I voted no, because while the game is still a ways from being complete, I think it is too far along to try to force multiplayer into the design. The most I can imagine working well without creating even more design headaches is maybe hotseat play. There are enough multiplayer TBS and RTS games out there, but I haven't played a truly deep, coherent and fun single player strategy game in a long while. That's what I want to see happen with Fallen Enchantress.

I would rather see a new game designed from the start to be multiplayer, and have enough marketing resources behind it to ensure that there's a large enough pool of players for it. FE seems like the kind of game that will suck up dozens of single-player hours at a time, limiting the potential number of players available for multi at a given time.

I vote no, it's not about the money. You implement MP and the multi player people wont be happy anyway, since I doubt you will get it good enough without devoting significant resources and frankly it wont be worth it.

About time!

Though it might be cool, I can't personally say I would play MP.  Now, if I was a kid again with endless time, the answer would of been hell yes. 

A more interesting survey might be would you rather pay a dollar for two more fully realized factions or sea battles or X or MP.....

No.  I don't have enough time to play a whole game start to finish in mp.  Let alone to coordinate with someone else's life to play against them.  I think the game takes too long to play for mp to work currently. 

In my opinion - you'd have to offer a faster start option where the map is seeded with 3-4 cities of various sizes at turn 1 maybe... and tech is at a certain level...

I voted yes.  I'd be willing to spend about $5 to get it, but I highly doubt I'd pay more than that.

And it would definitely need Hot Seat.  The only way I ever play strategy games MP is if someone comes over for the night and we sit down to play.

I vote yes, and I'd pay up to $10 for the DLC or up to $20 for a more fully fledged MP expansion of sorts.  HotSeat, PBEM, LAN, Internet, Co-Op vs AI, PVP?  Hell yeah to any of it!  I welcome playing a great video game with others as opposed to alone - be it FPS, RTS, RPG and TBS.  The more the merrier!

Does it have to have the same great game play as the SP?  Yes it should be there (and of course be save-able over multiple sessions like SoaSE). 

I believe it will also need to have quick pre-sets or game modes to choose from, accommodating online matches lasting approximately 30-60-90 minutes.  Is that possible to do?  It probably can be done in multiple ways (count-down timer, smaller maps, less AI players, game speed 'faster', tactical only battles, grab certain non-faction AI areas to get a large effect that enhances your army etc...).  Will that change the flavor of the game and make people call me a blasphemer?  Yeah, probably.  But then again, they can go back to playing SP, or MP with the 'original' format.  You want to bring as many people into this (now very niche) genre as possible in order to keep it going.  Doing this and having available MP mods could do it.

PS: I would buy the MP DLC - of course - only after making sure that all those single player gamers out there are happy with the existing SP game.  We wouldn't want them to point the finger at using precious resources for MP DLC for the reason why SP isn't exactly they way they'd expected it to turn out...

On second thought, that's untrue.  I would buy the MP DLC no matter what, seeing as how you've (Stardock) already used precious resources to give your single player TBS gaming base a second game for free.  No one should be complaining now, should they?  Thank You guys, for all the hard work you do.

I'm not in beta, so I won't vote in the poll. However, I'd like to put my opinion in. I should have enough "street cred" to be granted that I'll put my money (and time) where my mouth is. If FE is a good game then I would be willing to pay:

$1-5 - For Multiplay - Yes - A trivial cost

$10 - Multiplay - Yeah, but I'm not longer happy about it.

$5-10 for Cooperative Multiplay - Yes!

For me multiplay is: LAN or Internet, and making sure that I don't HAVE to go through Steam for any of this. I want to be able to play with my friends without needing the internet. I've recently been in the wilds of the world where internet access is not convenient, simple, or cheap. I don't want anything to do with needing a persistent internet connection. I'm even willing to sacrifice my accomplishments list and all of the fancy steamworks bits. PBEM would be a nice addition, but I'd never use it. I really would like to be able to play a cooperative version of FE, working together as a team and controlling the same side would be pretty cool.

Well, they might decide to only include co-op play (or play between friends only), which FE would be well-suited for.  Then player matching is not an issue.

I'd love multiplayer but currently the game doesn't stay sync'd (item/stat duplication etc) for single player saves so I'm not sure how it could survive multiplayer ones. I mean who could play an epic strategy game in a single sitting thats quite the task and time commitment! I don't really expect games that have multiplayer tacked on later to have multiplayer worth playing personally and have yet to be proven wrong.

The tactical battle parts alone seem very hard to implement for multiplayer. I mean Age of Wonders did it fine 13 years ago and even had more complex things like range, friendly fire, obstacle-hampering, sieges, destructible buildings, and up to 12 players could play at once via LAN, Hotseat, PBEM, and Online so I can see how these things are probably ancient lore by now and probably impossible to implement in a modern game. Honestly threads like these make me doubt multiplayer ever happening in a way that anyone would enjoy, you don't really see threads asking if people would like to pay extra for multiplayer on Civ forums to use the most relevant example. I've been following Elemental since WoM and after reading about the "extensive focus on multiplayer that WoM had yet no one clicked on multiplayer option much" when tactical battles (arguably one of the key parts of the game) were all auto-calc'd I simply don't have high hopes. Anyone reading the forum and seeing that probably never bothered clicking on multiplayer, I know I didn't, maybe it was patched in later but I doubt it.

That being said I would love a multiplayer mode that worked and I would greatly appreciate being proven wrong with Fallen Enchantress, Warlock, and a couple other lesser known titles which hint or promise multiplayer support post-release. Would I pay a dollar? I would pay the full price of the game is what I would pay and so would some of my friends with whom I have spent countless hours playing strategy games like Civ 4, SOTS 1, SOASE, etc with. I'm personally of the opinion that multiplayer and modding support are what keep a game alive unless you have a massive hype-wagon and yearly new releases.

State of the voting:

Would you be willing to pay $1.00 for DLC that enabled multiplayer in Fallen Enchantress?

Yes: 42%
No: 58%

344 Total Votes

Voted no.  Not big on multiplayer.  That's what board games are for

On a side note, I would be willing to purchase DLC (if it's substantial and not just cosmetic stuff) and the expansions.

Hah Hah 59% say NO! Solo single players WIN again. No need to implement multiplayer until waaaaaaay down the road after the game is released. It's just a waste of resources to me because I would never play it multiplayer nor did I ever care to play Master of Magic multiplayer. In fact that's what's wrong with so many games today is they add a multiplayer element to the game and then spend all their resources after the game is released trying to balance it instead of IMPROVING THE AI. I'd much rather see a solo player game with ai improvements over the years than some stupid silly multiplayer element that only a handful of people play. Statistics have shown only 2% of the gamer base out there wants and/or plays the multiplayer elements of a game. Thus, proving it's just not worth wasting the effort and resources on it.