No Single Player offline Mode then?

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If that's the case, the offline stuff would pale in comparison, and would need some serious work and time to be anywhere near the same level.

Yes it certainly could be that there would be a lot of work. But they should have been designing the game with one of the core features in-mind. In any case, the Elite II galaxy was static, yet worked very well.
 
I'm Dazed

My week goes from bad to worse, the hope that kept me going today was that I would learn an amazing new facet, of a game I was ecstatic for... even if I shouldn't have been in relation to the common knowledge of the cold harsh reality to which we live. I had doubts, I never knew they would come up so short.

I payed 150 dollars to back a project that was a reason to never really play any other game, I was happy in the knowledge that I could explore a universe devoid of other actual people. A promise David made... But now that has changed for what reason? The man who changed the world, can't do it again? Some can say what I did was pure folly, however I thought in helping a man achieve his vision, I in turn would receive something I was looking forward too. Adventure across a galaxy, filled with stories, and encounters that would amaze and delight. Now I am lost, confused, and angry.

Sure there is the other big space game: Star Citizen, it has an offline mode. Both Squadron 42 DRM Free and Offline for those who want it, and the Player Universe through hosting a Private Server. But, this is Frontier! The company lead by David Braben, who personal helped build: Elite, Frontier: Elite 2, and Frontier First Encounters. Three games that take up so little space yet they are dynamic and playable offline.

But why are people so keen to apologize for others, what do they get from the party that committed the transgression. I have no answer for that truthfully, certainly I understand the psychological implication, but science feels hollow right now. So all I have left is to walk away.


I care little of what people think of my words, I write them because I must. Goodbye to all the interesting people I have had the pleasure to meet. May you enjoy this title, refund or not, I now have no time for it.

May your journeys be grand, may your joy endless...
 
I won't "miss" the offline mode; I wouldn't use it anyway.

But I think everyone has a reason to be angry and even should protest and some should ask for refunds because... DRM vs no-DRM is actually a huge difference.. sort of a "moral" difference... and DRM-free was promised as a kickstarter pledge reward.

I'm content to carry on, but don't ask the same from everyone...
 
Sorry, I'm still missing the word "promise." Also, it clearly states at the end they will investigate. They did, and deemed that it wouldn't work the way they intended. Sorry, you just argued against yourself.

True or not, doesn't the counter-argument defeat itself?

If someone is so annoyed with FD that they'll actually withdraw funding for something they've waited 20-30 Years to see, in a market as niche as space-gaming, it's irrelevant if they get money back, or if something is to the precise letter of contract-law.

The real damage will come from the fact that FD need us far more than they seem to think. They cannot survive a Diablo3- or SimCity-esque release, they don't have the resources of Blizzard or EA.

If enough backers pull out because of the lack of offline-only, online-only will be in jeopardy.

From past newsletter-FUBARs, I fear that FD might actually be naive enough not to realise this reality.
 
The argument presented in this thread says that the devs "promised" offline mode. No matter how many times you present the same paragraph, the word "promise" will not appear, well unless you edit it to say that.

I'm sorry, but I've seen this many times over many games, and I have never once heard of anyone win a case over a feature that was taken out of a beta. Come to think of it, I've never seen it go any further than ranting on a forum. As long as they don't advertise it after the game goes live no one has a leg to stand on.

They advertised it during pre-ordering, which is a retail sale.
 
Please stop referring to the KS FAQ, people dwell on it. All these things were said much more recent than that, right in this forum or on the Zaonce store pages. :)

Fair enough; I can link to the FAQ, though; at the moment I don't have links to this other references.

frontier quote
"Update! The above is the intended single player experience. However it will be possible to have a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server. You won't get the features of the evolving galaxy (although we will investigate minimising those differences) and you probably won't be able to sync between server and non-server (again we'll investigate)."

This is an old quote from the FAQ, mind, not a current update. Meaning that for a moment you got my hopes up (and when I read the quote they crashed back down), you [redacted] [redacted]. ;)
 
I won't "miss" the offline mode; I wouldn't use it anyway.

But I think everyone has a reason to be angry and even should protest and some should ask for refunds because... DRM vs no-DRM is actually a huge difference.. sort of a "moral" difference... and DRM-free was promised as a kickstarter pledge reward.

I'm content to carry on, but don't ask the same from everyone...
You must reproduce....we need more like you.
 
The argument presented in this thread says that the devs "promised" offline mode. No matter how many times you present the same paragraph, the word "promise" will not appear, well unless you edit it to say that.

I'm sorry, but I've seen this many times over many games, and I have never once heard of anyone win a case over a feature that was taken out of a beta. Come to think of it, I've never seen it go any further than ranting on a forum. As long as they don't advertise it after the game goes live no one has a leg to stand on.

