News - Elite: Dangerous single-player offline mode officially ditched

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Originally Posted by x2o

Seems they are cutting a lot of features to get the game to a quick release for xmas.

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Well the original release date was March 2014, but I don't recall people threatening to call the FBI over that one...

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Originally Posted by Ttaskmaster

Well the original release date was March 2014, but I don't recall people threatening to call the FBI over that one...

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Easy on the dramatic overstatements please, they're getting a bit grating. Please are allowed differing opinions.

Personally I'm also a bit disappointed in this. I haven't got the time to be investing in an Eve like game where everything changes at the whim of a set of mad pirates. Imagine if standard trade routes new player rely on for their initial profits get ruined by spiteful individuals saturating the market. And heaven forbid I want to play the game somewhere without internet access for a while.

Think it's probably the first and last kickstart I'll back mostly due to the release date slipping then asking for more money to plan a beta version after the full game should have been released.

The more I think about it the more I think it won't bother me, but I do understand people's feelings on this and hope that for those of you that have paid that you at least give it a chance and hope you all find that you like it and your concerns are not as big as they seem at this point in time.

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Originally Posted by jimbouk

Easy on the dramatic overstatements please, they're getting a bit grating.

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Sadly, I'm not overstating. There actually *are* people on the Frontier forums trying to construct a case to present to the FBI... There are also people telling them how silly an idea that is!

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Originally Posted by jimbouk

I haven't got the time to be investing in an Eve like game where everything changes at the whim of a set of mad pirates. Imagine if standard trade routes new player rely on for their initial profits get ruined by spiteful individuals saturating the market.

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That *is* an overstatement.
Such events are likely to be something like a war between governments over a system or two, in which a sufficiently large number of players (as in many thousands) fighting on one side could just about tip the victory one way or another. Either way, the outcome would be the same and the economy would recover quite quickly.
Players and even clans will not have enough power to dramatically alter the galaxy. Those things are Dev-planned only, to keep everything balanced and working.
Same for trade routes - There will be dips and troughs as there are now, but they'd only last a matter of days. As is, there aren't really standard trade routes, as these things change over time. That's kinda the point of the dynamic economy - No sticking to one route, expecting to turn a consistent, easy profit. Even in the offline mode, NPCs are just as likely to spoil your plans with theor trading.

I'm really unsure about this news.

Here's why

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How will single-player online mode work? - Single player online does require a consistent connection.

Question: how often will the single-player client connect to the server? - At the moment it's whenever you need to conduct a server moderated transaction like trading.

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Ok an online single player means no player ganking, esp in the starting systems, that has been effecting the beta tests already.
However AFAIK the world generation, trade goods prices and availability, equipment prices and availability, galaxy mapping, missions and other galactic effects (such as system economies) are all influenced by player action.
So if you've got a load of players buying up all a stations stock of computer trade goods, then you'll not be able to buy them and the price will go up.
That in turn effects the missions available at the station and even the current star system itself.
Mapping the galaxy, from what I've heard is currently a fairly profitable way of making money, but as more and more people do it you'll have to travel farther and farther out to find unexplored systems, so if you start playing a year down the line it'll make mapping very hard.
Mining, again as time goes on you'll have to go farther and farther out from the starting systems to find asteroids to mine.

If elite builds up the sort of community that EVE has, where you have large organised groups actively taking group actions to effect the world then your solo player experience could be radically effected by other players.

And then there's the loss of potential modding, now granted the original elite never supported modding, but having user created content can really increase the shelf life and popularity of a game.

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Originally Posted by Ttaskmaster

Such events are likely to be something like a war between governments over a system or two, in which a sufficiently large number of players (as in many thousands) fighting on one side could just about tip the victory one way or another. Either way, the outcome would be the same and the economy would recover quite quickly.
Players and even clans will not have enough power to dramatically alter the galaxy. Those things are Dev-planned only, to keep everything balanced and working.
Same for trade routes - There will be dips and troughs as there are now, but they'd only last a matter of days. As is, there aren't really standard trade routes, as these things change over time. That's kinda the point of the dynamic economy - No sticking to one route, expecting to turn a consistent, easy profit. Even in the offline mode, NPCs are just as likely to spoil your plans with theor trading.

