I speak to you now as a gamer. A person giving his own personal opinion of Elemental's multiplayer experience.
I don't find Elemental's multiplayer in 1.0 to be fun in general. Elemental was designed as a single player game that happens to have MP. And this has come through in the final version.
There is one exception: Playing 2 people as part of a team vs. AI players is fairly fun. But playing against random players is just an exercise in frustration. This is a game that requires a significant amount of time investment and too many random games will end in dissatisfaction in my opinion.
I do think the game has potential with a group of friends playing together. But I don't think it's there yet. I think it'll take more time and more thought to do this.
Here is what Stardock will need to do, and plans to do, in order to make MP more enjoyable:
#1 Local Servers.
On day 0, all MP games will get their data from dedicated servers that Stardock has put in place around the world. We are doing this to eliminate connectivity issues. Connectivity marred the launch of Demigod and it is my opinion that if we had had dedicated servers in the first place, Demigod would have had a much better experience. (as opposed to having a particular individual host a game).
However, in the mid-term to long-term, Stardock WILL be providing custom servers so that people can mod up their own games and put them on their own networks to host games. The priority this is given will depend on the demand of course but regardless, it is something I will be insisting be done because I really think that the best long term success path for Elemental is in letting users take Elemental and do cool and interesting things to it.
#2 More Multiplayer Game Options.
I would like to see the tactical battles take on a life of their own. The day 0 multiplayer does not have tactical battles in them. We took them out. Yes, in an ideal world we could have made this an option, but anyone who has been on a forum for any amount of time knows that you'd still have people flaming us who found tactical battles boring because while the other guy was fighting some drawn out battle, they were stuck watching it.
I don't have any ready ideas on how to make this better except to say that I would like to see tactical battles made into a seperate game mode where players pick their units before the game and then go up against other players with those units.
This is an idea we'll have to think about more and see when or if it can be implemented at a reasonable cost.
#3 LOTS more game play styles
I don't really have any good ideas on this as I don't generally play TBS games in multiplayer (even with friends). We play a lot of Settlers of Katan here and Twilight Imperium as board games but I think we will have to look at more game modes (and these can be made available in SP as well) to help make MP more fun.
My advice would be this: If you are buying Elemental primarily for MP, don't. It has it. It works. But IMO, it's not worth $50 to play the game MP primarily. If you like MP in ADDITION to having a fantastic single player game (and make no mistake, Elemental, as a single player game, is awesome in its release form) then absolutely, get it.
So there's my 2 cents.
Well, obviously tactical battles would also have a timelimit.
Not that obvious. If you are playing with friends, things like pause, and turn length aren't an issue. There are really two different crowds being addressed, and their needs are different. I've played with friends where we took an 30 minute break, just left the game on pause. Who cares. No big deal. The coop, know each other group doesn't need a bunch of handholding or "protection".
I stated this in the main thread but I ll add it here for the sake of completeness:
I subscribe all opinions above that advocate putting teh tacticals battle back in the MP game. This game for me had it all to play with other friends etc. But if this is not the case it has lost 90% of its appeal.
In a game like this is probably a must a kind of "We-Go" system where all players orders are resolved simultaneously. Which begs a pbem approach. I presume that play by mail has been considered already as an optionto solve the "waiting for others battles" issue and it has been discarded?
In any event I believe MP tactical battles should have been left as a user option/toggle (yes/no) in the game menu. Under the proposed system you will never have proper feedback from day 1 as only one option (no tactical battles) has been enforced.
I believe that I decided to pre order all too quickly, so I will be cancelling my pre order right away and reserve my purchase for when I see a reasonable MP system.
Shame! and keep it up.
Regards,
Viajero
why would you not play with time limit with friends? i dont get it
anyway time limit is a thing, PAUSE is another
ofc the game like every other games should have time limit AND the possibility of an agreement pause if some friend has to pee, answer phone etc etc
"...you'd still have people flaming us who found tactical battles boring because while the other guy was fighting some drawn out battle, they were stuck watching it."
As opposed to people "flaming you" for removing the tactical battles? Pretty weak reasoning.
That happens when I'm playing coop with a friend... when, exactly?
Oh right. It doesn't.
This is what options are for, not just ripping large swaths of the game out entirely.
Latest MMO developer: We have awesome new game!
Player: Where is the 5 mans?
Devs: Errr.. well.. They didn't ork very well so we took them out.
Player: But 5 mans are awesome... Why did you take them out?
Devs: We tried to make them work but ultimately we found that if the healer of the group wasn't very good, well, then the group would wipe and that wasn't fun.
