Elite: Dangerous Drops Its Promised Offline Mode

If only Braben followed the Rise of Flight model, rather than forcing an always-on Internet connection, it would've been better. Yes, authenticate and update online by all means but please let us actually play the game offline. Maybe we could've got a flight-recorder and replay movie mode too. Thing is, we've already waited for too many years to not play this now, whatever state it's in, online or not. I don't like it but I'm buying anyway; it's Elite IV. Hopefully in a few months we'll finally get a proper offline mode. Makes you wonder though... I mean, the Elite fans I know all want the offline classic mode, yet on the Elite forum they say the "vast majority" want online? Who are these people? Are they actually real? Fake polls, anyone?

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Looks like the game which you like soooo much under-delivered. XD

hmm... after doing a bit of reading up, i stumbled upon this... << LINK REMOVED >>

especially #6 sounds quite familiar.....

6. Move to online-only. This is where the retailers seem to want us to go after all, so perhaps it’s time to make the jump.

makes you wonder if the reasons given now for ditching offline are really genuine....

Seems to be a fair bit of ignorance here. Frontier are, in fact, refunding anyone who backed the Kickstarter but hasn't played in the pre-release version. The pre-release requires an internet connection, so if you could play that, you can play the full release.

The online in single-player requires about a 10kbps connection at minimum, which is used to update the world's stock market and allow the various in-game factions to offer missions that reflect the ongoing world state. They've also addressed the possibility of a server shut-down, and will try to release custom server code if that happens.

Frontier are now refusing all refunds to kickstarter and beta backers.

so when does the name change to E:D Online?

I was thinking about this last night and a though of why ED might be online only with a shared economy. Think about, the players will be competing against each other for the limited supply of ship equipment. The richer and dynamic online experience means as players buy up items it will create shortages of those items causing the price to rise and rise.

This is where the cash shop comes into play where they will be selling credits. Those players who have impulse control problems and limited play time will bust out your credit card and buy some credits from the cash shop. This would not work if ED was an offline game where you could play by yourself or with your friends.

So those of you who do buy this game I hope I am wrong and you do not have to compete against the armies of bots, exploiters, hacks, RMTers and those player who buy credits from the cash shop.

Here is where I got the thought from for the selling of credits to a captured audience.

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We do not plan to make it subscription-based. Once you have purchased the game up front, you will be able to play thereafter for no further cost. Everything in the game will be purchasable with in-game Credits, earned from trading, bounty-hunting, etc. We will probably allow the supplemental purchase of Credits with real money, for those who want to accelerate their progress through the game. We do plan to charge for additional updates, to be available sometime after the original release. These will offer additional content, features and gameplay.

Game looked good. Too bad.

And there's the reason I backed Star Citizen and not Elite. Haven't regretted that decision once.

I believe they have a Solo online mode. Which still requires online but you don't have to play with other players.

Don't care, didn't even know they were making this game lol

bye bye gamepad

bye bye console

helooooo pc and joystick

Bummer, another game I get to pass up. Oh well, I am still burning time through the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series. I may pick it up later when it is on sale at Steam...if they put it on Steam.

Whaaaat?!?!? If there's no offline mode, then no way in hell am I gonna play this game (but I wasn't planning on doing so anyway :P).

"Trust me we didn't sit down and think what would annoy people the most" Oh, unlike many other companies, I guess?

Going back on such a large thing that was initially promised to your backers is a pretty big deal, and I don't think its right. This is exactly the sort of thing thats making kickstarter look bad.

I wonder how long before they'll pull a Maxis and say "Oh, well it doesn't REALLY need to be online all the time... "

If not, i'm sure 'certain groups' will make it work offline like they have with everything else.

So many whining about an offline mode. We arr know'ye pirates.

A game feature wasn't removed, a game REQUIREMENT was added..

Big difference.

This guy can say what he wants about their "vision", but in the end the reason why they made this decision is to deter piracy. Just admit it, sir.

"the problem is that the galaxy mechanics all sit on the online servers. The data set and processes are huge and not something that would translate offline without considerable compromise to the vision. Trust me we didn't sit down and think what would annoy people the most! It's a choice we've had to make and so we've taken it."

Isn't this pretty much the same excuse EA gave for SimCity, which later proved to be total BS?

Im ok with online for this scope of gaming as long as I dont have to play with, or encounter people.

To add to the reasons why for many people off-line is essential.