I'll add more about "studies" or surveys as well, first thses so called statistics. In order for you to have an accurate as well as representitive poll of users. You need to sample a representitve "group" the people who are interested in this game now, at this point and after reading up on GALCIV2 and finding out that it isn't MP are a large group indeed.
Your polls of the members of the forum, though they may be accurate, they are also not representive of the general public that might be interested in purchasing a multiplayer expansion pack. (If one existed. Lol.)
This is becasue the group of members logged on here are largely here because the fact that the game isn't MP wasn't a deal breaker or even an issue for the majority. This is correlated by the posts and by the survey data as reported in the study done at SD.
That's a bogus survey though folks. I understand that it costs money to do anything, that includes developing MP but representing suvey data as accurate and representitive of the gaming community as a whole is bogus. The world of MMOG's is a great example of how the game could be successful. The MP exprience was around before the MMOG exprience was, and it was equally successful. I don't understand the resistance from the SP crowd here, to the few who represent the MP potential of GALCIV2. In the word's of SPOCK, it is not logical. You won't be losing anything with a MP feature, only gaining a much larger group of people who like to play, predominately MP games. They'll be spending their money to buy the game, play it, join the forum, offer suggestions just like you and me. Only there are more of them. Don't believe me?
Let me cite another example, Back in the day, when computer games were predominately single player in nature, more creative and varied, cheap, silly, and sometimes crude, most of the game design was focused on creating a deeper and longer exprience and show off the capabilities of a particular system. This is true of some games but not most. These games, many started as sims, or even text based interactive entertainment without much polish but plenty of depth, even though their content was limited. Largely, 1985-1990 most people didn't own a computer, 1992-93-95 the internet, the MP and the online exprience became the norm and brought a whole bunch of interaction to the table. A lot of MP expriences became the norm for releases and the power of PC's 10 years ago allowed visually realistic 3d realtime image generation to be possible. This got a lot of people interested. From that point on MP has always out performed SP no matter what the particular genre, or scope of the program. MP is not a feature to just ignore, or a feature really at all, it's sorta like calling tires a feature on your car, you need them to move, and you need MP to keep your game running too.
SPOILER WARNING (READ AT YOUR OWN RISK OF BEING INFORMED)
This is especially true when the gameplay itself doesn't vary signifcantly from game to game. Q. What are you doing in the first game? A. You're building a galatic empire, Q. What are you doing in the second game? A. You're building a galatci empire, Q..... Seeing the pattern, yeah well so does your brain, consciously and sub-consciously, you're brain is also outstanding at picking up on the subtlties that make up AI repetition and AI shortcomings. This is what brains do, what peaks their interest in things, and puts them to sleep in other things. New thing = Challenge, Similar things = Boredom. Not only would MP give players the ability to develop and copy strategies demonstrated by another human player, but the interaction between them would be at a level never even possibly attainable by the AI. Just isn't going to happen. The AI will never laugh at you for forgetting a nice fat juicy class 18 planet on the far side of the galaxy that you just lost to a guy you already don't like.
The human player or group of players you enter a game with might have great exprience and skill or suck. But you don't know until into the game how it plays out. They might be hoarding their money for a break out strike, or expanding super fast only to be bankrupt and unable to fight back even the simplest incursion five or six planets into their empire.
For those of us that have tasted the "blood" of the kill of another human player, or getting someone back who's gotten you, it's way more rewarding then defeating the AI that doesn't care or even know that you are there. You can fake intelligence all day long but even a child is more creative and bold and challenging then playing against the AI.
Another thing about playing in MP is you don't have to have ruthless efficiency you just have to outthink the other player, and work some diplomacy, and some tribute, things that don't matter for nothing against an AI, which is why SP suks vs MP. You can go on and on all you want saying SP GALCIV2 is perfect and yea it's good, it's 90% there, great game, little shallow in some areas, but that level of depth makes it perfect for MP games that are worth playing cause you wager something, personalize your empire, while keeping them moving because you aren't bogged into the tinyiest detail. Just adding to the discussion. Appreciate all who have read to the end.
