No Single Player offline Mode then?

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

It's like FD building a Ferrari and people then asking FD to create a Skoda for those who like to drive on "4 cylinders only".

They discovered that an "offline-Ferrari" would in reality become a Skoda and they decided - because they are proud of their Ferrari - that they will not do so. Is this really so difficult to understand?

No it's not, the car analogy doesn't hold up. FD heard and assented to people at a very early stage that offline was to be "a thing", but now there's a very real whiff of the whole Simcity mess about this. So far the simulation doesn't look much more complex than glassbox, save for the sheer size of it, but frankly the scale doesn't make any logical sense, because as mentioned, the number of players doesn't make a meaningful dent on the simulation.

They would have been better off building offline into the game design right from the start and working around -that- than attempting to shoehorn in this insane attempt to simulate the galaxy on a tick by tick basis when half the time people won't be in those stars. It's like the zen riddle of "If a tree falls in a forest with no-one to hear it, does it make a sound?"

 

[Gazz]

It's like FD building a Ferrari and people then asking FD to create a Skoda for those who like to drive on "4 cylinders only".

They discovered that an "offline-Ferrari" would in reality become a Skoda and they decided - because they are proud of their Ferrari - that they will not do so. Is this really so difficult to understand?

That understanding thing goes both ways.

How do you convince a Skoda fan who's father and grandfather had been Skoda fans?

Silly metaphors aside...

Braben is all hyped about the socially connected online blahwhateverbuzzword experience.
I am not.

It really can be that simple.

 

[strangerdanger]

Are you seriously comparing E: D beta 3.x (because that's pretty much what we're going to get on release) as a Ferrari? Really? OK, let's go with it...

So if money changes hands as a result of them promising a Ferrari, and then three weeks before delivery they say "We're going to have to take the passenger seat out because we couldn't figure out how to make it fit with our vision of what the Ferrari should be" then everyone should just be perfectly OK with that?

He does have a point, though. Both a Ferrari and Elite Dangerous lend themselves perfectly to cashing into brick walls at high speeds. And I don't mean ingame.

 

[vonFelty]

Are you sure, I'm guessing that English is not your first language, but from my perspective his posts are reasonable, polite and consistent.

• they tried to do offline but it was a lot harder than they anticipated
• they thought long and hard about whether or not to drop offline as they didn't want to
• eventually they decided that they couldn't create an online mode they were happy with and an offline mode they were happy with
• therefore they had to choose which one to drop
• they decided to drop the offline mode.

I am not seeing any deception there.
-
Of course if you take the point of view that FD are hiding something and MB is a liar then nothing he says will convince you otherwise.
-
Here's a test. What would MB have to say to convince you that what he has laid out is the truth? What evidence would he have to provide?

The problem with FDev is they didn't give any updates in the process. They never said a year ago, "We are working on offline version, but we are having some trouble." or "We are having a problem with offline version, would you be ok if we focused on online only?"

See. Nope, years of saying it would be possible and then a month before release a big fat "No."

Don't you see the problem here.

 

[synchromesh]

And you expect us to believe that they didn't realize that offline mode wouldn't work until 1 month to release?

Please.

No I think they really tried and perhaps a little while back they worked out it would be impractical.....But they probably let the beta's roll so when they did announce it many would be so happy with ED so far they wouldn't care so much.
and I bet it worked for many

 

[Demosthien]

I thought you were going to link to this :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPEeaxI0OPU

Love it!

 

[jabokai]

Where did you hear that?

I imagine he made it up... All I've seen is the same as you, people posting that they've had no response.

 

[Demosthien]

Sorry, I was looking at the theory that the addition of offline in (we think) week 3 led to a boost in KS pledging that "saved" the ED kickstarter.
-
If there was an effect, I would expect it to appear as either a spike as all the KS pledger were "lured" into pledging by the addition of offline, or a change in the pledge rate as people who wouldn't have pledged without offline started to pledge.
-
If there was such a spike or change in pledge rate, there would be a basis for claiming that without the addition of offline the KS would have failed.
-
As it is, it appears as though there was a steady pledge rate except for the beginning and end (both of which are unlikely to be tied to the addition of offline)

I pledged on the last KS day... I pledged almost entirely based on the promise of an offline mode.

There would have been others.

 

[Juniper]

Yes, but they want people to enjoy their Ferrari. They simply don't want to waste time on producing a Skoda. Please accept this and enjoy the Ferrari.

I have no interest in Ferraris.

Can I have the Skoda I ordered please? It has a better boot & I can carry my child in the back seat.

