Q&A di oggi:
Gamma will mostly (!) be about stability, compatibility and performance, not features, but there are more features to come from now...
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=60284&page=6&p=1024366&viewfull=1#post1024366
Would you like to explain in some detail why the decision to pull offline mode was only announced a few days ago, and what the reasons for doing so were. Many people are under the impression this was done to enforce DRM and in game advertising.
Back during the Kickstarter, we were clear about the vision, to make a phenomenal new sequel to Elite in an online world, which we believe we are about to deliver. At the time we believed we could also offer a good single player experience, and base an acceptable offline-only experience off that. As development has progressed, it has become clear that this last assumption is not the case. That experience would be empty at best, and even that would take a lot of extra work.
D.Braben: It is not to enforce DRM or advertising as you suggest. We will be judged on quality, and the quality of that game experience would be poor, and we don't want to deliver a poor game. To make a richer offline single player experience has always been possible (and still is) but would be a separate game with its own story content. A huge slice of separate work. We have developed a multi-player game with an unfolding story involving the players, and groups collaborating with specific objectives and taking account of all players behaviour. This is what the game is about. Without this it would not be the rich gaming experience that we will deliver, and would be a great disappointment to all players.
I don't pretend it was an easy decision, but it was done to benefit the game as a whole. One thing we have looked at carefully is our requirements of the network connection. For the single player game they are pretty light. I myself have played the game fine on the train using a laptop on a tethered connection over my phone. Given that this is a game which is only available online, this was the decision we took. I am sorry that people are so upset about it, but it was the right decision.
Hello David,
I appear to have been sold a game you now can't deliver - can you please confirm an unequivocal full refund will be forthcoming due to the lack of offline mode?
Thanks (was a huge fan btw)
D.Braben: I'm sorry you're upset. We do have a refunds policy, so you should get in touch. Please consider that we have been backed to make the game we were backed to make as best we could. This includes hard decisions (and many easy ones too), but those hard ones are inevitably balancing one thing with another. For me, quality wins, and that is what happened with this decision. Not everyone may agree with every decision.
Have you played the game? Why is the offline (as opposed to single player, which I understand) mode so important to you?
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If I may say this for myself:
Now, I know MMOs are popular, fancy and lucrative these days, but
don't you think that you are pushing it just too far with your MMO
only (tunnel) vision?
I am not an online multiplayer game player, never have been and never will be.
Sometimes i need to check the baby, answer the phone or door or do
some work. And now I can not even pause or save the game and continue
the battle in progress later. I want an immersive experience and that
doesn't include other gamers.
I also want to play the game where I don't have an internet
connection, and when the FD servers are down (or have been shutdown,
or FD no longer exists). I don't want to rent my game, I want to buy
it, no forced authentication, no DRM, no server connection. Reason ??
Except from constant bullying and incomodating your customers?!
Simply for long term assurance the player will be able to play the
game long into the future regardless of what happens to FD, without
wishing to sound horrible but if the company folds one day (as many
games studios sadly do over time) the game can still be played for
many years to come, and maybe even be modified and supported by the
community if the developer is no longer in a position to do it
themselves, there is many such games still being played today with
this exact scenario where the original developer & publisher have long
gone but the game still lives on supported by a dedicated community,
having a game which is solely dependant on the survival of either
makes me very nervous, history proves this sadly. Not to mention
server overloads, connection failures, high ping or simply lack of
internet access while we are on the trip or somewhere where internet
is not available.
So that is why offline mod is important for many players
I like to play the old Elite games from time to time, and I was hoping I could do the same with E for years to come even after eventually the servers go down by whatever reason.Even if FD could make a statement promising to release the server code (or even a binary) to the public in the event of the servers going down indefinitely for any reason, that would be good enough for many of us! Is that even worth hoping for?
Having said all this, thanks for taking the time to talk to us and thanks for making the game possible at all!
D.Braben: We have no intention of taking the servers down, but I understand what you are getting at. We plan to archive the game from time to time (ie matching client and servers and game world state), and would release such an archive if the servers were to come down. That would also address the issue of how you preserve an online game for the future, from the whole 'retro' perspective.
Early on it was communicated that one of the aspects of Elite Dangerous that would be executed would be the instant familiarity and recognize ability of each system (02:30). When entering a system we will instantly know where we are. From the color of the sun, the ambiance coming from the host planet itself, obviously there is the stations' design which is modular and should contribute to the uniqueness of every system according to the video.
There are different types of thrusters that also look different when installed making ships even of the same type different from the next in the video (04:12). The damage model where you can see the insides of ships through holes in the hull looks very very immersive (04:17).
Also scavenging in space graveyards looks very exciting in this video!!!!
These things are still in right? or have they ended up on the cutting room floor?
How many of the features from the DDF percentage wise have been implemented
D.Braben: The features you mention are there - modular station design, different engines, coming across shipwrecks. Being able to fly massively damaged ships only really applied to the bigger ships, but it is still planned (though may be post release).
PS Are you the Derek Smart that did Battlecruiser 3000AD?
First, thanx for a wonderful game.
My question is on something of....functionality I guess.
When viewing the GALAXY MAP there can be a lot of info there, and maybe it would be nice to have a way to see what system I have been to in the past, and what system I have not been to. Something as simple as Systems I have not been too are normal font, systems I have been to are in bold font. Easy to see, no additional filter to run and no matter what view I look in it is all the same (Allegience, Trade, Size etc.)
But, thanx again, and take care, looking forward to wasting as much of my two month vacation piloting across the galaxy as I can!
D.Braben: That's a nice idea. I'll see what we can do (would be post release now).
Greetings,
As Offline mode is out (thank god!), does this mean we will see more co-op features deployed into the game?
