No Single Player offline Mode then?

[Mengy]

We have always said the way to play the game is online - indeed it says so in the quote of me being circulated. The choice was develop the game in the way we wanted, or not. Trying to make it offline would have made both experiences worse than we were willing to tolerate. We had to make the decision and have done so. I would say that an offline rewrite of the game is unlikely for the future.

Michael

No offense Michael, but no, you and David and others at FD have not always said the game would be online only. See link below:

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=8fa4...17&ithint=folder,png&authkey=!AB8ihXyry1B55fw

I'm not criticizing FD's design decisions, I'm criticizing FD's deception to it's customers. This issue has not been handled well at all, and it's honestly troubling to me as a possible customer.

 

[Cooperman]

I'm beginning to seriously doubt that I read the same newsletter as some of the contributors to this thread. What I took from it was that from time to time you can log onto the game to update your galaxy so that it comes into line with what is going on in the dynamic galaxy. Sounds like a plus to me designed to stop the offline game becoming stale. 'Time to time' being once a week or once a month or whenever you can get access.

this, end of discussion.

 

[Kicks]

So it looks like DRM, feels like a DRM and works like a DRM. Ah, yes, it's a multiplayer game! Stupid me...

I wish you wouldn't bandy about the term DRM like you know what it means.

Actually, scratch that, I think you *do* know what it means but do not know how to apply it to this situation. MMOs need online connectivity. That's it. End of Story. Close the Book. End the relationship. Tell dad you don't like him anymore.

You repeatedly saying that it is DRM, doesn't make it any more true.

 

[Frank Thefarmer]

My point is, if they planned a single player offline experience, doesn't that mean that they already had this in the works? They did say offline from the start if I am correct. So why would they need to build a whole new game for offline, if it's already there? That was my interpretation. Anyway, I am not complaining, but I can see where some people can and do want a totally offline experience. If my ISP had a major fire and was going to be down for an extended period of time, I would love an offline experience. I am not complaining, just seeing both sides of the river.

EDIT; And then Michael posted. Well that is the end of this discussion LOL

 

[Skeloton]

I wish you wouldn't bandy about the term DRM like you know what it means.

Actually, scratch that, I think you *do* know what it means but do not know how to apply it to this situation. MMOs need online connectivity. That's it. End of Story. Close the Book. End the relationship. Tell dad you don't like him anymore.

You repeatedly saying that it is DRM, doesn't make it any more true.

ED is far from MMO

 

[Jackruss]

When I joined Eve in 2004 it was not dark and unforgiving, I played for a few years in the same Corp doing level 4 missions mining all sort of Coop stuff and enjoying the friendships. Dark and unforgiving, at least not until PVP became top dog some 5 or 6 years later. I played many online games trying to Capture the flag type stuff to mostly be stabbed in the back or by some player just shooting everyone on sight. Eve was simply a game of brilliant coop missions slowly being taken over by PVPs and grievers. When Elite came out I was in my mid thirties and have played games ever since. I have enjoyed so many offline games I cant remember half of them. I joined ED thinking this was Elite with Coop which I have always championed. The rise of the PVP worried me as it did in Eve. I could not go offline in Eve so leaving after 8 years was unfortunately a good feeling. Watching ED on the slippery slope is not fun, without Offline I am stuck with the rise of the PVP side of the game, which I believe is a Michael thing. Is the cry to close down Solo and Private modes only a question of time too. I think I will go play Far Cry 3 for a while and decide on Far Cry 4 but at least I am not biting my finger nails in anticipation of Thursday or the 22nd or even the 16th Now. I will play Solo until that too is taken away.

 

[TomFoolious]

Indeed and "must be online all the time to play or you can't play at all" is also not something that will bring success to a company, as gaming history has shown time and time again.

Yeah because Wow, Planetside 2, DayZ, Lol and World of Tanks/warplanes/warships (eventually) haven't been successful for the companies that made them. Your point is moot. Online is successful, Counterstrike:GO has offline, but probably 90% of their playerbase I would say plays online because of the interaction and the rewards. I've put a good $300 into that game for worthless skins, but I had the money to invest on a silly useless feature. CS:GO continues to grow because of the money I've and some others have carefully put into it, when I have the extra cash to waste at no harm.

Same with planetside 2, you can buy cosmetics and new weapons that are balanced well against the free weapons, and that game is successful. WoW continues to grow with being subscription based, didn't they just release another DLC for the game??

 

[SJT]

ED is far from MMO

ED is MMO like my local 5 aside centre. There's about 20 separate pitches, each with 10 guys running around on them but they never seem to all get together at once.

EDIT: Sorry, bad analogy. At the 5 aside centre, friends can play together.

 

[tomba4]

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?

Ahh, so you didn't read the newsletter then...

You know what? I DID read it and... I ACTUALLY, SINCERELY HAVEN'T NOTICED IT. Yes, I read the newsletter in my inbox, and only on the forum I found out that I wasn't reading it carefully enough to discover a game-breaking last-minute limitation.

Go figure.

