Already breaking promises, no longer offline.

leway21

I know this might not piss everyone off but I bought this game for offline mode. Right before release they tell everyone that offline mode is no longer offline and never will be.  So I attempted to get a refund and was hit with you've already downloaded the beta. How is making an offline game to online only not refundable. So what If I've downloaded the beta. I bought the game about three weeks ago and in that time period the game went from offline to online only.

I would just stay away from this game for a while because most of what this game offers are promises that they are already breaking.

  I just found this thread it seems many people are upset and are running into the same trouble 650+ pages long.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=58789&page=656

"I would have had no issue with the ethics of Frontier and David Braben if they had offered full refunds to anyone who wanted them after announcing that they were pulling offline support. But they didn't do that. They are nitpicking legal loopholes so they can keep their backers' money after kicking them to the curb. THAT is what is unethical and the source of the backlash."

 

 

Asm0deus

Indeed, in that very thread there was mention of Limit Theory along with a really nice video showing its potential. I think some may move on over.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=58789&page=635&p=1033542&viewfull=1#post1033542

rpmcmurphy

Originally posted by leway21
"I would have had no issue with the ethics of Frontier and David Braben if they had offered full refunds to anyone who wanted them after announcing that they were pulling offline support. But they didn't do that. They are nitpicking legal loopholes so they can keep their backers' money after kicking them to the curb. THAT is what is unethical and the source of the backlash."

Nitpicking legal loopholes is a bit loaded.

They are operating in the word of the law, terms people agreed to when donating or purchasing aka hard but fair. If it bothers you that much the last option is to sell your account.

 

leway21

I'm in the process with paypal.  I'm not worried about the money and I would never sell this worthless game to anyone.  It's the poor ethics and morals of this company that piss me off.  They just screwed over a large amount of the players but do they care?  I see an epic fail of a company.  Save your money people.

rpmcmurphy

I see you got suspended or banned with only 6 posts on Frontier's forums.. I also see that you only started posting today and that all of your posts are shouting about being scammed. One has to wonder if you're simply trolling.

There is always an element of risk with crowd-funding or pre-ordering. Knowing this, you should have waited until release before buying the game.

Precursor

It's not going to stop me from playing, largely due to the fact  that I really do enjoy the game.

It's a bullshit move though. A large portion of the people who were going to play likely already bought into the beta phase of the game. Of those the ones who came to expect a standalone version should damn well be given at least partial refund.

Not classy at all. Shameful.

leway21

Originally posted by rpmcmurphy

I see you got suspended or banned with only 6 posts on Frontier's forums.. I also see that you only started posting today and that all of your posts are shouting about being scammed. One has to wonder if you're simply trolling.

There is always an element of risk with crowd-funding or pre-ordering. Knowing this, you should have waited until release before buying the game.

Damn right I was shouting about being scammed just like everyone else.  The game is about to be released and they just dropped one of their kickstarter goals.  Offline and online is a HUGE deal for some people.  They are taking advantage of the man by using a legal loophole.   Call it what you want. 

rounner

Originally posted by rpmcmurphy

I see you got suspended or banned with only 6 posts on Frontier's forums.. I also see that you only started posting today and that all of your posts are shouting about being scammed. One has to wonder if you're simply trolling.

There is always an element of risk with crowd-funding or pre-ordering. Knowing this, you should have waited until release before buying the game.

 Did you just say they were banned for complaining, cause that's what it sounds like. Yet you try to phrase it as though the customer is at fault for buying one thing and getting another thing. Perhaps you're just trolling.

Po_gg

Originally posted by Precursor

Not classy at all. Shameful.

Agree. Even though I'm not a backer (don't like the idea of kickstarting, never do that - except in one case, just to prove the rule ) I'm a huge Elite fan since the C64 era and played all the (some cases pretty crappy) sequels and clones etc. too.

In my eyes ED was always a new Elite game, with some (insignificant) online mode slapped onto its back. Now they're saying offline mode is off the map... to be honest, if I'd be a backer, I'd be just as pissed as OP. Since I'm not, I can easily /shrug and walk away, scratching off ED of my waiting list. But still, as Precursor wrote, not classy. Not at all.

 

Hope Garriot is seeing this backlash though I think SotA's single mode is safe, it seems noone can be sure about anything until release nowadays...

GoldenArrow

ED is so much better with the online interactions anyways.

I can understand this for people who wanted an offline game but personally I'm happy that everyone is forced into the same ED universe. (Beta backer)

rpmcmurphy

Originally posted by rounner

Originally posted by rpmcmurphy

I see you got suspended or banned with only 6 posts on Frontier's forums.. I also see that you only started posting today and that all of your posts are shouting about being scammed. One has to wonder if you're simply trolling.

