Offline Play?

So when does "finished" now happen in a game that is supposed to be continuously worked on? Do these features get dropped in at some point two or three years from now? By most definitions, when a product is launched, it is "finished." If the game is not "finished," then why is it out of early access?

No one would tolerate an iPhone launching without the ability to perform text messages, a car shipping without a steering wheel, or a refrigerator that doesn't get cold, so why is it suddenly acceptable for a game developer to release a game missing advertised features?

So let me tell you how it happens in the real world: Microsoft Office, when released, would have Excel, because any sane person looks at the release to the general public as a finished, as in done, product. They would be excoriated by businesses and customers should they try to play semantics like you are doing and would most likely end up in a lawsuit.

Unless they are big corporations vs small corporations, amiright? And small corporations are not responsible to follow through on advertised features because they don't have financial resources.

If things changed, and they often do, the least they could do is come to the people who helped back them from Kickstarter and through the early access program and clearly tell them what's changed, why, and if they can see them down the road. A sticky at the top of the forum, a blog posting, something. Not hidden away in an unsearchable livestream or some random forum message.

Of course money affects the comparison. How is it a double-standard?

I never said you didn't have the right to be critical, please don't any more silly arguments. You're two for two, so far.

1. Given that Uber publicly redefined what they meant by 1.0, the release of the game, and the features available at that time . . . finished happens when they're finished with it. They've been very upfront about the changes they've had to make to their development roadmap.

2. iPhones not having SMS capabilities is a far cry from offline play in a predominantly MP RTS game with eSports aspirations. That'd be more like . . . MP not working. Or a key component of MP not working. Replays maybe? The ChronoCam implementation and all related to that.

You can judge offline play to be important to yourself, but that's a subjective milestone. Compared to what else the game needed implementing, offline play is not a priority to be considered an MP RTS.

Another stupid analogy, I guess.

3. In the real world? It was a hypothetical situation whereby Microsoft indulged in Early Access and pushed back Excel on their development track due to focusing on other priorities. It was a contrived situation. It was completely made-up, and poorly at that

4. Given that Uber publicly redefined . . . oh, damnit, I'm repeating myself. Any company doesn't have to follow through on advertised features. They can suffer for this, and they can be brought to suit for it. Feel free to do so, instead of throwing your ego around a web forum.

I doubt you have much of a case, given the transparency from Uber on the situation, however.

There have been kickstarters fulfilled with just a single item released and development given up on afterwards forever. People tried to legally fight it, people failed as it is vague to begin with just what you are getting from funding a product before development so if you get any sort of product it pretty much fulfills the sale.

This is from worse kickstarters. As if PA is the worse game in existance. Because it totally got a 0 by so many random reviews submitted by randoms.

What would those randoms rate a worse game, if they give a 0 to PA? A negative number? At least official reviewers are like "this could use some things, but it functions, so a 6 then". I am starting to appreciate the reviews not having an agenda unlike some organized mobs currently after this game...

Rather than offer any argument for your position, you'll attempt to ridicule; well played. This is sure to convince everyone your position is the correct one.

Resorting to attacks just show your arguments don't carry any weight on their own.

I'm allowed to call your analogy stupid. That isn't a personal attack at all.

Once again you deflect attention from responding to attempt to cry about some kind of personal slur. Peace out, yo, I won't be replying to you from this point forward.

1. I understand that. The problem is they have not given anyone a roadmap on what else is coming down the pike. At this point they could abandon the game and we would have no recourse.

2.Please show me where this game is a predominantly MP-RTS. Where is the ladder? Where is matchmaking? These are basic components of RTS games with competitive aspirations.

I would say that you are completely wrong on this. The vast majority of RTS games are played in single player mode against the AI. Mavor has said Planetary Annihilation was seeing the same thing in their stats. You don't have internet for a length of time? Your game is pretty solar system simulator (the system designer still works). The rest of the game is non functioning. That is worse than the IPhone without SMS capabilities. At least the IPhone is still use able.

Obviously, that analogy was suboptimal.

3. It was a farcical situation. Sometimes you use the farcical to illustrate a point. That point being that when something is released, it is done. Microsoft would not have done what Uber did because they would face legal consequences (people are always looking for a piece of Microsoft's scalp).

They could try to be the caricature of George R.R. Martin in South Park, just keep telling everyone the dragons are coming and it will be really cool when they get here and stall indefinitely. I guess...

