What do we need servers for? Let's have an off line mode.

Davor · August 2018

I would like to thank everyone for the good comments. I have learned some stuff. Thank you.

As for cheating, why can't we play off line and then when we go online, there is a program to see if the game has been cheated? The game can verify if the game was played without cheats. Again, I am not knowledgeable but I thought lots of things can be done in this day and age now.

Also if people are off line, wouldn't that help the online people? Isn't that what lots of us are asking for? Better online play? I can understand if ESO was a pure MMO but it's not a pure MMO so why not let the un MMO stuff be off line. It's been over 4 years now and Zenimax can't have a smooth game play for everyone. So why not make part of the game smoother? Again an idea, not saying this is the correct answer.

griffkhalifa · August 2018

This game as a single-player game would be a disaster and in no way fun. That's why.

ADarklore · August 2018

Clearly OP you (and don't feel bad because there are still many others who refuse to accept it) don't understand what MMO means today. It no longer means the original "group content" from when MMOs first came out many years ago... today it simply means "a massive number of people playing the same online game at the same time". Again, key word is ONLINE. If you do not or cannot appreciate playing online, then this game obviously isn't for you.

VaranisArano · August 2018

Davor wrote: »

I would like to thank everyone for the good comments. I have learned some stuff. Thank you.

As for cheating, why can't we play off line and then when we go online, there is a program to see if the game has been cheated? The game can verify if the game was played without cheats. Again, I am not knowledgeable but I thought lots of things can be done in this day and age now.

Also if people are off line, wouldn't that help the online people? Isn't that what lots of us are asking for? Better online play? I can understand if ESO was a pure MMO but it's not a pure MMO so why not let the un MMO stuff be off line. It's been over 4 years now and Zenimax can't have a smooth game play for everyone. So why not make part of the game smoother? Again an idea, not saying this is the correct answer.

Well, the part of online play that I want to go better is PVP, so having less people online wouldn't actually help me there.

But aside from that, the whole game is an MMO. From the guild based economy to the amount of chests and resource nodes, from the group events like Dolmens and world bosses to public dungeons, the entire overland world of the game is based around massive numbers of online players, even before you hit group content.

There really isn't a way to cut out the "non MMO stuff" and make that offline, except for maybe the rare quests that are solo instances like most of the Main Quest.

zaria · August 2018

Davor wrote: »

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

Offline mode would cause rampant cheating.

How so? Genuine question. I don't know so that is why I made this topic. Never thought of it so like to see your answer.

Very simple as game is offline it would be pretty easy to hack, not even hacking just modifying the database giving you an billion gold.
Now you could have an standalone game, many survival games like Conan exiles let you run private server on your own computer this would not transfer to other servers.

And ESO runs on an server farm, you have one server or two handling accounts and login, database servers and shard servers. PvP is run on separate servers. Other run instances who it probably run multiple on each server.

Girl_Number8 · August 2018

There is an offline mode, it's called getting dc~

frausty · August 2018

Davor wrote: »

I don't know much about MMOs so I am asking so I can understand better. If I am not mistaken servers are so everyone can play together. So if people like me play ESO as a single player game, then why can't we play off line? After all we have these huge files on our PC/consoles. It's not like we are streaming a game or needing a server to play since we have all the files on our platform of choice. Why can't we have an off line mode? Reason I ask is because what ever happened to this update or maintenance fix the game is so laggy now for me. I am even having trouble fighting mud crabs. Where I thought I was fighting one, all of a sudden 3 come. When fighting an alligator, he doesn't move then transports infront of me. I am trying to pick up a flower and it takes over 15 seconds to do so.

So my question is why can't I play the game off line? I would still be paying for me ESO+. Heck I might even spend money on crowns if the game plays properly and smoothly for me. People who want to play with friends or with others, let them play online like normal but for those of us who want a single player experience or want smoother play we can play off line. I am sure if lots of us are off ling, the online experience would be better for others than.

