Nightingale Devs Working on "Offline Play" Mode

[T0@st]

Hey Realmwalkers, we've seen a lot of discussion in recent days around our decision to make Nightingale online-only at our Early Access release. We understand that this can be frustrating for a number of reasons. Our vision for the game since inception was to create an interconnected series of Realms, with the idea of allowing for co-operative exploration in mind—a universe bigger than a single Realm or server. That meant we made a choice early in development between supporting co-op from day one or focusing development on an offline mode.

Co-operative gameplay associated with having party members across multiple Realms was the more technically challenging problem and therefore the one we chose to tackle first. Looking back on that decision, we misjudged what some of you were looking for in your experience.




We are now prioritizing and developing an offline mode that we plan to release as soon as feasible. Keep an eye on our social channels and Discord for updates in the coming weeks alongside other things we're working on. Thank you to everyone who has stepped into the Realms with us so far - the journey has just begun and we look forward to sharing it with you all.

UPDATE: to address questions we've received, development on other updates (QoL, new content, fixes, bugs and other work) continues uninterrupted—we'll have more news on those to share in the coming days.

• The Inflexion Team

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Space Lynx]

probably a good idea

 

[lexluthermiester]

probably a good idea

You're being nice.

Whenever I see the specs of a single player game saying "Online connection required", I read it as the devs/publishers saying "Screw you, we're going to treat you all like criminals by requiring you to be logged in to our crap servers at all times to play a single player game!", to which I respond: "Go F*%& yourselves! You're not getting my money and I know who to avoid in future like the plague!"

These people think they are doing anyone a favor coming up with an "offline" mode as an afterthought and coming up with these silly excuses afterwards? How pathetic.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

You're being nice.

Whenever I see the specs of a single player game saying "Online connection required", I read it as the devs/publishers saying "Screw you, we're going to treat you all like criminals by requiring you to be logged in to our crap servers at all times to play a single player game!", to which I respond: "Go F*%& yourselves! You're not getting my money and I know who to avoid in future like the plague!"

These people think they are doing anyone a favor coming up with an "offline" mode as an afterthought and coming up with these silly excuses afterwards? How pathetic.

Then why do people think Steam is ever going to have "offline platform play" if they don't already?
If it hasn't been setup to do so now after 20 years of steam being up; it's never going to be setup for you to be able to do off platform/offline play.

 

[Space Lynx]

Then why do people think Steam is ever going to have "offline platform play" if they don't already?
If it hasn't been setup to do so now after 20 years of steam being up; it's never going to be setup for you to be able to do off platform/offline play.

huh? i had my steam deck in offline mode for over 6 months, and it let me play games all the time just fine

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

huh? i had my steam deck in offline mode for over 6 months, and it let me play games all the time just fine

I'm talking about PC games. Notice how I said platform. There are games you need the Steam launcher for.
I doubt that will last for them.

 

[Onasi]

I'm talking about PC games. Notice how I said platform. There are games you need the Steam launcher for.
I doubt that will last for them.

Steam does have an offline mode though. It had some issues in the past, but works pretty well now. You log in once and then it takes quite a while for it to request a re-check. And the Deck is Steam Launcher based by default, so not sure why you make a distinction.

 

[Calenhad]

I'm talking about PC games. Notice how I said platform. There are games you need the Steam launcher for.
I doubt that will last for them.

Many games including purely singleplayer games require an online connection, as we all know and hate.

But the Steam launcher itself comes with an offline mode. If you have downloaded/installed your offline capable games you can enable offline mode and Steam will happily let you play those games offline like Space Lynx commented. You just need to be connected to install games.

 

[Space Lynx]

yeah I have used steam on PC in offline mode before with no issue.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

You just need to be connected to install games.

That's the problem right there.

I need no such thing for G.O.G with their offline installer after downloading.

 

[lexluthermiester]

huh? i had my steam deck in offline mode for over 6 months, and it let me play games all the time just fine

Have you tried any SquareEnix, EA or Microsoft games during that time?

 

[tpa-pr]

That's the problem right there.

I need no such thing for G.O.G with their offline installer after downloading.

I know this doesn't directly address your point (and I agree, a DRM free installer is ALWAYS the better option) but just as a note for future reference: if you copy the game files and the appmanifest.acf file (which is found in "SteamFolder\steamapps") for a Steam game, you should be able to restore it without internet in the future. From my understanding (and testing) Steam references the manifest file when it loads to determine if a game is installed or not.

Each appmanifest file is named with the AppID of the game it references, you can find out the AppID for a game at steamdb.info.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I know this doesn't directly address your point (and I agree, a DRM free installer is ALWAYS the better option) but just as a note for future reference: if you copy the game files and the appmanifest.acf file (which is found in "SteamFolder\steamapps") for a Steam game, you should be able to restore it without internet in the future. From my understanding (and testing) Steam references the manifest file when it loads to determine if a game is installed or not.