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Have you checked what happens in EVE, because these do happen, EVE dev's do have a very hands off approach they let players do things and greatly effect the world, that's part of EVE.
How much a part of it will effect elite dangerous we'll have to see, see how they react when you get 1000+ concerted players using the largest cargo ships to flood a system's market.
Or even just hundreds of players ganging up to effectively blockage a system, that was part of the ganking that was going on in the beta, where you got people in tricked out ASP's could pretty much take on any ship player or police.
Ok yes going into solo mode would mean not getting ganked, but they could cut off the majority of trade to and from a system or space station which would have a knock on effect on the system's economy.

Ok I may be blowing things out of proportion, but you have to consider what could happen as people will find a way.

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Originally Posted by Pob255

So if you've got a load of players buying up all a stations stock of computer trade goods, then you'll not be able to buy them and the price will go up.

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Yep... Until that system has had a bit of time to make more and the station to restock. Then the price will go down again. Based on my Beta experience, that seems to take a few hours.

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Originally Posted by Pob255

Mapping the galaxy, from what I've heard is currently a fairly profitable way of making money, but as more and more people do it you'll have to travel farther and farther out to find unexplored systems, so if you start playing a year down the line it'll make mapping very hard.

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Just had a thought - Condition inspection surveys and dynamic condition modelling. In other words, going back and re-checking to see if anything has changed over the past weeks/months/years, as well as charting that change and projecting future change.
We do this with our company assets ourselves and I actually manage the surveys (so I dunno why I didn't think of it before!). Already planets can be scanned multiple times and still yield rewards. It's only the first few scans that yield the serious megabucks, but subsequent scanners still make a living on it.
That repeat scanning and ongoing modelling is your continued reason to go exploring, right there... and no one person has to scan the same system each time.

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Originally Posted by Pob255

Mining, again as time goes on you'll have to go farther and farther out from the starting systems to find asteroids to mine.

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Depends how many big lumps of mineable rock drift in from other systems.

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Originally Posted by Pob255

If elite builds up the sort of community that EVE has, where you have large organised groups actively taking group actions to effect the world then your solo player experience could be radically effected by other players.

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I was under the impression that even every player working together would not be enough to make radical changes. That the devs wanted to retain full control over such things, otherwise you'd end up with stations being blown up and all sorts.

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Originally Posted by Pob255

How much a part of it will effect elite dangerous we'll have to see, see how they react when you get 1000+ concerted players using the largest cargo ships to flood a system's market.

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What would they gain from this, since they can't own systems or stations?

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Originally Posted by Pob255

Or even just hundreds of players ganging up to effectively blockage a system, that was part of the ganking that was going on in the beta, where you got people in tricked out ASP's could pretty much take on any ship player or police.

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1 - Switch to Solo and bypass them.
2 - Take on any playable ship, yes... But I think the Devs there are taking the same approach as Star Citizen and having HUGE capital ships that can destroy anything mere players can throw at them, which are used as in-game policing of player-caused issues.
3 - NPCs will vastly outnumber players anyway, so for every Anaconda or Asp blockading, the NPCs can throw hundreds in. The idea seems to be that the governments are MASSIVE and that the whole playerbase can engage in a war with one of them, but would never number enough to fully wipe them out.

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Originally Posted by Pob255

Ok yes going into solo mode would mean not getting ganked, but they could cut off the majority of trade to and from a system or space station which would have a knock on effect on the system's economy.

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They could affect things for a bit, perhaps, but bypassing them in Solo would keep the trade flowing behind their backs.

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Originally Posted by Pob255

Ok I may be blowing things out of proportion, but you have to consider what could happen as people will find a way.

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And the understanding is that the devs are keeping a lot more control over events like this, precisely to prevent EVE happening all over again.


That's my understanding, anyway.
It may all fail and die at the hands of some petty 12-year olds who think they're playing Call Of Spaceship! :D

Oh well, that's me out then. I was looking forward to this too.