Player: ..... So you removed them?
Devs: Yes.
Player: Because a player might be bad?
Player: ............. WTF?
It really dosn't matter if people try to grief - every game has people like this. That is certainly no reason to remove features. The only reason for removing it are:
Time - you don't have enough and multiplayer has to suffer. (probably what stardock did)
Implentation - you can't do it properly so you don't do it at all. (The blizzard approach)
Money - spending large amounts of money on a tiny fraction of the player base (this is also an elemental possiblity, its the reason why WoW dosn't have 40 mans anymore)
Not the sharpest tool in the box - you have the lights on but no one is at home. (Derek Smart style)
I'm not really understanding the logic of taking out a feature that has already been implemented and a lot of people seem to want pretty passionately just because a few people are going to belly ache about some stranger on the internet wasting their time. I'm really looking forward to playing this game single player but a really large percentage of the reason i would like to buy it is so that me and my brother can play it online together. We both love tactical battles and spent a huge amount of time back in the day playing age of wonders shadow magic versus each other, it is true that the tactical part pretty much doubles the amount of time we would have to put in the game but that is what we loved about it. I think you should just treat us like adults and give us the option to choose whether or not we would like to have that feature incorporated into our game and stop worrying about the opinions of players who can not figure out how to uncheck a box before they start playing a game.
Heres the thing, I think alot of people would like to play MP full scale with all the feautres.
People who play these games are not looking oh how long is this game going to take? Hell a good game of Sins takes 12 hours sometimes. Friends and I plan to play alot of this game, even if it takes weeks to finish a game its kinda what we were hopeing. The only disappointment about GC2 is it would have been an amazing in depth multiplayer experince, was really looking for a full release of Elemental with Multi. Im hopeful it will eventually be more SP like given Stardocks history.
Warlords2 one of the greatest epic games from back in the day, took weeks to finish from time to time. Some of us still play it randomly, and we also all bought copies of GC2, DemiGod, Sins, a few bought political machine as well. We mostly have all pre ordered Elemental, i can honestly say we are really looking forward to taking a weekend and playing a large multiplayer game, the speed isnt always and issue.
Yes im looking forward to Single player and im sure its going to be amazing, StarDock hasnt let me down yet, however im really looking forward to playing multiplayer, and tactical combat is not a deal breaker, no random maps, quests, ect ect is a bit rough. Through it in there at some point please and that would be great. I think people arent expect every single option to be working on a game like this tomorrow, but a time table on when you think we *might* be seeing this stuff wouldnt hurt.
S.R.
The Dominions saga (Illwinter Games) solved the issue by making the game playable via "play by e-mail" and the tatcical battles be generated automatically based on the general orders and the army set up when submitting his/her turn. The battle itself would be pre-scripted and "played" on the screen for the players on load up of their new turn. The script itself and the result of the battle ultimately decided by the troops and the orders given initially, but giving a full tactical "movie" of the battle.
That was a great compromise between tactical full control and MP capability. Devs of this game should look into it as one of the possibler options.
Now, in the Dominions saga, a game can last typically up to around 100-200 turns max before a clear winner is had... it can also last much less depending on how the game goes. Depending on the rithm of e-mails that can be anything from 2-3 months and up to 6. In elemental I am not familiar with how many turns a typical game would be but if we are talking similar ballparks then pbem and pre-scripted battles (based on army set up and general orders) should be definitely considered.
IMO the more options the better. More choices is better for all ( except the maker ) Tactical is a main selling point to most MP. The games that have stayed with me the longest are the ones with options. Civ/ Homm3/AOWSM/ Dom/SE V all have many choices which brings in more people. I am sure tactical will be added because its the clincher to greatness. Solo is ok but multi is where the game will shine.
Well because they are my friends. I am playing with them because I like playing with them, and I accept that none of us are kids anymore so things happen. If someone gets a call from their mother on sunday, and they tell us hey, I got a call from my mother brb. We're going to just shrug and say okay, go for it. It's a good chance for me to go water or mow the lawn. I NEVER use time limits with friends. We could technically play, on a weekend, for 10-12 hours straight but we're pausing the game, walking away during our turns. Hell Civ IV doesn't have tactical battles but if someone is in a war, their turn can take 10x as long as everyone else's, so what. When you play with friends, you deal with interruptions as they come and communicate what's happening, what you want. Whatever. I know them, I don't need some clock ticker telling me they've taken too long to play. By playing with them I have already accepted that I don't mind how they play.
edit: I should add I don't like the pause featurs much. They often pause the game where you can't do anything in game. If you just let someone rest on their turn for a bit, you can still explore in the game, look up stuff, check things out you might not normally focus on. No time limit turns is a must as an option.
