No Single Player offline Mode then?
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Not by kickstarter, but....
Is a creator legally obligated to fulfill the promises of their project?
Yes. Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill.
https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/accountability-on-kickstarter
Doesn't look like we are gonna get a Physical DRM-free collector's premium boxed edition of "Elite: Dangerous" if it's always online.
Michael Brookes
Game Director
And if it were that simple there wouldn't be a problem. The core vision for Elite: Dangerous was multiplayer, we've said that all along. The galaxy exists as an online entity, extracting that into an offline version that still works as game isn't simple. Missions are a good example, they are created based on the state of the galaxy and they feed back into the state of the galaxy there's a big level of difference between what we're doing now and what was in the previous games..
Michael
Many posters pledged during the KS where the offline version was constantly offered as an option - indeed, that option was born duing that KS.
Further, there have been many instances where they 'advertised' the offline version post-KS. Many have been linked within this thread.
I completely believe you that there was no pre-conceived plan here. It's a limitation.
But how FD respond to refund requests will define whether there is a ploy or not now that the decision is made.
He shouldn't even have to say this. For shame. Honestly, Michael, I hope you don't take these personally, although I can understand why it would be hard not to. The Frontier team have done nothing but under-promise and over-deliver. In my opinion they still are. Nothing has changed. Nothing that matters, anyway.
Michael has several posts on this throughout the forum. If you go back to the forum thread list and click the orange "Elite" symbol by the thread, and on each of his posts, it will jump you to just the Dev posts. These should be enlightening.
Thank you for posting this. Too many people take the DDA as biblical law, and not a framework that must, from time to time, be altered.
You are buying a game, not Frontier's intellectual property.
I put this post up in another thread [Offline Poll], it describes my feelings on the matter, HERE. I've included it as a spoiler below.
I always assumed this was going to be an MMO and bought in under that impression, as is indicative of the beta. When a game is at such a late stage, such as ED, and there is no true 'offline mode', you kind of assume that's how it's going to work. Possibly-maybe in the future, they may make a smaller version of the game, which you can run offline. Going back to the roots of having 8 galaxies with 256 planets in each, as a throwback for people who want to have a quick blast offline for whatever reason; separating the online and offline save games.
Although, from an investor standpoint - They're not going to invest resources [time and money] in taking the game in another direction when it's obviously not aimed at that market - as above, this is indicative of the beta. If Newsletter 49 upsets, say, 5% of their fanbase, then they still stand to make 95% of their current community investments [plus the rest, after the launch]. They've got several million in the bank on this game, lets say £3 million. Do you seriously think they will re-work the entire game to implement an offline mode for the 5% who are demanding refunds or moaning about spilt milk? That's only £150,000. A drop in an another-wise fairly large and relatively financially healthy ocean, if the majority (51%+) were demanding refunds, it would be another matter. You'd really need to ask the magical 8-Ball for an answer, but I can predict he would say something along the lines of: My sources say no.
This entire charade is put on by the gaming community every time a game is going to be online only, well I don't want to ruin anything for you - But if you're reading this right now, or this forum - you are online right now; God forbid you play a game under such conditions. Online multiplayer isn't anything new, I remember playing Counter Strike/HLDM/TFC back in the day on 56k and then on a 512k connection; I also played WoW for about 4 years.. I had zero internet issues, and that was 4 years after launch (2004-2008) - Nobody moaned about gaming online back then, we were awed by it. I simply don't understand why everyone is getting so caught up in this frivolous debate when the majority of players will always have a constant internet connection, or have been playing games fully online since 2000 - Maybe earlier.
It appears from this impartial poll:
That 80% of the community don't want/need an offline mode, not immediately anyway. But there's always the threat of the servers being closed down, but I can't see that happening for a long-long time. Although, for those of you who are feeling very soured about this experience - There is a way of obtaining an offline version of Elite, you can find the details HERE.