So why not best of both worlds? How come no off line mode for those who want it?

You can play in single player. It's called Skyrim

Ydrisselle · August 2018

Davor wrote: »

I would like to thank everyone for the good comments. I have learned some stuff. Thank you.

As for cheating, why can't we play off line and then when we go online, there is a program to see if the game has been cheated? The game can verify if the game was played without cheats. Again, I am not knowledgeable but I thought lots of things can be done in this day and age now.

Also if people are off line, wouldn't that help the online people? Isn't that what lots of us are asking for? Better online play? I can understand if ESO was a pure MMO but it's not a pure MMO so why not let the un MMO stuff be off line. It's been over 4 years now and Zenimax can't have a smooth game play for everyone. So why not make part of the game smoother? Again an idea, not saying this is the correct answer.

The "non-MMO stuff" means only the main quest, nothing else. If you want to play a single RPG, find one. If you want to play a single Elder Scrolls game, you still can get Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim.

SHADOW2KK · August 2018

Davor wrote: »

I don't know much about MMOs so I am asking so I can understand better. If I am not mistaken servers are so everyone can play together. So if people like me play ESO as a single player game, then why can't we play off line? After all we have these huge files on our PC/consoles. It's not like we are streaming a game or needing a server to play since we have all the files on our platform of choice. Why can't we have an off line mode? Reason I ask is because what ever happened to this update or maintenance fix the game is so laggy now for me. I am even having trouble fighting mud crabs. Where I thought I was fighting one, all of a sudden 3 come. When fighting an alligator, he doesn't move then transports infront of me. I am trying to pick up a flower and it takes over 15 seconds to do so.

So my question is why can't I play the game off line? I would still be paying for me ESO+. Heck I might even spend money on crowns if the game plays properly and smoothly for me. People who want to play with friends or with others, let them play online like normal but for those of us who want a single player experience or want smoother play we can play off line. I am sure if lots of us are off ling, the online experience would be better for others than.

So why not best of both worlds? How come no off line mode for those who want it?

/facepalm

Upgrade your rig and play single player and google what MMO means

Davor · August 2018

griffkhalifa wrote: »

This game as a single-player game would be a disaster and in no way fun. That's why.

Why so? Please give your opinions. Just saying so doesn't mean anything. This is a discussion board. Give reasons why. After all I did ask. Saying what you did doesn't help me at all understand.

ADarklore wrote: »

Clearly OP you (and don't feel bad because there are still many others who refuse to accept it) don't understand what MMO means today. It no longer means the original "group content" from when MMOs first came out many years ago... today it simply means "a massive number of people playing the same online game at the same time". Again, key word is ONLINE. If you do not or cannot appreciate playing online, then this game obviously isn't for you.

Very good points here. Thank you for them. Again this is why I asked. Things I never considered or simply missed as to why it's not so simple to be just off line play.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Well, the part of online play that I want to go better is PVP, so having less people online wouldn't actually help me there.

Just curious. Why wouldn't that help you out? Less people online means more server resources to make your online experience better. The less people online are the people you wouldn't be playing with anyways. They would be the single player people. So wouldn't that mean it would make your experience better? Again trying to understand.

But aside from that, the whole game is an MMO. From the guild based economy to the amount of chests and resource nodes, from the group events like Dolmens and world bosses to public dungeons, the entire overland world of the game is based around massive numbers of online players, even before you hit group content.

There really isn't a way to cut out the "non MMO stuff" and make that offline, except for maybe the rare quests that are solo instances like most of the Main Quest.

Never considered these options. Thank you for pointing that out.

frausty wrote: »

[You can play in single player. It's called Skyrim

Uh. How is that helpful. It's not called Skyrim at all. Skyrim doesn't have skill classes or travel throughout Tamriel. If anything it would be called Arena.

