Multiplayer Campaigns

Dear CA:

There's no reason not to. Don't feed us the excuse that you think no one's interested, because you know for a fact that there are tons of people here who have been clamoring for one for years, and have tried to make up for your shortcomings by organizing their own ad hoc games.

There are far more complex and longer games, like Civilization, that are now offering multiplayer campaigns, and they're popular as ever and the feature is commonly used.

I don't care if it's PBEM, LAN, or even fullblown internet. Do it or you'll never get another dime out of me again.

Tired of Being Dissapointed,
Metatron

please do people an online campain would rule
i would play it for days on end

It was only a matter of time before this tired argument started again!

CA will not be making a MP Campaign, get over it. TW is NOT practical for online play, turns would take an age, to get even remotely anywhere would take a dedicated group who had night after night spare, it would rely on every player been there to remain fair and so on, its isn't practical and its not exactally shocking CA don't look into it.

I'd love you to tell me why they should do its whilst thinking of the practicalities of actually making it and then how on earth players would keep it up.

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Originally Posted by NagatsukaShumi

It was only a matter of time before this tired argument started again!

CA will not be making a MP Campaign, get over it. TW is NOT practical for online play, turns would take an age, to get even remotely anywhere would take a dedicated group who had night after night spare, it would rely on every player been there to remain fair and so on, its isn't practical and its not exactally shocking CA don't look into it.

I'd love you to tell me why they should do its whilst thinking of the practicalities of actually making it and then how on earth players would keep it up.

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Civilization.

Let's keep a firm lid on the bashing aspect.

Requesting a feature = OK.

Voting with your 'dime' = OK, too.

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"...your shortcomings..."

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= not OK.

I refer all to this forums posting rules announcement: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/announcement.php?f=131

You know, EAW had campaigns. And they had SAVE GAMES. So play with a buddy, then when you need to, save the game and come back to it later. It actually works. Oh, and perhaps the campaigns could be very small maps, maybe you have the Greece and Macedonia countries as a map. Oh, and you will be able to run the full map. Yay.

I wasn't bashing, I was merely pointing out why it would be impractical for CA to dedicate time and energy in creating a feature that has more problems than pro's, this is purely from a coding point of view and how people would dedicate time to do these campaigns, waiting for battles to end etc etc, it would be boring.

There was no offence intended but every release there are calls for these and the reason there is none if because its not plausible.

Yes, Civilisation has them, NO game has the same campaign system as Total War, if they did, they too wouldn't have MP Campaigns.

Again, no offence intended to any cos I'd love it if it was plausible, but its just not.

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Originally Posted by NagatsukaShumi

I wasn't bashing, I was merely pointing out why it would be impractical for CA to dedicate time and energy in creating a feature that has more problems than pro's, this is purely from a coding point of view and how people would dedicate time to do these campaigns, waiting for battles to end etc etc, it would be boring.

There was no offence intended but every release there are calls for these and the reason there is none if because its not plausible.

Yes, Civilisation has them, NO game has the same campaign system as Total War, if they did, they too wouldn't have MP Campaigns.

Again, no offence intended to any cos I'd love it if it was plausible, but its just not.

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Its perfectly plausible it just requires some pre-organiszation that would limit the amount of people interested and lack of interest is the primary reason CA are not going to spend time on it.

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Originally Posted by Decimvs Sicinivs Aqvila

Its perfectly plausible it just requires some pre-organiszation that would limit the amount of people interested and lack of interest is the primary reason CA are not going to spend time on it.

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Its too time consuming to play, thats why CA don't look at it.

You'd take your turn, fair enough, quick enough, keep going a few and then conflict erupts, you will fight this battle. In the mean time other players will sit and wait for your conflict to end, then the turn can end. Now, after a while this becomes dull and boring, what can the other players do whilst these two fight it out? There in lies the main problem with an MP campaign, what can the players uninvolved in a battle do, consider how long even a single battle would slow a campaign down for everyone else never mind multiple battles, heck you might all fght two battles one turn, someone might fight 5 and so on, it takes so much time whilst those who are doing nothing are indeed doing just that, sitting there doing nothing.

This is the main problem, sure you can auto-resolve battles but this takes the fun away from the game, the battles are what makes Total War what it is, so they are needed in a camapign, but at same time, its exactally what is the problem with a MP Campaign.