4. You really are repeating yourself here. Stop with the ad hominems.

1. They could, and you wouldn't. This ties into the point about legal action.

2. It has MP functionality, and is an RTS. We were discussing offline play, weren't we? Why are you shifting the goalposts to other features? This entire thread is about offline play.

Offline play is not a required part of an MP RTS.

The vast majority of RTS games are played offline? That's not an MP RTS. That's an SP RTS. You're inventing facts - whereas I'm assuming nothing other than the goal of PA to be a predominantly online platform.

If PA was played against the AI predominantly, that can be done with an Internet connection. The game requirements list it, as far as I'm aware. You're hinging on offline play for fringe cases, based on numbers that you yourself are inventing. It's asinine, please stop it.

3. Stop shifting the goalposts. It was a terrible analogy, and had relation to Uber's situation with PA.

4. What ad hominem was used? Can you clarify that for me?

You are throwing your ego around. It's a statement of fact. You're trying to throw around legal phrases, but you're not actually intending any legal action.

If you wanted Uber to be actually held accountable to these fantasy scenarios involving Microsoft you're making up . . . you'd take it through the proper legal channels. You're not doing so, and simply using them as a point to be made in an Internet argument.

The PA Replay tab shows that more matches are singleplayer than multiplayer.

This alone doesn't disprove you Gorbles. The game does have functionality where needed. If so many players are playing single player matches, they are apparently doing so with online play, so it apparently works.

As far as functionality, the game functions much like a game. Why so upset?

Again, I doubt "waiting for offline" and letting the game fade into perpetual beta and still not even having this stable build made from acute focus on a set of features deemed release... Would have been better than what they did instead. Especially when, in the grand scheme of things, you get offline at the same time anyway.

At the end of the day, I argue across 20 threads, but all I ever argue about is things that will be in this game in a few more months of development whether they released Sept. 5 or next April. It won't develop faster just because it isn't released, if anything with a more stable build they can build side-stuff without having to divide attention. There is no way to "magically make the features work now" so why won't people accept that as fact and wait?

The arguements are always the same, that release was supposed to have them so release should have waited. Can people not buy essentially what Starcraft is without it being called incomplete? Is it always going to be false advertizing? With as many complaint threads across all forms of media, I find it harder and harder to believe people couldn't find where it says this game requires internet. How are people misinformed when the information isn't necesarily hidden?

Game servers are shut down all the time. Once sold, they are under no obligation to keep the servers up for you. You are at the mercy of their services. They could simply shut the servers down (due to bankruptcy or some other reason) and that's it, no more PA. It is the same thing with Steam. You shut that service down, you no longer have access to your games.

As to your second argument, we were talking about offline, but you asserted that PA is a primarily a MP RTS with esports aspirations, and your conclusion is therefore offline is not required. You brought it up, and I responded. Uber's employees have said that they see a disproportionate level of players playing single player vs the AI. And you yourself can look at the replay stats, a large number of them are against AI. RTS games are primarily played in single player vs the AI. Which is why they hired "Sorian" because of his amazing work with RTS AI.

Can you please show where it was said that PA is a primarily MP RTS, because right now you are making facts up as you go. And even IF it was what you say it was, there is no ladder and no matchmaking service which all competitive RTS games have.

I still get slowdowns playing the game due to slow sim performance of the server. Playing against an AI should not require you to connect to these slow servers.

As to the Microsoft analogy, I think you forgot who brought it up. However, it is not shifting goalposts, it was bringing up an analogy to support the main argument. One which you attempt to throw out because Uber doesn't have the resources that Microsoft or EA does, there is a different standard applied to them.

As to your other point, not wanting to have a game always online is a fringe case now? So now we move from accusing people of moving goalposts to making a bandwagon fallacy argument? Just because there are numerically smaller amount of people (although this may not be true) who argue for a position doesn't make the position wrong. A customer wanting a DRM Free game is not a fringe case. You should see what Uber had to say about that, since they obviously supported those "fringe" ideas back when they Kickstarted the game:

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ihilation-a-next-generation-rts/posts?page=20

What about asking for developers to follow through on their pledges? Without those kickstarter people and early backers, WE WOULD NOT BE EVEN TALKING ABOUT THIS GAME NOW! These people paid for their game just the same as you. They are entitled to the product they were sold.

Your only response is to disengage from the debate. "Peace out, yo?" Ha ha. This whole dialog was worth it just for that witty retort.

Game servers are shutdown all the time. I fail to see how that's relevant, however. Could've easily missed the point you're intending, though.

