No Single Player offline Mode then?
- Thread starter Brandon31
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In this changing world we still have people working on oil rigs and people shipping goods (among them computers, games and networking equipment ironic enough) across the oceans, we have soldiers (and all sorts of other professions) stationed/working in remote areas of the world.
There's a plethora of scenarios that prevent people to get online at all or only allows them to get online intermittedly.
You could be cynical and say "well, take a book with you then, not a laptop and games", fair enough.
And maybe they would have, if they hadn't repeatedly, continuously and up to very recently been assured that ED indeed WOULD ship with a single player offline feature.
I can see both sides of the argument and accept many of the points made in this thread, including some of FD's.
Your point however (and others that have made identical or similar points) imho is:
- condescending (as you couldn't possibly know each posters individual life/work situation)
- moot
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Just a quick note about point 3.
Space Engine is 500Meg, it's PG, it's the entire Universe, you can land on the surface of any planet, it's being created by one man and it's OFFLINE http://en.spaceengine.org/
While this decision does not affect me personally, as i have access to decent internet, I believe that a full refund should be offered to those who request one.
"IF" i was unable to get decent internet, and i have a few mates in this boat, When they look at games, Offline availability is one of the main selling points for them. If they bought a game sold with offline mode, and then it was online only, I can understand they would be extremely frustrated, as the game would be literally unplayable for them.
There are some places in Australia where you just can NOT get decent internet, no matter how much money you throw at the problem. I even have 1 mate who is on a 4G Modem, but his house doesn't get good reception and constantly drops out. And he is not out in the sticks, He is in a decent suburb, just happens to be on boundaries between where Cable stops and ADSL starts and is basically told by the Telcos that he is just out of luck.
edit - Should add that I support the Devs decision. If they can not do an offline mode justice, then it is up to them to make that call. So I don;t have a problem with them making it online only. HOWEVER, as for the reasons stated above, i believe if this is a deal breaker for some CMDRs, then a full refund should be offered.
"IF" i was unable to get decent internet, and i have a few mates in this boat, When they look at games, Offline availability is one of the main selling points for them. If they bought a game sold with offline mode, and then it was online only, I can understand they would be extremely frustrated, as the game would be literally unplayable for them.
There are some places in Australia where you just can NOT get decent internet, no matter how much money you throw at the problem. I even have 1 mate who is on a 4G Modem, but his house doesn't get good reception and constantly drops out. And he is not out in the sticks, He is in a decent suburb, just happens to be on boundaries between where Cable stops and ADSL starts and is basically told by the Telcos that he is just out of luck.
edit - Should add that I support the Devs decision. If they can not do an offline mode justice, then it is up to them to make that call. So I don;t have a problem with them making it online only. HOWEVER, as for the reasons stated above, i believe if this is a deal breaker for some CMDRs, then a full refund should be offered.
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Some background to this.
To those who remember the kickstarter sp/mp drm was the major debate (and objection) at the time, if you look up the kickstarter page you can still see many of the posts. It was resolved when FD categorically stated there would be an off line stand alone DRM free version.
Following this statement the kickstarter took off and reached its goal. Without the assurance from FD the kickstarter may well have failed.
I'm sure we are all glad the kickstarter succeeded - Any ED is better than no ED at all.
However, please keep in mind the financial goal of the kickstarter succeeded because 2% of backers put in 20% of the funding. That's right, 629 backers contributed £322,600 (kickstarter backers at alpha £300 level and above, excluding the writer's pack)
It is VERY appropriate that these 'big guns' should have their say. They committed on faith much more than most so we could all get the game. They have been the game evangelists and greatest supporters so of course feel let down by the manner and timing of this decision.
What's done is done but I hope and suggest MB contact the very top backers privately prior to the launch party to discuss the current situation and keep those most invested (financially and emotionally) on board.
This thread isnt going anywhere to be honest :/
Most of it is the same rehashed comments repeatedly coupled with a few people who have been repeating negativity constantly, others inciting people and throw in a lot of bashing of FD and their devs based on heresay, false accusations and assumptions which may very well be false and is not at all helpful to the debate.
The thread should be closed and MB/DB asked to consider what has been posted here (or at least the well thought out/mature comments
) with a response in full posted within the next couple of days to stop this endless cycle of the same thing being posted, assumptions being made and general slagging off.
Most of it is the same rehashed comments repeatedly coupled with a few people who have been repeating negativity constantly, others inciting people and throw in a lot of bashing of FD and their devs based on heresay, false accusations and assumptions which may very well be false and is not at all helpful to the debate.
The thread should be closed and MB/DB asked to consider what has been posted here (or at least the well thought out/mature comments
) with a response in full posted within the next couple of days to stop this endless cycle of the same thing being posted, assumptions being made and general slagging off. 
Once a company starts having to rely on legalistic wriggling it's lost. Big time. You've become one of those companies, like Egosoft, with a reputation that will haunt you down the years. You smile, cut your losses and say and do whatever it takes to keep your good rep. Of course it shouldn't have got to this stage. A whole lot of people involved in the newsletter and PR need to be getting a serious head-wobble come Monday. If they have any sense DB will be sitting in front of a web cam at this moment eating humble pie and making specific commitments.
You got to get ahead of the story in these situations. If you don't get control of the narrative then whatever the smallprint, you've lost. Again - look at Egosoft and X Rebirth. Look at Ratners etc etc etc.
Hi all.