I'd love an MP Campaign, but there really are issues that are never going to go that makes it impossible to dedicate man hours to programming. Even if you could save them, most would fall flat after a few turns with people getting bored of waiting for battles to end all the time for those who go the diplomatic route, it'd also force people into wars for something to do, taking tactics away.

Again this is not having a go or anything, its simply why MP Campaigns are not really reasonable.

^PBEM, Hot Seat, LAN...

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Originally Posted by NagatsukaShumi

Its too time consuming to play, thats why CA don't look at it.

You'd take your turn, fair enough, quick enough, keep going a few and then conflict erupts, you will fight this battle. In the mean time other players will sit and wait for your conflict to end, then the turn can end. Now, after a while this becomes dull and boring, what can the other players do whilst these two fight it out? There in lies the main problem with an MP campaign, what can the players uninvolved in a battle do, consider how long even a single battle would slow a campaign down for everyone else never mind multiple battles, heck you might all fght two battles one turn, someone might fight 5 and so on, it takes so much time whilst those who are doing nothing are indeed doing just that, sitting there doing nothing.

This is the main problem, sure you can auto-resolve battles but this takes the fun away from the game, the battles are what makes Total War what it is, so they are needed in a camapign, but at same time, its exactally what is the problem with a MP Campaign.

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Like I said it would have to be well organized and you would have to pick the right kind of person to play against a random pick up would never work which cuts out a huge amount of casual gamers this I belive is the main reason MP campaigns havnt been done.

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Originally Posted by NagatsukaShumi

I'd love an MP Campaign, but there really are issues that are never going to go that makes it impossible to dedicate man hours to programming. Even if you could save them, most would fall flat after a few turns with people getting bored of waiting for battles to end all the time for those who go the diplomatic route, it'd also force people into wars for something to do, taking tactics away.

Again this is not having a go or anything, its simply why MP Campaigns are not really reasonable.

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Thats completely subjective just because you would get bored watching other peoples battle does not mean everyone would and it does not mean MP Campaigns are unreasonable they are reasonable there is just not enough demand to justify the expense.

NOT going to happen.

Get over it.

If players decided their actions simultaneously, an MP campaign would be considerably easier to implement. But it's not gonna happen.

I would never want to, i mean i don't want to wait for other players ot fight their battles, what am i supposed to do in the mean time, stare at the map whilst they fight it out? Just too impractical to work.

It's good to see people are bringing up new innovitive topics that nobody has ever seen discuss before :) ....[/sarcasm]

It's not going to happen. :D

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Originally Posted by NagatsukaShumi

Its too time consuming to play, thats why CA don't look at it.

You'd take your turn, fair enough, quick enough, keep going a few and then conflict erupts, you will fight this battle. In the mean time other players will sit and wait for your conflict to end, then the turn can end. Now, after a while this becomes dull and boring, what can the other players do whilst these two fight it out? There in lies the main problem with an MP campaign, what can the players uninvolved in a battle do, consider how long even a single battle would slow a campaign down for everyone else never mind multiple battles, heck you might all fght two battles one turn, someone might fight 5 and so on, it takes so much time whilst those who are doing nothing are indeed doing just that, sitting there doing nothing.

This is the main problem, sure you can auto-resolve battles but this takes the fun away from the game, the battles are what makes Total War what it is, so they are needed in a camapign, but at same time, its exactally what is the problem with a MP Campaign.

I'd love an MP Campaign, but there really are issues that are never going to go that makes it impossible to dedicate man hours to programming. Even if you could save them, most would fall flat after a few turns with people getting bored of waiting for battles to end all the time for those who go the diplomatic route, it'd also force people into wars for something to do, taking tactics away.

Again this is not having a go or anything, its simply why MP Campaigns are not really reasonable.

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I read your post and stopped. Didn't bother about reading the other ones, so I apologize. But a fair way of doing it is making the campaign map somewhat real time, not turn based. Allowing people to do whatever they want while those 2 are fighting. Of course, you can't fight a faction that's already fighting, so go pick yourself another opponet.

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Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

I read your post and stopped. Didn't bother about reading the other ones, so I apologize. But a fair way of doing it is making the campaign map somewhat real time, not turn based. Allowing people to do whatever they want while those 2 are fighting. Of course, you can't fight a faction that's already fighting, so go pick yourself another opponet.

