Asking the Hard (Technical) Questions

[Xael Ahren]

Now that we've all had a little time to process the news about consoles, I have some questions that I think are very much at least worth asking. I should preface this by saying that though I play on Xbox, I absolutely intend to continue playing Horizons for as long as possible, furthermore I have no desire or intent to malign anyone for what they choose to do or not do with their game. Ultimately, I'm not really interested in discussing the politics of this decision, though I'm certain that will come up, it is not my aim here. More than I'm anything, I'm curious. I'm a mechanical engineer, I like to know how things work, and how they can be made to work better. However, I also have no allusions that I don't have the knowledge necessary to answer my own questions in regard to Elite Dangerous, and if there's one thing I've learned about this community since I started playing ED 5 years ago, it's that my fellow Commanders tend to be a very knowledgeable bunch. So here are three things I'm quite interested in, keep in mind all of these questions are aimed at the PC builds of the game.

1. Is an offline mode for ED possible/How dependent is the game on its servers to run at all?
What would the technical hurdles look like to make something like that possible? What's the rough size of the seed needed to generate the Milky Way simulation? Conversely are there any factors that make such a thing impossible or at minimum impractical from a technical standpoint? I do know an offline mode was at least considered by Frontier at one time, but I have no real information on if that was cancelled for technical reasons.

2. Has there been any work done by the community to catalogue and preserve the game?
In other words, have any specific individuals or groups explicitly said that they've collected older builds of the game in attempt to 'reverse engineer' them down the line? With this question considered, I'd like to further ask...

3. Is there any possibility that when the last servers are taken offline, that the community can keep the game running without any technical support whatsoever from Frontier?
This question assumes that when the day comes, Frontier will not release the source code of Elite Dangerous to the public.
What kind of work would need to be done to get the game running again? With or without servers to facilitate online play.

I ask these questions because of how much I love the game and the community around it. It's my opinion that video games, being a very advanced form art, deserve at least some consideration in their preservation for future generations, and I rarely if ever see this brought up. Since getting into Elite Dangerous, I'm happy to say I've also been able to play the very first Elite game. Despite any differences in opinion, we're all here because at least to some degree we all enjoy the game, and I don't think there's many of us, if any, who would be totally fine seeing Elite become unplayable on any platform, regardless of if that's 5, 10, or 15 years down the road, I still think there's a whole lot more worth seeing in our Galaxy sized puddle, and I certainly don't intend to stop flying aimlessly around it for years to come!

Fair stellar winds to you all!

 

[Flimley]

I like words. \o/

Flimley

 

[Lyamecron]

I like words. \o/

Flimley

Hooray for everything I guess? ... \o/

 

[Xael Ahren]

I like words. \o/

Flimley

"I'm very particular with my words"

 

[Vardaugas]

I'd say no to all three points, Mainly because online database with the world engine that does all the things. No one ever had a version of it to preserve it and there is no way anyone can privately run that server when they don't have it.

 

[Rainbro]

1) Probably not. It's perhaps not impossible to bring the functions of the server for gameplay (mission generation, NPC generation, BGS, whatever) into the client, but that'd require a fair bit of work as well as being a bit janky in places.

2) There's not a great deal that can be done from our end, as an online-only game tied to the company's servers. I have no doubt that someone is hoarding old versions, but what use would they really be over the current version?

3) Very interesting question. Braben said in the past that they had an end of life plan that would allow the community to continue beyond Frontier's support. I am struggling to dig it up right now given the recent news about Odyssey, but if I find it I'll link it. It was in some AMA reddit thread if I recall correctly.

(Actually, it's here in this Eurogamer interview, which touches on all three questions neatly.)

"Any offline experience would be fundamentally empty. We could write a separate mission system to allow a limited series of fixed missions, but that would still not be a compelling game, and is only the first step in the mountain of work required.

"We do plan to take regular archives of the game and the servers, to preserve the game for the future."

If it were ever to happen, we would be able to release an archived version of the game, including the servers, but of course this would not evolve any further," Braben said.

Assuming that doesn't turn out to be the case (because apparently Braben saying will happen is meaningless)... the game dies. In VERY rare events it has been possible to reverse-engineer the servers of some games, but you probably have much better chances of winning the lottery with a newer game like Elite. It'd also require Frontier to not just strike down the project, and who knows really what attitude they'd take.

 

[Xael Ahren]

Assuming that doesn't turn out to be the case (because apparently Braben saying will happen is meaningless)... the game dies. In VERY rare events it has been possible to reverse-engineer the servers of some games, but you probably have much better chances of winning the lottery with a newer game like Elite. It'd also require Frontier to not just strike down the project, and who knows really what attitude they'd take.

