No Single Player offline Mode then?

[Sylv3r]

Those who think they're refunds will bring FD to the collapse are totally wrong. The offline mode opens the door into the game cracking and torrent distribution that will result much bigger revenue loss than your refund crusade. And this is why many big titles pursue the on-line connectivity even if it's not required by the gameplay.

There are many ways to avoid it. First is an authentification connection to validate the game with a validation by mail in return. There are also possiblity to encrypt the game with hard code based on an hardware cryptography .. a tool get some hardware specification on your pc, compile it and make a single key that validate the game with a single connection then you cant copy this on other hardware.
So thats not the problem. Its a server side one i think. But this can be avoided even if it need a large amount of data .. we talk in terabites now.

 

[Jack Booted Thug]

I can understand some being upset and those who now feel unable to play properly should get a refund.

That's no need to attack frontier....like so many they set out to achieve so much and hit the limits of their capacities.

So they made a decision - dumb everything down or fulfill our original ambitions for the game and have to abandon one element.

I don't believe Michael to be a liar nor a fool...you can tell it hurts. Twas the only decision to deliver the gameplay they promised and we expected.

Now, I'm not hard of heart but perhaps the very thing going for Elite is now part of the backlash?

It's 2014....a persistent internet collection....big deal much?

I'm sure FD have crunched the numbers and found this will not affect enough in a financial sense to affect decisions in a gameplay sense.

I am sorry for those who can't be online 24/7....but (harsh as this sounds) this is modern gaming.

Good post.

 

[Cmdr Cheese Wedge]

No offline mode? ouch! that was going to be my main go to mode, I can understand their take on a living, breathing persistent galaxy requiring server updates tho, lets just hope they keep improving the netcode, the lag spikes and stuttering are still quite bad at times even in solo. time will tell

 

[Enride]

No they took away offline mode, big deal.

You might have missed it, but it IS in fact a big deal for quite a few players.
And breaking an original promise a month from release isnt a good sign for the rest of the promises waiting to be fulfilled.

So if your happy with it, fine good for you, and offline isnt an issue for me either, but its the entire situation. And FD is well responsible for this themselves.

Besides, people would be happy with a static offline experience, it wouldnt be hard for them to add this. No reason to leave it out.

 

[Swan]

Agreed. I jested earlier that reading this thread feels a bit like walking through a museum, but I am not so sure it's a jest anymore.

Haha - it's karma for all those 'typical COD generation' statements

 

[xxThe_Dice_manxx]

Revealing such a crucial change of features in the very last minute when they have no other choice (i.e., when the release is imminent) casts a bad light on FDEV. At least, this is not how I want to be treated as a customer, no matter what the name of the company is.

Do you want a game that works without offline or one that doesn't with? you think they just decided to take that offline mode away for lulz?

 

[Hermit]

Besides, people would be happy with a static offline experience, it wouldnt be hard for them to add this. No reason to leave it out.

It would mean it would be a separate and totally different game from the online one, true, but I think it would be acceptable.

 

[littleminxundr]

As I mentioned above, this was correct to the my knowledge when I answered the users question. Remember moderators are volunteers, we are not Frontier staff, I get information from the newsletters just like everyone else.

I understand your position, but a simple screenshot before a person versed in applicable law would prove that with your avatar, you do infact speak on behalf of Frontier and you did assure that Offline was definately in.
You could reasonably expect people to take the word of someone flying Frontier-colors as a point of trust. I'm sorry, but if you as a extension of Frontier knew as little as we did, you should've stayed out of the discussion.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=56686&page=2&p=974615&viewfull=1#post974615

This post is pretty damning in that respect. Once more, I respect your position, but it just doesn't look so hot now.

 

[xxThe_Dice_manxx]

You might have missed it, but it IS in fact a big deal for quite a few players.
And breaking an original promise a month from release isnt a good sign for the rest of the promises waiting to be fulfilled.

So if your happy with it, fine good for you, and offline isnt an issue for me either, but its the entire situation. And FD is well responsible for this themselves.

Besides, people would be happy with a static offline experience, it wouldnt be hard for them to add this. No reason to leave it out.

Are you a dev? you're 100% sure its easy to implement offline yes? so they just decided to take away the offline mode for lulz?

 

[Zieman]

Do you want a game that works without offline or one that doesn't with? you think they just decided to take that offline mode away for lulz?

Nope, only for investor lulz...

 

[Atinus]

Agreed. I jested earlier that reading this thread feels a bit like walking through a museum, but I am not so sure it's a jest anymore.

In all seriousness, it's not funny.

