To me, offering MP as a DLC is one of the most rational uses of the DLC system that have been suggested.  Those players who will only use the SP version will pay $50 for the game and be perfectly happy.  Gamers who want to enjoy the experience with friends or other MP gamers would certainly gladly pay an additional $10 (or whatever) for this feature.  The modding tools ought to be delivered via DLC...certainly the modding community is a tiny portion of the playing populace.  I don't particularly like the idea of paying $3 for a new cool spell or weapon though.  This simply breaks the game, especially for folks who are playing MP (some will have DLC features, some won't.)  Features are great items for DLC, but content ought to be delivered in expansion packs IMO.

That being said, whether E:WoM should deliver it's MP as a DLC is up for debate, especially since they advertised it at release.  But as we all know, the entire game was suffering at release, so shifting tactics at this point wouldn't be entirely unreasonable.  Perhaps they can propose a similar plan as what they are using to deliver FE : those who purchased the game in 2010 get the opportunity to snag the MP DLC for free, other who purchased the game prior to the MP release get a discount on the MP DLC.

How is it criminal?  Do you not know that making a profit is the American Way?  Unless you can show me something in writing that says "You are absolutely guaranteed to receive a multiplayer version of this product with your purchase," all bets are off.

False advertising is criminal, and it clearly states that there is multiplayer on the box and on the Impulse page. Whether or not the law will be enforced is another matter. So of E:WoM they have to have MP to stay legal. E:FE and the next expansion are another matter.

Cutting something simply because most people will not use it is a slippery slope. Probably the next least used feature in games is mods, and not including modding support makes it easier to create a better base game...

Not saying Stardock will do that, but as a rule of thumb it is best to not go there. Ever.

For this to work, it would require a very careful package.  Essentially DLC that does not appear to be sold as DLC by differentiationg the SP from MP as two seperate products.  It is a micro micro expansion rather than missing content so to speak.

Since Brad did (help?) create the Gamer's Bill of Rights, I'm pretty sure he'll do the right thing, whatever the final solution happens to be.

So you think it is reasonable to sell MP for E:WoM as DLC when it would be illegal (though unlikely to be enforced) and cosider it a possible course that they might take, but you also hold that they will not abuse DLC because they wrote the Gamer's Bill of Rights (which there is no enforcement)?

I can see it for FE.

As far as EWOM.. that would be rediculous seeing as the box sitting right here says and i quote " Compete against up to 16 human or computer players locally or online". Which is already kind of misleading..

You start trying to charge for that functionality now its called Bait and Switch.

It *is* reasonable insofar as they have had to back out on / alter so many promised features already, so what's one more?  Is it any more criminal to have you pay for a promised feature (which they never said they wouldn't do) than to not include the promised feature in the first place? I really don't know, I'm not a lawyer.

However, I personally have faith that Brad and The Team will do the right and just and honest thing.

This:

was meant to be tounge-in-cheek.  Doesn't come across so well on the interwebs, I guess.

But are those features listed in the product discription?

There are no plans to cut multiplayer from either War of Magic or Fallen Enchantress.

The only question is whether Fallen Enchantress will include tactical battles in MP out of the box and whether additional features (like Co-Op) will be added at launch. Those are questions I can't answer because it's way too soon to know for sure.  It'll depend on time and budget.

Relatively few people play MP. That is a fact. Civilization IV had great MP. Hardly anyone played it. HOMM has had MP. Hardly anyone played it.  There have been plenty of developers talking about this sort of thing at GDC over the years.  You put in MP for marketing reasons. Not because people will play it. The ONLY reason MP gets put into TBS games is because of game reviews. And when I say that, that's not just my opinion but the opinion of pretty much every major game developer who makes TBS games (we talk about these things when we get together).  

So don't try to make the argument on economic grounds. It's not even a close call. The reason we'd enhance MP in future updates would be to satisfy our hard core forum fans and improve potential metacritic scores.  And that's a viable enough reason to do it. But we won't sacrifice the single player experience (i.e. eliminate some single player feature because MP would be hard to implement for it). 

The all important question is: why would a feature be undoable in MP but not SP? The only reason I can think of is it is being done wrong.

There are any number of reasons why a feature would work in SP and not MP. Some are balance or design reasons, others are technical reasons, and still yet others are simply business reasons. To say that the only reason that a feature would be unimplementable in MP but not SP is that the feature is somehow being implemented wrong seem a bit on the rude side.

I mean wrong as in there should not be that big of a difference in how hard it is to do.

The only techincal reason that comes to mind would be if it is only possible for one player (the human player in SP) can make use of the feature as designed without causing issues. And that is wrong, especially if it will be possible to mod the AI in which can a mod maybe created that makes it use said feature.

They designed it, so if there is a problem that makes it difficult then it is because they made it so. By definition, they did it wrong in that case. Most advancements in computer programming are aimed a making it possible to write code so that it is easier to write code that will not have this problem.

As has been said may times, no one cares anymore balance for MP than they do for SP. If this is considered an issue then there is a serious disconnect in regard to what is considered desirable in MP. And what is broken in MP would also be considered broken in SP if the AI used it, so this is a serious problem if they allow people to mod the AI.

Unless one of the other possiblities is true then it should not be so difficult to port the feature from SP to MP that there is a business problem.

