How Much Would You Pay II

[KukriKhan]

Of 74 votes, 54 voters last time decided they would NOT pay any additional money to make MP more to their taste.

Fair enough; though I always thought of the MP community as broader and deeper than 74 people.

So; let's pretend that CA would even consider making an MP-friendly game spinoff:

What if:

-there was a Multiplayer-only TW title? No campaign map, no long-term strategy to figure out; no diplo's, family, assassins or popes to be concerned with. Only battlemaps (25?) and balanced unit types (15? 20?)?

-there were a dedicated server, not some 3rd party provider?

Then what? What would you pay for such a product? $15? $20? $25?

And how much would you kick in for the monthly server subscription? $2.50? $5? $15? or not?

If you would pay up to $25 for such a product, and (say) $5 monthly for the server, what kind of features would you expect?

So 3 basic questions:

1. Would you buy such a product?
2. What would you pay, today and monthly?
3. What features would you like/demand?

I thought I'd start a poll, but realized we need more discussion first, to narrow the poll options.

[Stig]

A MP only game (say we take out the SP from MTW2) isn't worth more then €25,-. No monthly subscription (not everyone has a credit card).

As features I would say:
-Larger time frame with more units
-Fighting same factions
-About 40 more maps
-Somewhat slower battles (no routing as fast as it's now)

[Orda Khan]

You've hit upon the main problem, KukriKhan. Lack of players. For sure, there are players who do not visit this place but there are still very few. If we tried to narrow it down to regular players (each TW game has had the casual player who plays for a short while) we would be scratching to find a hundred names and this is the Catch 22.
CA have been happy with their sales and could carry on in the same fashion, offering the limited MP they do, and still reach their sales targets. Seven years on from STW and MP features have not improved. IMO, this is because the MP community is so small. Where are the 500 names who signed the petition to CA? They are mostly inactive and a lot of the names on that list rarely played MTW so even desperately digging up dead players, we could only manage to scrape up 500 names and that was some time ago. I suspect we would see improved MP if those 500 names were regularly in the lobby.

I would prefer to discuss the game as it is, with SP and MP because I agree with Stig, I would expect to pay far less for an MP only game. What if it were the case that MP and SP stats were separate? In any case, these are a few of my suggestions.

User friendly lobby, including the various features we had back in STW days where we could create separate chat lobbies, etc.

Stable, lag free server capable of running up to 4v4.

CD key linked to user name and user name therefore unique, no more undercover.

Auto generated maps using co-ordinates, where the weather conditions can be decided. Particularly good maps could be saved.

Capabilities to fight same faction.

Ability to share unit control with allies.

Maybe fewer unit choices per faction (though I prefer more choice) providing that there is faction to faction balance, M2TW is still heavily Euro biased. Having less unit choice but various unit size choice along the lines that CBR used in his Community Mod, which still allowed variety in army selection to the degree that it was probably some of the best MP I ever played.

Toggles to control features like unit speed, fatigue, etc.

NO battlefield upgrades.

More distance between opposing deployment to add more manoeuvres.

NO radar map.

Improve replay feature, it used to be far less randomly accurate.

Return of competitive/friendly game hosting, satisfying both types of player.

I would pay slightly more than I payed for M2TW, let's say £30 but I don't see the need for a monthly subscription

.......Orda

[Puzz3D]

A MP only game (say we take out the SP from MTW2) isn't worth more then €25,-.

That would still be 5 to 10 times the amount of resources that gets put into MP now. The SP game would gain as well because 5% to 10% of its resources would no longer be going into an MP portion. The SP game would loose less than 1% of it's sales, and the MP game would probably sell more than 1% of the current SP sales. I don't know if the MP game would be profitable. The MP game could be download only.

[pike master]

1 dollar would be my best estimate

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

1 dollar would be my best estimate

ATM 1$ is too much At first I want to see a game, that is worth to make an investment. But I don't think, that they would think about such concept for 200 players. That makes the discussion pointless. No offense, only my opinion.

[KukriKhan]

So:

2 days
4 responses
86 views

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being full support, I guess this idea (a separate MP game) gets a low 2. Thanks for the input.

