What about multiplayer

Silicor

Join Date 03/2006

What about multiplayer

I was trying to find out what was published about the multiplayer and I found this

". It will also have a persistent multiplayer mode in addition to a rich single player mode. This multiplayer mode will allow players to ally themselves with either the Empire or the Kingdom and engage in battles all over the world of Elemental."

Couple questions:

do you care if there is multiplayer?
Would you prefer online multiplayer, play be email or both
the above quote seems a bit wierd/unattainable to me, what do you make of it?

Personally, I love multiplayer games, however, its nice to be free to just kick some AI arse. I'm totally confused about how they plan to implement it. Any guesses?

elemental

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CapnWinky

Quoting b0rsuk,

reply 23

TBS games with simultaneous turns (NOT like in Aow:SM) have all the advantages of SP turn-based games, including ability to take your time planning moves. And they don't suffer from typical drawbacks of TBSes (having to wait for your turn, A-B-A-B turns and artifacts. The reason turn-based games weren't popular in multiplayer was (aside from lack of the internet at the time) that RTS'es came earlier than simultaneous turns.

Try Laser Squad Nemesis or Dominions 3. People have no problems playing 20+ player games in Dominions3, because you don't wait for your turn. Dom3 is also very well suited for play-by-mail. All players plan their turns and server generates another one as soon as all of them are done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Squad_Nemesis

Sorry, not buying it. Whether the turns are simultaneous or not is irrelevant to me. Sure, simultaneous turns may be better than sequential turns but that's not my point. My point is that any form of time pressure to move for an opponent is not something I personally like in my TBS. Even with simultaneous turns you must wait for all players to complete a turn (even if they are doing so at the same time) before moving on to the next one. So, just because one turn system makes you wait less than another just means it's the lesser of two evils IMHO. The key word being EVILS not LESSER.

Also, you MUST make compromises when including multiplayer in TBS. Multiplayer has a different set of requirements that singleplayer does and accomodating those requirements means making certain design sacrifices. Need examples? Read Brad's GalCiv2 post The Case For No Multiplayer if you're so inclined.

Now multiplayer has already been stated as a feature of Elemental - so be it. I'm sure they'll do a fine job of it and I know that there are plenty of people out there who want multiplayer TBS as much as I don't. However, I just don't believe that by including multiplayer you "...have all the advantages of SP turn-based games, including ability to take your time planning moves. And they don't suffer from typical drawbacks of TBSes..." I respect their design decision (and your opinion too), but I fear that the cost of doing it will prevent really pushing the boundaries of the single-player experience.

Quoting GW Swicord,

reply 25

I'm all for Stardock experimenting with TBS multiplayer via the Elemental project, but I hope they'll strip it down or even ditch it if it seems to be taking an unreasonable amount of dev time or generating too much useless chatter on the boards. I guess I'm thinking I'd rather see a smaller, stronger community than one swollen with the hordes of folks who already have plenty of multiplayer game titles to choose from.

I couldn't agree more

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Is the multiplayer in E:WoM with simultaneous turns?

1. Yes, multiplayer is very important to me. For that reason I haven´t bought GalCiv 2^^

2. I would prefer online,LAN and hotseat

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Quoting GW Swicord,

reply 25

what about the age-old debate over scarce dev resources--time spent on multiplayer mechanics is time not spent on 'core' parts of the game. And then there's the whole business of worrying about a game getting 'dumbed down' so that it doesn't generate too much grief from a horde of short-attention-span clickaholics.

I'm all for Stardock experimenting with TBS multiplayer via the Elemental project, but I hope they'll strip it down or even ditch it if it seems to be taking an unreasonable amount of dev time or generating too much useless chatter on the boards. I guess I'm thinking I'd rather see a smaller, stronger community than one swollen with the hordes of folks who already have plenty of multiplayer game titles to choose from.

Of course some resources will be going towards multiplayer and there are pros and cons on both sides. However when knowing that modding will allow lots of adjustable content we want the community as larger as possible and alive for as long as possible.

Upon checking the Gal_Civ_2 forums... they're virtually dead. And one of the only two responses today was a topic discussion over multiplayer! LOL {There was one response in the modding section as well.} I'd hate for Elemental forums to be so deadly quiet after 3 expansions. The Dominions_3 Fantasy TBS has about 10 responses each day... and it's an independent game!! So without a doubt multiplayer is better in the long term... in my opinion.

