Oolite Bulletins

Fair enough. I still think the wording is bad; It's quite easy to get the point across without saying "we're gonna do whatever we want, and there's nothing you can do about it" – repeatedly. When you've invited people to have their say, it's common courtesy to at least leave them with the illusion of being listened to.
And the fact remains that without the thousands of people forking out cold hard cash on nothing but a promise, they wouldn't be making "their" game.

Not that it affects me at all. I wasn't in a position to contribute to the KS, and offline-gate has made the chances of me picking it up post-release extremely remote. It might sound odd, but I would be more inclined to buy it as a multiplayer-only than as a MP + always-online SP.

Diziet Sma wrote:

Oh, it's worse than that.. every single 'transaction'.. which is to say every time you earn/get a fine/bounty, every time you dock, buy/sell equipment or cargo, take a mission, jump to a new system or exit supercruise, even just extracting minerals from a splinter, will have to be moderated by the central server.. you will need a constant connection to play at all. Those who've tested it have found that within 5 seconds of losing connection, you'll drop out of the game.

Well, that doesn't make me very happy. I work on an oil rig and our internet access out here is spotty at best. I've played other "solo online" games out here like Warframe that only phone home for major interactions like market purchases and starting/ending missions, and they're pretty fault-tolerant when it comes to connection status. I can kill space dudes all day long in Warframe without a functioning connection, as long as the game can phone home when I end the mission. I'm a KS backer for ED and was really counting on that offline mode. I still have some hope for solo-online. I'll be home on the 16th when it releases but I go back to the rig on the 22nd, so I'll be able to find out firsthand pretty quickly.

CheeseRedux wrote:

Fair enough. I still think the wording is bad; It's quite easy to get the point across without saying "we're gonna do whatever we want, and there's nothing you can do about it" – repeatedly. When you've invited people to have their say, it's common courtesy to at least leave them with the illusion of being listened to.
And the fact remains that without the thousands of people forking out cold hard cash on nothing but a promise, they wouldn't be making "their" game.

Not that it affects me at all. I wasn't in a position to contribute to the KS, and offline-gate has made the chances of me picking it up post-release extremely remote. It might sound odd, but I would be more inclined to buy it as a multiplayer-only than as a MP + always-online SP.

I agree with you 100%, it wasn't a personal attack at you. Just a reminder to any FD forum lurkers that might be reading this what the original goal was.

FD's PR department is great at selling the finished game but not at selling the current state of the development. More communication would be better like bringing back the development blogs.

Even though I backed FD with a considerable (for some, even myself) amount of money, I still did it with an investment of the idea in mind, not a purchase of the game. If I had dropped £50k+ Dragon Den style in FD's lap then yes, I would have a right to be royally miffed.

Tricky wrote:

I agree with you 100%, it wasn't a personal attack at you.

I think you may have been spending too much time in forums that are not the friendliest this side of Riedquat.
I've no idea how any of the above posts could even remotely be construed as personal attacks.

CheeseRedux wrote:

Tricky wrote:

I agree with you 100%, it wasn't a personal attack at you.

I think you may have been spending too much time in forums that are not the friendliest this side of Riedquat.
I've no idea how any of the above posts could even remotely be construed as personal attacks.

You're right. Knee jerk reaction. Automatic defenses were up. Should know better.

Babul on FD forum wrote:

- if you are into the starmap, use it, and let it show you the economical routes, *not* the fastest ones. a jump 2x that far, takes approx 4x fuel. its worth 1 extra jump to save some tons of fuel.

Sounds familiar.

I have to say I'm really enjoying exploration in ED. I'm currently nosing around the back of Alderbaran, and the Hyades look extremely pretty from here (I'm 20 ly from the outskirts):



The big red thing is the Orion nebula (maybe a bit overblown!) and you can see the Pleiades upper left, still 300 ly away.

The map looks pretty dense inside the Hyades itself:



And it's full of systems like this:



Can't wait to get there!

So, while I do think that the game is missing an awful lot of the finer details that came out of the design discussion, and is being released prematurely, I am enjoying it. I really hope Frontier aren't making a mistake releasing it this soon.

kanthoney wrote:

I really hope Frontier aren't making a mistake releasing it this soon.

I suspect that for business/investor reasons, FD had to push something out the door by year's end.

Cody wrote:

I suspect that for business/investor reasons, FD had to push something out the door by year's end.

I'm sure that's right, but I thought we were told one of the advantages of not having a publisher was that they wouldn't have to release it until it was ready. I guess not.

My only problem is with the online part. Per se, I've never played the original but there are so many aspects that can ruin the whole game if it's taken into the grounds of mmos. And I heard they remove the offline part as well, so this way it will be either nice or totally ruined. I've played so many mmorpgs in the last years and would have been fine to finally get rid of them, even though if this turns out to be nice then I won't hesitate to play it.

Also, no linux port... That's quite a shame. Even Star Conflict and War Thunder have a linux client already.

ailixu wrote:

My only problem is with the online part. Per se, I've never played the original but there are so many aspects that can ruin the whole game if it's taken into the grounds of mmos. And I heard they remove the offline part as well, so this way it will be either nice or totally ruined. I've played so many mmorpgs in the last years and would have been fine to finally get rid of them, even though if this turns out to be nice then I won't hesitate to play it.

There is a solo mode (requires an always-on internet connection) where you'll not see any other players - only NPCs.
Many of us will be playing in this way (myself included), I expect - and welcome aboard.

Cody wrote:

ailixu wrote:

And I heard they remove the offline part as well

There is a solo mode (requires an always-on internet connection)

Well, though.
http://hexus.net/gaming/news/industry/7 ... e-by-case/
Thanks for the welcome anyhow.

Yeah, I'm well aware of all that.

After starting up in solo mode in the Founder's System I hopped over to Lave. Wasn't a Coriolis station but an Orbis...

Click for fullsize (I took the screenshot with ALT+F10 that gives HD resolution - 5120 x 2880)

The level of detail even on the low settings I have it at is impressive.

This is a shot of Jameson Memorial found at Shinrarta Dezhra...

Click for fullsize (This is with ALL the graphical bells and whistles turned on - 6400 - 3600)

Tricky wrote:

This is a shot of Jameson Memorial found at Shinrarta Dezhra...

Jameson Memorial, phooey! Has anyone found a station called Tracy Island yet?