No Single Player Offline Mode then? [Part 2]

[Gaijin]

You have a phone and a TV too, how about if they require you to maintain a phone/tv connection to play the game, because, you know, you have them too so why not?

Having internet is part of the price for playing, it would seem, much like having a PC capable of running the game is. Life lesson learned: don't buy and play in-development software, and expect to get a refund just because a feature you wanted is not implemented.

People who are deserving of refunds will get them, those that do not will not. Frontier might change their policy in this instance, but until they do further discussion is pretty useless.

 

[Juniper]

What done has been done it wasn't great of FD but lessons have been learnt, but I do hope that people would put their toys back in their pram and move on with their lives.

You need a internet connection to download the game, and lets be perfectly honest most would have still backed the game because of their love for space sims.

Please can everyone put this to rest?

Thank you

Nobody can move on with their lives until it is resolved - either through refunds, or Frontier providing what they promised.

The people who were planning on installing their "Physical DRM-free boxed set" version don't need an internet connection to download the game.

Please can everyone take some time to educate themselves on the actual issues, and the difference between ONline and OFFline, and the many reasons why people expected & wanted the latter, before they make silly comments like the above?

Thank you

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

F2P means free 2 play, ie. No one off purchase price either.

Fair point, accepted.

 

[Mikey2305]

have posted a few snarky comments because i couldnt quite see the big fuss ... but if people are as upset about it as they obviously are then it has to be a serious issue and taken seriously. i joined at the beginning of b2 and had no real comprehension of an offline mode. i never really thought of it as such or that it was being developed in that direction so was surprised and at first amused at the reaction. i could never in hindsight see it as having the possibility of an offline mode. I spend most of my time in solo and around the home systems and still get a buzz out of that. A drastically cut down version containing the 25 or so systems ought to have been technically possible and would be nice on my ipad. so sorry if i was negative and hope that you guys who cant climb aboard find what you seek... best wishes mikey2305

 

[poet1960]

Please don't cherrypick your quotes and suggest I was just trying to play it out as all positive. I do have empathy for the ones legitimately affected who have dealt with this situation in an adult manner.

You keep pursuing me with questions and I keep answering your points as you raise them, I'm not intending to dazzle or mislead just answer the points from the previous round of questions and what my opinion is on those. I have no issue with online being a requirement for singleplayer IF it means that the game will be more interesting and involved and it isn't just a cynical DRM measure (which is why I've boycotted Ubisoft for over 10years). I have one of the worst possible internet connections in the UK (short of some rural areas in Scotland and the SW) and online is not a problem for me so long as it doesn't require high bandwidth (which does affect me in DayZ and Arma). Sure servers are sometimes down, potentially I'll lose the ability to play my whole steam library if Valve magically collapsed overnight and occasionally I have to change my plans for an evening if they're having issues - it's not the end of the world and it definitely wouldn't make me change my mind on the benefits that online connection can offer!

Personally I hate exploitable AIs because of how dull they become once they've been figured out - you can't do that with people (which is why my favourite games are Quake and Eve, probably two of the most intense pvp games ever created in their respective forms) - but also I absolutely hate it when you have the bad side of multiplayer, hackers in Quake, gankers in Eve... I' really quite looking forward to what online singleplayer is going to turn out as.

I was trying to highlight the fact, that it suggests forethought in regards to the relationship between the online and offline parts of the game. This game by the looks of it, certainly by statements made by the devs themselves, was intended to be a pure mmo. So it makes me wonder how they would have ever thought they could create both using the same tech. A standalone single player game is far different from an mmo in how they handle data.

 

[Sysmon]

An offline mode would have been great.

Personally I bought into the kickstarter for this game for the multiplayer part. Not that I ever considered it an MMO along the same lines as the jump-around-dance-on-mailboxes-in-major-hubs-talk-nonsense-in-general-chat MMOs that otherwise seem to have saturated the market. But I like the idea of sharing the galaxy with fellow gamers who, due to the vastness of space, will be rare if possibly intense encounters. Or even just an opportunity to exchange pleasantries and experience over chat/voice comms as our ships literally pass in the night.

However, an offline mode would help situations where getting online is impossible. And when the game eventually stops being supported, it would be playable still - possibly even turned into a proper user content-driven sand box. A parallel offline game does sound like a support nightmare. And I assume that some of the proponents of a parallel offline mode would also like the characters played to be transferable to the online version just like it seem possible for the online-solo mode (I wouldn't know, really, have never really left the "all" group). That could be used as an excuse to "gear up" for PvP without having to suffer PvP action for it, something which to me always seemed a bit of an odd way to do it: PvP experience is gained from PvP, by taking the beatings and learning from them.

