Well, I heard back from customer support regarding my refund. They are refunding me and the money should be back in 10 days.

I only pre-ordered and didn't have any beta access so my case was a bit easier.

The Coca Cola polar bears will now be Coca Cola polar bears... in space!

Oh, and we'll see commercials for the holographic edition of the complete series of Futurama, which will turn out to be a documentary as everything in the show comes to fruition.

Good for them, I am not interested in online games beyond the time I spend on COD or BF games on consoles. I dont play online games on PC.

Apparently they only refunded the pre orders. DRM free backers or people who helped with beta testing get a big finger.

I am really glad I did not back this, some weeks ago I was thinking about getting the Beta. I decided to wait for the final release and bought Starpoint Gemini here on GOG. Now I see it was the right choice.

That really sucks. I don't think that is fair. I'm glad to get away from them then.
Yeah, I picked that up as well. I guess I will be playing that for my space fix in the next few months. Or try and learn Evochron Mercenary.

The "unfortunate" timing and the reports of not honouring refund requests seem really scummy.

I thought I'd been burned once, when pre-ordering an independent title (before KS took off) that eventually took the route of Steam exclusivity. Unlike this project, getting my money refunded worked without an issue back then. It's saddening to hear that the negative experience of such major decisions can be made even worse for some.

There are possibly some issues with Kickstarter, or they're really desperate for the money here, else I don't see denying refund request as a sensible course of action.

This is like: "sorry you ordered a game but now you get a nice pink rubber duck so shut up and be happy." I'm sure that this one-sided view is not correct. Even according to the now softer TOS of KS backers and creator have to come to a mutual agreement and creators must make their best effort possible, not just decide for themselves what is good and let backers just be a source of money. In the old version the creators actually had to deliver exactly what they promised.

I think this view is unfair and disadvantages the backer and if I would have backed them I would be angry at them. Hopefully this will result in a lot of bad PR and people who are affected are thinking twice about supporting them ever again. They are probably not very trusthworthy.

This has been the thing with KS projects since the beginning, as it is a platform for products that haven't been made yet. When entering in full production things can and will most likely change. It's even happening with traditionally financed games. You can ask that from any big game company and you'd hear a plethora of stories about games that changed form even quite drastically during the production, but in most cases the public doesn't know that, as that is the matter between the financer and the developer.

I know many people still look KS as some sort of pre-order and many devs are to blame from that as well. But in many cases it really isn't pre-order as much of act of good faith. You trust your money to a project and you trust the devs to do their job well. Sometimes they deliver what they promised, sometimes they omit things from the game because of unforseen developement difficulties.

It is unfortunate that such a big feature as offline has been axed. A lot of people pledged because of that. At the same time Frontier did themselves a disservice when they did sell the game later with a promise of offline. What they should have done in KS was to tell that they would look into it, but not promise it. They did mistakes there and they really aren't handeling the situation as well as they should. But at the same time KS backers should really acknowledge, that no matter how much they give, they aren't pre-purchasing a game with set features. They are purchasing something that MIGHT be.

That is not all. It is not only about offline. It is also about DRM. Even with this change they could still offer the game DRM free if they let us host our own server. But they chose not to, that is a clear violation of the KS Terms. It has nothing to do with game development or unexpected changes.

It really isn't violation of KS terms. Their terms are so vague, that the it can be argued in any direction, so in the end as guidelines KS terms are useless. What would be needed is some solid court case about the matter of what must be delivered on the base of a sales pitch.

In the end the whole thing is okay in KS terms, as Frontier will deliver a game. It might not have all the features, but they will deliver a game, that is reasonably close to what they intentented. But just like always, intentionts are not met goals and KS acknowledges that and they have covered their own base with that. If a backer isn't happy with the end product that is, from KS POV, between the backer and the project.

This. If people have pledged at a tier including the finished release copy of the game then they should be getting refunds. If they've pledged for both beta access and a release copy (let's not forget that plenty companies charge extra for giving you beta versions before the game comes out) then they should be getting back the money left after suntracting the amount covering the beta.

Of couse it is a violation, they are not delivering a DRM free physical edition. And only because they CHOOSE not to, they make no effort to resolve this in any way. That violates paragraph 4.

No not those terms.Like I said, paragraph 4. The terms that they have to deliver the pledge rewards or refund or provide some other solution (like our own servers).
They are clearly violating that since they are making ZERO effort to resolve anything.

No they have not, as they CHOOSE not to deliver a DRM free edition.