SP offline mode was the most important factor for me and I was a strong proponent on the KS log for clarification on SP offline. This was the sole reason I backed it. This is no seret, it is in the KS comments openly.  I want to have the galaxy on my computer populated by NPCs and I don't want anyone else in it changing stock prices, starting wars etc. I want to freeze the galaxy and come back to it. If I want to branch out trying different roles have unlimited saves, I'd like to be able to use mod tools and if I fail a mission, I'd like to load the save and try again so "rewind" the galaxy. These are all core things for me.  I would be quite happy with a less dynamic universe. My connection is poor and bandwidth minimal (as I don't need it at all as everything I play is offline).

It was a decision FD say was not taken lightly, I am sure they were not happy about this either but this is where it all is now so really there is nothing any of us can do. People can apply for refunds as stated on the forums.

This is just a very very sad week for all of us SP offline people . I don't know what else I can say.

This is going to hit their reputation, their profit from ED... not so much. Imho they plan ED to be their last game, then probably reform studio or something and they are just trying to milk as much as possible from ED as at they have decent momentum and this will quite effectively prevent piracy.

I think it is annoying, as it was a part of their crowd funding plan and the possibility of losing the ability to play the game once the servers shut down is a big turn off.

However, I completely understand that leaving that aspect of the game out helps the devs tremendously in their ability to get a finished product out the door.  I am personally willing to accept the trade-off.  After all, there is always the possibility of them making the offline portion a lot farther down the line, before they shut off their servers. 

when the server shutt down that simply mean that ED disapear ... think it's certainly not the future Elite4 whe've dream about , i thing about alls this backers too ..

FD is finaly not a group of fan ? only a society to make bizeness ?  0_°

With an offline mode, I would have bought the game. Not anymore. At least i didn't put any money into their project, otherwise I would have been furious.

Their technical reasons are a bit flimsy too. Well, they do make sense, but that's not exactly something you discover a few weeks before release, either they knew months ago, or they got a very bad case of tunnel vision). Also not providing the ability to run a local server instead is extremely suspicious.

Nice video by Tim Wheatley

They say refunds will be done on a case-by-case basis. I read a comment from someone said that this was a feature mentioned in the kickstarter and if they don't deliver it, it should be considered a failed kickstarter and money returned. I personally didn't jump into the E:D kickstarter because I wanted to wait and see how Elite came out. But I tend to lean towards the people on this is that a developer should be held to their promises in a funding project. I have stated for both E:D and SC that the bar is set really high on these games and people are taking these legendary developers at their word and they are going to deliver what is promised. Yeah you may still have a 'solo' mode, but it is a online solo mode.

I will use an example some people may run into, for example my wife's family lives in the woods of southern Georgia and they only can use dial-up ... yes I said dial-up or satellite is the other option. Both options are very slow and I doubt you could effectively play any space game that has twitched based combat. Lag will totally kill your gameplay experience for any online only game.

Why is the fanbase finding out about this almost 2yrs after completion of the kickstarter.

Plus with it being online only, what happens after the mad rush of players and the game dies down to a small subset of players from launch. What is the online population minimum that is needed to keep the servers online? Will the game become P2W? Will we start seeing ads in the game? There is downfalls to only online game experiences, it is really a shame.

I read a comment from someone said that this was a feature mentioned in the kickstarter and if they don't deliver it, it should be considered a failed kickstarter and money returned.

Now that is some serious entitlement problem right there.

Kickstarter is completely open and honest about the fact that Kickstarter campaigns are entirely donations.  Fundraisers are not required to deliver on anything, not even to complete the game.  People know that going into the project, and to expect a donation returned because 5% of a project wasn't exactly like their proposal is silly.  I compare that to donating money to a charity that feeds people unable to afford food, and then demanding your money back because you find out that there are still people going hungry in the world.

If people are unwilling to accept the risk associated with Kickstarter projects, they should just wait 'till it is released.

Now that is some serious entitlement problem right there.

 

Kickstarter is completely open and honest about the fact that Kickstarter campaigns are entirely donations.  Fundraisers are not required to deliver on anything, not even to complete the game.  People know that going into the project, and to expect a donation returned because 5% of a project wasn't exactly like their proposal is silly.  I compare that to donating money to a charity that feeds people unable to afford food, and then demanding your money back because you find out that there are still people going hungry in the world.