 

[Skeloton]

Yeah because Wow, Planetside 2, DayZ, Lol and World of Tanks/warplanes/warships (eventually) haven't been successful for the companies that made them. Your point is moot. Online is successful, Counterstrike:GO has offline, but probably 90% of their playerbase I would say plays online because of the interaction and the rewards. I've put a good $300 into that game for worthless skins, but I had the money to invest on a silly useless feature. CS:GO continues to grow because of the money I've and some others have carefully put into it, when I have the extra cash to waste at no harm.

Same with planetside 2, you can buy cosmetics and new weapons that are balanced well against the free weapons, and that game is successful. WoW continues to grow with being subscription based, didn't they just release another DLC for the game??

The only game you mentioned that wasn't a MMO was CS. ED isn't a MMO, I certainly don't regard it as one.
Only a handful of online only games are successful. The rest either barely make do or fall and burn.

 

[Kicks]

*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.

You are confusing DRM with the requirements that online-games have.

You're right, some companies abuse this. I'm looking at Ubisoft, here. And EA to some extent.

However I am not looking at Blizzard, because World of Warcraft requires an online connection to.. well... play an MMO. There's a world that exists beyond your PC and you don't get to have a say in what is happening in the world, unless you're online and slashing up villagers.

To say Online games have DRM because they are online is futile, and ill-informed.

Watch Dogs, on the other hand? Ignoring the "A player can interdict me" (my terminology ), there should be no reason that a player cannot play that game offline. It has a story, and everything required to fulfil that story are on the hard-drive of the computer.


Let's stop the DRM argument, you have no idea what it means... honestly

 

[mbpoblet]

Ahh, so you didn't read the newsletter then...

You know what? I DID read it and... I ACTUALLY, SINCERELY HAVEN'T NOTICED IT. Yes, I read the newsletter in my inbox, and only on the forum I found out that I wasn't reading it carefully enough to discover a game-breaking last-minute limitation.

Go figure.

I didn't notice it either, I had to see it on reddit.

And I usually spend a good time getting all the information I can from the newsletters (although the last ones haven't had much).

It really does seem intentionally obfuscated.

 

[vjek]

Of course they were, but we want to do something beyond what was in those games. Namely a galaxy that changes, that creates missions and activities.

Michael

The fulfilling of that, (a galaxy that changes, that creates missions and activities) as a design goal, is completely separate and distinct from online or offline modes of play.

Or put another way, it is possible to create a completely dynamic, fluid, responsive, ever changing SINGLE-PLAYER galaxy, without the need to be online.
Why can I say this? Because it's already been done in many single player offline space-sim games. The "plot line", such as it was, in the original 1984 Elite WAS THIS, in a very simplistic way. Other games in the genre such as Privateer were entirely based on this concept.

 

[Kicks]

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".

Granted, what I said is somewhat subjective...

But I have faith. And it's difficult to defend that.

 

[Kaltern]

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

Are you being deliberately obnoxious? I'm referring to the LOG IN requirement, which is the only means of DRM that is needed for it to be referred to as such - the rest of the crap you spouted out is typical of today's gullible - do you honestly believe that every aspect of the game is stored on magic servers that produce all the star system data? it is PROCEDURAL - meaning created from equations, which the original Frontier game did was back, probably before a lot of those defending this move were born.

The only data that is held by servers, are market, trading and player position - I don't think we need supercomputers to work out where a planet should be in the galaxy. Or are you one of those who believed that SimCity NEEDED online connections to calculate the innumerable equations required to workout the math behind the game?

 

[Ulfar]

ED is MMO like my local 5 aside centre. There's about 20 separate pitches, each with 10 guys running around on them but they never seem to all get together at once.

EDIT: Sorry, bad analogy. At the 5 aside centre, friends can play together.

Plus they can talk to one another and they play as a team winning as a team.

I am going to have to stop posting as my rage is building and I will go all Hulk on my keyboard.

 

[Wulfrune]

Spending time on an offline mode is wasted if it doesn't provide the game that we've set out to make - which is the case here. For us the game needs the richness that the online galaxy gives us. Without it there is no game.

Michael

OH but there is..... It just might not be YOUR game.

Be careful not to bite the hands that feed you, because after all said and done, your game isn't the ONLY game in its genre. Upset enough people and they'll vote with their feet.

The history of online gaming is resplendent with examples.

Please Michael, as one grown man to another.... Please listen to what people are saying and make corrective action, because I don't honestly think, with my hand on my heart here..... I don't think your attempts are working.

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

this, end of discussion.

No, this has already been refuted by Michael himself. "From time to time" means whenever you jump, dock, encounter an NPC, buy goods, sell goods, take a mission, etc. In other words - all the time. A permanent internet connection is required to play the game.

 

[Edward Lewis]

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.

Hi. I understand your concern! But this was no way a factor involved in the offline decision.

Ed

 

[jamotide]

I wish you wouldn't bandy about the term DRM like you know what it means.

Actually, scratch that, I think you *do* know what it means but do not know how to apply it to this situation. MMOs need online connectivity. That's it. End of Story. Close the Book. End the relationship. Tell dad you don't like him anymore.

You repeatedly saying that it is DRM, doesn't make it any more true.

Are you sure this is what you want to go with? Because from the start the promised an offline version, that is what I backed. If you are right that would make this whole thing even worse, according to you they promised a MMO with offline mode, you are basically calling them false advertisers, liars.

Always online=DRM
and if its an MMO it is still DRM, just innate, so easier to sell as necessary.