No Single Player Offline Mode then? [Part 2]

[DarkWalker]

You can buy a sidewinder at literally every station bigger than an outpost, and park the Anaconda there. At that point, no chance to lose the anaconda, and your friend can try it freely. He can also try the single player missions at no risk, and hopefully they will be packaged into a free to play demo anyway.

Oh, before I forget: this is technically against ED's EULA. You can't "rent, lease, sub-license, loan, exploit for profit or gain, copy, modify, adapt, merge, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or create derivative works based on the whole or any part of the Game or use, reproduce, distribute, translate, broadcast, publicly perform, store in a retrieval system or otherwise deal in the Game or any part thereof in any way."

Of course, not all of those stand everywhere. I believe local laws in my country explicitly allow me to reverse engineer anything regardless of the consent of the copyright holder, for example, and many kinds of derivative work (parody, for example) also can be created without authorization.

 

[jamotide]

So what is this individual situation stuff anyway, do they want to know my job and earnings? Just refund already, this is taking way too long!

 

[Polared]

How many refund seekers are still her? come on FD, get them out of here!

well, I don't know about her? me I think I've always been a he! ; )
but anyway regardless of genre, I'm still here and with no intention of going away, thank you!

btw, never asked for a refund and no intention of doing so, this game is way too important to me! but I'd still like them to deliver on the promised single player OFFLINE game.

 

[Alf]

Of course, not all of those stand everywhere. I believe local laws in my country explicitly allow me to reverse engineer anything regardless of the consent of the copyright holder, for example, and many kinds of derivative work (parody, for example) also can be created without authorization.

Good luck to anyone trying to parody this situation

 

[DaveS1]

well, I don't know about her? me I think I've always been a he! ; )
but anyway regardless of genre, I'm still here and with no intention of going away, thank you!

btw, never asked for a refund and no intention of doing so, this game is way too important to me! but I'd still like them to deliver on the promised single player OFFLINE game.

gender.

Sorry, couldn't resist. I still love you man.

 

[Hermit]

Beta testing is usually free, and the final product isn't available yet

It's not, because I don't see that we're behaving poorly. We just want what we were promised. That's all.

When Braben and FD promised Offline in the kickstarter, it may have increased the backer uptake on the game, but it was the biggest mistake they could've made. FD didn't think it through properly, but that's not the fault of those that then backed it because of the offline game. To then turn around to many of these backers and say, "Sorry, you downloaded the alpha/beta and played it so we can't give you a refund." may not hold water with some in the legal community.
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They might look at it this way: The backer pre-ordered the game for £35, but paid extra to get into alpha and beta. Normally, beta testing (that isn't done in-house) is free with many games. People are chosen from admissions to participate in it, and then given a beta key via email to activate it. After all, they'll be doing work for the games company in finding bugs. It's usually unpaid, but they don't mind because they get a first look at the game they've been waiting for. This is how it was commonly done, and still is by many companies. However, kickstarter seems to have blurred that free beta testing phase with pledge levels. More devs were seeing how they could charge potential customers for something that should be freely available to them. It's kind of like asking someone to clean up all the leaves in your garden, but charging an admission fee before they do so. The goodwill in doing it for nothing is gone.
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If that argument fails, and FD refuse to give a refund on the beta aspect, then disgruntled backers still have the finished game aspect. FD have said they won't refund on those who've downloaded the beta, but these backers might respond by saying: "Fair enough, but will I get a refund on the actual game? I've downloaded and played the beta, but I haven't downloaded the finished game that I paid £35 for." And they may well have a good argument there. All they need to do is not download the game on the 16th of December because they'll know that it's not the product that was promised. They may feel that this gives them a better chance of getting the refund for the game itself.
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Just a thought

 

[Adept]

It's not, because I don't see that we're behaving poorly. We just want what we were promised. That's all.

They couldn't do it without a large effort anf it wasn't the focus of the KS nor explicitly promised in the KS goals.

What they in effect promised was to try. They failed. I suggest you start getting to terms with the facts of the matter, rather than going "they promised!", and demanding they placate you at any cost.

They thought they could do it as an extra feature outside the core KS goals. They couldn't. It happens. They are not actually obliged to take it on as a new primary task because you would want them to.

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Oh, before I forget: this is technically against ED's EULA. You can't "rent, lease, sub-license, loan, exploit for profit or gain, copy, modify, adapt, merge, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or create derivative works based on the whole or any part of the Game or use, reproduce, distribute, translate, broadcast, publicly perform, store in a retrieval system or otherwise deal in the Game or any part thereof in any way."

Of course, not all of those stand everywhere. I believe local laws in my country explicitly allow me to reverse engineer anything regardless of the consent of the copyright holder, for example, and many kinds of derivative work (parody, for example) also can be created without authorization.

Which part of that forbids a me to let a mate sit in my chair and try the game. I don't think you will find the clause.

