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

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The single-player offline mode was promised during the game's Kickstarter campaign.

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Read more.

Seems short-sighted to me. Surely it's up to the players to decide what's "unacceptably limited and static". I for one would much rather have the option to play off-line - now my choice is "play online, or play something else"? Thanks David. Wonder how many of your backers you've just alienated....

This was one of the reasons I contributed to the Kickstarter. Not happy.

^-- This. I don't have much time to play any more with family commitments, training, and work. I don't want to spend the little time I do have, playing with teenagers screaming about each other's mums.

It does say that the single player mode may only need to connect to the servers 'occasionally'.

And we all know how well these purely online games work when the servers have issues... in my opinion there should ALWAYS be the option of an offline mode in a game where we pay for it at the start, whether it's a case of being able to do 'mini missions' or build more things in a city. Simply put, a static/limited offline experience is better than no experience.

And what happens when the servers get shut down....

Now if this was a free to play game where you could chose not to spend money on 'extra features' then it's a different situation.

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Originally Posted by b0redom

It does say that the single player mode may only need to connect to the servers 'occasionally'.

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^ This.
The reason it has to be an occasional online sync is because of the massive galaxy-changing events that will be happening during the online. If the Feds come along and wipe out half the Empire's empire, that's a lot of things that will change, with a massive war in between.

For complete offline, you'd get your installation disks. Then every time something big in the galaxy changed, they'd have to ship an update disk to every offliner. Every time.
After a while, that would eat up the cash they have for the game itself.

Far better to stay mostly offline, but get updates every so often. No different to getting patches, really.

No longer interested. Promise of a single-player mode was the reason I would have bought this. Glad I didn't back the Kickstarter project, I'd have been rather angry! I do believe you can get a refund though ;)

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Originally Posted by sykobee

This was one of the reasons I contributed to the Kickstarter. Not happy.

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It's the reason I DON'T back things on Kickstarter, you aren't sure what you'll get.
In development games change a lot, design decisions need to be made and this may well be the right decision for Elite. The difference is that most games the public would either be unaware of the games existence or at least hadn't spent any money. Although it isn't, many people see Kickstarter as a pre-order rather than patronage.

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Originally Posted by Ttaskmaster

^ This.
The reason it has to be an occasional online sync is because of the massive galaxy-changing events that will be happening during the online. If the Feds come along and wipe out half the Empire's empire, that's a lot of things that will change, with a massive war in between.

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And that should be optional. Some people want to play they game they get out of the box. Again. 10+ years down the line even. If some server is changing what that game is, or worse, some other players are, then that's unsatisfactory to some. Of course, it is want people in an MMO want, so that's fine, but it would have been better to make it clear that this was an MMO, not playing off the aspects that were present in the original Elite.

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Originally Posted by spacein_vader

Although it isn't, many people see Kickstarter as a pre-order rather than patronage.

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Or worse still, some kind of investment that gives them a say in how the thing is developed, as per some of Star Citizen's more vocal supporters.

I'm perfectly OK with this.
From the sounds of it, Elite will still be available as single player, but you will need to apply periodic updates, so pretty much as it works right now but without needing to be permanently connected is all.
The KS page did speak about the 'intended' singleplayer experience and mentioned the 'possibility' of synching with the game server, which was under investigation at the time.

Expansions would have to be paid for and likely downloaded anyway, so I don't see what the big fuss is about.

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Originally Posted by Ttaskmaster

so I don't see what the big fuss is about.

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Personally, it's about playing the game out of the box. And being able to have the same experience 10 years later or at my own pace, independent of other players or servers. If I want to mod the game, or play on an easier difficulty setting, that's all possible in an independent game, but very hard on a synchronised one.

Others find the idea of having to connect to a server to play a single player game off-putting, and there are numerous examples where the single player experience has suffered as a result (Diablo 3, Sims 4, to name two recent cases). Let alone the experience down the line when servers are shut off.

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

Seems short-sighted to me. Surely it's up to the players to decide what's "unacceptably limited and static". I for one would much rather have the option to play off-line - now my choice is "play online, or play something else"? Thanks David. Wonder how many of your backers you've just alienated....

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Well-said. I wonder if they're just trying to minimise the bug fix workload.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

And being able to have the same experience 10 years later or at my own pace, independent of other players or servers.