CelticStones · August 2018

'It's kind of hard to believe you have worse connection than I do. I mean.... I pay wildblue $70 a month for crap 'net. The last time I had dialup for backup (for my business in case wb was out in the winter in a snowstorm - happened lots of times) I couldn't get connected to ANY game over it. And yes, our phone lines are over 60 years old, copper analog, and no - CenturyLink is not going to run fiber into a less-than-100 full-time-phone market. Or not in my remaining lifetime anyway.'

ATM my only option is to pay the local farmer a few grand and then another telco a a few grand to get some sort of g3/4 substation antenna installed that will bounce the signal from one of the ariels we cant see, and this will get us a 7meg max speed. Until that happens we are stuck with 300-500 kb max up and down which is fine for one person using the net but not much else. Usage spikes to 700kb+ in trials and leads to me rubberbanding and dying and the other 11 people running around in circles trying to rez me as I slide and bounce all over the floor. Looks hysterical the first few times. Offline mode wont help with that tho but at least would allow someone else to be connected.

jedtb16_ESO · August 2018

Davor wrote: »

NolaArch wrote: »

Because it’s an MMO and not a single player with a multi-player/online feature.

I am curious to see the numbers of single players vs MMO players who play ESO. Maybe it should change.

no, it shouldn't change... it's an mmo.

you signed up to an mmo.

you want a single player game?

play one, there are plenty to choose from.

Sylvermynx · August 2018

CelticStones wrote: »

'It's kind of hard to believe you have worse connection than I do. I mean.... I pay wildblue $70 a month for crap 'net. The last time I had dialup for backup (for my business in case wb was out in the winter in a snowstorm - happened lots of times) I couldn't get connected to ANY game over it. And yes, our phone lines are over 60 years old, copper analog, and no - CenturyLink is not going to run fiber into a less-than-100 full-time-phone market. Or not in my remaining lifetime anyway.'

ATM my only option is to pay the local farmer a few grand and then another telco a a few grand to get some sort of g3/4 substation antenna installed that will bounce the signal from one of the ariels we cant see, and this will get us a 7meg max speed. Until that happens we are stuck with 300-500 kb max up and down which is fine for one person using the net but not much else. Usage spikes to 700kb+ in trials and leads to me rubberbanding and dying and the other 11 people running around in circles trying to rez me as I slide and bounce all over the floor. Looks hysterical the first few times. Offline mode wont help with that tho but at least would allow someone else to be connected.

I'm looking into a T1. One of the people who full-times it here has one, and looking around online, seems like there are several companies who advertise pricing between $189 and $250 a month. If I could get one here, and drop wildblue, directv, and landline phone, that would be a doable price.

milllaurie · August 2018

Starlock wrote: »

I would love an offline mode. Especially the day the servers are shut down.

You can play PTS then.

vometia · August 2018

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

no, it shouldn't change... it's an mmo.

you signed up to an mmo.

you want a single player game?

play one, there are plenty to choose from.

I'm not really sure why his request is a problem: if it's technically feasible (which is anyone's guess, but things like KoA and Sacred 2 came in essence with a single-player server, as I understand it) then why not? It's not affecting people who want to play it as an MMO and in fact it will probably benefit them by taking players out of the equation who want more Elder Scrolls (let's face it, it's been a while, and IMHO Skyrim was pretty lacklustre) but don't particularly want to be online. Everyone wins, including Zenimax because they then grab all the people who don't play because it's an MMO but would do otherwise.

For me personally, I've been invested in TES for a long time. I'm here for that reason, and I'm here in spite of it being an MMO. It doesn't make a lot of sense to say there's other stuff to choose from if what I'd quite like to play is TES.

Azuramoonstar · August 2018

Davor wrote: »

I would like to thank everyone for the good comments. I have learned some stuff. Thank you.

As for cheating, why can't we play off line and then when we go online, there is a program to see if the game has been cheated? The game can verify if the game was played without cheats. Again, I am not knowledgeable but I thought lots of things can be done in this day and age now.

