No Single Player offline Mode then?

[Erna Jedermann]

Agreed 100 percent. Stop the crying and accept it, this amazing game is still here, play it and enjoy it. It's as if people found the one thing to complain about and it's exploded way out of proportion.

I will do in my way....so as promised by FD...Play it in your way.....
And thank that someone forbid here open speech..... it is such a nice community.....Oh Yes "Everything is awesome....." if not than take refund and go... Is that also the Offical side ?????

 

[deusx_ophc]

One more thing guys and gals.

If Frontier are all devious, and kept this from you until the last moment... why would they be so flipping insane as to let it slip a week before the premier event? Seriously, think about that for a moment.

If they wanted to cheat you, all they had to do is wait a few more weeks, and let the news break after the big party.

that would have happend 110% if FDEV were signed up with a big PR agency.

lucky they arn't and are concentrating their monies & effort where it matters. they might not be the best coms guys out there, but boy they are making one great game

 

[Adept]

This! Currently I am leaning towards asking for a refund myself, but I still wait until David have something to say.

If there are no plans for offline, what is the point of playing for me? It will be one day ended with a server shutdown and my investment in this game will be lost. I refuse to invest time or money in something like this. Online !

"invest"? So you'd never play something like World of Tanks or DotA2? A game is only worth having if you can take it to your grave, still running?

 

[Binerexis]

I will do in my way....so as promised by FD...Play it in your way.....
And thank that someone forbid here open speech..... it is such a nice community.....Oh Yes "Everything is awesome....." if not than take refund and go... Is that also the Offical side ?????

No one is restricting discussion but it seems very odd that there are a lot of people saying that folk should be compensated but they haven't asked for a refund or checked this thread where many issues have been addressed.

 

[WeirdWizard]

I agree about that they shouldn't promise that, however they never said that it will be a priority.

As for realisation I think it wasn't "three months ago". They vetted all possibilities I guess - at least I would - before going out with this sad news.

Lets be clear here. They said "You will be able to play the game offline". Not "may", not "we hope to let you", not "its a design goal but it has a lower priority". They said will, that means it was a basic design requirement. In the same was as saying you will be able to fly multiple ships or you will be able to hyperspace between planets. It should of been up there on the white board from day one (or what ever day they committed to it on Kickstarter) and when issues started to arise solutions should of been found. Pulling it at this late stage with a bit of hand waving is unacceptable... period.

 

[Mengy]

That was never the case. The intended play experienc e for the game has always been online. We had hoped to support offline in a cut down version as well, but that hasn't proved possible.

Michael

You and David did more than hope ED would have offline, you stated that it would, in direct answers to questions from inquiring customers. Not once did you or David say the words "we hope to have an offline mode at release", your exact words were "yes, we will have an offline mode at release".


This is a HUGE distinction to be made here.

 

[Witzo]

the file security issues, once they are downloaded.

Editing a file that you bought and saved on your computer, is exactly what computers are for.

 

[Only]

"invest"? So you'd never play something like World of Tanks or DotA2? A game is only worth having if you can take it to your grave, still running?

Nobody has to justify why they would prefer on or offline gameplay as both were clearly an option when pre-ordered/backed, having the choice taken away is the issue.

 

[SalsaDMA]

that would have happend 110% if FDEV were signed up with a big PR agency.

lucky they arn't and are concentrating their monies & effort where it matters. they might not be the best coms guys out there, but boy they are making one great game

I disagree. Since they canned offline, nothing in the game really 'matters' for me and I asked for my money back.

"No game" seems to matter the most, yes? and "no game" is what I will end up with without offline mode.

You are using a subjective opinion and claiming it is objective, which it is not.

 

[Juniper]

2nd. Some ppl enjoy single player games and thats why there is a "solo online mode"

Unfortunately, "solo online" is not single player. It just means you never meet another player directly in the game.

Your game is still affected in every other way though through the background sim, shared markets, missions, equipment, you name it.

 

[Titus Balls]

Oh come on...

One reason might be to introduce subscriptions later on down the line if they found that sales weren't cutting it.
One reason might be that the EULA states they can push advertising down at us through the game.
One reason might be that they're performing social experiments on us all.
One reason might be that they want to sell our personal data & preferences (based on said advertisements) to 3rd parties "for the good of the game".

There are a number of possibles... some wackier than others. But they're all facilitated by the removal of offline play.

Now we're entering conspiracy theory space here

 

[Robert Graham]

One thing that does keep coming up is people thinking FDEV will fall on it's rear or that this will hit their share price etc..

Ok based on their last reported financials which some have posted int he forms of the investor yearly report.. but you can also get straight from the London Stock Exchange where FDEV is traded..

