Would You Pay for MultiPlayer?

[KukriKhan]

Vivendi, maker of World of Warcraft, has posted double-digit profits again here, using the monthly subscription model.

This topic has arisen here before, but with the influx of new players, I wonder if pay-for-MP attitudes have changed any. So:

Would you pay extra, on a monthly basis, for better Multiplayer support (stable, always-on servers; more maps, competition ladder, etc.) ?

If "yes", how much would you pay?

EDIT: Poll is anonymous. You may make multiple choices to accomodate ideas like Lusted's below ("No, unless... ").

[Lusted]

No, not unless a multiplayer campaign feature was in the game.

[Stig]

No never, not even if we would have a MP campaign or anything

[The Spartan (Returns)]

no thats whats great about computer games, most are free.
things like Xbox Live i wouldnt pay for.

[Monarch]

Accidently clicked no, instead of £5 a month.

When I got my first tw game, Rome, I would never have paid £5 a month. However now I've played it so much and really like mp I think I would be prepared for a little sum of money. However the quality of multiplayer would have to go up too, stats tracker/ladder, better servers, optimized code for less lag, little features like if you don't spend 30 florins you can donate it to a team mate etc would be needed.

It has to be said lots of RTS such as Dawn Of War use gamespy, they have a stats tracker, friends list, stable servers, little lag (but it is an rts so that should be a given) and its all free.

I don't think I should have to pay for a better mp experience, but I would do if I was made to.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Nope. that why I don't get games like WOW or EQ in the first place.. If the MP isn't free, no matter if it WOW/EQ or my Favortie Game, TW, I will not play MP on it..

[NihilisticCow]

I would pay for multiplayer, but I don't think it would really work for this game as is. What would you have, a multiplayer that was solely available for people paying? The numbers who play for "free" aren't that large as is. It might work for some massive campaign, but I don't really think that would work too well either. People always say a multiplayer campaign would be great, but I never really see how it would work for 99% of people. You can't have a campaign that has people constantly being substituted, nor can you expect any arbitrary group of people to finish it. Some kind of reward system for winning games (gaining resources etc) might work, but I'd suspect it would more reward time played instead of ability and so fielding better armies.

What I would like most is something like the automated ladder matches in WC3/CoH etc and regular balance patches so that it doesn't become just a game of who can build the most exploitative army.

As an aside I've often toyed with the idea of writing some kind of STW/MTW style web based campaign and using the game for the battles.

Anyway, I've gone completely off topic as usual...

[Xaziv]

No. I don't play p2p games anymore.

They should not use gamespy though. B.net was great & free, why can't more companies make online systems like battle.net?

[NihilisticCow]

No. I don't play p2p games anymore.

They should not use gamespy though. B.net was great & free, why can't more companies make online systems like battle.net?

Gamespy works fine in a lot of other games, it just seems to have issues here... and companies don't make online systems like battle.net because it costs a lot of money, especially when most people who play TW play single player. Besides if they did do, it would take quite a while before it got to even Gamespy's level of stability I would think.

p2p games? So you don't play any RTS game online either?

[tootee]

Yes, US$5 a mth but not for the current quality.

Must
1. be stable in 4v4, no lag, no desync, no drop
2. greatly improve the lobby interface.. by a lot.. friend list, ban list, ignore list, private chatroom like in STW, etc..
3. provide fast-response patches for bugs and improvement
4. support individual ladder as well as clan ladder

These must be there.. I would still pay even if game is not as balanced as desired..

[KukriKhan]

So, in 12 hours, we've garnered a 9(no) to 4 (yes) vote of willingness to pay extra money for extra MP content, despite the $60 retail price off the shelf. And 2 of the 9 are "yes but, maybe" 's. So actually, 7no to 6yes.

I wonder if CA/SEGA are interested in such a prospect - although these numbers are admittedly a mini-micro-microcosm of a 10% microcosm (of MP enthusiasts v SP guys). Personally, I think they should re-look at the idea.

Would I pay a dime (10 cents - $3.00 per month) a day to insure guarunteed connection, auto-patch updates, and new maps every week? You bet.

Would I pay a quarter (25 cents - $6.50 per month) a day, the price of a newspaper, for guarunteed connection, auto-patch updates, new maps every week, a player ladder, and other stuff? You bet.

Keep the monthly per-pay in single digits (<$10) and you may have a winner, like iPod downloads. Then you get not only the hard-core MP'ers, but also the cafe' tw players.

Content is king. Build it and they will come. Cliche' s for a reason, IMO.

[Whacker]

Good morning.

In short, my response is never.

I prefer the single player experience, and when I do occasionally do multiplayer, I'd prefer to play with my friends and people I know, rather than some random 13 year old "ZOMG U SUX0RZ". For some additional thoughts of mine, there is a thread in the main M2TW forum started by Mr. hellenes to this effect, which I have a number of posts in.

