Multiplayer: the Stardock pitfall

I don't worry at all. If the multiplayer code will be good enough, what should be the problem? The vanilla game will be imbalanced for MP games probably, so the MP community will have to work on a balance mod, that is all. There is an excellent MP balance mod for Dominions 3. as well [Conceptual Balance]. Basically all MP games are being hosted with that mod.

Edit: sorry to the readers of this post. I edited it several times, but each and every time the paragraphs get mixed up and end up being somewhere where I did not place them... I will try to edit it again until it is one fluent post and the layout makes sense.

Ah, but that is pretty much my point. I feel like the game should come with some sort of balance. While I understand that it will be practically impossible for the vanilla game to be unbroken in multiplayer, I feel that SD should strive to make the most out of the game in terms of a balanced multiplayer game. When some people will start to make a balance mod, others will make another one, and you end up with a lot of talented modders working on a lot of different mods, up to the point that you can either get mod1 with all it's good ideas with some that you dislike, or mod2 with other good features and with some that you dislike.

If you look at SoaSE, you can see that there are a lot of talented modders working on a lot of good quality mods, only these mods are rarely ever completed and are abandoned due to a lack of interest long before these mods come to fruition.

A good example of a good game - imo - is Civ 4 with the Beyond the Sword expansion. Civ is basically a game where a lot of simple mechanics intertwine in interesting ways. Simple mechanics make sure that it is easy to understand basic principles, while the community feels little need to tweak things because each and every mechanic works fine on it's own. This makes it so that the community spends it's time on mods that root out bugs, or that enhance the UI of the game without tweaking the core game. This is for me a very strong selling point for Civ, since I want to be able to play a good game in the way it was intended, without having to resort to mods that are fan made. Fan made mods may be very good, but they may not be good at all too. I just do not trust some random joe to make a good mod, or at the very least the developers should not rely on some random joe to make the game to what it should be.

For me the mods are not the answer. Also in multiplayer - where I will not play this game at all, but having a good multiplayer is pretty much needed these days in order to keep games alive - people will play the vanilla game most likely. There seriously needs to be at least some sort of game balance in place that keeps this game alive.

I realise that I am way too forward with judging about the completed game when we are atill testing stability in the beta, but I feel strongly for this game. That is, I feel that this may very well be one of the very best TBS games of all time. The last thing I want is there to be one feature that completely negates all the potential and fun that there is to be had. As it is, I dislike the teching as it is because it is very hard to plan ahead... Random is good, not knowing the consequences of my actions is not, so while I like a random 'organic' tech tree at the very least I want to be able to somewhat foresee the consequences of my actions. Therefore I would like to have some sort of reference in place where I can look up what tech trees will unlock what. Not having this will do damage to the experience for me since I at least want to be able to look into the potential of certain techs without having to trial-and-error my way through the tech tree for games on end.

Well, the game will be imabalanced for MP, that is for sure. It's close to impossible to release a balanced fantasy TBS. MoM, Doms 3. or AoW2 - SM weren't balanced at all. The Doms 3. community is decent & mature enough, which is why there is only 1 big MP balance mod for that game. That is why all games are being hosted with that CB mod. We should try to do the same stuff in EWoM. The community members -who care about MP & balance- should work on 1 big balance mod together. However someone must coordinate the modders, that is very important. Perhaps we should host a website for the mod even, this will be a major mod afterall.

I agree that there could a community effort that will mod the game to be balanced, but this is my gripe with that:

1. It relies on modders to do this. It may turn out fine, it may turn out an utter fail. I want SD to make the game as it was intended, so it should work decent enough to be a viable and fun game. If the multiplayer portion of the game will not be perfectly balanced then that is fine with me, since it is extremely hard to balance things out when a ot of people are trying to break the game.

2. Even if the mod is a good quality one, I would still feel cheated since fan-mods tend to change the game mechanics quite a bit. While the modder may feel that he improved the game, I just want to play the game as it was intended by the developer. I do not want to lpay some house-ruled version of the game. I do not want to play some pimped version of civ4, the mods I use for that game are the ones that fix bugs and enhance the UI. If the community feels the need to tweak the game quite a bit then it tells you something about the quality of the initial product.

