I wanted to thank Frontier for clarifying the issue. I get that sometimes you think something will work, and then it turns out it didn't work the way you thought it would.
I note from the Kickstarter, that the fully offline promise was actually an update to the original Kickstarter. See below or at
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous#project_faq_43734 :
How will single player work? Will I need to connect to a server to play?
The galaxy for Elite: Dangerous is a shared universe maintained by a central server. All of the meta data for the galaxy is shared between players. This includes the galaxy itself as well as transient information like economies. The aim here is that a player's actions will influence the development of the galaxy, without necessarily having to play multiplayer.
The other important aspect for us is that we can seed the galaxy with events, often these events will be triggered by player actions. With a living breathing galaxy players can discover new and interesting things long after they have started playing.
That was what it originally said when the Kickstarter FAQs were drafted, some time after the launch. Then, after that, they added:
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).
Last updated: Tue, Dec 11 2012 4:56 AM EST
So, what I'm noting here is that apparently as originally envisioned, the single player experience was intended to sync up with the server. Then, a lot of potential backers asked for fully offline. And somebody must have said, "It can be done offline." So they adjusted their original assumption. They also offered the proviso that they were "investigating" how this would work.
Now, it turns out it simply doesn't work. At the moment, there's simply too much data that needs to be stored on the server for the original vision of the game to function. We've now been told that both versions of the game are basically incompatible. That to include one was the sacrifice the other.
Here's a question: What if it had been the other way around? That in order to provide for fully offline, they had to sacrifice several aspects that were integral to the "evolving galaxy" vision?
If that's the choice they had to make, I understand fully why it was made. It doesn't sound like it was an easy decision.
And, please, let's have a little respect. I don't know when they figured out it wouldn't work. And neither do you. Benefit of the doubt, maybe they've been trying to find a way the entire time because they didn't want to disappoint anyone. And benefit of the doubt, maybe there's still attempts being made to make this right.
Finally, after reading all of your comments, I better understand where the fully offline players are coming from. Months without Internet connection potentially, etc.
So, please, guys and gals, please be respectful of this point of view. It is wholly legitimate.
I still hope they find a way to deliver what these backers were expecting, and what Frontier was hoping they could deliver.