From the GameShark interview:
Yeah.. I’m not a good advocate for multiplayer.. I love multiplayer in, say, StarCraft II, but in turn-based strategy games… basically we put it in because some people like it a lot. Some people imagine that multiplayer should be like the single-player game with humans in it, but our play-testing on it found that that isn't fun at all. So what we've been doing with the multiplayer is really streamlining it so that players get a different technology tree that focuses on the parts that are the most fun in multiplayer. It kind of moves the game along a little better.
Please at least consider having the "full" game/tech trees as a game option when hosting a MP game, don't arbitrarily limit my options. This is honestly the first thing I've heard about Elemental that has really put me off, as it's a trend in the Strategy market that drives me nuts. East India Company only having skirmish battles for MP, the Total War game not having the campaign be multiplayer, etc.
I understand that playtesting is important, and they want to have the game be fun out of the box. However, please allow this as a game option checkbox. My friends and I want the full experience, we don't need stripped down, streamlined, or anything like that. We play games like Fall From Heaven 2 and Europa Universalis 3 together, I think we'd be okay with the full SP tech trees.
Granted the quote above is a bit short on concrete details, but I really hope Stardock reconsiders this, adds it as a game option, or at least has it easily modable, otherwise that's very disappointing.
More options is (almost) always a good thing, and Stardock is all about letting the player customize his experience, so I think there's a good chance that this feature will make it in a future patch.
I completely agree. My friends and I are only interested in playing multiplayer coop with the full game experience. We only found out about the game recently and were looking to buy it, but the lack of multiplayer details and the possibility of crippled multiplayer has meant we're holding off purchase. If Multplayer doesn't give the full experience we'll just pass and just play Civ V instead.
Don't simplify MP. Simple as that.
If people want to play a balanced 1 vs 1 game, then they can turn off w/e they want. But some people are going to want to play a more unpredictable multiplayer game too.
This worried me a bit also. Hopefully it is just an option for those wanting quicker MP games with strangers, instead of arranged coop/competitive long term games with friends or whatever. If not, well, i'll have to come back and ask for it.
Yes, this sounds great as an option, but not the only one for MP.
If it's an option for shorter games, I am okay with it. For long games and coop, games you play with friends for weeks at a time, i'd love to see everything that SP game has.
Yeah, I totally agree. I really hope they allow for a 'fuller' mp experience as a quick skirmish isn't really what I want, please don't dumb down the MP!!!! thats why I am buying it. Co-op or longer style of playing with friends for me would be great. I did hear about perpertual servers, did this mean there is the chance of a perpetual world server setup so people can hop in and play then hop off. Obviously this might mean your kingdom gets wrecked while your away but im sure there are ways to negate this. I would love to see this feature as my friends are often on at differnt times to me.
Ditto to the above. I have several friends I'm eager to play this with, and whether its a cooperative Comp Bash or a somewhat more competitive affair I'd like the option to choose whether I want a more streamlined experience or the whole package. Choice is always extremely welcome!
Another vote for complex multiplayer. If I wanted dumbed down multiplayer, I could find it in a thousand other places.
I'm not likeing that quote either. I would hope that this would be an option. And for those of use that don't want to play 'MP Elemental Lite' at lest give us the option to play the full game MP. I really hate when games do this just because some people want fast games and don't want the full game expereance.
Couldn't it be modded in?
I think people are misreading somewhat. I don't read that as "dumbed down multiplayer" I read that as "Less monotonous multiplayer". Anyone who's played Civ4:BTS Multiplayer on Marathon knows that it can really... really... really drag out, and finishing those games is.... difficult at best.
I don't see a problem with a toggle for it or whatever, but saying it is "dumbed down" is disingenuous, I think.
I hope so, Windexglow, but as I understand it custom servers aren't going to be available at release, so no MP mods? I really wish the interviewer had followed up on the answer.
I find this other Q&A troublesome as well:
Out of the box, Elemental’s multiplayer will be essentially skirmish on fixed maps that have been pre-balanced (i.e. not randomly generated).
Egads. I have RTS for that kind of matchup, that's not what I buy a TBS for. I was hoping/expecting something along the lines of Civ IV MP (i.e. the actual game).
So it's *sounding* like a stripped down, skirmish-based setup with no random maps. Ouch. Well, it'll make waiting for Tuesday easier I guess. I hope I'm blowing all of this out of proportion and that I find I'm wrong when the game releases, but if not it could really kill the game for me.
We need to keep in mind that the game was not intended at first to have MP.. this has led to some of the problems in making it work.. let alone making it work on time for release.. I am sad that it was not able to be done right in the fashion many of us hoped for by release.. Honestly at this time I think it would be smarter to launch the first MP as the MP beta so it can be looked at by many eyes and evil minds..
no matter how hard we want it to work some times making multi-player out of single is not easy, let alone do able.. I do hope that in the end there are several options for multi-player including customer servers with "house rules" simply because this just adds to life / longevity and creativity that can make games like this just get better over time..
I wouldn't call it "dumbed down" either. From what he said it's just streamlining the game for multiplayer. I know gamers have a fear of the word "streamlining."
