Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
The time has come
- Thread starter h4r4s3r
- Start date
Did you see the part of my post that says "I stuck it out, because I'd waited decades for the next Elite game, and at that point I still trusted FD and held a large stock of good will for them"? At that point, there was every possibility that ED would be really good!
A 40-60 Terrabytes download is only required if you decide to visit every system in the galaxy in one evenings gameplay, so it is possible to have a Solo mode that only downloads the parts of the Galaxy that you are in or are about to travel to, so it is possible, not likely that they will do this, but it is possible, for Frontier to produce a Solo single person game that is still server controlled, they would probably need to stop any chance of jumping backwards and forwards between Solo and Open though. Before I retired I was an IT Consultant and before that I was a business programmer, so it is possible that FD could do this if the demand was great enough. The only problem would be the wait times for the data to be updated during the game, possibly fairly long pauses as the game updates, but they could still keep your commander data on the server.
With a million plus users, maybe so, but definitely not for single player.
You can monitor this for yourself by going in to solo mode and turning on the bandwidth monitor with Left CTRL-B. You'll see that very little data is actually transmitted most of the time. The entire galaxy and the code to generate it already resides on your hard drive.
That's pretty much the Solo Mode how we have it. A serverbased Singleplayer experience.
I don't know how FDs procedural generation works and I'm far from being an expert, but there's no guarantee that the systems would look the same as we know them now.
It would probably generate a whole new galaxy.
Last, but not least: A pure singleplayergame with 400 billion starsystems would be exactly one thing: incredible boring.
Technically, this is soup and nuts to achieve.
You proc gen 200k-300k systems (which is more than enough for one person to see in their *lifetime*), make about 5% (around 10k-15k) heavily inhabited, and then turn the player loose. Better yet, you could ramp up the influence the player has to pretty zany levels so their trading and missioning has some pretty immediate impacts on star systems, and you could also automate things like the community goals, so stations can sprout up in uninhabited systems. For bonus points you could implement a proper economy where things are bought and sold by real agents that travel from place to place and have factories that convert raw material A into widget B, imagine that!
Tricky stuff, I know, but honestly, it'd basically be the Elite everyone was asking for back when the KS pitch happened. Only reason it hasn't is because Frontier can't sell you paint jobs if you can mod them in for free.
You proc gen 200k-300k systems (which is more than enough for one person to see in their *lifetime*), make about 5% (around 10k-15k) heavily inhabited, and then turn the player loose. Better yet, you could ramp up the influence the player has to pretty zany levels so their trading and missioning has some pretty immediate impacts on star systems, and you could also automate things like the community goals, so stations can sprout up in uninhabited systems. For bonus points you could implement a proper economy where things are bought and sold by real agents that travel from place to place and have factories that convert raw material A into widget B, imagine that!
Tricky stuff, I know, but honestly, it'd basically be the Elite everyone was asking for back when the KS pitch happened. Only reason it hasn't is because Frontier can't sell you paint jobs if you can mod them in for free.
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@OP "To raise the roof and have some fun..."
Oddly you're not the person I originally replied to, you're not the OP and you're not the only one here in the conversation - I would beware assuming everything is directly addressed to you.
Yes, I saw that part. I thought you might have pursued your refund when you realised that the offline mode was a definite no-go.
Do you still intend to do so?
No, I tried solo mode - played it for quite a while. I'd waited 20 years for a new Elite game, after all. I'll not be asking for a refund now, apart from anything else I definitely got my money's worth in terms of time spent (if not enjoyment).
If Frontier released an offline solo mode it would be pirated a lot and create a bigger rift in the player base which is already split among the current modes.
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FD will not do it because:
1) a lot of server side code
2) a lot of server data (many 10s of terabytes I heard stated)
3) an offline version can be pirated
4) they want the game to be multiplayer
5) they think an offline version would be an empty game
6) they do not want different modded offline versions of the game coming out
7) it is not in their commercial interest to do so
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The bottom line is if you want an offline version then many of you guys need to get together and code it yourselfs.
It is the only way, will take a few years though...
1) a lot of server side code
2) a lot of server data (many 10s of terabytes I heard stated)
3) an offline version can be pirated
4) they want the game to be multiplayer
5) they think an offline version would be an empty game
6) they do not want different modded offline versions of the game coming out
7) it is not in their commercial interest to do so
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
The bottom line is if you want an offline version then many of you guys need to get together and code it yourselfs.
It is the only way, will take a few years though...
Big single player games such as Skyrim, The Witcher 3 and the Fallout series have sold millions of copies regardless of piracy.
Heck, if Frontier were to say "okay we'll consider an offline version, but would have to charge for it", I'd be willing to pay for it.
I'd be at the front of the queue to buy the single player game Elite IV, that's for sure.
Maybe we need.... A Poll!
Lots of those going around at the moment.
big difference is.. the engine used by bethesda now has a mass of documentation and they where complete game releases with custom built environments. frontier uses its own engine, it is unknown outside frontier, and the core feature of the game is the BGS which is something that constantly evolves and would become static in isolation. in order for your offline game to work it would either need to remain static, or update everytime you did go online, at which point the game would need to update everything to your static version of the sim, and then rigorously check your version to make sure it was untampered.. both of which would take a lot of time, with a lot of data.. while you may only have played within a 40 or 50 ly and visited maybe 20 systems.. in real game time, the sim has been busy everywhere.
an offline version would literally need to be a custom, scaled down version of the real game, as it is today.. no updates, noone to effect the mini bgs but you.. what a total waste of time, and effort.. it would be so pale and sterile beside the online game, that i cant see frontier touching the idea with a barge pole.. hence they couldn't find a way to feasibly do once development had started and they realised just how the bgs represents with the game.. ie, everything we interact wth, that isnt another player, is governed, controlled reacted to, by the bgs.
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There is still what, 200,000 factions, and their states and market calculations going on.
Yes only a little bit of data is set to the client each jump, but it is all the server side shortage and calculations need
New calculations would need to be added, lest they all go static without player input, as a Single player you would never effect many and to any great degree.
I for one would not really be keen on a economically and politically static galaxy
The procedural galaxy with all the stars, being procedural, might not be the bulk of the data.
Offline games with their own BGS have been done before. The X series games by Egosoft are an example where players can trade with AI stations or build their own stations.
An offline Elite wouldn't have any politics though, but that's already something that doesn't concern some players. I would want no online aspect whatsoever, in other words a completely separate player character that cannot be played online.
There a people playing ED now who spend most of their time out exploring far away from the bubble. For them the BGS essentially does not exist and they don't miss it.