Actually, I am glad Skyrim was not MMO... That aside, I'd have paid hard-cash for a Co-op version with friends
ESO. Was a decent game, tbh, but I've always been more of a Sci-Fi Nerd.
No Single Player offline Mode then?
- Thread starter Brandon31
- Start date
- Status
ESO. Was a decent game, tbh, but I've always been more of a Sci-Fi Nerd.
*sigh* DRM - Digital Restrictions Management is the practice of imposing technological restrictions that control what users can do with digital media. When a program is designed to prevent you from copying or sharing a song, reading an ebook on another device, or playing a single-player game without an Internet connection, you are being restricted by DRM. This concentrates control over production and distribution of media, and conduct large scale surveillance over people's media viewing habits.
I see, yes I just read it. To me its looks to be a 'grey area', it doesn't say its offline, just you don't need to connect to the 'Galaxy' server to play on your own SP. But you would still need to log in.
Not too convinced there, that those few lines updated around 2yrs ago will make for a case for SP offline mode, to be honest.
I am not saying some read it a different way and to some it may seem misleading, but I wouldn't want to go to court with just that, imo.
But it is a subject that is on fire, at the moment..
Well, to be fair, that is relative. Their better might not be mine, or yours. They have their vision of their game, as David regularly says "we are making the game we want to play".
are you personally affected by the mess? then close the browser and walk away please and stop trolling the thread.
we basically discovered that for some stupid reason they pulled the plug for offline mode ONE month before release, in a murky murky way almost hid in a newsletter,
and i bought this on zaon store wich does not
STILL NOT LIST MANDATORY ONLINE IN SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
edit- of course now it does.
Last edited:
Looking at those "us" and "we"s in that statement has reminded me of the interviews with David Braben where he's said : "We're making the game that we want to play". I'd always taken that 'we' to mean 'the community of Elite fans who've backed the project from the start'.
Apparently I was wrong.
There's been a growing feeling of distance over the past few months, and it's one I've felt before.
In politics.
Visionary politicians explain their ideas of utopia to the masses, the masses follow them with a huzzah, elect them to office...and then reality sets in.
Unexpected problems occur, obstacles that can't be circumvented, and the politicians are left with the sticky problem of having to explain to their devoted masses why the promised utopia hasn't appeared.
Sad, but like I say, that's reality.
But here's the thing. There's more than one way to tell your followers, your camp, your backers about that harsh reality.
You could bravely bite the bullet and state it outright -
"We're sorry, we were idealistic and it turns out we simply bit off more than we could chew. We wished a utopia for all, but sadly due to circumstances beyond our control that wish just wasn't possible, and for that we apologise. We are as disappointed as you are, because this setback affects the whole community. But we will not give up! Our community is what made us strong, and with enough strength we can still hopefully one day overcome any obstacle in our path - together."
Or the politicians could say -
"Well, you elected us to do this job, so that logically means we know what's best. And what's best is that sacrifices sometimes have to be made for the greater good. Our vision of utopia requires that a sacrifice be made. If you truly understood our vision, you'd accept this without question. We're still giving you a utopia, it's just not the one you expected. Surely that's enough? Because after all, we still know what's best for you."
See the difference there?
This statement : "Spending time on an offline mode is wasted if it doesn't provide the game that we've set out to make" worries and saddens me. It demonstrates clearly the lack of communication I just alluded to in the political example above. I haven't seen any apology for the removal of offline mode as a feature, just justifications. And vague, dismissive ones at that.
I have nothing but respect for both Michael and the entire Frontier Development team, which is why this cold, dispassionate dismissal comes as a such total shock. The statement may as well say "It's our vision alone so therefore your concerns are irrelevant. We know best."
Yes, I appreciate the devs are busy. Insanely busy. More busy than we can know right now. But the manner (and more often lack) of communication between FD and their customers is making this long ride we've all been on together suddenly feel like an uncoupled train - and we're on the carriage being left behind while the locomotive is steaming on ahead. Without us.
If not for us, then for whom IS this game being made?
Or is it that my initial point is chillingly accurate after all, and the backers, the customers, and the loyal fans of 30yrs were never really 'we' at all, and are simply regarded with a dismissive wave of the hand as 'them'? :S
(One last point - why has this thread been moved to the Beta forum? Seeing as there never was an offline mode in Beta, and now there never will be either, shouldn't this thread have been left in Elite General?)
No.
So far generally yes. I flew past a star this morning and stopped to gawp at its awesome graphics. However, I have the fastest and most reliable internet I can buy, and I am not always able to connect to Frontier's server. If post-release players find themselves failing time-limited missions because of connection issues, this now online-only game is going have more to worry about.
THEN WHY DID THEY TRY TO HIDE IT?!?!?!?
Sorry for the caps lock, but this is the most important part in my mind. The whole DB's letter in the Newsletter was a joke, almost every sentence felt like a slap to my face. Seriously, do Frontier think that all backers are idiots?