There is always an element of risk with crowd-funding or pre-ordering. Knowing this, you should have waited until release before buying the game.

 Did you just say they were banned for complaining, cause that's what it sounds like. Yet you try to phrase it as though the customer is at fault for buying one thing and getting another thing. Perhaps you're just trolling.

Well that would depend on the context of his posts wouldn't it. There's a way to discuss or argue and then there's a way not to.

If all that a post consists of, is essentially either SCAM, SCAMMED or THIS IS A SCAM with no other attempt at discourse, then yeah, he deserves to be sin-binned.

mayito7777

Sounds like bait and switch.

Uhwop

You don't get your money back when you donate to a charity and find out they used it for something other than what they said they would.

 

Isn't the only way to get into beta to donate to the crowdfunding of the game? 

 

Because crowdfunding is a donation, not a purchase, no matter if they give you the product or not.  Something a lot of people don't seem to understand. 

 

PS:  When you "buy" the beta edition, nowhere does it say that it is online or offline. 

The system requirement do state that an internet connection is required though. 

DarkHigh

Ethics are subjective.

If you were in their shoes and some kid is crying about a development path change for a game that is not in release status, that accepted they have paid money to fund a  project that will change during development, what would you do? Give them their money back? Why because they fail to read and accept the reason they backed the project? Because they really only wanted to play it early and don't care about the longevity of the game?

Next time read what you accept and if you don't agree with something take it to the devs, don't try to pull your backing like a child and cry on every forum you can find.

DarLorkar

Originally posted by darkhigh

Ethics are subjective.

If you were in their shoes and some kid is crying about a development path change for a game that is not in release status, that accepted they have paid money to fund a  project that will change during development, what would you do? Give them their money back? Why because they fail to read and accept the reason they backed the project? Because they really only wanted to play it early and don't care about the longevity of the game?

Next time read what you accept and if you don't agree with something take it to the devs, don't try to pull your backing like a child and cry on every forum you can find.

This is one of the most BS things i have read in a long while. 

 

Ethics are ethics,,,they are NOT subjective. You have them or not.

 

You stand by your word..if it is hard..well that is why they call it an ethical action ethics are not easy. Nor are they flexible depending on what day it is. 

 

Next time you go for a burger if they take your cash and then slap you and laugh....you gonna say oh well? Ethics are flexible?  Or subjective? I really doubt it. They advertise something you pay for it then they say cant do it sorry. Ethical thing to do is refund people for YOUR (Dev's in this case) change not  say oh well so sad too bad.

Howbadisbad

"Already Breaking promises"

Their pretty close to release, you need to calm down with this sensationalism.

DarkHigh

Originally posted by DarLorkar

Originally posted by darkhigh

Ethics are subjective.

If you were in their shoes and some kid is crying about a development path change for a game that is not in release status, that accepted they have paid money to fund a  project that will change during development, what would you do? Give them their money back? Why because they fail to read and accept the reason they backed the project? Because they really only wanted to play it early and don't care about the longevity of the game?

Next time read what you accept and if you don't agree with something take it to the devs, don't try to pull your backing like a child and cry on every forum you can find.

This is one of the most BS things i have read in a long while. 

 

Ethics are ethics,,,they are NOT subjective. You have them or not.

 

You stand by your word..if it is hard..well that is why they call it an ethical action ethics are not easy. Nor are they flexible depending on what day it is. 

 

Next time you go for a burger if they take your cash and then slap you and laugh....you gonna say oh well? Ethics are flexible?  Or subjective? I really doubt it. They advertise something you pay for it then they say cant do it sorry. Ethical thing to do is refund people for YOUR (Dev's in this case) change not  say oh well so sad too bad.

Ethics are subjective and there are three main approaches to ethics.  You should take some time to learn about the world you live in. The scenario you describe with the burger is violation of a law. Ethics are not legally binding with the exception of certain professions which have legally binding codes of ethics. An EMT would be an example of these professions.

Please think back to WHY the OP wants a refund. A feature discussed in a dev session and placed on the road map was removed. No matter what the reason is for that removal that does not entitle him to a refund. If I was a WoW player and bought the game solely because max level was 60 then blizzard releases an expansion that raises level cap. I would not be entitled to a refund because I ONLY bought the game for the level 60 level cap and they removed that feature.