We were talking about offline. I did assert PA was primarily an MP RTS with eSports aspirations. I did not assert that offline play was therefore not required in Planetary Annihilation. Nor have I once so far. We were debating the issue of it not being present at the official 1.0 release of the game, relating to Uber's changing development roadmap.

I said with regards to an MP RTS, offline play is not required. To call the game an MP RTS, offline play is not required. I didn't say that PA therefore didn't require offline play.

PA is an RTS. The developers have placed a great importance on traditional eSports features (often absent in other RTS games until a later date) such as spectating, Twitch.tv support and the replays support. Ergo, one of their main priorities has been getting this infrastructure in place. This predicates an online Internet connection - though after checking the Steam requirements do not list an Internet connection as something that is required.

PA have a single offering with regards to single-player play. Galactic War. The Steam categories are as follows: Single-player. Multi-player. Cross-Platform Multiplayer and Co-op. Three of those require an Internet connection, or at the very least a LAN connection (which, contrary to popular belief, isn't a thing most families have setup in their houses. Common for students in higher and further education in shared dwelling, but that's about it).

From this, I draw the conclusion that PA is primarily an MP game, with a focus on eSports features (nevermind the focus on balance that has also spearheaded entire community initiatives on the subject. You don't go to such an effort to balance a game if the primary selling point is games against the AI).

I agree that you shouldn't have to be online, or connected to a server, to play against the AI. However, I do not consider this a priority for such a game. And in all honesty, I'd imagine it's incredibly hard to separate out. Your PC can run the game, no doubt. But can it handle the simulation of both client and server at the same time? A more challenging aspect, to be sure. The game would need to be more optimised than it currently is (shoutout to @varrak for some amazing recent work on that). The way the server handles logic processing would change given that servers operate on a different frame rate to that of the clients. This is a set of assumptions based on your need for a complete lack of dependence on any form of server, of course (just to be clear).

The analogy was one you took up, and as such you bear responsibility for how it is used. Additionally, neither you or the other I was talking to refuted the counterargument that larger or smaller corporations have different standards on what they consider delivering on a product (if you did, I missed it, sorry). I mean, to be honest, if we were being this needlessly specific, doesn't delaying a game's release affect your theoretical enjoyment of the game far, far more? More than some performance issues as your game's scale exceeds that the servers currently cope with.

Having offline play is a fringe case, yes. It's not a fallacy at all, simply because I fully expect Uber to support it. At some point. However, I've already corrected your mistaken assumption that I don't think it is required, so hopefully that's a moot point.

As for following through with your pledges, refer back to 3 or 4 posts ago where I point out that Uber's roadmap has changed and they have, in general, been incredibly open about this.

And finally, you still haven't asserted what ad hominem was used. All you're doing is tossing out the accusation of fallacy (you've done this more than once now) without actually explaining why. Which in itself is a form of fallacy, I think.

A meteorite, an earthquake, a crazy person with a bomb could destroy Uber entertainment on a day when all the staff are present. You no longer have an active development team and the offsite servers no longer have a revenue stream keeping them in place. And you no longer have a functioning game. Because they force you to be online.

Seriously? You are telling everyone that PA is a MP RTS and that MP RTS games are not required to have offline play, yet I'm not supposed to think you also mean PA, especially when you say that single player games against the AI are fine with being online only. I'm not a mind reader.

Holy splitting hairs Batman!

If eSports and MP RTS was of such an importance to Uber, they would have added ladders, matchmaking, and standard maps (with predictable metal deposits) to their release version. You cannot have a true competitive game if metal deposits (the only truly limited resource in the game) are not equally distributed to ensure equal opportunity for success. That's why Warcraft III, Starcraft I/II were/are the kings of eSport RTS.

I contend that the game was built to be a spiritual successor to the SupCom games and Total Annihilation which included all their aspects (that worked). The multiplayer aspects of PA were tacked on during the gamma phase of the game (thank god), after they had a strong AI in place. I firmly believe that if they wanted to focus on eSports and multiplayer (which I don't think they are doing), then they made a mistake. ESports and competitive multiplayer's audience is like, I guess, 10-20% of the community? They depend on an ever increasing base of players and viewers, otherwise we get a collapse in players. See Starcraft II.

The vast majority, especially in RTS, of gamers play in single player mode or in random small games with their friends.

Well, offline/DRM free was the only feature that they repeatedly gave a timeline for (launch,release, finished) in multiple places. They pledged it over two years ago and if they just now started working on the offline in the past couple of months, then they had their priorities wrong.

