Multiplayer is the future

[Puzz3D]

Hi,

I suppose in defence of the TW online players, the one thing they should expect from subsequent titles is progress. I'm not talking about the provision of MP campaigns, etc, but rather that the improvements made in the patching/expansion process of previous titles should be carried over into the new title, that being RTW.

It doesn't seem you can expect it. It's a new game written from scratch, and CA has said that RTW is the game they always wanted to make. I don't know what that makes STW and MTW. Something they didn't want to make I guess. It appears to me that RTW multiplayer has been conceived primarily as an solo player game rather than a team game with support for an online clan community. Of course, this was not made clear by the marketing of the product and the blackout of info on what MP was going to be like, but there were signs that things had changed. For instance, movement speed is no longer rooted in realism. It has become an arbitrary variable. I remember longjohn refusing to increase the speed of cav in MTW by 20% because it would be unrealistic. What happened to concerns like that? I remember longjohn saying that the overhand hoplite spears were left out because of collision detect problems, and yet the game was released with all kinds of clipping problems. What happened? I've never seen a major release with clipping problems this bad. The frame rate isn't even close to MTW, and yet it was claimed that it would be just as good if not better. What's up with that? The only way you can get a lag free game in RTW MP is to play with armies that are smaller than were used in MTW MP, and yet there is an RTW info shortcut on my desktop which supposedly shows a "multiplayer" castle siege game with a massive sieging army. I didn't count them, but it looks like 10,000 men in the sieging army, and it says 8 player capability.

If you axe MP then what you are left with is SP with that flawed AI. The AI is going to make the same mistakes over and over unlike human players who learn from their mistakes with the exception of Elmo. Balance issues in MP could be addressed if CA took player feedback and made adjustments, but they don't do that consistently prefering to end of life each installment of the game. The SP strategic game has improved a lot, but the tactical battles are the reason for this game to exist. I'd hate to see the tactical battles deteriorate to the point where auto-resolving is the prefered way to play, but that's the path the series seems to be taking.

[hellenes]

The SP strategic game has improved a lot, but the tactical battles are the reason for this game to exist. I'd hate to see the tactical battles deteriorate to the point where auto-resolving is the prefered way to play, but that's the path the series seems to be taking.

The SP strategic game is the REASON and the point of the battles to EXIST!!
The ONLY reason i was playing MTW online was the communication and the fun/challenge to play with other people rather than the AI...
How many people would play the current tactical MP if there was a MP campaign? What would be more fun to play a battle of empires a battle that EVERYTHING was on the stake? That would determine the fate of the world?
The whole "technical gameplay impracticability of a MP camp" that CA keeps posting as an argument cant stand because they have found a solution: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/r/?page=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/previews/previews_story.php(que)id=99798
But for some reason havent implemented it AGAINST their own interests because for the MAJORITY of RTSers TW series DONT have a MP AT ALL!!!
From a greek warcraft forum:
"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
IF CA WANTS MONEY MAKE A MP CAMPAIGN!!!

Hellenes

[CBR]

Without the tactical battles the Total War series wouldnt have offered much: STW and MTW strategy is advanced Risk and not much else.

I know I wouldnt be be playing much MP campaign as it would take ages to finish it and a majority of the battles would be pointless as one side has a big advantage.

Sure it would be fun to try once in a while but the campaign wouldnt be the thing that will get me online every day to play/chat for hours on the Total War server. For me its the battles that are interesting and thats what has kept me playing MTW for nearly 2 years.

I have tried enough Civ online to notice the problems of online games like that and we cant really compare with RTS games as they dont take that long to finish.

Warcraft3 has a lot of players and average game length is very short http://www.battle.net/war3/ladder/re...rts-solo.shtml Most of the MTW battles I have fought was about same length if not longer.

There are several types of online games with the most popular games being FPS. They dont have any strategy element but is focused primarily on combat and I see the Total War series to be of the same kind just with armies instead of controlling one soldier only in a FPS.

I have seen several newer RTS games that also dont have any base building but have units only to fight with so overall the Total War series is not alone. It might actually be the start of a growing trend where people want strategy but dont want the standard RTS game.

CBR

[hellenes]

Without the tactical battles the Total War series wouldnt have offered much: STW and MTW strategy is advanced Risk and not much else.

I know I wouldnt be be playing much MP campaign as it would take ages to finish it and a majority of the battles would be pointless as one side has a big advantage.

Sure it would be fun to try once in a while but the campaign wouldnt be the thing that will get me online every day to play/chat for hours on the Total War server. For me its the battles that are interesting and thats what has kept me playing MTW for nearly 2 years.

I have tried enough Civ online to notice the problems of online games like that and we cant really compare with RTS games as they dont take that long to finish.

Warcraft3 has a lot of players and average game length is very short http://www.battle.net/war3/ladder/re...rts-solo.shtml Most of the MTW battles I have fought was about same length if not longer.

There are several types of online games with the most popular games being FPS. They dont have any strategy element but is focused primarily on combat and I see the Total War series to be of the same kind just with armies instead of controlling one soldier only in a FPS.

