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10 months ago by
TomasRampas
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MINER WARS 2081 – OFFLINE MODE!

Prague, Czech Republic, January 21th – First major patch adds support for offline single-player (Steam version of Miner Wars 2081), optimizations, bug fixes and adds two free add-ons: Cheats and 2.5D Experiment.

Dear Community,

It has been almost two months since we released Miner Wars 2081 and it’s time for updates and some recapitulation.

Today we released a new patch that adds:
- Offline single-player for Steam version of Miner Wars 2081 – in other words, now you don’t have to be connected to internet and logged into our servers to play the campaign.
- Optimizations and bug fixes, more info: http://www.minerwars.com/CurrentBuildFeatures.aspx
- Two new add-ons available for free as part of Miner Wars 2081 installation:
o Cheats – infinite ammo, immortality, skip to any mission, and more (Ctrl+F1 in game)
o 2.5D Experiment - multiplayer 2.5D add-on for MW 2081 - available as a set of 2.5D death-match maps (all 2.5D sectors have 2.5D as a prefix)

We want to address an important issue many players have reported - low FPS (bad performance) even on computers that should run the game smoothly. After some investigation we have found the cause – it happens on some computers that have one integrated GPU (graphic card) and one external and more powerful GPU. Expected behavior in this case is that driver/OS switches to the more powerful GPU once Miner Wars 2081 is launched and game runs smoothly. Due to unknown reasons, this doesn’t happen on certain systems. We are working on a fail-safe solution – until then please do the following: disable integrated GPU (best in BIOS) or check our trouble shooting page: http://www.minerwars.com/Troubleshooting.aspx

Another issue that needs our response is the accusation of censorship about DRM in Miner Wars. I believe this happened after we deleted one offensive and untruthful post on our Youtube channel. We have deleted posts for reasons that were not related to DRM. If we did delete any comment on our forum, it’s only in extreme cases and I know that we deleted only a handful of comments in the whole history of Miner Wars.

I can assure everyone that we are not censoring posts, if those posts don’t substantially break discussion rules. We are definitely not censoring posts that say “This game has DRM” – proof at our Steam forum which is full of these discussions and we didn’t mind them: http://steamcommunity.com/app/223430/discussions/

There is much more to say and I will continue next week on my blog. To everyone who is interested in what we are working on right now - we are rewriting our rendering engine from XNA to DirectX and then we want to optimize it further. Meanwhile, I am working on the design document for our next unannounced project!

Last but not least, I am happy to announce that last week we crossed boundary of 50,000 sales. This number is far more than what we expected. Thank you!

Best Regards,
Marek Rosa & The Miner Wars Team
www.minerwars.com

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10 months ago by
Ortzinator

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Thank you. This definitely a step in the right direction.

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10 months ago by
StreetRat

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Absolutely Brilliant
The offline mode isnt of much interest to me since im almost always online anyway, and never seen it as DRM within the scope of the game.

The change from XNA to DirectX however, this is one of the best changes you guys can make. Cant wait.

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10 months ago by
TrojanHorse

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I just got the email annoucement and stumbled over the STEAM announcment when I logged into my STEAM account
on my XP computer. You all just made me quite happy! Now all I have to do is get the payment ready.

The only thing I am waiting on now is the offline mode to be made availiable for the NON-STEAM release too.
I would like to install the NON-STEAM release on my Windows 7 computer so I can compare play and performance
on both. And so that IF I decide to take a shot at online/MP play I can do it on my Win 7 so I only have to log into my account here instead of having to log into two accounts to play the game.

So.. Guyz... PLEASE! Add Offline mode to the NON-STEAM release too!?

I will be awaitin!!

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10 months ago by
Gunny

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Wasn't the cheats and 2.5D add on available for purchase? What happens to users who already purchased it?

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10 months ago by
smoker93

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Gunny
The best thing that could happen would be that there would be somebody playing 2.5d
i bought it just to support the devs so at least i don't mind at all.

