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.

[Colovion]

Wow great idea! but it may be kind of annoying for some players if they click "play online" and no one is there to join their games. Sure - if it happened it would be sweeeet - and I'm sure that people online looking for games are going to do anything possible to play a game - even if they are a meagre army against a formidable force - they would most likely do the thing that a small force would do - even withdrawing off the battlefield with the majority of the troops and screen the enemy with some, thinking of the big picture they can't see (unless that feature was incorporated). The opponent online can have a brief overview of the big campaign map to get a feel of what kind of battle this is and then go into it. This idea obviously makes for some frusterations where the opponent could just do annoying things to piss you off with no semblance of a strategy - in which case you as the host have an option to "Boot player/Switch to AI Opponent".

:D

I also agree that without MP the game dies as soon as the peopel finish the MP or the game's features and graphics get outdated.

Why do you think Starcraft, Halflife and such games are so impressively STILL played these days? It's certainly not their graphics. It's their online ability to make great MP battles with nearly flawless gameplay balance. Without online battles FPS would never have been as abundant as they are today.

[d6veteran]

I was thinking some more about it and actually I've played a game that had this very feature - Close Combat!

At least I am sure the Close Combat V would allow you to play a campaign and host all your battles for an online player to chair as the AI. It was great. Solved the AI issues and made the game a challenge. There was a lobby on game spy were you'd go and you could be pretty sure to keep the smacktards away.

Anyway ... to put this into perspective, Close Combat V was released like 6 years ago. So this type of feature is nothing *new*.

[ElmarkOFear]

Actually, time would not be a factor for RTW. The players would have plenty of time to make their moves while waiting to logon to the RTW lobby and then have even more time to make their next moves while they waited for a game to actually launch without dropping everyone. :) If we endure all of the time waiting to play just one fast MP game, then I can see a lot of these same people willing to wait around and play a long MP campaign game. hehe

[d6veteran]

ROTFL!

Nice Elmark!

[RTKLamorak]

v funny elmo, but once the reality of it sinks in it makes me sad :(

[shingenmitch2]

cool yes, but a pipe dream as of now.
Lets just get back the MP we had and fix the play issues

[Voigtkampf]

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?

As soon as I play MP, and don't like it (high probability), I’ll consider this to become my sig!

ElmarkOFear-sama, you are just simply a must-have! I salute you! It will be a disgrace if we never get to play the Rome we want to have against each other just the way we would like to play it, right?

[TonkaToys]

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.
...

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.
...

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
...

Some of you guys must have seen this before, but I am trying to develop an online campaign system... hard work though and real life keeps getting in the way.

See my sig for more info, inc. a demo.

[hellenes]

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:



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.

The ONLY thing that i have to add is that the games with weak multiplayer loose money from PIRACY...Single player games cant fight it since the CD key is not worth anything if the MP is weak...If you can read russian and visit some ru tw sites you will see how much of the RTW has been downloaded via emule/bought illegal copies...In greece the piracy is being fought but its still a MAIJOR part of the PC games...The common thought of any south/eastern european gamer is:well what i want to play MP or SP? SP? then ill pay 5 euros for the illegal copy and play it...You just have to see what happened with Blizzards WarCraft III ANY internet Cafe in greece that has it has the 100% LEGAL copy NOT because they cant have the illegal BUT because they CANT provide Battlenet feature without the legal copy...And as long as the CA/Activision dont provide a MP campaign no matter how good/stable the current BIZZARE (yes it is because all that player want to build armies in mp) for the common RTS players MP gets they will see themselves behind Blizzard,EA etc(note The battle for Middle earth)...

PS An older post of mine at the .COM
the whole hosting-quitting-dropping etc etc is a NO for a MP campaign wich will have to be a single grand campaign going online with commanders and subcommanders taking their place if one drops-quits-disconnects also its a TURN BASED campaign so one leaving on the camp map wont cause many probs since the option of the replacements could be relieving...
Second the MP campaign isnt vital FOR the "staggering numbers" of the users online its inorther TO HAVE stagerring numbers....The present online part of the game looks bizzare and awkward to the other (note:majority) RTS ers the whole bre battle selection and lack of strategy (yes the TW series are TBS-Turn Based Strategy+RTT-Real Time Tactical games) with only the RTT part online has only a small potential to draw the other Strategy gamers off the resources gathering-click-fiestas RTSes....The low level of the Programmed Oponnent makes the boredom unbearable in the later stages of the game as the lack of the diplomacy (there is NO diplomacy with a PO)....
My feeling of the present MP is that the sterilised and artificial battles drew away all the feeling that i had from the first contact with the game in sp.
The "mirror" like laboratory flat battles with ideal "non benefiting/giving advantage" sterile enviroments made the all thing pointless in a way.
Although remarcable the exeptions of the above majority fought in hilly desert and other enviroments battles couldnt take away the tasteless feeling and smell of drugstore of the whole process.
However as it goes if you dont have smthing u are forced to live with what you have so the sterile enviroment keeps its existance and the community after the disdain of the CA to the idea of creation of an MP campaign remains IMHO prisoner of the sterilised encounters...

