Friday Night Poll: Would you pay a dollar for multiplayer in Fallen Enchantress?

Also... it's this kind of comment, that we are saying what we're saying:

Quoting Tridus,

umm, multiplayer is one of the things people were expecting from the very start. It was listed as launch feature back when the game was announced.

It's not to people who are expecting reasonable things like multiplayer after the game finished.

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I would have to be payed to play this.

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Quoting Kamamura_CZ,

reply 150

Burntsoul, that's a lot of assuming you are doing, and I will step right into it - the assumption that on release, the game will be 100% polished, playable and done, is IMO utter fantasy and I am willing to bet money against it. Look at any reasonably complex game of today - it's never finished on release date, and support often drags on month, or even years. That is because on release, the user base is usually significantly expanded, the new users will discover new problems and bugs, will bring new perspectives and new feedback - and a company like SD will want to respond to them.

You've missed the point by mis-interpreting the words in my post.

I didn't say 100% polished, I said it would be a 100% playable game when it goes gold.

...and so while I cannot also not define what 'polish' is to you (only you can) or to Stardock, my assumption with that is when the game has gone gold, the game is 'done', the game is 'finished' - it will have enough 'polish' in their eyes to be sale-able.

But I never used the word 'polished' in my post, and the words 'polished' and 'finished' or 'done' have different meanings to different people in different instances.

For instance, does a 'finished game' mean 'no more bugs' to you? Because it sure doesn't to me.

I think I can use an absolute statement here: there are always bugs in games after release! Games are never perfect, and always need fixes - and I specifically said in my post that there would be support and fixes for the game post release.

If I made you think I implied otherwise, I apologize.

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ZombiesRus5

Join Date 02/2009

+340

Honestly, I'd rather any real MP development be done with Sins of a Solar Empire... Adding Ladder support for 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 for example...

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It all comes down to what we consider a "finished" product.

To me, feature wise, the game won't be really finished until some staple elements will be in. Again, take flying units. EVERY 4x game has them at some point, either natural, magical or technological in nature. You just can't do without them, as they add a needed "strategy twist" to the gameplay. Not to mention the flavour aspect. Walking dragons, really?

We know they won't be in at first release but it's reasonable to expect them in the expansion at least. Focusing on other things when the game is still missing genre-staples is not a very sound policy imho. I'm positive that when reviews will start flowing, the point of missing flying (and naval!) units, even two years after Elemental, will be raised (it's one of the initial, baffling design choices that have doomed Elemental to the Second_Tier_Game status, imho and unfortunately). Of course, if you consider Multiplayer to be a genre-staple as well, then we're in a weird kind of agreement...

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The problem is that elemental is not structured well enough to be played as a multiplayer game. You cannot have a 500 turn game played in multi-player, it just does not work. The primary reason is that a player's turn can take between 20 seconds and 20 minutes depending on where he is in his game. For example, a player might be skipping turn to reach a destination or wait for a certain technology, while another player could have a lot of management to do on his turn.

Lan support could be OK, because people can coordinate their action more easily. They can say, "OK now it's the time to design unit, or do a lot of management". Or, "can we wait 2 other turns before managing stuff". Or "I am going to make a coffee so take time to fight your battle", etc.

To be easily played in multiplayer, a game should take at most 50 turns, and players would need to have an equivalent number of things to manage every turn so that the time spent is equivalent. The low number of turns would reduce the number of time the player have to wait for other players.

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I'm currently in a multi-player game of Armada 2526. We started it when the Supernova expansion was in beta back in February 2011. We are still playing it. We're at turn 142.

Armada plays at a much faster pace than Elemental or Galactic Civilization so I honestly don't think multi-player would work very well because of the slower pace.

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I would pay a dollar to be able to play online so some of us forum trolls could resolve our issues the old fasioned way. I'd also pay another dollar for hotseat.

1. Lord Xia vs. Trojasmic

2. seanw3 vs. Heavenfall

3. Das123 vs. senthai

and so on...

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Quoting larienna,

reply 156

The problem is that elemental is not structured well enough to be played as a multiplayer game. You cannot have a 500 turn game played in multi-player, it just does not work. The primary reason is that a player's turn can take between 20 seconds and 20 minutes depending on where he is in his game. For example, a player might be skipping turn to reach a destination or wait for a certain technology, while another player could have a lot of management to do on his turn.

