Adding Hotseat and Lan play to the game would NOT take the drastic amount of resources they claim it will. You have the code, instead of checking the ai routines, dump to the interface and let the UI (next player) decide what to do next. They could slap it on with a patch, and if that is all they are going to do with multiplayer then they can forget about anyone paying $20 for it. They *should* do at least that though, if only to appease people so they can ignore the hard work of doing a really GOOD multiplayer expansion.
If they want (and they don't, that should be obvious) to add a proper multiplayer expansion that allows for internet gaming, they would need to overhaul almost the entire game.
- Simultaneous turns would be a MUST. Seriously, why anyone would think that leaving it at the current sequential turn system would be a viable option in multiplayer is beyond my comprehension
- Races would need to be balanced. Right now it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Yor (for example) are better than Humans. In single player mode that doesn't matter. If you want to give yourself the best chance to survive, pick Yor. If you want a challenge, pick Human. In multiplayer that doesn't fly. My guess is, given the complexity of the game, this would be the most challenging aspect to do right without turning all the races into a different flavor of vanilla, (french vanilla, homemade vanilla, vanilla bean, etc). One could argue that they already are, but that's a subject for a different thread I think.
- The in-game diplomacy system would need to change. Something that needs to happen anyways even in single player as far as I'm concerned (wish I has access to the ai routines to mod their behavior in diplomacy). In Multiplayer though, as it stands now the whole "diplomacy" trait would be a joke. Either get rid of it altogether or make it absolutely integral to the game (example: you can only make a "best offer" according to your diplmacy ratings and once put forth, the other player simply accepts, no option to deny. It would make diplomacy tech HUGE probably, and therefor would need to be more expensive. This would include enforced peace treaties for x number of weeks, and probably many other things that I haven't bothered to think all the way through)
- Even with simultaneous turns the game would be too long to play in one sitting on anything larger than a small map. To compensate for this, allow games to be saved to be restarted later and any players that do not return for the continuation can: Have their empire controlled by the ai, can automatically have their empire surrender to their weakest or strongest ally, or largest, smallest neighbor, whichever the players choose at the beginning of the game. The same can go for players that quit partway through. More varied victory conditions may also be an option (whoever has the most influence by turn 100 wins. Or a king of the hill game, whoever controls the central planet by turn x wins. Just examples)
- UI Changes to make more things automatic (a "best offer" diplmacy button, an upgrade this ship design with my best current weapons button, set Tax level to the highest setting without pushing any planet below 50%, 75%, 100% approval button, etc) to streamline some of the more time intensive but trivial parts of the game would be a plus as well.
- There's probably many other things that would NEED to happen to make this game worthwhile in a true multiplayer sense, (game matching based on player ability for example) a lot of which I'm sure I haven't thought of yet, and frankly I've thought about this subject too much, call it a pipe dream I guess.
If all of that were done to make a *true* multiplayer expansion, I would gladly pay as much as I did for the original game, not just $20.
Do I think it's ever going to happen? Nope not by a long shot. Multiplayer doesn't seem to be in Stardocks vision for this game. Too bad, I always considered single player games to be similar to masturbation, fun in it's own way, but never as good as sex.