NB. I didn't want to sound offending in my post, but people get too caught up in this whole debate every-single-time. If the MP element is well implemented - which it feels like it already is, minus a few hiccoughs - then I can't see any issue. Although, if the game functions and performs like Maxis' latest iteration of SimCity [which it doesn't], then an offline mode would probably become a priority for most people
Although, from an investor standpoint - They're not going to invest resources [time and money] in taking the game in another direction when it's obviously not aimed at that market - as above, this is indicative of the beta. If Newsletter 49 upsets, say, 5% of their fanbase, then they still stand to make 95% of their current community investments [plus the rest, after the launch]. They've got several million in the bank on this game, lets say £3 million. Do you seriously think they will re-work the entire game to implement an offline mode for the 5% who are demanding refunds or moaning about spilt milk? That's only £150,000. A drop in an another-wise fairly large and relatively financially healthy ocean, if the majority (51%+) were demanding refunds, it would be another matter. You'd really need to ask the magical 8-Ball for an answer, but I can predict he would say something along the lines of: My sources say no.
This entire charade is put on by the gaming community every time a game is going to be online only, well I don't want to ruin anything for you - But if you're reading this right now, or this forum - you are online right now; God forbid you play a game under such conditions. Online multiplayer isn't anything new, I remember playing Counter Strike/HLDM/TFC back in the day on 56k and then on a 512k connection; I also played WoW for about 4 years.. I had zero internet issues, and that was 4 years after launch (2004-2008) - Nobody moaned about gaming online back then, we were awed by it. I simply don't understand why everyone is getting so caught up in this frivolous debate when the majority of players will always have a constant internet connection, or have been playing games fully online since 2000 - Maybe earlier.
It appears from this impartial poll:
- I don't need Offline Mode now, but want it for when the servers are switched-off: 30.91%
- I'd like Offline Mode, but can live without it: 18.79%.
- I don't care about Offline Mode: 30.91%
That 80% of the community don't want/need an offline mode, not immediately anyway. But there's always the threat of the servers being closed down, but I can't see that happening for a long-long time. Although, for those of you who are feeling very soured about this experience - There is a way of obtaining an offline version of Elite, you can find the details HERE.
NB. I didn't want to sound offending in my post, but people get too caught up in this whole debate every-single-time. If the MP element is well implemented - which it feels like it already is, minus a few hiccoughs - then I can't see any issue. Although, if the game functions and performs like Maxis' latest iteration of SimCity [which it doesn't], then an offline mode would probably become a priority for most people
look ppl lets lay off Micheal personally now k
he has take his saturday to discuss this with us all (not many devs do that)
those wanting refunds go here and do it the right way k. theres no need to virtually stone the guy!
https://support.zaonce.net/http/user/loginform
he has take his saturday to discuss this with us all (not many devs do that)
those wanting refunds go here and do it the right way k. theres no need to virtually stone the guy!
https://support.zaonce.net/http/user/loginform
You really don't know what a cash-grab is, do you? And Michael has repeatedly explained why the decision was made, and that they're not pleased about it - but it had to be made, and you keep harping on about cash-grabs. Honestly, if that is your stance on the matter - apply for a refund, and go and play something else. The changes were not communicated in a timely manner because they had to be certain that when the communication was given, it was as set in stone as it could be.
Another Big Point that disappears:
"Continuing to grow the game past the launch date as we plan would just not be possible at all with the constraints of physical disc manufacture and distribution, and is made possible only by the online nature of Elite: Dangerous."
What is with the Backers who have pledged the 60pound for a "DRM-free- Boxed Editiion?"
What is your Answer, DB and Frontier?
Im angry about that.
This is ED and not Sim City, or?
"Continuing to grow the game past the launch date as we plan would just not be possible at all with the constraints of physical disc manufacture and distribution, and is made possible only by the online nature of Elite: Dangerous."
What is with the Backers who have pledged the 60pound for a "DRM-free- Boxed Editiion?"
What is your Answer, DB and Frontier?
Im angry about that.
This is ED and not Sim City, or?
Michael, I'm not complaining but I am a little concerned regarding what happens to the game in x years after you turn off the servers. Can you plan some kind of safety net for the future where you could like modify the code and allow us to use private servers if you took the main ones offline? I can still play the original Acornsoft Elite 30 years later but maybe in 2-3-4 years I can't play Elite Dangerous? That concerns me.
No I am not, but the people writing this game are and as such it is not beyond the realms of possibility for them to do what they are paid for and what they promised. There are plenty of games out there that have an offline mode and there is no reason this one shouldn't have one as well, albeit eventually when FD pulls finger out.