Utter nonsense. If your asking for money to provide XX features, and you cannot provide XX features then that is fraud. End of.

I hold FD in very good faith, and want this product to succeed to a massive level, being someone who holds the name Elite in deep reverence. But the fact remains that I.cannot.play.this.game.at.all beyond January if there is no offline mode, a feature stated numerous times to be included all throughout the years I have been an involved participant of this project.
 
For Canada, if you want a refund,

http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/03133.html
http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/02776.html

I have read 50 pages of this thread and I can say I very dissapointed, I paid for an offline game. In fact I was annoyed that there was no offline with the Beta but I still bought it, with the conforting knowledge that it would come out with offline.

I am debating on requesting a refund.

Although I am clearly on the negative side of this, I beg people not to take this outside of Frontier unless you request a refund via proper channels (the Zaonce store) and are refused when you feel you should not be. :)
 
Who cares if people cheat offline, they should just release a dumbed down offline version with modding tools and make it a selling point. Modders will spend countless hours designing new stations and ships, that the devs could choose to implement later in the online portion of the game if they fit the lore/are popular enough. Offline access for us and free content creation for the devs and the community. Win-Win, same as the Workshop on Steam.
 
irony, it's likely the stock holders pushed for a non offline drm policy.
that's the only thing that explains the situation imho

Don't be ridiculous. Stockholders have no more power than Kickstarter backers, except that they can vote for the board at the AGM. FD will be paying even less attention to what stockholders are saying abut ED than they are to us.

The most likely explanation for this situation is that FD knew some time ago that offline was going to be compromised in terms of experience: static galaxy and no surprise content as anything left in the offline executable would be public knowledge within days. They would have tried very hard to find a workable solution: they obviously wouldn't want the reaction they've gotten and the lack of offline will cost them some sales. The fairly late announcement (in terms of the development timeline) is most likely due to a late decision that they simply don't have the development resources to deliver online and to do the considerable work required to move the necessary server functionality into the client for offline and to sanitise the offline version of content they want to keep secret for now. An earlier decision may have been less damaging but probably not by much. The same reaction would have occurred.

I do think they made a mistake in leaving people to read between the lines of Braben's comments in the newsletter. The offhand nature of the announcement seems disrespectful. Personally I'm disappointed they've failed to deliver on their intention from Kickstarter (not going to call it a promise because as a developer I know that anything stated before development has started is subject to change), but I'm confident they have not made the decision lightly - any decision that is likely to cause reduced sales is a last resort.
 
Although I am clearly on the negative side of this, I beg people not to take this outside of Frontier unless you request a refund via proper channels (the Zaonce store) and are refused when you feel you should not be. :)

agreed, i would encourage people to wait for refunds at least not before release date
 
There is no technical reason for not being able to port their server code to Windows/Mac/Linux, assuming it doesn't even already run on one of these operating systems. As you have rightly guessed it is a political/financial/DRM/anti-cheating/protecting IP/etc decision.

Worst case they'd have to remove a lot of encryption, authentication and possibly database stuff, but the basic network architecture could stay the same, just like has been done in one hundred+ other games.

Then the client and server could sit on the same machine, or you could run the server on a dedicated box and have it hosting your own local private LAN, once again as has been done in one hundred+ other games.

My guess is that this client-side server code has been developed in parallel for the entire development cycle and was pulled very late in the process. FD have been remarkably transparent in all of their development process and I find it hard to stomach that they have known for months, or even longer, that there would be no offline mode.

Why it was pulled, (assuming my guess is accurate), could be for any number of reasons, (see above), or even just as they said, it became financially/resource nonviable to maintain.

This doesn't stop them from developing it in the future, what saddens me is that there is no inkling of this type of future from any of the FD developers; i.e. the transparency is finally starting to murk over.

I hope you're right. And I hope there's a way to deliver a galaxy to offline players. I truly am heartbroken for those who can't play now. :( It's an amazing game.
 
To FD: For me, it's the WHEN of the offline SP cancellation announcement...

First of all, this post is not meant as an attack. I believe many of us here understand your reasoning for deciding as you did on this issue, as I know I do. However, as someone who was looking forward to playing offline-only (luckily, unlike many others, I am not limited by circumstances to offline-only - it is merely my preference), I think the timing of the announcement is perhaps more troubling than the announcement itself. How long ago was this decision made? Perhaps more importantly, at which point was scrapping plans for 'offline-only' the option being favored? If I had heard this announcement months ago, I would not be as disgruntled as I am now. If you and the folks at FD can truly say you were very seriously considering still developing 'offline-only' up until very recently, then I guess I can accept it and move on. Otherwise, the timing of releasing this bombshell a month from release, and a week (!) from Gamma, is really upsetting.

Again, I'm not trying to attack you guys or anything, but the timing is really what sticks in my craw...
 
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