LAN?

At the moment you have to wait for the dedicated MP servers to be activated. There's no offline LAN option.

Sorry but what does "There is no offline LAN option" exactly mean? I extensively play most of my games in LAN, with son, Bro in law and nephews............

For Elemental you will have to have you, your son, bro in law, nephews etc all create an Impulse Account. On that impulse account they have to purchase a copy of the game. You can install using whatever copy, but for multiplay each player must have their own independent copy of Elemental registered on an Impulse Account.

The "No offline LAN option" means that when you begin a LAN game with your family, the game is being run by a Stardock Server remotely. Stated plans from Stardock are to eventually add the ability for you to be your own server (ie you could set up your game just for your family, without having to connect to stardock), based on demand.

In other words, right now you are not going to be able to play Elemental as a family without buying multiple copies of the game, and waiting for Stardock to finish setting up their servers (which should be within the week).

Oh, thats fine then. I just didn't understand the term, which in that case they can leave things as is. Unless it will create a lot of lag...........

The manual says it's included

"Custom Games

Players can also set up custom games with friends or strangers over the Internet.

To start your own game, choose "Create World" from the Custom Games screen. From there, you can change map, player, and team settings. Up to 16 players are allowed in a custom server.

The Custom Games screen also displays available games. If there is a [*] next to the game, that means the game is being hosted on a custom server. Custom servers are servers that are hosted by individuals around the world rather than by Stardock. As a result, they may be heavily modded and/or support more than 16 players."

Yeah, but the manual was written a good deal of time before the decision to hold off on custom servers until after launch.

Its fine as long as it's comming.

Which I think it will.

Dont make excuses for them though as this was supposed to be an included feature and why I and others preordered to begin with.

The manual just proves it was indeed supposed to be there.

I wish them well I really do , but this ship it and patch later for major features that were supposed to be be included at launch is where I think many of us draw the line.

On the plus side I'm still having a good time with the game and I hate SP stuff...:P

give us LAN !!!

What? No offline LAN option?! (FALLING DOWN BLACK HOLE) NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! ......

The only thing I can say in their defense, and it's not really defending them as much as it is a comment on the state of the industry, is that at least they're not releasing multiplayer capability as an expansion pack you have to pay for.  Anyone here play many Civ games?  Yeah... that was a slap in the face to a lot of gamers.

I do agree with you that the higher-ups should have allowed them to delay the launch until features that had been listed in pre-order info and in the manual could actually be finished and implemented.  Heck, another month of beta testing- maybe increased tester pool, wouldn't have devastated sales; that's particularly if they used the model some others have where people who get in that next round of beta testing are those who pre-ordered the game.  I would have happily payed to pre-order to get into an expanded beta.

Anyways, to the forum staff and the devs, keep the patches rolling and thanks for the work you're putting in.  I can't wait to see what this game becomes over the next month or two. 

Is multiplayer here yet?

No.  Dang.   Come on Stardock, I bought this game for the multiplayer.  What happened to good ole' Gamers bill of rights #2?  Its missing a pretty big feature from its advertised features.  Its not like this was a 20 dollar game or anything, I kind of expected the game to be finished when it was released.

hi all,

Me too i bought this game for multi player !!!

One week already that game is release and no MP option ????!!!

I bought a game not finished !

i bought a game full of bug !

When I buy something I like everything that is announced is well functional

Stardock disappoint me, you will lose the trust of your customers

I know that there is no plan of offline LAN, but could we play on one game copy, using one IP address online?

Presumably once MP works at all, you'll be able to play from one IP. You'll need one copy per player.