I'm not out for blood, i backed this at alpha as it clearly stated in KS that there was an offline mode, if it had been MP only i would have never have backed it and waited until release, i've played too many online games over the years to ever back one, the vast majority of them have been a huge disappointment, be it warhammer onine, conan, sony completely wrecking SWG or the diablo release fiasco, I stumped up the money as I have loved every elite since i played the original on my BBC (which i still have BTW), the beauty of the offline mode was if everything went wrong i'd still have a game I can play, online solo is far to laggy for me to even attempt combat, so i was hoping the offline mode would resolve this issue, things have improved since alpha but not enough for me to think that come release it will magically be cured. So whilst i can play solo online the experience isn't that great if i'm honest so what i have played has been limited to a little trading and exploration.
For me the lack of offline is an issue, the poor communication and holding back of facts has too many parallels with other developers has done nothing but make me consider a refund.
For me the lack of offline is an issue, the poor communication and holding back of facts has too many parallels with other developers has done nothing but make me consider a refund.
Thank you taking your time to answer my question. I have a vague idea how E : D is working now.
My question is now, how much effort it would be to realize it ? I think of the following:
1) Cost (best calculated in Man-Years) to provide this feature
2) Will there be a difference in cost to do it directly after Release or 1 year after release with several new features in place ? (I can't imagine it right now)
3) Would you consider to make a campaign to get this feature (if you are able to actually hire more developers to make it).
If I just judge this thread I think there is a certain chance to get this E : D feature.
I have just looked at the Kickstarter page and can confirm that originally "Offline mode" was (unfortunately) not promised in the campaign.
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Honestly Micheal I appreciate you taking the time and going through this backlash and posting responses however no where anywhere did you guys ever say offline was even being worked on. Not in the FAQ, not in the release notes no where. For all we know this is the corporate answer thats being given to try to calm everyone down. It would have taken 5 minutes to let the community know that offline was posing problems and that this feature may be excluded. People would then maybe not have refereed people. People may have reacted differently I know I would have. There is a big difference in advertising a game to have this feature and then selling it as so then announcing it will not be there a week before gamma when Posting a quick forum poll or topic may have saved a lot of grief.
Whats next? Charging a monthly fee to use the open play feature to maintain the servers?
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Porting is not necessarily (speaking as a primarily Linux developer but writing portable code targetting several platforms including Mac and Win32) the major difficulty. It could well be .NET running as Mono on Linux on AWS, it could be C++ using a cross-platform toolkit such as Qt (the non-GUI components, not the widgets) - either would be eminently portable. The front end servers could just be Apache + PHP offering an API, which runs on Windows as well as Linux.
The rub would be, as Stephen points out, squashing at least two layers of server processes designed and tested to run on separate AWS instances into something running inside the game client process or as a standalone local server process which the client would connect to locally. There will be something offering the game API to the game clients as above, a separate (from the API for crash and hack insulation) process running the background simulations, and at least one backend database for player states, galaxy states, cartography, outfitting, NPCs and missions to live on. That will be a big database optimised for the huge load of hundreds of thousands of players in the online game and won't just be easily packaged and deployed on a player's local machine. Going on Frontier's job postings it's probably an enterprise NoSQL database which was never designed to run embedded. We tried to run one of these (OpenLink Virtuoso) as the local, per-user backend for KDE's Nepomuk semantic desktop index and it was never good and reliable, so after 5-6 years of development it was ripped and replaced with a less ambitious bespoke server. It's not just a matter of taking the game DB schema, banging it into SQLite, and telling the client to connect to localhost instead of the AWS server.
Bringing all this fabric together reliably on a player's machine would probably take FD another year, and then the people with weaker machines would find it was starving the game client of CPU and I/O bandwidth.
TL;DR: Since ~ Alpha 3 the writing was on the wall for offline-only mode; we just never looked at the wall. Best move on.
I want to take a moment to thank you again for spending your Saturday answering the questions that surface Michael. Thank you.
I'm sure there's a very good reason they can's, but it will likely be deflected back or ignored, because reasons... People think this is easy.
Where are you getting this from? Online connectivity requirements for patching and some game functions is not DRM... It's online connectivity requirement. Because, you know, WoW doesn't come in box form does i-oh wait, yes it does...
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