Lan support could be OK, because people can coordinate their action more easily. They can say, "OK now it's the time to design unit, or do a lot of management". Or, "can we wait 2 other turns before managing stuff". Or "I am going to make a coffee so take time to fight your battle", etc.

To be easily played in multiplayer, a game should take at most 50 turns, and players would need to have an equivalent number of things to manage every turn so that the time spent is equivalent. The low number of turns would reduce the number of time the player have to wait for other players.

Yes you can. I've had that many times in Civ 5 and both AOW and AOW:SM. I'm not understanding where your getting this stuff from. Look TBS games are going to take longer than RTS games and they SHOULD. I personally don't want a fast TBS game were 1/2 the features were taken out for MP just to make it faster for those who's attention span is 5 minutes.

Most games in the above usally takes several sessions for completion (we always play with the largest map settings with max players AI/Human. Never play small maps because they are not fun...yes fast but not fun)

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Quoting Bellack,

reply 159

Yes you can. I've had that many times in Civ 5 and both AOW and AOW:SM. I'm not understanding where your getting this stuff from. Look TBS games are going to take longer than RTS games and they SHOULD. I personally don't want a fast TBS game were 1/2 the features were taken out for MP just to make it faster for those who's attention span is 5 minutes.

Most games in the above usally takes several sessions for completion (we always play with the largest map settings with max players AI/Human. Never play small maps because they are not fun...yes fast but not fun)

It think the option to play as you normally do in SP is a very important option to keep in MP.

However, I'm sure the devs could allow you to set/change the variables pre-match to make for a shorter co-op game. Tech-Levels people have available on start up, what spells you can/cannot use, the beginning size of the cities you've founded, timed turns etc... Either that or quick-click, pre-made templates specifically designed for a shorter game.

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I know it's only a dollar, and I'm not saying it's outrageous to ask for a dollar for the development time, but charging extra for something that most recent strategy games include in the initial cost is sort of silly. If you want to work on it, then work on it, but don't nickle and dime players with things like this that I'm sure many of us figured would be included in the price already. Maybe a "pay what you want" style DLC to enable multiplayer would be a better option.

That said, I'd probably never play it, as I don't usually like multiplayer. I'm too casual and people get WAY too competitive in MP games.

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Quoting BurntSoul,

reply 160

It think the option to play as you normally do in SP is a very important option to keep in MP.

However, I'm sure the devs could allow you to set/change the variables pre-match to make for a shorter co-op game. Tech-Levels people have available on start up, what spells you can/cannot use, the beginning size of the cities you've founded, timed turns etc... Either that or quick-click, pre-made templates specifically designed for a shorter game.

And that is fine as long as I the option of playing MP as I would SP. Now simultaneous mode is a must so you can still do things while waiting for the other people.

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Quoting Carlzilla,

reply 161

I know it's only a dollar, and I'm not saying it's outrageous to ask for a dollar for the development time, but charging extra for something that most recent strategy games include in the initial cost is sort of silly. If you want to work on it, then work on it, but don't nickle and dime players with things like this that I'm sure many of us figured would be included in the price already. Maybe a "pay what you want" style DLC to enable multiplayer would be a better option.

That said, I'd probably never play it, as I don't usually like multiplayer. I'm too casual and people get WAY too competitive in MP games.

lol One of my friends had the same opinon but I told him to treat anyone you play with as just an AI. Ignore them if they insult you because after all they are just some dumb AI in the game and crush them.

I do this all the time in any MMO game were I'm playing strangers like in MMO's (Wow, Star Wars, DAoC, EQ etc.) and in FPS as well as TBS games (don't play RTS unless it is Totel War.

But normally with TBS games I'm usally playing friends so there is not drama to go with it. People thes days seem to have thin skin and get thier feelings hurt to easily. I blame those that promote playing games that they don't keep score and that everyone gets a trophy. Those people that so want children to never have thier feelings hurt and protect them against everything which of course does the child a disservice when they have to face the real world because they were not prepared. Anyway I could go on.

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Personally, no. A lot of my friends don't play type of games I do. (Them - mostly shooters, Me - RPGs, TBS )

I would be interested in some kind of ladder or whatever. Or even like GC2's way of having one player upload their scores and contribute. I would pay a dollar for that.

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I don't tend to play these games online vs other people but provided a hotseat (i.e an offline multiplayer option via the one PC) option was included then yes I would gladly pony up an extra $/£ etc to support the addition of multiplayer.

