So what is the plan and progress with Single Player and Offline?

We haven't heard about this for quite some time. As the thread about the offline towns hasn't get an official answer yet I thought to open a new thread and ask outright and straightforward what the current plans are for single player and offline play.

We heard a few years ago that the plan was to create the best-possible single-player-experience in offline mode. But up until now we are still waiting for this happen. Even the devs acknowledged that right now offline isn't really playable.

Now release is getting closer and offline/single player is still a big construction area. @majoria70 believes that work on offline play hasn't started yet but that the devs will be moving to this area full time in the (near) future.

So maybe it is now time for an update on this subject. Maybe the devs could answer our questions about offline and single player experience.

So here are a few questions regarding this topic:

1. How will offline towns be presented in the offline mode? Will the player houses from online be carried over with all of the decorations or will the cities and towns get their own houses/deco and thus a certain style?

2. How about respawning rules in offline mode? Will enemies respawn just like in online mode? Will the evil Lich Lord stay dead after I defeated him?

3. How about visible and lasting consequences to our actions in offline mode? There is no player housing preventing this. Will the farmer return to his farm after I defeated the undead there?

4. How about the automap? How will it work in offline mode?

5. How will PvP zones be handled in offline mode? Will there be interesting things for us to discover or will those scenes be empty?

6. When will the other companions be implemented?

7. What about sleeping to advance time or resting in general?

8. Are there any news about the feature to drop items anywhere?

9. Will it be possible to turn off the chat completely in offline mode to not get notifications?

10. Will grinding be neccessary in offline mode in order to advance?

11. Will we get multiple savegames?

12. How will sieges play out - especially if I don't have all of the companions in my party?

13. How will loot be handled in offline mode? Will enemies carry those items they actually use or will we see a wolf with a two-handed sword and plate armor in his belly?

Feel free to add some other offline- and SP-realted questions. Hopefully, the devs will answer us. @DarkStarr @Chris @Lord British

 

IF we get a great SP storyline to follow, like U7 (and @Puuk , not like Icewind Dale, which had a story thinner than an anorexic model - loved the game for other reasons), I think point 10 of Darkmoons list is extremely important.

 

Honestly?
I hope the offline mode is a copy of the online mode where i can test things without consequences before I do them in the online mode.

 

Well this isn't true for the online part so don't think you have to worry there

 

Current answer to all of them will be "not for Q2"

I hope all these questions have their own "Deep Dive" section in the Summer Telethon, i don't see they can do a release with one of the game modes completely broken

 

So maybe the broader question is: should release be planned to be delayed until RG considers single player offline to be in the category of Ultimas as promised in the kickstarter? If not what episode will achieve that.

 

1. How will offline towns be presented in the offline mode? Will the player houses from online be carried over with all of the decorations or will the cities and towns get their own houses/deco and thus a certain style? They will appear as they do now in offline mode. As part of the original scene design the worldbuilder makes default houses where player houses would be, which can be seen online as well before a given lot is claimed.

2. How about respawning rules in offline mode? Will enemies respawn just like in online mode? Will the evil Lich Lord stay dead after I defeated him? Combat/respawning changes for offline mode have not been worked on yet so can't speak as to final implementation but a lack of respawn for places that make sense (ie dungeons, bosses) in general would be the intention.

3. How about visible and lasting consequences to our actions in offline mode? There is no player housing preventing this. Will the farmer return to his farm after I defeated the undead there? There will not be quests designed specifically for offline mode.

4. How about the automap? How will it work in offline mode? Since it's a third party utility that works over the Internet, if you're offline (from the internet entirely, not just in offline mode) it won't work.

5. How will PvP zones be handled in offline mode? Will there be interesting things for us to discover or will those scenes be empty? They will have better resources and monsters, as they do currently.

6. When will the other companions be implemented? We haven't done this yet because this is the one major big content feature exclusively for offline players, we really want to do them well, and it will take at least a month of implementation per companion. Almost certainly after the summer.

7. What about sleeping to advance time or resting in general? It's technically very easy to do (we actually have a developer-only console command that does this) so it's just a matter of opening up to offline players with some sort of UI.

8. Are there any news about the feature to drop items anywhere? No idea, there are client-side as well as network issues with this

9. Will it be possible to turn off the chat completely in offline mode to not get notifications? Don't see why not, that makes sense from a privacy standpoint

10. Will grinding be neccessary in offline mode in order to advance? Goal is for grinding to be unnecessary in offline and online both. Solution for this is a LOT of side quests and we have implemented almost none of these. Definitely a very immediate goal.

11. Will we get multiple savegames? This is already in, I use it personally often for testing

12. How will sieges play out - especially if I don't have all of the companions in my party? This will be part of the combat changes for offline

13. How will loot be handled in offline mode? Will enemies carry those items they actually use or will we see a wolf with a two-handed sword and plate armor in his belly? We don't do this now, online or offline, if you see a wolf with armor in his belly please report it as a bug because that poor animal is going to suffer metal poisoning

 

This is why we love @Lum the Mad .

 

14. Will there be a difficulty 'slider' (or choice) to allow for significantly easier combat in offline mode?

I'm interested in exploration, and don't care for the combat. Ideally I'd one-hit pretty much everything. Having a choice within the game would be far better than finding a third-party cheat.

 

Thank you very much for the answers.

Just one thing about the houses in offline mode. They will be empty then, right? Without decorations. And no NPCs will live in them, using them as homes?

 

Maybe a dumb question, can you claim a lot in Offline mode and have all what you have purchased "online" available?
If yes, does it matter if PA or PoT?

@Lum the Mad

 

Correct, we have NPCs placed in always-NPC-owned homes that are decorated.

 

You get everything you see on your account page, ie. anything you purchased direct from Portalarium or was gifted from Portalarium. purchased via the store in offline mode (already implemented in offline except for POT ownership, though that will come), but you don't get anything you purchased in the online game via trading or NPCs.

Also currently, in the offline game, a POT deed cannot be used outside of POTs.

Source: I've tested offline personally.

 

Ok, then it's not for me as I bought alot via Player Marketplace to decorate.
Those things aren't registered to my account.

 

While I appreciate the answers even though I don't like some of them - I appreciate Lum even more for not taking the tact that some dominant posters do of dismissing Lord_Darkmoons postings on this matter as incessant ranting out to destroy the game. The only thing that can destroy the game is a bad single player experience.

I would like my question answered though, is the intent that these responses be included in the July Story Complete or EOY episode complete dates previously given, or are those dates being pushed out to be sure that the answers given for single player make it in.

My personal opinion is many do not want to replay an RPG story (of course there are those with altitis that will) that is incomplete. and patched later. At least it is very important that it not be released until all the side quests are filled in. The other things importance can be debated, and more importantly the forum should allow that debate to exist, without personally attacking the motives of the posters.

 

July Story Complete is just that - the main plot line. It does not include side quests or many other essential features which will continue to be worked on.

 

might be better to have all of the empty default houses locked and inaccessible. rows and rows of empty houses could very well be pretty jarring. :/

 

The only question I have about offline that maybe @Lum the Mad can answer.

Is there going to be a way to export our online character to offline so we don't have to spend the 1,000s of hours building another character? This would be a great feature and only one way from online to offline.

Thank you.