As of 31st May this year: After taking everything into account FDEV has a net Equity of 18.89 Million Pounds Now for those of you in the US that works out to (based ont he current mid market rate of exchanges)

29,536,679.67 USD
23,710,939.54 EUR
33,925,871.41 AUD

That's their total Equity ie how much FDEV is worth their current operating cash in may was 8 Million pound (well to be exact 8.61) so again
13,463,609.07 USD
10,807,113.77 EUR
15,463,478.27 AUD

Even if you take all the Liabilities into account they are still sitting fairly pretty and the top value takes into account deferred profit/assets (what people keep quoting) which is basically money they have but due to x or y reason are unable to put it as avalible assets until a later date (And well as people have pointed out it seems that date is 'release' ).

I honestly don't see FDEV closing in a week, a month or the such.. and tbh given they recently signed another set of contracts with Microsoft and no one in the industry is screaming that there laying off staff.. there in a better position then oh.. Crytek at the moment. Heck Frontier are screaming for MORE Staff (If I lived closer either studio and was well enough to work still I'd even consider applying! either as a 3D artist or as a programmer but I'm not).

So the immediate fear of that is a little silly.. And tbh even I will agree demanding they address something now even before release about what will happen at least a year + down the line to the servers is a little over the top.


Besides I think the communities of many MMO's and even some AAA titles have proven in the past that with or with out developers help we can make servers that work and function I'm still proud of the work I helped with on the Linage 2 open server back in the day and the work I did along with a lot of others on getting Homeworld and Homeworld 2 able to be modded. So while yeah it would be nice if FDEV went oh yeah look if it ever comes to it and we have to close we will put it in writing here and now a firm agreement to give the community the server software at that time... Even if they don't, the community tends to find a way anyway.

 

[Binerexis]

Lets be clear here. They said "You will be able to play the game offline". Not "may", not "we hope to let you", not "its a design goal but it has a lower priority". They said will, that means it was a basic design requirement. In the same was as saying you will be able to fly multiple ships or you will be able to hyperspace between planets. It should of been up there on the white board from day one (or what ever day they committed to it on Kickstarter) and when issues started to arise solutions should of been found. Pulling it at this late stage with a bit of hand waving is unacceptable... period.

And in the below linked thread, it's been detailed as to why it's no longer possible even though they wanted to have an offline mode.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=59481


They didn't announce it now to pull the rug from under people's feet, they did it because now is the point where it's absolutely clear that they simply can't make the game work offline without sacrificing the game in its current state and destroying the online mode.

 

[Grimster]

What are the definitive reasons for not allowing de-synched offline play and or run a limited local galaxy-server that can and will only ever service the offline single-player game?
I understand that E.D is designed from the ground up to be a far more dynamic system than previous Elite games but what are the actual reasons for enforcing online play?
Some other fairly recent games have 'died' because of GFWL (Games For Windows Live) ending its services.
I would like to enjoy E.D for possibly years to come, independant of my or the servers' internet connection.

This is what I was thinking, perhaps a 'mincraftesque' open source server which can be run locally or even on any host you choose to futureproof the game.

That'd provide a 'best of both worlds' scenario surely?

 

[Aldric]

Unfortunately, "solo online" is not single player. It just means you never meet another player directly in the game.

Your game is still affected in every other way though through the background sim, shared markets, missions, equipment, you name it.

Your game is also affected even if you could have offline mode, the npcs would be altering the market etc rather than npcs and people in online, in any game scenario you wouldnt have a static universe.

 

[starbuck1771]

Looks like Frontier opened themselves up to a legal lawsuit. What they have done is considered fraud because they promised an offline mode and decided not to deliver. Upon accepting the money via kickstarter they were required to deliver what they stated they would.

 

[Binerexis]

This is what I was thinking, perhaps a 'mincraftesque' open source server which can be run locally or even on any host you choose to futureproof the game.

That'd provide a 'best of both worlds' scenario surely?

They detailed in the below linked thread why a locally run server wouldn't work.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=59481

 

[Sacman]

We're busy making the game ready for the beta 3.9 launch later this week.

Michael

Is it really 3.9?
Or 3.09?

 

[jamotide]

Now we're entering conspiracy theory space here

Now we are entering head in the sand phase here, the advertising bit is in the EULA.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Nice to see some info on this, but with offline mode gone does this also imply that any hope of playing the game when the official servers go offline is also gone, or is that still something that you hope to prevent, sometime in the future when it becomes an issue?

Just wondering since that seem to be one of the major worries here.

We have no plans to shut the servers down anytime soon. This is a core project for the company and we intend developing for it as long as we can.

Michael