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I'm sad that I missed my chance to vote in this poll.

I had played Fall From Heaven for years on multiplayer with my wife. I heard that the crew from that mod had started their own venture and I was excited. I checked back recently and saw it was in beta and went ahead and preordered.

Imagine.... my.... disappointment with no multiplayer

Please add multiplayer. I don't understand why the forever alone brigade is so against it.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

Quoting Sowy,

reply 166

I'm sad that I missed my chance to vote in this poll.

I had played Fall From Heaven for years on multiplayer with my wife. I heard that the crew from that mod had started their own venture and I was excited. I checked back recently and saw it was in beta and went ahead and preordered.

Imagine.... my.... disappointment with no multiplayer

Please add multiplayer. I don't understand why the forever alone brigade is so against it.

The reasoning is that adding MP , which only about 2-3% of players ever use, takes away development resources that could be used to make SP better, which is what 100% of players use. It's not hatred of MP as much as it is thinking enhancing SP is more efficient.

The mechanics of this game aren't exactly MP friendly either.

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I'd say it's because of the bad multiplayer experience they've had when playing other games.

Fair enough, the quality of multiplayer is sometimes, no offence intended, a bit crap. It's why jumping into a game with a bunch of random players is rarely going to be much fun - you don't know if they're going to be reliable, mature, or even have a clue how to play.

In my opinion, if multiplayer were to be implemented, the social aspect of it really needs to be considered at some length and not wrapped up and sold off for a dollar at some point in the future. Some of the best multiplayer experiences I've had have been on a whitelist Minecraft server. You never really know what the other guys are going to do - I remember one time I logged in and there was an enormous tree looming over the town - but you have some assurance that there won't be any griefing, because a lot of the time people only get whitelisted if they're known to the host.

With a mutliplayer TBS your expectations are obviously different, but when some random player falls way short of those expectations traditionally there isn't a lot you can do except kick them. Then they go crash some other server and do the same thing again. That's where (to my mind at least) the resistance to multiplayer starts, because of that foo' who keeps messing up games. There is a tendency to play alone rather than have your time wasted by someone who doesn't know how to play, or deliberately sets out to annoy other players.

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Damn, When I bought elemental War of Magic, it was for the multiplayer, I even bought two more copies to offer to friends so we can play together

Ok, MP was crap compared to SP, but it's not a reason to cancel it completely!

A good MP experience is based on having the same possibilities as SP

Like a few others here, I came from AoW 1/2/SM and expected a game to replace it

Now, I'm still playing AoW instead of elemental because of the lack of multiplayer

In fact I barely touched elemental and fallen enchantress because of this (sorry I'm not that active of a beta tester)

After like 3 games, it becomes boring once you searched every single nook and crany in it and saw everything there was to see

You know the items, monsters, buildings, spells, there's nothing more to discover

Same goes for AoW

Adding new content will benefit 100% of the players, sure, but I personally will play 2 more games and be bored again

The fact that I still enjoy Age of Wonders is entirely based on the multiplayer experience, even if a game can take us a week to complete

The fact that you can compete against others or cooperate against computers change the way you play, and renew your experience of the game every single time, which is just not possible in SP, thus enhancing SP will NEVER EVER be as efficient as adding/enhancing multiplayer, even if less players benefit from it

Like most of the other multiplayer advocates, I'd probably pay 10 or 20 bucks for multiplayer support, as long as it's the same as in AoW / Civ4 / Fall From Heaven :

-No restrictions compared to single player AT ALL, it must be strictly the same, except with players instead of AI

-Simultaneous turns, A MUST, you can't play without it, the games are already long enough and I don't mind it, but without it, it'd take years

-Add a multiplayer campaign potentially, though with a good map editor, the community could take care of it themselves

-Add a MAP EDITOR!

WE DON T NEED A SINGLE PLAYER EXPANSION

Singleplayer will get you two more weeks of playing out of a DLC

Multiplayer will get you years of playing the game with friends

Just look at the AoW community, still active and kicking 12 years after the first game!

And if you don't have friends, then just go and make some, you lonely bastards, you!

Just because the multiplayer was crappy in war of magic doesn't mean it has to be the same in fallen enchantress

I think it's the point of this poll, offering development time for multiplayer so it can be a true experience!

And that's it for me

tl;dr

To make elemental a great game, just make it like Age of Wonders :

Multiplayer without cutting content, via Internet/LAN/PBM

Possibility to choose our own restrictions at the start of a game (disabling certain items/quests/monsters/buildings, allowing tactical battles, etc...)