When I play turn-based games with friends/family I too don't use a time limit. We have more of an honor system and have never needed to institute a timer. In any event, turning on an in game timer should of course be an option.
I'm actually buying Elemental primarily for its multiplayer potential. Don't get me wrong, I plan on playing the hell out of the single player, as I still play GalCiv2 and Sins regularly, so I'm a big fan of sandbox, but right now my friends and I are really excited for the prospects of what Elemental could mean for our D&D crew. Also, as far as playing MP against "strangers", we most likely will not. We play enough strangers in DoTA and LoL, so Elemental can be us against the AI, and we'll take all the time we need to play the game how we want and enjoy it thus!
So I'd like to say that a SP-style MP would be 10 levels of awesomesauce! It isn't a game mode you'd want to play against strangers, but a group of friends that are used to lengthy battles, there can be nothing better for us. Just thinking about the grand campaigns to be had is thrilling/nerdLvlUP.
Anyway, I look forward to see what you Stardockians do to make MP awesome. Turning tactical battles back on is a good place to start though imo..
No way around it this is disappointing news. What really got me excited about this game and spreading the word was the expectation of playing long, epic multiplayer games with groups of friends. To find it will be watered down with missing features that are in the singleplayer is a bummer. I would rather occasionally be stuck watching a drawn out battles than not have them at all, we don't get into these types of games expecting to be done in a couple of hours (unless the computer owns us, of course.) Everything featured in the singleplayer with human players as well as AI sounded pretty darn sweet.
Which isn't to say I'm not going to play the singleplayer or enjoy myself, I spent many an hour with Gal Civ 2. But this has dampened my enthusiasm and I won't be bugging my friends about Elemental as I was. Here's to hoping you do the multiplayer justice and restore all the features at some point instead of some lame wizard duel or Total War style skirmish. A game with the epic potential of Elemental has more to offer than just that.
Well, I didn't read through all of the postings but I do agree that there needs to be tactical battles available in multiplayer. It should simply be an option... allow players to make the decision to use them or not. Everyone's happy - those who want tactical battles have them and, those that don't can turn them off.
While Player A and Player B are locked in a tactical battle, the other players can be allowed to look over their holdings and plan out their next move.
For the last few days, my friends and I have been having the exact same discussion as I'm sure others on here have with their friends. "Wow, this game looks great. But there are no tactical battles in multiplayer?? Well, there goes the value of MP down the drain..."
To finish off on a good note, though, I have always liked how you all are more interactive with the community rather than simply putting everyone on ignore. I look forward to seeing the changes this game gets in the future.
This announcement was a huge disappointment to my friends and I. We were following Elemental avidly because we wanted a new game to take the place that Age of Wonders 2: Shadow Magic had in our hearts for Fantasy Turn-Based strategy.
I'm posting simply to echo the disappointment of other customers and say that three sales were lost with this announcement. We'll keep an eye out to see if this functionality comes back to the multi-player game, but until then looking is all we'll be doing.
To reiterate other posters, the people who want turn-based strategy games with tactical combat are more likely to play with friends. Our situation is such that we use a voice chat client and goof around or collaborate on strategy when we play.
We've played at least three different turn-based games together and have never really blamed the developers for slow games. We like the slow pacing of these TBS games - if we wanted to play something fast, we'd open one of the RTS games on our computer and play that.
The appeal of games like Elemental for us will always be the epic scope of tactical options and how we can work together in an expansive world over a game that spans weeks or even months of playtime. Neutering that experience seems to defeat the point of a game like Elemental.
In case people haven't read the latest Dev journal, there is good news on tactical battles,
Frogboy:
"One piece of good news on MP. Originally we had planned to eliminate tactical battles from MP entirely because of balance. Some people correctly guessed the misguided (in hindsight) reason for this: We were approaching MP from a purely competitive point of view. Based on the persuasive arguments made by our players, we have decided that tactical battles will be made available in MP – as an option – at a later date as a free update."
https://forums.elementalgame.com/391747
Hoping for quests too!
Good news!
You didnt have a tactical battle option because someone might turn them on and then complain about them? This really doesnt make the slightest bit of sense to me. I must be missing somthing.
Are they coming back? An option with a disclaimer maybe?
EDIT: NEVERMIND READ THE ABOVE... PHEW!!
