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POLL: All Content Available in Offline Mode?

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by DarkStarr, Jan 20, 2016.

?

Is it OK to allow access to ALL add ons and pledge rewards in Offline mode?

  1. Yes

  2. No

Results are only viewable after voting.
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  1. DarkStarr

    DarkStarr Executive Producer SOTA Developer

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    Back in February I posted about some unique items related to Single Player Offline here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f.../single-player-offline-unique-features.21739/

    Item #4 stated the following:
    • Content: There are a few items that we are not going to sell in game in Online mode including the Castle and Keep sized lots. However we do plan to make those available in Offline mode along with a handful of other items yet to be finalized.
    After reading about how negatively many backers (and external folks as well) view our Pledge structure and Add On Store we thought a powerful gesture would be to make ALL content available in Offline mode including ALL add on store items and pledge rewards. Players would still have to earn enough gold to purchase them or gather enough resources to make them in game unless they purchased them which in that case they would start the game with them just like they do now.

    Our only concern is that backers who did pay for the content might feel upset that content they believed exclusive was available to any player (even if only in offline mode).

    Last month I started a poll in Dev+ to get some initial reaction from the group with the "most to lose". That poll is currently standing at over 90% positive so at the request of several Dev+ backers we have decided to expand the poll to ALL our backers. Thank you in advance for participating.

    Notes:
    1. Earned/Crafted: As mentioned above all these item will have to be crafted or purchased with gold. The bigger items like LotM house will only be affordable after many, many hours of play. You will NOT just get them all at the start, unless you purchased them. That is the purchase value in offline: you start with items everyone else has to earn
    2. Offline Firewalled: Offline mode has ZERO connectivity to online modes. Nothing can move between the two modes.
    3. Online only items: Some items have functionality that is only useful in online mode (ex. Fyndoro's Tablet, Noble Discourse Orb, etc.). In most cases these items will be reduced to non-functional decorations but in a few cases we will try to make an offline function.
    4. Hacking: In Offline mode hackers will create mods that unlock all the content anyway
     
    Enchanter, Torval, Elwyn and 41 others like this.
  2. Roper Docholiday

    Roper Docholiday Avatar

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    I believe that if the game is sold as a box game on the shelf that all content should be available to the offline game play... you bought the game. not only would it possibly intrigue players to go to the online mode of the game and play but would allow the over protective parents a reason to allow their children to play the game where they would normally go no due to the interaction risk of the online mode.
     
  3. Katrina Bekers

    Katrina Bekers Localization Team

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    "I felt a great disturbance in the Steam, as if millions of whiners suddenly cried out in awe, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrific has happened."
     
  4. HoustonDragon

    HoustonDragon Avatar

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  5. Curt

    Curt Avatar

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    My answear is a yes and a wondering how many votes this poll will get
     
  6. Lord_Darkmoon

    Lord_Darkmoon Avatar

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    As offline and online are completely separated those who play online don't have any disadvantage from that. No one will see or visit the castle I build in offline mode...
     
  7. Bowen Bloodgood

    Bowen Bloodgood Avatar

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    Well the Dev+ poll has some 600+ or so votes and as Starr said it's 90%+ in favor. The real value of pledge rewards, especially housing is in online play. So I am also in favor.
     
  8. Ashlynn [Pax]

    Ashlynn [Pax] Avatar

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    Even if it wasn't all available in offline mode, someone would just mod it in anyway and post it on nexus mods. =P
     
  9. Rada Torment

    Rada Torment Community Ambassador (ES)

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    Absolutely yes.
     
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  10. Mata

    Mata Avatar

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    Fantastic news... thank you! :)
     
  11. Sean Silverfoot

    Sean Silverfoot Avatar

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    Kept my yes vote. There is no viable reason this shouldn't be done for the good of the game. It doesn't affect online at all.
     
  12. Kara Brae

    Kara Brae Avatar

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    I voted yes.

    • I don't think offline players should have to buy anything in the add-on store. They should be able to earn everything in-game, including the most exclusive items like castle or keep. Making all content available in single player offline mode makes the game more attractive for offline players and is good for game sales. It will make me play the offline mode in addition to the online mode (2 games in one!).
    • As Darkstarr says, the player should start with little or nothing and it should take a long time and be difficult to obtain exclusive things in the offline game. This is important to ensure long-term motivation.
    • Backers who paid a great deal of money for pledge rewards like city lots or keeps to use them exclusively in the single player offline game mode can sell their pledges and get all they wanted for $20-$45. What a bargain! The difference is, they will have to work to earn those things in-game. Or they can use a hacker mod to have them instantly.
     
  13. WrathPhoenix

    WrathPhoenix Avatar

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    Im good with this. More content to the offline folks is always good for me. And if we want to show off our shinies online we've paid our pledge. No problems here :)

    If my supporting the addon store stuff gives more content to offline players then all I have to say is COOL!
     
  14. WrathPhoenix

    WrathPhoenix Avatar

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    MODDERS, Starr. They are called MODDERS =p Nexus mods would have a word with you on this terminology! haha
     
  15. Duffrey Blake

    Duffrey Blake Avatar

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    Repost from the Dev+ Poll:

    No problem here as long as online and offline will stay strictly separate and will not be hackable or interchangeable in any way at any time. If so then I say just do it bacause I am sure this will attract more people to sota and therefore could only be a good thing.
     
  16. Brass Knuckles

    Brass Knuckles Avatar

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    Same as before give off line mode what ever they want.. free dragon mounts upon character creation is fine also incase that poll comes up to.
     
  17. Bowen Bloodgood

    Bowen Bloodgood Avatar

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    Not to nitpick but modders usually use the toolkit provided as a basis for mods. Though I would like to see the SotA toolkit(s) released some day..:) Not all modders hack.. but hacking would be required in this case.
     
  18. Fionwyn Wyldemane

    Fionwyn Wyldemane Avatar

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    Repost from Dev+ Poll:

    I fully support allowing single-player offline players to have access to all virtual pledge reward *items* ingame for ingame gold. Darkstarr has already made it very clear that no one will be able to move their offline items to the online environment and as long as that remains *written in stone* forever, I support making the offline players happy and giving them access to the pledge rewards.

    To keep those who find this course of action objectionable, change the textures for offline. That might be a pain and take some time, but it seems like a win/win to me. Portalarium can't be accused of going back on it's word to backers for *exclusive* stuff and it gives the offline people a bunch of goodies to work for/save for that they couldn't get before.

    PS to Darkstarr - Thank you for expanding the poll. *cheers*
     
  19. WrathPhoenix

    WrathPhoenix Avatar

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    Not always. You can do either/or, depending on the game structure. In games like the infinity engine series games or even some recent games like Wasteland 2, we rather create our own tools =p At first a type of hacking may be required but usually only for those constructing the tools. I never actually thought about it, but the sota community could have a rather rich modmaking community for offline mode... I'd also love to have something like LUAScript hooks we can tie into for interface modification online. But then again im one of those psycho's who personalize everything \o/
     
  20. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    Well, it is Unity. Tools already exist to extract and inject content from Unity files. So technically it would be, but its a lot easier than on a proprietary engine.
     
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