Elite: Dangerous (Kickstarted Sandbox Space Flight Sim)

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R

Running Dog_sl

shitlord
1,199
3
Faith_sl said:
So, apparently they did a 180 about the offline solo thing? Pretty shitty in my opinion considering how "well" the online play has worked so far for them.

I was actually looking forward to play this like in the good old days, solo, offline at my own pace. Since the only interaction I have had in open play has involved assholes killstealing around nav points, I dont know if I should demand a refund out of pinciple and a slight worry about them pulling the plug on the game in 1-2 years or if I should go for online solo play (what a stupid fucking idea).
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I had been wondering what the system requirements were going to be to run the game offline in single player mode, and I guess they answered the question for me. It doesn't surprise me that they couldn't get offline to work properly, but I am certain they knew they were in trouble with it a long time ago and they should have said something. Leaving it this late to announce it was very poor behaviour on their part.

TBH the only difference between online and offline solo was going to be where the galaxy calculations were done, either on FD's server or your PC; technically your single player experience should be better online than off since there'll be less workload, and there'll be no killstealing except by the NPC police, who like the real world cops show up late and only get involved when you don't need them (or decide to shoot you for fun). In the periods where the networking has crashed repeatedly I've gone into solo-online and found it plays much better since it doesn't need to do the stupid P2P syncing.
 
Dandain

Dandain

Trakanon Raider
2,092
917
If I understand you right, you opt out of the multiplayer because your connection is unstable - but you still have an active net connection to the game server? I.E. If this was a feature - its online solo, but still solo?
 
Faith

Faith

Useless lazy bastard.
1,178
857
Thing is, the economic "simulator" worked just fine on the C64. If they cant make a general sim for the market with computers that looks like fucking gibsons compared to the old platforms they have allowed feature creeping and bloated it in ways that was certainly not necessary.

Same goes for bandit/ship AIs and the rest of the things they blame it on. They had a clear goal at the start, make it able to run offline, if they failed to put together the basic game to match that goal they had poor management and should take responsibility for it by making the game people backed them to make not their "vision" of it. Sure, its spiffy with a player driven galaxy to bump around it, but one of the basic pillars was offline gameplay.

That said, I am curious to see their response to the forums. If they do the right thing and admit they fucked up badly and didnt inform people of this when they discovered the issue (lets face it, they must have known about this for some time, its not a suprising discovery right before release...) and let people get refunds I think it will be ok.
 
Faith

Faith

Useless lazy bastard.
1,178
857
Dandain_sl said:
If I understand you right, you opt out of the multiplayer because your connection is unstable - but you still have an active net connection to the game server? I.E. If this was a feature - its online solo, but still solo?
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You can play online solo, meaning that the players affect your gameplay with stuff like market prices going up and down and exploration data becomming availible to you, but you will not actually see the other players and they can not impact your "ship game" like PvP and such (this assumes I have understood the mode correctly). The latest info is that this is as solo as you get, you can not mod the game, you can not play it on a computer without internet connection (which is in the kickstarter faq as a clearly explained feature).
 
R

Running Dog_sl

shitlord
1,199
3
Dandain_sl said:
If I understand you right, you opt out of the multiplayer because your connection is unstable - but you still have an active net connection to the game server? I.E. If this was a feature - its online solo, but still solo?
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The multiplayer networking uses a bit of traditional client-server and a lot of peer-to-peer code. That means that it isn't just how stable my internet connection is, it's how stable everyone else's connection is that the game connects you to.

Everyone plays in the same galaxy, with the same prices and same stations and outposts etc. etc. However, you are limited to seeing a theoretical maximum of 32 other players flying about, not counting NPCs, at any one time. The game has a clunky mechanic for deciding which players to pool you with whenever you drop into real space, and will continue to add people to your pool (which they call an "island") until the metric they use to judge how stable the island is tips below a threshold.

In practice I generally can see two or three people these days without too much trouble as they have improved the netcode.
 
R

Running Dog_sl

shitlord
1,199
3
Faith_sl said:
Thing is, the economic "simulator" worked just fine on the C64. If they cant make a general sim for the market with computers that looks like fucking gibsons compared to the old platforms they have allowed feature creeping and bloated it in ways that was certainly not necessary.

Same goes for bandit/ship AIs and the rest of the things they blame it on. They had a clear goal at the start, make it able to run offline, if they failed to put together the basic game to match that goal they had poor management and should take responsibility for it by making the game people backed them to make not their "vision" of it. Sure, its spiffy with a player driven galaxy to bump around it, but one of the basic pillars was offline gameplay.

That said, I am curious to see their response to the forums. If they do the right thing and admit they fucked up badly and didnt inform people of this when they discovered the issue (lets face it, they must have known about this for some time, its not a suprising discovery right before release...) and let people get refunds I think it will be ok.
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AFAIK they are offering refunds to people who pre-ordered the game if asked; if you are in the EU they pretty much have no choice under consumer law. Ironically, people who backed the Kickstarter aren't protected by law, again AFAIK, but they may offer refunds for them as well.

I'm not sure that I buy their explanations either as to the reasons for pulling offline mode, but it's really all speculation right now as to what happened and why. There's a poll on the forums which puts people who absolutely required offline at 5%, but the largest proportion (about 30%) of players want offline ready for when FD switch off the servers.
 
Mist

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Gold Donor>
31,228
23,443
I'm actually kinda happy they did this. It means the online features will actually likely matter a lot to the game.

I can understand where people would be upset though.
 
