No. A thousand times no.

"con: it has no multiplayer" is NOTHING compared to "con: the multiplayer is terrible" when it comes to how reviewers bash things.

Something marketed as SP only is treated that way. Nobody docks points from Mass Effect because it doesn't have MP. People DO dock points when the MP support is just bad, or in the case of Elemental doesn't work for a month (when reviews are being written) and is then bad afterward.

If you're doing bad MP just to get reviewers to shut up, you're doing it very, very wrong. And that doesn't even count the pissed off customers who see "MP", buy it, then get angry when it's not done well.

"If you can't do it right, don't do it at all" as a rule applies to MP just like everything else.

As for it taking over the forums... well you know. It's been treated as the red headed bastard stepchild for a while, and people want to know if that is going to change or not. As of yet, I haven't seen a direct and firm answer to that.

Most don't want it to be, just want it to be the same as single player but with more humans.

If a turn based game is good single player, it will be good multiplayer concept wise. The area you run into is say speed/time of game play. Even the TotalWar guys have decided being able to play the main part of the game multiplayer would be worth it.

To answer the original question: Nope.

Yes. But I'd prefer the more leisurely pace of PBEM, over the RTS-like stress of online.

I have no strong feelings over multiplayer -- if it's there, it will be unlikely that I will use it.  If it's not there, I won't miss it.  But if others want it, then who am I to begrudge them?

FB has said he's working so hard on WoM because years from now, when people look back at the game (or pick it up in the bargin bin) that is won't be a negative experience; so it will be positive; a good legacy.

MP was not just listed on the box, it was talked about in depth durring it's creation process.  So SD has two choices: They can put in a great MP (as was advertised and touted) and have people enjoy it for years to come, and look back on the game as a positive, or they can leave MP where it is (laughable and broken).  Right now the "legacy" MP has on this game is down right embarrassing.

Like I wrote before, AoW did it a decade ago, and Stardock can't now???

And I want to thank people like Haldur, who don't care one way or the other about MP, but understand for MP people, it's a make or break thing.  When you buy a game for MP, to play with friends/family, and there is NO mp, there is really no game for you either. . .

Then there's some other people, who seem to think that if they improve/fix MP, that that Stardock will fire everyone but the MP people; put yellow police tape around where the SP game people use to work, and say "Hey, were going to improve MP, so NOBODY goes near the SP work area ever again!   

Yes, that is the desire, but apparently, that's not what SD is going to do.  We both understand this, and it's a shame for the MP crowd I suppose.

The bigger issue which has more legs is the one about them advertising MP, and then not delivering.  Whatever the final form becomes.

However, I would guess that outside of this board no one really cares at this point, it's not as though the release version was very good, SP or MP, so sometimes just cutting bait is the 'best' option.  Still puts SD in a bad place as far as some people are concerned, but in a year, even if there is no MP for EwoM (not talking FE here), who is really going to care when someone shows up and posts 'SD screwed us and never delivered on their promise!!!'.

Probably not  very many people, and probably most people are going to not read anything about MP into a statement like that, but rather just remember the disaster which the initial release was.

I don't know, but I'm guessing there is some reason why just making 'MP like SP but with more humans' is more difficult than we think.

To answer the poll question, YES.

Until it's implemented, and implemented right (i.e. not the half-assed MP we have now or some "streamlined" version), it's $50 I wish I could have back.

They really don't have to do a lot to please me, just have the same SP experience as a playable option in MP.  I couldn't care less for streamlined, stripped down, multiplayer modes.

I really don't understand what is so difficult about this concept for Stardock to grasp.  There's a lot of people asking for it, and from the outside perspective it seems like the easiest route to go.

Exactly Goodgimp.  If, right now, we had a co-op MP game of WoM we could play (we could care less about balance right now, or ever, if we don't find it challenging, we will turn up the difficulty) we would be in heaven.  We have no wish to change the game itself in any way, just play it co-op, exactly as it is.

What worries me is that I see the MP community expressing that they want the SP version of the game in MP over and over and over, but I don't think I can recall a single post for people  saying they want a streamlined MP version... yet Stardock seems insistent on going that route.  

It bothers me because it reminds of me the disconnects Brad had throughout a lot of the beta process in regards to specific feedback about areas that came back to bite them after release.  He's said in later post mortem interviews that he can be "very obtuse" and I don't know if this is what's going on here (I'm not saying this in a trollish/insulting way, I mean no offense) or what.

Brad's said a lot of times he doesn't enjoy TBS games in MP and doesn't play them, so IMO that makes him a very bad candidate to determine the course of the MP design in Elemental.

Again, just my two cents, I hope nothing came across as rude or offensive.

yes

No , a working game is my main desire!!

No never nada nill nein

I think collecting the answers can give a false impression. I personally don't dislike the idea of having MP, ceteris paribus. But having it requires A LOT of effort from the development team, and given a fixed amount of resources (money, time..) this implies that other things in the game will be given less importance, or eliminated.

I'd rather ask people how much they deem MP important on a scale from 1 to 10. For me, the answer is 3. There are other things more important, like having the single player functioning and enjoyable first, or having co-op option against multiple AI.

So, answering just "yes" to this question would give developers the wrong message, at least in my case.

It is a given that a certain amount of resources will be put into MP. The question is more about what to do with them than if there should be MP at all.

That is competitive MP, we are discussing friendly MP where the balance of an SP centric game is a plus.

One of the problems of this thread is that it does not ask set of questions. While it is easy to imagine that SP-like co-op would be a fun experience, it is much harder to imagine that this type of game mode would make up a significant amount of the overall games played. I wonder how many of those who have said yes to this poll would actually play this game mode primarily and how many would even play this game mode for 25% of their total play time with the game. Many here have started calling the current MP designs "Competitive MP", yet where has this term been used by Stardock to refer to the current MP designs?

The point is it would be played more than an MP that cuts out lots of things that are fun in SP, not that it would be played significantly. There is a reason that I have stated that the portion of the MP crowd that Elemental would appeal to is the casual players (as opposed to the hardcore for whom MP is the reason they are playing the game).

Any MP that uses a diffrent balance from SP is clearly targeting people that play competitively.

It's only against humans and is set up to use league rankings and matchmaking. What else would you call it?

Gwenio1--I understand your point, but i still prefer games that are not multiplayer balanced.

Not at all interested in mp.

No interest in multiplayer in any turn based game.