Please stop, guys. People have legitimate reasons for wanting single player fully offline. Let's be respectful. A lot of people bought into the game on this promise.

 

[Rock-Hermit]

I can see this going one way. FD caving to the pressure of adding an offline game at the expense of one of the expansions... Probably walking in stations ships planets etc. People simply saying just add a single player offline mode dont realise that that will be a whole separate product in itself that will need a full beta testing cycle, and on going support and bug fixing and patching long after release - just like you,d expect to see in any other single player game out there. You can't just take a snapshot of the online world and make it single player offline and throw it out there for download.

For starters it would need completely different content, a different procedural seed, otherwise the online game world will have all its details compromised in no time ruining it for everyone. So a completely differently generated gameworld would need to go through the same testing process as its online cousin.

Now take that a step further and understand that not only will a new seed need to be made for offline mode, but each individual player will have to have his own unique procedural seed too. Otherwise again all it takes is someone to datamine their saved game and reveal all to other offline players that share the same seed. So you need many different procedural seeds, one for every offline player.

FD would have to dedicate two different teams to manage two different products. If that happens the online world be the loser in both resources and development of future expansions.

I don't blame FD for making this change for resource and technical reasons but I do believe theyve been dishonest and have taken money since the decision was made knowing full well some of that money has come from offliners. And to offer 25% off insurance and 5 new ships as a sweetener is an insult to everyone.

 

[Monk]

Do you want a game that works without offline or one that doesn't with? you think they just decided to take that offline mode away for lulz?

No, they certainly didn't This was a big difficult decision and that is why they kinda buried in the newsletter in a long wall of text.

However, the decision to cut it and never return was a mistake. It must be possible to do offline in some capacity...I don't think Frontier is hosting on super special servers with top secret server architectures. They'd been better off if they just said, Sorry, no offline on release but we'll try to fold it back in as soon as we can because it was promised.

 

[Erna Jedermann]

The best what all can do which want and Need the Offline mode .... don´t play SOLO/Group/Open ..... lets this Multiplayer play there own Multiplayer ED. Let FD makes there Vsion only with that who want to Online All the Time. I suggest then They really can remove Solo/Group (they save Support of this to little Branches) and only take Care about only Server and one mode...save Staff and development. Also You only must check if this Mode is Supported well...oh I forget....you also can cut this 400 Billion Stars...in General you only need 100 -10000 (Saves Server Capacity)enough for Hauling a lttle bit and Many place for PVP/PK ...and then you also can remove this NPC because in Multiplay they create there own challenge

 

[Atinus]

you're 100% sure its easy to implement offline yes? so they just decided to take away the offline mode for lulz?

I take them at their word. They tried to do fully offline and *it didn't work*.

 

[vjek]

To quote from the newsletter: "A fully offline experience would be unacceptably limited and static compared to the dynamic, ever unfolding experience we are delivering." ...

Yeah, it's a bit ironic.
We're going to avoid innovating on all the nostalgic features of the game. (like airlocks, trading computers, ftl comms, tractor beams, etc)
EXCEPT
You don't get SP offline, like the rest of the Elite franchise. Respecting that ONE FEATURE, we're going to move ahead and force you into online-only.

Illogical. Terrible.

Guess what, FD? All the other Elite franchise games? They're ALL "limited and static", and many people are still playing them.

 

[iospace]

People are spoiled by games like Skyrim, Fallout, CoD, and the like where in the single player modes, the entire universe revolves around them.

 

[ecgallagher]

Perhaps read the thread... that is not the only concern here.

Exactly - which is why this is overblown.

I understand the concerns of the "offliners". But worrying about the servers 2, 5, 10 years down the road is not a concern when the game has not even been released.
I don't believe FD made the offline decision lightly. Surely, they did not show up at the office yesterday and say, "Hey, lets kill the offline, we need to get people really mad."
Could they have handled the PR better, sure.

In the future when the game and servers have run their course, FD could make the Server Code available for download if they wish. And at that time their will be people complaining that "the download is too big", or, " It won't run on my 10-year old laptop."

 

[srinidhalaya]

What is even more surprising, is not that FD dropped offline mode, it's that so many people are upset at those of us who are upset about it. If it doesn't bother you, that offline mode is gone, then why even come to this thread? To defend FD? They can defend themselves. You're point of view, isn't going to change the fact many of us want offline mode, because it's necessary for us to even play the game, or we want to play the game long after the online servers are gone...ect. And this thread, is the only way we can communicate the importance of that.

 

[supersane]

If the game cannot exist offline as of release date it means it doesn't exist yet. Heh. Think about it.