In short, I'm not unhappy to see the offline game disappear. It already exist as Oolite and whatever other iterations exist out there, so why compete with that? Good choice, Frontier: Please keep focussing effort where it makes a difference.

S

 

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

Nobody can move on with their lives until it is resolved - either through refunds, or Frontier providing what they promised.

The people who were planning on installing their "Physical DRM-free boxed set" version don't need an internet connection to download the game.

Please can everyone take some time to educate themselves on the actual issues, and the difference between ONline and OFFline, and the many reasons why people expected & wanted the latter, before they make silly comments like the above?

Thank you

Careful, you're asking a lot of the people who are content with the online VISIONᵀᴹ to actually use that expanse between their ears for something other than baiting and rehashing the same old misinformation as to what apparently "isn't" DRM and that the entire world has perfectly serviceable internet and that everyone should just stop complaining and be happy with what they're given

Last time that happened, peoples' heads exploded and then the forum was a gory mess and I don't want to clean that up.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

Lol, you are raging because the game was getting patched to beta 3.9?

There's not much to add to that

However his point about not being able to play because of the online connection being down is VALID. An offline game never suffers from this.

Have you played a game which require online only access? if you have how many of those have regular scheduled maintenance times? How many of those games that have maintenance times have had PROLONGED downtimes (and by prolonged I mean 6 / 8 / 10+ hours) or patches installed of hundreds of Gb's; which will then require to be DL'd first before being able to continue where you left off. I have a friend in Brecon, mid Wales that has only a 6gb connection, with fibre optic not scheduled to his part of the country possibly for YEARS - everytime there's a big patch he has to DL he loses his entire play session for that game and if a group based encounter was arranged - like a raid for example - he cannot take part.

The amount of times I've gone to play a game that has online only login only to find I can't because it's either down or there's a 350gb patch to be installed first is beyond counting in the 17 odd years I've played MMO's. Sure you can go do something else, but that's hardly the point here is it?

An offline mode would have been great.

In short, I'm not unhappy to see the offline game disappear. It already exist as Oolite and whatever other iterations exist out there, so why compete with that? Good choice, Frontier: Please keep focussing effort where it makes a difference.

S

Did you really just tell the offline mode players go away and they should be happy to play Oolite? I've played Oolite, and while it's a great example of what can be done with open source software, at it's core it's Elite V1 with graphical changes and a few mods to spice up the universe.

If you were familiar with Oolite, you would not have made such a comment as E D's content is so far ahead of Oolite's, making a comparison isn't even remotely amusing.

And you still missed the heart of this matter, which to re-hash again is that an offline mode of E D was promised.

 

[Varrun]

Why are you so upset by this? You can play the game. why are you bothered by small minority of strange people who are ranting in their pit?! Yes, I know that it is fun to come over here from time to time, call us names or kill any constructive conversation.

You should be glad having us so you can have fun while waiting to be connected on servers.

The issues is that this while the it is a minority you have been making a lot of noise! Which is very annoying having endless news feeds trashing FD.

Anyway thanks for keeping me entertained while we all "download" (yes from the internet) a huge update which I'm looking forward to playing.

V

 

[phlOgistOn]

I was trying to highlight the fact, that it suggests forethought in regards to the relationship between the online and offline parts of the game. This game by the looks of it, certainly by statements made by the devs themselves, was intended to be a pure mmo. So it makes me wonder how they would have ever thought they could create both using the same tech. A standalone single player game is far different from an mmo in how they handle data.

See I think that they did have the intention of trying to simulate the online portion as an offline component but probably the online part spiralled in size as features were added and cross-referenced to other bits of code which were all running on this big hub and then one day someone looked at it and went.... "Errrrrrrrrrrrrrr this is gonna take another year to recode as a local version"

For comparison from my experience I'm considering the transition of DayZ from an Arma mod (most of the functions were run clientside) to the standalone version (most of the functions run server side) - this took roughly a year before they could really start working on the actual beta.

The reason this was so important is because the client side version is incredibly vulnerable to hacks because the server just accepts whatever the clients tell it (oh the client says that he shot that person 2miles away behind the building) rather than analyzing the actions sent by the client and then being the boss that tells the clients what's happening next (he was pointing in that direction and fired a shot but the bullet would have hit that hill in the way). It's a huge difference - to try and imagine how this would affect elite you then have someone's client saying "I have 10million credits and buy an Asp" vs "I'd like to buy an Asp, server checks teh player's balance -> You don't have enough credits for that"

 

[Juniper]

And I assume that some of the proponents of a parallel offline mode would also like the characters played to be transferable to the online version just like it seem possible for the online-solo mode (I wouldn't know, really, have never really left the "all" group). That could be used as an excuse to "gear up" for PvP without having to suffer PvP action for it, something which to me always seemed a bit of an odd way to do it: PvP experience is gained from PvP, by taking the beatings and learning from them.

