The theoretical S has hit the fan.

[Gorion]

I don't have Elite, nor am I planning to buy it.

But, I read stuff, and Frontier just announced that the offline version has been scrapped.

Lots of angry people, out there requesting refunds, including a guy who pledged 5,000 GBP.

[ArithonUK]

Not really a shocker for anyone who has been following the game's development.

As Albert has noted, the Solo play uses as much bandwidth as Open play.

This seems to be a great deal of raging and personal attacks because Frontier couldn't find a way to put the server-side functions into the client for total offline play. A number just jumping on the forum to make such intelligent points as "StarCitizen > Elite" - neither constructive or helpful, unless you are trying to provoke flame wars.

The single-player is still in the game, exactly as it has been. All that's changed is perception. "I thought X was coming and now they've said it's not".

If people bought or backed the game purely to get a stand-alone single-player game, then they should probably ask for a refund, because despite trying, Frontier have been unable to produce the game to fit this mode of operation. Although it would be at Frontier's discretion and not something they are entitled to.

I made a note of the changing information in each station (markets, equipment, stock , NPC activity etc.) and making it offline would be a major undertaking. Frontier were faced with a decision to commit substantial resources to making a game feature for a few people (a poll on the forums this morning showed nearly 88% of people are happy with online), when those staff could be working on any number of content or functions. Difficult may not be impossible, but it can be impossible to be cost-justifiable.

Credit to them for putting their hand up prior to release when this announcement could lose them sales. Many companies wait until afterwards to fess up when they've changed their plans or couldn't deliver.

Producer, Michael Brookes has been posting individual replies on the Elite: Dangerous forums, even in the face of some very personal attacks.

The guy you refer to as the £5,000 backer (Liqua) has said

The game is awesome - a good solid foundation.      FD just need some PR lessons (and I in some self control)  Speaking of  which my "stance" of demanding a refund will hurt forum members : I have  a few +1s which I gave out and a refund would mean they can't go  either.  What is worth more - the money back into my hands (of which now  FD won't even blink at) or the chance for others to meet DB ?    Sadly life out here in the UAE does things to your mind, more so with  the job I have ... Whilst I am not looking for excuses I can feel the  rages coming on which is messing with my thoughts.  I have sent a PM to  Michael asking that he suspend my account for a few weeks : a bit of  enforced vacation is probably a good idea for me right now.    Things will turn out OK .. they always do.

So he seems to have calmed down a bit since his initial post.

So, not much different since Friday, except some people now are declaring flame war on the exact same game they were loving four days ago. Go figure.

[albert]

Single Player and Offline are different things but if anyone can show me a recent Single Player that has absolutely no Internet dependency either to download or authenticate then I'll be very surprised. True FD need to shape up the online mode, your Internet link in Malta wouldn't have the upload speed for it right now Lydon. But in terms of offline, it's a load of grievers whinging because they are after a hell of a lot more than feasibly they should get for their money. They had a yeah of alphas and betas and think now they can get a refund and a cheap run at a game.

As for Mr 5K well pledging is giving, period. You pledge you have had a chance to back out before the end of the kickstarter and he didn't. Imagine what would happen if a load of people in SC decided to demand refunds. Sorry you gave for the sake of helping develop the game, come rain or shine.

I think ED is awesome for the time and money they have had to make it and it is already everything and more any of the other Elite's were, and it's set to get a ton of other features.

Let the grievers leave and shut the door on exit I say.

[TeaLeaf]

Tbh, anyone expecting an offline version of the game needs their head examined, so I'm with Arithon here.   However, Frontier were (imho) bloody stupid to offer it in the first place.  It would have been far simpler to just not offer it at the funding stage as it should have been apparent even then, that it was not going to work or would require a 'second version' of the game to be created.  If it was possible and in the plan, why not deliver?

[Gorion]

Well, I'll be honest; I don't care about the game, and never will.  It's nice and all that, especially the landings (lan test@albert), but it lacks something; no idea what it is.  Just posting what I read elsewhere, and there's a ton of grumbling going around on other sites which I follow.

Anyway, the grievers do have a point, however moot it is now.  They were promised offline gameplay, and after a considerable time that option was dropped.  We have to understand that not everyone has stable internet all over the world.  I read online authentication is required for docking, trading and everything else.  So yeah, not good business.

People see the situation as false advertisement, and fraud, as that feature was a selling point, which helped gathering investors, and was repeated time and time again.  You can't just **** on your investors cause that's bad business.  That's how I think about it anyhow.  If it wasn't possible, they shouldn't have promised it in the first place..

Again, I'm not arguing or anything, just stating opinions.

[Tutonic]

I would imagine there's a clause in the Kickstarter contract with words to the effect of "none of these features are guaranteed, invest at your own risk", but they haven't exactly acted in good faith.

They should offer a refund to anyone who wants out now that Single Player has been removed, I imagine this is only an issue for a minority of players anyway.