I think it would be a mistake to go the competitive tournament style multiplayer with this game, youd have to compromise on too many things in the name of balance. Long TBS games like this are for playing single player or with friends, that way fun and depth can take priority over balance. Obviously a bit of balance is nice, but friends generally develop house rules anyway.
Competitive games with randoms are best left to short games, rts (SC2) and the like, and even they struggle with balance! (atleast in some peoples opinion)
I REALLY like the Warlord 4 city and ritenue system, that would be the icing on the cake of Elemental.
However would you really want prebuilt buildings in your starting city, bang goes a chunk of the custom city design.
Maybe palace upgrades, possably tied in with the city tech, build a 'Market' into your palace but only if you've got the tech?
Or maybe one tech or spell per Channeler level added to the channeler again I like the tech limitation?
Another option is recording all the techs/spells that a channeler has researched, and reducing the research time a point for each. Or give an increasing chance to get a tech/spell at the beginning related to how many times it has been researched (or maybe with spells used).
Problems with hero retenue is that it may conflict with heros on a new map.
--------
Another concept entirely, every hero level up, they can learn a the skill, from one of their heroes in that game, possably with diminishing returns (otherwise after 5 games heroes would be free 5x20% Bard).
All I want for MP is MP sandbox like a new game non-scenario. Though long term Channeler growth would really rock.
First of all, I'd like to thank Frogboy (Brad) for sharing his opinions and concerns about the MP game mode for Elemental.
I'm probably way too late to even get my post noticed by anybody at Stardock, but I had to speak out. So here goes.
QUOTE FROM FROGBOY:
MY REPLY:
Just like in any Turn Based Strategy game, if you dare to venture in the land of Multilayer, you need to play games with people you know and can plan sessions with. This is definitely not a quick match type of game, where you can play with some random stranger for 20 minutes and be done with it.
I wouldn't even consider using a peer matchmaking for a serious game. Unless Elemental can be beaten down to 30 minute game sessions, there is no way you could start a game with a stranger, as it would require you to schedule another session with them. (And if beaten down to be played so, it's either going to be a completely different game or extremely 'dumbed down'.)
If anything I would believe that this would be the Multiplayer mode's sweet spot, rather than a side attraction. I don't see Elemental catching on to be part of competitive gameplay, like SC2 for example. It's not a fast paced action game, and shouldn't be seen in this light. If anything I'd prevent myself of considering competitive play in the multiplayer's design and focus on delivering the SP game directly into MP.
Should "wizard duels" or "other MP game modes" be added, they should not be holding back MP, as I really don't think this would be as catchy or time worthy as Frogboy seemed to imply.
I would like to see the tactical battles take on a life of their own. The day 0 multilayer does not have tactical battles in them. We took them out. Yes, in an ideal world we could have made this an option, but anyone who has been on a forum for any amount of time knows that you'd still have people flaming us who found tactical battles boring because while the other guy was fighting some drawn out battle, they were stuck watching it.
I don't have any ready ideas on how to make this better except to say that I would like to see tactical battles made into a separate game mode where players pick their units before the game and then go up against other players with those units.
This is probably the part that hit me the hardest. Not as much as the feature that is truncated, but the reasons behind it. Especially the part where Frogboy points out that although it would of been nice for Tactical battles to be turned on/off, due to the forums posts he feels uneasy of implementing them.
If there would be an option to turn them on/off, and someone is playing with them on and complains. That would make NO sense and shouldn't even be heard or considered. As the easy fix for that type of player would be to... turn them off. I really don't' understand the logic behind completely removing them. For example, the Singleplayer campaign can already turn them on or off. I'm going to sound like a broken record... but I don't get it.
So seriously who cares if you are being flamed by some ADD kids who took a day off COD4 to try an MP game of Elemental and realized that it's not as fast paced as their usual first Person shooters. Again, the fact that they could be turned off makes this whole problem irrelevant. I really wish the team would reconsider this promptly. I don't want to have my gaming experienced marred because someone didn't like Tactical combat and didn't turn it off... Again, makes no sense. If someone tortures themselves by driving a screwdriver into their head, I don't think the best solution is to remove the screwdriver.
Also, in a world where TBS games have taken a backseat to FPS & RTS games, it shouldn't come as a surprise that when having a taste of a TBS MP Game a lot of gamers (Accustomed to FPS/RTS) will find it bogged down and not fast paced enough. It's normal, you are talking about a turn based game, nothing is fast paced about that.
I find this statement a little late if anything. This was posted what, 2-3 days before "pre-release", a little late I must say to turn around and tell everyone "Yeah.. this MP thing we've been talking about all the way through launch... we don't feel so hot about it anymore... so if you were looking forward to it, don't be so eager anymore."
