"Quit whining"

Irony levels increasing...


I'd far rather see a fully 3D map than multiplyer.

Why not have both? Indie labor is cheap.

That is exactly what I was saying, but people that only want single player can't acknowlege that multi player doesn't have to take away from the game in my opinion. It just might take more to add that then they want to put into the game.

Why are you saying it will ruin the game?!?!?! Multiplayer is an option! If you don't want to play it (MP) you don't have to! If MP "ruins" the game, us MP people will compensate because MP would still be AWESOME!!!

I'm done yelling now.  

Multiplayer for GalCiv2 (or any other Turn Based Strategy Games)?

Interesting idea, but as the developer(s) have repeatedly said, it's not the best idea for games of this type.

This is the best 4X game I've played since MOO2. This is the definitive followup to that. And it is a followup. It's simply the best sequel to MOO2 that I've ever seen. Much of the same content is there; it's not a new invention. It's just a better implementation of that concept.

That being said, I played a LOT of MOO2 online back in the late '90's (once clocking 230 hours in one month). It was both fun and frustrating. You only got to play against the same people again and again, because only a few people had the patience (and the bandwidth: see below) to remain online for the incredible amount of hours that it takes to complete a game of this type.

While MultiPlayer gaming of Turn Based Strategy games may be desired, it is not very feasible, due to the amount of time, effort, and dedication required to complete these games. That's why we have Real Time Strategy games (RTS). I hate RTS games, BTW.

Did I mention bandwidth above? I played MOO2 over the Internet when it was relatively new (to the public at large) and most people were accessing it via modems. That was with a really healthy 33k modem. The speed of the modem wasn't the problem, however. It was the problem of battles and initial setup time.

GalCiv2 takes part of that problem away with its automatically resolved battles (you could set that feature in MOO2, BTW)

Yeah, that's real modems, not what people call modems these days (most people, then and now, don't know that modem stands for MOdulator/DEModulator; what are commonly called "Cable Modems" are not that at all: they don't Modulate and Demodulate.

I started out at 12k in the baad old days of when a 300 baud modem was common. I was a god at that time!

I think you can tell by now that we (not all inclusive) do not agree with the concept that a turn-based strategy game cannot be played in multiplayer mode.

There are dozens of ways it *can* be done.

I agree with you that RTS is not strategy. While I have played BF2 and BFV, which I enjoyed to my surprise, I am truly a strategy fan at heart. This requires deep thinking and planning, not running around the map blowing stuff up.

It is our opinion (not all inclusive) that any turn-based strategy game can be an entertaining multiplayer adventure. Think of what is possible, don't throw water on people.

Clearly there is a demand. (People want this.) [not all inclusive]

Open your mind. Enjoy life. Smell the roses.

Figure out how, don't tell people why it cannot be done.

Be creative.

Love, don't hate.

Amen.

I'd rather see a mini-expansion, for download for a few bucks, that adds multiplayer, exclusively, and nerfs the established game as necessary to do so.

Response could then determine how much more effort / time / money should go into it.

Even the above is probably an expensive proposition, however, unless the devs already experimented with it and have it 90%.

drrider

"It seems my exhortations to have an open mind falls on deaf ears, Grasshopper."

"I know, Sinsei, but what can I do?"

"Go out, and tell the people of Nirvana. Explain to them that, in 2007, development costs are pennies compared to what it was in the 1990s. We have large pools of underutilized labor that work virtually from all across the world. They stay at their home, and write code for peanuts. Then use a new concept called the internet to transfer their work to the common code base. It's fascinating!"

"Why do the old people who never get online seem so oblivious to these new teachings?"

"Because they have not learned the way of the force, yet, Grasshopper."

"Do they still think Al Go invented the new concept?"

"The Enlightened ones realize that the DARPA project became reality. The old people still do not believe."

"Sinsei, with this new concept, is it possible that people can enjoy collaborative experiences from great distances?"

"Yes, Grasshopper. They call this multiplayer. And virtual office."

"Yet the old people still hang on to their out-dated beliefs, like Universal Healthcare."

"They will one day be assimilated. Be patient, live long and prosper."

Amen!

Dude! I just saw a pig take flight. It was glorious.

Mebbe someone could write an extension to allow primates to soar from my backside!

How is this a deviation from your standard appearance?

Since you say Multiplayer is really easy to implement, then the question you should ask is, why haven't we added it?

andrew_ cries, and then hugs mittens.

Let's run away together.

I'm certainly not against multiplayer.  I just don't see the justification to retrofit it into GalCiv II since the demand for multiplayer has been consistently mild (other than the handful of people who argue loudly over and over).

All of Stardock's other games are multiplayer.  We've been making multiplayer PC games since 1996 (Trials of Battle, Stellar Frontier, Entrepreneur, The Corporate Machine, The Political Machine to name a few).  But the demand is rarely there. 

Civilization IV has great multiplayer and yet it's difficult to find people to play and that game sold over a million copies. 

Our next fantasy strategy game that's in development will have multiplayer and if there's a GalCiv III it'll probably have multiplayer. But that's only because the cost of implementing it is spread across multiple titles.

