Multiplayer is the future

[d6veteran]

Consider this. The fact that the RTW online battle component is basically crap, really speaks to how far they are from developing the next step in TW multiplayer - online campaign games.

Here's a quote from a fellow gamer in my clan:

One of these days, publishers and developers will realize games are all about the mp no matter what.

Yes you want a solid kick a** sp experience, but unless you can crush your friends, the game isn't played after the shine wears off.

Longevity = more revenue through expansions and franchises = good MP

I still can't believe they haven't put in at least a 2-4 player online campaign...that can be saved.

If the game had that -- this game would be played forever.

I think he pretty much nailed it, and obviously I agree completely.

In the dev chats they keep saying that no one would play an online campaign game since the turns would take to long and all this other stuff. They are seriously underestimating the desire for players to endure some really minor gameplay issues in order to have a persistent battle online with their friends. To me that is Mt. Everest. That is where all these strategy games should be striving for.

Multiplayer is the future.

I had this great thought the other night ...

It would be awesome if while playing your single player campaign, whenever a conflict initiated battle mode, you had THREE options for resolving the battle.

1) fight battle
2) automatically resolve battle
3) fight battle online

This would adress the AI problems. And at least provide an interim step to an online campaign game.

And this is not a tech challenge. Option 3 would simply log you into GameSpy and host the appropriate battle. If one army attacked you then there would be a slot for 1 player. If multiple armies attacked you then you would have slots for additional players. Think of how cool that would be! I would love to join someone's campaign battle and give them a real fight!

You'd get veteran generals and noob generals. It would be cool. It would be challenging and it would really make you think before you send those 500 Romans against those 1100 Gauls

I'd invade Seleucid and get my firend who loves that faction to join my passworded battles so that he'd be my Seleucid tactical opponent. How cool would that be?

So, assuming that CA could have (read *should* have) delivered at least an RTW online component of equal value to MTW current (patched) online component ... don't you think they should have raised the bar a bit and therefore included something like I've just suggested?

My point: why develop ground breaking single player gameplay and yet in that very same game choose not to do anything ground breaking with the multiplayer, and in reality take several steps back?

And ... why no response from CA? They've received (and applauded) their deserved kudos for such a great single player game, yet nothing to say to their fans about why the mp is so broken or when they can expect to have it fixed.