No Single Player offline Mode then?

[Pibbles]

If anyone is seriously considering following the OPs "legal" advice, I sincerely hope you think twice. Whilst there are laws in place as the OP suggests, you're going in to somewhat grey area in kickstarters, beta phases, where things change. You are not entitled to a refund over this. If you decide to follow the OP's advice, good luck, you'll be spending a lot of money, and have nothing to show for it at the end.

EDIT: Threads have been merged, I'm referring to Pibbles' "legal advice", which.. yes... won't work.

To confirm, this does NOT cover people who backed via Kickstarter, only genuine consumers who bought from the Store. The area is in no way grey for a store buyer, the law is very clear that such constraints must be made known at purchase time.

And this absolutely will work, I won a £1300 case against a software supplier this year who did not make it clear there was an online component. One of my houses is in the mountains in Italy and I use this specifically as a sanctury, we deliberately have no Internet there, so this was an issue.

My credit card company took them on and I had a full refund in about 3 months.

Anyone wants details please PM me.

And Kicks, please do not spread misinformation such as you have. Just because you do not want help, does not mean no one does. If you wish to take it up with me please PM me and I shall avail you of the counsel I received.

 

[Jedra7609]

KStarter Mac version broken promise (nothing heard or seen since 2 years)

The Mac version had a whole section to itself in the last newsletter...

"We want to clarify what buying Elite: Dangerous now means for everyone.

Everyone who has bought or who will buy Elite: Dangerous will be able to download either, or both, PC and Mac versions as and when they each become available for no additional charge.

Elite: Dangerous will be available for Mac next year after we have released the game on PC. To be clear, if you own both a PC and a Mac and want to switch your play between both, you will be able to do so as often as you like, as your ‘save’ is held in the cloud.

This also means that the benefits to being an Alpha and Beta backer are extended to anyone who wants to play on Mac if they have joined the Beta before it closes on November 22nd. They will also automatically become part of the Mac Beta (details yet to be released) when that process is started, at no additional charge.

There is a new Mac-centric product page on our store to clarify this, but whichever page you buy from the end result is the same – you will get access to the PC version when it is released and then access to the Mac version too when it is available. Mac users who pre-order now will get all the pre-order benefits of the PC (including the reduced price for pre-order) and if they have access to a PC (or, for example, for those who have installed BootCamp) they will be able to play the PC version in the meantime, when it is released on December 16th. "

 

[Michael Brookes]

I'm not sure I can comprehend what you mean by the secrets of the galaxy, spoilers maybe? so I'll ask instead: Will Frontier refund backers who feel that an important feature of what they expected from the game is now unavailable to them?

There's an established process on the store for requesting a refund: https://store.zaonce.net/cancellations-returns/

Michael

 

[Tar Stone]

Oh yes it will. Mention 'Always Online' on Reddit. I dare you to add "I support" in front of it too. Go on. Do it. I have a lot munchies and a lot of soda-pop. I'm looking forward to the all-nighter.

Trust me, Frontier Development has just shot themselves in the foot in the most noobish manner ever.

Reddit is always online.

 

[vjek]

Y'know, honestly I doubt this. Kickstarter is not grounds for a lawsuit. You can't claim that it was promised in kickstart and then didn't happen so you are suing. ...

Correct. They probably won't, but you know what they did and are doing? Burned all the goodwill they generated, are burning the franchise to the ground one broken promise at a time, and poisoning kickstarter for anyone else. Huzzah?

 

[Darkmater]

So wait, if the servers are down we can't play, and if you stop supporting the game we can't play. I get the mmo part now.

 

[noodle]

There's an established process on the store for requesting a refund: https://store.zaonce.net/cancellations-returns/

Michael

Chortle.

"Once a permanent download of a Digital Product has been made available for download by you, the order cannot be cancelled and no refund will be offered."

 

[Jigsaw]

I feel completely cheated about this. I would never have paid 60€ for this game had I know that the offline mode was a lie. That's three times of what I usually pay for a game. Money that I spent in good faith. Faith that was betrayed...

 

[Fenris Wolf]

I for one would not have backed the game if there was no option for solo play, I have zero interest in multiplayer and now to find out that there is no chance of that I will endeavor to get a refund of the £200 i paid to back the game either from FD of via my CC company

There is a option for solo play - just not solo-offline - you are not being forced to play in the 'Open' mode.

 

[Kicks]

To confirm, this DOES not cover people who backed via Kickstarter, only genuine consumers who bought from the Store. The area is in no way grey for a store buyer, the law is very clear that such constraints must be made known at purchase time.

And this absolutely will work, I won a £1300 case against a software supplier this year who did not make it clear there was an online component. One of my houses is in the mountains in Italy and I use this specifically as a sanctury, we deliberately have no Internet there, so this was an issue.

My credit card company took them on and I had a full refund in about 3 months.

Anyone wants details please PM me.

And Kicks, please do not spread misinformation such as you have. Just because you do not want help, does not mean no one does. If you wish to take it up with me please PM me and I shall avail you of the counsel I received.

Not starting an argument, and do not need proof - you confirmed yourself that it does NOT cover people who backed via Kickstarter, only customers who have bought via the store. Does the store page where you purchase it say that there is an offline component? Or are you going down the track that it doesn't specifically say it *doesn't* say that, ergo a customer could complain because they were led to believe it could be played offline because that was not expressed? Given it is touted as an MMO (and let's not get in to a heated discussion as to what *that* is), would could *infer* that it is an online game.

