No Single Player Offline Mode then? [Part 2]

[CMDR Beardie.D]

Bad wording doesn't cover it. Your up in arms about FD using bad wording, and yet so very fast to hit on them. Hypocrisy and misinformation on your part. Just awful. I demand a refund from you for bad wording.

Why keep putting my efforts down? The whole point to my post is to try and get the originally promised offline mode re instated! Do you understand that? It is the whole point of this thread! People have paid for a product that they believed could be played offline! If it doesnt bother you then why are you even in this thread?

Petition to Frontier Developments and David Braben to include offline mode soon after release

 

[JeffRyan]

Sorry I have been overreacting...

Been a bit of that going around lately.... read my closed 'Goodbye' thread.... and then my Staying thread...

 

[hypergreatthing]

I play many single player browser based games (some great indie devs out there).

Single player is not synonymous with offline. Try again.

Ohh but it is. A single player browser based game can be downloaded and run locally if it's flash based.
If it's a turn based mmo then it requires an internet connection.

 

[Commander Debic]

Then you wouldn't be required to use a username & password. The server should freely send data to any client requesting it just like a web browser. Auth is a control mechanism, pure and simple.

No in this case it is not a control mechanism it is a security mechanism to ensure that people playing the game actually have purchased it to play it and not pirated it.

 

[Papa Smurf]

Bad wording doesn't cover it. No "perhaps" about it. You were totally and utterly WRONG.

You're up in arms about FD using bad wording, and yet so very fast to hit on them. Hypocrisy and misinformation on your part. Just awful. I demand a refund from you for bad wording.

DraigUK,

World is not going to end if you accept that FD failed to keep part of their bargain. I know you may feel it will end but I promise you it won't!

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

No point of closing the thread till FD actually does something... beside that what are thousands of people going to do if you do!

No in this case it is not a control mechanism it is a security mechanism to ensure that people playing the game actually have purchased it to play it and not pirated it.

 

[kalm]

I have. I received no reply from FD whatsoever.

As mentioned before we believed that would be possible at the time. The game has changed considerably in scope since the kickstarter, the game we are making is much bigger and better than what we pitched back then. Most of the changes stemming from the excellent feedback we received. Many of features require an online component and that's what has ultimately prompted the decision. Repeating myself again -) ) but the decision had to be made and we made it.

Michael

You robbed Peter to pay Paul. You did it willingly and intentionally. I am Peter, and I want my money back ASAP...

 

[DraigUK]

DraigUK,

World is not going to end if you accept that FD failed to keep part of their bargain. I know you may feel it will end but I promise you it won't!

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

No point of closing the thread till FD actually does something... beside that what are thousands of people going to do if you do!

I accept that he badly misjudged his wording but seems to think it's ok to hit on FD for doing the same thing. He needs to accept mistakes happen and so do you.
We are all human.
there was nothing malicious in this at all.
It's pretty pathetic.
World won't end if you walk away now either and neither will the game.
Some have offered to refund you I'll contribute as well.
Happy?

 

[Vortigon]

Even if they now included offline mode I would still ask for a refund because of the disgusting backstabbing way they have treated trusting loyal backers! ED can burn for all I care now - they will not be allowed to forget this abuse and greed! They should be ashamed that they are not allowing refunds - social media justice is just begining and this aint the 80's anymore - online reputation is king and people power rules reputation.

 

[Polared]

The physical copy of the game will contain no DRM in its code...so the KS reward is still completely feasible which is what seems to be the question? Basically people looking for other options to pursue refunds with some legal backup in black and white.

I'm not baiting mate, but did you really think / understand before saying that?

it's not about the KS rewards! it's about statements made regarding a certain deliverable being delivered, and then...

 

[JeffRyan]

You robbed Peter to pay Paul. You did it willingly and intentionally. I am Peter, and I want my money back ASAP...

Give them time...

 

[iceburg333]

I just wanted to drop by and say that I support Elite and I support FD.

I can't speak to the 'promise' of offline play, as opposed to single player play, but I do think that the refund policy makes sense. If you have internet to play the beta, you should have internet to play the game.