[GilJaysmith]

Read this:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20...rdell_01.shtml

(you'll need to register at GamaSutra, but this is free)

This is the postmortem for "The Political Machine", the most recent game from Stardock. Stardock has been cited on these boards as being very responsive to the customer, looking to the future, and so forth. However, this is what their President said about the multiplayer in that game:

"Multiplayer. The biggest regret I have, in hindsight, was the decision to have a multiplayer mode in The Political Machine. The game features a full-blown matchmaking service, in order to make it relatively easy to play multiplayer. I love playing games multiplayer, and I've played a lot of games online with people. That said, based on the sales statistics, and based on the server stats, less than 1% of players are playing the game multiplayer."

"As a gamer, I demand multiplayer in my games. It affects my purchasing decisions. But as a game developer, I recognize that people like me are an extreme minority. Outside of a handful of games, most games don't reach critical mass in online players to make a successful multiplayer community. We would have been much better off putting that time into enhancing the single player game."

Any opinions?

[Alrowan]

MP will only ever remain a small minority if devs dont give it any priority, and improve the situation.

in game where MP is given decent priority (not just some obscure game) like WC3 for example, here we see the vast numbers that play it online.

I think you will find that games that are popular, with well supported MP, see the MP side as a huge success, popular games where devs dont take much consideration to MP, the MP only remains mediocre.

[hellenes]

Read this:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20...rdell_01.shtml

(you'll need to register at GamaSutra, but this is free)

This is the postmortem for "The Political Machine", the most recent game from Stardock. Stardock has been cited on these boards as being very responsive to the customer, looking to the future, and so forth. However, this is what their President said about the multiplayer in that game:

"Multiplayer. The biggest regret I have, in hindsight, was the decision to have a multiplayer mode in The Political Machine. The game features a full-blown matchmaking service, in order to make it relatively easy to play multiplayer. I love playing games multiplayer, and I've played a lot of games online with people. That said, based on the sales statistics, and based on the server stats, less than 1% of players are playing the game multiplayer."

"As a gamer, I demand multiplayer in my games. It affects my purchasing decisions. But as a game developer, I recognize that people like me are an extreme minority. Outside of a handful of games, most games don't reach critical mass in online players to make a successful multiplayer community. We would have been much better off putting that time into enhancing the single player game."

Any opinions?

Gil as i see the example of Blizzards HUGE succes in MP with WarCraft Starcraft series had NO impact at all on CA... :(
And as ive read in your previous posts on Piracy and nocd loaders you dont like piracy BUT if you want to fight piracy make MP!!!
And IMHO Blizzard didnt emphasize or improve MP to please the customers they did it because that would AND DID insure that all the customers were FORCED to buy a legitimate copy in orther to enjoy the game...
So if CA/Activision want to sell their game to the HUGE market that other companies enjoy just pay attention to opinions like:

I had my mouth SHUT after me trying to agitate RTW in a greek warcraft forum...
The reason?: "To Medieval eixe plaka se single player, alla ousiastika eixe aniparkto multiplayer giati ka8e "game" i8ele meres na teleiwsei, kai opws kai na to kanoume online fainetai i axia tou RTS. Kai to Rome apo oti fainetai de 8a exei kai polles diafores oson afora to gameplay apo to Medieval, opote.."

Translation: "The Medieval was fun in single player, but virtually had non existing multiplayer because each "game" needed days to be finished, and at all events the value of the RTS is shown online. And Rome as it seems wont have many differences as the gameplay is oncerned to Medieval, so..."
The link: www.warcraft.gr/forum.asp...1869.m1157

Hellenes

[Puzz3D]

I like the game for the tactical battles, and I think MP Total War could be quite successful if the tactical battles were brought to their full potential. In the single player campaign, the idea is to enter into the strategically important battles with the better general or with more troops. In multiplayer, you can't get those advantages, so you have to win with superior tactics. I've played both SP and MP in each of the Total War games, and I can definitely say that the thrill of winning a great battle in MP far exceeds anything I ever encounted in SP. I'm not sure that CA needs a multiplayer campaign, but I think they should try to maintain and improve the tactical quality of the battles with each installment of the game. That aspect has declined badly in RTW.

[d6veteran]

Gil, I'm sure that you're aware that the opinion expressed in that post mortem is not a one size fits all for the video game industry. A badly implemented multiplayer or a multiplayer that largely does not suit the audience is most definitely going to reap that type of sour grapes in a post mortem. But it is simply not true that multiplayer is the minority "outside of a handful of game"! I find that comment absurd. I can't think of a single friend or co-worker who plays video games who is *not* interested in getting online and playing with others.

