No LAN Multiplayer in Mongol Invasion

[humboldt420]

These guys are crazy, but I just found out that the developers are not including the LAN Multiplayer for the expansion. It will be an update and EACH PLAYER WILL NEED A SEPERATE CD-KEY! You guys hear that. I feel so robbed. I was looking so forward to a campaign multiplayer where I was building armies and friends on my borders were building armies as well. Then we could clash or sneak attack. But oh well, this is what we get from non-gamer developers.

[Shuko]

it simply comes down to money, they want to make as much as possible out of gamers; cheap nasty way of forcing keen players/addicts to buy an additional cd

this is big business rorting the small consumer, they can go fuck themselves if what you say is true!

[Erado San]

...sigh...

Old news. There will be no Multiplayer Campaign in the x-pack. Not money, time is the cause. It's a very hard thing to program. Won't go into that. It's a simple fact.

Start yelling boys.

[Catiline]

off to Mongolia with you

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Unless the Persians fly away like birds, hide in the earth like mice, or leap into a lake like frogs, they will never see their homes again, but will die under our arrows

[ggbal]

Where did you find that info?

[Lord Aeon]

With all the extra time they're taking, you would figure that some of it would have been focused on multiplayer...

Not that i'm complaining, i just wish it had come out on the "confirmed" July 20 date...

Not to mention the "confirmed" June 20 date...

And so on and so forth...

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"You have offended my family, and you have offended a Shaolin temple."

[This message has been edited by Lord Aeon (edited 07-25-2001).]

[Target]

Would an explaination placate you guys, or would you feel just as cheated?

[Lord Aeon]

Not sure... but it would have served to make the waiting a tad more bearable. In fact, yes... i don't think a real explanation would have been an unreasonable request.

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"You have offended my family, and you have offended a Shaolin temple."

[This message has been edited by Lord Aeon (edited 07-26-2001).]

[Erado San]

Target,

Some would appreciate an explanation. It could explain why the MPC is such a programmers nightmare.

Others would probably read it and then come up with their ideas why it really isn't so hard and that if you do this and that then such and so would not be problems.

And some would really still feel cheated. But then again, some will feel cheated whatever you do

But I'd say some explanation would be welcome to most patrons.

[Kraellin]

target,

some of us would and some would just use it for more blames and flames.

the only mistake i see is in announcing a fixed date and then not delivering. it's like saying ok, dec 25th is christmas and that's when we'll celebrate it, and as that date gets close, saying, but we've decided to change it to jan 25th, and when that date gets close, saying, ok, we're moving it to feb 25th ;)

one of the primary rules of business is delivering what you promise. the obvious corollary is then, dont promise anything or dont promise what you cant deliver.

despite the flames in some of these posts here, i think most of us take any release date with a grain of salt. sh*t happens and we all know it.

i, for one, would much rather have a good game than a rushed game that was 'finished' to meet a release date. setting dates internally to have a product out is prolly a good idea...telling the public that date is prolly not. justifying why the date wasnt met is a mixed bag. some will take it as, 'oh, ok. thanks' and others will see it as a chance to blame and flame regardless of whether your country blew up, the dog ate it, all the programmers got hired by mega-games-king for 3x the money or everyone was on a drunken binge for 3 weeks cause they finally got paid ;)

myself, i'm interested, but you dont owe it to me, target. feel free either way.

i do see that totalwar.com has another new release date posted now. i think i'd change that policy of posting fixed dates. no telling who in here has access to nukes ;)

K.


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I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[Target]

I'll risk the flaming:

OK, one of the reasons that expansion pack was late was because we were working hard on trying to get the Multiplayer Campaign up and running. The problem was, although the stratmap had been initially created with muliplayer modes in mind, the consequent patching and addons and multitude of programmers added to the project in the later stages meant that the multplayer side got over looked. We were working to deadlines, and no-one saw the need to cater for an unsupported mode that may have made us WAAAAAAY late for our releases.

Anyway, through the big pile of feedback from guys like you lot, one of the features that was described as sorely missed was the multiplayer campaign mode. We were working on the XP, so we made an effort to include it. This meant going back through the code and placing server/client calls on all the import bits of code, like moving armies, starting battles, assassinating people, etc, etc, etc.