3. I trust SD to make a quality game. I do not trust a modder to make a quality mod. Mods may be of great quality, but they generally are not. It would require a lot of effort to actually unite the talented modders in order to make an uber-mod that would not only properly balance the game, but also would respect the core game enouge that this uber-mod can indeed be seen as a balance-mod rather than an overhaul-mod.

A lot of talented modders seem to feel the need to make a mod that changes the game dramatically. This is what I do NOT want. The core game should be so solid that maybe a tweak here and there will make for a brilliant game. The scenario I greatly fear is the one where although the game is a beakon of potential, the game will die because the vanilla version is utterly broken and the game is not interesting enough for modders to keep working on. This WILL happen if other games are better in the vanilla version.

Look at SoaSE: it has amazing potential, but in multiplayer the game is dead. Modders could make a balance mod, but they don't. There are quite a few mods for the game, but the better ones are an overhaul, and none adress the issues that make the single player game unfun.

I understand your points, and I agree with you...however as we all know, SD will focus on singleplayer. If they focus on SP, it means that the various gameplay features [races/factions/equipments/tech & spell "trees" etc.] will get the "focus", and not the balancing. It's not so important to balance the game for SP. [In fact..maybe a balanced SP wouldn't be as fun like a "kinda" imbalanced one for various reasons.] This is why I say, that the MP community will have to work on a balance mod.

This game can be modded pretty much to the bare bones, right? If so, then I trust it will be possible to make a 'better AI' mod that will adress the stupidities of the AI. And when I say 'stupidities of the AI' I say that with the most respect possible. What I mean is that an AI might not behave in ways that is optimal, and the players will note this. For example, in civ - since that is the one game where I can play at a level that I need not be ashamed of I tend to refer to that game a lot - the AI does not retreat a fleet from a threatened city, so that if you capture the city you destroy the fleet. Also the Ai does not retreat workers from a threatened city so you can capture the workers. There is a better-AI-mod that adresses this, and then the AI does indeed try to defend individual ships and workers better. Since a player would fight for each and every unit, the AI should also try to keep units alive whenever possible.

Now if something like this can be modded into elemental so that the AI will indeed try to make the most out of it's resources then I am one happy player.

Yep, we will be able to mod pretty much everything, including the AI itself.

I may be off a bit here but I read that Stardock was the Publisher for DemiGod, and actually stepped in and took over the MP side of it, in essence saving it, after the total butchery that was initially had.

Elemental will be an ALL SD affair so we can expect a robust system. As to the Balance??? With 10 factions, true balance will not be possible, unless we see mirrored factions. I can't see why anyone would want that.

But I also agree that a solid AI can help offset that issue and if even half the Factions can match up well, then those will be the ones played Human vs Human after word gets out.

One thing about Stardock that I always appreciated as well, was their commitment to their Games after release. Given that the Lead Dev and CEO will be Modding this one, we can only expect that same level of commitment to be carried forward for E:WoM as well.

Isn't Demigod ... practically MP only? What I mean by that, is that it is only arena battles and has no story. Correct?

Well, I think you're right, and wrong.

Some things are undeniably true. Demigod's main issue was that in the early going it had connectivity and matchmaking issues. Those weren't really Stardock's fault and they worked hard to fix it, but it kind of snowballed. People moved to custom games and external systems like Hamachi and Gameranger to play, because they worked better. That fragmented the community, and it never fully recovered. Custom games in particular had the problem you describe of groups getting together to steamroll PUGs, but people joined them because there was more people playing them. The last problem is really a player problem rather then a game design one, but it happened due to the early problems.

Sins actually has pretty functional multiplayer, but the game isn't really suited to it. It's not a short, fast paced game. Especially on anything resembling a large map, games can take hours. That's not really well suited to online multiplayer unless it's between friends who will play over multiple sessions.

They seem to be learning from those issues though. Brad's mentioned a couple of times ideas for more easily played online Elemental game modes (standard mode will also be available of course), and there were also ideas like a time bank to try and keep the pace of the game moving. Connectivity should be pretty solid thanks to using a client/server setup and centrally hosted servers. Really the main thing working against multiplayer in Elemental is that the TBS community is single player focused. But there's nothing any developer can do about that.