 

[OxKing]

It's like FD building a Ferrari and people then asking FD to create a Skoda for those who like to drive on "4 cylinders only".

They discovered that an "offline-Ferrari" would in reality become a Skoda and they decided - because they are proud of their Ferrari - that they will not do so. Is this really so difficult to understand?

Silly Car Metaphors? Really? Ok, here we go:

FD Announced a Car to get founded.
People asked: Do i have to use gasoline? Because it stinks, its not Eco friendly and what if all Gas is depleted or no Gas Station around? So will it also function without gasoline?
FD: It will be a nice gasoline driven sports car, but you can drive it in solar mode also, but then not getting over 80 km/h.
People: Ok, thats enough for me. At least i dont have to use gasoline. Here take my money.

And now, FD states: Uhmm sorry, but Solar Panels are expensive and we sell gasoline additives in our shop, you know.
And also is more fun to drive with 220 km/h, so we canceled this solar concept.

Thats the story in car metaphors.
But actually, it makes no difference....

 

[CaptainKremmen]

In all the fuss, I was amused by one of the comments in the "gamespot" article about FD's removal of Offline mode:


Don't care, didn't even know they were making this game lol

bye bye gamepad
bye bye console

helooooo pc and joystick

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I see that you seem to have the source code to the game, and studied it. Please share?

Or were you just making up facts out of thin air yet again, as you always do?

Read Michael comment feed. It's all there.

 

[Demosthien]

Seriously though...
Looking back at all the " There will be an offline mode " remarks by FD before the game was even made you don't really think they were making it up do you ?
Its pretty obvious that the evolution of the game has caused this issue and not lies or anything.....Otherwise they could have said this right after the kickstarter and had it all done and dusted last year

I'll just put this here.

The timing of this no offline announcement seems to me to be suspect. Leaving the announcement for so long, you cannot tell me that it has taken them all this time to realise, "Damn! You know what? Offline just aint going to work! We'll need to ditch that promise." is just ridiculous. There are potentially positive financial incentives for leaving the announcement till this late in the development.

Think about it like this;

1. Devs want to make a game but have no money.
2. Business planning... Including estimating the number of people you expect to fund the project and amount of money you might lose (£Z) if you drop promised features.
3. Kickstart the game and tell people all the cool stuff that will be in it (including features you don't know or think will be possible).
4. Clear £X of Kickstarter funding.
5. Use the Kickstarter funds to begin development.
6. Identify what features you might need to drop.
7. Start selling other things; early access, lifetime passes, paint jobs, ships etc.
8. Begin receiving additional funds from post-Kickstarter sales. £Y income is generated.
9. Determine that; (X + Y) - Z = enough money to be financially successful.
10. Announce the key features that will not be in the final product.
11. Refund requests that you must by law fulfil.. Ignore/deny any you aren't under legal requirement to fulfil.
12. Release financially successful game and let the storm blow over.

As you can see, at some point the post-Kickstarter sales will reach a point where they will more than cover any potential losses from refunds. Any person worth their salt going into business (especially when managing multi-million currency budgets) will have done the financial projections and estimations for everything I've mentioned here. This stuff isn't fantasy... Whether or not the plan was intentional from the beginning or it just became a cost of doing business for them, only they can say for sure.


NOTE: Before Anyone replies to this post and flames me for never having posted on the forums or being a noob or that you like the game being online so I can sod off or some other childish rubbish. Know that I have paid almost £200 toward the Elite Dangerous project and *that* gives me the right to post whatever criticism I wish.

I will be considering the situation carefully and possibly exploring my legal options for refund as a key reason for my pledging to this project was the desire to play Elite offline. Others may be happy with the decision that has been made and I am happy for you. For me it is a clear breach of the trust I placed in the developers and that is not acceptable. I have yet to decide what action I intend to take.

 

[vonFelty]

It's like FD building a Ferrari and people then asking FD to create a Skoda for those who like to drive on "4 cylinders only".

They discovered that an "offline-Ferrari" would in reality become a Skoda and they decided - because they are proud of their Ferrari - that they will not do so. Is this really so difficult to understand?



Yes, but they want people to enjoy their Ferrari. They simply don't want to waste time on producing a Skoda. Please accept this and enjoy the Ferrari.

But they promised the Skoda until the last moment possible. Should they have not realized a year ago when they were planning everything that I would not have been feasible then?

Its almost as if they had to announce it because they knew once they released it that the truth of the matter would be apparent. Why wait all this time if they knew they couldn't do it?

