this (2012) and your wrongly comment 'only online mode' (2015)

I'm shocked by your inability to admit a mistake. I feel that's because it would invalidate your line of arguments.

As to the second part, we disagree. It's fine to have different opinions.

As to the third part: the same as ad1, you're wrong IMO. FDEV cited cost issues. FDEV cited also that's their opinion (sic!) is that this reduces experience of game play. Clearly something (promised) was taken back, and this was reason for refunds. This is a root cause, not reduced experience as it can't exist without mode removal which is actual start of problem. Also note, that whole episode clearly confirmed it was (perceived) bad. Current and never-ending OPEN/SOLO discussion also confirm that this is (still) a problem: players perceive it as such.

Anyway here, you're again changing topic of this paragraph (and OP point to fix OPEN/SOLO): SOLO is being used to harm (and compete with) others - it's a reason for fix. I'm still surprised that people have problem with it. Maybe it's the same as in one: admitting this would invalidate their line of arguments.

 

[Robbie Rocketpants]

LOL^2, DIFFERENCE: you weren't be able to do it or it would be much harder, because Felicia players would be in system and actively hunted you. Heck, we (empire) did it in our own systems being preped, while the system was bad prep choice, and were trying to catch/warn/kill-if-needed our own cmdrs (sic!) - to no (BIG, as I personally killed two!) result - most of them are in solo.

It's hard to think that a system blockade is so hard to imagine by people.

BTW: looks like you're in my power LOL^3

I was about to get all spooked out then before I realised you must have seen my shields post

It wasn't much harder in Open truth be told, only a few single players and no wings. I should imagine that most Winters players know that the best defence to such undermining is doing whatever it is they do for expansion systems, and in this case it worked as the expansion was successful.

Thanks for your example though, sometimes I don't want to have to deal with stuff like that, and other times I would relish it. Nice to have the option though.
I can imagine a system blockade all too well, got chased out of Lave/Leesti loads