Multiplayer Campaigns

[NagatsukaShumi]

Its perfectly plausible it just requires some pre-organiszation that would limit the amount of people interested and lack of interest is the primary reason CA are not going to spend time on it.

Its too time consuming to play, thats why CA don't look at it.

You'd take your turn, fair enough, quick enough, keep going a few and then conflict erupts, you will fight this battle. In the mean time other players will sit and wait for your conflict to end, then the turn can end. Now, after a while this becomes dull and boring, what can the other players do whilst these two fight it out? There in lies the main problem with an MP campaign, what can the players uninvolved in a battle do, consider how long even a single battle would slow a campaign down for everyone else never mind multiple battles, heck you might all fght two battles one turn, someone might fight 5 and so on, it takes so much time whilst those who are doing nothing are indeed doing just that, sitting there doing nothing.

This is the main problem, sure you can auto-resolve battles but this takes the fun away from the game, the battles are what makes Total War what it is, so they are needed in a camapign, but at same time, its exactally what is the problem with a MP Campaign.

I'd love an MP Campaign, but there really are issues that are never going to go that makes it impossible to dedicate man hours to programming. Even if you could save them, most would fall flat after a few turns with people getting bored of waiting for battles to end all the time for those who go the diplomatic route, it'd also force people into wars for something to do, taking tactics away.

Again this is not having a go or anything, its simply why MP Campaigns are not really reasonable.

[metatron]

^PBEM, Hot Seat, LAN...

[Simmons]

Its too time consuming to play, thats why CA don't look at it.

You'd take your turn, fair enough, quick enough, keep going a few and then conflict erupts, you will fight this battle. In the mean time other players will sit and wait for your conflict to end, then the turn can end. Now, after a while this becomes dull and boring, what can the other players do whilst these two fight it out? There in lies the main problem with an MP campaign, what can the players uninvolved in a battle do, consider how long even a single battle would slow a campaign down for everyone else never mind multiple battles, heck you might all fght two battles one turn, someone might fight 5 and so on, it takes so much time whilst those who are doing nothing are indeed doing just that, sitting there doing nothing.

This is the main problem, sure you can auto-resolve battles but this takes the fun away from the game, the battles are what makes Total War what it is, so they are needed in a camapign, but at same time, its exactally what is the problem with a MP Campaign.

Like I said it would have to be well organized and you would have to pick the right kind of person to play against a random pick up would never work which cuts out a huge amount of casual gamers this I belive is the main reason MP campaigns havnt been done.

I'd love an MP Campaign, but there really are issues that are never going to go that makes it impossible to dedicate man hours to programming. Even if you could save them, most would fall flat after a few turns with people getting bored of waiting for battles to end all the time for those who go the diplomatic route, it'd also force people into wars for something to do, taking tactics away.

Again this is not having a go or anything, its simply why MP Campaigns are not really reasonable.

Thats completely subjective just because you would get bored watching other peoples battle does not mean everyone would and it does not mean MP Campaigns are unreasonable they are reasonable there is just not enough demand to justify the expense.

[Voigtkampf]

NOT going to happen.

Get over it.

[cannon_fodder]

If players decided their actions simultaneously, an MP campaign would be considerably easier to implement. But it's not gonna happen.

[Lusted]

I would never want to, i mean i don't want to wait for other players ot fight their battles, what am i supposed to do in the mean time, stare at the map whilst they fight it out? Just too impractical to work.

[Monarch]

It's good to see people are bringing up new innovitive topics that nobody has ever seen discuss before :) ....[/sarcasm]

It's not going to happen. :D

[x-dANGEr]

Its too time consuming to play, thats why CA don't look at it.

You'd take your turn, fair enough, quick enough, keep going a few and then conflict erupts, you will fight this battle. In the mean time other players will sit and wait for your conflict to end, then the turn can end. Now, after a while this becomes dull and boring, what can the other players do whilst these two fight it out? There in lies the main problem with an MP campaign, what can the players uninvolved in a battle do, consider how long even a single battle would slow a campaign down for everyone else never mind multiple battles, heck you might all fght two battles one turn, someone might fight 5 and so on, it takes so much time whilst those who are doing nothing are indeed doing just that, sitting there doing nothing.

This is the main problem, sure you can auto-resolve battles but this takes the fun away from the game, the battles are what makes Total War what it is, so they are needed in a camapign, but at same time, its exactally what is the problem with a MP Campaign.

I'd love an MP Campaign, but there really are issues that are never going to go that makes it impossible to dedicate man hours to programming. Even if you could save them, most would fall flat after a few turns with people getting bored of waiting for battles to end all the time for those who go the diplomatic route, it'd also force people into wars for something to do, taking tactics away.