The community was fragmented by microexpansions. By the time of the last one, the community was split between four different versions of the game. New players coming in to test out multiplayer could find no one to play a game with: they left, and saw no reason to buy the microexpansions for online play since no one was playing online.

Frequent "desyncs" lead to issues where a game would have to be completely abandoned and restarted. The lack of a solid tutorial (the one they had was not adequate to explain the intricacies of the game) created players unprepared for online play, ensuring they would be defeated and often in annoying ways (scout rush etc) and that drove away newbies.

Ironically, a lack of a single player campaign also may have contributed. Without a solid, "happy" game experience to endear them to the title, for many people Sins was something they played a couple games of and, not feeling there was really an objective, these people left the game aside.

The choice to "require" Impulse to patch the game, while perhaps a sound judgement to deal with piracy, lead to refuseniks who did not update (and therefore did not play the game online.) 

The length of the games meant those with limited time (two hours or less) could not find a game they could complete most of the time. These players also had problems with the online community.

The modding support was average, but without being able to download new modded maps directly in the client, new and innovative game mods did not "catch on" and suffered from a dearth of players. It encouraged fragmentation between those who played popular mods and those who didn't, further dividing the community.

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Somewhere I have a really detailed breakdown of things involved in Sins' eventual decline of the online community. Not all of these factors were apparent on launch, and some of these factors counted more than others. Any given one could only have cost the online community a couple of "regulars," but keep in mind they do add up, and Sins already had a small community that could not afford to lose any more playerbase.

Are these things Stardocks' fault? Not necessarily. They published the title, they did not develop it. I am not criticizing anyone, just giving my views on what seemed to harm the game's playerbase.

Sorry, but I had to LOL here. I think you meant to say Stardock did not develop it.

I certainly did.

True. Some very sinsible things are said here, especially the analyses of why both demigod and SoaSE are dead online. While I dislike playing sins online - I think this game should be roleplayed like any other 4X game and online is not about roleplaying - I feel that having a good online game is what keeps people interested and what really sparks interest for the game for years to come. Look at warcraft3, a mediocre title in terms of a single player campaign, but it is a superb multiplayer game.

Civ4 is amazing both in single player and online, and I think this is something that really helped in making civ so huge. The modding support for that game is astonishing, and I feel that this is in good part due to the fact that the game 'works.' Sure it has it's quirks, but overall everything comes together nicely to create a game that is good and challenging in single and multiplayer.

Both demigod and SoaSE were amazing games, but demigod was sucky in SP and dead in MP, sins is dead in MP and it has an AI that is not capable of defending itself properly until you play with the highest settings - and then you get stomped. Sins is decent in SP because even though the AI is retarded it can still challenge you at the highest settings. SO it is not like I abandoned that game altogether - like I did with demigod - but the experience is hurt with the AI not taking care of basic things like repairing it's capital ships when they should, and so on and so forth. Sins is not abandoned yet afaik so I still have hope for future patches.

With the modding capabilities of Elemental I think that we will see at least some modders trying to make better-AI-mods. That is one less worry that I have. What still concerns me though is that the tech tree as it is is presented in a horrible way. It is next to not possible to plan ahead. Why not make the tech trees full-screen so you can use the space of the entire screen in order to make it more presentable? I am afraid elemental will be like GalCivII in that respect. GalCivII was such a cool game, but I quit playing that because I got annoyed with the scrolling tech tree that I always got lost in and the endless amount of techs that did the exact same thing, only a tiny fraction better.Weapon I phase 1 to 5, weapon 1v2 phase 1 to 5, weapon Iv3 phase 1 to 5, weapon II phase 1 to 5, shield I phase 1 to 5...

Okay I have a really silly silly question.

If most Game designers know that SP Balance and MP balance are not inclusive. Why have more designers not Designed there game with a SP set of rules and a MP set of rules.

Yes I understand that two set of rules would eat up time and money. Mabey require 2 sets of AI instructions. And Definitely might cause player confusion.

But...

Considering how endemic this problem is to the gaming industry as a whole. and considering that this is always the number one problem confronting all games that cross the SP/MP platforms. Is the time/Money that big of a outlay to make this an unfixable problem. and wouldn't a designer that actually nailed this problem down have a huge sucsess on their hands?