Also if people are off line, wouldn't that help the online people? Isn't that what lots of us are asking for? Better online play? I can understand if ESO was a pure MMO but it's not a pure MMO so why not let the un MMO stuff be off line. It's been over 4 years now and Zenimax can't have a smooth game play for everyone. So why not make part of the game smoother? Again an idea, not saying this is the correct answer.

ESO is a pure MMO, pure MMO are open world rpg with a large amount of players with online connectivity required. You can't play an MMO 100% solo as another player has a hand in some stuff you do.

MMO are built as MMO there is no way for it to be built for a single player experience. What you are asking is for ORPG, stuff akin to the original guild wars. Where you have a hub location then instance content, that you can play solo. Or similar to pso/psu which have an offline story mode with optional multiplayer.

Please do your own research in how MMO are designed and built. I gave you a suggestion, should watch the 3 videos.

you can't just flip a switch and have an offline mode, that isn't how MMO are made or work. Once you take an MMO offline the game no longer exists.

Odnoc · August 2018

Too much info server-side, wouldn't work. That's how MMO's are designed.

Azuramoonstar · August 2018

vometia wrote: »

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

no, it shouldn't change... it's an mmo.

you signed up to an mmo.

you want a single player game?

play one, there are plenty to choose from.

I'm not really sure why his request is a problem: if it's technically feasible (which is anyone's guess, but things like KoA and Sacred 2 came in essence with a single-player server, as I understand it) then why not? It's not affecting people who want to play it as an MMO and in fact it will probably benefit them by taking players out of the equation who want more Elder Scrolls (let's face it, it's been a while, and IMHO Skyrim was pretty lacklustre) but don't particularly want to be online. Everyone wins, including Zenimax because they then grab all the people who don't play because it's an MMO but would do otherwise.

For me personally, I've been invested in TES for a long time. I'm here for that reason, and I'm here in spite of it being an MMO. It doesn't make a lot of sense to say there's other stuff to choose from if what I'd quite like to play is TES.

Do some research, MMO are built from the ground up to require internet connectivity. Sacred 2, isn't an MMO but an ORPG (online role play game) its a single player game first with optional multiplayer mode akin to guild wars, as in it had a hub world with instance world questing.

Once you take an MMO offline it no longer exists. People ask this question in ff14 about making ff14 1.0 a single player game so people can experience the story. SE stated that they can't do it as the servers it was hosted on no longer exist.
Unlike MMO single player games are not hosted on a server, mmo are hosted on servers all we download is the textures and connection codes so we can see it.

It can hurt the MMO as people we play the single player game to "get good" then do content for easier world firsts. Or people will tell other to play the single player version till they max out before touching the mmo part. That and zenimax would have to spend much more money making and updating both parts, which are not coded the same way.
A good example of this is the Two worlds. The multiplayer aspect was 100% different then the game game. you had classes and a character creator. And the single player part suffered for it.

Games, more so MMO have a finite set of resources. What players pay out, don't go back into the game 100%.

Lastly, no true MMO has an offline mode. MMO have existed since the early 90s, and prior to those you had text based MUD which have been out since the 80s from what i heard/read.

Thestephenmcraeub17_ESO · August 2018

Just play on the PTS. It's way less populated and you can easily get any gear you want. Basically single-player cheat mode.

Mystrius_Archaion · August 2018

NolaArch wrote: »

Because it’s an MMO and not a single player with a multi-player/online feature.

hahahahaha
HAHAHAHAHAHA

No, that's exactly what every online game is, especially the ones that don't require a group for everything.

I'm all for an offline version of this game for my own reasons:
1) Online is overrated. People can suck.
2) I'm almost exclusively here for the big world and graphics, which don't require people.
3) My internet is often slow/unreliable. Offline is much more preferable than lag.

I'll just have to hope I can eventually make my own game idea happen someday which will have offline and online options with a huge world as well as other features most mmos tend to ignore but are hugely successful in single/multiplayer offline games.