 

[Mrjupp]

What is it with you lot? I have read this through and the newsletter and the majority of those saying you cannot play offline are totally wrong!

You can play offline BUT you will need to receive updates periodically to ensure that the dynamics of the game (prices, maps, missions) are updated. It does NOT mean you have to have a constant or permanent internet connection.

With a game potentially this vast, it's physically impossible to fit it all on a disc. That's why you have servers to link to in order to give you latest data. You can still play offline. Eventually however you will need to go online to refresh data (especially missions and maps).

This is no different from many other games whereby you can play offline but need to go online to refresh the game data periodically.

So seriously what is the issue here?

 

[MikeGreg]

The online servers provide all of the data and processing for the galaxy, interactions between players and all transactions of value. Without it there isn't a game. We always intended that the way to play the game would be online. We had hoped that we could do an offline variant, but as the game progressed the online requirement superseded that. It wasn't an easy choice to make, but to stay true to the game we set out to make we had to make this choice.

Michael

Thats a load of rubbish
you have already been asked, but failed to answer
how long if at all can you play without an internet connection

 

[strangerdanger]

What is it with you lot? I have read this through and the newsletter and the majority of those saying you cannot play offline are totally wrong!

You can play offline BUT you will need to receive updates periodically to ensure that the dynamics of the game (prices, maps, missions) are updated. It does NOT mean you have to have a constant or permanent internet connection.

With a game potentially this vast, it's physically impossible to fit it all on a disc. That's why you have servers to link to in order to give you latest data. You can still play offline. Eventually however you will need to go online to refresh data (especially missions and maps).

This is no different from many other games whereby you can play offline but need to go online to refresh the game data periodically.

So seriously what is the issue here?

Please read the thread. Michael confirmed offline is no more, there's only Online mode now. Besides, for people without constant internet connection, that would not be a viable alternative.

 

[Im_Lost]

This is a bit of a let down and I think a lot of people should be entitled to refunds, especially at this late stage. Major changes like that can be a legal nightmare.

Surely you could just use a different seed to generate the galaxy in offline mode? It wouldn't match the online one but that's a good thing.

 

[Mephane]

Oh yes it will. Mention 'Always Online' on Reddit.

Yeah, everyone with just a bit of awareness of the gaming scene knows that always-online has a bad reputation for good reasons. Let me just throw in a few key words that are still emotionally laden because of this:

Spore.
SimCity.
UPlay.
Diablo 3.

As a thought experiment, one may imagine all games from THQ had been online-only. That would have left a big gaping hole in my gaming library, a hole where some of my all-time favourites resided.

 

[vjek]

Chortle.

"Once a permanent download of a Digital Product has been made available for download by you, the order cannot be cancelled and no refund will be offered."

Wow. That's some great public relations and legal team you've got there, FD. Covering your asses right proper, eh wot?
Welcome to the last cent you've ever seen from me, for the rest of my life, David Braben. I hope you spent it well.

 

[noodle]

What is it with you lot? I have read this through and the newsletter and the majority of those saying you cannot play offline are totally wrong!

No they are not. This has been confirmed.

You can play offline BUT you will need to receive updates periodically to ensure that the dynamics of the game (prices, maps, missions) are updated. It does NOT mean you have to have a constant or permanent internet connection.

Michael has already said a server connection is necessary every time you make a transaction. Also, I imagine the saves will be stored server-side.

With a game potentially this vast, it's physically impossible to fit it all on a disc. That's why you have servers to link to in order to give you latest data. You can still play offline. Eventually however you will need to go online to refresh data (especially missions and maps).

Wrong. The procedural generation makes it possible to fit this on physical media.

This is no different from many other games whereby you can play offline but need to go online to refresh the game data periodically.

So seriously what is the issue here?

The issue is (again) that many of us backed the game (at an expensive level) because we expected to still be able to play it off-line if the servers were ever turned off.

 

[Jigsaw]

What is it with you lot? I have read this through and the newsletter and the majority of those saying you cannot play offline are totally wrong!

You can play offline BUT you will need to receive updates periodically to ensure that the dynamics of the game (prices, maps, missions) are updated. It does NOT mean you have to have a constant or permanent internet connection.

With a game potentially this vast, it's physically impossible to fit it all on a disc. That's why you have servers to link to in order to give you latest data. You can still play offline. Eventually however you will need to go online to refresh data (especially missions and maps).

This is no different from many other games whereby you can play offline but need to go online to refresh the game data periodically.

So seriously what is the issue here?

Have you read the posts by Michael Brookes in the Newletter thread? He has confirmed that every transaction runs via the servers, so the offline mode is dead!

 

[Havner]

What is it with you lot? I have read this through and the newsletter and the majority of those saying you cannot play offline are totally wrong!

You can play offline BUT you will need to receive updates periodically to ensure that the dynamics of the game (prices, maps, missions) are updated. It does NOT mean you have to have a constant or permanent internet connection.

With a game potentially this vast, it's physically impossible to fit it all on a disc. That's why you have servers to link to in order to give you latest data. You can still play offline. Eventually however you will need to go online to refresh data (especially missions and maps).

This is no different from many other games whereby you can play offline but need to go online to refresh the game data periodically.

So seriously what is the issue here?

Read the thread. Michael said here that "from time to time" is always you need to make e.g. a purchase on the station. So this is effectively constant on-line.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Personally I think the cancellation of an offline-mode is simply to make it more efficient to bring the code into a Sony/Microsoft compliant form for access to PSN/XBlive

It's no big loss to me, but these are certainly interesting times!