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Re 'community,' I am not persuaded that larger all by itself means better, and I suspect it tends to be as much or more of a problem as a benefit. Longer-lived is good, but one reason the boards at GC2 can look 'dead' to casual visitors is that the cross-forum sprawl has discouraged a lot of former regulars who find it tedious to dig through all the general PC talk, Off-Topic rants and silliness, and Impulse shakedown chatter.

GC2 was released over three years ago, and we have a brand new Metaverse empire, not quite a month old, with their own non-Stardock site.

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do you care if there is multiplayer?

Yes. I want multiplayer.

2. Would you prefer online multiplayer, play be email or both

PBEM, then Hot seat, then Online.

Sammual

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BlackSmokeDMax

Join Date 03/2006

+60

1. Nope

2. If it were to have it, online I suppose.

3. Definitely a weird quote. Not sure what to make of that part of allying.

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Quoting GW Swicord,

reply 4

Re 'community,' I am not persuaded that larger all by itself means better, and I suspect it tends to be as much or more of a problem as a benefit.

A larger community means more custom made content, bugs reported earlier, game questions/problems answered more quickly, more spread of the game by word of mouth, etc., etc., .

Exactly what problems exist from a larger forum community as compared with a smaller forum community? I can't think of any problems which would be so extreme as it would tip the scales against all the benefits.

Quoting GW Swicord,

reply 4

Longer-lived is good, but one reason the boards at GC2 can look 'dead' to casual visitors is that the cross-forum sprawl has discouraged a lot of former regulars who find it tedious to dig through all the general PC talk, Off-Topic rants and silliness, and Impulse shakedown chatter.

Dominions_3 also have lots of general PC talk, Off-Topic rants and silliness on their forums. One of the most active forum sections on Dominions_3 is the multiplayer section.

Quoting GW Swicord,

reply 4

GC2 was released over three years ago, and we have a brand new Metaverse empire, not quite a month old, with their own non-Stardock site.

Gal_Civ_2 was released in Feb_2006 and Dominions_3 was released in Sept_2006... yet Gal_Civ_2 had the benefit of multiple paid internet advertisements and having multiple expansions officially released in stores. The last expansion for Gal_Civ_2 was released only a year ago. The new GC2 Metaverse forums are just as deadly quiet.

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I definitely want multiplayer. Online and LAN.

And if they were to go back and make GalCiv2 multiplayer, that'd be even more awesome.

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I have to side with GW Swicord on this one, Stardock really needs to focus on the single player experience first.

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Quoting pdboddy,

reply 8

I definitely want multiplayer. Online and LAN.

I believe we're already covered there.

Quoting pdboddy,

reply 8

And if they were to go back and make GalCiv2 multiplayer, that'd be even more awesome.

It would indeed be awesome.

Unfortunately, however, it's never going to happen. It wouldn't be worthwhile -- in terms of both money and time -- for Stardock to add MP to GalCiv 2 at this point. We'll just have to wait for GalCiv 3 instead.

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Quoting Martok,

reply 10

Quoting pdboddy,
reply 8
And if they were to go back and make GalCiv2 multiplayer, that'd be even more awesome.

It would indeed be awesome.

Unfortunately, however, it's never going to happen. It wouldn't be worthwhile -- in terms of both money and time -- for Stardock to add MP to GalCiv 2 at this point. We'll just have to wait for GalCiv 3 instead.

I would have purchased GalCiv_2, but there was no multiplayer.

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I don´t know how many of you are familiar with HoMM5, but I´m sure many of you are. There´s an interesting feature there that makes TBS multiplayer not that "Im sooo bored waiting my opponent" thing. In your opponent turn you play as a "ghost" hero, and can do lots of stuff, like cursing enemy mines, possessing neutral creatures. It was a good idea, to have your opponent doing something while you play your turn. An idea like this could be used somehow by the dev team, would be nice to actually do something while waiting your turn to begin.

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That would be a great idea...but I think multiplayer will be of the simultaneous version = less waiting for your opponent....UNLESS his empire is really huge and yours is very small.

When playing a much smaller empire (and having to wait for the larger empires to finish up their turns), I could see a feature like what Katabroc suggests as being useful.

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