As someone who hates always online connections, and who lags and has loading troubles with Elite because of my slow, rural internet, I'd like an offline mode, but I don't see FD as a money grabber. I see them making hard decisions (knowing they'll get hate and lose money for what they've done), because they're making a solid game regardless of money.

Kickstarter comes with its disclaimers, and we know we take the risk of not getting what we want when we support. It's disheartening to see how entitled we have all become.

I believe that FD truly is fighting to make a game that they want to play. I'm sold on that, and I trust them after seeing what they've done so far.

 

[HudZ]

No in this case it is not a control mechanism it is a security mechanism to ensure that people playing the game actually have purchased it to play it and not pirated it.

Ah, so it's not a control mechanism. It's a security mechanism to control who can play.

Po-tay-toe, Po-tah-toe lol

 

[hypergreatthing]

I play many single player browser based games (some great indie devs out there).

Single player is not synonymous with offline. Try again.

eg:
QWOP
GIRP

So for instance GIRP:
Download this file:
http://www.foddy.net/GIRP.swf
Play it on flash player. You're playing it in a browser not because it requires an internet connection but because it's convenient. Once it loads into memory it doesn't require anything else to run.
Now if i was playing ED and i got disconnected in single player mode, what exactly would happen?

 

[phlOgistOn]

I'm not baiting mate, but did you really think / understand before saying that?

it's not about the KS rewards! it's about statements made regarding a certain deliverable being delivered, and then...

The DRM-free discussion has almost purely been people seeking loopholes to demand their refunds through since it became apparent that the KS terms only really covered 'rewards' rather than any of the other 'promises' made (I know, not right morally but I'm talking about this impartially in a legal sense...or trying to).

One of the rewards was a DRM-free physical copy and as such many people that were denied refunds were claiming that this reward could not be delivered and so they were legally entitled to a refund. This is not the case as I'm trying to show (although hopefully those people interested in this loophole are going to get refunded and leave the thread alone anyways in which case this is a redundant point).

 

[Juniper]

Not that I'm judging yiou or picking you up. It's all lost for us now anyway, but during that time on DDF... didn't you ever, ever thought about the vast majority of people outside of forum and what they might want? Cause as it sounds now, and I now this may sound inpolite and rude (not my intention to attack you), you used funds from all the backers to pursue your private wishes and priorities, in the closed sessions with FDs, without stoping and thinking that - hey, maybe we shoul'd leave that for all the folks that might not like our idea and they are not discussing or are not even on the forum?! Yes, you got carried away and now we pay the price.

Anyway, I hope the majority of comunity will enjoy the game!

If I may?

The DDF did not get "carried away" (okay, maybe we did a bit sometimes, but we were often asked to by Frontier ), and we didn't realise that the implication of what we were concerned about would be that the code would all be moved serverside & we'd have the situation we have now. We just trusted Frontier to handle it.

Everyone (to my knowledge) used their own funds to be part of the DDF... we didn't use funds "from all the backers".

As for myself, I was only really interested in playing offline for the most part, but when the topics came up - I tried to put myself in the position of someone who was interested primarily in the online version, because that was an important part of the game & the hardest to get right. The potential for screw ups in the online portion is far more wide ranging than the offline portion. The whole point of the discussions was to try and find holes in FD's designs & offer suggestions to make the experience better for all.

In retrospect, I feel a bit silly for not noticing this (as a software dev myself) but it never occurred to any of us that offline would be scrapped as a result. It does kind of prove the adage though that sometimes the best place to hide something is in plain sight.

 

[poet1960]

So all of those definitions are about intentions... if the intention of the online connection is to actually make the game playable (ie many of its features and functions are controlled from a central hive like in most MMOs and in this particular case) then it's not a connection for the intention of controlling the digital rights.

LOL. Really? Come on. First, isn't it convenient when all you have to deal with is, "intentions?" So hard to prove one way or the other isn't it? Makes for relatively safe plausible deniability. Second, I understand the difference between needing an online connection for playing an mmo obviously, but I DON'T understand the need for a game that is "theoretically," offline. What I notice is people being a bit cheesy about statements like, "solo play is available."