Each appmanifest file is named with the AppID of the game it references, you can find out the AppID for a game at steamdb.info.

While that's a fair point it's also a hassle most people are not will to deal with. GOG is much easier/simpler.

 

[Arcdar]

While that's a fair point it's also a hassle most people are not will to deal with. GOG is much easier/simpler.

To be fair - downloading it via the GOG launcher and then installing it "offline" is not that much different than pressing "install" on steam and as soon as it's done switch steam to offline mode. At least for offline-capable-games. All games which require a separate user-id/login to a studio-account (even games like Red-Dead) it behaves the same way in Steam as it does in GoG - this doesn't change no matter which platform you got the game from.


If you're talking about "keeping a game for a later time to re-install it" you can also store the game by archiving it and later "re-installing" it from that archive - even in offline mode.

So I don't really get the issue you have. With both (Steam / GoG) you have to be online to download the game. With GoG you install it after the downloads while Steam is installing it while downloading it. After the download (for Steam DL/Install in one go) you can go offline and be happy with any and all offline capable games?! I know, Steam is not ideal - but it is now in an acceptable stage I think, while I also have a GoG account and love the DRM-Free options it provides I wouldn't say it's vastly superior to Steam. Both platforms have their own right to exist in my opinion.

 

[lexluthermiester]

To be fair - downloading it via the GOG launcher and then installing it "offline" is not that much different than pressing "install" on steam and as soon as it's done switch steam to offline mode. At least for offline-capable-games. All games which require a separate user-id/login to a studio-account (even games like Red-Dead) it behaves the same way in Steam as it does in GoG - this doesn't change no matter which platform you got the game from.


If you're talking about "keeping a game for a later time to re-install it" you can also store the game by archiving it and later "re-installing" it from that archive - even in offline mode.

So I don't really get the issue you have. With both (Steam / GoG) you have to be online to download the game. With GoG you install it after the downloads while Steam is installing it while downloading it. After the download (for Steam DL/Install in one go) you can go offline and be happy with any and all offline capable games?! I know, Steam is not ideal - but it is now in an acceptable stage I think, while I also have a GoG account and love the DRM-Free options it provides I wouldn't say it's vastly superior to Steam. Both platforms have their own right to exist in my opinion.

You assume that people are using the GOG Galaxy client. Many of us do not. We download the installer files and store them locally for later use or for use on another PC. Either way, once we make our purchase we can install our games regardless of internet connection status. This is not true of Epic, Windows Store or Steam.

 

[Arcdar]

You assume that people are using the GOG Galaxy client. Many of us do not. We download the installer files and store them locally for later use or for use on another PC. Either way, once we make our purchase we can install our games regardless of internet connection status. This is not true of Epic, Windows Store or Steam.

Once you DOWNLOADED them, not purchased them. That would only be true with a physical medium what you're talking about. With Steam it's the same. Yes, I cannot download it from the web-browser but to be honest the DL-management of Steam is better than the integrated one in FF or Chrome so I'm O.K. with that.

After the download I can also store it for a later use as offline container to re-install it, even with the offline steam-client. Yes, you still need the steam client in offline mode and can't just run a setup.exe, but that's the only difference.

And again - this only counts for games which have a pure offline-mode, which, sadly are fewer and fewer and even GoG won't change the fact that you have to log in to accounts even for pure single-player-games to unlock all features (which sucks way more than a required game-library-tool like steam).

Like I said, I agree that steam isn't ideal or the best, but it's far from bad - and GoG while great also doesn't solve the underlying problem Game-Devs create more and more....

 

[lexluthermiester]

Once you DOWNLOADED them, not purchased them.

You can not download them until you pay for them.

Yes, I cannot download it from the web-browser but to be honest the DL-management of Steam is better than the integrated one in FF or Chrome so I'm O.K. with that.

And you're welcome to that option. Some people are not.

Like I said, I agree that steam isn't ideal or the best, but it's far from bad - and GoG while great also doesn't solve the underlying problem Game-Devs create more and more....

Fair enough..

 

[Arcdar]

You can not download them until you pay for them.

You said you can install the game as soon as you bought it and I tried to make a point of the technicality that you have to download the game in any way - no matter if from Steam or GoG, just the download-utility is different (chrome/ff/whatever download tool versus steam).

But yeah. It's mood point to argue about, and not worth it going back and forward about personal preferences anyway, the main point was that offline mode is available, even though you still have to have the client running in the background (which is the main point you're making and is a valid point, of course, but not the point of "offline is not possible" which started the argument) .

Have a great day