I'll be blunt. I can understand the reasons for not including MP, based on time, budget, or a combination of the two. What is really, and I mean really rubbing me the wrong way is how the information regarding the complete removal of MP was just kind of dribbled out two days before beta. I would not have purchased Elemental without MP, and while that game was a bust I've been patiently waiting for a year as Stardock has stated they would like to make things right. It's not an issue of money for me, it's the fact that I feel that I've been strung along for years now.
If Fallen Enchantress was an attempt to "make things right" with the customer base, it has certainly had the opposite effect for me. I fully acknowledge that, as a TBS gamer who gets the most enjoyment from coop with friends, I'm in the minority. I get that. But I feel I've been lied to and strung along and it's left me more than a little pissed off.
I honestly and sincerely wish the people working on FE the utmost success, but I think I'm done with Stardock. I'm not going to do anything silly like a boycott, it's not that, it's just that I don't feel like I can trust a damn thing they say, so why bother following their game development?
Anyway, this isn't some righteous crusade or anything, I just wanted to make my voice heard. Don't worry, I'll let myself out and make sure the door doesn't collide with my backside. For the majority of people who were only interested in single player, I hope FE turns out to be everything you hoped!
MP'ers are just rude by nature I guess. After reading this thread it reminds me of the rudeness of MP game chat lobbys I have seen in CIV and others. This type of behavior is exactly why I would rather play SP. Sometimes I think MP'ers wish for MP games just so they can show their ass to everyone, every chance they get. Why ruin a good game just so the MP'ers can have their day in game chats?
I have been following FE for over a year too, I certainly don't feel cheated that MP is not part of the game. As a matter of fact, I am glad they stuck with SP.
Cry me a river MP'ers, I don't think anyone really cares!
[quote who="CariElf" reply="93" id="3063208"]Quoting Luke_strider, reply 87When they are talking about having to rewrite TC for MP, they are not talking about re-designing it. As you say, from a end-user perspective all the rules and such _should_ be exactly the same as playing the NPC. The problem is that the *underlying code* is not set up to handle multiplayer and would need to be gutted. This is what takes a lot of time.This is true. Also, the turn can't advance while there are battles are being fought, so players would have to wait for all battles to be fought or auto resolved before the turn could advance. You'd still be able to change units destinations and things like that, but no units would move, no improvements would be built, etc. So most of the time players not in tactical battles would be waiting on the players that were, and that's not ideal.Me: Aha, just like playing Heroes 4 multiplayer then. Waiting for opponents to finish their battles is not ideal at all, but better then nothing. At least you can survive playing LAN vs one mate. I wouldn't played so much Heroes 4 as I have done if it wasn't for MP (I have to add the AI was terrible in that game too).
Anyways, I'm glad you go for a good working multiplayer when the day comes for implementing it.
NB! One more thing. I'm one of those who never did MP in War of Magic. The non excisting tactical combat and the bad reviews made it to hard to convince my buddies to buy the game........
Oops, wrong thread.
Thats a rather dickish comment to be honest. If your the prototype of SP you certainly showed that SPers are no better than MPers.
Stereo types and sweeping generalizations are B.S. so quit acting like they aren't while feeding into them at the same time.
From what I gather, the development team has stated that there is no intention to include MP at the time, but that there is a very good chance of it being added in the future. So this might be a reason for you, Goodgimp, and others likeminded, to stay tuned. Additionally, this might still be a decent niche product for you. You have made it clear that MP is your chosen mode of play; might be that you will get better enjoyment out of other products for this, and FE could remain on your drive (if it turns out to be a decent game) for those rarer moments when you might want to dabble in the masturbatory pleasures of SP as the majority of us here do. (I, for one, am an SP person, but I still have 2 or 3 games I play almost exclusively MP, and I am not keen for FE to be one of those, as I have high hopes for streamlined tactical battles and more importantly good AI.)
With that being said, I think the sentiments expressed in your original post are clear and understandable and also, in my book, legitimate, even though I found the choice of words on one or two occasions to be slightly too strong (e.g. "lie" -- I cannot imagine Brad or Stardock lying, which is a purposeful attempt at conveying misinformation in order to gain an advantage or cause others harm. I can see suboptimtal communication and poor choices of information dissemination paired, perhaps, with faulty judgement of their own resources and vision on the side of Stardock, but I do not interpret this as lying).
Best to you
Well the 4X MP experance at least for me and my friends have been pretty fun. The only reason that my friends and I got WOM was that whe wanted a modern fantasy 4x game to replace AOW:SM that we play a lot. And yes we have the ability to save that MP game and play at the next session. Also if someone drops out the AI takes over or one of use my take there place.
