Should more MMOs offer an offline mode? Many survival MMOs already do this

Sovrath

As mmorpg's are currently designed, probably not. With the exception of the more story based mmorpg's most are not designed well enough to be that interesting without the social element.

I think survival games have solo mode because building is actually an interesting pastime in and of itself.

Vrika

No.

Soloers and singleplayers are happy enough in current MMOs. If there are some elitist pricks who are unhappy, then we must look at whether it would be financially feasible to make another version of the game for them, but there's no reason to make an offline mode for those players who are already happy.

Octagon7711

Ozmodan said:

The entire point of a MMO is playing with others online.  If you offer single player mode it is not a MMO any more.  

Based on the company, the entire point of an MMO is profits.  Based on players, the entire point of an MMO differs.

Nilden

Why not just turn every single player game into a MMO by Adding a login screen and chat room?

Looking forward to MMO solitaire.

Elsabolts

No.

Theocritus

Ozmodan said:

The entire point of a MMO is playing with others online.  If you offer single player mode it is not a MMO any more.  

I've heard many Eve players say they have 4-5 accounts and most of them just use the offline training....Take away the offline training and maybe most of those accounts go away and less $.

Amathe

Stop! Don't encourage them to give me another reason to spend the day dicking around on my phone. 

Iselin

I don't know about a full-on offline mode but a direct tie-in between the online world and a stand-alone companion game would have a lot of appeal.

It's not like it hasn't been thought of already. That was after all the original intent for SC and Squadron 42. I have no idea whether they still plan to tie the two together and if so, to what extent but it was one of the things about Sc back in the early KS days that caught my attention.

Bioware could have easily done that with SWTOR and a new KOTOR game they never developed and I could easily see TES 6 and ESO doing something similar.

The trick would be to tie the SP game and MMO together in meaningful and fun ways without making the whole thing an exploitable joke. And by meaningful I mean something real about the game play itself from both affecting the game play of the other not just the usual marketing "buy game x and get a pink unicorn in game y!" type of shit.

Cryomatrix

If I remember, a lot of the hacks in Diablo 2, came from the offline or server mode 

Panther2103

Cryomatrix said:

If I remember, a lot of the hacks in Diablo 2, came from the offline or server mode 

Yeah they did, but then the only way you could use hacked items or characters was on the Open Battle.net servers which were just a cesspool of hacking. 

deniter

Great idea!

We could also start to call them single player games just for lolz (everyone would still know they're offline MMOs).

MMOExposed

what survival MMO do this?

MMOExposed

Rhoms said:

btdt said:

I think players want an offline mode so that they can play when they have no internet access.  Most of the game doesn't require other players.

[....]

Is the lack of internet access a real issue?

Yeah it is. With Cost of Living going up while minimum wage is still as low as 8 dollars in some places, people cant afford 200$ a month Internet.

Barrikor

I kinda feel like the (non-MMO) RPGs are already filling this niche.

KnightFalz

I wouldn't say that they should, but I'm not opposed to it being on offer, especially in games that may have an uncertain online future but that I still personally enjoy.

One of the reasons I bought into Shadow of the Avatar was that I knew I could still play the game offline if it should happen to end out closing online.

As far as the issue of internet access being a problem, I can afford to maintain that but occasionally the service goes down. Games with an offline mode provide another option for entertainment in that circumstance.

DrunkWolf

this is what we have devolved to?

Sovrath

Torval said:

Sovrath said:

As mmorpg's are currently designed, probably not. With the exception of the more story based mmorpg's most are not designed well enough to be that interesting without the social element.

I think survival games have solo mode because building is actually an interesting pastime in and of itself.

I can't totally agree with that. I do agree that traditional MMO design would make server setup, config, and management an impossible nightmare for most in their current state. They would need to be packaged more like Conan Exiles so players wouldn't need to manage the fiddly bits.

Most of the hassle in setting up servers and systems are getting all the technical pieces to work right. Which db engine does it run on? What version and does that need special licensing. What software platform does server scripting run on. The server client itself is likely C++ with Java, Python, or C# bindings for scripting. If most people were lost at "db engine" they got shot out of the park with language scripting. So all that needs to be available but packaged in a way "everyone" can use it.

Building is for "for you". It's not my favorite activity, but I do enjoy it sometimes. I enjoy mob farming and exploration. I'd totally play through EQ2, LotRO, SWL, and ESO solo. I play them that way now.

With a private server setup the entire game could be tuned differently like a Conan Exiles server can be tuned so it could be manageable solo or with a few friends or family (however you want to play it). With access to the scripting backend you could play around with scripting events and the like. It sounds like a blast to me.

I think standard theme park or even Asian grinding games would be a bit lackluster without the eventual player interaction.

I will admit that, the other day, I wanted to turn off all players in Elder Scrolls Online.

Rhoms

ikcin said:

MMOExposed said:

Rhoms said:

btdt said:

I think players want an offline mode so that they can play when they have no internet access.  Most of the game doesn't require other players.

[....]

Is the lack of internet access a real issue?

Yeah it is. With Cost of Living going up while minimum wage is still as low as 8 dollars in some places, people cant afford 200$ a month Internet.

I pay 17 USD per month for 200 Mbps, the price for 1000 Mbps is 59 USD. The price for 25 Mbps is 7 USD. Obviously you live in US

I wonder what percentage of the western population wants to play MMORPGs badly but can't because they can't afford internet access or get access to free internet.  Even so, what percentage of that population would elect to play an MMORPG in offline mode as opposed to a single player/local co-op game?  How would they download an MMORPG or any game?  How would they pay for their games?  Subs and microtransactions would pretty much be out of the question.

