article is quite good, but your response might be a tad pathetic… because… well, they actually could have kept their promises, or at least, they could have refrained from telling lies…

Pulling offline mode only 30 days before launch is inexcusable though, especially considering that, by David Braben’s own admission, the cut was not due to a technical impossibility, but rather to a creative decision, a “vision”. I have absolutely no interest in MMOs or in a “shared universe”. When I want social interaction, I go out with my wife or I ring one of my friends, but as far as gaming is concerned, I’m strictly a solo player, I want no interference in my games from other people, no matter how small, but sadly online single player mode does not offer that.

I respect that others like the social, interactive aspects of online gaming, but at the same time I wish others would respect my and other people’s desire to just play a game by ourselves, if that’s not asking too much from the white knights.

A couple of noteworthy exchanges – both well past the point at which kickstarter orders were even possible, and at the point where they were taking pre-orders on their own web store.

Just a couple of of many examples –

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=10856&page=4&p=254938&viewfull=1#post254938

Stormprooter:
“SP Offline with no internet connection required to start the game is a must for me, as I tend to spend a lot of the summer down my caravan, where there is no internet, apart from a very weak and intermittent gprs signal. Being able to play E : D in true SP offline mode would be great.”

Michael Brookes, executive producer:
“We’ve already stated that there is an offline single player mode in the game.”

They left this impression going so long – always in terms indicating this was a feature that actually existed and was shipping with the game – that their own moderators were still telling people that everything was still as written on the kickstarter page up to a couple of days before they were suddenly told it wasn’t.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=56686&p=984344&viewfull=1#post984344

Make your own judgement of their business ethics and don’t believe a word the Elite fanboys tell you about it. Top Frontier staff members at the executive and chief level repeatedly told their customers to buy the game, outside of kickstarter, knowing that those customers had no way to use the software if there was an always online requirement. And then mandated one anyway.

“Guys, maybe you all could have just, I don’t know, kept your promises?”

The ONLY promise Frontier have made is to create Elite: Dangerous. ALL features are subject to change.

Also they can charge whatever the market will bear for Alpha/Beta access to help them fund the game.