Quote Originally Posted by 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?
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