Faith

Faith

Useless lazy bastard.
1,178
857
Running Dog_sl said:
AFAIK they are offering refunds to people who pre-ordered the game if asked; if you are in the EU they pretty much have no choice under consumer law. Ironically, people who backed the Kickstarter aren't protected by law, again AFAIK, but they may offer refunds for them as well.

I'm not sure that I buy their explanations either as to the reasons for pulling offline mode, but it's really all speculation right now as to what happened and why. There's a poll on the forums which puts people who absolutely required offline at 5%, but the largest proportion (about 30%) of players want offline ready for when FD switch off the servers.
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Yes, seems they are indeed offering refunds now (and you are right, in the EU we still have some consumer protection) which makes me feel its at least decent of them to accept the failure of providing offline is reason enough to give people their money back. When it comes to the information they have given its laughable that they just dont admit to seeing this a mile off and keeping quiet about it. That said, Im too much of a Elite junkie to quit now. My nerd-rage about the issue was calmed down by the refund thing and I can now just grumble over my evening tea about it
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...but god help them if they shut the game down in a year or two and do not provide an offline version....
 
P

Perramas_sl

shitlord
12
0
I hope I am wrong but I am getting the feeling that this game is going to crash hard. This is a game you should wait three to six months after launch to buy.
 
R

Running Dog_sl

shitlord
1,199
3
Perramas_sl said:
I hope I am wrong but I am getting the feeling that this game is going to crash hard. This is a game you should wait three to six months after launch to buy.
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It's actually perfectly playable as it is; the question is whether it's a game enough people will want to play. In terms of what they set out to develop, it more or less does it, except for the offline fiasco. Three months more would improve it, but that's true of most games.

While it's the game the developers wanted to make, it isn't the game that some of the beta testers wanted. When they didn't give it pure Newtonian physics, people complained. When they didn't force PvP or allow groups of players to control stations, people complained. Likewise no pay-to-win ships for those people who can't play often or shortcuts to getting the best ships ("but it will take months!").

All you can do is fly, dogfight, trade, run missions, explore, mine, build reputation with factions, build rank, buy better ships and experiment with outfitting them and watch the galaxy slowly evolve. There's no goals other than the ones you set yourself.
 
P

Perramas_sl

shitlord
12
0
The content is not why I am saying to wait before you rush out to buy this game at release. This is not an MMO where you log onto severs hosted by the producers of the game. There is a central log in server and match making server then the game is hosted by P2P networking. I have my doubts how this is going to work out with a player base spread all over the world with different quality internet services.

Also as far as I know this is the first time this company has tried to make a purely online game. I am wondering if they know what they are getting into with the players who like to break online games and find clever ways of duping, exploiting and making hacks. We all have seen how quickly ArchAge has dropped off from the exploits and hacks and this is from a company that has experience with MMOs.
 
Faith

Faith

Useless lazy bastard.
1,178
857
Yeah Perramas, thats my issue too and hence why I am pissed off by the "no offline" thing. It does not matter to me if you wanna "cheat" in your own game, but when they try to build an economic simulator or whatever it will be painfull when people/groups starts looking for exploits to make tons of virtual gold. That will also cause you as a solo player issues since prices will most likely be manipulated to your disadvantage.

Static offline game, dynamic online galaxy would have worked just fine for me. That way I would at least have a choise of how much my experience would be affected by the rest of the players.
 
R

Running Dog_sl

shitlord
1,199
3
Well it had better work or someone is going to be out of pocket:

The core of Markus' epic setup is a cluster of three HD BenQ TH681 projectors, powered by a pair of Radeon R9 290 Tri-X OC graphic cards configured in Crossfire mode. Sound is provided via a Logitech Z-5500 Digital Surround Sound system.

The self-built control panel through which he commands his spacecraft has been stuffed with an assortment of high-tech gaming hardware. A Saitek X52 Pro provides the joystick and throttle controls, while a series of touchscreen panels allow him to adjust assorted ship systems on the fly. You won't see it in the video above, but the set-up also includes a Leap Motion controller which allows you to issue commands with a mere flick of a starship commander's glove.

By making use of software called VoiceAttack, Markus is able to issue simple commands that allow him to switch between the various user interface sections in the game. That thing stuck to his baseball cap is apparently a TrackIR head-tracking device, which allows him to change his view around the cockpit and galaxy at large with a mere glance of his commanding gaze.
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Man builds ?3K Elite: Dangerous cockpit Eurogamer.net
 
Skanda

Skanda

I'm Amod too!
6,662
4,506
Or spend $350ish on an Oculus, less than the price of one of his projectors, and feel even more immersed.
 
Z

Zx88_sl

shitlord
258
1
That setup looks pretty damn cool. I wish I cared enough about gaming in my older age to get that invested with a game(any game!!).
 
Faith

Faith

Useless lazy bastard.
1,178
857
Skanda_sl said:
Or spend $350ish on an Oculus, less than the price of one of his projectors, and feel even more immersed.
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In a way. yes, but considering the poor resolution and issues with the Oculus righ now I would wait until the consumer model arrives tbh.
 
R

Running Dog_sl

shitlord
1,199
3
Screenshots from the latest beta (3.9). I posted before how I rarely saw more than 2 or 3 other players. It seems the netcode has been improved...

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Players are the hollow symbols on the radar. NPCs are the filled symbols.
 
Lusiphur

Lusiphur

Peasant
595
47
I nearly went for a refund, I was in the Kickstarter from day one. However, as long as it is not forced pvp I can live with no offline mode.
It might even be interesting seeing how the shared economies work out.
Ofc they will need an offline mode done for about a year out due to population issues.
 
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