Can I play this if it is retired?

[necromaster]

I know there is no single player mode for the game. But, has Frontier made any assurances that you can still play the game after it is retired (if ever)?

I don't want to buy this game now and a few months down the road they say it'll be closed. For good. And there is no offline solution. So, too bad. It sucks, but there is no way to play the game anymore. Money down the drain.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

There is no reason for this game to be closed in a few months: FDevs still develop the game. A few new ships are to be added in 2 months, with power play overhaul coming, too. Thargoids war is going on right now.

There are no assurances. But FDevs were considering to change the game to be payable offline whenever their servers are finally turned off.

[Sighman]

For most of last year regular players were treated to 'dead gaem' videos and comments from people who almost seemed glad to predict the end of Elite Dangerous.

Fdev shut them all up in January with the announcement of a raft of new content due this year. New ships, a new superpowers struggle, and an entirely new feature never attempted in the game before.

The doomers shouting that the game was about to be shut down went very quiet, and it's just not a thing any more.

Anyway, nobody knows the future, but barring something truly catastrophic it looks like ED will be with us for some years yet.

Finally, it's often on sale for less than the cost of a movie ticket.

[Doom]

Originally posted by necromaster:

But, has Frontier made any assurances that you can still play the game after it is retired (if ever)?

I don't think so.

Originally posted by necromaster:

I don't want to buy this game now and a few months down the road they say it'll be closed.

Haven't heard anything like that. Anyway, it goes like this:

* We don't know what FDev will do when the game shuts down. A good idea would be to provide offline solution OR release their server, but there's no guarantee they'll do that.

* However, even by most pessimistic estimate it'll last much more than just a few months. I'd say the lowest estimate would be 3-5 years. Given that they gave plans about new ship, it appears they want to keep it operational. Perhaps to keep those arx money flowing in. However, given they announced only one ship, it looks like there will be a small team maintaining it. Things certainly could be better than this, but this is better than nothing.

So, just go and play. It's definitely not going to disappear in a few months.

[Sighman]

Originally posted by Doom:

However, given they announced only one ship, it looks like there will be a small team maintaining it. Things certainly could be better than this, but this is better than nothing.

They announced four new ships. We have one already, the next (Type 8) is coming in August, and two more after that.

They also announced update 19 in September with the Powerplay 2.0 overhaul.

After that, there's the 'entirely new feature' we know nothing else about yet.

Hardly a small team doing maintenance.

[krashd]

David Braben, the man who created Elite back in 1984 with his best friend and who later created Elite II and Elite III by himself would have to be facing some serious dire straits before he announced that he was shutting down the Elite Dangerous server, and thus killing the game.

The Elite franchise has always been his baby. Other publishers might have shut down the game by now because the player base is not in 7 or 8 figures but this is Braben's game, it is his company, and he self publishes, believe me-he would rather sell some of his bigger IPs than neglect ED. That is why the game is constantly updated, and why it features new content additions every now and again despite not being a subscription service.

You could call E:D his hobby, his train set.

[Sighman]

Originally posted by krashd:

You could call E:D his hobby, his train set.

He left a like on one of my ED screenshots on twitter earlier this year. That was an awesome moment for me ;-)

[Doom]

Originally posted by Sighman:

Originally posted by Doom:

However, given they announced only one ship, it looks like there will be a small team maintaining it. Things certainly could be better than this, but this is better than nothing.

They announced four new ships. We have one already, the next (Type 8) is coming in August, and two more after that.

And that is the reason why I said a small team is maintaining the game. Because that's a small number of ships delivered slowly. Two months per Type 8 means 1-5 people working on it.

Large team would be 15 to 30 brand new ships announced and delivered this year.

[Sighman]

Originally posted by Doom:

Originally posted by Sighman:

They announced four new ships. We have one already, the next (Type 8) is coming in August, and two more after that.

And that is the reason why I said a small team is maintaining the game. Because that's small number of ships delivered slowly.

Large team would be 15 to 30 brand new ships delivered in comparable timeframe.

Fair enough. We just have different ideas of what constitutes worthwhile content. New ships don't really interest me, although the type 8 looks handy. I'm more interested in new things to do with them.

[Doom]

Originally posted by Sighman:

Originally posted by Doom:

And that is the reason why I said a small team is maintaining the game. Because that's small number of ships delivered slowly.

Large team would be 15 to 30 brand new ships delivered in comparable timeframe.

Fair enough. We just have different ideas of what constitutes worthwhile content. New ships don't really interest me, although the type 8 looks handy. I'm more interested in new things to do with them.

Fair enough, to each their own. Personally I would prefer full VR support for odyssey, but, well, whatever. The game runs as is for now, that's good enough.

[deathclaw]

Originally posted by necromaster:

I know there is no single player mode for the game.

What about Solo play mode?

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by deathclaw:

Originally posted by necromaster:

I know there is no single player mode for the game.

What about Solo play mode?

The Solo mode still requires internet and game servers to be up and running. Background simulation is generated by game servers even for Solo.

[Doom]

Originally posted by deathclaw:

Originally posted by necromaster:

I know there is no single player mode for the game.

What about Solo play mode?

Solo mode will not launch when servers are inaccessible. State of the galaxy is stored on frontier servers. It goes down, the game breaks.

[Sighman]

From the EULA

"8.2 The Online Features are provided over the internet as provided by Frontier. You acknowledge that the Online Features are provided by Frontier at its discretion and may be terminated or otherwise discontinued by Frontier at any time."

Same as any other game with an online component. I'm guessing if they ever shut it down they could release a final snapshot of the galaxy and some kind of local server (maybe), but I don't think I'd want to play on that except for nostalgia.

[dave46563]

Originally posted by Doom:

Originally posted by deathclaw:

What about Solo play mode?

Solo mode will not launch when servers are inaccessible. State of the galaxy is stored on frontier servers. It goes down, the game breaks.

That's true, but Solo is technically the single player mode of Elite. It needs a connection, but you won't encounter other players. I think this is what they meant.

Solo and Open share the same galaxy too.

[david.hardie]

We always have these doomsayers. Ever since the game launched the sky has been falling.