Original KS and £200 Alpha backer here, ive also been around here since 2010 in the dark days when you were lucky to get 1 post per month!
Anyhow i have not been around because of work and family commitments however ive just seen this thread "No offline mode".
I thought that the game was supposed to be offline by sync with the server to get some updates etc but the enemy would be NPC's.
Is this still the case? Or am i now forced to play with Online players at all times?
If i am forced to play with online players at all times then i am dissapointed tbh.
Original KS and £200 Alpha backer here, ive also been around here since 2010 in the dark days when you were lucky to get 1 post per month!
Anyhow i have not been around because of work and family commitments however ive just seen this thread "No offline mode".
I thought that the game was supposed to be offline by sync with the server to get some updates etc but the enemy would be NPC's.
Is this still the case? Or am i now forced to play with Online players at all times?
If i am forced to play with online players at all times then i am dissapointed tbh.
No, you can still play "solo online".
Sharing the same universe with the other players, but never see one of them.
There's still a Solo mode, but it requires you to be online. You don't have to play with anyone else no.
As I understand it, the current 'Solo' mode will still exist, which is that you need to be online to get various things updated from the servers, but you will not be playing with other players. However, there was a fully offline mode promised back in Kickstarter that now simply won't exist, and this was announced by a single casual comment in the last newsletter, which many people are rather annoyed about.
No you are not, on-line Solo mode is still there, it just requires an Internet connection but you will only encounter NPC's as you wish.
There are a lot of troll posts where people "pretend" to get confused between off-line and on-line game modes to get a reaction ***uncalled for***
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So you fight NPC's instead of human players?
I see, is this what people are complaining about? The game Rise of Flight uses a similar method to combat game piracy.
I see no problem with it aslong as it works.....or am i missing something here?
Cheers for the replys.
I guess that I am very late and everything has been said a thousand times.
But I just want to point out that by not providing an offline mode when their customers expected it, Frontier is forcing those customers to either don't play (unlikely to happen) or hack the game and get what they want.
How can Frontier ask people to NOT hack the game and NOT play it when it's Frontier who failed to meet their initial promise?
Of course, once ED is hacked to work offline and the hacked version is distributed by the usual means, that will hurt the base of paying customers (the options will be "buy it to play online", or "download it and play offline for free").
But I just want to point out that by not providing an offline mode when their customers expected it, Frontier is forcing those customers to either don't play (unlikely to happen) or hack the game and get what they want.
How can Frontier ask people to NOT hack the game and NOT play it when it's Frontier who failed to meet their initial promise?
Of course, once ED is hacked to work offline and the hacked version is distributed by the usual means, that will hurt the base of paying customers (the options will be "buy it to play online", or "download it and play offline for free").
Im not trolling, if you look at my profile you will see i aint been around for a while and i generally do not know, which is why i asked. Ive also been playing games for so long that to me there is no such thing as a troll or fanboy just for reference.
People expecting David Braben or any of the devs making a video apologizing are simply dreaming. Not going to happen. While I believe it is possible to make them change their mind, don't expect them to come out and say they made a mistake.
A more credible marketing strategy will be to ignore negativity (at least for now) and emphasize on all the good points to secure as many sales as possible with the general public, who is totally not aware of the heated debates we have on this forum around newsletter information only a small proportion of players even know about.
A more credible marketing strategy will be to ignore negativity (at least for now) and emphasize on all the good points to secure as many sales as possible with the general public, who is totally not aware of the heated debates we have on this forum around newsletter information only a small proportion of players even know about.
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Could do with a lot more quelling round here!...Fanning flames doesn't make things better... quelling probably does
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I agree that FD's announcement has, in hindsight, appeared a little clumsy. I think some people have gone rather overboard in their criticism of FD. As far I can see they have acted as transparently and honestly as it is possible to be. Nobody works well with someone looking over their shoulder.
I posted this on another thread
Waiter: "I'm sorry sir, i checked with the kitchen and we're put of lamb, may i recommend the steak?"
Normal reaction: "That is annoying, I was looking forward to the lamb, still the steak seems nice"
Forum reaction: "You're lying, i bet you've got loads of lamb back there, you're trying to make money out of me by selling side orders. This is a scam".
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Vet: "I'm sorry, but Mr Fluffy was very old, I'm afraid his heart gave out"
Normal reaction: "That's so sad, thank you for trying, but sometime you just can't save them"
Forum reaction: "You could bring Mr Fluffy back to life, it's easy. You just restart his heat and remove the tumour. You just want to sell me a new cat"
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Developer: "We had hoped to include an offline mode. Unfortunately in was not possible to develop the online version to a level we were happy with whilst still being able to provide an offline mode of sufficient quality. Therefore we have had to drop the offline mode in order to provide to online mode we planned."
Normal reaction: "That is terrible news, i was looking forward to that mode as i am a submariner. I would like to get a refund of my pre order as ED without offline mode is no good to me"
Forum reaction: "It's a conspiracy, clearly you want to force DRM by the back door so you can lock us in for micro transactions later. You're liars and scam artists, who deliberately advertised offline when you had no intention of ever providing it even when you easily could. I'm going to sue you as under EU law, unless you provide every single feature I thought you would, even if you set it out as a design intent, I am entitled to a full refund. I'm going call my credit card company and allege fraud to get a chargeback."
Yes, you will only interact with NPCs.
And IF you feel like playing with others from time to time, you can just switch to multiplayer and do so (with the same Commander).
Or just play with friends in a private group.
Your choice
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