 

Agent_Joseph

nothing wrong with no offline mode

You all who donate money on KS or similar crowfounding services ,should to know they are not responsible for what to spend collected money.They are free take that money and run.Stop crying and accept  pains of true.

KS ,crowfounding,early acces ... it is all mostly about cash grab,deal with it & accept risk when donate your money.

Boneserino

Originally posted by DarLorkar

Originally posted by darkhigh

Ethics are subjective.

If you were in their shoes and some kid is crying about a development path change for a game that is not in release status, that accepted they have paid money to fund a  project that will change during development, what would you do? Give them their money back? Why because they fail to read and accept the reason they backed the project? Because they really only wanted to play it early and don't care about the longevity of the game?

Next time read what you accept and if you don't agree with something take it to the devs, don't try to pull your backing like a child and cry on every forum you can find.

This is one of the most BS things i have read in a long while. 

 

Ethics are ethics,,,they are NOT subjective. You have them or not.

 

You stand by your word..if it is hard..well that is why they call it an ethical action ethics are not easy. Nor are they flexible depending on what day it is. 

 

Next time you go for a burger if they take your cash and then slap you and laugh....you gonna say oh well? Ethics are flexible?  Or subjective? I really doubt it. They advertise something you pay for it then they say cant do it sorry. Ethical thing to do is refund people for YOUR (Dev's in this case) change not  say oh well so sad too bad.

Yea thats nice and all but but this is game development here, there are plenty of other factors at play besides just,  "keeping your word". 

 

If they had continued to keep their word, then we might not be seeing the release of this game, at any time.  They may have continued to attempt this while being unsuccessful and thereby  having to cancel development altogether.   Nobody wins in this scenario.

 

But having said that, this is not merely a game feature they were promising.  This was an entire mode of play or IMO an actual second game.   It was just horrendously stupid of them to promise this at all without ensuring that it would be possible first.  

 

So I think we can accuse them of making stupid promises ( something I think we all do) but not of going back on their word.  They tried, they just couldn't do it. 

 

An honorable thing to do would be offer some compensation, but as a kickstarter game I really thing they have no obligation other than that.

 

But lets stop with the breaking their word crap.  People that paid were just as stupid in believing it could be done without waiting to see if it could be done.   Next time, don't believe everything you read.

Yamota

Although promising a feature and selling pre-orders/crowd funding based on those promises and then pull it is a bad practice, I was always dubious about this offline/online thing. For one, how would you prevent cheating if people could play it offline and hence hack the hell out of it and then go online.

Also, offline gaming is something I wish goes away eventually. An AI is nowhere near the level of a real human and won't be for many, many years so until then, online competetive/cooperative gaming should be the way forward.

Uhwop

Originally posted by mayito7777

Originally posted by Agent_Joseph

nothing wrong with no offline mode

You all who donate money on KS or similar crowfounding services ,should to know they are not responsible for what to spend collected money.They are free take that money and run.Stop crying and accept  pains of true.

KS ,crowfounding,early acces ... it is all mostly about cash grab,deal with it & accept risk when donate your money.

This is total BS, it is like telling a woman who was raped, oh it is your fault because you are  too pretty. ED has disrespected their players and now it is too late, they have lost all respect and credibility.

No, it's not like that at all, and it's it makes no sense that you would compare donating to the development of a game to rape. 

Put a little thought into your analogies instead of making such ridiculous comparisons. 

Just because you DONATED to the development of a game doesn't mean you get to direct how it's developed, nor does it entitle you to a refund.  They are under no obligation to do what you say, or to issue refunds. 

Yamota

Originally posted by darkhigh

Originally posted by DarLorkar

Originally posted by darkhigh

Ethics are subjective.

If you were in their shoes and some kid is crying about a development path change for a game that is not in release status, that accepted they have paid money to fund a  project that will change during development, what would you do? Give them their money back? Why because they fail to read and accept the reason they backed the project? Because they really only wanted to play it early and don't care about the longevity of the game?

Next time read what you accept and if you don't agree with something take it to the devs, don't try to pull your backing like a child and cry on every forum you can find.

This is one of the most BS things i have read in a long while. 

 

Ethics are ethics,,,they are NOT subjective. You have them or not.

 

You stand by your word..if it is hard..well that is why they call it an ethical action ethics are not easy. Nor are they flexible depending on what day it is. 

 

Next time you go for a burger if they take your cash and then slap you and laugh....you gonna say oh well? Ethics are flexible?  Or subjective? I really doubt it. They advertise something you pay for it then they say cant do it sorry. Ethical thing to do is refund people for YOUR (Dev's in this case) change not  say oh well so sad too bad.