What I stated earlier is that I believe they have artificially delayed the offline mode to deter piracy of the game. It is still wrong to do so, but I would understand that if they were honest about it.

Delaying the game's release to include as much polish and features as possible seemed to be the overwhelming consensus of the members on the forum here and in other places as well. I would have been completely fine with them delaying the game, as they did just that last year in December. I am still having sim lag when playing. There is NO save feature??? (I know the awesome features they have planned with the chronocam, they should have waited to release the game when it was ready).

I have learned how to play the game pretty well, but there are literally no tutorials on how to play the game included with the game and the UI is very unintuitive and clunky. The learning curve is really steep for new players without already knowing how to play. And they will get slaughtered in MP if they attempt it. I think the gameplay is awesome, but that is because I have gotten used to its quirks and know the hotkeys. But a newbie? I doubt it.

They may have made contractual obligations with Nordic (who knows). But I would be far more at ease if it was external contractual pressure that did this (I can't speak for others).

I accept that things change. But their standard retort of SOON doesn't cut it here. I was fine with "Always Online" during development, as it helped them develop the game and send out patches for game breaking issues. I am not fine with it now. It has been over a week since launch with no dev communication on this issue and what their timetable is, even a loose measurable timetable is better than silence or SOON! People are smearing the game all over their storefront on steam and their forums there (mainly about the offline not being present) and not one developer has come out and said anything against it. They are leaving it up to SXX, who is not a developer, just a really helpful individual to quell the crazy and take the brunt of the attacks. This is when they will get a large amount of sales so it makes absolutely no sense their silence on this issue. They pledged to have it in the base game over two years ago.

And offline play is most definitely not a" fringe case" in a game self advertising as DRM Free and with a player base that plays most games against AIs. A DRM Free game does not accuse you of being a pirate until verification with some server farm. Even if it is a "fringe case," because it is not a majority held opinion, the argument is without merit?

You specifically attacked people's character to try and discredit their arguments. Ad Hominem.

I feel like we are getting into a circular argument at this point. Can we just start paraphrasing each other's points into canned responses?

Inventing disaster scenarios, good times.

Chain of logic, follow the posts. You're mixing posts up to conveniently conflate the points I made. Try harder.

Sure, I'm pedantic. You are as well - this isn't a noteworthy point or a counterargument in any form.

We're not talking about other games. We're not talking about games developed (with a single exception, though SC2's eSports success is predicated on a) Blizzard funding and b) not changing anything from SC1 even to the detraction of design evolution) when Internet was based around a 56k dial-up modem.

We're talking about PA. You consider aspects tacked-on. I don't. Certainly, other people don't either. Your opinion - and your own only. We have to look at the available features and the aspects Uber intends to focus on and draw our conclusions from that - nomatter how tacked-on you consider them.

I can't believe it's taken 10 posts to get to the core issue/the core reason you're basing your entire premise on.

You're free to it, I've wasted enough time trying to shift your perspective in other areas. If piracy is a factor, then Uber are free to protect that however they see fit. I disagree, personally - online access only prevents piracy for so long, there are cracked Steam clients out there for crying out loud. Delaying the game even further just to prevent piracy is a bit of a silly assumption (consider how long the game's been public for).

There are a lot of aspects of the game that need work. However we're edging into different territory - that of delaying the game, which I don't really see the need to.

The advantage of releasing the game "properly" is that more people get to play the game, or aren't put off by the Early Access tag. It doesn't negatively impact you in any way, shape or form. Conversely, delaying the game affects those (unknown) quantities adversely - while still allowing you to play the game unimpeded.

You can play the game. Why does the game need "delaying"? Considering Uber are still working on the game, what actual benefit does this grant?

Seven whole days without communication? Heavens above, and gamers complain when they're called entitled? It's up to Uber to decide when to talk about specific issues. However negatively that affects their PR or customer loyalty is something they obviously have to weigh up internally - outside of any speculation by you or I.

Gamers will complain about anything. Offline Mode would be fantastic, and would help a lot of people. I hope it comes soon as well. However, mentioning people slamming it on Steam? People slam anything on Steam, for any reason. People review-bombed Portal 2 for having cosmetic DLC at release.

They'd just complain about something else. Maybe the UI issues you've highlighted. Or the lack of a tutorial. Or the lategame performance. Or anything else that you've mentioned thus far. People will complain about anything. It's up to Uber to address these in the manner that they can.