Online gaming is a booming industry. All you have to do is look at the subscription market to see examples of just how much player will dish out over the course of months and in some cases years, to play online. Nevermind the boom in 'gaming' broadband packages.

TW has focused on Single Player and honestly I cannot say how much more profit/sales would be obtained per additional development resources put into the multiplayer component. I think that would depend on what and how multiplayer features were implemented.

Multiplayer is the future of gaming -- I have no doubt when I make that statement. Multiplayer addresses the AI hurdle. Multiplayer recycles gameplay (I can speak of at least 5 friends I convinced to buy MTW just last year because I was still enjoying it online ... without an online component I would have been done with the game and never had the opportunity to recommend it so far down the road). Multiplayer allows people to connect and play games together throughout the world. Minority? Bah!

CA has some choices to make and I don't necessarily think it is obvious to make multiplayer the ugly step child of TW. The single player game speaks to the talent, care and innovation available from the development team and I personally think that if some of that talent was shared and supported in the multiplayer component you'd reap the benefits financially.

Everyone I know that plays TW would like some degree of a multiplayer experience grafted onto the single player experience. Everyone I know that has been waiting two years for RTW was shocked to some degree that there wasn't only more meat in the multiplayer but that it was such a beta experience.

[Dionysus9]

Read this:

"Multiplayer. The biggest regret I have, in hindsight, was the decision to have a multiplayer mode in The Political Machine. The game features a full-blown matchmaking service, in order to make it relatively easy to play multiplayer. I love playing games multiplayer, and I've played a lot of games online with people. That said, based on the sales statistics, and based on the server stats, less than 1% of players are playing the game multiplayer."



Any opinions?

What are your opinions on this point, Gil? All we can assume is that you agree with the above statements since that has consistently been CA's position and the point has been consistently raised again and again. I take this to be your position--please correct me if I'm wrong.

I have many. First of all, I'm tired of being told that my opinion doesn't really matter because I'm in the minority. Maybe that is an illogical emotional response, but its my knee-jerk response all the same. CA's position has been, and apparently still is -- MP is not worth developing or supporting. Sure, you'll take my $50, but thats where the relationship ends. Fine. We are used to it by now.

I'm so sick of this 1% argument I could scream. How bout someone come out with a game with NO single player mode? eh? Then we wouldn't have to hear this damn argument after every buggy release. The peace of not having to hear how much of a voiceless minority I am (or should be) would be worth paying any price for good MP support. Thats where the untapped market share is.

Secondly, if TW didn't have multiplayer--I'd be playing chess or poker and CA wouldn't have any bit of my $200 some-odd-dollars I've spent on TW in the last few years. And I'll bet that is the same response you'll get from several hundred other players--if not here, then certainly at the .net. CA knows this, which is why you give us what you consider the minimum necessary to keep us paying.

Third, defeatism is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and btw--I've never even heard of this game you are referring to, which suggests the MP side sucked or I would have heard about it. Maybe the SP was good, but I don't play SP games so I wouldn't know. MP spreads by word of mouth, if it sucks, it goes nowhere. Players who like MP experiences talk to eachother and share new "gems" of games and also share bad experiences with games. It doesn't take long for a good MP game to build up a following and a momentum. Also, you can't make UNO (the card game) have a good MP following--the underlying game has to be good. The MP implementation has to be focused. The company has to set a GOAL of having good MP.

Have you ever played a team sport where your morale was really low? "We're going to lose this game, we're going to lose...they're going to destroy us." Its a self-fulfilling prophecy--every time. If you think you will lose, you will. You have to believe that you can win before you have a chance to win.

In this case, CA wrote off MP before Shogun was ever released. Is it any surprise to anyone that MP is and always has been riddled with problems? If half the MP community that left when MTW came out was still around, we'd have 500 signatures on the petition. Those people were chased away by poor MP implementation and support a long time ago. If you want to go further back to the Shogun release and the MP problems that surrounded that-- we are talking about another 300 or so people who could still be part of this community if the initial Shogun release was not flawed in MP.

Look at games like WCIII, and Unreal Tournament-- are you telling me that MP is only 1% of their sales? NO WAY thats true! Those games are primarily MP games why? Because they FOCUS on MP, and guess what-- their MP sales increase. Is that so surprising?

Fourth, I'll tell you a way to guarantee that your MP sales never increase beyond 1%-- introduce an MP mode that is incomplete, poorly supported, and buggy. That way you can sell lots of copies to MP hopefuls and then when you tell then they are only 1% you will be correct, since the MP side of the game will never flourish. This is the strategy I think CA has employed-- rope-a-dope the MP fiends and then pocket their money and tell them they are a minority who has (or should have) no voice.