And Mr. Kukrikhan, I would like to submit to the discussion that there is a pervading sense of WoW amongst my few friends who do play, that it has a huge, horrible amount of bugs and Blizzard's policies and practices towards it's players would impress even the WWII fascists. http://games.slashdot.org/games/06/11/16/2216246.shtml I'm not saying that you are/were, but holding up WoW as an example of the definitive multiplayer experience may not the best. This is of course a matter of opinion, but I would still like to submit that.

Lastly, another thought that I had whilst debating this same idea in the other thread with Mr. hellenes... I for one fall into the category of gamer who does NOT play a single game to the absolute or near absolute exception of all others. Even when a new game I've been waiting for a long time is just out, I'll still play at least 3-4 other PC games at the same time, just because I like variety and that's how I work. My friends who play WoW quite literally play nothing else, with the exception of 1 individual whom I've managed to get to buy M2TW.

Just some food for thought.

Cheers!

[Myrddraal]

But what about the casual MPer, who goes on rarely? Would he pay a montly suscription for 1 or two games? I doubt it. A better system could be a pay per day system, like you said, 25 cents or 13 pence a day is not much for a decent set of games.

If it cost 13p per day and you could order days like you do songs on iTunes, I'd pay, but not a monthly suscription.

I voted yes, but there's a but...

EDIT: I also voted !GAH Ichi GAH!, because I haven't seen that option in a long time

[t1master]

i vote gah ichi gah! but i'd not pay to play totalwar online...

we can already make our own maps, and mods and historical battles. lobby stability i'd expect in a finished product, like m2 is, and i'd expect bugs to be fixed via patchs, and not ones you have to pay for.

[UglyandHasty]

I wouldnt a canadian buck for it.

[hellenes]

If they did this I would:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...ighlight=MMOTW

[Monarch]

rather than some random 13 year old "ZOMG U SUX0RZ"

Yes because everybody in the lobby, apart from your friends of course, runs around saying "zomg u zuxorz".

Wow, my second post in almost as many days asking people to stop generalising about the mp community...

[Lorenzo_H]

NO NO NO and NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate Warcraft. I hate bloodsucking Game developers.

[Whacker]

Yes because everybody in the lobby, apart from your friends of course, runs around saying "zomg u zuxorz".

Wow, my second post in almost as many days asking people to stop generalising about the mp community...

My intent was not to overgeneralize about the MP community, but the so called "mp community" for the total war series as of the past few years has yet to impress me. (please note I'm excluding the well-spoken, well-mannered, and honorable old school players who were very enjoyable to play with and against back in the STW and MTW days)

As I stated, most of the time I play with friends and coordinate with them over tools such as Teamspeak, etc. The times that I haven't done so and have just gone looking for a random game, I can summarize the experience as follows, especially in the RTW and RTW:BI lobbies:

1. With few exceptions, there's always someone or more than one person going off on a tirade about (select one or more) ethical groups using some very interesting and choice slurs, including some new made-up ones.

2. Individuals having long, drawn out political debates or country-bashing instead of playing the game.

3. An individual or individuals who repeatedly spams/floods advertisements to join their clan, with "no entrnce reqwirments!!11" or something to this effect.

4. On more than one occasion, I played a game where the individual(s) on the opposite team acted exactly like 13 year olds, with no sense of courtesy or honor. Hence my "zomg u sux0rz" statement. I've had teammates in ad-hoc battles who were exactly the same.

Of those bullets, 1 and 2 are by far the most popular. I can recall at best maybe two ad-hoc games I played where my opponents and teammates were all courteous and honorable. Don't get me wrong, there are people out there who are by and large fun to play with or against, and don't act like nincompoops, I just haven't had the luck of encountering them yet. And from my own experience, they appear to be very few and far between. And here we're talking about making a persistent online world with these people.... Before you come back and tell me "That's not how the TW MP community is!", I'm just telling you my experience. Just my $0.02 USD.

[Monarch]

I wasn't disagreeing with you. There are some complete normans in the lobby. But the emphasis is on some, not all.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

My intent was not to overgeneralize about the MP community, but the so called "mp community" for the total war series as of the past few years has yet to impress me. (please note I'm excluding the well-spoken, well-mannered, and honorable old school players who were very enjoyable to play with and against back in the STW and MTW days)

As I stated, most of the time I play with friends and coordinate with them over tools such as Teamspeak, etc. The times that I haven't done so and have just gone looking for a random game, I can summarize the experience as follows, especially in the RTW and RTW:BI lobbies:

1. With few exceptions, there's always someone or more than one person going off on a tirade about (select one or more) ethical groups using some very interesting and choice slurs, including some new made-up ones.

2. Individuals having long, drawn out political debates or country-bashing instead of playing the game.

3. An individual or individuals who repeatedly spams/floods advertisements to join their clan, with "no entrnce reqwirments!!11" or something to this effect.