And hey, if "SOON" doesn't help, what do you expect them to do? Magically roll out a complete, functional Offline Mode? What do you realistically expect here, if declarations of "SOON" don't work?

You're not an employee. You're not a shareholder. You have absolutely zero ground to demand insight into their internal workflow.

I didn't attack your character once. I asked for how I did this, not a repetitive definition of what an ad hominem is (it also doesn't need capitalising).

It could happen. And there would be no game access. Just illustrating the risks (however remote) of always online games.

Your posts are clearly telling me that you consider PA to be a MP RTS. And you stated repeatedly that MP RTS games are not required to have offline play. I am still waiting on you to explain why you are making an exception for PA when you twisted yourself into a pretzel trying to say it did not need to be always online. If it is supposed to be an ESports MP RTS, why is it now different than the others?

Well I am talking about other games because you apparently don't know what constitutes an ESports title. You can't legitimately call PA an ESports title if the base game doesn't have similar features to those RTS titles. The players here in the forums are modding some ESports functionality into the game through PA Stats. If PA was primarily a MP RTS with ESports aspirations, they would have that functionality already in the base game AT LAUNCH.

You predicate your argument that PA is a MP RTS with ESport aspirations, when evidence is brought to the contrary that it is not what it is being used for by a large majority of its players. They did not run their Kickstarter stating PA was going to be the next ESports MP RTS. Their player base is largely playing against the AI in single player. This is true even in an ESports RTS title like Starcraft II where over 50% of their players never even played an online match. The ESports thing is only popular here on the forums. Which is fine, but it is not what the game is.

Always online is the only DRM that is yet to be cracked fully to where the cracked version are a 1:1 replacement of the original game. It is completely different than cracked Steam clients. When you have all the data for the game on the server, you run the game from the server. My client is basically the art assets and some functions enabled by their servers so I could mod the game. No one could run the game without the assets of the server available. Which is why the game is lagging in the sim so much, because when you have 8 large games going on at once on their servers, your game is affected whether you have been playing for 3 minutes or 3 hours.

You don't think the game needed to be delayed? Have you played the game recently? Given the amount of .exe crashes, the slowdowns in sim speed, the server disconnects, the unintuitive UI, the missing ladders (wait I thought this was an ESports title?), the missing matchmaking, almost no tutorial, no offline, no 40 player games, naval combat still a joke, no water planet biomes, no asteroid belts, no unit cannon, etc. the game should have been delayed again. They have already done so once last year, they could have done so again. But like I said, the piracy concerns (which Neutrino/Mavor has mentioned before) and the obligations with Nordic may have necessitated their release.

As to the advantage of releasing now, sure they get a nice monetary boost. But the people who may give it a second chance now that it is out of early access will see the reviews coming out from professional reviewers and users alike. How many people have been influenced by the negative reviews on the steam storefront? If they lose potential sales because of this release, it does affect me and everyone who wants this game to succeed. Which is why you don't see me running through this forum and others slamming this game. Keeping my comments in the Backer's forum keeps it from the general population.

I want to see a revival of the RTS genre because there have been a drought of games in this area for a long while. Their are 75 million active users on steam, I want PA to get as good of a release as possible. It is a moot point now, but the release was too early.

Games coming from major companies, especially Valve, don't have to worry about reviews as much because they have a large dedicated fan base. EA games frequently put out titles that get mediocre reviews and still will end up with a boatload of players. They especially don't have to worry about reviews coming from people slamming them for cosmetic DLC. That is not in the same category as Uber getting slammed for no offline mode, performance and UI issues, no tutorial, etc.

Considering the storm that the offline mode (amongst other issues) has raised over in the steam community and the top reviews there are all mentioning it, yeah it is really stupid not to come out and say anything about them for over a week. It is really stupid not to give even a general timeline, but instead players are given a snarky "SOON" comment. This is when they are generating a lot of sales. No communication is a stupid move.

I agree, people will complain about anything. However, the UI issues, performance (which happens in early and lategame with sim perfomance), lack of tutorial, and lack of offline and the like are all legitimate criticisms of the game. I do have to say that some of the stuff I have read on steam are completely idiotic. My favorite comments were from people who seemed to have never played RTS games before and were bashing it for. . . being an RTS, or those who were complaining about no differences between the commander skins or factions.

You British and your grammar/spelling errors.

That is spelled "capitalizing" in 'Murica!