 

If people are unwilling to accept the risk associated with Kickstarter projects, they should just wait 'till it is released.

This has been beaten to death, and it's simply not true, as per Kickstarter own terms of service. Teams are required to deliver both a product and the rewards. It gets murkier when it comes to the disparity between the promise and the actual game, it's probably something only courts can judge properly.

Laws aside, If you donate to a project based on a feature list, you are indeed entitled to get those features. We are not talking about an indie guy in his garage here, but a full blown company racking 1.4M dollars in donations,  of course people are entitled to what has been promised and should get a refund if they want one. It's not because it represents only "5%" to you that it does for everyone else (for me it is largely enough to never buy this game)

(also your analogy made no sense in that context)

I have already replied to the question of no off-line mode <here>. I still firmly believe this is a game mode Frontier ought to consider in a future update.

Bloody annoying that they have done this and at the way it has been done as well although not the first time they have done it. if you recall the Kickstarter every one assumed that the game would be like Frontier and it took them over a month before they owned up and said that the game was going to more like Elite.

Myself I tend to think this more of a DRM given that they have raised over £3.5 million from crowdfunding and Braden has been reported as saying the game has cost over £7.5 million so far. so as they said their would be no DRM during the Kickstarter, the easy way to add one without making themselves look stupid would be to drop the offline SP part of the game.

Undoubtedly it's kick in the teeth for a lot of us, but at the end of the day they probably wont loose that much in refunds but going down the online route only, will more than likely lead to a monthly subscription or some sort of microtransactions as all online games need to make money.These that don't end and their have been lot of them over the last few years.

Now that is some serious entitlement problem right there.

 

Kickstarter is completely open and honest about the fact that Kickstarter campaigns are entirely donations.  Fundraisers are not required to deliver on anything, not even to complete the game.  People know that going into the project, and to expect a donation returned because 5% of a project wasn't exactly like their proposal is silly.  I compare that to donating money to a charity that feeds people unable to afford food, and then demanding your money back because you find out that there are still people going hungry in the world.

 

If people are unwilling to accept the risk associated with Kickstarter projects, they should just wait 'till it is released.

In case of European laws, kickstarter can't just bug out of that one.

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/shopping/online-shopping/faq/index_en.htm

Or better even, the specific topic which applies here:

http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/sell-abroad/defective-products/index_en.htm

If a EU citizen demands a refund, then Frontier has to refund (required by law).

So, depending which laws apply to you, your statemant may be true or may be false. In my case, I can ask for a refund if i want to and they'd be legally forced to do it (or face serious issues).

I can see why people are upset over the offline aspect been dropped. And some people either cannot get a decent connection or they cannot afford the cost of a ISP. And this something promised in the Kickstarter campaign. But...

The most successful MMO in our market today all firstly require you to have a internet connection. That a given. And if this is the way FD want to progress with E:D then it will need to be focused on this MMO platform.

Also I truly believe they need to have either a subscription base set up to keep this game alive to have a successful MMO platform.

BTW. Can someone clarify if SC promised offline/Solo aspect to their game in the Kickstarter campaign? Or is it focus entirely on a MMO platform?

SC was always MMO, SQ42 was single player game with multi components (ability to jump into friend's game to help in more defficult missions and even play as enemy). Recently CIG confirmed it can be played offline, but if it going to affect beginning of SC, it will have to be played online-ish.

Also they promised private servers for SC, but iirc, they will be severly limited compared to PU.

Well, FD certainly handled this quite poorly no doubt about that.  It certainly doesn't bode well for them to so thoroughly renege on a major fundraising campaign promise.  There also seems to have been a not insignificant amount of deception on their part.  According to their more recent statements, it had been clear for quite a while that the way they were developing the game was prohibitive to an offline mode, and they were completely mute on the subject.  The merits of the offline mode aside, what they SHOULD have done was to either construct a code base in anticipation of accommodating offline mode from the beginning, or announce that they were not going to implement it from the beginning.  It certainly looks like their failure to do so was an attempt to get more beta costumers, so this really makes FD look horribly dishonest.