I asked because this is exactly what I fear, that Elite will indeed, TRULY die years from now when no one can access the servers, because it's too clunky, complex, and/or inefficient to be revived, as it stands at least. I'd love to see Frontier make some commitment to the community to release the source code if they are unable or unwilling to implement a end of life plan once final sunsetting is announced. Thank you so much for your extremely well explained answers!

 

[disintegration7]

No, no, and no.

Console development has ended forever, don't kid yourself that they'll do anything to help.

And we're talking months on the console servers, not years. At most, it'll be the second EDH and EDO are merged on PC.

 

[Xael Ahren]

(Actually, it's here in this Eurogamer interview, which touches on all three questions neatly.)

It's definitely good to hear that preservation has been in the minds of Frontier for a while, on the other side of that, it's hard to take David Braben on his word for something he said almost a decade ago. I'm not at all surprised Frontier has backups of every build both released and unreleased in their archives. I do see one huge silver lining here though, based on Braben's tone, I'm guessing Frontier will at minimum turn the game over the community when the servers are shut down, if they ever even shut down any time in the foreseeable future. Thanks again!

 

[Xael Ahren]

keep in mind all of these questions are aimed at the PC builds of the game.

Console development has ended forever, don't kid yourself that they'll do anything to help.

Yes we all heard the news.

 

[disintegration7]

Good luck thinking they'll be any less ruthless wrt PC eventually.

 

[Rochester]

Now that we've all had a little time to process the news about consoles, I have some questions that I think are very much at least worth asking. I should preface this by saying that though I play on Xbox, I absolutely intend to continue playing Horizons for as long as possible, furthermore I have no desire or intent to malign anyone for what they choose to do or not do with their game. Ultimately, I'm not really interested in discussing the politics of this decision, though I'm certain that will come up, it is not my aim here. More than I'm anything, I'm curious. I'm a mechanical engineer, I like to know how things work, and how they can be made to work better. However, I also have no allusions that I don't have the knowledge necessary to answer my own questions in regard to Elite Dangerous, and if there's one thing I've learned about this community since I started playing ED 5 years ago, it's that my fellow Commanders tend to be a very knowledgeable bunch. So here are three things I'm quite interested in, keep in mind all of these questions are aimed at the PC builds of the game.

1. Is an offline mode for ED possible/How dependent is the game on its servers to run at all?
What would the technical hurdles look like to make something like that possible? What's the rough size of the seed needed to generate the Milky Way simulation? Conversely are there any factors that make such a thing impossible or at minimum impractical from a technical standpoint? I do know an offline mode was at least considered by Frontier at one time, but I have no real information on if that was cancelled for technical reasons.

2. Has there been any work done by the community to catalogue and preserve the game?
In other words, have any specific individuals or groups explicitly said that they've collected older builds of the game in attempt to 'reverse engineer' them down the line? With this question considered, I'd like to further ask...

3. Is there any possibility that when the last servers are taken offline, that the community can keep the game running without any technical support whatsoever from Frontier?
This question assumes that when the day comes, Frontier will not release the source code of Elite Dangerous to the public.
What kind of work would need to be done to get the game running again? With or without servers to facilitate online play.

I ask these questions because of how much I love the game and the community around it. It's my opinion that video games, being a very advanced form art, deserve at least some consideration in their preservation for future generations, and I rarely if ever see this brought up. Since getting into Elite Dangerous, I'm happy to say I've also been able to play the very first Elite game. Despite any differences in opinion, we're all here because at least to some degree we all enjoy the game, and I don't think there's many of us, if any, who would be totally fine seeing Elite become unplayable on any platform, regardless of if that's 5, 10, or 15 years down the road, I still think there's a whole lot more worth seeing in our Galaxy sized puddle, and I certainly don't intend to stop flying aimlessly around it for years to come!

Fair stellar winds to you all!

1: the galaxy is procedural, so technically yes an offline mode is plausible; ‘discovered’ and hand crafted elements likely not as it would chew up significant memory(!).

The BGS, economy and Power Play etc are all maintained by the ‘Club’ aka FD, so all that would likely crash eventually if not regularly tinkered with.

FD did state in the past it’s technically possible to make FD offline but they chose not to go that way.

2: The build code is FD property so if someone has been doing this they likely won’t admit to it.

3: The main server for BGS, missions etc is UK based, the rest is peer to peer off rented virtual servers based on your location.