If the gaming community of Master of Magic created a fan patch that allowed for it to be played in multiplayer, that alone should speak for itself. Please, don't hold back, let the MP game be the same as the SP game, and sure, go ahead and make a compressed version of the game or wizard duels, anything you like. Just don't prevent people who understand the ramifications of playing a MP TBS game, enjoy elemental as it could be and not as a few would like it to be. (Again, I'm not asking to add stuff for me, to leave what's already there and let others "remove" what they don't' like)
Hopefully I'm not only speaking for myself, since this game is basically the spiritual successor of Master of Magic, there are a lot of old geezers like me that HAVE the patience to play a full 50+ hour skirmish game with friends. Sure it's not going to be in 1 sitting, but I'm fine with that. I've done so with past civilization, or Colonization games. It's normal and to be expected.
I have 3 friends I grew up with and we are all Master of Magic fans, since we learned of MP we have only been talking of when we would schedule or coop games and such. Don't take away our hopes and dreams! Please!
Anybody who made it here, I appreciate the effort.
V.
An old timer who has been waiting for a Master of Magic sequel for about 15 years
Hello everyone, this is my first post here. And I'll admit that I am not currently a Elemental player. But I am a long time MP player in Sid Meiers Civilization Series of TBS games, arguably the best PC TBS game produced to date. And I see alot of the same issues and debates about the SP and MP experience here that I have dealt with in the past decade in my role running a fan created MP league for Civ(www.civplayers.com).
So I have lots of experince being a MP player in a primarily SP TBS game. And this is my take on some of the issues here and with TBS games in general.
To start there are not really just 2 types of players, MP and SP, there are really 3, SP, Casual MP, and Competitive MP, and the game needs to have something for everyone to be truely successful. And none of these modes need threaten or take away from the others, a good game developer can and do produce games that satify all 3 groups.
SP is pretty well understood, they need a AI that gives them a challange without being so difficult that a new player never comes back but is good enough to offer players that replayability that is needed. Casual MP is really the same players as SP but want to share the game with family and friends in a non-competitive environement, they don't want to learn the detailed mechanics of the game, and how to micromange them, they simply want the SP experience with friends. Competitive MP is an entirely different animal, these are players that love the same deep strategic game as any SP player does but is not satified with playing a dunb AI and wants the challange of playing other humans, and will generally never go back to playing AI ever. Of course this means finding settings for MP that work for the time that the average MP player has, so likely in the 4-6 hour range is likely. Therefore the game settings have to result in a definitive win or loss in that time frame, and be fun and exciting at the same time.
In Civ to do this we play simutaneous turns for all our games, no this does not make Civ into a RTS as there are still turns and time to plan strategy, and of course simu turns allows a game to progress much faster than true separate turns would take. And combat is played like this as well, making combat very dynamic and players are not getting screwed over by other players while not on their turn. We also tend to play settings like 1 or 2 city elimimation and play on maps small enough to ensure that strategic warefare is always an option. Of course hard core SP players will say this is not "true Civ" as the games are not epic 30 hour games....well each to his own
I'm not really sure what Tacitcal combat means to Elemental, and I'm sad to see that Elemental MP is not were it needs to be for the players that want that in the game. MP really is a needed part of the wider community, not to mention that it's a pretty much guarenteed cash for a game developer and doesn't in anyway have to take away from the SP game.
I was acutally referred to this thread by another Civ fan site owner and I was interested to see if CivPlayers might have a role to offer a MP league for another true TBS game, Elemental has been described as "fantasy Civilization" by more than a few people from what I have seen.
But I'll keep and eye here to see if MP gets the love that it needs. And if you are interested in were I come from feel free to visit CivPlayers at www.civplayers.com We run a Civ4 Conquests, and Civ4 Beyond the Sword leagues right now and are currently in the process of a league recode project to support Civilization5 that comes out on the 21st Sept.
Cheers CS
Owner/Global Admin
Civilization Players Leagues
www.civplayers.com
AoW Shadow magic is not rts, it is turn based. Simultaneous turns. I have no problem at all watching the other players battles, in fact it can be quite strategic. We all know quick battles are risky at best. But to do a tactical battle can show troop strength and in the case of Shadow Magic, can give up your location and if you are underground. You can also pick up on the other players tactics.
All the hype of a "new" Master of Magic game, and the one part that was missing from Master of Magic ie multi player, seems to be an after thought at best. In my opinion, turned based strategy games are only good when played against a real person. Computer chess sucks. LOL
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
