Hey hows it being silly, I explained decently well. We want single player. We want multiplayer. We want them to be the same thing?

Yes other people want variations of that, but if they give us full single player/multiplayer, we can mod down to specifics cant we?

Look all this post has proven is of people visiting the forum there is good support for multiplayer as long as they dont dumb it down, and give us a half assed version. Yes and No answers are just fine, its not 100% accurate because people are adding in there point of view, but i think it blows out of the water that 1% of the active community want MP versus 99% that dont care.

The traceable part. I doubt it includes statistics from forms of MP that do not require connecting to the central server (Hotseat, LAN, and PBEM). The numbers for Hotseat and LAN are particularly important because the people that find MP nice to do every once and a while with friends are most likely to use those.

I just think the 1% of TBS are engaging ing multiplayer such a bogus unfounded number. Id love for them to post there sources.

Maybe only 1% of people who purchased Elemental play online, then again the intital release of EWOM barely worked single player, MP is useless.

S.R.

I'd love to see those sources also, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if that stuff was 'proprietary information.' Marketing researchers want to know as much as they possibly can about us, while keeping us as much in the dark about them as possible.

That makes sense if you're thinking about observing how southern African crocodiles raise their young. But when the observers and the observed are in the same species, the question of observer motives becomes more important, which makes me much more interested in seeing full info on the study's design and the resulting 'data.'

And if you were wondering, yes, I was feeling slightly like a combative single-player customer when I replied above. I can also easily imagine that 1% is more like 9% or 23%. But I'd be very surprised to find that the abstract 4X TBS audience had much more than a quarter of folks seriously interested in MP.

That number sounds like it's using bad measurement to me. if I'm playing a LAN game, how do they know? If I play SP once and then only play MP for two years, am I still counted as buying the game for SP? Numbers can be twisted for all kinds of fun things. A month after Civ 5 was out, more then half the people who bought it still hadn't earned an achievement for completing a single game. Does that mean SP is only played by 50% of customers? I doubt it.

As for the poll (and any poll on a site like this)... Selection Bias. The forum is not representitive of the customer base as a whole. It's representative of the subsection of the customer base that is passionate enough to come post about it, ESPECIALLY the long time regulars. While you could say that said people are some of your best customers since they buy games years in advance and go tell their friends, they're (or we're since I include myself) not the same as the rest of the player base.

We're weird. It's nice once you get used to it.

I think that if it was made clear that was was being provided was "co-op only" then that removes most of the problems, as games can be tailored for the people in them, and there is no "human vs. human", which I think is the most devisive.  I think Stardock could make a good process and a good co-op mode, but I think it would be best for the game if competitive PvP play was ruled out of FE, and it made clear that it is up to the players to customize the co-op game to best suit the players in it.  If there are a broad suite of scalable AI capabilities, and the ability to make a group of AIs allied, it doesn't matter so much if a particular tactic is overpowered when used by a human.

Best regards,
Steven.

No

what I want is FULL FEATURE co-op multiple player, and might even play with others online or in MY LAN

but do NOT want competative stripped multiplayer.

harpo

Im not one for just excepting someones judgement. If the side of the box lies, whos telling the truth?

No.

If I want to play something MP, I will pick something specifically designed for MP.  There are fine options out there if this is your thing, I don't see what Elemental or FE would have to offer for MP that would be any better than anything else honestly, and specifically better than games designed for MP from the start.

But sure, if you want to play coop with your friends, and elemental is the only game you can agree to play.

Meh, just play succession games or something else like that.  Civ4 has all kinds of cool as hell ways to play the game SP, but with other people.  Right, this isn't Civ4, but it's not a game designed for MP either.

If you want to play MP play a game that is devoted to MP, and yes, there are planty out there.  Fantasy based even.  But of course, I understand, the MP crowd here wants Elemental to be MP, yet they don't appear to be listening to what Brad is telling them.

I don't really understand why people who want MP would want to play MP in a game which isn't particularly designed for MP, but I'll take your word that that's what they want.

Single player is good enough for me.

Although, they should make a multiplayer version because they promised that originally.

I may or I may not, but the point remains.  What is it about Elemental or FE that would make MP superior to existing games which are either designed for, or cater primarilly to MP?

Even games such as AoW or HoMM which are not specifically MP, though do have specific maps created to cater to MP games.  Yes, modders and map makers can and will do the same for Elemental, but again, what is it about Elemental which makes it 'superior' to those games for MP specifically?

Then you can just take a look at Dominons 3 if you want a real fantasy TBS geared almost entirely towards MP.  I'm sure there are others, not the least including FFH.  Hell there's even a way to play MoM against other people (I think there is anyway).  There's Battle for Wesnoth as well.

Now we can state that Elemental does or has things which these other games do not, but I think the larger point is that one thing Elemental does not have, and appears will not have, is the kind of MP people here are asking for.  So yes, ask for whatever you want, but I simply have a hard time understanding what it is about these games which makes people clammor so much for MP.  And I say that as a person who does play MP, just that I have no interest in playing Elemental MP, because it seems clear from what Brad is saying that whatever the MP is going to wind up, it's not really going to be much of a focus.

So I go back to the same stance I had during the GC2 development.  Screw MP, focus on SP, and at some point when the product is mature, if it makes business sense, open up MP or sell an MP expansion, or whatever.