 

[phlOgistOn]

Steam includes a DRM solution. It does not mean that every game makes use of it. Which is one of the reasons Steam is the only DRM system I accept for offline games on my computer right now, Steam does not force every dev to use DRM on the games they sell.

(Another reason is that it's a joke of a DRM solution, designed more to be consumer-friendly than to be secure. I wouldn't be surprised if, with the little I know about assembly and live debugging, I could break it. Well, scratch that; I once broke it when doing my personal mod for Terraria, though I'll admit that breaking the DRM check on that game is pitifully easy.)

Does not mean I don't have non-steam games. But those are either DRM-free (mainly from GOG, though I have a bunch from the Humble Store too), or else I purchase a boxed copy and crack it.

Exactly my point - Steam is not DRM. Devs have an option to opt-in to using a DRM property of Steam but using Steam alone is not DRM... Steam is a distribution platform.

There are online services that require online authentication that aren't DRM, there are services that require a constant connection that aren't DRM. The whole DRM discussion is about an unreleased (unwritten?) bit of code that's going to sit on a physical piece of media at some point in the future so people are just speculating on the hope that it's their loophole to have a legal leg to stand on in claiming a refund for their pledges on Kickstarter - pledges they might not have given if they'd better educated themselves on what Kickstarter projects actually are in the first place (There could have been absolutely no product at the end of it for anyone). At the end of the day it's pretty clear that a piece of DRM-free code on a disc can be supplied to the end user and still require a connection to a server which would still fulfill the promised reward.

Anyways, I haven't seen anything new in hundreds of pages so I'm out; I hope that Frontier do give some goodwill refunds to those who actually deserve it yet aren't legally entitled even if it does affect my final game by removing development funds from the kitty. As for those who are just scared of other big bad traders messing up their beautiful static universe and want out because they can't farm the same trade route indefinitely, I think you need to go play an interesting game, Elite looks like it should be.

...and as for the terrible minority who immediately got on the phone to their local Saul Goodman and have tried to blacken the developers name without understanding the full story (which to be honest only a handful of people can/will ever know) - THANKS FOR ALL THE PRESS COVERAGE 3 WEEKS BEFORE RELEASE

 

[Mithril]

When I helped fund this game, it was for offline. I was in joy to find out that over such a long time (I played the first version available on the c64) a new version finally was in the works. And it was *promised* (with deep emphasize) that it would support singleplay. Now, just before release (despite repeted promise of single play) just that was removed. The very key thing that made me invest in this game. I say this because I like playing games offline, of all games I ever play 95% (and even that is a low estimate) are offline. I feel brutally robbed of all the time I have waited, tested, and otherwize spent time around this game. Only to get robbed of the very game I wanted at the finishing line. And on my very birthday no less. Thank you... thank you indeed. I never asked (or expected) a full offline version of this game. I would have been satisfied if only couple of dozen planets had been in the offline version. I know that it feaseable. I doubt you even considered it. I am not interested in refunds or whatever, I will play this game for sure. But make no mistake about it, I am deeply saddened by this.. Truly I am. This have made me so weary of investing in anything kickstarter like, that I have pulled out of every other project (with the exception of Star citizen) I have invested in. Fool me once and all that. A sad sad day indeed. Now, I have to think about this... bye.

 

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

Which part of that forbids a me to let a mate sit in my chair and try the game. I don't think you will find the clause.

The part that says you're not allowed to sub-license. That means you're the sole owner of the license, you're not allowed to to distribute or otherwise provide access to the license to other parties, including your mate. Granted, there's no way FDEV will ever *know* unless you tell them and they'd be amazingly petty if they banned your account over it, but nonetheless, that's the letter of the law. Get used to it.

 

[-c-s-]

If that argument fails, and FD refuse to give a refund on the beta aspect, then disgruntled backers still have the finished game aspect. FD have said they won't refund on those who've downloaded the beta, but these backers might respond by saying: "Fair enough, but will I get a refund on the actual game? I've downloaded and played the beta, but I haven't downloaded the finished game that I paid £35 for." And they may well have a good argument there. All they need to do is not download the game on the 16th of December because they'll know that it's not the product that was promised. They may feel that this gives them a better chance of getting the refund for the game itself.

Frontier has actually already accounted for this -- but here is what you need to know to unwrap their trickery embedded in their definition of "what you paid for".

Look at http://elitedangerous.com/backers > My Rewards and then compare with the Orders in http://store.elitedangerous.com

I backed for £90 at the physical DRM-free premium boxed edition tier and my screen shows a total of 3 orders:
1) Elite : Dangerous -- cost: £0
2) Beta access -- cost: £35
3) Expansion pass -- cost: £55

See? They switched what is documented as what you actually paid for. As far as their books go, no one paid money for the game, they only paid money for early access.

Their legal positioning so far should make sense now: "You downloaded the beta, which means you accepted delivery of the product that you paid for. You are not entitled to a refund of any money."