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Problem is, TW isn't real time and wouldn't work in real time.

Yes they'd be fighting a battle, but your getting an unfair advantage over them whilst they are, plus their provinces will be ungoverned for possible long periods, which isn't fair on them either.

just have small, two player MP campaigns. Problem solved. Make it so you can save them, and it works fine, and satifies a LOT of people....

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Originally Posted by NagatsukaShumi

Problem is, TW isn't real time and wouldn't work in real time.

Yes they'd be fighting a battle, but your getting an unfair advantage over them whilst they are, plus their provinces will be ungoverned for possible long periods, which isn't fair on them either.

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Actually, it makes for a fair collection of great features. Like, you can march your army to the battle in a Real time map.. Reach the battle when you're ally has almost died and reinforce him. Of course, everyone being a human player, their won't be many 'small' battles, but huge 'deciding' ones I think. Where up to the whole 21 factions can take part of it. That just rules, if you ask me.

But TW is not real time, its what helps differentiate it from other stratergy games, i like the campaign map being turne based, i think it works well.

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Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

Actually, it makes for a fair collection of great features. Like, you can march your army to the battle in a Real time map.. Reach the battle when you're ally has almost died and reinforce him. Of course, everyone being a human player, their won't be many 'small' battles, but huge 'deciding' ones I think. Where up to the whole 21 factions can take part of it. That just rules, if you ask me.

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However nice it would be to march your forces in real time that would involve creating an entire new game, which CA aren't going to do just for an MP Campaign.

At best, and I mean at best, if they did release MP Campaigns it would have to be of wars involving ONLY two nations, to avoid waiting for players to complete battles, like England v Scotland with Edward I to the Battle of Bannockburn etc, thats the only feasible way to do it. Even then its unlikely to ever happen.

The biggest disadvantage of the absense of a MP campaign or even a decent focus on MP is the fact that the scum that will download M2TW off emule will enjoy it as much as the legitimate customer (as myself) that will buy the game.
Its highly unlikely for anyone to do this with most other RTS games that focus on MP and have shallow SP so even if someone downloads the game after playing it, one will want to have more and will have to PAY for the original CD KEY in orther to play online...
SP games will have to either suffer significant losses in revenue or be forced to use intrusive DRM rootkits like Starforce alienating most of the gaming community and still losing revenue...
Multiplayer is the future as internet speeds become cheaper and faster and in some countries P2P is legal:
http://badcomedown.blogspot.com/2006...in-france.html
There is NO other way to fight other than MP...

Hellenes

Interesting angle. I'm not convinced the lost revenue is all that great to be honest, in the same way that there is no way the music industry loses all the money it claims to lose through illegal downloads. Simple fact is the big downloaders and folks who copy stuff off their mates would not, in the main, purchase most of those titles anyway (be they music, games, dvds, whatever). Though I feel as annoyed as you that Mr Freeloaded gets his stuff for nothing whereas I choose to be legal and pay for my entertainment.

Also interesting that the backlash against the Starforcce-esque product is well under way - Galactic Civ 2 has no copy protection whatsoever, Oblivion has just a simple 'disc in the drive' and there was a story very recently that Ubisoft are (considering?) dropping Starforce.

Cheers,

Rob.

have both ppl commanding the battles. you contorl your own nation the other person controls the enemy no matter who it is.

then you wont use the same strategys every time, since every battle will be against a human player youll have to come up with more strategys etc to win that match.

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Originally Posted by RJV

Interesting angle. I'm not convinced the lost revenue is all that great to be honest, in the same way that there is no way the music industry loses all the money it claims to lose through illegal downloads. Simple fact is the big downloaders and folks who copy stuff off their mates would not, in the main, purchase most of those titles anyway (be they music, games, dvds, whatever).

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However there is a substantial difference between the two kinds of entrertaiment:

If one downloads RTW with its shallow Multiplayer, that is unbalanced, unpatched, has poor lobby, no matchmaking, no mods support and is on Gamespy but offers VERY deep and longliving single player there is NO urgent need for an original CD Key from a gameplay standpoint. The reality is that in countries with strong left wing anticapitalistic feelings like in Eastern Europe and even in Greece (where Im from) people view the publishers as bloodsucking capitalistic benemoths that make HUGE profits through sheer exploitation so the moral obligation to support the publishers though purchase of original games that exists in the West isnt present.

