I'd Imagine we'll be the ones figuring out what the cut off should be in the beta testing process. With the the extended beta SD should be able to get the data needed to find the point that the game becomes unplayable. It will probably be sub 5kbs.

But Brad was talking about Elemental. And you don't have that kind of problems in a TBS. Turns just take a little longer and if you are fine with that that should be no problem. Maybe there should just be a red flag for slow uploaders in the lobby like they have it with bad ping...

You're forgetting about the tactical battles.  

A good solution in that case would be to only force the cutoff for games with tactical enabled. Then games set to only autoresolve should allow all connections.

Edit: this of course presumes we will have a tactical battles yes/no option in game creation.

We can't really be sure how much bandwidth tactical battle takes since there's very little info on that subject. If it is just queued orders however I can't imagine this to be a big upload issue at all.

And remember - Elemental is going to have  a pure client-server netcode so it's nothing like on the scale of Demigod where you have to communicate with all players simultaneously.

TB shouldn't take that much bandwidth, as the info will be the same for both sides, and saved in-game.

Again, we really do need someone from SD to explain what type of connection will be considered minimal.

Starcraft played just fine on a decent dialup connection. Hell, WoW *still* plays fine on dialup if you're not into something that saturates the connection (raids, or Dalaran).

I just can't see what Elemental is going to be doing that would require high speed upload. Demigod has that problem becuse it's P2P nature causes expoential growth in the data being sent as the size of the game scales up. Elemental is going to be talking to a single server and thus only really uploading what *you* do, and acknowledgements. It'll be downloading what everybody else does.

Unless this limit is set extremely low, its going to cause problems that shouldn't be necessary.

1 MBPS upload minimum cap FTW!!!

Seriously though, if you want to play stuff online, people shouldn't be cheap when it comes to their internet. I pay $55 a month for 8 mbps down and 1 mbps up in the middle of no where (literally, country bumpkin redneck territory). I think the DSL in the area is 6 mbps down and 768 kbps up for $48. There is no reason why people with dial up should expect an internet game to work. I think this feature is a good idea. I believe there was another game a while back that had a feature where people with slow connections could only play with other people with slow connections so that they wouldn't hinder the people with fast connections in any way.

If you are too cheap to pay for internet that doesn't suck, you shouldn't be allowed to play with me.

Alright. That's it.
I was extremely sceptical to their "all games will be on our servers, achtung!"-approach from the beginning, for a wide array of possible issues that will inevitably crop up in the (far) future. I really wasn't expecting this to be one of them, though.

With an already shaky line with wildly fluctuating speed and no options for anything better, this killed it for me. Not because I'm a huge multiplayer, but because the practice in itself. It's especially disheartening to see a company previously lauded for their business practices to pull something like this.

Unfortunately it doesn't really do anything with me walking out like this, since I've already pre-ordered. But yeah.

I'm off.

Wait and see, guys. If we do go through with what Brad mentioned (and I personally wouldn't even take it as a concrete plan when it's only mentioned in passing on a Demigod journal), I doubt any restriction on Elemental would be all that stringent. If you're still on $5/mo dialup you might have cause for concern, but otherwise, let's not jump to conclusions just yet.

It should be a feature that is optional, and I don't think it's a good idea for this type of game. People continue to act as if broadband speed is available to everyone nationwide. It's not. DSL wasn't available across the road until three days ago where I live. I am fortunate to have cable with crap upload on pretty much any tier though. Other people I know use Sat. or 3G. Considering I play 99% with friends and family, I am willing to put up with a lot just to have fun. I wouldn't appreciate any company telling me I am not allowed to put up with an iffy connection if I want to. I understand other people won't want to.

The only reason people are jumping to conclusions is extremely vague information was given out. It's one thing to broadcast connection speeds and allow players to decide on whether or not to continue with someone with low "marks"; it’s another to artificially prevent them from playing MP entirely.

It's way too early to start jumping ship over this. I doubt that it's going to be even necessary to block anyone with low netspeeds.  Brad's remark comes from frustration more than anything else, but Elemental is going to be very different than Demigod since it's going to be client/server.  Instead of having to send the same message out to 9 other players, you send the message once and the server sends it out to the other players. You're still receiving the same amount of messages, but you're sending far less.

On another point, leaving because you dislike something is going to make very little difference.  We're not going to miss one less voice in the forums or chat rooms.  Staying, however, makes a difference. 

The issue shouldn't even exist. If the games are client/server, it's up to whoever hosts the game. For instance, LAN parties don't care about internet connection speed. Hosted servers in Europe wouldn't care if the lag with a US server is important.

If Stardock still plans to host all multiplayer games itself (meaning no hotseat or LAN and probably no pbem), then such issues may arise, but are unlikely as Cari said and she knows best what she's talking about.

Actually isn't this is true 4X game? So in reality any lag in this game should be irrelevent except for in the battle minigame.

Honestly, if you connection speed is THAT low, good riddance. Some people actually want to be able to enjoy MP without getting the 600+ ping ambush everytime they want a casual match.

QFT

Edit:  That said, the upload speed detector stuff should probabyl solve that concern without locking people out.

You know, I really dislike this attitude. I don't think I've seen a recent launch on this forum without someone pretty much saying they could care less if someone leaves or not. Hey, I think it's premature for people to stop following the game because of half-baked information given in an interview not even about the game in question. It is probably even premature to cancel a pre-order, assuming someone has pre-ordered; I certainly haven't. I rarely do for a number of reasons myself. I think someone should be able to vent their frustration without someone telling them not to let the door hit them on the way out. On the other hand, I certainly think saying you are going to leave based on unofficial information is not exactly stellar either.

CariElf didn't tell them to leave; it was the point that if they stay they can help change the game by voicing thier concerns, by leaving they change nothing.

I believe he meant play with LARGE numbers of people, most (99.9%) of connections should be good for 1v1 with all right latency between the host and player.

If I want to play with a friend of mine in a game and he has a slow connection... what business is it of yours?

I'm the one who has to put up with it, and I want to play with my friend, so I will. A game company telling me that they know better then I do about what kind of connection latency I will tolerate in a TBS game is really not cool.

I appreciate where the Stardock folks are coming from on this, but people freaking out probably isn't an overreaction on this one.

If the game is able to inform the player of other players latency or upload rate in the lobby, I don't think it would be necessary to enforce minimum bandwidth/latency restrictions. The players will be able to take their own informed decisions.
Beside, latency is a relative measure. I don't know how this applies to Demigod or Elemental but, if European players drag everybody down because of laggy oversea connections, I guess you'd better setup a mirror server in Europe.

Finally, I'm no specialist but if a TB strategy game needs more than a handful kb/s to send turn orders - even in tactical battles and not talking about graphical resources or mod upload - I would think there's something wrong.

Then I suggest you get friends with faster internets. But seriously, I am sure they will allow direct IP multiplayer gameplay. I think the required upload speed they are talking about only applies to  SD's multiplayer service.

This is why PBEM should be included.

Why does Stardock care if I want to play with a friend who has slow Internet? Why do any of you care? It's not like we're playing with you.

This is them trying to solve a problem that shouldn't even exist in a game like Elemental because it burned them in Demigod.

I seriously doubt direct IP will be included, since Brad said specifically they want online games hosted on their servers. (But them hosting it is what makes slower connections more viable anyway due to the reduced traffic, and it's not like a TBS game requires sub 50 ping.)