I do however think that 20$ is a bit much to ask for nothing else but a feature that should be part of a great game like this to begin with.

I think you are wrong
you can't just implement multiplayer alone
along with multiplayer you need to do the following :
-rebalance the whole game so as to disable cheap tactics and overpowered thingys
how many games have cheap tactics that everyone does sooner or later
think of DAOC (Dark Age of Camelot, a MMORPG) at first rangers were overpowered
later another class was overpowered...
and what did it lead to ? massive adoption of those classes that were overpowered in PVP so as to win
multiplayer is not a cheap feature from the developper/publisher point of view
moreover there's currently less than 50% "give me multiplayer" right now

I think this price has been well thought before being thrown into the poll
personnaly If I did like multiplayer I would have bought it, but I don't, I played too much bad PVP and now I'm sick of it

think of this for example :
why bethesda is ready to lower the price of the next small addon (like horse armor) compared to the previous ?
because they did not expect the horse armor to be so widely bought and the price was fixed to balance the smaller number of sales

whismerhill you are comparing apples with oranges.

multiplayer in a turn based strategy game versus a MMORPG with a large PvP focus? c'mon, lol!

and Bethesda and TESIV is just another example how a developer can piss of their loyal fans and costumers, 3 useless additions for $$ when alot of people have been waiting for a much needed patch over a month now (especially for the non-english Oblivion versions. the german one is totally fubar).

Bioware and NWN for the win in that regard (crapload of patches, huge amount of new content and enhancements for free, and alot more content / $ with premium modules too than what Bethesda is doing).

I dont see any difficulties in adding multiplayer to GC2 unless the games infrastructure is designed badly in the first place (e.g. too many things hardcoded). players take the spots of some of the AIs. so what? if the AI is that independent and flexible as advertised it shouldnt have any effect. and what balance issues are there? every player AI or human has the same possibilities and options from the start aside from race bonuses. all you need is to figure out in what ways the action of AI and players are stored and forwarded to each other and if it should be strictly turn based or simultanous in some regards. then just make sure the Diplomacy skill works between players too (e.g. can only trade money/techs etc if the one with the lower diplomacy skill adds more to the bargain) and allow for ship designing outside the game or prior to the game so during the game you only add weapons and stuff and not work on the visual side of ships while the other players are waiting. but all in all those are just minor considerations. I dont see any reason the game needs to work much if any different at all multiplayer versus singleplayer.

if thats so hard then I suggest getting better programmers.

The forum only looks cluttered because you guys didn't make enough stickys for bug reports.

I still don't see a sticky for the latest Beta. There should be a bug report sticky for every released version.

You guys still have 10.x bug reports in there. And that what makes it look like a "disaster zone"

I would definately not buy any MP only expansion. I also would hesitate to buy an expansion that was MP but included a few extra goodies. I probably would not as the game is fine as it is. Don't sucker your customers into buying a MP expansion by including a few SP "extras".

The amount of support you'll need to have ongoing for a MP environment doesn't seem to be worth the effort (but that's just me).

If the choice is between multiplayer only or adding new content and features, then forget the multiplayer as there are plenty of games with that feature.

$20 is a good price for the expansion, but make it $19.95 so it appears I am getting a deal!

Trick question: Would I buy a MP expansion for $20? Yes. However, if that expansion displaces an expansion that would have added content or improved the AI, then I would prefer the other expansion, even if I would have bought either.

I WOULD pay $20 (well, the UK equivalent) for an expansion pack that had multiplayer AND extra features. But that much just for the sake of multiplayer? Heck no. I agree with Coplann here: set up a poll for multiplayer, then ask what other stuff people would want in an expansion pack (for example, the often asked for destabilization option or some equivalent).

I will surely buy an expansion if it was just features for SP games.

I will not buy either a multiplayer esp or multiplayer+some SP features esp.

I've been playing SP and MP strategy games for years. I loved BOTF (and still though its oldddd). I love playing a game with friends. It's just fun to see combined fleets from different players teaming up to destroy the enemy. Form Alliances, and trade tech. When playing with friends u know where the line is, u know the score. So for me, I voted YES. Because I loved the SP game, i would love to see it taking it a step further

I voted no but in actuallity that no is really a *maybe*. I seem to remember a post about one possible MP expansion to be some sort of persistent universe type thing. Now that I think would be fun to play around with. But straight multiplayer in terms of actually having to find random people to play I'd pass.

I'd definitely be all for more content though honestly not in the form of campaigns unless the campaigns were changed so that what you do in the first mission affects things throughtout the rest of the campaign. I've already said that $10 bucks for a ship pack would be bought ASAP. Beyond that the espionage expansion that has been hinted at would be fun I think. It really would be nice to have a few more automations like some form of the AI to tell *hey produce ships at this planet* and have it build up the planet to accomplish that.

Beyond that I'm sure no matter what you guys decide some will be happy and some will be mad but hopefully everyone understands that at the end of the day it is a business decision really. And I'm definitely all for anything that keeps you guys employed and improving this game . At least that is until it's time to talk about GC3 .

From an economic standpoint, I've already paid $45+ dollars for a game that lacks multiplayer, while I have bought games for less that do include multiplayer. I think $20 is a little bit on the pricey side for adding something that most people would consider standard.

Maybe if it were priced around $12 - $15 I'd consider it, but the chief idea behind multiplayer is the fact that I'd want to play my friends, and if I explain to them "Yeah, buy the game and the $20 expansion" they'd tell me straight up that I was crazy.

Perhaps include the capabilities/licensing/whatever to legally "spawn" copies a la Diablo? I remember that game you could spawn a copy to a friend but it had limited play capabilities (I think he could only play MP or something like that). That would certainly increase the appeal.

I could care less about the price of any potential expansion because that all comes down to priorities really. If you want an expansion badly enough you'll save up the money, it's only $20 measly bucks after all! I think it's lame that people aren't voting for Multiplayer. All it can do is make the game even more challenging and fun. I think that the majority of people voting no probably fall into one of two or three categories:

1. Those who are worried about the potential cost as they're not in a position to afford a $20 expansion (i.e. our younger Galactic Civ 2 players or those with more important priorities)

OR

2. Those who fear playing real people due to the difficulty and/or challenge that they would represent compared to the game's AI which is still pretty decent.

OR

3. Those who would just rather see an expansion pack released BUT with other features or options added instead of multiplayer.

All are mostly valid points but I think it's weird and disheartening to see multiplayer getting voted down. Then again, not a lot my fellow gamers have done or thought in the past few years has made a lot of sense to me, LOL, so I shouldn't be surprised (i.e...The GTA series = popular?? Ugh.)