Didn't they have someone working on offline all this time? Shouldn't that person have said a year ago "You know guys. I'm working on this offline thing and I'm not getting anywhere. Maybe we should drop it?"

Shouldn't they have done that 6 months ago? How long did they have someone working on offline version? Did they even have a guy working on the offline version?

 

[BazzaLB]

This thread is a perfect example of why I'd like a purely offline game without having to be affected in any shape or form by the online brigade who demand people play the game the way the online brigade want them to.

They are constantly whining when mp isn't playing the way they want it. Its all about them! Offline proponents aren't demanding online mp be dropped and probably wouldn't come here badgering those who wanted mp if it was indeed dropped.

The irony is apparently if we don't like it we can get a refund, but surely if you don't like us complaining about no offline mode, you could ignore the thread!

 

[synchromesh]

Originally Posted by beelbeebub View Post

Sorry, I was looking at the theory that the addition of offline in (we think) week 3 led to a boost in KS pledging that "saved" the ED kickstarter.

Actually the way I remember it was when the Mac version was announced in the last few days or weeks maybe......That in my opinion saved it.....long after offline mode was given the ok

 

[psyron]

Are you seriously comparing E: D beta 3.x (because that's pretty much what we're going to get on release) as a Ferrari? Really? OK, let's go with it...

So if money changes hands as a result of them promising a Ferrari, and then three weeks before delivery they say "We're going to have to take the passenger seat out because we couldn't figure out how to make it fit with our vision of what the Ferrari should be" then everyone should just be perfectly OK with that?

You know exactly that the current state of ED is only a snapshot. They will soon add a lot of improvements and expansions. That means that if they would create a separate "offline-version" they would need to do a lot of parallel work due to the incompatibility of those two versions.

So now i ask you:
Do you really want to have an offline-verion on the expense of a having less resources for all those great expansions like planetary landing and so on? You can't be serious on this.

 

[vonFelty]

In all the fuss, I was amused by one of the comments in the "gamespot" article about FD's removal of Offline mode:


Don't care, didn't even know they were making this game lol

bye bye gamepad
bye bye console

helooooo pc and joystick

Countered by how many people saying they weren't buying the game now. I see a lot more of those.

 

[Schwarzwolf]

But as i said MULTIPLE times: The experience wouldn't be the same!

Does it have to be? Not beeing the complete experience and not beeing acceptable to have a cut down offline experience is something relative. I would be happy to have one.

Imagine now flying into a conflict zone seeing a big war going on between two big factions. Then you fly out and return after some days. So what should happen? The conflict still going on? Or was it completely randomized? Or - and this is more what we would expect - the conflict has evolved!!! But this to happen means that their has been some calculation going on between.
It's simply much more complex if you want to simulate something authentic!

The game would set the 2 factions (race1 (possible Federation, Empire or Alliance or an independent system (Eridan as example)) at a war state and only calculate strength in the areas. No ships, etc. If you keep in the area, the ships will still be calculated. The war can come to an end, depending on some triggers, or still be in progress. If it is in progress, the game would know it and would recalculate a war zone if you return.
The key here is not to simulate, more to calculate.

It's like simulating a whole human body and saying that the player is only a drop of blood and only its sourrounding needs to be simulated - that's simply not true! If you really want to simulate that human body in a comprehensible manner you can't simply simulate "your sourroundings only". That isn't going to work if you want for example simulate how the body reacts on a viral infection over days/months. To do so you need to simulate it correctly and fully!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (And that's what FD want to do!)
Even if you are only a drop of blood!

The game would calculate the remaining in a plausible way based on facts and randomization. But only in a more upper part. For the body part, you would simulate the overall condition of the body, but not every cell in regions you arent in.
Yes it might be possible, or more it is, that it isn't 100% as accurate as a complete calculation. But for the offline mode its better as nothing. And you will still have your offline experience. And if they calculate it well enough, peoples wouldn't even notice an difference. If there is such a ship there in the area or some other ships when you return after some days, isn't so important for me. And strength of factions should be calculated and depending on this aswell the strength of npcs in systems. For example by pirates, that could be simulated as clusters in an area. So many pirates in this and this area, or less ones in this areas. And many things only have to been calculated in the known space. I doubt, you will see Federation ships or pirates 1000 light years away from home.

 

[rehael]

I pledged on the last KS day... I pledged almost entirely based on the promise of an offline mode.
There would have been others.

Same here — offline, I jumped in. But now I feel a bit uneasy about the situation. I won't ask for a refund, but I will also refrain from buying Beta and extensions, because it won't be possible for me to use the game the way it was promised. I hope offline will be possible one day…