As to how much of a difference not having an offline mode makes, I'd have to say that for me at the moment it isn't much.  To be clear, I'd certainly rather have it than be without, and I suspect the majority of my time will be spent playing solo for quite a while before I'm ready to try my hand at PvP.  Since there isn't much gameplay that necessitates prolonged, uninterrupted play sessions however, it doesn't seem it will initially make much of a difference to actual gameplay.  Of course, if they start adding content to try to encourage you to stay logged in for 6 hours at a time, we're going to have a problem.  After all, that's primarily why I don't have an active EVE account right now.  The biggest frustration that will result from not having an offline mode for me will be that servers will inevitably go down for maintenance or have connectivity issues.

Concerning the status of Elite 20 years from now, this is not something I'm even going to speculate about.  I'd assume that if they go offline they will release game server code.  To be honest, I really don't know what the world and computing will look like 10 or 20 in the future, so I'm definitely not going to lose sleep over what may or may not happen to Elite Dangerous servers.

Crappy internet connections aside, people can be complaining for little things like:

- Being shoved online ads down the throat

- The usual "server is down / laggy / upgrading / patching / gone taking a nap" (thanks, I already have plenty of games for that kind of fun)

- Knowing that in a few years, you won't be able to play the game you paid for (you have a family or work hours ? too bad)

- Or not liking being lied to (the kickstarter pitch was "Elite IV", not "Elite Online")

It doesn't concern everyone, and I am glad for those who can overlook those points. But, understandably, not everyone can.

That said I would love to have a chat with the guy who decided that "

1) Making it a MMO where you are unlikely to see other players most of the time and populated by NPC

2) Hope to cover server / patches / manpower costs with online ads while having no subscription fee

3) For a niche market. The same as EVE, a few free2play dog-fighting games, and, maybe one day, SC2.

... was a viable business model, promise". Especially if it's true that they spent more than twice the donated funds so far to make the game (sic).

Does anyone remember the amounts paid by the biggests Backers ?

 I strongly hope that these people will evolve to the position of FD ...

For my part, if I had the means to pay such amounts and silk that I cheated at this point, I would do what it takes, even if it has to hire a lawyer.

Does anyone remember the amounts paid by the biggests Backers ?

5 grand the E:D kickstarter link is still active https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous

Many, many, many people including myself are upset about this but at the end of the day what we tend forget is that they are a business making a product and never has a game developer made this more clear.

Any one heard what they doing with the boxed edition is it still on or not?.

News letter just showed up in my email.

 

Each of the “Elite” games pushed the boundaries of the technology available. With Elite: Dangerous a major new feature is playing online, and we are pushing that hard now. Offline support was not one of our original aims, though we did believe we could support it at the start of the project. We do a great deal of processing in the cloud, and this benefits everyone playing. We had considered that an online connection is a reasonable pre-requisite for a game delivered online. I am really sorry this has upset people, but we have a strong, consistent vision that we do not want to compromise.

Below we have collected common questions from backers and the press and our answers so we can be clear about the situation.

Can I still play in single player mode?

Yes. Some people have thought that dropping 100% offline play means there wouldn’t be a single-player mode - to be clear, the single-player game is already there, but it requires a low bandwidth online connection for the reasons we explained.

I’ve even played on a laptop using a tethered connection on the train.

When was the offline mode dropped?

The decision was made recently, and was not made lightly as we have been looking for ways to satisfy everyone.  We announced shortly after we concluded that it wasn’t possible to create an offline mode without unacceptably compromising the game.

Offline-only support was a requested feature during the Kickstarter – why was it dropped?

Back during the Kickstarter, we were clear about the vision, to make a phenomenal new sequel to Elite in an online world, which we believe we are about to deliver. At the time we believed we could also offer a good single player experience, and base an acceptable offline-only experience off that.  As development has progressed, it has become clear that this last assumption is not the case.

Why wait so long to announce this?

In retrospect we should have shared the fact that we were struggling with this aspect with the community, but we were still trying to find a solution. As features were implemented, for the best results we chose to prioritise delivery of the online single and multiplayer experiences, with a view to providing the offline version later in development. We had to make a decision for the good of the game, and that is what we did.

What would you lose in offline mode?

We have developed a multi-player game with an unfolding story involving the players, and groups collaborating with specific objectives and taking account of all player’s behaviour.  This is what the game is about.  Without this it would not be the rich gaming experience that we will deliver, and would be a great disappointment to all players.

