Possible solution to make offline possible!

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Japhasca a écrit :

The main reason this game doesn't have an offline mode is because the developers want you to be able to play any character either solo or multiplayer at any time.

This, of course, but there's a much stronger reason.

By requiring the game to be online-only, the client can be configured to only send and receive information to/from the server. This allows GGG to keep many details about its internal workings secret, as the algorithms for many calculations are entirely server-side.

Allowing an offline mode, even with online and offline characters completely separated, would require some form of the "server code" to be stored on the hard disk of anyone who downloads it. This would allow malicious types to datamine it, discover exploits that could be applicable to the online version of the game, then utilize those vulnerabilities to hack the online version of the game.

Thus, allowing an offline mode is very similar to having a safe full of diamonds in a secure room, then publishing pictures on your Facebook page of that safe, complete with its make and model. It's essentially inviting someone to hack you.

If GGG were to allow an offline version of the game, it would be imperitive to make the offline client use significantly different methodology than what GGG currently uses on its servers -- in other words, the Facebook safe isn't the real safe. This means GGG would have to devote the time to essentially rewrite its server code from the ground up, taking care not to use the same algorithms that they used the first time.

For a small studio like GGG -- particularly one so committed to free-to-play systems -- the amount of work involved compared to the amount of profit expected makes an offline mode utterly unfeasible.