Elite: Dangerous will forego offline play
Elite: Dangerous will arrive on PC next month, but it will not feature offline play.
Elite: Dangerous is set to launch in December, but it appears that it will launch without one of its planned feature. Offline play is no longer on the table, according to Frontier Developments, turning the game into an online-only experience. Studio head David Braben points out that the developer's updates to the game make online-only central to the overall experience.
"Going forwards, being online lets us constantly both curate and evolve the galaxy, with stories unfolding according to the actions of commanders," Braben stated in an email newsletter (via Eurogamer). "Exploration is also a key factor, too, and it is important that what a single player explores matches what other players explore whether single or multiplayer – a complex, coherent world – something we have achieved. Galaxy, story, missions, have to match, and it does mean the single player has to connect to the server from time to time, but this has the added advantage that everyone can participate in the activities that can happen in the galaxy. A fully offline experience would be unacceptably limited and static compared to the dynamic, ever unfolding experience we are delivering."
"The problem is that the galaxy mechanics all sit on the online servers," executive producer Michael Brooks added on the Frontier forums. "The data set and processes are huge and not something that would translate offline without considerable compromise to the vision."
Elite: Dangerous is set to launch on December 16 on PC.
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replyOzzie Mejia posted a new article, Elite: Dangerous will forego offline play
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I actually would like to see more online only games like this. Much better to have online only games that actually use being online as a feature rather than just as security. I can see some of the kickstarter backers going mad over this though. I backed on kickstarter though and don't mind :).
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I personally enjoyed the offline mode available in Elite Dangerous. Sometimes I just didn't feel like dealing with the inevitable pricks that race through the universe and just wanted to enjoy some nice relaxing space trucking. The fact that they've remove offline play completely is annoying, and is a bit of a cop-out considering they've had it in since early beta phases.
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I understand what the article says. I just still enjoyed the offline mode. Why should my singleplayer world trade routes be affected by what online players do? It shouldn't. The point of singleplayer, in my opinion, is to allow you to remove yourself from the constraints of the MP world. But that's just my view on things.
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Ah, sorry. Now I get it.
I don't really have a problem with it, but I see where you're coming from. This will largely depend on how flexible and volatile the market is going to be. It would suck to lose money on a trip because you had to take an unexpected break.
Personally, I'd rather have an evolving world that I can chose to be alone in, than have a static one where I'm limited to playing alone forever.
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you can still play that mode, you just need to be connected to the servers because its ultimately the same universe everyone else is playing in, you just cant see them.
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I was under the impression there was already OFFLINE singleplayer as I played it a good bit and my trade routes were never affected by the stuff happening online. It's possible I misunderstood, but still. Since it is something they originally planned there may have been people who bought it for the offline mode.
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I haven't invested in this game yet, so I'm firmly on the sideline still. But, this sure reads like a cop-out. Translation: "It was going to be too expensive since we didn't actually build the game with single player in mind, and we're pretty much out of money to do so." At least that's what it sounded like from the article.
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Right, it's more like how Diablo is where you still have to connect to Bnet. I'm okay with that. My view is just that it sounds like they may have marketed the game as support offline play, but they didn't design the game to support it initially. They may have had the thought they'd be able to decouple the game for offline and it just got away from them. So, now it would just cost too much to actually do it.
I could be totally wrong. Again, I'm just saying how the article came across to me. -
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Ok, I went back and re-read the Kickstarter page. It never said offline play. It talked about single player with periodic connection to the server. It mentioned it 'might' be possible to do this completely offline, but it wasn't promised. So, I take back my comment about them running out of money and a limit of the design. It's actually what they mentioned originally. It sounds like they've just decided to go the Bnet-ish route in the end.
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From their FAQ on the kickstarter page:
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.
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).
I'm fine with them dropping the offline part, but I can understand people not being happy about this.
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Jesus, fuck online-only play.
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* S I M C I T Y ' D *
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Me neither
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