On the other hand if one downloads Warcraft3 with its shallow single player and short campaign the only notion of longlivity and entertaiment lies in the original CD KEY and BATTLENET.

The mere fact that in the more than 1000 net cafes in Greece RTW is installed on all machines and there is only ONE original copy (and in most cases even none) in the store on the contrast to Warcraft3 that has ALL battlenet capable games installed with ORIGINAL copies since none plays it in SP demonstrates the potential losses.

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Originally Posted by RJV

Though I feel as annoyed as you that Mr Freeloaded gets his stuff for nothing whereas I choose to be legal and pay for my entertainment.

Also interesting that the backlash against the Starforcce-esque product is well under way - Galactic Civ 2 has no copy protection whatsoever, Oblivion has just a simple 'disc in the drive' and there was a story very recently that Ubisoft are (considering?) dropping Starforce.

Cheers,

Rob.

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As I said before the companies either will VIOLATE the privacy and the liberty of the net in orther to stop the P2P network (things that are impossible like the French example) or switch to MP for PC gaming to survive...

Hellenes

I think it's rather impractical. Multiplayer battles are one hinderance--you can't play your turn without the "input" of other players--and the other is that, simply put, it would be a balance nightmare.

2 things:
1. Ubisoft is dropping starforce, they just dropped it on Heroes of M&M 5 and aren't gonna use it on later games
2. I think that small, 2 player MP campaigns would work. EAW pulled it off, and admittedly, it is a different game, but it could still be viable, and be a lot of fun.

Fair points about the internet cafes I guess - here in the UK (and I may be wrong here) there isn't the 'go to cafe to play games' culture. As far as I know the PC games market is aimed at the home user. Obviously in other countries different challenges are presented to publishers.

I do agree that MP offers a totally different gaming experience, and in many cases is definitely the way forward.

Cheers,

Rob

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Originally Posted by hellenes

The biggest disadvantage of the absense of a MP campaign or even a decent focus on MP is the fact that the scum that will download M2TW off emule will enjoy it as much as the legitimate customer (as myself) that will buy the game.
Its highly unlikely for anyone to do this with most other RTS games that focus on MP and have shallow SP so even if someone downloads the game after playing it, one will want to have more and will have to PAY for the original CD KEY in orther to play online...
Hellenes

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Mind you I started my TW career with a downloaded version of Shogun and loved it so much that I ended up buying all the TW titles. Of course one reason was the multiplayer as you stated. ;)

Also when it comes to me I've played a lot of illegal copies of a game and as a general rule: if I liked it, I buy it, but it has also saved me from buying a lot of rather crappy games. Pretty much use them as an improved demo to be honest.

It would be hard to do, an MP campaign beyond just two players. If you removed all the other factions and strictly have on the board only the human players, it may wind up being quicker.

Concievably you can seperate the campaign into small sections. The first is the management and movement of various armies and agents, next you have the phase where you move forces to attack and lastly the phase where you actually fight the battles.

Concievably, if everyone is involved in a battle, there wouldn't be an interruption... Perhaps a faster version of the battles themselves might help.

It would be nice, but I don't think it would be doable, unless we auto resolve, limit the amount of troops being able to partake in any battle (16 units and no reinforcements) and limit one attack per turn...

But, instead of internet MP, why not the ability to just link a small groups of computers together and play?

You don't want MP. You want better AI.

The reason why I want MP is because of the lack-luster AI in SP. If they fix the AI, it may make me happy. I am tired of getting knifed in the back by the Byzantines when they are fending off the Horde and the Turks. A human player I do not think would do that...

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Originally Posted by Divinus Arma

You don't want MP. You want better AI.

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I want both.

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Originally Posted by Divinus Arma

You don't want MP. You want better AI.

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I want a bigfoot in a cage...a Lochness monster in my pool and Santa flying around...:laugh4:

Hellenes

CA are and always have been very good, and I remember since the STW demo people (me too) have been clamouring for an MP campaign. Practically, it would be extremely difficult to implement - TW is very different from Civ in that we have proper tactical battles. To start with, we have the long turn times and then the battles against AI powers, then we have Player on Player battles. Stop and think for a second about what this means. The gap between turns, some battles take players an hour or so - who'd wait for it? it'd take months or possibly years to complete a game!