Fifth, TW SP is maxed out. You can't really do much more with the strategy map in my opinion-- the future is the battles, and MP ones at that. The AI is limited (look, Kasparov can still beat Big Blue). If I wanted to play strategy map, I'd play CIV III or something. TW is different because of the battles--why is CA de-emphasising that? To "fit in" with the other big titles? Wake up--you can't take their market share, you have to create your own niche.

Sixth, if MP is such a headache and such a drain on R&D, then why does CA include it? Even more frustrating-- why has CA been essentially complaining about MP players being less than 1% from day ONE when they could have gone forward with an SP only game? I think its because they know they HAVE to have MP to be competitive--see my 4th point.

Seventh, I'm tired of this same old discussion. If CA wants to take our money and give us a half-assed MP product-- fine. Just do it and stop rubbing it in--it really gets me mad when I'm told my $50 isn't as good as the next guy's because of the portion of the game that I play.

I guess what Gil is saying is that we are 1% of sales so they allocated 1% of development funds to us. Ok, that is a facially logical marketing decision. I think its self-defeatist, short sighted, and flawed in the long term--but its what we have, so enough said.

Or as Bomil would say-- enough words lost.

[d6veteran]

Well put Dionysus9!

I specifically want to comment on:

Fifth, TW SP is maxed out. You can't really do much more with the strategy map in my opinion-- the future is the battles, and MP ones at that. The AI is limited (look, Kasparov can still beat Big Blue). If I wanted to play strategy map, I'd play CIV III or something. TW is different because of the battles--why is CA de-emphasising that? To "fit in" with the other big titles? Wake up--you can't take their market share, you have to create your own niche.

The RTW single player game is great *despite* the enemy AI. Even the stellar reviews for RTW comment on this directly or indirectly. Further enhancing the AI through compensation (numbers and strength) is transparent.

There is a great opportunity to truly do something new in TWs market space and create gameplay that addresses the AI limitations.

Polishing the Multiplayer is a step, but a bigger step (and more rewarding for both sides) would be to start plugging the multiplayer into the strategy/single player experience.

I've mentioned before the idea of having an additional option when going into battle mode from the single player game: 'Fight Online'. This would host your current battle online for other players to join. Pathing and AI issues solved and for perhaps less R&D dollars that would yield something close to a human opponent. You make the single player game stronger, you make the multiplayer community larger and you surely break some ground and create a bigger niche.

[note: I make no claims to this idea if it is used]

Just consider the attributes of this gameplay:

The player would have the option to password the game so a specific friend could join to take control of the enemy. Or just anyone from the online community could join and you could get a tough general or a weak one -- part of the fog of war.

Battles with reinforcements would mean more seats for players to join. The coordination of reinforcements could be thrilling compared to what the AI does. Think of having a human controlling one of your allied reinforcements.

I think this would be stellar!

A similar thing was done with the Close Combat series and I played both with passworded games and open. I would never have to wait long for someone to join the open games. In the event you got a smacktard you would be able to boot them and rehost.

Something like this idea is what I expect CA to be working on. I expected this type of effort for RTW frankly.

[Dionysus9]

d6,

the problem is they are still stuck in this 1% paradigm. Why would they ever expend effort to mesh the SP and MP sides when, at best, they would only be appealing to less than 1% of their customers? You see? Its self-defeatest in the extreme--but that is what we are up against. Every time we have a problem or suggestion the response is the same-- "sorry, MP accounts for less than 1% of sales"

you can come up with a thousands brilliant ideas, ideas that would launch TW into the thick of the MP gaming world--but until CA sees value in implementing those ideas we will not see anything become of them. The problem is not the lack of ideas, the problem is the anti-MP bias that is being slavishly clung to by most of the industry.

Take Gil's example-- the stardock president blames the failure on MP.

Someone stole your car and got your wife pregnant? Must have been MP. Those damn minorities sure are trouble. MP moved in next door? Doh! There goes the neighborhood. lol. Any evil, anywhere, must be caused by MP. You must admit it is a convenient scape-goat-- especially when all the other grizzled executives nod sagely in agreement.

This is an industry wide self-fulfilling paradigm that we cannot change. It appears to be shifting slowly, but until MP becomes the focus for the major distributors (activision/ea), we wont see any change.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Did you noticed that this was 7 years old thread?

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Did you noticed that this was 7 years old thread?

[Risasi]

I think the funniest part is that Takeda appears to be very emotional and passionate about his position on the subject. I'm guessing he was up waaay past his bedtime when he posted this and didn't even see how old this thread had become. Been there, done that. ;-)

[vartan]

Although I don't find much wrong with recycling threads instead of spamming via a new one, I must say that this may potentially be a record necro in the history of this website: almost exactly 6 years and 6 months.