I am not going to get in on the Multiplayer vs fix single now part of this thread.. But I am 100% against polls to decide what to fix next.  Polls do not serve all customers just those who come to the forums.. Fix what effects most first.. but that is just my opinion..

......as far as potential "connectivity issues".......well........I'm always here!      hehe

The problem is people trying to judge the situation according to the belief that multiplayer and singleplayer are two different games.

I bet there's even some guy out there who gets angry that they're wasting time fixing memory leaks he is not getting.

If you're all out of the cake, then i'll have the chicken. Hold the death, please.

Multiplayer is on the box. At some point you have to enable it. I mean, really. It's been 3 weeks since launch. It's time. It'd be pretty out there if Civ 5 managed to have working MP before Elemental.

It's not like the people asking for it want a whole lot. People aren't asking for special modes or custom tech trees or tactical combat disabled. We just want the SP game with more humans. (Stardock wants to do those things anyway, but I really don't think it's a good idea at this point. Get it up and running, get the game balanced and polished, and THEN take a look at doing special things in MP.)

I'll probably never play MP, but I think they need to enable it.  It's a promised feature that some customers have been waiting for.  MP doesn't need an enhanced AI to be released, nor a tutorial, and doesn't need to wait for improved UI.  If anything, having players being able to play against each other will uncover things that haven't been experienced with the AI.

Some of the balance that's going into the game is being judged solely based upon games against the AI.  Throw in the player who's much smarter and play against them and then balance the game around that instead.  The AI will be improved based upon feedback from the really good players.  I think the sooner people start playing against each other, the better.

Besides, if you don't like MP, don't play it.

Turning on MP is not going to break the SP, so why not enable it?  At worst they're spending time on MP fixes instead of SP stuff, but it needs to be fixed eventually.  Delaying turning on MP until SP is solid would almost be like making MP a future expansion.

It sounded like the devs weren't as happy with how MP played and didn't want connectivity issues to mess with launch day.  Hey, they were wrong about SP being ready for launch so maybe they were wrong about MP and it's a blast

Right because two weeks of not having a feature advertised on the box, in no uncertain terms, is so much better than 3 weeks... and since it's not on yet, we're sure its going ot be out in two weeks right.

They're going to concentrate on too many things simultaneously (stability and SP fixes, MP implementation), I'm affraid it's going to generate more problems or new bugs and we don't need more of those really. Don't rush things again! So, wheres the poll?

Ed.: And I really think MP and SP are a bit different things (though may share parts of code), if they weren't we would get server software at launch.

4x fans hardly care about traditional multiplayer. This is coming from someone who is extremely active on the Civ2/3/4/5 forums. What I want right now is this 1.1 patch, to fix all the things I love about this game and make them better. I could honestly care less about the multiplayer, and I think a lot of you would rather see SP fix first, and are merely complaining to complain. Who the hell wants to play a broken multiplayer game? ESPECIALLY a broken 4x game?

The fact 4X games are traditionally played by most people as single-player games is why Stardock hasn't invested a great deal of time in the multiplayer of Elemental. Sure they'll put enough work in it so that it works on a technical level but I don't think they will be spending a great deal of time making sure it is balanced or fair as it is alot of work for not much gain. I was surprised when I heard they were changing the tech trees somewhat for multiplayer however so I'm interested in seeing what they wanted to do in that regard.

I'm guessing maybe the tech tree will be streamlined somewhat to lead to quicker games? I don't know.

Glad to see the calls for civility on the forums have been heeded.

Where we're going, we don't need civility.

Starbucks?

Starbucks is overpriced, Dunkin Donuts FTW!  

What?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Fortress

A hugely popular online shooter that could easily be played by many people online with servers and all.

Not to mention straight up calling people and connecting modems.

Shoot, I think Descent was pretty popular in '95.  Used gamespy or kali to connect to games?

Anyway, that's 15 years of "not being in the same room".

not sure what online infrastructure multiplayer means though

Shoot, I played Lords of Magic multiplayer and had a great time.  Fairly similar game, except that your CHAMPIONS actually mattered =]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Magic

Given how often this game crashes, multiplayer games are going to be resolved approx 100% of the time by players disconnecting as the result of a crash, unless of course 1.08 does some serious magic in regards to game stability.

hotseat?

Not really sure how multiplayer is even going to work when games can take a long time. I guess the maps will be small or people will be playing games several hours long.

Could not think of a game I would like to play multiplayer LESS than this one!

Well, on the one hand, I think the singleplayer should be fixed first, but on the other hand, multiplayer will need A LOT of feedback, so it's better to start early.

The way you play a game like this multiplayer is you have saves and you come back to it, just like the single player.

Right?

Yes. It will most likely work like multiplayer in Civilization games (which is REALLY fun, I can assure you), except for the tactical battles, of course.