Single player please :|

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aggromagnet wrote:

It would take far more work than you might realize to rip it apart and isolate it into a single-player package or even open it up to outside servers and modding. It would be nearly on the level of making an entirely new game.

If you rewrite the engine to work independently yeah it's not immediate but not hard either; you can just cut out any lag compensation code, make calculations without waiting for them from the server etcc.
But a way that would require near to 0 effrot from the devs is letting the client act as ssf server on localhost and connect to itself.

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aggromagnet wrote:

Wurm isn't a great comparison, as it's a Java game. Grim Dawn also isn't a great comparison, as it was designed as a primarily single-player game to begin with. Multiplayer and mod support were added on later to the foundation that was already there waiting for them.

It's a whole different animal when you're dealing with a custom in-house engine for a game that was always designed to be online-only. Nearly everything that happens in the game ties in to the servers in some way.

It would take far more work than you might realize to rip it apart and isolate it into a single-player package or even open it up to outside servers and modding. It would be nearly on the level of making an entirely new game.

And even if they charged for it, they would lose money. They most likely wouldn't make enough back to recover the costs of doing it, and they would also have less income flowing in to the original.

I don't know where you've got your information from but a large part of that is blatantly wrong.

The hardest part for any game is to handle multiplayer-code, single-player code in comparison is fairly easy as no network-limitations are existing. Also allowing for a localized server-cluster to exist is also not an issue.

All GGG would need to do is removing the login-server dependency and instead let the local-host create singular instances by itself. The framework to sustain it is already there, it would even be a LOT easier to handle.

Making something like that work wouldn't take more then a month of a single dev, that's a minimal amount of resource-input, in comparison the upsides are fairly massive (besides fragmenting the player-base, a big reason why GGG won't do it).



As for exploits and similar things happening: No, that's not how it goes. Since the majority is handled server-side exploiting something is extremely hard, that's why we're struggling with lag-issues so much, it's the downside accompanying this method. Safety has a price.
Even with the full code in the hand of people there wouldn't be many issues creeping up, the failsafe-checks to hinder bots (to a degree) are the same which would hinder hackers from doing their task, the only thing GGG needs to adjust for this not to be a problem is changing the checksum for the single-player-version compared to the online-only, hence it can't be tricked as people still wouldn't know how to exploit it, or adjusting the checksum in small ways with each update simply, that's not rocket-science there.

I think maybe you don't realize just how much of PoE exists only on the servers. The client is barely more than a glorified thin client interface. The heavy lifting of the majority of gameplay processes are handled server-side, and the client as it exists now has no concept of what those behind-the-scenes processes are.

Sure, they could bake the necessary processes into the client to make single-player possible. But the game already creaks and groans under it's own weight. Shifting all the server overhead to the local machine without a major overhaul of the client and the engine would result in absolutely nothing good.

Not where gameplay is concerned, and not where GGG's business model is concerned.

But, you know, people who say how easy everything would be to do always know best. So I'll just let you carry on with that.

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Itasil_ wrote:

"

aggromagnet wrote:

It would take far more work than you might realize to rip it apart and isolate it into a single-player package or even open it up to outside servers and modding. It would be nearly on the level of making an entirely new game.

If you rewrite the engine to work independently yeah it's not immediate but not hard either; you can just cut out any lag compensation code, make calculations without waiting for them from the server etcc.
But a way that would require near to 0 effrot from the devs is letting the client act as ssf server on localhost and connect to itself.

There are simply hundreds of different reasons as to why PoE would not work singleplayer. It just doesn't. It's not designed to be singleplayer, it doesn't work singleplayer and there's nothing you can do now to even begin making it singleplayer.

It depends on permanent server access for WAY too many things, not least of all the store and its contents, which is GGG's entire income. Let players handle those locally and it's a matter of hours before it's all hacked and everyone can access every effect for free and that's just one example...

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Xavathos wrote:

It depends on permanent server access for WAY too many things, not least of all the store and its contents, which is GGG's entire income. Let players handle those locally and it's a matter of hours before it's all hacked and everyone can access every effect for free and that's just one example...

And that's the biggest flawed answer I've read since a while.

You know... GGG can simply give access to... no MTX at all for single-player, unless paid! Or why do you think do skin-downloads which are paid for work for single-player games? Those are inside the bak-data and not able to be accessed, only with a specific file (which you wouldn't have) and the check for content bought it would actually be unlocked.

Come on now... that's really basic stuff, minimal effort there.

Also no, permenant server-access is nothing mandatory at all, the only reason it's done is the same as other 'games as a service' models handle it: Predatory business-practice which takes away the ownership of the product as much as possible while instead depending on 'micro'transactions as much as possible... simply because some people are literally too dumb to handle their money even reasonably well, pushing thousands of dollars per year into the game.

At least come up with reasonable things to speak out for why it couldn't be done.

they were asked what they would do if funding runs dry and the answer has been that chris would personally pull the plug if that happens.

gave most people a reason to keep the company running so it could develop the game further instead of having a offline version that runs even if those leechers succeeded ruining the company.