So to answer your question yes I do want them to develop the MP for this game but more importantly it should play just like the SP no cutting back, no dumbing down or taking away features just to "speed things up" unless it is an option only. All I ask is the ability to play both AI and players and have a simultaneous turn feature wear I can still work on my empire while other battle monster or player. And I would not mind an option to view others tactical battles if I want. Which brings me to this "DO NOT TAKE OUT TACTICAL BATTLES" in MP games as I HATE the auto battles of any game. To me tactical battles are the funnest parts of these games. I will fight a tactical battle even if my army will certainly overwelm the other army, so I never use auto-resolve.
It may not be ideal but most of us that want the the full SP expereance with MP don't mind as long as it was simultaneous. After all we do play this way in other 4x type games. And hot seat would be great. I often play the hot seat mode in AOW:SM and CIV solo so I can play multipule factions/kingdoms.
Very well said. I agree with you 100%
Frogboy said they put in a lot of infrastructure for pitboss-style MP for future FE. Check out pitboss for Civ4 (not sure if Civ5 has it) if you want information on it. Basically everyone logs into a server when it is their turn and has their turn (I think if it is not your turn you can still check out your empire). I'm not sure how it would work for tactical battles - maybe two players would have to get together so their battle doesn't take ages, or maybe not. Still, having players check in and out as needed might work whereas having to be involved for long stretches of time probably wouldn't.
You fail to understand why some of us want MP. And for the record you non-PVP non-MP types can be every bit as rude in chats. That is the nature of the Internet.
Anyway MP option allows coop and well as player vs. player options. It also would enhance SP by allowing us to play more than one CIV, which I do a lot in TBS games that also allow MP. (Now Galciv2 did have this feature but it did not have MP. I wished that FE had it as well)
MP also allows you to play against opponents that provide more challenge than an AI opponent can. And I think this is the core of the debate. MP or PVPers prefer to be challenged while the SP or Non-PVP gamer do not want too much of a challenge (not all but many I have dealt with on the forums and have seen posting over the years in games.)
Also in TBS games MP is fun to play with friends, which is most of my MP experience with TBS games.
+1
Completely agree with the original poster.
I bought the original game to play with a group of about 8 of my friends who used to play the Civ Fall From Heaven 2 mods together.
It was only after me and my brother bought and experimented with it that we realised that MP was barely implemented.
Then I read that MP was not going to be fixed until the release of Fallen Enchantress.
So I waited patiently, and told all my friends to get ready to buy it soon.
But now I find there's no point, and I won't be recommending it to them.
I'm not even sure I'll bother downloading the Beta now, even though I have the full beta available.
*sigh*
Good points.
I play with my friends because it's a social experience. We usually all go to the same house and bring our computers and sit round a table so we can talk. We would play a mix of co-op and versus, and it's a more varied and interesting experience than playing AI which will always act the same way.
Treaties can be made or broken in or out of games etc. and it adds a bit of excitement and fun.
I have plenty of single player games to play, but very few with a MP strategy element.
Huge disappointment. I think FE will be a good SP game though. I hope the next one will have multiplayer so I can enjoy it more than a month or so and even convince friends to buy it! Archaic single player only thinking only works if you have Skyrim level hype and a history of putting out Oblivions. Even Civilization 6 would probably bomb if it they gave an excuse like "drop multiplayer to focus on single player". Its that kind of thinking that has all but killed the genre.
I have no problem with SD taking their time with this game, and doing what they think is necessary to do it properly. I was one of the ones who rushed out and pre-ordered the collector's edition of Elemental War of Magic, and I did it because, well... A: I'm a sucker for fantasy strategy games, RTS or TBS, and B: it was Stardock. The only game I'd ever bought from them at the time was the original Sins of a Solar Empire, and I had literally lost weekends with that game, whole weekends where me and my buddies would get together and rip up the big maps with massive fleets. Vasari vs TEC. TEC vs Advent. Sins was, and is today, a damn fine game and I've high hopes for Rebellion. I couldn't wait to see what they did with a fantasy strategy game. I picked it up and installed it launch day. Needless to say, I was disappointed with the results, and kind of mad. What the hell happened? Even with the numerous patches released over the next few weeks, my enthusiasm for the game never really recovered, and I moved on. I heard that there would be something for the fans that bought Elemental early on, but chalked it up to PR spin; years of dealing with EA had burned me out. I tried playing Elemental again every once in a while, but never got into it, and figured with SD's troubles after releasing the game, those promises wouldn't be a very high priority and probably wouldn't ever happen. But lo and behold, Brad and the gang didn't forget; an invite to a beta and a free-of-charge final version? Sweet...holy...brain fry...what? Huh. They...they do care.
Say what you want, complain about whatever you desire, but never doubt the folks at Stardock have their players in mind. If they say MP would bust things and make the dev cycle overly long, it's not because they're lazy. They're working their back ends off to get this game going and make it everything Elemental should have been, and they're doing it in good faith. The other folks in the beta, if I'm not mistaken, are the ones like me who got burned the worst. We'll be getting this game on the house. It's been said before in this thread, but I'll say it again: How many companies would do that for their customers?
