A revolution for Totalwar Multiplayer

[Swoosh So]

MIke simspon stated at the eurogamer expo that he charged the mp team for shogun2 to make a revolution for totalwar multiplayer in the game.

MISTAKE imo and heres why... The game has more than enough multiplayer modes and all of them need looking at and improved unit controls bugs hosting bugs a FULLY FUNCTIONAL CHAT LOBBY maybe a ladder better mp map design and more map selection unit balance drops every single night when online instead theyre going to focus their energy on something completely new, if that something new is the above then great its just what the series needs! if its a new game mode and no focus on the above then oh for god sake mike simpson!

I get the feeling it will be some sort of multi battle setup where you fight a series of battles to some outcome and improve your general through some tech tree he has and even if thats great why even bother if the basics remain with flaws and the tools needed by a community to participate in mp are not there ie a fully functional chat foyer an unbuggy game with plenty of options for map selection - why bother.. Just get the mp right then in the expansion release your revolution.

They should live stream the meeting where the mp team present the idea to mike and his team and give the community a facepalm option to vote on the new direction of multiplayer. New modes could be fun but the only one the mp community really asked for was the mp campaign and thats sitting currently at 1v1 and needs improved. the others DID NOT WORK and we never did ask for them either, rememeber king of the hill? kill the general etc? me neither.

You can tell i expect the worst but the words a revolution for mp are bothering me that means something completely new and makes me think the problems that matter wont be addressed. People dont play the mp becuase quite frankly its crap if it remained solid throught the series it would have a massive following by now but they completely threw it away and never looked back after rome totalwar. We all know it were all sick of saying it.


If theyre pulling out all the stops and adding this "revolution" and fixing all of the above then great i salute them but highly doubt they will manage it since its only a year since NTW came out.

Ofc i could be off on the wrong track here but revolution does not mean fixing the games current problems. i wonder why theyre so secretive about the mp, would it not be better to get the communitys views on what theyre doing and we can all give ideas on how that would work and work well? hell it may generate some excitement at the very worst it would let them know not to waste their time on a bad idead cause the community doesent want it.

You could add in the most dynamic character progression for a general and a type of mini campaign for them to level up in and after a while noone will bother with it since the basics are broken. The thinking for Singleplayer - Lets fix the basics like AI before it goes out the door - the thinking for multiplayer (which is in a far worse state than singleplayer) lets do something revolutionary.....it just smells bad.

Look at the multiplayer campaign its good but its a REAL pain to setup a game and find somone who to play against who will spend the required time and effort to make it work, theres no lobby you either pre arrange a game with somone you know or you take a chance on some random guy that enters your game... If you had a lobby you could discuss and get to know the people online and find a suitable opponent easy. Its 2010 and were using the internet! and we cant chat!

So either we get a new game mode where you level your general maybe in a ladder or some series of battles that lead to some outcome or we get multiplayer done right with a great foyer for the community to interact, all the movement bugs fixed and hosting issues and drops resolved and a great selection of multiplayer maps maybe including a map editor and units finely balanced. I know which one i want and i know if i had to have both which order i would have them in.

Mike simpson says he wants as many people playing mp as do single player its just not going to happen this release, get the multiplayer right then we can aim for that in a future release. A new battle mode is not going to bring thousands of players running to multiplayer thats broken that would take something on the scale of battlenet and even then why would they stick with it when the basics arent there?



EG Expo: Shogun II presentation

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/eg-e...tation?size=hd at 09:50 in he mentions the big area for new features for multiplayer and his revolution..

[TosaInu]

I get a bit nervous about things like this too. Too much ambition can slow a project down to zero. It's better to sort the basics first.

[Swoosh So]

I get a bit nervous about things like this too. Too much ambition can slow a project down to zero. It's better to sort the basics first.

Exactly, maybe im over reacting as usual but i was so glad to hear there was a dedicated multiplayer team and to hear this kind of talk makes me worry abit for the game. Maybe what mike meant was they were totally overhauling multiplayer the foyer the way its hosted ladders everything and making it a big focus. we will see...

But remember they said they would make a multiplayer campaign back in 2000? well look how that turned out we got a 1v1 multiplayer campaign in 2010! The post where the shogun announced it is still in the shogun forums here.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Didn't they say the same thing for M2TW though Swoosh that they were "dedicated towards helping the Mutliplayer community" and M2TW failed to keep the older vets interested for more then a few months. I remember in 2006 this very month when the game came out, me and Magyar just finished a game (he beat me in case you are wondering ) and I asked him what he thought of it. I believe he told me it wasn't bad but it needed "at least 3 patches".

[Swoosh So]

They have said the same thing with every game just enough to give people interested in multiplayer some hope for the series, they have never on any occasion delivered for multiplayer after the release of mtw1 except with Napoleon totalwar it is a small step in the right direction and "playable" I dont mind NTW at all except that it suffers from bugs and lack of grouping options the community sucks cause theres no chat foyer and the total lack of maps drives me crazy! give a map editor i say and dont make the game go incompatable just because you have a few maps installed.....jeez. People always copy other people and CA will probably go big on some kind of achievement thing, trouble is games that work with achievements in MP are already very solid! totalwar mp is not solid at all and lacks the very basic tools the community needs to thrive. Whats the use of having new game modes if noones gonna play them.

[pevergreen]

I can't think of anything that they could include that would be new, or beneficial.

Sure, plently of cool features that have been done before in other games.

Until they get something like the battle.net 2.0 that will come (add chat rooms/clans and its fine, apart from custom games...grrr) But that is basically the top of multiplayer experiences for now. All of CA's games fall way short of that. Set the basics up and you can try funky new things, like a twist on your idea Swoosh, how about battles back and forth. You play one, if you win, you move forward into their territory and play another scenario where you have different objectives. Its still MP but gives that bit of extra story/grudge incentive. "We're being pushed back, in this scenario we have to hold them at all costs". Theres no Campaign set up, its just another MP battle, but it feels like more. They could do so much with a concept like that, but if the basics are not there, its useless.