Apparently there's little heart for suggesting possible working solutions that CA could implement - it's much more fun to snipe at existing product.

Got it.

Thanks for your time, and the input from all.

[Whacker]

Hi Kukrikhan, my $0.02 USD and personal opinion...

I wouldn't pay a single red cent for a separate multiplayer version, in fact it would probably drive me to drop the TW series for good. The reason I have such a hard stance is that the average price of game today is $50 which is a good chunk of change for anyone. If you look at what's currently available today and even in the past, most games like this that have both SP and MP components ship with this fully enabled and worked out up front, they don't sell add-ons later than add MP functionality. I think that doing something like this would encourage the developer to be more lazy and greedy by doing so, for the reasons stated above. The fact that the TW games have always included MP as part of the base game package is another reason for my stance. Now if they wanted to do something like what happened with Return to Castle Wolfenstein or FEAR (which both had full MP from the start) and release a free multiplayer client after the fact, then I'd be ok with that. Charging for it, no way in hell.

Respectfully

[Dionysus9]

The thing is, I no longer have any faith in CA's ability to make an MP game worth paying for. I think thats what everyone is saying. They've had their chance and just can't do it. They claim its because there is a lack of interest, but that is a self fulfilling prophecy. There was more MP interest in STW than there is in M2TW--precisely because STW was a better MP product.

Resources devoted to MP have consistently declined, and so has the MP quality-- so I've lost faith.

All of that being said, if CA sold the franchise to a MP minded company-- I'd pay $50 for an MP game that was highly moddable. No monthly fee.

[Whacker]

See I'm of the opinion that they're capable of it, they're just hamstrung by the really bad decisions made so far. I still can't get over the idea that this really does stem from CA's attempt to make this game "moddable" and at the same time protect their precious "intellectual property", and that all of the other problems like the MP balance and load of bugs shipped with the game are derivatives of this. If they got off the fence and committed, I think they could turn this into one real whopper of a game that everyone would be happy with. Again just my $0.02

[pike master]

where did they get their the historical references for weapons and units from anyways? a cracker jack box?

maybe the guy that came up with the bill design was staring at his can opener while he drew the design up. never mind that there are bills in museums that are 8ft long with a 2+foot long blade.

and i can still imagine the guy that cranked out the peasant units still goes home after work cracks open a soft drink and laughs himself to sleep.

the guys that developed the cav mechanics forgot that they were supposed to make cavalry and not fighter bombers.

[Suraknar]

I would not pay for a separate MP game such as this, for the sake of just Battles only.

As it is I very rarelly play MP, and I prefer the SP campaign mode (as well as modability) of the series...

Last time I seriously played MP was with an RTS/Strategy game was when some guy posted up a list of what to build and at what moment in order to insure a win.

After that for me MP became thing of the past with such games, people just stopped playing to have fun and all they wanted was to win.

Now if you were talking about MP Campaigns, that is another storry.

[Puzz3D]

See I'm of the opinion that they're capable of it, they're just hamstrung by the really bad decisions made so far. I still can't get over the idea that this really does stem from CA's attempt to make this game "moddable" and at the same time protect their precious "intellectual property", and that all of the other problems like the MP balance and load of bugs shipped with the game are derivatives of this. If they got off the fence and committed, I think they could turn this into one real whopper of a game that everyone would be happy with.

I see the problem as one of too much complexity in the design. Overreaching on what can be reasonably accomplished within the development schedule. The unimplemented features people find in Total Wars games is an indication of that. The result is more features in the game, but many not working properly. We see the number of unit types exceeding the ability to balance them. We see a new battle engine that doesn't function as well as the old battle engine. We see a new strategic map that the AI can't handle as well as it handled the old style map. We see a new battle AI that doesn't function as well as the old battle AI.

I don't like the path they've chosen to pursue since RTW in terms of gameplay, but that's another issue.

[Suraknar]

I see the problem as one of too much complexity in the design. Overreaching on what can be reasonably accomplished within the development schedule. The unimplemented features people find in Total Wars games is an indication of that. The result is more features in the game, but many not working properly. We see the number of unit types exceeding the ability to balance them. We see a new battle engine that doesn't function as well as the old battle engine. We see a new strategic map that the AI can't handle as well as it handled the old style map. We see a new battle AI that doesn't function as well as the old battle AI.

