Patch the game to work as single player

[Boonana J]

So why isn't this game being patched by the devs to function as a single player game so that at-least all the dedicated players and people who have only just discovered this game can keep their items and continue to enjoy the story line??

Especially when you consider how much time and money people have put into this title.

It's not actually as hard as people may think to achieve this either, given most of the game files are already client side. All the server handles is things like the shop, displaying other players avatars in the hub area, multiplayer, and item data in multiplayer situations.

As a single player game you no longer need communication with the server, there is no shop or multiplayer, and everything can be run native on each persons individual system.

Mostly what would need to be done is removing server requests from scripts, and localising any server side files that aren't already client side / on the players machines. Regarding any player items, if they are not already stored client side, they are at-least cached client side when syncing with the server, so these would just need to be localised.

To do more than the bare minimum, additional NPCs could be added to the hub area using random skins available to real player characters, using a basic random movement pattern.

How does everyone else feel about this idea?

I've been reading a lot of comments that are sad to see the game go, and are disappointed after just starting to play it that they won't get to finish the story line etc?

Could we hear something from the devs on this topic?

[YS - _ _ _]

An excellent idea, but they'll most likely just find a way to reject it.

[Moga CMDR]

They don't even have the rights to do that. Also it would cost them resources to do it.

[Relkya]

Just go to SW JP. Half of the population there are foreigners. There is also an eng patch.

[SHADOWSTORM]

i agree

[Boonana J]

Originally posted by Yasuna:

An excellent idea, but they'll most likely just find a way to reject it.

Most likely although the arena net staff did do some tweaks not too long ago to improve Guildwars 1 and that game is basically abandon ware at this stage, so who knows, stranger things have happened...

[Boonana J]

Originally posted by Guild Sweetheart:

They don't even have the rights to do that. Also it would cost them resources to do it.

What makes you say they don't have the rights, have I missed something?

Yeah I can imagine some companies wouldn't want to use any resources towards it, but in all fairness it's not really a huge task.

[Boonana J]

Originally posted by Relkya:

Just go to SW JP. Half of the population there are foreigners. There is also an eng patch.

Are they keeping the JP servers open?

[DanaO]

Originally posted by Boonana J:

What makes you say they don't have the rights, have I missed something?

Can't speak about this specific situation with any authority, but publishing rights get weird from our perspective. The contracts between developer and publisher (both of which can easily be plurals for a single game) are kind of like EULAs, except more elaborate and here everybody really does expect all parties involved to read and follow every little detail - which doesn't mean the details were better thought through. Since from the perspective of the people drawing up the details the important questions are who can make money from which potential demographics how (and how much money), and then how that money is divided up, it's a surprisingly common situation for the end result to leave nobody with the rights to rerelease a game period, in any way, much less in a format and with a business model that everybody didn't plan on from the start.

Even stranger, you can't just assume the people you need to negotiate with so that somebody gains the rights to a new release for a game actually can be bought with any amount of money (cash payment and/or a piece of the potential profits), for career path reasons... but that's getting further afield.

Personally, I think at the least the tutorial section of this game should have been designed to play through offline from the very start, but that's the sort of thing nobody will design for unless everybody's already doing it.

[Boonana J]

Originally posted by DanaO:

Originally posted by Boonana J:

What makes you say they don't have the rights, have I missed something?

Can't speak about this specific situation with any authority, but publishing rights get weird from our perspective. The contracts between developer and publisher (both of which can easily be plurals for a single game) are kind of like EULAs, except more elaborate and here everybody really does expect all parties involved to read and follow every little detail - which doesn't mean the details were better thought through. Since from the perspective of the people drawing up the details the important questions are who can make money from which potential demographics how (and how much money), and then how that money is divided up, it's a surprisingly common situation for the end result to leave nobody with the rights to rerelease a game period, in any way, much less in a format and with a business model that everybody didn't plan on from the start.

Even stranger, you can't just assume the people you need to negotiate with so that somebody gains the rights to a new release for a game actually can be bought with any amount of money (cash payment and/or a piece of the potential profits), for career path reasons... but that's getting further afield.

Personally, I think at the least the tutorial section of this game should have been designed to play through offline from the very start, but that's the sort of thing nobody will design for unless everybody's already doing it.

Ah right I'm with you now, yeah true if they are dealing with a collaborative mix of game studios, publishers, localisation teams, and hosting providers, not to mention any 3rd party backers or investors, then contractually speaking it will be a complete nightmare. Especially if there are clauses in the contracts for specific financial demographics.

Thinking further on your point, things like software licencing will also limit what they can do too, so things like the game engine, launcher, and applets, off the shelf scripts, shaders, and plugins are all held to EULA and even demographics in some cases.

Hey... Do you remember when a game studios would create a game and sell it, haha *face palms*

It's honestly a joke how unnecessarily complicated things have become which is why you have to appreciate the likes of Chris Roberts, and the CD Projekt Red team, plus many other independent studios, who are trying to do things with as fewer entities in the mix as possible.

Yeah I agree wholeheartedly that the tutorial should be an offline component. As I said before, most of the game could be... most games are developed to be always online for all kinds of background telemetry. Some of it is like streaming error reporting for more efficient quality assurance, but some of it is plain old data gathering to make additional money off of the player base which is a shame.