Fly safe!
Kro
D.Braben: Yes. Absolutely.
Hi David, great work on the game to you and your team (as other people have mentioned - I too am very disappointed that there will no longer be an offline version. That's really not good). My question is, if we can buy multiple ships - will there be any possibility of crewing those ships with computer generated people so you could send ships out to trade on their own. Additionally, if you have enough money, any chance you could actually build a base, buy ships for police duties and such?
D.Braben: This is the sort of thing we will look at down the line. WE want to avoid the game feeling like 'playing a spreadsheet' though, but these features are certainly on our radar.
Hello David...
I want to thank both you and Ian for setting a standard in the original Elite, to which I have always gauged others games by and I am surprised that even today, in the way Elite Dangerous makes me feel which is exactly the same as it was thirty years ago. Rarely does any game have the same feel to it.
My Question...
As I remember the Panther Clipper from Elite Frontiers and so enjoyed it's use; how will the new version of the Panther Clipper measure up compared to old version and when will it be available. We've heard little about it and I do wonder which roleplay it would cover best. Your thoughts on this would be appreciated. Thankyou.
D.Braben:The Panther Clipper is coming. It is a big trading ship - a bit like the Lakon Type 9's big brother.
Hi David ! One of ur Original '84ers here :-)
From Gamma/Preview onwards will the locations of ship equipment stay random in Stations or will they be fixed ?
Thx for ur answer ;-)
D.Braben: High Tech systems will always be the best place to get the top-end ships, with particular systems specialising in particular ship types.
Hi David -Do you intend to do anything to improve the tutorials-which are not currently very welcoming/user friendly, lacking as they do a lot of essential information for newbies, like basic control keys, for example!Newbies should not have to search the internet to find out this information.
D.Braben: We are improving them all the time, but I appreciate we are still not there..
How soon (if it's still coming) before we can see this which IMO would really make the game stand out more than it already has:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d142/steveobhave/Anaconda3.png
D.Braben: It is coming - but it will be after the first release.
I am worried about multiplayer, will I be able to connect to a server and find my friends in the same server every time?
D.Braben: It should be much better in Beta 3.9.
An offline mode insures that, no matter what happens to Frontier or the servers, the game will still be playable.
It also allows for the game (in its offline version) to be modded. This enriches the community and the game with content beyond even that which the developers themselves can produce (just look at Betheda's games), and ensures a long life for the game.
Look at Freelancer for an example of a similar game whose servers closed years ago, but which is still kicking and keeping a loyal community thanks to private servers and modding.
An offline game also lets it be DRM free (no matter the intent always-online is, by its own nature, a form of DRM, and even if it's not perceived as such by the developers, it is by a lot of potential customers).
An offline game would probably allow you to pause, thus allowing people who sometimes need to take care of children or other urgent issues to play without risking a loss of progress.
An offline game means, thus, more sales for Frontier (both from people who don't support online-only games, people who don't support DRM, and people who simply don't have a constant or reliable connection), and a much longer life for the game.
As for your claim that an offline mode would need new story content... a lot of us would be perfectly fine with a barebones offline mode that we could mod.
The community would easily and happily provide the content.
This would even avoid possible "spoilers" from your online story.
Is this a possibility you could consider?
D.Braben: Community/modding content is an interesting point - something I'd like to embrace, but within the game itself. There is a danger of the game branching otherwise.
I am often becoming wanted because of a player or NPC getting in my line of Fire (sometimes intentionally to attack me in the case of players)...Is there any plans to incorporate a friendly ACCIDENTAL fire solution (such as small shield percentage but no hull or major dmg)?
I understand how a team could exploit it but a couple errant bullets or strafing laser shouldn't cause issues I would think?
D.Braben: Yes - this is a tuning issue we need to look at. Thanks.
Will we ever be able to fly the federal fighter at some point? it looks like a fun ship to own.
D.Braben: Yes, that will come with time (even though it is not hyperspace-capable).
The thing I love most about E: D is the attempt to realistically depict our galaxy. Being able to visit star systems I can see in the sky and being able to explore places scientists have only just begun to explore with remote sensing techniques fills me with a sense of wonder. How will you (or will you) keep the E: D galaxy synced with our rapidly expanding knowledge of what real star systems are actually like? What if a star systems at release has not been studied and so has several procedurally generated planets but a few years later it is discovered that it has no detectable planets?
D.Braben: No detectable planets does not mean no planets... The main methods for detection at the moment are Doppler movements of the parent star and occultation. Both of these fail if a system is 'flat on' to us - ie if the planets orbit in a plane perpendicular to our viewing direction. So in that case we would be OK leaving them (though we may have to tweak the system axis...). Less flippantly we will look at each one as it is discovered. I hope the discoveries will already be there, in which case we just make an addition to the text box, but in others it may mean adjusting an orbit.
Hello Mr BrabenCould you please tell us if military missions and ranks (Federal Military etc) like previous elite titles (First Encounters and Frontier II) are in game ?
D.Braben:Yes... soon.
My biggest question, sorry if it's been asked already: What prompted the decision to release the game now? Many feel/felt it's too early and panicked thinking this is the "end". Can we have some idea of the continued developement of ED in the future? Like, are there plans to continue aggressive development past the Dec. release?
D.Braben: We planned the release date long ago, and have been working towards it. Development will continue past the December release. Currently the plan is to continue indefinitely - a game like this is never 'finished'
Will there be a new way to find about commodity prices at a target location in addition to actually go there (as it is now)?
D.Braben: Yes - this is something we have been looking at. - there is always something we can add or improve, but this date is a reasonable measure of what we think will be a great game.