Any offline experience would be fundamentally empty. We could write a separate mission system to allow a limited series of fixed missions, but that would still not be a compelling game, and is just the first step in the mountain of work that would be required.

Do you now consider Elite: Dangerous to be an MMO?

Technically, it has always been. There are already over 100,000 people playing in the same world. We believe that always-online entertainment is already a reality for the majority. We are delivering a truly huge game using the best technology and designed to stand the test of time, played for many years to come and still be relevant.

What do you say to people who backed Elite with an offline experience in mind?

Many of the conversations we have had during development focussed on backers wanting to play the game without the downside of online – griefing especially – ie a single player experience. We considered this to be the main issue and focussed on making sure we had a great single player offering. We have also ensured that the solo play mode has a minimal network requirement(about 10 kbps).

Are you confident the servers will be stable come launch day?

Yes, as confident as we can be, because we have been testing our servers throughout the development process, and continue to do so. Our servers are the same ones that Amazon uses, and can (and have) scaled up quickly to deal with demand when needed.

What is Frontier's plan for when the servers shut down?

We do not plan to shut the servers down, but understand it is a reasonable question. We are at the beginning of the game not the end and are focused on creating a game that we hope will be played for many years in the future. We do plan to take regular archives of the game and the servers, to preserve the game for the future.

Could the server code be released publicly some day when the servers are shut down?

Yes. This is something we would do if for whatever reason we cannot keep the game going.

Will offline mode ever be implemented? Why not create a second "offline galaxy" with different secrets than the online one?

It is not out of the question we will create a cut-down game that is offline only, but this is not currently in our plan. It would still be a big undertaking to do well.

Will you give people refunds?

We have started responding to requests where there is a clear outcome:

-    Those who have pre-ordered an Elite: Dangerous release version from our online store and have therefore not yet played the game are eligible for a refund.

-    Those who have already been playing the game online in the Alpha and/or Beta phases, regardless of whether they backed the project via Kickstarter or purchased access to Alpha and/or Beta through our online store, are not eligible for a refund.

 

We want to make sure we treat each person's situation with the thoroughness it deserves, and have contacted each of them to ask that they bear with us over the next few working days if their circumstances do not fit either criteria above as we look into individual requests.

Is offline mode an impossible problem, or just unfeasible?

It is a creative decision, not wanting to produce an empty game. It is technically possible, but it would be a largely separate game development.

Why not delay the decisions and put extra resources on this after the release?

We will review the decision after release, but our priority is moving the game forwards for the great majority of players, and are wary of producing a sub-standard game.

Was this because offline players are less likely to get involved in microtransactions? Is this just about the money?

No. We have been clear and consistent. This is about the game experience. I have always been against ‘pay to win’ – in a game like Elite: Dangerous there are a great many opportunities we could have taken already that would have amounted to ‘pay to win’ but we have chosen not to.

This whole issue comes down to what the vision is of the game we are making, and whether people trust us to make the right decisions. We made this decision with heavy hearts but for the right reasons.

No refunds and no microtransaction so how are they going to support the game.

I grow more concerned after reading this letter.  They seem to be implying that they see the game primarily as PvP, but I don't think this is aligned with most players expectations, certainly not my own.  They are still being extremely vague about what exactly would make the game so empty in an offline mode.  Could they not still simulate an economy and random events?  I understand that would be a lot of work, but the code surely exists for the server already, the tone they take almost makes it sound like some of the features they've already implemented don't even exist.  If they are unable to make the game a compelling experience without PvP, most people will forget about this game in a year.  Right now, they seem to be vaguely hinting that they don't need much content beyond facilitating player interactions.  Interactions with other players can be nice, but certainly not why I want to play it.  

No refunds and no microtransaction so how are they going to support the game.

"No pay 2 win" isn't the same as "no microtransactions".

They are still being extremely vague about what exactly would make the game so empty in an offline mode. Could they not still simulate an economy and random events?

They went for some sort of client/server architecture with the procedural generation, economy and mission handling done server side. NPC generation as well. You'd be basically visiting a static, lifeless sandbox.

I believe them when they say that releasing a standalone offline version would be a lot of work. That's basically a new game to make, galaxy generation aside. However, a much simpler method would be to release the server's binaries, which they are reluctant to for questionable reasons. They can't be that big or require some kind of supercomputer to run (at least not with a single human player).