Like i said a really really silly question

Basically that would mean making two seperate games. It can be done of course, but if that is the answer... I don't know.

Blizzard actually patched that in for Warcraft 3 after the fact. The campaign uses a different set of stats then the patched version, because patches kept screwing up the campaign.

The main issue is that it's really expensive. You need two versions of skills, two systems, etc. A lot more testing. And that's if you plan to do it from the start. Adding it in later is even harder. Unless your game is trying to do both SP and MP *well*, it isn't worth the cost. Usually you focus on one and let the other be as it will (though typically you change SP to suit MP, because SP is easier to deal with).

Yeah changing the SP for the MP is one of those things that frustrated the hell out of me in WoW (the MMO). The constant nerfs to my play for the PvP aspect that I didn't play and the constant screwing over of my fun for people who feel the need to kill others. Honestly it was a big contributer to why I don't play WoW anymore.

The failure, imho, of demigod was the poor choice of peer 2 peer network architecture causing multitudes of connection issues. Would be interesting to see where demigod would be if the did client/server and supported it well, might not have had everyone flock to league of legends (which is insanely popular).

The failure of Sins is mostly due to the lack of, early adoption, impulse as containing a friends list. I think a sins 2 with full impulse and/or steamworks integration and just generally better matchmaking would have increased its multiplayer shelf life. That being said I still play a regular 2-4 hour game of soase once a week with 7-9 other guys.

I think with frogboy stating their going client server and supporting official servers and being integrated into impulse EWOM should do alot better than the other games you mentioned.

Here is to hoping.

This thread however is partly thinking out loud how some games that SD did died while they should not have. The thread may have been poor in the choice of words. Even now I am not really sure what I wanted with this thread, other than to vent the feeling that there is always 'something wrong' with the SD titles so that they die out even though they are amongst the best games out there.

And maybe even that is not a fair way of putting it but for now I have no other way of saying it. With demigod the multiplayer aspect being messed up definitely killed it. A lot of the people playing sins moved on even though the game is not out that long - that is several years is not long for popular titles, and Trinity was only just released.

GalCiv2 was amazing safe for the tech tree andbeing forced to make your own ships even though I cared very little for this.

I fear elemental will have some major flaw that will kill it and that no amount of potential can ever safe it. Elemental should have - imo - a simple system that one can oversee, it should be intuitive, and the AI should pose a challenge for the victory. A good example of a game that oes it right is civ4: it is simple in the rules, complex in the fact that there simple rules intertwine in interesting ways and it is challenging to all but the very best. This is what I want for Elemenal too. If it can do all this without there being some annoying thing in the game that completely kills the experience then I am a happy gamer.

I agree with Tormy.  Focus on single player and multiplayer network code.  The mod community with balance the game for multiplayer.

I will be the first to say that multiplayer is not going to be central to Elemental.  It's only in there because we keep getting flack for not including multiplayer with our TBS games.

It'll be reliable because we're spending the bucks to host on our own machines each and every game (except for those who choose to set up their own games who, one presumes, know what they're doing).

But I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice a single day delay or a even one single player game feature to help multiplayer.  

I love multiplayer gaming but multiplayer gamers get plenty of attention. Elemental is about empowering the single player experience. 

This is absolutely acceptable Brad. The MP community will take care of the MP balancing, just like in Doms 3.

I do not know what I wanted with this thread really. I prefer SP, but it seems that in order to keep games alive and the gamers interested you need multiplayer as well. Any game out there that has good modding support is also a game that is very much alive in multiplayer.

I guess I just wanted to vent concerns and I worded them poorly and overly dramatic. My bad.

Well I think the issue is that multiplayer should be done right. Either don't do it or do it right. 

If you want to know who does multiplayer right it's Blizzard. Any of you in the Starcraft 2 beta? THAT is how you do it and that's how we're doing it as well.

It costs a lot more $$$ to do it right (because we have to provide a server for every single game) but it eliminates so much hassle.  Imagine how things would gone with Demigod or Sins if it were done this way. 

The MP beta of Elemental will likely start out pretty buggy but I suspect connection issues won't be amongst the bugs.