It's time for an offline version.

[Kethriss]

Sure. I wouldn’t play it but it would definitely cut down on people attacking our bgs from solo and give solo players the experience they really want so it’s a win win.

I don’t see how it would be possible thought as the memory requirements for your system to have 4 billion star systems would be astronomical.

Space Engine which is generated via a seed that is the same for all copies of the game, contains a full-scale 1:1 procedural generated replica of the entire Observable Universe with literal Trillions upon Trillions upon Trillions upon Trillions of star systems and it's only 53gb, with most of that being the 4k textures for the Sol system. And it has FAR more detail, variety, and depth to the generation tech than Elite does.

Elite's galaxy isn't big at all.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Could be either resources, competences or organization.
Choose one... the result on their final product is not very encouraging.
ED modded could be a great game... in its current state...meh...
Consider also that ED is for many (most?) players a sandbox... because "the 1 mile wide and 1" deep"... and a sandbox generally becomes great with the mods.
If you take a look at Flight Simulator history, the best quality contents came from independent developers (PMDG, Aerosoft, Orbx) and from the community passion.

That's a different type of sandbox. This is an MMO sandbox. Remove multiplayer and the whole game becomes stale.

The game has never been shallow, in my view, it's the way people play is what makes it shallow. It can be as deep or as shallow as you want it to be. And to me, that's the beauty of the game.

As to the final product not being very encouraging, well that's down to the individual. It's a very subjective thing.

Even with all its issues, for me, it's still one of the best games I have ever played.

But maybe thats because of the way I play the game. It seems to be perfectly set up for my play style.

 

[Sysmon]

Who told you that I want to share it? And who told you that I need an "entire galaxy"?
The bubble and a couple of sectors are more than enough.. Then if I really want the full galaxy I connect online.
I don't care about BGS nor PowerPlay.
I want mods to make more ships and SRVs, ship interiors, more station types, more planet types, more handcrafted mission types, handcrafted weird moons/planets that do not respect the "known" physical laws but that have incredible features.
LEGS VR
Concerning the exploits...well since this is an offline version the exploits thing is only personal cheating so everyone should be able to decide what to do with their own game.

Sounds like you are playing the wrong game then.

S

 

[here_it_comes]

Remove multiplayer and the whole game becomes stale.

Subjective.

Even with all its issues, for me, it's still one of the best games I have ever played.

QFT

o7

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Sounds like you are playing the wrong game then.

S

I'm not playing it, I prefer the gameplay offered by this forum.

 

[Sysmon]

I'm not playing it, I prefer the gameplay offered by this forum.

Nothing beats a bit of forum jousting.

S

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

It's a very subjective thing.

Exactly, it's subjective.
That's why an offline version would satisfy people that are now very disappointed and the current online version would remain available for people like you that are fine already.

 

[here_it_comes]

I'm not playing it, I prefer the gameplay offered by this forum.

Lol, same here currently. We can all do our part in waking FDev up by crashing player stats and keeping the dumpsterfire roaring online.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Because people have been reverse-engineering and developing mods for "not easily moddable games" for decades along with expansive performance improvement and bugfixes in "unofficial patches" for just as long and your precious Elite: Dangerous isn't magically the only game in existence that can't be drastically improved by community effort and collaboration.

I think some people are imagining FD will release something like X or similar, where making adding/mods is easy.

There is nothing we've seen to date regarding FD's engine that would indicate things will be that easy.

Like i said, some clever people will create the appropriate injectors/loaders which will help, but people thinking they will just be able to download a Millenium Falcon model off the web and fly it in game will be sorely disappointed.

Do you think modders will be about to fix the planetary generation? I'm not convinced.

 

[Factabulous]

First the game has to die, then you get the mod-able offline mode. So hopefully that won't happen for quite a while.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Offline doesn't mean that FDEV stops supporting it...
It means that we're not bound with FDEV low quality contents only, but they keep supporting the game... so bug fixes, performance issues and so on...
Remember that the game is not for free.. FDEV still gets paid

So, if FD can fix the performance problems, which for me is the major issue, offline moddable doesn't help.