 

[Papa Smurf]

Able to post the article Wellington?

Just read an article on this whole thing, the guy asks for ANYONE who has been refused a refund to contact him at Eurogamer and tell your story: wes@eurogamer.net.

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I envy your level of dedication and support! Hopefully the day won't come when FD sticks it to you.

You can buy a sidewinder at literally every station bigger than an outpost, and park the Anaconda there. At that point, no chance to lose the anaconda, and your friend can try it freely. He can also try the single player missions at no risk, and hopefully they will be packaged into a free to play demo anyway.

 

[Demosthien]

Able to post the article Wellington?



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I envy your level of dedication and support! Hopefully the day won't come when FD sticks it to you.

Bottom...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...und-policy-following-no-offline-mode-backlash

 

[xenophon]

Too all the people who are defending FD's position. Would you be demanding a refund if they announced that the game would be offline only? If they said it's going to be too difficult and expensive to release ED online. Is the demand that great for online only? Or are most if not all of you acceptable or OK with online? Many people, myself included prefer to play offline for reasons that have been covered already. Is there anyone here who feels the same way about online? Who said I want an always online game and nothing else?

 

[Papa Smurf]

Too all the people who are defending FD's position. Would you be demanding a refund if they announced that the game would be offline only? If they said it's going to be too difficult and expensive to release ED online. Is the demand that great for online only? Or are most if not all of you acceptable or OK with online? Many people, myself included prefer to play offline for reasons that have been covered already. Is there anyone here who feels the same way about online? Who said I want an always online game and nothing else?

Xenophon,

Well said... Anyone?

I personally would be as furious if on-line portion of the game was slashed.

 

[megaman]

Too all the people who are defending FD's position. Would you be demanding a refund if they announced that the game would be offline only? If they said it's going to be too difficult and expensive to release ED online. Is the demand that great for online only? Or are most if not all of you acceptable or OK with online? Many people, myself included prefer to play offline for reasons that have been covered already. Is there anyone here who feels the same way about online? Who said I want an always online game and nothing else?

actually i don't mind at all i play the game anyway off or online
and yes online is more profitable sins piracy is much harder and people are willingly to poor huge amounts of money in it cough...star citizen...cough and of course other mmo games ass well
is it right to dismiss the people that wanted offline a few weeks before release no absolutely not
personally i am ok with online but that is different from person to person
and i respect the opinion and choice of people who want to play offline or cant play online for whatever reason

 

[Adept]

The part that says you're not allowed to sub-license. That means you're the sole owner of the license, you're not allowed to to distribute or otherwise provide access to the license to other parties, including your mate. Granted, there's no way FDEV will ever *know* unless you tell them and they'd be amazingly petty if they banned your account over it, but nonetheless, that's the letter of the law. Get used to it.

i don't think that is what aub-licensing means. I'm not selling the friend any rights to my copy.

 

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

i don't think that is what aub-licensing means. I'm not selling the friend any rights to my copy.

Sub-licensing covers as an umbrella term - Reselling, renting, loaning, giving to your mate for the weekend, and any other form of license transferral that isn't expressly permitted by the originator of the license, in this case Frontier Developments. You're given one license for your own *personal* use, and in the strictest sense of the law you're not supposed to share that with anyone else. Of course in reality people don't overly care too much if your mate tries it out on your computer, but there's the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. It's important you understand both.

 

[Adept]

Sub-licensing covers as an umbrella term - Reselling, renting, loaning, giving to your mate for the weekend, and any other form of license transferral that isn't expressly permitted by the originator of the license, in this case Frontier Developments. You're given one license for your own *personal* use, and in the strictest sense of the law you're not supposed to share that with anyone else. Of course in reality people don't overly care too much if your mate tries it out on your computer, but there's the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. It's important you understand both.

I do recall discussions about potentially getting 3 character slots, and getting answered by the devs that you can share them with family members because they are separate entities (no shared rep, finances...).

I'm not too bothered either way. Elite really is very personal by it's very nature. My
CMDR is my presense in the online galaxy.

 

[Ventura]

They couldn't do it without a large effort anf it wasn't the focus of the KS nor explicitly promised in the KS goals.

Taken from ED's Kickstarter page:

Pledge £60 or more : 374 backers : Physical DRM-free boxed edition of "Elite: Dangerous".

Pledge £90 or more : 1339 backers : Physical DRM-free collector's premium boxed edition of "Elite: Dangerous".

If having to log in to their server and play online doesn't constitute DRM, I'll be damned if I know what does.

What they in effect promised was to try. They failed. I suggest you start getting to terms with the facts of the matter, rather than going "they promised!", and demanding they placate you at any cost.

They thought they could do it as an extra feature outside the core KS goals. They couldn't. It happens. They are not actually obliged to take it on as a new primary task because you would want them to.

As always, it's pretty easy to say "tough luck, guys, damn shame" when it's not a feature that you were interested in.