But despite the loudness of some multiplayer advocates, there's little evidence that there's a great deal of demand for a multiplayer turn-based strategy game.

If you really want to play a space-based strategy game multiplayer, make sure you get Sins of a Solar Empire.

Precisely.  Sins of a Solar Empire has multiplayer. It's real time.  Even fast-paced turn-based games we make have multiplayer like The Political Machine.   But GalCiv is a tough case.  And we've asked the user base over and over what features they'd like and multiplayer always ends up way down the list.

My objection is that it would cost more money to implement than the resulting sales would justify.

As much as GalCiv is a labor of love, it is also, at the end of the day, a product too that has to make more money than it cost to develop.

Multiplayer in a turn based game only becomes attractive for us when the cost of implementation is lowered enough to justify the effort.

 

Even on the RTS front. Every RTS I've played in the last few years has multiplayer components in them, but do you know how many of these games I've actually played online and enjoyed the whole experience? Two. Warcraft 3 (a game that was released in, what, 2002?) and Company of Heroes. These two games have the whole multiplayer experience worked out to the point where it's easy to get into a quick match by yourself or join a game with friends, and the net code is done well enough that actual gameplay is possible. And the games are typically able to be finished in under 15-20 minutes. And I'm being generous with Company of Heroes; thus far, Blizzard is the only company to properly implement multiplayer in their strategy titles, and it's due entirely to the pure money and manpower they put into making systems like Battle.net.

And let's go over the RTS games which have unpopulated or poorly implemented multiplayer: Supreme Commander, Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, Rise of Legends, Rise of Nations, Command and Conquer: Generals... And that's just in the last few years.

Multiplayer isn't a "quick thing;" even with GameSpy, it's not like you purchase the middleware and suddenly you have multiplayer. Games like Rise of Nations proved that.

Because budgets aren't infinite.  Having made many multiplayer games over the years, I'm very aware of the costs of making multiplayer games.  Therefore, I didn't want us to spend the time and resources (money) into a feature I know for a fact that a tiny % of users would use.  I wanted to focus our development resources on the single player experience. Which we did.

The sales and reviews of GalCiv II seem to justify our decision.

Now, as I've said, we're developing a shared multiplayer library for Society which will be in the fantasy strategy game we're working on as well as probably in a GalCiv III someday. 

And if I were making an automobile, and mind you I don't know how to make a car I would have a car that can go 0 to 60 in 3 seconds, seat 5 comfortably, and cost $20,000.

I just don't understand why the auto companies can't do that. How hard can it be to just toss in a bigger engine into a Chevy Cobalt?

Too funny. good point(s).

Don't ya just love all the posts with "i'm not a developer BUT..."? And, yes i probably have at least one of those in the "what do yuou want" thread.

with thats all said can we NOW talk about tactical combat for space carries and their planet-destroying rays? Just Kidding... out the daggers away please.

Btw that car you descibed sounds like a Hyundai falling off a cliff.

Okay, since Brad is here anyway, I´ll ask once more, how difficult would it to add hotseat? I can understand that network multiplayer would use a lot of resorces, i.e. budget. But would hotseat *really* be that difficult to implement?

As far as I understood it from the dev posting in counter of it, it would require rewriting a lot of code. From my very limited understanding as player, however, it would require simply adding an option for a second player at the same computer. What is the real truth of that? Is it feasible to implement without requiring huge time investments for the devs, which would push other improvements off the map? Because if yes, it´d be a bone to the MP people like me, which would be enough for me to finally shut up about it.

No. As Cari has said before, it would take just as much or more than 'standard' multiplayer. Lots of new UI work, etc.

Well, damn.

I'm sorry your previous attempts into multiplayer have not worked out for you. But your logic is that multiplayer was the reason when probably the game itself was the reason.

I also pre-ordered Sins of a Solar Empire. I do not like it and wish I could get my money back. It is nothing in the ball park of Gal Civ in real time... it's a straight up RTS in slow motion.

A

This is a point I brought up before about your method of determining demand for multiplayer. You are asking the people who already bought your single player only product if THEY would like multiplayer added AT THE EXPENSE OF SINGLE PLAYER (that is how your company always phrases it). It's amazing that anyone who bought this game and/or visits this website would answer yes to that question... yet some still do.

Two points:

1) You always refer to it as, 'at the expense of single player'. Yes, I understand it's not a checkbox and it's hard. Also understand that would mean diverting resources (or at least buying additional resources to suppliment) to multiplayer. But it would not cause ANY harm to the single player experience if you don't try to change the single player experience... that would be a completely seperate call on your part that I don't think anyone would want (but seems like you believe it would be necessary).

2) You are asking the wrong audience if they want multiplayer. Of course people who are interested in and/or bought a single player game (that has specifically advertised that it doesn't want to do multiplayer) they will not (especially in the majority) want or care about multiplayer. Do some real market research... a good base comparision would be looking at Civilization when they simply added multiplayer without changing the game (Civ III I think... not positive)... how much extra sales did they get? Just look at almost every single review you've gotten from any game review... the recuring theme - amazing game but, wished they had multiplayer.