If the MP campaign was strictly two-player, then you're away...but that would mean a game without bandits or ronin or barbarians, no revolts etc...again, you loose a lot of the game sacrificing them. Organisation of PBEM for strategic and then when the factions compete have it done over the internet or network? please...like any-one would ever do it...(I might, but then I'm just stupid).

Wooo Hoooo!!!! I've posted at the Org! It must mean theres a new game afoot!

This is my thought how to create an online-campaign, according to my explanation you will have none of the problems that people would suggest such as Endless campaigns.

Why cant they put up some servers? For the campaign, a person just accesses a server if there is a free spot and can select one of the factions that isnt occupied (let them be controlled by the AI when not occupied).
This way you can have a continous campaign that doesnt last ages. you could set a time limit on who long people can think about their moves so if somebody abbodons his pc but leaves it on his turn will automaticly be executed. After 2 or 3 times he will be kicked of the server and be replaced by AI/
If you can only set units to low quality (if you have a not so good pc) this shouldnt matter like in custom battles.
You should ofcourse have the same version of the game! :laughing:
But you should allow private servers if you do, if you want to just play with your friends.

This is pretty viable in my opinion, also wouldnt be that hard to put into works.
What kinda of flaws could be in this system?

Ive heard a flaw already, about the battles: but couldnt they make some kind of detection system that analyses what battles will be fought and executes several games at a time.
If someone whouldnt get attacked, theyd have to wait though.
But a solution would be to have either automatic battles or giving the ones that dont have anything to do a training battle with the AI presenting one of his (enemy) neighbours

Well, since you can only be in one place at a time, the players should choose which battle they want to fight and have the AI auto the rest.

Set a time limit for battles and turns, turns are all together simultaneous.

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Originally Posted by Divinus Arma

You don't want MP. You want better AI.

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I want MP and better AI. AI will make Dumb Mistakes Even if it Better, and a Good Player on a TW game won't make that certian Mistakes. I like MP more anyhow depenidng on the MP,m8..

Fix AI first; let MTW3 introduce MP campaigns.

It's very simple - what if just you and your friend want to play? If the AI r0x0rz, then you and your friend can play two nations while the AI competently covers all the others.

And I'm with Voitkampf - not going to happen for a long while. It costs losts of $$$ to develop a feature like that and make it work; if it doesn't work, CA loses a lot of said cash.

^Give us an SDK and it'll be done within the year.

How about this: You have a little bit of the map as the map for the MP campaign, and have no rebels, and only allow two factions. So like you might have "Greek homeland" map that has the Greeks fighting off the Romans.

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Originally Posted by RJV

Interesting angle. I'm not convinced the lost revenue is all that great to be honest, in the same way that there is no way the music industry loses all the money it claims to lose through illegal downloads.

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One problem with the RIAA's claim is in how they do their accounting for number of sales. The RIAA considers a sale as an album they ship from their warehouses to stores (whether it is eventually sold or not). Back before broadband and p2p music stores would purchase a new release in a quantity to last them say 12 months or longer. As p2p grew, and consumers had a greater ability to sample an album to really find whether it was worth their money, music stores began to purchase less of a new album (say to last them 6 months, at which time if it did well they could reorder). The RIAA sees this trend of msuic stores ordering less (to reduce their chances of sitting with boxes of crap in their backrooms) as a sign that album sales are dropping, and therefore the music industry must be losing money. They look at what could be causing that, and see p2p sharing as the cause because consumers are no longer herds of cattle willing to be fed whatever the RIAA wants to feed them. The fact is that music stores are indeed selling more.

This doesn't just happen in the music industry, but in other markets where retailers are purchasing new releases in smaller quantites (with the intention to restock if it is a strong seller). It's a simple fact of the free market, and the RIAA is trying to do whatever they can in order keep the market in their favor.

To bring this message somewhat back on the topic, I would like to see the possibility of a multiplayer campaign, and I'd freely accept auto-calcing which I do anyway, if it means I could play with some of my friends. The reason I play TW is more for the campaign map gameplay, rather than the RTS battles.

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^Give us an SDK and it'll be done within the year.

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I'll believe that when they release Shogun's source code. :help: