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.
Folks like you are community builders.
Salute!
This will probably be my shortest post ever on this forums:
Add Tactical Battles please. Just transfer over SP to MP. Make Simultaneous Turns and add the option for Timers.
The reason I say this is because I doubt most people will be playing Elemental with random strangers.
agree - no tactical battles and elemental wars looses 90% of its fun since it limits strategic options
to make it faster - if you just turn off the animation i do not think any battle, except a truly large ones would take more than 30-50 seconds ... meanwhile the other guy can browse cities ...
I want to be able to LAN a single player style game with my brother. Not to much to ask for I hope?
Pseudo realtime - just have constantly generating AP that gets spent to move units. have the AP top up to a set amount every 2 minutes so ther are still 'turns' and then tactical battles can be handled by just those involved in the battle.
those that are in tac battles can have their AP stock up to be spent while they are busy.
lan would be good to since this is basically a board game where all the pieces are virtual
If this game doesn't have an option to play MP exactly the same as SP then I really wasted $50. If I wanted to only play SP I would just reinstall MoM....... seriously, the main reason to play elemental is to have a multiplayer version of MoM.....
In Age of Wonders, all of them, you can choose for MP if you want automatic combat or tactical combat. You can set up that option when starting a MP game or, later, in the game for every combat. If I play in MP with my friends, we have not any problem to watch the others fighting against AI or human players. Alsi, in AoW you can save your game to be played some other day, because MP games can be really long.
So, Why I can not to do that in Elemental War of Magic?. Why not to play multiplayer in large maps?. Why not to customize my character in Multiplayer?.
Wardell says that the game is not for multiplayer... I can't believe it. A game with a poor AI is not for playing in MP. But the game includes MP.
I think if you are going to do something, try to do it well or don't do it. Make a good MP and a good SP, like Age of Wonders did before, and Alpha Centauri, and Dominions, and...
My wife got this game when it first came out and she loves it single player, but both of us would really like to be able to play a hot seat game together. That is the only thing really missing from the game for us. we love playing huge maps that will take a week or more to get through and we like to play them as a team vs. the AI. we also prefer to play the game with only one computer hooked up to our 55" tv. If there was Hot seat multi-player in this game it would be just about perfect for the type of game my wife and I look for.
Tonight I tried to play in MP with my friends. A custom multiplayer.
We had to play without AI, because there is not option for the AI in MP. I don't understand why. And, playing 3 guys, alliances and diplomatic options had not any sense. We left the game after a few minutes, but we play hours to AoW 2 SM.
The MP in Elemental could be great allowing AI, allowing saving game, allowing tactical combat if the players want and allowing customize characters.
AoW 2 is turn based. And you can choose "simultaneous" or "classic" before the game. Also, you can choose automatic combat or tactical combat for humans, AI or both. In the game, the players still can choose if they want tactical or automatic combat. AoW has a superb multiplayer, all of them. Why not Elemental?
Regards
I also agree that hotseat would be a very good addition to the game and that tactical battles have to be enabled in MP.
I just want the single player game in mutiplayer so me and my three friends can play it human vs human vs human vs computer vs computer vs computer vs unlimited amount of factions.
marthon style huge maps making game last for months at a time just like me and my friends do with civ 4 turns can happen at the same time so humans play at same time then computers go this is how it was in civ 4, then agin we do not care that much as along as we get our SP exprince and are able to play with each othere agisnt each othere with every thing way it is in SP..
also I read that they do not have fun battles in the game sigh those are enjoyable and theres no reason while one person is having a battle aginst AI why othere player can not just do his own thing there is no reason to make every one watch the battle. also if it not a faction he or she is fighting there is no reason why other human players can not take over the Ai players in combat as a option not something to be forced.
About tactical battles: Make it a server setting: ON/OFF/PROMPT WHEN ATTACKING
So if people dont like it they play on OFF.
I'll second what many have already said: Please give us more options for multiplayer. Seriously, that way you don't have to worry about people being too upset. Let us choose if we want to have tactical battles on or off (it's been done in other games, totally possible) The multiplayer in AoW: Shadow Magic could be a good inspiration here
And my no.1 wish of them all: Please add an option to change the time it takes for the turn to end once someone presses "end turn". Right now playing the multiplayer is pretty much ruined for me because of this, it feels so hectic. I only play multiplayer with my friends, and we don't mind the game taking a long time (heck, we've had games in AoW:SM that lasted months!), it's much more fun if you can think and plan with a bit more time than that measly 10 seconds. If this time was adjustable, or even possible to disable entirely if everyone in the game wanted, it would be soooo good!
But in general I like the potential the multiplayer has! It's very easy to set up a game and start playing, I'd go as far as to say it's easier than in any other TBS I've played. There's possibility to play with AI players included and saving/loading now, that's great. Game seems technically stable so far, haven't had any OOS errors or anything. Just give us a little more choice in how to play and it'll be the best
For the love of everything holy don't let whiners(seriously if you whine about having the option to turn it on or off you have problems) destroy my hopes of a full in depth multiplayer...
This is what I'm looking for as well. MP hasn't had any players in it the last times I've looked. I'd like to play LAN( so I don't need to buy multiple copies of the game). I own 4 computers =/. It's installed on all of them ( my friends tried to play... )
I wonder why it is ok for some people to not have tactical battle in Multiplayer?
As the name implies -> "Tactical" Battle...it should be tacticle or it's just a i hit you and you hit me and let it be decided by luck and some numbers...it's like removing control in an RTS and let you just see the outcome.
Because it is a turn based game it will take time to complete a game..same in Multiplayer. So why do some people want to speed it up buy cutting combat? Either have the patience to complete a game or it's the wrong decision to play it imho.
But for the sake of freedom for all why not make it an option to have tactical combat in mp or just auto resolved combat.
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