Can you move on? C'mon...please... don't you got a life, or do you enjoy flaming people who correct mistakes you have made?

You were the first to drag this off topic, you were the first to attack what I said. And now you're making personal attacks. Yay, another twelve year old

SO ANYWAYS.. (Ignoring Marcanthonas)

Hotseat would be a viable addition to the game. I'm not talking about multiplayer here where it involves multiple computers. Talking about hotseat. It's already available in the game via cheat.

Is that too much to ask for? From Stardock's history, I dont think so. If its simple enough and there's a demand, they could add it to a patch. But on the other hand, if its more complex, then I guess it does have to wait for an expansion.

The question I guess is: How bad do we want it or is it even nessecary. I'm talking about hotseat where one computer is involved and friends take turn on it.

"It's really about the resources"
I completely agree.
"MP is never a bad thing to have."
I disagree, there are many cases where MP is bad, when it is implemented poorly, when it is thrown in at the last moment, when it does not drastically improve the gameplay exprience, if it doesn't generate more sales/buzz about the game, if it doesn't revolutionize and build upon the exprience of a SP exprience. These are all bad situations, pitfalls where going MP with a piece of gaming software doesn't work.

"It's just that's it's an expensive feature. The sales have to be there to justify it. I wouldn't expect Stardock to go into the red"

Nor would I. Nor would I expect any money making enterprise to do so, take a risk so deep and minimal in payoff at the end. But that's just it. The risk isn't near what the reward could be if the implementation was a great, revolutionary program, one that expanded out beyond what MOO and MOO2 were. Capitalized on the brand and offered something new, the long-deep, engrossing MP exprience. Something that is missing from the MP marketplace right now. (IMO)

"to satisfy what appears to be a minority of customers that want it over any other additions or improvements."

If you open up a page in a magazine, and cut out a 1/4" squared piece of paper and the only color in that segment is red, you'd think by only looking at that section, that the entire picture was red, but it's not, duh it's just the apple in a bowl of fruit. You guys staying stuff like, "to satisfy the minority" are trying to perpretrate the idea that it's a red brinck wall instead of the fruit bowl man.

Release MP, breed competition, set up a ladder, bring in community 3rd party add-ons take the game to a centralized server environment, do you seriously think you'd need more then a dial-up connection to even play this online? What are the boundries to success? Apparent lack of demand? Come on man the MP market is booming out there, consumers want expriences, rich, deep, customizable content, you can't afford to not take the risk if you can execute and implement. Charge a subscription if you want.

Try and fail. Learn what works in GALCIV2 and what not to do in GALCIV3. I would estimate just pulling a number out of thin air that of 300 million Americans, 50 million are in the demand market for gaming entertainment, maybe 1:100 so 500,000 are interested in this particular game, of those 1/2 are buying something else that's cheaper instead, 250,000, know about it, of those maybe 200,000 consider buying it, I would estimate that about 50,000 of those potential sales have been lost because there is no MP.

There I said it, I just presented to you a survey of my thoughts that has about as much weight as your survey. Mine is as accurate as yours, but the sample an probability of being reprsentitive of the entire group is impossible off. Still your measures of how many potential sales you are losing are way off, so far off you can't possibly know wihtout offering it.

That's the bottom line. If you could even try a demo of a MP exprience, with bugs and things that dont work right, I.E. a hotseat exprience, you would know wether or not there was something to be had righ there, wethere or not it's worth doing the extra development and building it.

Another point made which is silly is that it's perfectly good already, and I agree that it is good, but you have to mean good enought because there is no piece of software that satisfies everybody's desires, or performs exactly as you'd want it to. I've tried to objectively critique it as well as offer improvements in areas where it is weak. These would include the UP, the espionage/sabotage areas, ground battles, few other areas. You'll note that although some of these weren't in the original release SD does plan on offering some of them in the EXP pak. So asking for them/suggesting them seems to have some positive benefit on the game. Hopefully the implementation will be good and they'll be good for your game too.

That's all I got.

"to satisfy what appears to be a minority of customers that want it over any other additions or improvements." If you open up a page in a magazine, and cut out a 1/4" squared piece of paper and the only color in that segment is red, you'd think by only looking at that section, that the entire picture was red, but it's not, duh it's just the apple in a bowl of fruit. You guys staying stuff like, "to satisfy the minority" are trying to perpretrate the idea that it's a red brinck wall instead of the fruit bowl man.