No, that was never proposed, on the cards, or even desired.

Some purposes of an offline mode are:

1) To be able to pause the game at any point & the universe stops
2) To be able to save the game at any point, come back to it two weeks later, and it still be in the same time & space.
3) To be able to play where there is poor or no internet.
4) To be able to play when the servers go dark.
5) To be able to forward plan when you can't be online 24/7.

Those are five of the positives. It also avoids a number of negatives, such as:

1) Galaxy moves on without you.
2) Your game can be affected by idiots or people who can afford the time to play the game more than you.
3) You can get ganked or smack talked by idiots.

Now, out of those, only ONE of those is covered by SOLO-ONLINE (i.e. what we've got, what we've had since the start of beta, etc). For everything else, you need OFFLINE.

 

[Commander M.O.]

My suspicion as to the real reason there will be no offline mode:

Terms EULA section 8..

8. In-Game Advertising
The Game may incorporate technology (which may be provided by Frontier or third party service providers engaged by Frontier (each a "Dynamic Advertising Provider")) which enables advertising to be uploaded into the Game on your PC, and changed while the Game is being played on-line. In order that the Dynamic Advertising Provider is able to direct advertising appropriate to your Game and geographic region, as well as to the correct location within the computer game, certain non-personally identifiable data and information may be retrieved and retained by the Dynamic Advertising Provider including your I.P. address, geographic location, in-game position, and information concerning the appearance of advertising visible during your gameplay (for example, the length of time an item of advertising was visible, the dimensions of the advertisements). In addition, the Dynamic Advertising Provider may assign a unique identification number which is stored on your PC and which is used to monitor and calculate the number of views of dynamic advertising during gameplay. None of the information collected for this purpose including the identification number can be used to identify you.

The technology employed by Dynamic Advertising Providers may be located outside your country of residence (including outside of the European Union).

Where a Game incorporates dynamic advertising technology, the technology which serves the provision of dynamic in-game advertising is integrated within the Game. This means that if you do not want to receive dynamic advertising, you should only play the game when you are not connected to the Internet.

..because nothing else they said really makes any sense.

 

[JiminyJickers]

Good idea, but impractical I fear. That money has already been used up for developing their MMO, so effectively it would mean Frontier ponying up the cash for it themselves. If they were prepared to do that - they might as well offer the refunds directly to the affected backers.

We'll wait and see on that last point.

Yeah, good point.

 

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

My suspicion as to the real reason there will be no offline mode:

Terms EULA section 8..

<insert EULA element about advertising>

..because nothing else they said really makes any sense.

Euch, just imagine docking in Eranin and getting greeted by a big McDonald's holographic sign in the air >.<

 

[poet1960]

See I think that they did have the intention of trying to simulate the online portion as an offline component but probably the online part spiralled in size as features were added and cross-referenced to other bits of code which were all running on this big hub and then one day someone looked at it and went.... "Errrrrrrrrrrrrrr this is gonna take another year to recode as a local version"

For comparison from my experience I'm considering the transition of DayZ from an Arma mod (most of the functions were run clientside) to the standalone version (most of the functions run server side) - this took roughly a year before they could really start working on the actual beta.

The reason this was so important is because the client side version is incredibly vulnerable to hacks because the server just accepts whatever the clients tell it rather than analyzing the actions sent by the client and then being the boss that tells the clients what's happening next. It's a huge difference afaik.

That may be, but then it also suggests, at least to me, they were either being lazy, or I guess you could call it, killing two birds with one stone. What it definately says is, that mmo took precedence over the offline version. It doesn't even make sense really when you think about it. They promised an offline mode, you've seen the quotes I'm sure. NO connection required. Well, if they were making a stand alone game but pulling the info from their mmo part, how the hell was that ever going to not need at least some kind of connection?

 

[Im_Lost]

Some of the whining on this thread is getting beyond ridiculous now

People don't want to connect to a server in-game (using a miniscule amount of bandwidth), but they are ok whining on a forum all day.

 

[vonFelty]

Some of the whining on this thread is getting beyond ridiculous now

People don't want to connect to a server in-game (using a miniscule amount of bandwidth), but they are ok whining on a forum all day.

People like you are great for corporations who want to abuse their customers and break promises to their service agreements. You might have a job in US Congress!

