My thoughts on E:D and always-on DRM for single player

yamalight

Y
Hey guys!

I made a small video with a discussion of the "always online" (DRM) decision for single player and would love to hear your thoughts on it.
I have to note here that prior to this announcement I eagerly awaited the release as it shaped to be pretty awesome (well, and it still is), and the whole situation saddens me greatly.
But after all this events I just don't have enough trust in FD left to stay with something as bounding as always online dependent on central server controlled by them.

You can watch the full video (which is more like podcast over E:D gameplay really) here:
[video=youtube;pIRMOB7mvp4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIRMOB7mvp4[/video]
 

DaHunn

DaHunn
god not this again....don't you people have internet? what's the big deal about this solo offline thing?
 

DraigUK

DraigUK
Some guy raving on You Tube, about offline mode, having uploaded a 20 min You Tube vid showing him playing with no issues.
Then banging on about DRM for ages and how it is all a huge conspiracy to enable micro transactions and he doesn't believe a word FD have said on it.
And how the servers are going to fall over.

Doooooom. DOOOMED I SAY.
Meh.
 

yamalight

Y
DaHunn said:
god not this again....don't you people have internet? what's the big deal about this solo offline thing?
Click to expand...

If you'd watch my video, you'd know that "having internet" is not the only (and no the biggest) issue with having always-on DRM.
Like, once the servers become too expensive to maintain, nothing stops FD from adding pay2win micros.
Or the fact that we have no idea whether FD has enough experience in online gaming to actually keep the servers up and running at least 99% of time (note I'm not even talking about 100% uptime here).
Or the fact that there's just a promise (same as there was a promise of offline DRM-free version, yep) of release for server code once the development ends.

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DraigUK said:
Some guy raving on You Tube, about offline mode, having uploaded a 20 min You Tube vid showing him playing with no issues.
Then banging on about DRM for ages and how it is all a huge conspiracy to enable micro transactions and he doesn't believe a word FD have said on it.
And how the servers are going to fall over.

Doooooom. DOOOMED I SAY.
Meh.
Click to expand...

They "promised" offline DRM-free version of the game. How'd that worked out?
 

SlickReed

SlickReed
Im sorry but your video is just a rant at best. Your mistake is comparing ED reasons for always online to other games. FDEV has told us OVER OVER why they want Ed to be always online. To make the game they set out to make. If you don't like the game they are making you have 2 options the way I see it. 1 - make your own game like FDEV has. 2 - DON'T PLAY ELITE DANGEROUS if you don't like it.
 

yamalight

Y
SlickReed said:
Im sorry but your video is just a rant at best. Your mistake is comparing ED reasons for always online to other games. FDEV has told us OVER OVER why they want Ed to be always online. To make the game they set out to make. If you don't like the game they are making you have 2 options the way I see it. 1 - make your own game like FDEV has. 2 - DON'T PLAY ELITE DANGEROUS if you don't like it.
Click to expand...

Well, the biggest problem here is that I'd bought offline DRM-free game, and now I have to for some reason always be online. I'd gladly go away, but they won't give me my money back.
If they'd just told everyone from the beginning that this game is going to be "online multiplayer" game, there would've been nothing to discuss here.

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DraigUK said:
Not very well for you at a guess?
Click to expand...

so, you are totally fine with devs breaking promises then? okay, I guess I really have nothing to discuss here then :\
 

DraigUK

DraigUK
yamalight said:
Well, the biggest problem here is that I'd bought offline DRM-free game, and now I have to for some reason always be online. I'd gladly go away, but they won't give me my money back.
If they'd just told everyone from the beginning that this game is going to be "online multiplayer" game, there would've been nothing to discuss here.

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so, you are totally fine with devs breaking promises then? okay, I guess I really have nothing to discuss here then :\
Click to expand...

What I'm fine with is accepting that 2 years on from KS things have had to change. They explained why, and I'm happy with the explanation and the product.
We've all read, a thousand thousand times all about the evilness of it, why it is so bad, how I'm going to be next, and so on, and so on.
I don't need to read about it all again.
I get it.
I accept it.
Move on.
 

ThatFuzzyTiger

ThatFuzzyTiger
yamalight said:
Well, the biggest problem here is that I'd bought offline DRM-free game, and now I have to for some reason always be online. I'd gladly go away, but they won't give me my money back.
If they'd just told everyone from the beginning that this game is going to be "online multiplayer" game, there would've been nothing to discuss here.

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so, you are totally fine with devs breaking promises then? okay, I guess I really have nothing to discuss here then :\
Click to expand...

It's a shame people are not paying attention to the video, it provides a very good set of reference points (Blizzard, Ubi, Electronic Arts), it provides a good understanding of the definitions of DRM and always online DRM, what qualifies DRM in comparison to true MMO's, and how Elite Dangerous potentially falls under the same definition.

Play the ball, not the man.
 

gazzareth

G
Yeah so listening to you go on about the evils of online DRM whilst playing ED without any issues, didn't really do a good job of putting you case across tbh...

G
 

ThatFuzzyTiger

ThatFuzzyTiger
gazzareth said:
Yeah so listening to you go on about the evils of online DRM whilst playing ED without any issues, didn't really do a good job of putting you case across tbh...

G
Click to expand...

You'll note he's on beta 3.0.5

Not anything that was provided after newsletter 49.

Just throwing that out there ;)
 

Clifford

C
DaHunn said:
god not this again....don't you people have internet? what's the big deal about this solo offline thing?
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I have Internet now via my smartphone.
I just got back from a trip where I had only occasional internet access on-and-off.

Some people may live out in the country or outback areas, some people may deploy on long trips , out at sea, or for other reason be away from Internet access.

Just because you personally can't understand the problem it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.
 
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