Why not wait and see what form the final game takes? I'm disappointed too but reviews will address these concerns and then we can make a properly well-informed decision on it. And if it does suck, there's always Star Citizen.

This is all part of my point, how much player agency and dev agency there will be.

They way they where talking back in the kick starter is that they would be very little in the way of direct dev interaction, players would interact with the world, which would then cause events to trigger, which in turn would be resolved by player interaction.

eg one of the examples given.
A player finds a rare mineral rich asteroid, two planets will try to claim rights to it, so mercenary missions from both sides will be created, and the side that wins will be the one with the most player backing.

For an online game I don't have issue with this, for single player it would also work if the player was weighted, however the solo online system is a compromise is a simpler option and I can see why they've done it. It also makes co-op play far easier to do.

Unfortunately this is part of current game development, spin and PR, because everyone will throw their toys out of the pram and have a hissy fit.

I am a bit disappointed by the lack of single player, esp as that's going to kill any form of real modding scene and will remove any feeling of player agency from solo play but I do understand why they've gone they way they have and I'll still probably give it a go when it comes out.
I would be more enthusiastic if there was a single player only mode.

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Originally Posted by spl

Why not wait and see what form the final game takes? I'm disappointed too but reviews will address these concerns and then we can make a properly well-informed decision on it. And if it does suck, there's always Star Citizen.

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The wait and see approach IMHO is a good common sense approach but I think throwing all our toys out of the cot might work too it's certainly more noticeable than the patiently waiting in silence approach, neither approach will change anything, so in the meantime I think I will wait it out with spl.

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Originally Posted by KeyboardDemon

...I think throwing all our toys out of the cot might work too it's certainly more noticeable than the patiently waiting in silence approach...

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Haha that is true :-) But it also makes gamers look bad! Like that whole Mass Effect 3 ending business. It worked (kind of) but the way people acted kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. It's not like people react like that to a bad film ending (say that Liam Neeson film with the wolves) and then the director changes the ending for them. Certainly this Elite Dangerous campaign business is more important than a disappointing ending though (though I guess some serious Mass Effect fans might disagree!).

outside of a few games , theres very little user modding available - cod? bf? wow? theres nowt in any of them

Glad I didn't support the kickstarter! My nostalgia for the original Elite has been put to bed now I know we are looking at a new EVE.......I hated the premise of that game.

After my poor experience with the beta (constant crashes, at best barely worked, tech support slow and awful) this is another annoying piece of news. One fo the stated goals was to have an offline playable game. Lesson learned and won't be supporting any more prducts before they're launched again.

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Originally Posted by spl

It's not like people react like that to a bad film ending (say that Liam Neeson film with the wolves) and then the director changes the ending for them.

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Actually, that does happen too. A number of films have been shown to test audiences and then altered depending on how these random people felt about it. Fairly common in Hollywood.
Difference here is that FD are not geared up to make the changes.

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Originally Posted by HalloweenJack

outside of a few games , theres very little user modding available - cod? bf? wow? theres nowt in any of them

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I still don't get modding, outside of a niche hobby interest.
The massive amount of Skyrim mods available just seems to say that, despite the huge areas and everything, the game still wasn't good enough...
Back when I was playing Thief (the original one) we had one graphics mod, a few cheats and that was it. There were a load of fan missions, but they all used the same basic game structure.
By comparison, Freelancer often got tweaked on privately run servers, but the mods seemed to focus on putting ships from TV shows into the game and it was more often just horribly unbalanced and poorly implemented.

I get the artistic feats from those who do it well, but IMO a game can't be that good if the first thing people want to do is mod it.

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Originally Posted by Ttaskmaster

Actually, that does happen too. A number of films have been shown to test audiences and then altered depending on how these random people felt about it. Fairly common in Hollywood. Difference here is that FD are not geared up to make the changes.

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Actually, the bigger difference is that those test audiences are being asked (in fact likely being paid for) their opinions. Bioware didn't ask gamers if the ending was acceptable and offer to change it if people didn't like it.