 

[Hotshot10101]

There are a lot of little threads about this topic, so I didn't realize there was this uber thread. I made a post and was asked to move it here, so here it is:

I just wanted to show my support for the decision to have the solo play be in the online universe.

To show why I think my opinion is important I have to explain my own playing style.

I played the original Elite on the Apple IIe on a green screen in wireframe. Yes, I am one of those guys. Been around a while. I am also a software engineer, so I understand software development and the trade offs involved. Though in this case I don't think this is a trade off AT ALL.

I am one of those players who you would think would be upset about not having an offline single player version of the game. This is because I am not a PVP player. I hate the many games that have turned into grief games for people who enjoy that type of play.

I am not saying they should not be able to do that, just that I don't like it. When EVE first came out I was very excited about it. I love the idea of escaping into another universe and flying around in a ship exploring. I am the guy who usually ends up being a "space trucker" or a miner. I don't fight well. Not sure why. I am just not very good at it.

So when I tried to do this in EVE I was quickly destroyed after hours of mining. I worked my way up the ship ladder, only to have everything taken away in a single attack. I am fine with people wanting to play that way. It brings an element of realism to a game.

At the same time, however, that is NOT for me. Let them play EVE if they want to. Or now they can play ED in the All Play world. There needs to be a place where people can pretend to be a bully or play the game just to cause others grief. I am not saying that sarcastically. It takes all kinds in the world and who am I to say what someone else should do for fun?

I do enjoy escaping into the future and that is why I play these games. I usually play single player. I do not play enough to coordinate times to have body guards, either. I know that is usually the answer: make friends so someone can protect me. Well, that is more challenging that you think. Schedules and such are a pain. Besides, it makes it so you can't just get on and play.

So all of the above points to a person (me) who would be upset about not having the offline single player version of ED, right? So why am I excited about Solo Online mode and believe this is the best decision?

It is simple. The one great thing about these online games that keeps me coming back for more (and sometimes braving the grief makers) is the persistent and dynamic nature of MMOs. The world changes based on what real people do other than me. I think that is the whole point and what Dave and crew are trying to say about their decision.

I LOVE THAT! The fact that they have come up with a way to make my Solo play universe grow and evolve even when I am not playing and include the acts of other real people and yet still allow me to play in a Solo fashion without dealing with the other real players directly is pure genius in my opinion and I think based on my playing style my opinion should mean at least a little.

So if you are against the throwing out of the single player offline version, please reconsider. Don't ask the devs to spend time on something that really in the end takes away one of the greatest benefits of the approach they are taking. Let them spend their time adding content and making the game even better.

Obviously this is just one man's opinion, but I hope it helps some reconsider their disagreement.

I also hope the Dave and crew take this as the compliment and support it is and stay the coarse. Great job guys!

Commander Hotshot10101
(yes, my name is ironic since I am not good at shooting things)

 

[Commander M.O.]

Some of the whining on this thread is getting beyond ridiculous now

People don't want to connect to a server in-game (using a miniscule amount of bandwidth), but they are ok whining on a forum all day.

I would imagine that the forum uses UDP which is a connectionless model that doesn't really consume bandwidth. Do some reading man!

 

[m000]

If they show a gesture of goodwill, if they prove they are open even to the needs of "minority of players" and give us a firm assurances we will never ever again be treated the way they treated us in newsletter #49 I do not see why not settling the matter down.
After all, "offliners" are not criminals, pirates and sociopaths who only wants to ruin the game as some members of comunity are trying to present us. we are Elite fans. We have been waiting this for 20 years. we want this game. Offline. Like the Frontier was originally. Trust and gestures of goodwill goes both way. Show us some and we will not be deaf oon that.

and speaking of business - dear FD. Imagine all the praises and positive marketing you woul'd get in media for reconsidering your decision and showing that every comunity member matters to you!
Now, I know they are not reading this thread, but

Well said! If we had a commitment and a date for an offline version, I believe that much of the whininig would stop in no time and there will even be praise to FD for changing their minds.
In the meantime, while offline was being developed, whoever offliner had spare time could give online a chance and probably reconsider his/her view.
Would 12m time be enough to develop offline?

Unfortunately FD doesn't seem to be listening and insists hiding behind legalese. Or maybe they are, and have plans to surprise us in the premiere event?

 

[Polared]

Some of the whining on this thread is getting beyond ridiculous now

People don't want to connect to a server in-game (using a miniscule amount of bandwidth), but they are ok whining on a forum all day.

and all night! but then again, some people don't seem to be able to see the night from the day!