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10 months ago by
49rTbird

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No Problem with people getting for free what some of us paid for as we all don't pay the same price for things everywhere we go. :) I consider it as them having a giant sale now that I missed (lol)! :)

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9 months ago by
eyeball226

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I second TrojanHorse: Please add an offline mode to the standalone version.

You always maintained the lack of offline mode was unavoidable and wasn't DRM, but now you've added one to the Steam version, which has another layer of DRM anyway (Steam's own).

I wonder why you don't remove the online requirement from the standalone version? Is it perhaps because the real reason for it was that it is DRM?

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9 months ago by
musterfox

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+1 to what TrojanHorse & eyeball226 stated above.

Please consider adding an offline mode for the SP campaign in the case of the non-steam version as well...

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6 months ago by
SKARD

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I just received Miner Wars 2081 through the indiegamestand.com bundle. The game says it's in Demo mode and will not save unless I log in. How do I use Offline Mode?

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6 months ago by
smoker93

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Offline mode is for steam only.

You can get your steam key trough
Profile->steamkeys

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6 months ago by
SKARD

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I don't use Steam and likely never will. I think having games dependent on a service that can just evaporate or tied to an account are bad practices.

I find this confusing. If that version doesn't need to log in why not do the same with other versions?

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6 months ago by
smoker93

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Because steam requires you to connect to internet to be able to play your games.

So even tough steam version does not have DRM Steam does it separately.

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6 months ago by
SKARD

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So they didn't add an offline mode to the game, they just permitted Steam's fake "offline" mode and the title for this topic is misleading.

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6 months ago by
smoker93

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Well it is an offline mode.
Even tough steam requires you to at least once to "phone" home MW2081 itself does not need internet. (steam version)

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6 months ago by
eyeball226

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QUOTE: I just received Miner Wars 2081 through the indiegamestand.com bundle. The game says it's in Demo mode and will not save unless I log in. How do I use Offline Mode?

Originally when the game wasn't on Steam they said that it wasn't always online because of DRM, but because their server did some of the processing and it would be impossible to have an offline mode.

Then it came out on Steam and eventually they added an offline mode for it on there... (offline in the sense that there's not a CONSTANT connection required).

Despite this apparent advance (the offline mode was impossible before) for some reason they've not added it to the standalone version... it's almost as if they were lying when they said it wasn't DRM! But no, surely that can't be? :P

Conclusion, I doubt there'll be an offline mode in the standalone version any time soon because anyone who considers such a heavy handed solution as ALWAYS ONLINE to be acceptable is obviously incredibly paranoid about piracy.

EDIT: Here's my source for the "Oh no, an offline mode is impossible because of the way the game works!" stuff:
http://www.minerwars.com/ForumTopic.aspx?id=1441

That topic is locked now, but there are two more:

http://www.minerwars.com/ForumTopic.aspx?id=2927
http://www.minerwars.com/ForumTopic.aspx?id=3146

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6 months ago by
SKARD

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Those threads just show me that the developers are notorious for making bad design choices and ignoring their users. I'm glad I didn't have to pay much for this game since it looks like it will evaporate sooner than I thought.

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6 months ago by
MarekRosa
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indiegamestand.com has been selling Steam keys, not MW keys, so if you use that key here on this web site, it most probably won't work and the game will be still in demo mode.

You really have to unlock it on Steam.

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6 months ago by
SKARD

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Actually, they have "Request Game Key" and "Request Steam Key" as separate buttons. So I did get a serial that works here and was able to login to the the game with my account. I just don't like that I have to do that for a single player game.

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6 months ago by
eyeball226

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Indeed, there was both a Steam keys and a "game key" (which worked to add the game to my account here). So, back to the actual issue here, why doesn't the standalone version get an offline mode?

EDIT: A quick search tells me that the DRM on the Steam version has already been broken so a pirate version is already out there. You might as well lessen the DRM a bit now, no sense in making things harder for legitimate users when the pirates are just laughing at both us and you.

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