This is my favorite part of the statement. People see polls like it's written in stone. It's not. People who dont' like a feature at first, might actually like it when they try it. I know plenty of people who hated the idea of MMOs. Most of them are now stuck in World of Warcraft.

If its simple enough.......

It's not.

Stardock had a survey that stated 25% of the market won't buy games with copy protection. In summery, stardock argued that even the loss of 25% of the market is too much and so they point that by not having a CD copy protection, they can capture that 25%.

Now, take the Multiplayer demand.. Is the loss of what ever percentage marketshare Stardock isn't getting because of the lack of MP a loss they could ignore? That's the question Stardock has to answer for themselves.

Kyro, quick question. I'm not an expert on game design and programming, but you might be.

How much harder would it be to implement a hotseat option compared to the upgrade we recieved that gave us more flexibility with ship design?

That's not the same thing. Stardock go without copy protection, they gain marketshare for nothing. If the multiplayer poll was accurate, then they don't gain enough marketshare and profit for it to have been a viable use of time, thus they lose money.

It's not as simple as "we drag in x customers". It's "how many more x customers do we drag in compared the the Y customers from Z idea, how much will X cost us, and how long will X take to do, all compared to Z and any other ideas that may be on the table".

No forms of multiplayer are simple, and hotseat is NOT really available as a cheat.  The cheat key just changes which player you are controlling.  There's a whole bunch of stuff that we would have to change in the interface, etc to make it really be hot seat.

We're NOT going to add in multiplayer in a patch for free, not even hotseat, and not PBEM.

We're also not going to add any form of multiplayer in Dark Avatar.  Multiplayer will be in its own expansion IF we do it. 

Stardock had a survey that stated 25% of the market won't buy games with copy protection. In summery, stardock argued that even the loss of 25% of the market is too much and so they point that by not having a CD copy protection, they can capture that 25%.

We didn't take a poll. A copy protection company took it, Brad saw and commented on it.

The GalCiv series has met and exceeded our sales expectations just fine without multiplayer thus far. But even if you really think that 25% of our market wants MP so bad they would not otherwise buy the game, think about this: how many *future* sales would we lose if we caved in to your demands and 'slapped on' multiplayer as soon as we can, and those people decided that GC (and any other games we develop *or* publish) was crap because of it?

That's not the same thing. Stardock go without copy protection, they gain marketshare for nothing. If the multiplayer poll was accurate, then they don't gain enough marketshare and profit for it to have been a viable use of time, thus they lose money.

I forget.. what was the survey number result?

How much harder would it be to implement a hotseat option compared to the upgrade we recieved that gave us more flexibility with ship design?

Achillus, a LOT harder. The ship design changes centered around one screen (only a few controls) and a small subsystem of the game.

Look, if you don't believe me, go code your own game.

Also, maybe I shouldn't have made the comment about "go code your own game" but we've replied to posts like this several times, and we made a sticky, and I'm really sick of people thinking that we can just throw in multiplayer.

I forget.. what was the survey number result?

MP won. However, Brad commented at the time that he wouldn't do multiplayer with that result, since he wanted at least a 66% win for MP to make it profitable.

Things have since then changed a bit by the look of it, and it appears to be planned for the expansion after DA, if DA sells well enough for MP to look profitable by then.

Again, not a matter of "MP beats 50%, let's do MP", because that would result in a very fine profit margin. 66% percent means it's economically realistic judging from the present userbase.

And as has been said, gc2 has sold well enough that they don't need to gain extra market ground to survive. They don't even need to release a second expansion, if DA sells less than expected.

Sorr

Also, maybe I shouldn't have made the comment about "go code your own game" but we've replied to posts like this several times, and we made a sticky, and I'm really sick of people thinking that we can just throw in multiplayer.

Sorry. But I'm not demanding for multiplayer? I'm just joining a discussion on the viability of multiplayer.. In particular, the hotseat options. Also, I know enough that throwing in multiplayer is not something you can just throw in. But since there is a way to hotseat already using the cheat code, I was wondering if that could be expanded to a true hotseat feature. I know a few programming language, but the extent goes only so far as to "Hello World." So with such an extensive knowledge of C++ programming, I ask questions. Sorry if that was a mistake.