Right. Multiplayer games, in order to work properly all have to make sure that everyone playing is using the same information: who's doing what at what time and in which order. Every time one player makes a move, all the other players have to be told about it AND make sure that all the subsequent calculations match everyone elses. If one computer makes one more or one less calculation or comes up with a different answer, you get what is called a divergence and the game rapidly falls out of synch. On one machine, Shimazu's ninja opened the castle gates during a siege and ended it, but on another the ninja fails his mission and is killed. The game can't carry on because the 2 computers aren't using the same info to continue.

The problem was trapping the divergences. Tracking down one such bug could take the best part of a day, and sometimes longer, because the error could have occurred anywhere in the code. We were writing trapping routines and outputting data to files from hundreds of locations trying to find these little bugs but we were having to hunt them down one by one, and it was taking too long.

Eventually, the muliplayer campaign was dragging the game down. We were missing deadlines because of it and threatening to sent more than one programmer insane trying to sort it all out. During this time, most of the other bugs had been fixed, and we'd found enough time to shovel in a few more features of the game that might otherwise not have made it. Eventally, 3 months after the original submission date we decided to call it quits. Better to release the pack without the muliplayer expansion now rather than some unknown time in the future or, even worse, not at all.

So there you have it.

[Kraellin]

thanks target :)

whine, whine, whine...flame, flame, flame...lol. well, somebody had to do it ;)

erado has been telling us for months now how difficult the mp camp thing would be so this news comes as no shock. it also doesnt particularly shock me as i used to have 2 coders working for me...they could write tons of code in a day. it was debugging it that took so long. it's always that bloody comma that looks like a period or vice-versa that does it ;)

thanks for the info, target. could i persuade you to reveal one more piece of data here? was the mp camp designed to work with more than 2 players at a time? seems there was some confusion on this point a while back in one of the threads.

K.


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I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[Maltz]

Guess if we really love MP campaign, we have to organize our own. Luckily we still have lively places like the .org

[Lord Aeon]

I must say, that makes a whole lotta sense.
Understandable.

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"You have offended my family, and you have offended a Shaolin temple."

[Whitey]

nice, a real explanation from the horses mouth (erm - does that count as a flame ) but yes, it does seem very reasonable - and its interesting that the reason its delayed this time is the documentation (as if anyone reads it anyway...)

but thanks very much - nice to see reasons from 'official sources' rather than (even though an extremely good and capable ones) third parties.

Whitey

[KukriKhan]

LoL..He even ended his post with: "So there you have it...", just like the fella who anchors the BBC US broadcast.

I must say, with Target's explanation I have a MUCH greater understanding of what goes into MP, the part of STW that fascinates me most. My thanks to him.

[Target]

No problem lads.

Kraellin: The multiplayer stratmap was designed to work exactly like the singleplayer game, with up to 7 people playing the major clans. If you set up a game with only 2 people, the other clans and the rebels would be controlled by the computer.


[This message has been edited by Target (edited 07-28-2001).]

[horatio]

Question: Do I understand correctly that it is the strategic components of the game that is making it difficult to do the multiplayer campaign? Not the tatical battles? I just wonder aloud if that is true, then what if the random events in the strategic part of the game were removed? Like the ninja attacks.

I can only speak for myself, but I would find the MP campaign a very good vehicle for lan games (i don't really have a huge desire for internet mp campaigns as much as lunchtime combat at work or home) even with geisha's, ninja, priests and all that other non-combat related stuff. Let me and my friends divy up the map between us, construct buildings and create troops and fight. That would make me content.

This is of course based on my possibly wrong interpretation of the above posts, and my tastes might be too simple for other people. But I am a simple creature.

[Kraellin]

excellent target. thanks. was hoping that was the way it was/is.

K.


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I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[Erado San]

Thanks, Target,

It's explanations like this that may not make us happy, at least now we know WHY we're not happy

Seriously, thanks. You know I have always been a strong supporter of a more open relation between the developers and us in the forums, and this is a perfect example of that.

[ggbal]

Target,

Do you guys plan to release MP campaign patch in the near future? It was the selling point for XP indeed.

[Dark Phoenix]

It may be for you but I couldnt give a shit about the MP campaign.

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DoragonPhoenix of the Clan Doragon

I am no hero I just like to hit people in the head. :p

[Hawkeye]

Well, it may not mean anything to you, but to me, lan multiplayer was the only major reason to buy the game. The mongol edition was a nice side affair for me. I am greatly displeased at the current state of things.