If MP is your one and only concern, you've my sympathies. I've always enjoyed the "fluff" of any fantasy universe, and you usually only find it in single-player. If I can find a friend to play with online, that's cool, but single-player's where my interest resides. Get the game working, get it stable, make the universe and release us into it, and then give us MP when it's feasible. War of Magic was a pileup of expectations and attempts to do too much at once. Take your time, guys, and make it great. We've got faith you'll pull off something amazing. And I'm willing to bet money MP will be included at some point, if only so the Stardock team can play against one another.
I couldn't care less about MP in a turn-based 4X strategy game. Brad's words at the link below apply also to Elemental, and are as true today as the day he wrote them.
https://forums.galciv2.com/98074
sigh another MP request thread that needs to be closed and tossed into the well of oblivion
I'd be fine with autoresolve battles only.
The current autoresolve calculations need some serious tweaks, anyway.
I'd like to see multiplayer. But I also know from bitter experience that few use it.
First of all, I support the fact that the game won't have MP in any form, at least for the time being.
In my case I would only be interested in MP if it were exactly the same ruleset as SP. I think this is probably the reason why only 1% of the users even logged into the lobby. I remember I stopped caring for MP when I saw that all battles would be auto resolved so I never tried a MP game. Another reason those MP numbers might be low is because some people (like me) like to just play in LAN and never even log into an official server (as was my case in Civ 4 and several games).
I'm pretty sure I'm not an issolated case, and while people like me won't suddenly make that figure jump to 30%, that number would problably be higher.
Damn my post had a point but I had to get up and forgot what it was, ohh well!
First thing first, make Single Player great and hopefully if the game is succesful add MP with the SP experience!
I too, per-ordered Elemental: WoM the moment it was announced because it was announced with "Powerful Customization and Modding Tools" and "Multiplayer" functionality. These things didn't come with the release, and because of that I sadly never could play the game and couldn't recommend it. Honestly the game was just bad. I was looking forward to thins new expansion, but seeing as it's still missing some critical elements - like tactical battle multiplayer.. I may still have to pass this game and not recommend it.
Ditto! Me too!
I just want to throw my 0.02 in here.
1. I *did* buy WoM for MP primarily.
2. I love to play SP and played it only for years until Civ 3 did justice to 4X MP, but mostly have time only for co-op MP with my family (we have played NWN 1 and Civ 3, 4, and 5 for thousands of hours over the years).
3. Waited forever for Brad et. al. to put MP into a game. Bought GalCiv and never really flexed it because...no MP.
4. However, I do think his stats are "right", or at least what appears to be known out there. The folks at 2K and Firaxis have said the same thing, and the conclusions seem to be born out (not scientific study here..but..yeah). Perhaps their data could be wrong, but it does seem that MP sells in basic (non MMO) RPGs and SP and that those that would use the MP features are a small percent relative to the effort required to do MP (and that good MP programmers are hard to get).
5. I've played for a while in the beta, and it feels great. I can't put my finger on the exact improvements from WoM (it's been a while) but I'm enjoying myself. Kudos to Brad et. al.
So I can understand Brad's decision, and while I'm (very) disappointed (and will probably quit playing the beta shortly because of this) I totally get why he had to make this choice. It's far more important that FE not have the failings that WoM did, than it is for it to come out with poor MP support, even if it won't work out for me. That said, I'm here with my vote, I (and my family...so count this as 3-4 votes !) want MP! We really get into fantasy based 4X co-op MP, and though we gave Civ V a run despite some shortcomings, we just went back to IV to play FFH and other mods. FE feels so much like FFH(etc.) modded Civ (wonder why? ) that I couldn't wait to test out the MP. I went to the menu to look for the interface to create an MP game...and ended up here reading this thread
So, in the end, I really think it's counter-productive for us to whine about how they failed us, and for "MPers" to be told by SPers what jerks they are (irony there). Put in your vote for or against, and just let the rhetoric go. And let them get back to coding (which I need to do now myself..)
MH
IMO there are only two reasons, from a business standpoint, to include mutiplayer in any TBS game whasoever.
1) Reviewers are part of the 1%, and will irrationally downrate a game that does not have MP. This will result in less sales, due to an artificially deflated review and Metacritic score.
2) Multiplayer improves the longevity of a game, for the 1%. This doesn't matter. What matters is that that 1% is the most vocal about any game. If they hate it because does not have multiplayer, they will tell their less than hard-core friends, and vice versa. This means a community will build up around a game, spread the word, and result in more long-term sales and greater name recognition of the game.
Essentially, there's only one reason to include multiplayer in a TBS game from a business standpoint: marketing. And that's my field of work as well.
The OP might want to consider changing the Title of this thread to No Multiplayer in Fallen Enchantress, Yet.
Apparently they are adding it in after release. Good news for all those people here that have 100 friends to recommend the game to. That will really boost post release sales.
They will probably add it, it's not guaranteed.
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