Multiplayer

from Elemental Forums

Is there going to be any emphasis on multiplayer for FE? The original WoM seemed to think it was a great idea to ignore that its not the 90s anymore and people like playing with friends online. Meanwhile it advertised a multiplayer experience that was only added months later and was lackluster even compared to the single player experience.

 

I haven't heard anything regarding multiplayer yet and I would be interested in knowing what it will be like. I see there is a multiplayer tab in the Beta and that makes me happy and I've already told some friends about the game who would only buy it if it had decent multiplayer. The way I see it since your main demographic, the folks that already bought WoM will be getting FE and the next for free it would be wise to give some love to multiplayer so that they can convince their friends to purchase a copy as well. Decent multiplayer also keeps a game alive and popular far long after its release.

 

Will there be simultaneous turns?

 

Will battles simply take place at the end of turns (players can choose to fight their battles, or watch a friends) so that we don't need some cheezy thing like autocalc ONLY battles?

 

Will there be support to identify and solve out of sync issues?

 

Please post your thoughts and ideas for multiplayer here so we don't get a trainwreck last minute multiplayer add on :D

8,002 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

There is no MP in FE, see this thread: https://forums.elementalgame.com/415252

Basically it boils down to concentrating on SP or splitting focus for MP and they chose the former, partly due to demographics (far less people play MP than SP, and less still in tbs games)

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Eh, its not like this is Skyrim and you can get away with that. I think dropping multiplayer completely is going to be a horrible choice if this is true. Imagine if they came out with a Civilization game without multiplayer? Personally I'd be pretty upset as it means a few less people I know will be getting it (hard enough to convince people this isn't just another WoM with the title!) and I'll have to play alone running circles around AI, which if WoM was any good example isn't going to hold my interest for long no matter how awesome Frogboy makes the AI. I can stand playing against just AI if I am playing with friends but playing vs a computer on your own every time you want to play the game sounds pretty damn lonely.

 

Edit: Just read the dev post that has a few lines about multiplayer being dropped hidden in. Huge disappointment, guess FE was too good to be true. Two versions of Elemental in a row with nonexistent multiplayer is making me lose my confidence. I hope I don't have to wait another two years for Elemental :(

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah I'm with you, but we are the 1%.

 

Stick with Fall From Heaven or another multiplayer game.  Fallen Enchantress seems like it has some good ideas from what I've played, but the AI is no good, and the game -feels like- it's balanced for multiplayer considering the capability of building up godlike heroes like Dominions 3, where the AI will never be able to counter such things, and only a good human player would be able to, so it's baffling why they decided not to do multiplayer.  It's not like they're doing anything that's never been done in a multiplayer turn-based game before.  I think it's just a matter of developers thinking their demographic are a bunch of ADD riddled morons who can't wait a couple minutes for their opponent to finish their turn, which judging by some of the posts on this forum, might be true.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

No lie, I just convinced my friend to buy Civ 4 complete so we could play FFH2 :D

 

I think FE will still be a good single player game but its activity level will probably mirror WoM's in time (people checking in every few months to look at changes). I think Frogboy is a great AI programmer but I think this is probably the hardest type of game to program AI for and that even the most mediocre player will be able to mop the floor with the best AI man can create due to the complexity of the game.

 

I hope this game sells well somehow anyways though. I want to see another Elemental in the future, that has multiplayer so I can convince more people to support Stardock. I really like the company even though my experience with Elemental has always been bad. I will definitely be picking up the new Sins game too, but if they remove MP from that too I might just have to give up on Stardock :P

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Is there some requirement for MP that you have to come off like a complete jerk in every post you make?

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I'd respond to that but you would just regen 2 health every post :D

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Sorry, I don't mean to, but it's hard to not sound like a jerk when the only reason I'm posting is to make my voice heard after being abandoned by the developer of this game for what appears to me to be bogus reasons.  I made my post of bugs and issues I found in the beta to contribute, and I have nothing else to say except for the desire for multiplayer.  I can only comp-stomp in a game so many times before I'm bored of it, and I've already done so with this game.

 

We are the 1%.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

aaaaaaaaaiiigghhhh.... :puke:

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

@RataTosk: I was replying to Strumpetplaya, your post kind snuck in between.

@Strumpetplaya: Apology accepted.  I understand your frustration.  MP would be a great feature in this game, but there are legitimate reasons why MP is not going to be in FE on release.  It's annoying, but that's the way it is.

I don't think you're the 1%.  By the statistics I've seen, MP is like the 14%.  Small, but significant.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

OK.  Less than 1% tried to play WoM multiplayer, but those numbers are likely biased against MP because it was a terrible game at release.  Nothing suppresses online numbers like a game not being fun to play.

IMHO, the exact numbers are pretty much irrelevant.  I think it's a good decision to focus on making the SP experience the best it can be and then decide whether multiplayer can be done in a way that makes the game better.