But don’t get your hopes up…FD is more likely to keep ED running on a very low maintenance mode indefinitely (like they had been prior to EDO), the only cost would be minimal service rent and monitoring / fixing the BGS… although it’s equally likely they will just bin it totally to save cash, as they are not a big company…

Note they did acquire the IP for ‘Elite Deadly’ some years ago so it’s more likely they will just phase out EDH, make EDO the base engine, then force us to buy a newer version of the game but under a different title.

 

[Xael Ahren]

Good luck thinking they'll be any less ruthless wrt PC eventually.

Why the need to be so hyper negative? Trust me I'm not even remotely happy about the decision to drop console development, I was simply trying to ask if the death of ED can be avoided precisely because I don't trust Frontier to deliver on a word they say. A very good answer has already been provided, and unless there are more interesting technical details you or anyone else would care to share, I'd say the case is pretty well closed.

 

[Darth Wonko]

1. Is an offline mode for ED possible/How dependent is the game on its servers to run at all?

The short version is "No, an offline mode is not possible and the game is 100% dependent upon its servers".

From a technical standpoint, I think it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to play offline and rely on the local machine for several reasons:

• The sheer size of the galaxy
• The massive database that would need to be stored locally to house all of the known information about systems, stations, settlements, planets, missions, signal sources, NPCs, etc.
• There would be major discrepancies from one player to another as there would be no way to control when a player decided to re-connect to the online galaxy
• The replication of state information from thousands of different instances would cause hundreds of thousands of replication conflicts which would have to be resolved

2. Has there been any work done by the community to catalogue and preserve the game?

The problem isn't with reverse-engineering the client. The problem is recreating the galaxy which only exists on FDev's servers.

As an example, World of Warcraft players were able to create private servers based on instances of older versions of WoW. This can be done with WoW because all of the world information - maps, vendors, etc. is downloaded to the local machine during install and the information going back and forth between the client and the server realm is state information - toon is at this location, toon cast this spell, etc.

With ED, the 'world' is on their servers, not the local machine.

3. Is there any possibility that when the last servers are taken offline, that the community can keep the game running without any technical support whatsoever from Frontier?

As you said, there is no way FDev will ever release the source code. With their proprietary Cobra engine (regardless of how dated it is), there's just too much IP there and exposing it to the public is out of the question.

I ask these questions because of how much I love the game and the community around it...

I've actually thought about this, too. My gaming rig is almost exclusively built around ED - cockpit, monitors, HOTAS, etc.

I very much feel for the console players because I would be extremely disappointed if I were in their situation. Having said that, I think discontinuing console development is a very wise move on FDev's part as they can push the game further by focusing on PC. I think this bodes well for the future of ED.

There is another thing I saw which makes me wonder about the future of ED. This is a quote from a review on Glass Door:

"The engine is bad and the transition to other engine is not good either."

So, this makes me wonder if Odyssey, with its performance issues, completely different planet terrain, etc., isn't a different engine all-together from the original Cobra engine.

 

[Xael Ahren]

FD did state in the past it’s technically possible to make FD offline but they chose not to go that way.

I think that pretty much says it all, if the creators say it's possible with that degree of certainty, then I can't see a good argument to refute that point.

 

[Rochester]

I think that pretty much says it all, if the creators say it's possible with that degree of certainty, then I can't see a good argument to refute that point.

Yes it was planned in KickStarter for a dedicated solo offline mode, but FD did say basically they wanted to focus on a multiplayer element, and that the BGS would essentially stall offline, ergo it would be static.

“Any offline experience would be fundamentally empty” “We have developed a multiplayer game with an unfolding story involving the players, and groups collaborating with specific objectives and taking account of all players’ behaviour. This is what the game is about. Without this it would not be the rich gaming experience that we will deliver, and would be a great disappointment to all players.” DB.

David Braben explains why Elite: Dangerous’ offline mode was fired into the sun

News that the planned offline single-player mode for Elite: Dangerous had been canned led to the typical forum mix of outrage, demands and simple requests for clarification. To clear things up, David Braben went into more detail in regards to what he describes as a difficult decision, in an intervie

www.pcgamesn.com

 

[Zak Gordon]

(Actually, it's here in this Eurogamer interview, which touches on all three questions neatly.):

"Any offline experience would be fundamentally empty. We could write a separate mission system to allow a limited series of fixed missions, but that would still not be a compelling game, and is only the first step in the mountain of work required.

"We do plan to take regular archives of the game and the servers, to preserve the game for the future."

If it were ever to happen, we would be able to release an archived version of the game, including the servers, but of course this would not evolve any further," Braben said.