As to your other point, you were insinuating that people are criticizing the game because of their ego and not because of their legitimate problems with it. One can have an ego and still be correct in their criticisms. I could just as well say that your ego prevents you from honestly debating and therefore your arguments are suspect. Bill Clinton was an adulterer, but it still doesn't preclude him from being right on some issues. He just can't claim to be the moral authority in discussions.

1. It could happen to Valve. It could happen to EA. It would wreck most of their products, and their digitial distribution services (that are required to run the game). Even Steam's Offline Mode would break eventually (have you not noticed that it demands to be updated when you start the program?). So would Origin's (even though EA had that mode in from the client's launch, and didn't have it broken and buggy for two years like Valve did).

It's a disaster scenario, and it's contrived. It applies to DotA 2, LoL, HoN and any other "online-only" game I can pull out of a hat. It's not a realistic argument.

2. The dissonance here, I think, is that I meant that MP RTS games do not require offline play, but you took this to mean I didn't think PA would need or therefore have offline play based on my assertions. I thought I'd cleared this up already.

3. You can crack Steam clients. Odds are, you'd be able to crack a PA client as well. If people can spoof authentication to Steam servers, I'll bet my bottom dollar they can do it to Uber as well. Both services use the same model - a lightweight client that connects to and utilises the beef of the server(s) on the other end. PA obviously uses the servers for a lot more than just displaying Store information, but then again the entire Steamworks functionality is from the server-side as well.

It is one of the strongest ways of keeping a game crack-free. However, it isn't immune to being cracked. Ergo, that's not an argument to release the game in the state that it is - especially considering the game assets have been in the public domain for so long already.

4. I said "with eSports aspirations". I'm not sure if this is unintentional or not, but you seem to be doing your damndest to misintepret any possible thing you can - even after calling me out for being pedantic (irony, etc)!

Yes, the game still requires plenty of features with regards to this. However, the key cornerstones of balance, streaming support and replays exist. You can create and publicise tournaments with this infrastructure (as people already have done).

Refer back to my point(s) about how a non-competitive game wouldn't focus on balance, etc - when you were arguing from the perspective that the dominant market is offline play against the AI (why balance that so rigorously?).

5. You're misinterpreting my argument (again). I asked you for the tangible benefits of delaying the game, barring Metacritic scores and other review-based stuff that people don't really pay much attention to. This isn't the AAA industry where review scores are paid for.

People will review any game badly, if they want to. I've seen enough games slammed to know this for a fact. PA has it's own vibrant community - people will come later if they're put off at the moment, as they see the game improve. I myself have managed to convince a lot of people to get this game since it went Gamma, compared to when it went Beta. This is a personal anecdote, of course, and not a rule - however so are your experiences with the game and its shortcomings and your guesses as to how this will affect the product's purchasing power.

6. We made the language, get out

I didn't insinuate anything of the sort. You were throwing your ego (your sense of self; your ID, your personal opinions wrapped up in a ball of "objectivity") around this thread, demanding attention. You vaguely threatened legal action. You drew class action lawsuit comparisons to companies like Microsoft.

This isn't an ad hominem, or anything of the sort. I didn't say that your ego invalidated any point - or anyone elses' ego did, for that matter. I said for you to stop inferring vaguaries r.e. legal action for Uber not following through with "promises" and actually act upon it.

I never got a response to such a challenge. You selectively ignored various points made for a while - which can't have helped, though thankfully you seem to be addressing my points individually now.

DotA 2 is not online-only, you can play offline. HoN, I assume you mean Heroes of Newerth, is not online-only, you can play offline. LoL IS online only. What is the similarity of these games? They are all MOBA's. With horrible Bot AI. That are designed from the ground up for multiplayer. PA is NOT a MOBA. Which is primarily played in a singleplayer mode. It is clearly not Starcraft II, which I believe at the moment the only other always online RTS game. However, it was designed from the ground up as a definite MP RTS, with monetization, ladders, matchmaking and the like. Not like PA.

And when their servers go down? You have a non functioning product, just like PA. At least with DotA, HoN, and LoL being F2P, you don't PAY for the privilege of having your game taken away when you can't connect to their servers.

Got it. However, I still don't know why you felt the need to bring up that MP RTS games don't necessarily need offline when it didn't apply to PA anyways? That just feels like a lot of superfluous writing when it didn't need to be said.

Right.

Wrong.