If I was playing online against strangers I would probably want to use the balanced version but if I'm on my LAN I'd probably want the single player version. Hopefully it's optional.
Ooh Ouch! I'd have to agree entirely. If that is indeed one of the QA things, reading that just made my stomach churn somewhat. Though I will keep my faith for now as I do remember Brad saying somewhere that he intended to fight off the forces of the A.I. with his son, I think.
But if the above is the case and we don't get access to custom maps, servers and game modes in the future I'll be somewhat put out that I was so enthusiastic in my recommendation to my friends. A TBS like this with proper multiplayer is actually the biggest draw for me. I adore Gal Civ 2 for the experience it grants and, while I realise it didn't hold the same potential for multiplayer, it was still a shame that it wasn't at least an option. For some of us proper empire building in a world with players rather than A.I. is a far more appealing prospect. Yes... even with the threat of drop-outs and other inconvenient aspects it brings.
You could argue that I could play Dominions 3 for this sort of experience, but it would be nice to have this presented in a far more accessible, easy to use manner which is what I'm hoping for from E:WOM. Note that I didn't say less complex in that last statement, but even the ability to browse servers and stay in better contact with friends via Impulse Reactor is a vast improvement over solely using forum based communication.
Nah don't waste resources on MP. Leave it like you thought it up and continue to support and create the single player experience beyond your wildest dreams.
Not taking the time to come up with custom MP game modes and MP game rules would save resources, if anything, not cost more.
Which, I think, is the right decision because the majority of people who play turn-based 4x strategy games play single player. You can't just take the single player experience and add multiplayer because that doesn't produce optimal gameplay (even though some people think this is what they want), and the last thing Stardock wants to hear is how dull, lethargic, and poorly balanced online play is. There is going to be some compromise one way or the other, and Stardock is trying to make the one that will have the most positive benefits.
I agree focus on the single player game for awhile and then invest in the MP game later.
Yeah, this is another thing to be concerned about - I didn't see the 'fixed maps' thing. Multiplayer Elemental shouldn't just be modeled after Starcraft (fast play and fixed maps). I do take some comfort from the phrase 'out of the box', which implies that full random maps may well be added in later.
Resources (people you pay money to) cost money. Allocating a person or team to a task costs money.
Anyway, they chose the direction they wanted with regards to favoring SP over MP. I personally think they blew a bit of an opportunity in the beta only having MP enabled in an early beta and then turning it off. There's likely quite a bit of good balancing feedback that would have been provided by the MP community. I still understand that MP is not that important to SD, but I, for one, would love to hear and understand all of the details. That said, I don't have that much more of a wait to try it out for myself and decide if I'll bother with MP or not. I didn't buy Elemental for the MP, though.
I certainly respect you opinion in this regard. If the majority really do want single player and nothing but, then fine. All I ask is that Stardock gives the tools to the Multiplayer Community to customise their experience to their own satisfaction... And knowing Stardock, it will. We've already seen some of the incredible tools on offer. Its just a shame not to see a little more variation, such as no random maps, out of the box and apparently only skirmish play.
I think as Psychoravin put it, I'm not one of the "I'm better than anyone" crowd. I just want to have a fun experience with friends. Surely there's no harm in that? The game will only continue to grow and expand if the Multiplayer community is enabled to do what it wants with the game, and surely there's no harm in that either?
Oh well, I guess we'll just have to see!
I love straw men! No one's asking that they take resources off of SP, or "invest more resources" in MP. MP is already there. The "full" tech tree / game system for SP is already there.
For the record, I don't think them coming up with a slimmed down skirmish mode was a bad idea. I think it was probably a good idea. What I feel the mistake is, is not allowing it as an option, but instead forcing that as the only mode to play MP in. That's all.
This post uses some bad logic which kind of epitomizes the problem here. Yes, it's true that most people are in it for the single player. But those people are then by definition not the customer base for multiplayer - you want to design multiplayer for those people who actually want to play multiplayer. It's the same thing for modding tools - most of us aren't going to use them, and all the showing of the code used for modding that Brad has done doesn't interest most of us at all. But he's doing exactly the right thing, because that stuff DOES interest that subset of people who want to mod.
The point is that multiplayer is for the people who want multiplayer, not for the lowest common denominator that doesn't care about it. It's condescending to say that people essentially don't know what they want and what they will enjoy. I'm someone who enjoyed three day sessions of Hotseat MOO2 and HOMM, and this was simply the single player experience with added multiplayer, in a far more klugy format than Elemental could ever be. Those folks who actually want to play multiplayer tend to be more of those who enjoy the big messy hairball of the game, not those who are interested in 'streamlining'.
By the way, I would be delighted to be wrong, and to discover that the streamlined multiplayer is in fact awesome, and that what has been removed is simply stuff unnecessary or inappropriate for multiplayer. What has me be nervous/suspicious of what Brad says is fun in multiplayer is that he doesn't seem to be someone who particularly likes big, hairy, turn-based multiplayer games, and thus he may be speaking from a desire for speed and simplicity that I don't share. We shall see!
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