Japan, a country of extremes.

[Erado San]

As for the development woes, also consider this:

Target explained about the time and resources it takes to do the MPC well. Now also take the amount of people that will play it into account.

There's a lot of STW players out there. Some play online, most (by far!) only play SP. The number of people that play online is rather low. If I say there are 10.000 in total over the last year then I think I'm even optimistic. Then we are told that there are hunders of thousands of copies sold.

Also take into account that the MPC will require all players in the campaign to be online together, which makes it difficult to play.

This will result in only a very small percentage of gamers that will play the MPC. Also, not too many people have lan's to play a lan version on.

To do the MPC right CA would need to assign a number of people (proggers, project manager, QA, testers) for a longish period of time to it. The cost is staggering. Not only that, these people working on it are not available for other activities, so other projects will stagnate as a result.

Then, to suffer these consequences will drive their project managers up the wall. And then, knowing that what they are doing will only benefit a rather small number of people will driver their bosses up the wall.

Understand me, I want the MPC very much. But to know that is has been one of the causes of the dreaded delays and would mean more delays in the future makes me reconsider. If I have the option to choose for either the MPC and delays on new products and patches OR no (or later) MCP and less delays on new products and patches, I know what I'd choose.

Yes, they promised it. I'd like them to stick to their promises. But I guess they didn't fully realise exactly what the consequences of their promises would be. I forgive them for changing their priorities. In the end we benefit from that too.

On the whole, I am glad it hasn't been scratched yet. I keep my fingers crossed.

[Swoosh So]

LOL maybe took on too much wasent the multi player campaign supposed to be in the first shogun, arent all games reliant on exact data being transferred from pc to pc, i have for weeks and weeks defended the game designers about their late release of the exp pack because from what i hear they have done a good job with it. BUT i must say the news of not possibly having a multiplayer campaign is very bad news indeed, this basically makes the expansion pack a few new units for the online gamer and some larger maps, something that could easily have been done as a mod in any other game, the new modes of play sound ok but king of the hill lol we already have 200 of them, these are things players could implement themselves with a simple agreement b4 the battle, the multi player campaign however is something we cant do, i am sorry for being so negative but after 6 months in the community single one off battles are not enough for a game of such online potential, i agree the new single player campaigns will be fun to a point depending on the level of ability of the ai,i have heard numerous complaints about the lack of support ie patches server crashes but seeing you on this board target speaking to us now is a sign that all is not doom and gloom . anyway i waffle as i tend to do but this is an important issue to me please dont take any offence to this post as i think u have created a marvelous game that has kept me hooked like no other, the thing i fear is that once all the money has been made from the exp pack there will not be a multi player campaign, as u said u are busy with with totalwar2could we have some official statement at some point soon if it is possible if the multi player campaign will be released for shogun i feel u owe it to your customers to tell us this as alot of people will be buying the expansion pack for the main reason of having the multiplayer campaign in the future as promised.

LOL anyone notice im desperate for the mplayer campaign

swoooooooooooooooshooooooooooooowl


swoosh of grey wolves

btw for anyone whos interested my khan magyarkhan has created an online campaign and although it doesent invole troop building or building castles etc it is still fun to play and we probably will have positions availible for new clans to enter and there will be positions availible for ronin also, sound interesting check it out at wwww.campaign.club.tip.nl

[MagyarKhans Cham]

what would help people that create their own campaign is that you can have various army and unit sizes and stuff when hosting a battle...

[ggbal]

Sigh, from what I heard, there will never, ever be a MP campaign in TW. Not sure if it will be in TW2. But it looks like NO even some previews0 might say yes in half year.
The power of this game is the perfect combination of stratmap and battle. If MP only supports battle what is the true value of MP in this game? I really disappointed or say, SAD in this moment. I bought this game because I saw a potential MPC and it was promised half year ago. Now I will continue play TW, might not go for XP for a long time. Since I don't see true value in XP. Some new Unit? If you are Master or Daimyo, you really don't care what kind of units you have, you only need to think how you use the units you have. Sigh. Well, I still love this game but not be excited anymore. This is just opioion of my own, so for those dedicated fan, please, please, don't blame me.

[Iron_Chef_Morimoto]

With the wonderful internet I doubt cd keys and ways to duplicate the game will be a problem. Not that I have ever done it but I have heard that it can be done