Again this is not having a go or anything, its simply why MP Campaigns are not really reasonable.

I read your post and stopped. Didn't bother about reading the other ones, so I apologize. But a fair way of doing it is making the campaign map somewhat real time, not turn based. Allowing people to do whatever they want while those 2 are fighting. Of course, you can't fight a faction that's already fighting, so go pick yourself another opponet.

[NagatsukaShumi]

I read your post and stopped. Didn't bother about reading the other ones, so I apologize. But a fair way of doing it is making the campaign map somewhat real time, not turn based. Allowing people to do whatever they want while those 2 are fighting. Of course, you can't fight a faction that's already fighting, so go pick yourself another opponet.

Problem is, TW isn't real time and wouldn't work in real time.

Yes they'd be fighting a battle, but your getting an unfair advantage over them whilst they are, plus their provinces will be ungoverned for possible long periods, which isn't fair on them either.

[[TAG]ImperialMarch]

just have small, two player MP campaigns. Problem solved. Make it so you can save them, and it works fine, and satifies a LOT of people....

[x-dANGEr]

Problem is, TW isn't real time and wouldn't work in real time.

Yes they'd be fighting a battle, but your getting an unfair advantage over them whilst they are, plus their provinces will be ungoverned for possible long periods, which isn't fair on them either.

Actually, it makes for a fair collection of great features. Like, you can march your army to the battle in a Real time map.. Reach the battle when you're ally has almost died and reinforce him. Of course, everyone being a human player, their won't be many 'small' battles, but huge 'deciding' ones I think. Where up to the whole 21 factions can take part of it. That just rules, if you ask me.

[Lusted]

But TW is not real time, its what helps differentiate it from other stratergy games, i like the campaign map being turne based, i think it works well.

[NagatsukaShumi]

Actually, it makes for a fair collection of great features. Like, you can march your army to the battle in a Real time map.. Reach the battle when you're ally has almost died and reinforce him. Of course, everyone being a human player, their won't be many 'small' battles, but huge 'deciding' ones I think. Where up to the whole 21 factions can take part of it. That just rules, if you ask me.

However nice it would be to march your forces in real time that would involve creating an entire new game, which CA aren't going to do just for an MP Campaign.

At best, and I mean at best, if they did release MP Campaigns it would have to be of wars involving ONLY two nations, to avoid waiting for players to complete battles, like England v Scotland with Edward I to the Battle of Bannockburn etc, thats the only feasible way to do it. Even then its unlikely to ever happen.

[hellenes]

The biggest disadvantage of the absense of a MP campaign or even a decent focus on MP is the fact that the scum that will download M2TW off emule will enjoy it as much as the legitimate customer (as myself) that will buy the game.
Its highly unlikely for anyone to do this with most other RTS games that focus on MP and have shallow SP so even if someone downloads the game after playing it, one will want to have more and will have to PAY for the original CD KEY in orther to play online...
SP games will have to either suffer significant losses in revenue or be forced to use intrusive DRM rootkits like Starforce alienating most of the gaming community and still losing revenue...
Multiplayer is the future as internet speeds become cheaper and faster and in some countries P2P is legal:
http://badcomedown.blogspot.com/2006...in-france.html
There is NO other way to fight other than MP...

Hellenes

[RJV]

Interesting angle. I'm not convinced the lost revenue is all that great to be honest, in the same way that there is no way the music industry loses all the money it claims to lose through illegal downloads. Simple fact is the big downloaders and folks who copy stuff off their mates would not, in the main, purchase most of those titles anyway (be they music, games, dvds, whatever). Though I feel as annoyed as you that Mr Freeloaded gets his stuff for nothing whereas I choose to be legal and pay for my entertainment.

Also interesting that the backlash against the Starforcce-esque product is well under way - Galactic Civ 2 has no copy protection whatsoever, Oblivion has just a simple 'disc in the drive' and there was a story very recently that Ubisoft are (considering?) dropping Starforce.

Cheers,

Rob.

[AggonyDuck]

The biggest disadvantage of the absense of a MP campaign or even a decent focus on MP is the fact that the scum that will download M2TW off emule will enjoy it as much as the legitimate customer (as myself) that will buy the game.
Its highly unlikely for anyone to do this with most other RTS games that focus on MP and have shallow SP so even if someone downloads the game after playing it, one will want to have more and will have to PAY for the original CD KEY in orther to play online...
Hellenes

Mind you I started my TW career with a downloaded version of Shogun and loved it so much that I ended up buying all the TW titles. Of course one reason was the multiplayer as you stated. ;)

Also when it comes to me I've played a lot of illegal copies of a game and as a general rule: if I liked it, I buy it, but it has also saved me from buying a lot of rather crappy games. Pretty much use them as an improved demo to be honest.