I have seen several newer RTS games that also dont have any base building but have units only to fight with so overall the Total War series is not alone. It might actually be the start of a growing trend where people want strategy but dont want the standard RTS game.

CBR

As i said the "argument" of taking ages to complete is nosense...Do the RPGs ever finish? NO! An RPG style campaign map where you connect and play WHENEVER you want...Also this would provide the battle-love players with TONS of challenge 1000 romans vs 5x2000 gallic armies of HUMAN players in the ALPS! Diplomacy politics STRATEGIC maneouvers!!!
No more complaints for stupid AI by the SPers and NO more sterilised flat non/benefiting encounters for the MPers...The split of the community would be healed...The battles pointless? An alliance of Carthagenieans+Greek cities+Macedon would make the Romans run for their money...As with the Gauls and Britons...Different maps climats, situations, you wouldnt be risking all you elite troops for ONE battle as you do in the current MP because you will NEED them in the future!!
And as i said before: for the common RTSers:
THERE IS NO MP IN TW AT ALL!!!

HEllenes

[CBR]

How can you compare it with RPG games? Its a completely different style of game. People can leave pretty much whenever they want, you cant do that for Total War style battle. The game you are talking about has nothing to do with how the campaign works for Total war.

And if battles are to be interesting they need to be balanced..what are you suggesting? That each player has an army and moves around the map and when they encounter other armies they have a battle? So campaign map and battle map movement has to be the same then.

Right now we actually have a MP where you can go online and join a battle to get quick action and after that leave the server again if you want.

I can do the same for most RTS games too: go online and play a quick battle that has some base building in it too and it will be decided pretty quick and a winner has been found. It has no effect other than perhaps some rank on a ladder as its not connected to a large campaign.

What you are suggesting is definitely not how most common RTS games are working so I dont see how many RTS gamers can consider Total War not to have MP at all, except for the lack of base building. You have any examples of games that are close to what you are talking about?


CBR

[hellenes]

The CA itself had considered this RPG style TURN based campaign:
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/r/?page=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/previews/previews_story.php(que)id=99798

A persistant universe one with 1 turn one day for example in the middle there can be MANY battles as the new TW campaign movement is tottaly differnt than RISK one...

Hellenes

[CBR]

And to quote from that link:

"There won't be a multiplayer campaign using the full single-player campaign game - the games would take so long it's just not practical. We're looking at the option of a massively multiplayer campaign with a simpler feature-set where players join a faction and play when they like. No promises yet..."

And I guess they scrapped it as it wasnt practical either.

If you want a game with any meaningful strategy/tactics you have to play with a few dedicated players as there is just no point in playing it if some players drop out. Armies will disappear or become controlled by the AI..how much fun is that?


CBR

[L'Impresario]

Sorry to barge in, but comparing an online RPG with a strategy game like RTW or any other RTS won't bear many fruitful results. In such rpgs the individual player controls a single/limited amount of character(s)that actually don't have any major impact on the game itself, with almost no exceptions.Now, I can't imagine how any player that controls an army in the hypothetical mp-campaign won't impact the big picture.That's why the constant attention and participation of one player isn't needed. Civilisation-style games on the other hand do require that certain qualities, and the lack thereof isn't the only reason for their limited appeal to the mp crowds.
Continuity isn't the fortè of other RTS games as well. I don't see the "meaning" behind a Warcraft 3 mp game, and in essence the TW series isn't offering anything less (or more) to that experience. Strategy is the only way to provide continuity in such games, and while the TW game engine can truly deliver a combination of startegy and tactics, trying to implement this would reduce certainly the sources and effort that is to be allocated to the game's selling point, the tactical battles.

No more complaints for stupid AI by the SPers and NO more sterilised flat non/benefiting encounters for the MPers...The split of the community would be healed...

I can say that I have played many encounters that don't fit that description and I really can't comprehend why a battle has to create some kind of "repercussions" in a grand scale in order to be tagged as "useful" or whatever. The scope of tactics in the current game so far is impressive indeed and in a 4v4, the usage of tactics and maneuvres in battles between skilled clans can be mind-boggling and highly entertaining, without this being a battle for the destruction of Carthago (sorry for the 4v4 referance in a rtw lobby ).

Now for LAN games, that would be something else, but still...

edit: cbr can type pretty fast

[Puzz3D]

The ONLY reason i was playing MTW online was the communication and the fun/challenge to play with other people rather than the AI...

That's the reason I play online as well. If the tactical battles are properly implemented and the tactics deep enough, it's all the reason needed to play online for years.

[ElmarkOFear]

If you axe MP then what you are left with is SP with that flawed AI. The AI is going to make the same mistakes over and over unlike human players who learn from their mistakes with the exception of Elmo.

I learned from my mistakes . . . . and then practiced until I could reproduce them over and over again to perfection! It's a talent really . . .

[Skomatth]

What is surprising is that my clanmates are saying the balance is pretty good. e.g. not taking archers gets you slaughtered. The other mess is ridiculous and overshadows the good aspects (I almost said advances,but couldn't think of any).