If they are running the game from the server, like in Diablo III, you won't ever be able to crack the game unless you are able to get the server binaries. Diablo III still has not been cracked because of this and won't likely ever be cracked because of this. People who pirate Diablo III run it from a crappy minimally functioning emulated server.

Because an unbalanced game is not fun? Taking this to a logical conclusion, if a game is not engineered for ESports or competitive multiplayer, it is going to be inherently unbalanced? You don't need to necessarily have a "human" multiplayer match to see imbalance issues, be they glaring or otherwise. And I take issue that balance will ever be a "feature" since people will always find an exploit or cheese tactic, and you don't need to perform them against another human to find it.

The twitch features are a nice to have feature, and so are replays. But replays have been present in games as early as Age of Empires. In 1997. Before ESports.

If this was supposed to be a focus of the game, they would have standard features in other ESports games I have already mentioned. At Launch.

HA! Isn't that the truth!

So is Valve going to put PA up on the storefront front page every time it gets an update? Because this is a highly visible period and all the glaringly obvious missing features are being showcased to potential buyers, like:

No Saving--- REALLY??
UI still is really clunky (people still don't know about PIP, no explanation of what certain planets do, how do you know which stargate connects to where, etc)
No tutorial (Some steam reviewers need this because they are missing stuff we are taking for granted)
No tooltips (Better hope no newbies are playing this game)
Sim speed slowdowns, server disconnections- kind of ties with offline (except server disconnections, which are crashes)
No ladders or matchmaking
No offline

Those are serious issues that a release version of this game should not have. ESPECIALLY when Uber pledged less than a year ago to release the game when it was done! AKA for you: finished

http://www.uberent.com/pa/2013/12/06/planetary-annihilation-now-coming-done/

The game has noticeably improved since beta. And anecdotal, I agree.

That is a perfect example of an ad hominem. Because of my "ego" and my "need for attention" my arguments are tainted, right? I just might be making all this up since I need validation of my existence? And so was everyone else who disagreed with you too, right?

And considering that I was not the original person who brought up the analogy between Microsoft and Uber, nor was I the creator of this thread or of any other threads on these issues, but we won't let facts get in the way of this line of thinking right?

And please point to where I stated I would be calling my lawyer and bringing up charges. I said that telling potential customers that this product would have X feature at launch and then didn't have X feature at launch amounted to something awfully similar to bait and switch. I was corrected by Geers and I acknowledged it. Or did you miss that in your rush to label me a egotist who just wants attention?

Don't accuse me of selectively ignoring posts when you come in and change the argument others are making to fit your preferred conclusion. Just one example:

But no one talked about Early Access.

Now with that said, until something meaningful comes out from Uber with this no offline omission (hopefully with a release of the server), I think we have pretty much said all we are going to say to each other Gorbles! We are now rehashing the same crap over and over. I think people may think we are being stubborn asses.

I have written more than I ever expected to do so.

But I do look forward to your 10,000 word treatise tomorrow!

1. You can't play DotA 2 offline to the best of my knowledge. You can't play HoN offline full stop (I'm a long-time community member there).

Your assertion is that these games are designed for MP, but PA isn't? You think PA isn't designed for MP play? You're playing against the AI, it's still a form of MP, you're just simulating human opponents. The only case for SP would be Galactic War. More on this later.

(also, I don't really know about the DotA 2 bots, but the HoN bots are optional, created by both the developers and the community, and really are quite smart at times)

2. You lose any cosmetic perks you paid for. It's still money.

(also, LoL allows the purchasing of runes and items that affect ingame performance)

3. If you can crack a Steam client, you can crack a PA client. All it involves is spoofing authentication (and a myriad of other issues, but the main one is getting the server to recognise the client as valid). Just because it hasn't happened to D3 yet, doesn't mean it can't happen. Please don't be naive on the realities of cracking games.

4. You can balance a game adequately to the point that it's not unbalanced. No fallacies, please. However, the effort Uber have been putting into design and balance eclipse anything you could ever learn from playing against the AI. They're directly incorporating feedback from PvP balance (and root design issues). That is my point about balance.

If you think balance is about cheese, I advise you to read up on the subject. Stagnant scenes that are left unbalanced result in cheese as a predominant strategy, but a constantly-updated game involves moving the meta so that invisible options are exposed for players to take advantage of.

5. Why would Valve do anything? TF2 gets patch note updates all the time, people still play that game. People didn't stop playing that game when a new item crashed the server whenever a player had it equipped (true story).

None of those items affect anything but review scores. Which we've already covered.

