Re: There is single player
@James O'Shea "Well-reasoned replies as to why I should change my mind are invited"
Ok here's an attempt then, your judgement on whether it's well-reasoned :)
On your first point, there are no doubt a small but significant number of people who fall into that category, by which I mean people who pre-ordered the game but didn't participate in the testing stages AND had assumed there would be an offline mode. For those people, I agree they should get a full refund. However most of the thud and blunder on the forums seemed to be from people who'd been actively participating on those forums (and playing the game), ONLINE, for months. There I'd support the Frontier position that if you've been racking up hours already, then clearly the lack of an offline mode can't be a deal breaker. FYI the game has been pretty much playable, if buggy, for months now in my experience.
On your second point - disagree, having played it. Working your way up from a basic ship was always part of the point of Elite, certainly for me. The starter ship is 'good enough' to try out the major roles available - bounty hunting, trading etc, while working your way up to a better one (which you can do in a few hours of play). But I suspect your reservation is about immediately getting splattered by hordes of griefing players in high-end ships a la Eve Online once upon a time. Well, there were, it appears, instances of that right after release, and there is thread after thread of "griefers vs carebears" dispute on the game forums. But the game gives you a mechanic to avoid that. By playing in "Solo mode" - for as long as you like - you can avoid all player contact. By joining a specific PVE group and playing with them, you can avoid all hostile player contact. There is no restriction on swapping between these, so you can build up and then join 'Open' mode later. However, there is another option which is to simply avoid the more heavily-used systems. I've been in Open mode since release and encountered only a couple of other players so far. Caveat - you can still - and are likely to be - intercepted and scragged by NPCs at any point. With a bit of offline combat practice - provided via in-game tutorials - you can win or avoid those too.
Final point - the game is stunning visually and aurally, the flight model is excellent and personally I find it a worthy successor to the original. Have a look at some Youtube videos with no risk, search for the username "Isinona" (not me I hasten to add - I can't fly like that...)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