This may be true for existing fans of the game, but usually when you market a strategy game as having multiplayer, your average prospective player will assume that the game is balanced for competitive play in MP.  Fortunately most of those folks stick with Shooters or RTS style games and have little interest in TBS.

Another issue I just though of for E:FE MP would be cooperative play, where the players are on the same team going on adventures, etc (EDIT: I guess I thought of it because Brad mentioned it. )  It would be difficult with the current system to have multiple PC heroes on the same team.  Who gets to be the Sov and control the stack on the strategic layer?  In that regard how do any of the characters do anything on the Strategic layer?  How is order of tactical battle determined? (I know this is planned to be fixed in FE.)  There are a lot of bits to consider for MP which do not have to be considered for the SP experience.

There has been a confusion of terms, coop = single player only with human players instead of AI. Rather than meaning actual coop as in multiple players control the same faction. It got refered to as coop as the idea is they will team up against the AI.

One of the biggest oversights in the this discussion is costs involved. In order for the DLC to pay for MP, the cost per person would need to be increased as it will be distributed amoungst fewer people.

Say MP accounts for $10 of the price of the game when it is included with the main game, with a total cost of $60 for the game. It will be priced to that if the expected number of people buy then everything will be paid for with a certain amount of profit. If that is split of into DLC then the cost is divided between fewer people (say 1% of those that get Elemental are expected to want MP, as that is the number they are throwing around). Therefore it is 1/100 people paying for it rather than 100/100, so the cost will need to be multiplied by 100. Thus MP would cost $1000 extra for those that want it, and the base game would cost $50.

Similarly if it accounted for $1 of the base cost, then the DLC would be $100 and the game would be $59. If it is $0.1 then it is $10 and $59.90 respectively. If it is $0.01 then it is $1 and $59.99 repectively. If the cost of MP is still to be covered. This is why the price of DLC seems rediculous, even if it is fairly priced. It is separated from the game to reduce the price as not everyone is expected to get it so it needs to have a greater cost per buyer.

These numbers are assuming the number of people that would use MP translate into buyers for the DLC and that the number remains constant regardless of price. Really the higher the price the fewer people will get it so it would need to be further increased to reach equalibrium... if there would be any buyers at all in which case it is simply undoable. The other option is to decrease the amount spent on MP so that the amount that people will need to pay for it is less; however, it is already something that no one has any interest in as it is.

I really think it could mean both in the case of Elemental, a game that is both an RPG and a Strategy game.  I think the concepts I proposed would at least need to be considered, if not for very long.

I am refering to what is being asked for. At some point the terms became confused as it is easier to say "coop MP" that "MP that is just like SP only with human players taking the place of some AI players".

I think different types of multiplayer would help.  Multiplayer designed for friends to play together against AI (less worry about cheating, turn enforcement) should be much cheaper / easier to implement than competitive multiplayer pvp where you are playing with unknowns.  The friend coop is what I use this, HOMM, and Civ for.  I don't really care if I can ever play multiplayer against people, or with people I don't know.  Did GDC devs mention anthing about how much multiplayer was used coop vs comp?  

I suspect that most friendly MP (coop means multiple players on controlling the same side in strategy games) is done via LAN and Hotseat. It is much harder to get numbers on those as they do not have to hook up to a central server.

I think for you to not have tactical battles in MP, you'd need to really improve the quick battles.  I find the current system in EWOM to be broken- it was actually better pre 1.1 due to sovereign's casting tactical spells based on INT.  Then again, I felt the old system needed to be modified not replaced.

Co-op multiplayer could have an audience.

That said, I'd prefer the resources spent on tactical MP be spent to make quick combat work like it should, if it comes down to a choice between those two things.

You make some good points here.  And there are some players who might try out "multiple human sides allied against the AI" if it was part of the main package, where the strength of the AI alliance as a whole is high and requires a team of humans working together to defeat it, whereas if it was separate, they would definitely not pay any extra.   Basically, there may be a lot more people who are "willing to be convinced" of the fun of "multiple human sides allied against the AI", and if you never give them the chance (by providing a good mode for multiple sides cooperating) then no-one will ever know.   A self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will.

Best regards,
Steven.

The only multiplayer I want is COOP with a friend...WITH TACTICAL battles!
I just cannot play this game without tactical battles.

As I have said many times.. my friends dont own Elemental, but they would be very veyr interested if they could play it with me in COOP with tactical battles (kind of like how Total War Napoleon and Total War Shogun2 do the coop campaign).

There really is no reason for me to play the multiplayer that is in the game now though, as there is no tactical battles ):

One simple example for you - in a 3 player multiplayer with the current tactical battle set up - what is the third player to do while the others play out the tactical battles.  If 2 players are involved in a war it will get very boring for the one just building up his cities.  Thats not a problem in single player as the single player is always involved in the tactical battles.  If you can think of a simple way to resolve this I'm sure Brad would love to hear it.

hotseat is probably the only way I would play any TBS in multiplayer.  RTS on the other hand is fine multiplayer - Populous was the first multiplayer I played.

As pointed out, it is less of a problem with friends. There are various things that can be done during it, with the simplest being to give those not in the battle a black screen and saying and battle is in progress. Or like in Age of Wonders you can let them observe the batter (a bit trickier, but not much). Finally you could let them do things like organizing build queues that do not change the game (best solution, hardest to do).

Or just have the possiblity of non-simultatious turns which makes the point moot but has been stated as being difficult.