Are you sure you can afford that?
I was there last year, had for straight 6-7 Month no internet, could neither as a Diablo Fan play D4 (and please don’t make some weird competition out of it or do strawmaning here, just focus on my OG point) nor Diablo 2 Ressurected because D2R also is just a pseudo-offline mode. You have to login every 30 Days to redownload the offline-play token.
It’s funny because before that happened i had some heated debates with people who claimed that nowdays Online / Internet is standart for everyone… or if they acknowledge that there are quite some situations where Internet can be issue or areas where internet just isn’t and won’t be good… but then argue this people should just move to a different area or country. Yes that’s the solution, instead of an huge a** company like B going more consumerfriendly and adding an optional offline-mode, it’s just up to the individual to leave their home or families or whatever to get a better internet connection so they can play a Game. Just make sense. But anyway it was kinda ironic that me arguing about this with some people had then actual no internet to be able to play this games.
And that again supported my dislike for Online-Only Games. Like i really geniunly don’t like it, the idea of being bound to single servers to be able to play a game, which can means on either can be issues, the company could shutdown and you won’t ever be able to play again etc etc. (And yes i know, storefronts are an issue too, that’s true, but that’s not on the same level as being bound to game-servers and forced t online-play).
So yeah i’m geniunly happy that EHG stick to their word and give us a true offline. And whilte it would’ve been cool to also have cosmetics offline, if i’d have to decide between an true offline mode versus pseudo-offline with comsetics, i rather pick true offline, because i want rather have to play something atleast instead not be able to at all, but have the knowledge that theoretically my character would look fancy…
/Edit:
Lol one of the linked topics had even my post where i was ranting about the same thing xDDD
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Yeah but for some people a “offline” mode is nothing they think about and they would love a boardgame version of the game far more because their PC (or whatever) could breake down at any moment because… *shaking 8Ball… the earth magnet field.
I’m all for offline modes but is it a real offline mode if you have to login online? 
Out of curiosity, how/why? I know we’ve got one other member here who’s in the merchant marine (ie, on ships for a lot of the time), so I’m curious as to how else one could be without internet for an extended period of time.
No, LE’s will be proper offline after you’ve downloaded the client (& presumably set it up, I don’t know). No logging in every X weeks/months, no chat, no trade.
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Some people here are missing the point of the post. Some of you understand the issues I’m bringing up. While, behind it all, EHG still hasn’t updated any of their store pages with the disclaimer that none of the cosmetics will be available if you play in offline mode.
My point still stands. How many people have bought, and will buy, this game because it has a true offline mode. And how many of those bought the upgraded editions of this game because they believe the cosmetic items are cool. And, again, how many of those people are going to feel like they were scammed because EHG failed to mention anywhere on the purchasing pages that these cosmetic items will not be available to them. EHG clearly knew it was a good idea to added it in their news post. So what prevented them from thinking they should probably post it where it matters?
I am not the only one bringing this up, as there are a handful of posts about this issue. There’s no telling how many people are going to be in this situation, thus angry with EHG that it was not advertised. It’s a simple line of text EHG. ****ing add it to your store pages.
The longer it goes on, the more incompetent and dishonest it reflects on the developers. Some will even say it’s intentional. Especially when so many people are already bringing this issue up.
I’m sorry that we didn’t communicate this information properly. We should have made it more clear.
We submitted the request to steam to add it to the appropriate pages before you made the original post. I don’t know why it hasn’t updated yet. The information is on the announcement posts which we can update.
I do take exception with the term scam because it implies we were intentionally trying to mislead people. That was never the intent.
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Just to state the obvious, it is also not mentioned at all on https://lastepoch.com/pre-order.
A page you have full control of, I assume.
But to be honest I don’t consider it a big deal, and I agree that calling it a scam is rude and goes against everything I know of EHG.
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It’ll be a very big deal for a lot of people for sure. You know it’s a recipe for disaster if you don’t inform players they can’t buy shiney stuff offline.
I would buy cosmetic stuff to support the devs. I like what they do with the game so far. But blocking access to something you paid for if you’re online is a NO GO. They must’ve forgot that many people in a lot of countries are on a metered connections or with generally crappy internet access.
Therefore before they decide to change this approach I won’t spend a dime on cosmetics (and I encourage you to do the same) - and I really do hope they change their stance.
@EHG_Mike please talk it out internally because there probably will be more people like me and you’re essentially hurting the people who are the most vulnerable.
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I’m grateful that @EHG_Mike put that out there, it’s important people hear from them.
I for one never thought it was an attempt to scam and thought it was very egregious to assume that it was intentional on their part.
We all make mistakes in oversight and for someone to assume without proof that they were intentionally acting in bad faith and making railing accusations is absolutely wrong right out of the gate.
EHG has done a great job listening and even though there have been mistakes in how they communicate to the community I think they’ve been getting much better at it. Not all of us are exceptional at clearly stating what we think we are making clear and not one of us is perfect at it.
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It’ll be a very big deal for some people, certainly. How many? Nobody knows but I’d be surprised if it were “a lot”, though that’s unknowable & we tend to assume “most” people are like ourselves.