Mystrius_Archaion · August 2018

Azuramoonstar wrote: »

vometia wrote: »

I think technically it would be feasible, though I also think it would be reasonable that any character who'd been played in offline mode might have a one way journey and be ineligible to go back into the online realm, including having new instances of the bank and storage which would henceforth remain separate from the player's other characters. Which may or may not be what people might want.

it isn't games have to be built with offline mode in mind.

ff14 devs got asked for a single player version of ff14 1.0 to experience the story of 1.0 to 2.0. And the director stated that isn't possible as the server with ff14 1.0 on it no longer exists.

That a ridiculous logic leap. Your brain just "jumped the shark".

When they stated "FF14 1.0 doesn't exist" they meant that they didn't keep original backup software code. They just kept updating, as mmos do, to replace the old code with the code up to the current day. That means there is no 1.0 because 1.0 became the live version.
It's like trying to go backwards in time, practically impossible, and that is what it would require.

The only data most mmo companies keep backed up for rolling back to is usually one patch back and all player data. They don't care to keep old old versions of the software that most customers wouldn't ask for and certainly wouldn't pay a second time for a release of.

Mystrius_Archaion · August 2018

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

Offline mode would cause rampant cheating.

Against who? Myself?

"I'm cheating on my wife with myself." Doesn't that sound dumb? Most guys would be happy that their girlfriend/wife was "cheating on them with herself", especially if they got to watch.

Seriously, even cheating in PVE isn't actually cheating because it isn't a competition against anyone else. We can't even see other player's achievements unless they post about it which can easily be faked so nobody should take completely 100% seriously anyway.
It's not a competition no matter how much you want to make it one.

PVP, on the other hand, requires online so can be controlled, but even if cheating were allowed then it would still be fair if cheats affected everyone equally. For example, 2 invincible players fight each other and nobody wins or loses because they are both equally invincible.
Either way, pvp means online which is not an offline mode.

Edit:
The amount of "agrees" you got for that post just make it obvious how many people do not think anything through past the first gut reaction and end up agreeing with something completely obviously wrong to anybody who actually knows what the words "offline" and "cheating" both mean. People are just.... What planet am I from because I can't be related to these people?

dave011 · August 2018

The day this happens will be my last!

Why not:
1 The game engine will be client side and the leaves it open to hacking
2 This is a MMO so I wont to play with others
3 The game will be dead after 3 - 4 months

Why:

1 ????
2 Still cant find a reason for 1
3 no lag but see reason 1 in why not;)

Mystrius_Archaion · August 2018

Stovahkiin wrote: »

You can’t just flip a switch and make it a single player game. And frankly, If you are going to playing a single player game rather than mmo, there are some way better options out there

1) It's not too hard to go offline with a patch. City of Heroes technically still is playable even after it closed due to the fact that movement and controls and graphics are practically all client-side instructions in code with only server side checks to cause "rubber-banding" if the server doesn't like how the character moved. The only thing lacking in CoH is, last I checked, ability activating and combat because all combat calculations required server response before activation.

2) They can design a game to do both rather easily from the beginning, and an online game should not be any less great than a single player game. It's a little harder to have players affect the world as much as a single player game, but ESO used phased quest areas to do it already and other older games have even taken it that far and farther like World of Warcraft did.

I even have a design plan I've been slowly working on for at least 12 years to make a game with both online and offline options because of the simple fact that I have had poor internet access for most of my life and still managed to game both offline and online and see the benefits and problems of both.

Mystrius_Archaion · August 2018

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

Davor wrote: »

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

Offline mode would cause rampant cheating.

How so? Genuine question. I don't know so that is why I made this topic. Never thought of it so like to see your answer.

Since you would be offline with no way for ZOS to track you, you could use hacks (Cheat Engine, etc.) to blast through vMA and other trials to get gear and skins. You would also have the zones entirely to yourself and could use hacks for farming mats, etc. It's best if ZOS keeps an eye on everyone the best they can.