Those are weasel words. Yeah, solo play is available, now finish the statement, as long as you maintain an internet connection. Oh, but I can hear you now, "it needs that connection to update the game from "time to time." How convenient it all is, especially when you design the game to work that way.

You act like they had no choice. They did. It's their game and they made it the way they wanted. That's fine, you can either agree with it or not, it's down to each persons personal choice. It is DRM no matter how you cut it. You may be able to argue that it isn't, just because of the ambiguity or difficulty in proving motivations or intent.

 

[phlOgistOn]

So for instance GIRP:
Download this file:
http://www.foddy.net/GIRP.swf
Play it on flash player. You're playing it in a browser not because it requires an internet connection but because it's convenient. Once it loads into memory it doesn't require anything else to run.
Now if i was playing ED and i got disconnected in single player mode, what exactly would happen?

Fine, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_gaming

Done.

 

[Jonbe54]

The fact is that single player is synonymous with offline.
No one in their right mind would think otherwise.
Online play, while needed in many multiplayer games for obvious reasons, when done on a single user experience is done solely for controlling when/where the user can play.
If Elite is really an mmo, then get rid of single player mode.

You simply HAVE to be kidding.

Steam have offline play . . .

I log onto the steam server online, then switch to offline mode . . .

Then I play the game ENTIRELY offline . . .

NO NEED FOR A CONSTANT ONLINE CONNECTION

THAT IS OFFLINE

 

[phlOgistOn]

LOL. Really? Come on. First, isn't it convenient when all you have to deal with is, "intentions?" So hard to prove one way or the other isn't it? Makes for relatively safe plausible deniability. Second, I understand the difference between needing an online connection for playing an mmo obviously, but I DON'T understand the need for a game that is "theoretically," offline. What I notice is people being a bit cheesy about statements like, "solo play is available."

Those are weasel words. Yeah, solo play is available, now finish the statement, as long as you maintain an internet connection. Oh, but I can hear you now, "it needs that connection to update the game from "time to time." How convenient it all is, especially when you design the game to work that way.

You act like they had no choice. They did. It's their game and they made it the way they wanted. That's fine, you can either agree with it or not, it's down to each persons personal choice. It is DRM no matter how you cut it. You may be able to argue that it isn't, just because of the ambiguity or difficulty in proving motivations or intent, but you also can't prove that it isn't.

You're the one that linked the wikipedia page that only stated DRM as a bunch of intentions, I gave you an answer based upon that.

 

[Papa Smurf]

I accept that he badly misjudged his wording but seems to think it's ok to hit on FD for doing the same thing. He needs to accept mistakes happen and so do you.
We are all human.
there was nothing malicious in this at all.
It's pretty pathetic.
World won't end if you walk away now either and neither will the game.
Some have offered to refund you I'll contribute as well.
Happy?

Not sure if you read this post but I highly recommend it;

Lets rewind given the powers of 20/20 eyesight when looking back. Things would be completely different right now if this was the message and stance conveyed 6 days ago:

We have some really bad news, folks. We have come to an impasse and have had to make a really hard decision.

We just can't deliver a viable offline experience at this time.

We know we have talked a lot about it in the past, but know that we have been trying really hard to make good on what we have said in the past while still making good on our committment to you, our backers and supporters.

As this could be shocking, especially to our kickstarter backers that made Elite : Dangerous possible, we would like to make sure that we do right by everyone who, up until now, had every right to expect that offline play would be a part of Elite : Dangerous.

As of now, we will grant full refunds to anyone that feels that this change breaks the commitment that we made to them. I can certainly understand how you might feel that way.


However, I would like to encourage you to stick with us as we continue to mold Elite : Dangerous into an awesome experience. We have many wonderful new things to announce in the coming weeks leading up to our release next month.

But it wasn't. And all of you that are blindly defending Frontier instead of standing up for what is right are making this much worse.