 

 

They went for some sort of client/server architecture with the procedural generation, economy and mission handling done server side. NPC generation as well. You'd be basically visiting a static, lifeless sandbox.

Presumably all of that could be done by transplanting server code into the client.  I'm not implying that's easy, but what they should say is "It would be a lot of work, we just aren't going to do it right now.", however much of what they are saying sounds, at least in tone, like "We don't expect there to ever be much more single player content than there already is."  (or am I just being paranoid?  Anyone else getting that impression?)  Hopefully it's just a case of them trying to justify a PR mistake by exaggerating.

I asked for a refund, but Frontier said that if you played the game (no matter how much, even just watching at the beautiful main menu screen) would void your rights to get a refund. I asked a local lawyer here about that statement from Frontier, and he said that having used the product doesn't void the right to get a refund if the product is not as it was advertised, because otherwise you'd have no way of checking if the product works properly as it is advertised.

So Frontier's statement on that is bogus and I could just report this fraudulent refusal of a refund to the regulatory authorities. Anyone living in the EU could do that, as the laws apply to all the member countries.

In my case, i haven't been able to play the game in a stable manner for more than 8 hours due to my ISP being a fucktard.

I asked for a refund, but Frontier said that if you played the game (no matter how much, even just watching at the beautiful main menu screen) would void your rights to get a refund. I asked a local lawyer here about that statement from Frontier, and he said that having used the product doesn't void the right to get a refund if the product is not as it was advertised, because otherwise you'd have no way of checking if the product works properly as it is advertised.

 

So Frontier's statement on that is bogus and I could just report this fraudulent refusal of a refund to the regulatory authorities. Anyone living in the EU could do that, as the laws apply to all the member countries.

Hey robske, I know people may have this option to get their money back. But unless they all get together and do a class action suit it is really not feasible to do since your out $50 for a game (possibly more if your kickstarter) since going to court would cost considerably more. I think most companies have the consumer over a barrel when it comes to the everyday person wanting their money back. In the end we have memories and I think most people here have a little discontent for our favorite developer Ubisoft. So people have memories and the next project could not be as profitable for them if they burn too many people.

I have been to many places in my travels and I have to admit least back then not many places had high speed internet to support a twitch based game and as I stated before games like the Black Prophecy, which looked great failed badly because of lag and combat sucked because of it so it made it unplayable. They probably would have been more successful if they released server code or made a single player or multiplayer game instead of online only.

That letter Pinback posted is concerning... like this here:

 

Do you now consider Elite: Dangerous to be an MMO?

Technically, it has always been. There are already over 100,000 people playing in the same world. We believe that always-online entertainment is already a reality for the majority. We are delivering a truly huge game using the best technology and designed to stand the test of time, played for many years to come and still be relevant.

Technically they didn't mention the word MMO or Massive Multi-Player Online game in there Kickstarter pitch, so obviously not everyone thought they were making a online only version of Elite. It's ok if they are, I am not irritated at game direction at all. What I am upset with is the fact they actually kinda deceived quite a few gamers into thinking they were geting something other than a MMO. This could have been handled better, all I have to say is I hope Chris Roberts and company can make us fans proud 🙂

@SSCADMIN:

https://www.acm.nl/en/

I could report them there. The result would be that Frontier risks fines and penalties, and in extreme cases a prohibition from selling their products (I honestly don't expect that, but it has been used in the past as a measure). Also, if I'd wanted to start a lawsuit, it would only cost me 50 dollars in The Netherlands. It's because when you are under a certain income level the government will pay the lawyer costs except a very small amount which tends to discourage most people with such low incomes to do such a thing. Consider that I live only 20% above the Dutch statistical poverty level. I have sodding luck that the region I live in is economically and demographically in a bad shape, and there's a surplus of housing. So rent prices are piss cheap compared to most other parts of the netherlands, which allows me to at least afford some luxury like games as Elite Dangerous. But 50 pounds sterling is really a massive amount for me to pay. Why do you think I run a shoebox PC?  😆

wow that's a hell lot of cable, still. the 16:9 monitor doesn't beat my 5:4 🙂

Relevant article from another dev.

http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=8176