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That's pretty much what the Online Solo mode is and Offline will be.
But the whole primary brief was centred around an online game that changed and developed, with everyone able to influence things, anyway. I can't see the interest in only playing half the game.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

If I want to mod the game, or play on an easier difficulty setting, that's all possible in an independent game, but very hard on a synchronised one.

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I've always been a bit confused by the whole modding thing - I know there's the hobbyist side and all, but in general if a game is so bad that it needs modding, why would people back it in the first place?
From a business perspective, why let players mod your own work and go play it on their own servers when it takes money/bods away from your own official one?

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Originally Posted by kalniel

Others find the idea of having to connect to a server to play a single player game off-putting,

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As is (or will be), you don't have to be connected all the time to play. Just long enough to download and apply the updates, same as playing a Steam game in Offline mode. If you don't want those, fair enough, but the whole point is to keep it an ongoing game, which requires updates, which means connectivity if you want them cheaper.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

there are numerous examples where the single player experience has suffered as a result (Diablo 3, Sims 4, to name two recent cases).

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But the single player experience is pretty much the same as the online one. You just choose whether to interact with humans or not. Offline would be the same again, but where nothing changes and you're pretty much back to the days of Freelancer and all its limitations.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

Let alone the experience down the line when servers are shut off.

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That's up to us to keep playing and keep things going though, isn't it?
If too many people stop playing, the servers will close.

Still not seeing the point of 100% offline and how that would make for much interesting play...?

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Originally Posted by Ttaskmaster

But the whole primary brief was centred around an online game that changed and developed, with everyone able to influence things, anyway. I can't see the interest in only playing half the game.

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I think the brief was simpler than that: Make a new Elite game.

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I've always been a bit confused by the whole modding thing - I know there's the hobbyist side and all, but in general if a game is so bad that it needs modding, why would people back it in the first place?
From a business perspective, why let players mod your own work and go play it on their own servers when it takes money/bods away from your own official one?

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There is no one way to play games. Nor is every gamer the same. When you make a game you cater for what you hope is the widest market possible, but you can't catch everything. Modding, difficulty options etc. allow you to cheaply broaden the appeal of the game in a way you can't do when players have to have a level playing field.

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As is (or will be), you don't have to be connected all the time to play. Just long enough to download and apply the updates, same as playing a Steam game in Offline mode. If you don't want those, fair enough, but the whole point is to keep it an ongoing game, which requires updates, which means connectivity if you want them cheaper.

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Then the point of the game (MMO like) is not what I originally was sold. A lot of the fun in games like Elite, Ultima VII etc. is playing them again with a fresh world state. A persistent universe is great for an MMO and has it's own plus points, but it's at the expense of those of us who want a fresh world state some time after the game's release date.

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But the single player experience is pretty much the same as the online one. You just choose whether to interact with humans or not. Offline would be the same again, but where nothing changes and you're pretty much back to the days of Freelancer and all its limitations.

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Offline would be great - the universe changing at the pace YOU are playing the game, not other people who have more time or whatever.

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That's up to us to keep playing and keep things going though, isn't it?
If too many people stop playing, the servers will close.

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Well that's my point - I don't want it to be dependant on other people. If I buy a game I want it to work to my schedule, not dependant on a third party, especially not ones as fickle as my fellow gamers ;)

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Still not seeing the point of 100% offline and how that would make for much interesting play...?

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Being able to play a good game as it is out of the box is infinitely more interesting than trying to play a game that won't work because it can't connect to servers.

Extremely saddened by this. Pretty much agree with everything kalniel said, I wasn't too happy with this game being online, always played Beta in single player mode and hope they had implemented offline single player by release. I guess that's another dream crushed.

BTW, Ttaskmaster...

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Still not seeing the point of 100% offline and how that would make for much interesting play...?

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Did you ever play the original Elite, or Frontier: Elite 2? Were they online? No. Did they not provide hours, upon hours, upon hours of IMMENSE fun that you made for yourself, at your own pace, without being ganked/abused/interrupted by other players? Hell yes! And that's what I was duped into thinking I was buying.

Wonder if they'll offer refunds? LOL!

Good to see another proper debate on Hexus! Always fun ;)

A lot of good points being made here, and I'm definitely siding with the 'against' camp at this point! It definitely does highlight the risks of Kickstarter - I had a similar issue with Planetary Annihilation, which I backed. The finished game is (according to reviews) very good - but it's so online multiplayer biased as to be completely unappealing to me.

Moral of the story - be VERY careful what you back on kickstarter!