Offline play on September 5th?

Oh, this might be a problem. I tell so many people about PA, that I'm practically a marketing employee there. And as a lover of TA and a fan of supcom, the last thing I would want in this game is to see it fail.

Especially because of one simple fact- this game is badass and so fun! It is strategy to the max! And if one review comes out shooting it down, there will be a telephone effect that looks something like this:

"Planetary Annihilation is of questionable quality due to its lacking in offline mode."

"Planetary Annihilation sucks because it doesn't have offline mode."

"Planetary Annihilation sucks."

And then I will be walking around, and mention PA, and all I will hear is...

"Oh, Planetary Annihilation? Naw, I heard that game sucks."

And it's so little I can do to correct the misconception.

I'm with you on this one. I've tested multiple builds, played multiple matches, and enjoyed every single match. The last thing I want is a repeat of every single "always-online-at-launch" incident.

What you're describing is the exact thing that will happen if PA does not have offline mode at launch. The only way to prevent this is to put offline mode into PA by launch, but I doubt that will happen.

Even one day without offline mode is enough to draw backlash. One week later, the critics' reviews would have already disowned the game to the point where PA fades into the darkness lonely and forgotten.

I hope that the build we have now (71544) is just the bridge to the gold release, an RTS gem that if successful, will be recalled forever by generations of gamers to come.

I don't think everyone will be as harsh critically about no offline mode, its widely known even at places like IGN and Gamespot that this doesn't have offline in its current state so I dont think there is going to be a down pore of bad reviews for the simple fact it doesn't have offline mode. I think the general customer of new players will not be happy about that fact which word of mouth would be more of an issue then any official review.

I love the game, but my friends are justified in not liking the game much when they can't even play by themselves without the game locking up randomly.

If reviewers can't even functionally use the product, the harsh reviews will be justified.....unfortunately.

I highly doubt offline will be released a week after the game's launch. I'm going to guess probably a good month or so just due to them probably going on vacation. I'm going to say October or November. I don't mind waiting, but they do need to get their servers under control with the server's sim performance. Because as of right now, the game is practically unplayable for me anyway. Just tried to play a game.

Well I'm going by what was mentioned at PAX on just how close they really are in ZaphodX's youtube video as he was there with the devs so I think its closer than what most people think of being added in the game, but I think it'll fall just outside the release window though.

If I am remembering right from the old thread where this was addressed, hopefully my memory serves and I can roughly accurately paraphrase what was said. 'we could release the server, but it wouldn't do you much good. Almost all of those server issues and disconnects you are getting are actually server crashes (and thus would still occur while supposedly 'offline'), and until those get polished out offline mode would be just as frustrating and releasing it would make it take longer to be able to identify and polish out the server crashes'.

Your memory serves you well yee Padawan

The fact that offline might not be in 1.0 unsettles me greatly and it's honestly a little disconcerting how okay Uber seems to be with it.

Like, they've seen the responses to always online DRM in the past, they have the know that this is an incredibly bad move on their part, and yet they just act as though it's all going to sort itself out.

Don't get me wrong, I hope they're right but... I also doubt they're right :/

Call me pessimistic, but it is fact that should the game come out without an offline mode, it will be absolutely shot down by various reviewers, youtubers and many gamers. Some people will probably even refuse to give PA a chance later due to Uber making the mistake of shipping without offline.

I do not care if Uber decides to add more features after release, but offline mode is a feature which CANNOT be delayed till after what's seen as the games official release. People won't forget the fact that offline mode wasn't included at what was called release.

Now some people will probably call me a conspiracy theorist here, but I have a feeling that it is Nordic which is forcing Uber to rush the official release of the game because they are sick of waiting and want to start making box copy sales asap. The only reason we haven't heard about this is probably because either A. Uber doesn't want to ruin their relationship with Nordic or B. Uber had to sign some sort of agreement where they are not allowed to give out information about what goes on behind the scenes with them and Nordic.

Unless a dev comes out and straight up tells me that this is not the case, I will continue to believe that Nordic is to blame for this rushed release.

No amount of PR talk will convince me that releasing without offline mode is a good decision and is a decision that was made entirely of Ubers own accord.

has nothing to do with nordic. we're shipping the game when it's done.

also duplicate thread. LOCK TRAIN COMING. WOO WOO