Yeah that's what people are speculating about. Isn't the Gamma launch tomorrow (22) and the proper launch of the game 16th December? I'm not sure about the dates.

He he not sure about the monthly fee part but suspicions about day one DLC's are starting to surface because apparently nothing new have been added for testing for a while.

DLC (and just after releasing the game) would add insult to injury or as we call it over here "Darle atole con el dedo a la gente" which roughly translate as "Giving "oatmeal-like drink" to the people with your finger"

http://quenpompo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/atole.jpg <--- Only it is not David braben's finger, the substance is not atole and it is not trying to insert it in peoples mouths (there are other orifices) >_<

Not sure if this has been posted but Braben has posted this

Hi All,

I want to keep you all updated.

We initially declined some people's request for refund as our records showed they have already played Elite: Dangerous online. After listening to many of the comments I received after my AMA here, we have since re-opened these requests and informed those people that we will be contacting them so that we can fully understand their individual situation before making a more informed decision.

We will be contacting them each in the next few working days.

Thanks,

David

Yeah it was around the time of that post that they started to reopen tickets.
As PR damage control it's pretty bad.
If not full blown DLC there are apparently stuff in game that are so hard to get that there are suspicions about microtransactions too. It's the old downward spiral of someone breaking a big promise and people seeing more evilness everywhere.

It's a fun shitstorm to watch blowing away the fan. :)

... or maybe, just maybe, it is a case of people realizing how evil this CEO really is. As for me, I was thinking about buying Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 but no more, I am not giving a f**king cent to Frontier Development. I am not here for the Schadenfreude, I am interested in this setting an example for future kickstarters, because if Braben can get away with it, then many other unscrupulous entrepreneurs will arise and the game will be "with how much money can I get away without going to jail".

Braben's words:

"Back during the Kickstarter, we were clear about the vision, to make a phenomenal new sequel to Elite in an online world, which we believe we are about to deliver. At the time we believed we could also offer a good single player experience, and base an acceptable offline-only experience off that. As development has progressed, it has become clear that this last assumption is not the case. That experience would be empty at best, and even that would take a lot of extra work.

It is not to enforce DRM or advertising as you suggest. We will be judged on quality, and the quality of that game experience would be poor, and we don't want to deliver a poor game. To make a richer offline single player experience has always been possible (and still is) but would be a separate game with its own story content. A huge slice of separate work. We have developed a multi-player game with an unfolding story involving the players, and groups collaborating with specific objectives and taking account of all players behaviour. This is what the game is about. Without this it would not be the rich gaming experience that we will deliver, and would be a great disappointment to all players.

I don't pretend it was an easy decision, but it was done to benefit the game as a whole. One thing we have looked at carefully is our requirements of the network connection. For the single player game they are pretty light. I myself have played the game fine on the train using a laptop on a tethered connection over my phone. Given that this is a game which is only available online, this was the decision we took. I am sorry that people are so upset about it, but it was the right decision."

I really feel the urge to rant a bit, as it is hiliarious by Mr. Braben to point out, that for a better, more exciting or the quality of a game experience as a whole, the always online mmo solution is the only way. It is also new for me that it is harder and a lot more work to develop a single player game than a full MMO.

Also I find it interesting that the players behaviour was taken into account, as it is quite limited by the interactions which are possible with the gaming world.

I guess many Developers need to think again, when their single player games are sold only digital. According to Braben the always online requirement follows directly from the circumstance that you can get a game only online.

I agree with your points. After all Braben being who he is was one reason I wrote E: D off quickly.

It's just that since I've not cared about it for a long time I have distance too it and can calmly watch this story unfold.
I do love such internet dramas.

Edit: I've never been into Kickstarter either, always seemed to be too great a chance of it going nowhere so myself I'm also calm about the impact on future kickstarters.

I have received plenty of rewards from the kickstarters I have participated (yet one that has yet to deliver, thankfully it is not E:D) and I do fear that this incident can make kickstarter take a turn for the worse. I can understand such a campaign failing due to incompetence, but deliberately taking us for a ride is what you expect from politicians, not from kickstarter.

1: Or get better. As I understand it kickstarter have changed their, eh, rules/laws/whatever fairly recently.
In the best of worlds this could mean that backers get more to say about what they back and also better legal rights to avoid just this kind of trouble.
Kickstarter might lose trust and backers because of this but can come out of this a better place.

2: It can bring mostly negative things with loss of trust and so on.

3: A little bit of both.

That's the ways I think it can go for kickstarter. Or it simply won't affect kickstarter much at all.
This is certainly debated on more places than here so its had some effect so far. What is too soon to tell.

Finally found the interesting post in the monster 10,000 post thread on the official E: D forum I've been looking for. It's about why offline single player by no means have to be a static and boring place.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=60916&amp;p=1036133&amp;viewfull=1#post1036133

Poetic justice would be big server problems on launch day. And then maybe those asking "What's the big deal?" would see what the grumbling is about.

That will happen, because it is simply more profitable to render bad service on release than to pay more servers for just a few days. I'll be sure to note which white knights from now will be on our side then.

But ... but, that is simply not true. From the FAQ of the KS page (How will single player work? Will I need to connect to a server to play?):

"... it will be possible to have a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server."

How could they forget about that?

Anyway the funnier line is this:

"We had considered that an online connection is a reasonable pre-requisite for a game delivered online." LOL

Actually if they would have the guts and refund all those who want that I wouldn't mind at all. But making fun of backers who insist on an offline mode and keeping their money - that is just unfair and not the intent of the whole process.

They didn't. One if not the biggest reason people are angry is that they feel deceived. This is just Braben telling people they should have read between the lines and known that his VISION always was to go exclusively online and it's their fault if they didn't understand that.