PLAYING OFFLINE?

[Dr. John Snow]

Updated 12/03/2017

When you buy Gremlins, Inc., you get 2 products:

* Gremlins, Inc. with multiplayer and single-player modes, that requires online connection to play (and supports such features as Steam Workshop and Steam Community Market with free in-game drops);

* Gremlins vs Automatons with single-player mode, that does not require any connection to the server.

This is something that we worked hard on, and released in March 2017, as originally our game always required online connection due to how we designed it in the first place.

These 2 versions as separate products and operate independently.

[Red Dragon]

You might just have sold me your game.

In the "offline" thread you made a pretty terrible salesman Sergei. I respect honesty, but strictly from a customer's point of view I'm really not interested in your opinions or arguments about why your view is reasonable or valid - and your passive-agressive way to argue hurts way more than it helps. All I really care about as a customer is my user experience and that's the end of it, arguing with me is not going to sell me anything.

At the end of the the day a lot of people buy (indie) games on steam because it's simply more convenient than to pirate them, especially if the game is updated often. It's wise to think in terms of "what is the best user experiecne we can provide", because that's one of the reasons why steam rules and all other game services (maybe apart from gog) suck a**. An offline version goes a long way to rectify that.

The online only thing was really the only thing that made me go "eh - maybe not" after I saw TB's LP.

[Dr. John Snow]

Originally posted by Red Dragon:

All I really care about as a customer is my user experience and that's the end of it, arguing with me is not going to sell me anything.

All we care about as developers is the UX of our game, too. Arguing with us about whether we could have designed the game differently, is not going to change anything. Just like telling us to "grow up", giving us behavioural characteristics, etc. does nothing to that regard.

We were looking at the stats of how people play, and thinking about the way to improve their experience. Once we established the share of "single-player only" crowd, and saw that it was sufficient for a separate product branch, we mapped that out - like any other feature on the game's roadmap.

Whether we're likeable or not; whether I'm a good salesman or not; is irrelevant in this case. What matters is if we made a good game, and how much further on the 'makes players happy' scale we move with each update.

We're bringing the offline product for all the existing players who spend a lot of time in the single-player mode and for whom this branch would offer more opportunities to enjoy the game. That's the whole story.

[ZeroX]

Originally posted by Red Dragon:

You might just have sold me your game.

I feel the same.

[Naskoni]

This must be the most halfassed solution to a problem that shouldn't even exist. I'd rather wait to see when and if that would even come to be, not to mention whether it will actually work... or anybody even plays this by the time this happens. I no longer buy into promises or good intentions.

It's as if most of the people making games nowadays don't even play other people's games to see what actually works...

No extra downloads. No problems with the compatibility of versions.

Funny, Steam has been able to update games automatically for more than 10 years now. It's like magic. And I don't think anybody using Steam has problems with downloading patches... or even whole games for that matter...

[Cyborg]

Thank you.

[Chief]

Originally posted by Sergei Klimov:

w/option to upgrade from the Offline Edition to the complete game.

Thank you for this, I was one of the people that saw TB's video and as soon as I heard that the single player mode was intrinsically tied to a server I decided against the purchase.

I must however ask, does it make sense to release this offline version as a separate product?

The price points for both (the standard edition and offline edition) appear to be priced very closely, surely a simpler solution would be to include this new version to peoples accounts who have purchased the game as a free DLC? (this would include all and future customers)

Such a move would be greeted by customers who like myself who would rather not be tied to a server to play, I feel like it would also help with community discussion as releasing a seperate version (I may have a lack of understanding in this) then creates a seperate Steam forum just for the offline version, consolidating the two products would be (in my opinion) more beneficial for all.

[CeliriaRose]

Happy to hear this and I will gladly buy when the offline version releases.

[Dr. John Snow]

Originally posted by TheChiefMeat:

The price points for both (the standard edition and offline edition) appear to be priced very closely, surely a simpler solution would be to include this new version to peoples accounts who have purchased the game as a free DLC? (this would include all and future customers)

We expect that the discussion in the offline version will be about rules and tech support while in the complete version about tournaments, team play and updates/new features/new content. If you only need to play the game on your own, digging through all that could be a hassle.

We also think that since customers of the offline edition don't need server functionality, why not charge them $5 less? As they won't add traffic and in general it's a way more simple setup.

In this way we plan to see only people who are interested in all aspects of the game to come through to the complete edition, which would make the community focus more on the strategies and less on "I GET ONLY "1" ON RNG!!" type of issues ;-). Statistically, we're seeing 2 different groups playing the game. Makes sense to follow that with the release plan.

[Nyx]

I have to say I did not expect this. Thank you for listening to the feedback and good luck!

[ֆהტϣ]

Well this is surprising! However, I really like that idea. I can't see why people would not want to play this game multiplayer, since it is obviously made for multiplayer and in my opinion much more fun to play against humans, preferrably friends, but if people want that, okay then. My biggest worry was that if you develop it as a new game, I would have to pay twice to get both, but I really think you solved the problem very nicely with just giving everyone who already has the game a copy of Offline Edition, and the upgrading option is more than you could ever hope for from most studios! I hope this idea will take off as well as I think it will!

[Chief]

Originally posted by Sergei Klimov:

We expect that the discussion in the offline version will be about rules and tech support while in the complete version about tournaments, team play and updates/new features/new content. If you only need to play the game on your own, digging through all that could be a hassle.

We also think that since customers of the offline edition don't need server functionality, why not charge them $5 less? As they won't add traffic and in general it's a way more simple setup.

In this way we plan to see only people who are interested in all aspects of the game to come through to the complete edition, which would make the community focus more on the strategies and less on "I GET ONLY "1" ON RNG!!" type of issues ;-). Statistically, we're seeing 2 different groups playing the game. Makes sense to follow that with the release plan.

While my main gripe with the game was that single player mode was tied to a server, this does not necessarily mean that I do not want to play in a multiplayer environment. I think for most players it means that when they want to play alone they can however and whenever they want, but at some point they are likely to at least try multiplayer (your own statistics appear to support this).

Also I don't believe the argument for separate forums holds much merit, Steam provides the ability to create sub forums for each and every game at will, you could simply create a two new subforums:

Offline Edition General Discussion
Offline Edition Tech Support

Regardless of what happens, I look forward to trying out the Offline Edition once it comes out.

[Red Dragon]

Don't Starve has done pretty fine even with split online and offline versions. Maybe not quite as elegant as having everything in the same .exe, but not terribly inconvenient either.

[Dr. John Snow]

Originally posted by TheChiefMeat:

Also I don't believe the argument for separate forums holds much merit, Steam provides the ability to create sub forums for each and every game at will, you could simply create a two new subforums:

Offline Edition General Discussion
Offline Edition Tech Support

Yeah, well, we already have a number of forums - multiple languages - and doubling that in the same community hub would be insane imho. Which anyway will lead certain concerned players to just dump everything somewhere by default and then we'll see forums full of redirects. Nah. We'd rather try to have people grouped by default.

[lonetrav]

Thanks for listening and reacting, Sergei!
I do hope that Gremlins Offline becomes real, and, even more, that your experiment turns out to be successful for you.

[Dr. John Snow]

Originally posted by lonetrav:

Thanks for listening and reacting, Sergei!
I do hope that Gremlins Offline becomes real, and, even more, that your experiment turns out to be successful for you.

Thanks!

We'll share the stats, as usual, once it's released. We have no idea what to expect: I mean, sure, all the current players will just get one more option to play with. But as to the standalone sales - we'll see!