4. On more than one occasion, I played a game where the individual(s) on the opposite team acted exactly like 13 year olds, with no sense of courtesy or honor. Hence my "zomg u sux0rz" statement. I've had teammates in ad-hoc battles who were exactly the same.

Of those bullets, 1 and 2 are by far the most popular. I can recall at best maybe two ad-hoc games I played where my opponents and teammates were all courteous and honorable. Don't get me wrong, there are people out there who are by and large fun to play with or against, and don't act like nincompoops, I just haven't had the luck of encountering them yet. And from my own experience, they appear to be very few and far between. And here we're talking about making a persistent online world with these people.... Before you come back and tell me "That's not how the TW MP community is!", I'm just telling you my experience. Just my $0.02 USD.

of course m8, I'm a MP player and before I would have said "That not how the MP is", I realize, that it is,just that. IMO, when all the Vets, well not all, but most of them left TW for good, or just stuck around on the fourms like .org or their clan fourms and/or just did old school gamging on STW/MTW, then the newer players on RTW, didn't have no Elders, so to speak, to direct, or try to direct them in the "honorable" path so to speak. You end up with people who are impartial, stupid riviarlies, stupid arguments, chat bans,etc....

[Whacker]

I wasn't disagreeing with you. There are some complete normans in the lobby. But the emphasis is on some, not all.

Agreed, and my apologies for the confusion and not making that clear in my post, I assumed that people wouldn't read into it. In general though, my MP experience hasn't generally been positive since RTW.

The bottom line to me for this thread is that I do not want to see the TW games go the way of being online only. Right now, it's a good balance of singleplayer and multiplayer wrapped up in a single package. While I do generally prefer the singleplayer experience, having good multiplayer is integral to enjoying the game in my opinion. The PBeM idea is outstanding yet can be slow in execution, and having a live multiplayer campaign would also be great. Hellenes started an MMO thread in the main forum in which he had a number of ideas along this line. While I like the *core* of his idea, an online *live* campaign map and whatnaught, the execution of his idea is what I object to, aka making it the required mode of play as opposed to an optional mode, and also being subscription based which I utterly abhor.

Cheers!

[Prince of the Poodles]

I would have paid 50$ a month for Shogun and MTW MP.. I played them almost every weeknight unless I had something to do. In fact, in the heyday, i actually found myself cancelling social functions to play.

If they actually listened to players and fixed issues, made all games up to and including 4V4 lagless, and got the gameplay back to the level it was in the first two games, I would pay a lot to have that experience back. Ive never found it in another game.

[RTKBarrett]

Yes i would pay a small fee as this is the only game i actually put any interest in... However like many of u i would want to see drastic changes/improvements.
And i unfortunately *I usually dnt :P* agree with cow on the basis that the multiplayer community is really quite small in comparison to other top titles. Theres not enough interest in it to be making monthly earnings from it... There may never be enough die hard multiplayer fans.

[HaroldVonBraver]

No, not unless a multiplayer campaign feature was in the game.

This is something I would love to have for free (a multiplayer campaign). But if it was available for a price, I would pay up to $10 a month for it.

[LordMorgan]

I would only cosider paying if you had the ability to do multiplayer campaigns with the ability to save your progress because campaigns take time. So perhaps a yes but most likely no lol.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

if MP was much bigger, then 5 bucks a Month I MIGHT think about paying, but with only 200-300 players, then it makes really no sense then to charge the small MP communtiy..

[Orda Khan]

STW was a great online game and perhaps, with those old players one could argue it would be worth paying. I played STW a lot.

MTW was a smooth online experience, however they screwed that game with supposed patch 'fixes'. Spears were rendered usless and by v2.01 it was all cav/sword armies and boring tactical play. I did not see anything remotely worth paying for after v1.0.

RTW was a complete mess and none of the patches released could sort it out. The MP community voted with its feet and left. A very large percentage of battles were ruined by idiots, the lobby chat was even blocked due to the infantile behaviour. The worst experience of the series and definitely not worth paying for.

M2TW is a brand new title and already there are many issues. Why would anyone pay? Sure, if the server was smooth and flawless, allowing 4v4 with no problem but it isn't.
It's been six years since STW, there appears to still be a problem providing decent MP. The last thing I would do right now is start paying for this poor service. The game would need to be tactically superb and tightly balanced which it is not. I would give up on MP altogether before paying for it in it's current state.
In short my answer is a definitive no

.......Orda

[RTKBarrett]

Your really quite negative in alot of ure posts arent u... lol

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Orda, I don't think CA will ever return to the old STW state of Fame for MP m8.. I think they can come close, but not right on the button. Why? that was 6 years ago. 6 years ago I was 8 and was scared of bees so bad,wasn't funny. Now I'm 14 and not. You get my point. It just, if CA can fix it up to a point, it be good for some vets to return IMO..