Elite is David Braben's computer game baby (with Ian Bell originally). It defined not only that generation of computer games but Sir David as a game coder and developer himself. So in that context you can read that yes indeed Sir David plans to keep Elite 'safe' and knows it's relevance to computing history. It will be less about the money than most people seem to think. Having said that i doubt we will ever see a functional offline version (of ED) but we might get a version that could be hosted on someones server (as per his last point above), for when he and Frontier have moved on to Elite 6 etc.

 

[Xael Ahren]

Elite is David Braben's computer game baby (with Ian Bell originally). It defined not only that generation of computer games but Sir David as a game coder and developer himself. So in that context you can read that yes indeed Sir David plans to keep Elite 'safe' and knows it's relevance to computing history. It will be less about the money than most people seem to think. Having said that i doubt we will ever see a functional offline version (of ED) but we might get a version that could be hosted on someones server (as per his last point above), for when he and Frontier have moved on to Elite 6 etc.

I'm 100% with you! Despite the numerous empty promises and obstacle after obstacle in getting at least EDH to where it's at, I've always found Braben's enthusiasm and love of his greatest creation infectious, and I would never go as far as to say that Braben doesn't care, I believe that to be demonstrably false. Just as you said it's his baby and he probably cares about the game HE CREATED more than any of us do or maybe even could quite frankly. As for Frontier Developments as a separate entity, it's hard to say with certainty how much they 'care' about ED, but I don't find that relevant to the initial question, which ultimately boils down to something along the lines of, "Is there a solid end of life plan for Elite Dangerous either by way of FD themselves or the community?", and it seems more unlikely reading through these replies that Elite Dangerous will ever wind up truly unplayable, more than anything because the games initial creator AND it's community have such a strong love and vested interest in keeping the game alive for that very reason, not even for stature I think on Braben's part, I think it's the vision. We who play EDH and/or EDO are getting a getting a glimpse into parts of our reality through the Milky Way simulation that I wonder if Braben or Bell themselves could have ever dreamed of 20 or 30 years ago.

 

[B0K]

1. Is an offline mode for ED possible/How dependent is the game on its servers to run at all?

2. Has there been any work done by the community to catalogue and preserve the game?

3. Is there any possibility that when the last servers are taken offline, that the community can keep the game running without any technical support whatsoever from Frontier?

Not at all wanting to be pessimistic, but speaking as an analyst/programmer here

1. no. ED departed from the single-player original Elite by making the world around you dependent on what others are doing. I think it would go against the spirit of the thing to keep only the nice graphics and sound and have each person play in their own personal echo chamber.

2. yes, but thankfully the BGS and procedural generation are still at least partially secret and keep people wanting more.

3. no. It may not seem like much offhand but the effort required to keep all this running puts it clearly outside the reach of anything other than a major revenue-generating organisation.

You should have a look at Oolite, an open-sourced version of the original 1980s Elite. There is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from adding internet-connected multiplayer to that code base, it's completely free and open for anyone to do what they want with.

My gut says it would take months of setting up a sound studio, coding and tweaking to come up with the satisfying WHOMMM WHOMMM WHOMMM WHOMMM a Beluga makes just cruising at 100m/s and have that smoothly flow into the various other engine notes as you adjust the throttle. It's very easy to underestimate the difficulty of even minor aspects of this game.

 

[Xael Ahren]

Not at all wanting to be pessimistic, but speaking as an analyst/programmer here

1. no. ED departed from the single-player original Elite by making the world around you dependent on what others are doing. I think it would go against the spirit of the thing to keep only the nice graphics and sound and have each person play in their own personal echo chamber.

2. yes, but thankfully the BGS and procedural generation are still at least partially secret and keep people wanting more.

3. no. It may not seem like much offhand but the effort required to keep all this running puts it clearly outside the reach of anything other than a major revenue-generating organisation.

You should have a look at Oolite, an open-sourced version of the original 1980s Elite. There is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from adding internet-connected multiplayer to that code base, it's completely free and open for anyone to do what they want with.

My gut says it would take months of setting up a sound studio, coding and tweaking to come up with the satisfying WHOMMM WHOMMM WHOMMM WHOMMM a Beluga makes just cruising at 100m/s and have that smoothly flow into the various other engine notes as you adjust the throttle. It's very easy to underestimate the difficulty of even minor aspects of this game.

I understand having an offline mode is somewhat in contradiction the mantra of ED being very much so a living simulation as much as it is a mere video game, but I disagree that it would be empty. I'd say a good thousand of my hours have been spent in and around Izanami and the farther reaches of the Galaxy, I know that's very specific to Explorers for the most part but it's still a huge chunk of the game in my opinion.