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Plus the fact that you generally get a lot less “feedback” from people who are neutral or fine with the current state of a given topic.
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Yeah, there’s absolutely no info about cosmetics being online only on their own pre-order page. I’ve been away from the game for some time so I haven’t followed what’s going on and this thread is where I’ve learned about this because there’s no info about it at all on any places where you can buy the cosmetic upgrades. Those pages only tell you that the items will be unlocked on Feb 21st 2024. That would be the place to add “items will not be available for offline characters”.
I’ll get them to add it to that one too. Didn’t know that existed.
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Wasn’t a lot just more then a dozen ppl? If i talk about a lot of people I think about 2 dozen mostly… okay I already think those are far to many but enough of that. We had an school example of a lot and it was “he drank a lot of milk” with a pick of boy who drank just half a glas. Maybe a lot is more then I thought originaly . Well time to ask uncle google ^^.
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It’s a very subjective quantifier & as an accountant, I’m not too fond of those.
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It is, otherwise we wouldn’t have the debate here over this, because it’s stated in one of the linked threads that offline-skills would’ve been possible if there would’ve been still some sort of an online-authentification even if you play offline. But people (like me) asked for a true offline-mode that’s why the took the decision and to exclude cosmetics. And again, i’m pretty happy with that.
I mean they still could pull off an scam on that regard, and the offline-mode is a lie, but at this point i geniunly would find it wild, if considering how often the pointed out the last months that it’s in, that they pull of a stunt like that.
In all honesty, no, i rather feel the opposite to that, because again they pretty much listened to quite some people here who wanted a true offline mode and that would rather encourage me to spend a dime or two for cosmetics. Due i 've to point out, just because a true offline-mode is very important to me, doesn’t mean i won’t play the Online-Mode at all, and i find it more encouraging to dig into online-modes when i know i can fall back to the offline-mode because i’m in the mood or i just can’t play online at the moment, and have some engaging features (like trader faction) fitting for online-mode, then being forced and bound to an online-service. And for that, it’s stil a supportable concept for me.
Would i also like in the best case scenario to have Cosmetics for the Offline-Mode, for sure and i’d argue again, it would give the cosmetics a bit more value, because you not really “renting” a skin which you only “kinda” own as long as the online-servers are running, you have them no matter what.
And there could also be the argument / debate made about, if it will in the end effect that much (in a worse way) if they would make them offline in a way, because cosmetics often sells better for online-games because of bragging rights and also if in the long run via mods people will be able to get on these mtx (or atleast some sort of skins) anyway… so there could be a potential that offline-players would be very supportive if the devs show some goodwill.
But than again i also can understand why don’t wanna risk it, because considering what they planned out on the long run, they need the financial support (and plus in generall people want to be payed / rewarded for their work as well, and as much as people want to dismiss cosmetics often, there is also work involved like the artists want to be paid as well) and by enabling cosmetics for the offline-mode it might make it way easier to hack/unlock/mod them in, and that can backfire/be bad.
And again, if the decision is just between semi-offline but with cosmetics or real offline… i always take the latter one.
The only “request” or “feedback” or whatever i’d have and who knows maybe @EHG_Mike reads this would be for one:
Maybe they might look into this situation from time to time and maybe they will find a solution / compromise (or a technology) which works on both sides.
But moreover if the devs could consider if - god forbid never happens (or atleast soon) that you’ve shut down the server of the games, maybe then making the cosmetic mtx available for offline players. I’d thing for some people it might be a bit more open to the idea to support them/pay for cosmetics if it’s just for the time being them being online-only, but don’t need to fear that the money might be wasted in the end because they’re gone as soon as servers are shut down.
We are always open to feedback. The only thing that’s set in stone is what will happen at 1.0.
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I wouldn’t call it a scam, but as someone who backed the game a while ago and tends to play Offline more because of occasional connectivity issues I’ve encountered, I’d really appreciate being able to use Cosmetics offline.
Not a dealbreaker for me, but it’d certainly be a nice thing.
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See, this is why I encourage my friends to get the game. But now also I’ll add a disclaimer regarding the cosmetics and they will of course decide for themselves. I’ll probably play both online and offline too. My net can be spotty so I prefer the offline option as I tend to solo anyway.
Still, my personal stance on the cosmetics stays - I know these are “just cosmetics” but the people who are offline can essentially be barred from using a part of the product they paid for. This might also be legally wonky I guess… Anyway, I really hope they can come up with a solution that works for both sides of this equation.
It’s strange for me that they worry for cosmetics piracy in offline mode as AFAIK most of the people get them to look different than other players in multi, and this is similar to piracy - “cracked” cosmetics wouldn’t work online. And since people mod single player they can do whatever there really.
And I also don’t support the claim that it’s a scam - if someone wants to see a scam they can launch Diablo 4 and see their macrotransaction store with stuff more expensive than a lot of good indie games. I see no ill will on the devs’ side but IMO this is just wrong approach where they should pick the pro-consumer option.