Yes I agree too with this, but, may I also add that this occurence happens all over the board. Many games suffer from this, yet, it is not necessarilly the fault of a specific designer/company either.

The game market has gone off a very competitive tangent which pushes companies to constantly come up with new and "innovative" or " groundbreaking" features to be able to add weight to a certain Title.

A competitor may have in their description "fight/control with hundres of units at same time" another has to push the limit, it has to be thousands, yet that requires new systems and technology to be used, which is more prone to have bugs on any release.

I dont know about everyone but most people will buy a game for the duration of the hype, play it while its popular and move on, it is a minority that stay, yet, the ones that stay are not looking for groundbreaking features and eye candy, they are looking for more stability, more solid gameplay, improvements on an already aprouved system.

Priorities between "Drive-by Total-Warriors" and "Resident Total-Warriors" are not the same :P

So, to not deviate from original topic, MP maybe affected by that market trend and by the "Drive-by Total Warriors".

[Orda Khan]

KukriKhan,
What did you expect? Do you honestly think that people would (or should) pay extra to enjoy MP? Just think for a moment about the things you mention in your post, the things a MP game would not have to worry about, think about the SP campaign from STW until now : Loads of extras.
Now ask yourself what extras we have seen in SEVEN years of MP. MP has become progressively worse with each new game, it astonishes me when I remember playing online 4v4 with 56k.
For those who remember facing the same faction in MTW, where has that option gone? Host a game and have someone select the same faction as you who refuses to change .. "No, you change", wants to alter the teams.......The game is ruined before it begins.
Why would anyone pay extra for that?
Then, of course we have balance issues and I'm not going to go over that ground but I strongly suspect the over complicated SP for most of them.
I've already mentioned the Community Mod made by CBR and it was fantastic, you had less unit options per faction but various unit sizes per unit. The principle was simple, no upgrades just buy units to make an army. It was still possible to field many variations, the Mod could reside along with the vanilla and it was possible to play either without the need to restart via a different .exe. Here we enter into a major problem with the MP community, how many installed it? There has been a handful of players prepared to give Mods a try but there are many times that number who would not. Already in these MP sub forums we have seen the attitude of some, it only confirms what I already thought. Some will not install a Mod simply because they are programmed to dislike certain individuals who created them and are duty bound by their Clans to perpetuate this nonsense. You are quite correct in your statement....

Apparently there's little heart for suggesting possible working solutions that CA could implement - it's much more fun to snipe at existing product.

The same statement is true for Mods and those who made them. Rather than try them it is far easier to follow your Clan and post insults about others. I'd rather make up my own mind but there you go, why admit a Mod is any good when it would make you choke to do so? Would a school teacher reward a classroom of unruly children? MP will always be a headache because the community is (and always has been) divided over many issues, that is why I suggested toggles to set your own game preferences and this would be a great step IMO.
Unfortunately, the MP community is largely to blame for its own predicament, if there was a united voice from more players maybe CA would consider us. When we act like children I don't blame them for ignoring us. This is what I meant when I said "there is no MP community" but unfortunately that was taken literally and I'll admit I was at fault for not remembering English is not everyone's first language.
Puzz3D has taken a lot of stick around here for posting negatively about a game he does not play. I can understand that some are fed up of hearing it and threads regularly fall apart. So it's OK to forget the better MP of previous games? This is his main point afterall....MP was much better in original STW but I guess unless one played it one wouldn't know but there again, it's OK to ignore that fact and expect MP to just improve or to kid oneself that MP has always been like this.
After seven years of TW, I would expect quite a few improvements (call me stupid but out of appreciation for the loyal fans who paid for every game) but having to pay out more money? I'd be surprised if anyone would agree to that unless there was absolute proof that MP was vastly improved

.......Orda

[pike master]

tis true about shogun. where the ai would often faint withdraws and adjust its positions to flank you or poke at some weakness in your battle formation.