6. I never said your arguments were tainted. You're reading things I never wrote. I'm saying that instead of tossing out threats, or inferences of legal action, you should actually take that action - otherwise it's not a point to be used in an argument (despite you using it as such). I never said that you using your ego somehow invalidated your argument. I was calling you out on your empty threats.

I never said you'd be calling up your lawyer. You need to kick this habit of saying things I never wrote.

7. Someone mentioned Early Access, or if they didn't maybe I brought it up as an example of what PA was before Uber "released" it. That's several pages back in the thread now, so good job trying to dig up an old example to discredit my character (which, by the by, is an ad hominem).

http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/19wwe1/tiphow_to_play_a_single_player_game_vs_bots_in/

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?523655-Is-there-a-way-to-play-OFFLINE-against-AI

Sure looks like HON allows it when you can't login to play against bots, as does DotA 2.

There was no expectation by their communities to have a non offline mode as those games are classified as a MULTIPLAYER ONLINE Battle Arena, MOBA. These games are meant and designed from the ground up for multiplayer. It is a stupid analogy. You might as well be comparing PA to an MMO.

I don't consider an AI in this game or any other at this point to be a person and neither would any other serious individual. You can't tell me with a straight face that by playing with an AI, you would now be playing a multiplayer match, when the historical *defining* characteristic for multiplayer matches are that they are played with other HUMANS. No one considers playing with bots by yourself, multiplayer.

Yes that's true. But you don't have to pay for those games. With PA you do. And you still lose access to a game you paid a lot of money for.

It is the same problem with MMO's. They get shut down all the time.

So why hasn't it happened yet? Are we going to wait five or ten more years for it to happen? And they would have to do it for each and every game that released. Not going to happen.

The Steam client is relatively easy to crack compared to Diablo 3. In order for Diablo 3 to be cracked, you would have to have a massive data breach of Blizzard's servers and/or an employee releasing access to the server code. You don't think that if it could be done, it would have been? Especially with the Chinese government asking people to hack the the server? Especially with it one of the being the best selling PC games ever with 20 million in sales?

It is far more likely that Blizzard itself releases offline now that they made their money off of the RMAH, rather than their DRM get cracked. Always online the Blizzard way (with most of the game/scripts/calculations are run on the server) is the one DRM that is currently unassailable (no 1:1 replacement exists). Which it looks like PA has replicated from what I've seen so far.

It is you who are being naive.

Really? So are the Witcher games going to be inherently unbalanced? What about Simcity? Skyrim? Galactic Civilizations II? Balance is such a subjective term. People liked the balance of Supcom with its overreliance on siege breaker experimentals. I personally did not. Badly broken balance is seen by nearly any player regardless of whether they are playing online or not.

I did not say that. I said that no matter what "balance" you may have in a game, the existing balance will be exploited by people to suit their ends. Dox being powerful, then tanks, now dox again. However, Starcraft II has many cheese tactics and it is constantly updated. Balance is such an amorphous subjective term. You can have 20 different opinions on the same topic. Just look at the balance forum and the general forum any given day and I would bet you would see at least one new post on how to "fix" something wrong with the game.

Nice dodge. You asked for tangible benefits of delaying the game. I gave you some. If you don't think having the ability to save your game or having a feature pledged to be there by the developers over and over again (in the forums, on the Kickstarter, on the steam storefront, on their website, and who also allowed the lie to perpetrate unchallenged as forum-goers kept repeating the statement that offline would be there at launch) is reason enough to delay the game, you are supporting exactly what is wrong with the game industry that repeatedly releases games before they are properly "finished." It is not just Uber, it is EA, It is like battered housewife syndrome. Uber released its finished game and it is missing features that need to be there.

I said that statement about Valve, because they are not obligated to show PA up on the main storefront every time it gets an update to add in features that should have been present at release. You seem to have agreed with the premise:

I already addressed this. You stated that I was making legal threats. I only mentioned bait and switch as it pertained to missing features, which I THEN acknowledged that it was NOT. That is a far cry from marching in here and declaring that I am interested in a legal case against Uber.

No one mentioned early access in that statement. It was stated that if Microsoft launched Office without Excel with a vague statement about adding it later, would it be fine? You added early access context to fit your argument that released/finished don't mean anything. It is still wrong if they stated that in early access and pledged to have it when the game is finished. Because finished = release = launch in the game industry. Everything else is patched in added features after game launch.

You modify and framed arguments to make it easier to knock them down without addressing their original premise.