Yeah i know, be since alpha 1 it has been jerky, multiplayer i have given up on, solo ojnline i can trade and explore, exiting SC can be problematic as i just jerks and lags to hell, if they could sort it i'd stay but these issues are old, were now a month away from final release and i still cant get a reasonable session from beta, do i hold out in the vain hope that come release these problems are resolved, nope i'd sooner get my money back than risk it. I wish i could believe they can sort it, in fact i'd have paid a sub if the went client/server but P2P simply doesn't work very well for me.
Last edited:
Very good. Now. How, exactly, is having the server handle various portions of the game that your personal PC physically could not handle restricting distribution of said media? It would appear to me, that this is simply ::gasp:: a game that has multiplayer at its core. It's almost as though Devs have been on this exact thread with that exact sentiment! It's almost as though for the last few months, if you've played the game, it's been online! No, that can't be it. It has to be those evil evil evil Devs who hate us and want the game to fail, mwuahahahahaahahahahahaha
Funny way to hide it, putting it in a public notice... Strange. But hey, you're the expert at espionage, who am I to question you?
ESO was an average game played solo, it however had several deep flaws when it came to group play. Specifically the way rewards and progressing quests had to be done by each player individually.
Compared to ESO Elite dangerous is terrible when it comes to group play. I posted earlier so won't repost all the reasons but there is no infrastructure to support group play.
No offline mode, is also a great way to force people into a pay to play, or micro transaction based funding model. If people could just play offline, then they lose potential revenue. OFFLINE mode was the guarantee that it wouldn't be.
it was hideous at best i had to read it twice because i did not believe it
Actually, I am glad Skyrim was not MMO... That aside, I'd have paid hard-cash for a Co-op version with friends
A co-op version, indeed - but with this latest announcement ED will not be giving us the choice. No versions - a permanent internet connection is required to play the game. See where that requirement got Silent Hunter V. In the end they acquiesced to the uproar/backlash and offline play was eventually made available.
You are right that better is subjective, but we're not comparing Elite's core mechanics are are we? We're discussing online vs offline.
If we were to say that procedural generation of content was *enough* to make Elite Dangerous awesome, then you'd make a fair point. But I believe that FD have come to the conclusion that really isn't enough. Whilst both of our opinions are subjective (as to what makes a good game, or not), I think you can agree that if they've made the decision to cut offline to ensure the rest of us have a really awesome immersive experience, it's the only decision that can be taken for the product to be what the designers, and David, foresaw.
Like I said it sucks that it means some have been cut out of this - but you know what? Horrid internet connectivity aside, I think many of the antagonists here will be quite happy playing the game given this decision.
For those who truly live on a mountain-top where the best communication is carrier-pigeon, I am sorry for your loss.
I do let him bring his PC to mine so he can perform updates to his current line up of games (inc. patches), so it would not have been an issue in getting the game on his computer. Just like I let him bring his PS3 round to get updates to new games.
-
He is also hospitalized 2 or 3 times a year to have operations on his kidneys.
-
As for the internet - he lives in a location that does not benefit from fibre optics and is too far away from the telephone exchange to get a decent connection. We have tried various options and it just does not work. Where I work is also too far away from the telephone exchange & no fibre optics in the area, we were getting broadband speeds slower than dial-up, we struggled to ever get to 42kbps. In the end, after trying various forms of unsuccessful broadband we have had to have installed at a cost to the business of around £8000 four dedicated (straight to the exchange) fibre optic lines (bonded pairs) to enable us to get a fairly decent speed. These are ours and no one can splice into them, unfortunately my friend does not have this kind of money to invest in such a luxury.
Last edited:
lol are you being sarcastic now? I have shown you the definition and examples for persistant online DRM twice now and you still repeat this like some mantra? Maybe three times is the charm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#Persistent_online_authentication
"Other developers, such as Blizzard Entertainment are also shifting to a strategy where most of the game logic is on the "side" or taken care of by the servers of the game maker. Blizzard uses this strategy for its game Diablo III and Electronic Arts used this same strategy with their reboot of SimCity, the necessity of which has been questioned.[38]"
As a sidenote, weeks, possibly months, after the decision was made. We don't know when exactly this was as Michael Brookes continues to avoid giving an answer to direct questions.
Last edited:
I think it's quite simple. Frontier have the right to make the game they want to make. I take what they say at face value.
In so doing they found they could not achieve offline any longer and have engineered around it, by deleting that option. So they have managed the technical impact of their discoveries, and they now need to manage the human impact. Those people that feel misled by the decision should be given a clear path to some recourse with FD, that's obviously a refund.
Michael came on here and said all refunds would be considered on a case by case basis but every direct question I and others put to him he dodged or ignored.
So whilst FD were happy to make a clear decision to pull the offline technology in the newsletter, they are not happy to make a clear decision on the customer impact. That is simply weak management and people are understandably concerned.
- Status