[KukriKhan]

Good points made, fellas. What I had in mind was not an add-on to an existing game - what I was trying to imagine was:

What if tw SP and MP got a divorce? So that the next Title(s) released would be China:TotalWar (the Campaign) for say $40

AND China:TotalWar (the Battles) for $19.95.

Stand-alone products.

(Doesn't hafta be China:tw, of course).

[Stig]

Nah, it should be the same game. No-one wants to buy it twice.

[ElmarkOFear]

I see the problem as one of too much complexity in the design. Overreaching on what can be reasonably accomplished within the development schedule. The unimplemented features people find in Total Wars games is an indication of that. The result is more features in the game, but many not working properly. We see the number of unit types exceeding the ability to balance them. We see a new battle engine that doesn't function as well as the old battle engine. We see a new strategic map that the AI can't handle as well as it handled the old style map. We see a new battle AI that doesn't function as well as the old battle AI.

I don't like the path they've chosen to pursue since RTW in terms of gameplay, but that's another issue.

Even "I" agree with above opinion, and you can believe my opinion is unbiased given whose opinion is quoted above.

[Whacker]

Nah, it should be the same game. No-one wants to buy it twice.

Agreed.

BTW, how the hell does someone join in Sept 06 and already have 1.5k posts?

[Yun Dog]

I didnt even know about CBRs mod - thats the tragedy

I pretty much agree with everything Orda said

They made this bed for the last seven years - hard to resurrect a MP community now much easier to have followed on from STW and built

yep for my mind the community needs to forget all the stuff each person wants and be of one mind with one vision of what they want and do not vary or argue from that at all... and then maybe

and if CA wont do it - they need to do it themselves as best they can with a mod - and all back that mod 100% and play nothing else

the alternative is continued deterioriation with everyone having their own personal if only senario which will never be realised

on the current track record why should I or anyone else invest $$ in a MP game which thus far has been demonstrated to be poorly supported

based on MTW2MP - $0 outlay and based on the server lag $0 subscription

[Orda Khan]

Good points made, fellas. What I had in mind was not an add-on to an existing game - what I was trying to imagine was:

What if tw SP and MP got a divorce? So that the next Title(s) released would be China:TotalWar (the Campaign) for say $40

AND China:TotalWar (the Battles) for $19.95.

Stand-alone products.

(Doesn't hafta be China:tw, of course).

Better still would be one complete game containing separate SP and MP stats created by a team consisting of dedicated SP and MP staff. Maybe even separate patch fixes for SP and MP too?

........Orda

[Whacker]

I'll throw this last bit in and be quiet.

Yunus made my point exactly, the community is too fragmented on what individuals want to see exactly in the way of multiplayer. I respectfully submit that there are certainly common grounds that we all can agree on. I think one of these major points is game openness and modability. The fact that CA has decided to keep so much of this game's functionality locked away in the code which we have no access to exacerbates the problems we're discussing here exponentially. If we all had access to the game's clientside sources and a valid SDK that we can use to change game mechanics, everyone could be satisfied in that people could make MP mods to their taste and balance as they see fit. Witness what's happened with BF2 and BF2142, etc, hardly anyone plays the base game anymore, almost everyone plays some kind of mod. This would also fix quite a few of the SP community's gripes, IMO. Guess I just see the root cause of these problems perhaps a bit differently than others may.

Lastly, what Orda said and I've pointed out before is really a must at this point. SP and MP game mechanics/values must be separated. The nature of the two beasts and the differing desires of the players of each simply doesn't allow for what CA's done at this point anymore. They absolutely must be split logically within the game if CA wants to succeed down the road.

Respectfully

[guyfawkes5]

I agree with Orda above, that the MP community has made it's own bed and has to lay in it so to speak; the ones that moan and whine about the state of the current Total War games also do nothing about it, seeing as it's far less tiring and far more fun to huddle up and whisper nasties about the game than actually attempt constructive action. CA doesn't want to deal with a community that attacks each other so often, and I don't see the situation changing in the near future to be honest...