One of the things i wanted from ED was a modern ED remake, but the dream, in Frontier/Elite was to fly with other people (although its rare for me to be able to do this). Coop was a big dream for me. Offline doesn't help with that.

 

[here_it_comes]

First the game has to die, then you get the mod-able offline mode.

If the choice were moddable offline EDH or EDO . . .

 

[Kethriss]

I think some people are imagining FD will release something like X or similar, where making adding/mods is easy.

There is nothing we've seen to date regarding FD's engine that would indicate things will be that easy.

Like i said, some clever people will create the appropriate injectors/loaders which will help, but people thinking they will just be able to download a Millenium Falcon model off the web and fly it in game will be sorely disappointed.

Do you think modders will be about to fix the planetary generation? I'm not convinced.

Once again, your precious Elite: Dangerous is not going to magically be the only game in existence that cannot be modded and made better by community collaboration. You can be "not convinced" all you want but what you think doesn't actually matter to reality.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

your precious Elite: Dangerous

 

[Kethriss]

Don't you have people to lie to on the Steam Forums?

 

[Ian Skippy]

I'm actually really curious how many people who play today are unaware that an offline mode was literally promised as part of the kickstarter and reneged on at the 11th hour.

Given we have this discussion every month I'd say most here do. The interesting bit of that drama was this quote by Braben:

In retrospect we should have shared the fact that we were struggling with this aspect with the community, but we were still trying to find a solution. As features were implemented, for the best results we chose to prioritise delivery [of other stuff]. We had to make a decision for the good of the game, and that is what we did.

In light of recent drama, it seems they didn't really learn much from it. This 'we should have communicated more and better' line is literally older than the launch in december 2014.

 

[Tenshi]

I'm actually really curious how many people who play today are unaware that an offline mode was literally promised as part of the kickstarter and reneged on at the 11th hour.

I remember.
Also DB mentioned that if Elite Dangerous servers were to be shut down then Frontier Developments would make a single player version of the game.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Don't you have people to lie to on the Steam Forums?

 

[Salonica]

I think some people are imagining FD will release something like X or similar, where making adding/mods is easy.

There is nothing we've seen to date regarding FD's engine that would indicate things will be that easy.

Like i said, some clever people will create the appropriate injectors/loaders which will help, but people thinking they will just be able to download a Millenium Falcon model off the web and fly it in game will be sorely disappointed.

Do you think modders will be about to fix the planetary generation? I'm not convinced.

The difference is with a public group of modders, you have potentially more available coders who are not constrained by financial decisions and possibly more importantly, modders play the game extensively, with no other interest than to make it better for players. And those who don't like that version can stay with the FDev version.

 

[Kethriss]

Given we have this discussion every month I'd say most here do. The interesting bit of that drama was this quote by Braben:



In light of recent drama, it seems they didn't really learn much from it. This 'we should have communicated more and better' line is literally older than the launch in december 2014.

Frontier's biggest issue as a dev studio is an utter lack of transparency. Maybe I'm just spoiled by Star Citizen's development where there's regular and consistent "behind the scenes" looks at what general employees are doing, showing off the development tools, and having programmers actually talk about the various challenges they face and how they approach them, as well as regularly interact with their community...but the sheer amount of radio silence that Frontier displays is just irritating.

Months and months and months go by without so much as a peep from Frontier about what they're working on or what issues they might be facing, no actual insight in to what the plan is for the game, just silence, curated Q&A's on the live streams that feel awkward as hell and don't actually reveal anything people don't already know. And then suddenly an update comes out, it's broken as hell, then they break radio silence only for as long as they feel the need to do damage control. This has been a consistent pattern since before Horizons launched, and Odyssey is just the most egregious example.

Braben saying that is insulting to be honest. If he actually gave a damn enough to genuinely feel that way, then Frontier would have been making us aware of issues and giving us insights in to what they're working on and what their plans are a long, long time ago.