[ArithonUK]

I think the thing that grates about the majority of detractors is the nature of their complaints and their obvious non-commitment.

"I was going to buy this game, now I'm not" ad nauseum. Well I was going to marry a billionaire swimsuit model and build a base on the moon.

For instance one guy raging about refunds only joined the forums in September, has made four posts, all slagging the game off with such gems as

IMO, the decision to create a 1:1 copy of a 30 year old game in modern clothes already was an unwise one and doomed to fail.

Well, if that's what you thought, what are you even doing on the Frontier forums?

Frontier bumbled the PR for sure, but my god the internet is a scary place full of unreasoning rage.

[albert]

This guy is always a man of reason:

http://www.drewwagar.com/progress-report/elite-dangerous-and-playing-offline/

Pretty much gives a balanced non emotional view of the situation.

[Sneakytiger]

Tell me a game nowadays that doesn't need a internet connection to play ,every single player games need to be connected,I mean we're near release now and they only just find out ,that it's a online game so's Diablo but people would call that a single player game

[smilodon]

I do play some games which don't require an Internet connection, but they're either indie games or old stuff. Most of my steam games save to the cloud. I suppose there might be an issue if the full launch is messed up with server overloads and crashes, or if a players Internet connection is down and they fancy a bit odd single player offline Elite. But games taking advantage or requiring an Internet connection ate pretty standard these days........ so storm in a teacup I think.

[Twyst]

Tbh, anyone expecting an offline version of the game needs their head examined, so I'm with Arithon here.

I disagree, it was one of the features in the kickstarter.
They said they could, I expected.

However, Frontier were (imho) bloody stupid to offer it in the first place.  It would have been far simpler to just not offer it at the funding stage as it should have been apparent even then, that it was not going to work or would require a 'second version' of the game to be created.  If it was possible and in the plan, why not deliver?

I agree that they were stupid to offer if in the first place, but they did.
As a seasoned software developer, I find their argument of why they aren't doing it (they say it's "impractical, not impossible") even worse. What does impractical even mean in this context? Impractical for most users is possibly true, but for everyone - I doubt that.

As such, I find their stance more nefarious than not - it smacks of DRM. My view is this - they are panicking about piracy and don't have time left to implement an offline solution.
I could be wrong, but FD are not very forthcoming about it.

All said an done, I don't personally care for the offline feature right now, but my circumstances may change - such as needing to stay places without any internet access.
So I'll still be playing and am looking forwards to the 22nd!

[ArithonUK]

I think Frontier's mistake was not allowing the developers issues be transmitted to the backers over time. Had they been giving general progress reports on features that were in, would things have gone down better? I don't know.

The "we'll surprise you" approach only works if people LIKE the surprise! Michael Brookes has know for a few weeks at least that this option was off the table for good. I just wonder what the rationale was behind when to divulge the outcome. Oh to have been a fly on that wall at that meeting!

Well, the genie is out of the bottle and those people who have no use for an online-only game will seek refunds and everyone else will carry on as before.

Meanwhile all the trolls and flamers stand pitchforks at the ready posting "shill" etc. at anyone who isn't demanding David Braben's head on pike, plus a refund (even though they never bought the game), plus a totally new game...

[Galatoni]

The issue with a lot of people is that it wasn't just a feature that might have been included (like a stretch goal or something) it was something that was core to the original and to the list of features. Would you have been happy if they said something to the effect of 'Now it'll only be available on the XBOX'? For some (me included) it doesn't matter. But for others, it raises a good point with regards to what is intended to be the final product. You fund an idea, of course you shouldn't if you can't afford to, but when the idea changes, what did you fund?

[Twyst]

Would you like to explain in some detail why the decision to pull offline mode was only announced a few days ago, and what the reasons for doing so were. Many people are under the impression this was done to enforce DRM and in game advertising.

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. That experience would be empty at best, and even that would take a lot of extra work.

It is not to enforce DRM or advertising as you suggest. We will be judged on quality, and the quality of that game experience would be poor, and we don't want to deliver a poor game. To make a richer offline single player experience has always been possible (and still is) but would be a separate game with its own story content. A huge slice of separate work. 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 players 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.

I don't pretend it was an easy decision, but it was done to benefit the game as a whole. One thing we have looked at carefully is our requirements of the network connection. For the single player game they are pretty light. I myself have played the game fine on the train using a laptop on a tethered connection over my phone. Given that this is a game which is only available online, this was the decision we took. I am sorry that people are so upset about it, but it was the right decision.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=60284&page=10&p=1024476#post1024476

I think many people right now will be testing via tethering to see if he's right.
I did notice that a large part of the complainers were fron the oceanic area because they would get bad latency.
If an ultra low bandwidth and high latency is still an enjoyable single player experience then it might not be as bad as I first thought.

[Sneakytiger]

just to make things clear: elite invented the space game without ELITE there would be no eve online,star citizen and any other space trading game.