My point is that this and most hobbies have some sort of barrier to entry, and I don't think other players or developers would gain much from trying to bring on this very very small demographic.

Scot

KnightFalz said:

I wouldn't say that they should, but I'm not opposed to it being on offer, especially in games that may have an uncertain online future but that I still personally enjoy.

One of the reasons I bought into Shadow of the Avatar was that I knew I could still play the game offline if it should happen to end out closing online.

As far as the issue of internet access being a problem, I can afford to maintain that but occasionally the service goes down. Games with an offline mode provide another option for entertainment in that circumstance.

Can you explain how this works in SotA? So what can you do, make, earn and achieve that translates to the multiplayer version?

someforumguy

Most modern MMORPG's can't offer an offline mode. The client is too limited. It is not just a question of adding a 'mode'. Like with multiplayer games. Even with those multiplayer games, they usually plan this ahead to add it later. This is not done with a MMORPG. So it is not a small change.

I am getting the impression that some here don't understand what it means if you have a 'client' that connects to a 'server'.

A server is not about hardware, it is about the software it runs. In the case of a MMORPG, this usually means that the bulk of the code is not in your client software, but is handled by the server software. It is done this way, because of the scalability and being able to handle 100s of players in the same region. Meaning that it could be engineered for example to run on several computers, but still act as one server. It is designed from the ground up this way. You can't just add that to a client without a lot of work.

With survival games, the server part is often designed to be part of the client. Think minecraft. It can be both server and client, if you open up your game to other people. A dedicated server in this case, is a thinned down client, with just the server side of things to handle the world. Point being, the game is designed from the ground up to act as a single player game.

Cazriel

Blizzard is all-in on 'multiplayer'.  They even forced multiplayer on the single-player Diablo fanbase.  They began with Legion and are continuing with BfA to make WoW much less solo-player friendly.  They would never, ever consider this.

That said, I've never understood the hostility of the old school MMO players towards soloers.  Solo players populate the world, use the AH, grab crafting nodes, show up for landscape boss fights, answer questions in chat and reply if you talk to them.  The idea that soloers are some sort of alien being that has no right to even BE in an MMO is really a kind of xenophobia.  "You're different from me and ruin my day by  just existing.  Ugh." 

The argument that if only They did not exist our World would be perfect for Us is lame.  If They did not play your game, your game probably wouldn't exist in the form it does now.  You can't remove a significant part of the player population and expect to have paradise.  Yet, it appears that many players think just that. 

If an MMO such as WoW offered a server configured for solo play, including dungeons, restricting the ability to move a solo-only character to other servers designed exclusively for group play, I'd be for it.  I wouldn't be that excited about an offline mode.  But a solo-only server playing with lots of other solo players, an active AH and help when I need it?  I'd be for that.   

Slapshot1188

DrunkWolf said:

this is what we have devolved to?

Indeed.  Apparently, we are discussing if a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game. MMO. Should also include the exact opposite.  Singleplayer in offline mode.  And that this is supposed to be something "old school" players would embrace.

I have seen plenty of strange threads.  I may have started a few myself.  But this one just makes me want to take a brick and hit myself in the head until I pass out.

I can see the follow-up thread already: Can a game really be considered an MMO if it only has Massively Multiplayer Online gameplay, or is offline single player a necessary component to be a true MMO...

Slapshot1188

ikcin said:

Slapshot1188 said:

DrunkWolf said:

this is what we have devolved to?

Indeed.  Apparently, we are discussing if a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game. MMO. Should also include the exact opposite.  Singleplayer in offline mode.  And that this is supposed to be something "old school" players would embrace.

I have seen plenty of strange threads.  I may have started a few myself.  But this one just makes me want to take a brick and hit myself in the head until I pass out.

I can see the follow-up thread already: Can a game really be considered an MMO if it only has Massively Multiplayer Online gameplay, or is offline single player a necessary component to be a true MMO...

Can you play 90% of WoW, BDO, ESO offline? So why not, if these games are called MMOs.

Are you asking why you can't play a Massively Multiplayer ONLINE game offline?

I think I need a bigger brick.

Wizardry

I don't need a brick anymore,i just accept that MANY people don't have much common sense and when comes to arguments or opinions,they will simply insult me "easier to do" because they are usually not intelligent enough to form their own opinions.
So rather than trying to make sense from so many bad ideas that are trying to make some sense,i usually just sort of laugh and shake my head,drop my head in disbelief and think ,well should i be surprised.

The bigger picture is that MANY developers don't "GET IT" either.

It all reminds me of how many times i read gamer's trying to tell us that RMT and cash shops are good and not a problem at all.

Nilden

Slapshot1188 said:

ikcin said:

Slapshot1188 said:

DrunkWolf said:

this is what we have devolved to?

Indeed.  Apparently, we are discussing if a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game. MMO. Should also include the exact opposite.  Singleplayer in offline mode.  And that this is supposed to be something "old school" players would embrace.

I have seen plenty of strange threads.  I may have started a few myself.  But this one just makes me want to take a brick and hit myself in the head until I pass out.

I can see the follow-up thread already: Can a game really be considered an MMO if it only has Massively Multiplayer Online gameplay, or is offline single player a necessary component to be a true MMO...

Can you play 90% of WoW, BDO, ESO offline? So why not, if these games are called MMOs.

Are you asking why you can't play a Massively Multiplayer ONLINE game offline?

I think I need a bigger brick.

You might as well wear your pants on your head too.