I don't think the idea of two seperate games for retail would work too well, as CA or your 'average' gamer wouldn't see much point in seperating the two aspects of the same game. The game engine would be present in both of them, so in a way you'd be paying for the product twice. Plus, as numerously mentioned by some of our more esteemed members here, CA knows the active MP community is miniscule at the moment so I doubt they'd create a retail version of their game for such a small market. I think this idea is just a manifestation of people wanting CA to put more effort into the multiplayer section of their game, and I think healing the rifts between the current patrons of MP would go further towards that than the current idea here, no offence.

Although perhaps a workable variation of this, as mentioned above, is a downloadable multiplayer version of the game akin to Alexander (monthly subscriptions tend to only work for RPGs). You could put a few dedicated programmers together to compile a 'multiplayer add-on' for the current Total War game, with balance and multiplayer functionability as priorities. Perhaps more multiplayer maps coupled with a possible MP campaign could be on the cards too? I'm pretty certain that CA could make up for the costs of developing the add-on if enough of the MP community showed interest (and dragged some of the 'old guard' back too).

BTW, how the hell does someone join in Sept 06 and already have 1.5k posts?

Because he's the Stig. :D

[RtkBedivere]

sry im way to lazy to read all that except the first couple of posts but i would gladdy pay $60 for a fully multiplayer supported TW game.

[Denali]

me 2 but CA would have to improve a loooooot

[Dionysus9]

Nah, it should be the same game. No-one wants to buy it twice.

I agree and disagree. First off, I never play SP. I haven't played SP since STW, and even then I only played a few campaigns. I only buy the total war series for MP. I've bought every game, retail, except for the RTW expansions. SP holds no interest for me for a number of reasons-- mostly because the AI is so pathetic, but also because I really dont enjoy the whole "empire administration" of buildings, units, tech tree stuff, taxes, diplomacy, etc. I want blood on my blade, thats it. I want to stand to the last man beside my clanmates, not count beans.

I recognize I am in the minority, but for players like myself who do not play SP-- we have to buy the whole package ($50) in order to play MP (a portion of the game CA spends 10% or less of its resources on [i.e. $5 per purchaser]). So the way I see it, I'm spending 10x more than I should on an SP game that happens to have MP tacked on as an afterthought.

The only reason I do this is because there is nobody else supplying my addiction to real-time multiplayer tactical wargaming. If the Lordz (or anyone else for that matter) can crank out a good MP game along those lines-- I'd easily pay $50 for it, and be happy.

But as it stands, I'm payin way too much for a game in which I play with probably less than 10% of the program code.

One of these days a software company is going to see the market for real time multiplayer tactical wargames and start supplying it. Once that happens, CA can kiss my $50 goodbye.

Heck, I'd even pay $100 if the game was highly moddable, the mp lobby was stable and well done, and a dedicated server was guaranteed for 5 years. But as it is, I will continue to grumble and complain and slap down my $50 for what passes for MP these days. Its like smoking resin.

*gags*

I feel so dirty.

[The Foolish Horseman]

it would be interesting to CA go down a Wplfenstein enemy territory route. Make Sp oinly game, and then a free downloadable multiplayer game. That would please the fans, but only if they improve the lobby etc

[Stig]

We all know CA goes for the big public, something which is bad for the MP gamers (yes MMO's are doing well, but as said multiple times MTW2 isn't made for that). If you really want the good MP games, and don't care much about the SP, you should take a game like Take Command: 2nd Manassas and make a MP ability for it. This still is the hardcore game, made for a small but select public. This still is the essence of a game and only has what it need to have. Some like it some don't, but overall games like this are the best, even tho they don't have good sales figures.

Mostlikely the new game by Lordz Game Studio will be the same. It's isn't well known by the gaming public, as they will never make it into the game magazines (or if they do they only get a fourth of a page to have a review. Plus they get low marks for Graphics and things (well this Lordz game might be different)). So even know these games are good, and what some players want, they will never find them. Hell, Lordz Game Studio uses some engine made by Slitherine Strategies , but have you ever seen any of these games in the normal stores. I know I haven't. Type a title at Amazon.com, even they don't have them, and normally you can find anything there.

[pike master]

me dinks lordz mite pull it off.