Possibility to make our own maps/scenarios

Heck, let us even make our own monsters/buildings/events if it can shut up the Singleplayer community

And I'd gladly open my wallet for this day to happen

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Quoting Sowy,

reply 166

I'm sad that I missed my chance to vote in this poll.

I had played Fall From Heaven for years on multiplayer with my wife. I heard that the crew from that mod had started their own venture and I was excited. I checked back recently and saw it was in beta and went ahead and preordered.

Imagine.... my.... disappointment with no multiplayer

Please add multiplayer. I don't understand why the forever alone brigade is so against it.

They are against it because someone beat them at a multiplayer game some time in thier lives and mocked them which hurt thier feelings. So they oppose any type of MP no matter how it is implemented. They assume that they know how much resources and Dev time it will take (because to hear them chat you would think that they are apart of the DEV team) to add this feature and of coarse oppose it. But if it is a feature they want then it is a must have.

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Quoting MarvinKosh,

reply 168

I'd say it's because of the bad multiplayer experience they've had when playing other games.

Fair enough, the quality of multiplayer is sometimes, no offence intended, a bit crap. It's why jumping into a game with a bunch of random players is rarely going to be much fun - you don't know if they're going to be reliable, mature, or even have a clue how to play.

In my opinion, if multiplayer were to be implemented, the social aspect of it really needs to be considered at some length and not wrapped up and sold off for a dollar at some point in the future. Some of the best multiplayer experiences I've had have been on a whitelist Minecraft server. You never really know what the other guys are going to do - I remember one time I logged in and there was an enormous tree looming over the town - but you have some assurance that there won't be any griefing, because a lot of the time people only get whitelisted if they're known to the host.

With a mutliplayer TBS your expectations are obviously different, but when some random player falls way short of those expectations traditionally there isn't a lot you can do except kick them. Then they go crash some other server and do the same thing again. That's where (to my mind at least) the resistance to multiplayer starts, because of that foo' who keeps messing up games. There is a tendency to play alone rather than have your time wasted by someone who doesn't know how to play, or deliberately sets out to annoy other players.

For TBS games I usally don't play Random (well except for Shogun 2) I either play TCP/IP with friends or Hotseat with Friends or Solo but using more than one team/nation/faction. And sometimes even LAN play. This is the type of MP I perfer. I don't do the ladder thing or anything like that. Which is why I have always said that I want the full SP expereance in MP and to hell with how long it takes just as long as I can save the games. I don't need any more balancing that is not already in the SP version of the game. The only other things I ask for is the ability to see my empire while others are in Tactical Combat and/or waiting for them to complete thier turn. Also would not mind an option to witness other players and AI's TC. Also a turn timer would be good. Not that I would use it that much but for really slow players it does come in handy.

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Well actually, one thing that might help with that is if you can have two or more pairs of hands/eyes per faction. It would mean you don't have one player laboriously cycling through available units and trying to do everything else. The best way I can put it across in a nutshell is, imagine a way more sophisticated version of them old days of playing XCom with a friend, letting them control their own squad (and letting them get killed, sometimes, heh).

Instead of having to share a mouse and keyboard though, you could play as a team online. With other players playing the bad guys.

I know I have probably mentioned this idea before and one of the downsides is you need a lot more players to fill up a game. But if the AI in FE is any good, then maybe you can fill up a game more easily.

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No. Not that it'll be bad or anything, but...I just don't play a lot of multiplayer strategy games.

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Quoting MarvinKosh,

reply 172

Well actually, one thing that might help with that is if you can have two or more pairs of hands/eyes per faction. It would mean you don't have one player laboriously cycling through available units and trying to do everything else. The best way I can put it across in a nutshell is, imagine a way more sophisticated version of them old days of playing XCom with a friend, letting them control their own squad (and letting them get killed, sometimes, heh).

Instead of having to share a mouse and keyboard though, you could play as a team online. With other players playing the bad guys.

I know I have probably mentioned this idea before and one of the downsides is you need a lot more players to fill up a game. But if the AI in FE is any good, then maybe you can fill up a game more easily.

Now that would be a cool MP option to.

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Yeah and the other thing is, I can see it making for great Let's Play Fallen Enchantress videos if you have a couple of guys bickering over military strategy like a married couple.

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