Ethics are subjective and there are three main approaches to ethics.  You should take some time to learn about the world you live in. The scenario you describe with the burger is violation of a law. Ethics are not legally binding with the exception of certain professions which have legally binding codes of ethics. An EMT would be an example of these professions.

Please think back to WHY the OP wants a refund. A feature discussed in a dev session and placed on the road map was removed. No matter what the reason is for that removal that does not entitle him to a refund. If I was a WoW player and bought the game solely because max level was 60 then blizzard releases an expansion that raises level cap. I would not be entitled to a refund because I ONLY bought the game for the level 60 level cap and they removed that feature.

 

Ethics is NOT subjective. It deals with right and wrong, good and evil etc and even though some  people may think something is ethical where as some other do not, there is in a society a clear set of rules about what is and is not ethical. Only people who would argue that it is subjective are un-ethical people who want to defend an un-ethical action. Sort of like, yourself.

Darwa

Originally posted by Yamota

 

Ethics is NOT subjective. It deals with right and wrong, good and evil etc and even though some  people may think something is ethical where as some other do not, there is in a society a clear set of rules about what is and is not ethical. Only people who would argue that it is subjective are un-ethical people who want to defend an un-ethical action. Sort of like, yourself.

If that were true, there would be no war. 

 

 

Back on-topic: There are already a few threads discussing this, with this one being the most busy.

Yamota

Originally posted by Uhwop

Originally posted by mayito7777

Originally posted by Agent_Joseph

nothing wrong with no offline mode

You all who donate money on KS or similar crowfounding services ,should to know they are not responsible for what to spend collected money.They are free take that money and run.Stop crying and accept  pains of true.

KS ,crowfounding,early acces ... it is all mostly about cash grab,deal with it & accept risk when donate your money.

This is total BS, it is like telling a woman who was raped, oh it is your fault because you are  too pretty. ED has disrespected their players and now it is too late, they have lost all respect and credibility.

No, it's not like that at all, and it's it makes no sense that you would compare donating to the development of a game to rape. 

Put a little thought into your analogies instead of making such ridiculous comparisons. 

Just because you DONATED to the development of a game doesn't mean you get to direct how it's developed, nor does it entitle you to a refund.  They are under no obligation to do what you say, or to issue refunds. 

If someone asks you to donate to buy mosquito nets in some African country and then they turn around and say they will not buy those mosquito nets and instead spend it on some other cause then you are morally entitled to a refund because you gave money based on some pretext which was then summarily removed.

So OP is right, he should get a refund but he won't because morality =/= law.

Yamota

Originally posted by Darwa

Originally posted by Yamota

 

Ethics is NOT subjective. It deals with right and wrong, good and evil etc and even though some  people may think something is ethical where as some other do not, there is in a society a clear set of rules about what is and is not ethical. Only people who would argue that it is subjective are un-ethical people who want to defend an un-ethical action. Sort of like, yourself.

If that were true, there would be no war. 

 

 

Back on-topic: There are already a few threads discussing this, with this one being the most busy.

Irrelevant. Wars are not waged due to ethics but rather power and resources. Politicians, and other war mongers, may use the set of ethics for that particular country, which is why I said ethics are related to a society, to fool people to support that war but wars are not actually waged because of it.

mayito7777

Originally posted by Uhwop

Originally posted by mayito7777

Originally posted by Agent_Joseph

nothing wrong with no offline mode

You all who donate money on KS or similar crowfounding services ,should to know they are not responsible for what to spend collected money.They are free take that money and run.Stop crying and accept  pains of true.

KS ,crowfounding,early acces ... it is all mostly about cash grab,deal with it & accept risk when donate your money.

This is total BS, it is like telling a woman who was raped, oh it is your fault because you are  too pretty. ED has disrespected their players and now it is too late, they have lost all respect and credibility.

No, it's not like that at all, and it's it makes no sense that you would compare donating to the development of a game to rape. 

Put a little thought into your analogies instead of making such ridiculous comparisons. 

Just because you DONATED to the development of a game doesn't mean you get to direct how it's developed, nor does it entitle you to a refund.  They are under no obligation to do what you say, or to issue refunds. 

My analogy stands, when you donated to the kickstarter it was because they were promising something you liked it, then they turned around after they spent the money you gave and whatever they promised they changed for something different, that here there and anywhere is called a BIG FAT LIE. They deceived the people who donated money at the kickstarter, if they have said from the beginning no offline chance, many people wouldn't invested in their game, that my friend is deceitfulness.