[DeGreZet]

Originally posted by Boonana J:

So why isn't this game being patched by the devs to function as a single player game so that at-least all the dedicated players and people who have only just discovered this game can keep their items and continue to enjoy the story line??

Especially when you consider how much time and money people have put into this title.

It's not actually as hard as people may think to achieve this either, given most of the game files are already client side. All the server handles is things like the shop, displaying other players avatars in the hub area, multiplayer, and item data in multiplayer situations.

As a single player game you no longer need communication with the server, there is no shop or multiplayer, and everything can be run native on each persons individual system.

Mostly what would need to be done is removing server requests from scripts, and localising any server side files that aren't already client side / on the players machines. Regarding any player items, if they are not already stored client side, they are at-least cached client side when syncing with the server, so these would just need to be localised.

To do more than the bare minimum, additional NPCs could be added to the hub area using random skins available to real player characters, using a basic random movement pattern.

How does everyone else feel about this idea?

I've been reading a lot of comments that are sad to see the game go, and are disappointed after just starting to play it that they won't get to finish the story line etc?

Could we hear something from the devs on this topic?

I wish but it's probably not gonna happen

[Boonana J]

Originally posted by DeGreZet:

Originally posted by Boonana J:

So why isn't this game being patched by the devs to function as a single player game so that at-least all the dedicated players and people who have only just discovered this game can keep their items and continue to enjoy the story line??

Especially when you consider how much time and money people have put into this title.

It's not actually as hard as people may think to achieve this either, given most of the game files are already client side. All the server handles is things like the shop, displaying other players avatars in the hub area, multiplayer, and item data in multiplayer situations.

As a single player game you no longer need communication with the server, there is no shop or multiplayer, and everything can be run native on each persons individual system.

Mostly what would need to be done is removing server requests from scripts, and localising any server side files that aren't already client side / on the players machines. Regarding any player items, if they are not already stored client side, they are at-least cached client side when syncing with the server, so these would just need to be localised.

To do more than the bare minimum, additional NPCs could be added to the hub area using random skins available to real player characters, using a basic random movement pattern.

How does everyone else feel about this idea?

I've been reading a lot of comments that are sad to see the game go, and are disappointed after just starting to play it that they won't get to finish the story line etc?

Could we hear something from the devs on this topic?

I wish but it's probably not gonna happen :sad_creep:

It is quite sad how games are either abandoned or caught up in so much contractual nonsense behind the scenes that they legally can't do anything... we'll have to see how things pan out. Maybe if enough people see this idea and if there were enough people wanting to play the game then there would be a better chance of something happening...

[Relkya]

Originally posted by Boonana J:

Originally posted by Relkya:

Just go to SW JP. Half of the population there are foreigners. There is also an eng patch.

Are they keeping the JP servers open?

lol yes. They only closed this server because the publishing contract between Lion game (the dev) and Gameforge (the publisher) ended. They didn't come to an agreement to extend the contract so the game is now gone. Most likely because people don't spend much money on the game so gameforge decided that the game is not worth the investment so they didn't extend the contract. Lion game does want to continue the NA/EU server so that's why they proposed to host NA/EU server on their own (without a publisher), which is the server they're talking about now. No server is closing to unite all servers like the baseless rumor that is spreading right now. The upcoming Eng server is just a new NA/EU that is entirely handled by Lion game.

[Boonana J]

Originally posted by Relkya:

Originally posted by Boonana J:

Are they keeping the JP servers open?

lol yes. They only closed this server because the publishing contract between Lion game (the dev) and Gameforge (the publisher) ended. They didn't come to an agreement to extend the contract so the game is now gone. Most likely because people don't spend much money on the game so gameforge decided that the game is not worth the investment so they didn't extend the contract. Lion game does want to continue the NA/EU server so that's why they proposed to host NA/EU server on their own (without a publisher), which is the server they're talking about now. No server is closing to unite all servers like the baseless rumor that is spreading right now. The upcoming Eng server is just a new NA/EU that is entirely handled by Lion game.

Thanks for the reply Relkya :)

That's good news then if this is the case and a much better idea if they are considering self hosting. That said, this has highlighted the absence of Lion's community manager "if they even have one" as most game companies do try to keep a finger on the pulse of the official forums to their games and it's instead taken a fellow fan to step up and share the situation.

This could also be the perfect time for them to implement some future proofing and optimisation by making more of the content localised/offline; such as the previously mentioned tutorial. Especially if they are considering self hosting. The more they can localise game content and specific modules of the game, the less server requests and bandwidth that's required.

For them this means the service will be easier to maintain and much cheaper to run both by reducing electricity usage caused by high server loads and by cutting out 3rd party hosting providers.

For us we will be faced with a potential higher latency/slower server response if the servers are not regionally distributed (hosted from one central place) since the further you get from the server the slower the response is / higher the ping. So localising content and all possible game modules on the players systems would help to work around this issue since as I've already mentioned, localised content means far less server requests, and less data transfer/smaller packet data.

They may even have to redesign the shop platform, as that could be pretty janky even as a window shopper haha