1) Single player games have anti-cheat measures also. They can do so just like them.

2) Nobody said the offline progress had to apply to the online version also. They could have separate characters like currently the EU and NA megaservers have completely separate account unlocks and character slots and everything.

Nobody seems to be applying "critical thinking" to this.

Mystrius_Archaion · August 2018

Davor wrote: »

Thank you both for the explanations about cheating. I never even thought about it. I can see why now, so everything is on a level playing field.

Don't just believe them on blind faith.
There are anti-cheat measures for single player games as well as the fact that offline could just be different characters and not allow those characters online to prevent any advantage from playing offline affecting any online play for anyone.
They already have the NA and EU megaservers separate that way so it would be easy to create a sort of "fake server" in code to replicate everything that a server would be needed for and assign the characters specifically to that "fake server" for offline mode.

There is always an option, or several options.

DaveMoeDee · August 2018

The game isn't designed that way and never will be.

Mystrius_Archaion · August 2018

PlagueSD wrote: »

Why there is no "offline mode"? Because we don't want this happening:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/20757356518

That post you quote was just a person who felt left out because some people were advancing much faster than they were, in a completely non-competitive pve game, and instead of enjoying when they finally found out they could advance that fast decided to ruin everyone's fun rather than go back to their own "5 mile hike, uphill both ways, in the snow" old man "get off my lawn" single player game.

They chose to feel hurt because cheats were not already provided for players by the developers, like older games did because players wanted them and they were good incentive to run through the game multiple times(Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series for example) and instead either not realize or lie about that real reason and say "don't let them cheat" without finishing the sentence with "unless I can also".

"This is why we can't have nice things." Somebody always wants to break our nice things because they are jealous and yet unwilling to choose the option to join us.
Apparently, "if you can't beat them, join them" is replaced for many people by "if you can't beat them, find somebody else who can beat them" until everyone has a black eye and bloody nose and nobody is enjoying it.

Mystrius_Archaion · August 2018

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

It would be nice but few games have done this. I wish City of HEroes had this as an option but it doesn't.

Technically, it does. Search "Paragon Chat" on Google.

Mystrius_Archaion · August 2018

ADarklore wrote: »

Clearly OP you (and don't feel bad because there are still many others who refuse to accept it) don't understand what MMO means today. It no longer means the original "group content" from when MMOs first came out many years ago... today it simply means "a massive number of people playing the same online game at the same time". Again, key word is ONLINE. If you do not or cannot appreciate playing online, then this game obviously isn't for you.

That "this game isn't for you" would ONLY ever be true if we had the exact same game tuned for single players to be able to solo everything in an offline version.

Here is something you "mmo exclusive" people don't realize, maybe haven't had the chance since you never grew up before the internet:
Offline single player games are smaller worlds than online games and don't often update to add anything to that small world and certainly not as much.

We have to go online for more continuing stories and, hopefully, positive changes in updates and bigger worlds. We don't get those things in offline games even from the big game studios that do push the boundaries. For example, Skyrim is much smaller than ESO even though Skyrim was arguably the biggest Elder Scrolls game to date.

Also, one trend I hate is that every single player game these days seems to be making online connectivity mandatory, either through only having digital copies which may be tied to Steam, which I hate about Skyrim, or their own servers for mandatory online and often multiplayer.
The lines between the two are blurring a lot, and it isn't helping many of us.

FYI, I try to get physical copies of games to save on download time since my internet is, at best, 10mbps, which most of you are so "spoiled" by fast internet that you don't even have a clue what that is like. It took me 5 days to download a 27GB mmo to try, which I had to be very willing to try because of that and there was no way I would have if it wasn't completely free to start. I'm also not lucky enough to have decent ping consistently or, even worse, to have internet that doesn't go down often. My net cut out multiple times tonight just posting on the forums here so that I had to reboot my connection often.

That is why I argue for an offline version of any game I enjoy, because I can't guarantee I can get online. It also would mean no inconvenient server downtime.