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vio wrote:

they were asked what they would do if funding runs dry and the answer has been that chris would personally pull the plug if that happens.

Yeah, no, I don't like that. My access to games I enjoy shouldn't be limited to whether or not its developers can afford to keep their servers running. Nothing lasts forever, sooner or later the game will go under, and that shouldn't be when I absolutely have to stop playing.

This kinda shit is why I have distrust and dislike of the current trend of "online only" games. I shouldn't have to give up the game when servers get shut down, it should be when I grow bored or lose interest in it. I feel sorry for anyone who gets into PoE in its twilight years, really loves it, then it suddenly collapses around them.

I can only hope that when the game dies, some dedicated fans take the effort to pick up the pieces and make the game be offline if GGG is unable or unwilling to.

Single player is not needed. We have the year 2019 and this is an online ARPG.

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Pizzarugi wrote:

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vio wrote:

they were asked what they would do if funding runs dry and the answer has been that chris would personally pull the plug if that happens.

Yeah, no, I don't like that. My access to games I enjoy shouldn't be limited to whether or not its developers can afford to keep their servers running. Nothing lasts forever, sooner or later the game will go under, and that shouldn't be when I absolutely have to stop playing.

This kinda shit is why I have distrust and dislike of the current trend of "online only" games. I shouldn't have to give up the game when servers get shut down, it should be when I grow bored or lose interest in it. I feel sorry for anyone who gets into PoE in its twilight years, really loves it, then it suddenly collapses around them.

I can only hope that when the game dies, some dedicated fans take the effort to pick up the pieces and make the game be offline if GGG is unable or unwilling to.

uhm, yes. i've been in the same boat of "offline is superior" and i preferred offline over online where it's been possible.

ggg was the company making me rethink the whole issue. sure, the need to stay online all the time is a nuisance, especially if your internet provider is bad but there are advantages of a game being permanently developed and maintained.

you only get that with online games. offline gaming is dead because of piracy killing the long term propects of the game's profitability. well, not wanna blame one side for the fact that it's been this way.

i made my peace with a online gaming company that initially never asked for my money and although their "game first, supporter stuff last" stance pisses me off sometimes, i'm still a fan.

don't know what's next. i don't think that one offline version that's not getting updates/upgrades would be interesting to me.

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vio wrote:

"

Pizzarugi wrote:

"

vio wrote:

they were asked what they would do if funding runs dry and the answer has been that chris would personally pull the plug if that happens.

Yeah, no, I don't like that. My access to games I enjoy shouldn't be limited to whether or not its developers can afford to keep their servers running. Nothing lasts forever, sooner or later the game will go under, and that shouldn't be when I absolutely have to stop playing.

This kinda shit is why I have distrust and dislike of the current trend of "online only" games. I shouldn't have to give up the game when servers get shut down, it should be when I grow bored or lose interest in it. I feel sorry for anyone who gets into PoE in its twilight years, really loves it, then it suddenly collapses around them.

I can only hope that when the game dies, some dedicated fans take the effort to pick up the pieces and make the game be offline if GGG is unable or unwilling to.

uhm, yes. i've been in the same boat of "offline is superior" and i preferred offline over online where it's been possible.

ggg was the company making me rethink the whole issue. sure, the need to stay online all the time is a nuisance, especially if your internet provider is bad but there are advantages of a game being permanently developed and maintained.

you only get that with online games. offline gaming is dead because of piracy killing the long term propects of the game's profitability. well, not wanna blame one side for the fact that it's been this way.

i made my peace with a online gaming company that initially never asked for my money and although their "game first, supporter stuff last" stance pisses me off sometimes, i'm still a fan.

don't know what's next. i don't think that one offline version that's not getting updates/upgrades would be interesting to me.

That's why a modern take on game-development is via an interaction between both offline and online-elements. The ONLY reason to create a game to be online ONLY without access to personalized clients is greed.

Give me a single reason besides fragmentation of the player-base why a games-company won't release the ability to create a home-made server on your own. I haven't been able to find one yet, the amount of resources needed to at least give knowledgeable people the ability to re-create one is so small that it's laughable.

Also it's definitely not the case that a game which releases an offline-port won't be even more successful then before, the amount of people reached with it is just massively higher, also it allows for the usage of the same MTX outside of the online-only experience as well, just cross-check if it's obtained.

This way someone BUYING stuff won't loose it after the servers shut down but can keep their progress, it's a consumer-friendly situation, otherwise... well... it's simply not, which is an issue.

Just look at the whole history of gaming, give me a SINGLE game before the implementation of 'online only' games which has EVER been completely lost... with the exception of 'E.T.'... and even that one still exists after someone literally drove to Nevada and searched the darn desert for them until it was found.

On the other hand... over a hundred listed online-only games stopped their service in the last few years, only 6% offered refunds for the invested money or made an offline-version to make up for it, 94% are LOST, never to be found again, never to be re-created again. This is plainly spoken awful for a medium which has the ability to be saved indefinitely without even a minor issue.