I also reading others comment on their thought of that feature. We are not demanding... Just merely having a discussion on a subject we have no control over and would like to see. I thought the forums is where we could discuss such things and other things we wish to see. Maybe a MMO for Galciv, even though thats 99.99995 % that it will never happen.

And to clarify, I voted no on the multiplayer aspect on the poll because I don't like them that much. I've played MOO 2 on Ten.net and wasn't impress. After some thought, I would like a hotseat option if it was available, but i'm not holding my breath for it.


And as far as coding my own game. I doubt anyones gonna by a game where "hello world." is the only thing that they see over and over again. Might not even be that fun.

my bad.. I was thinkin of the publisher micropose. But some of you get the idea. Just because the feature isn't there, does not mean it would not make the game better and vice versa.

You've got it there, sort of.

Microprose was the publisher of the SimTex games (MoO1/2 and MoM). Microprose was then bought by Hasbro who started the MoO3 project, made some disasterous design decisions, and in the interum sold out to Infogrammes, who later changed their name to Atari, for obvious resaons.

That is part of the tale that is the creation of MoO3. I know because I was, virtually, there almost the entire time.


BTW, Alan Emrich the brilliant game/stategy writer and designer who was the heart and soul of MoO3, before things went terribly wrong, posts on this forum from time to time.

I hope this was of some use to someone!

Maybe a MMO for Galciv

It's called EVE

Kapeman, thats good to know. MOO3 wasn't that bad. I actually enjoyed a few of the features including the tactical combat. The primary thing i didn't like was that you had to travel through a specific path. And the governor screen and all that was a bit too complicated. All the other features would've been great. I still enjoy the aliens and the story of MOO3.

It's called EVE

Bah.. You ever played mankind? Not face of mankind. Just mankind. Their address is mankind.net. Would be great to see something like it with Galciv story.

Achillus,

First of all, yes, I jumped down your throat more than was probably warranted.

But I wasn't annoyed because I thought that you were demanding multiplayer.  I was annoyed because you were comparing two vastly different things.  You asked something that obviously had very little thought behind it.

Multiplayer affects every system in the game, even if it's just hotseat. 

Ship design is a small subsystem of the game, which is mostly self contained. 

As I said earlier, there is not a cheat key for hotseat now.  There is a cheat key that allows you to switch which player you are controlling, which is not the same thing.  It doesn't handle change of turn, the interface has no idea that the player has changed, and there is some data that doesn't get saved in save games unless you are the human (non-AI) player.  And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. 

How much harder would it be to implement a hotseat option compared to the upgrade we recieved that gave us more flexibility with ship design?

was my original question. I was not being sarcastic. I was really asking if was harder. It would similar to asking a mechanic how much harder it is to change an engine compared to changing the transmission. The proper reply from the mechanic would have been to tell me that replacing the transmission is fairly straight forward, but to replace the engine might be more complicated since I also have to make sure the transmission will also fit into the new engine.

And i'm sorry if you took it as such that i was comparing. I was not.. I know better than to question the developers of the game in question. I was asking because I was curious.

I am sorry that I hurt your feelings. I was already in a bad mood from reading this, yet another thread about why we need multiplayer and it can't be that hard to throw in hotseat, and I overreacted.

However, you don't go to the mechanic and ask how much harder it is to change the engine than it is to change the oil (which would be a better comparision anyway).  You go and ask him how hard is it to change the engine, how long is it going to take, and how much is it going to cost you?  That's far less likely to be taken the wrong way and get your head bit off.

 

That's true.. But when i get interested in something, I like to learn it. I do that by asking questions. And I am interested in learning programming, hench the my vast knowledge of making the "hellow world." program. I don't have time to go back to class, so i'm stuck with books. Problem is you can't ask books any questions. But yes, I understand how frustrating it can be. So no worries there.

Sorry for any misunderstanding.

Oh, if haven't noticed, i like to compare things. It gives me a better understanding. Like if I ask, how tall is the Eifel Tower. Sure they could give me a number which i wouldn't even grasp. But if I ask, how tall is the Eifel tower compared to the statue of liberty, i would have a better understanding.

Let me see if I understand this, feel free to correct me where I am wrong, Brad Wardell, creator, master CEO wanted to see a 66% or better yes vote to doing multiplayer when sampling a group that was predisposed to a single player exprience? R we really to believe that he believed that he'd ever get a number like that out of a poll on here?

"MP won. However, Brad commented at the time that he wouldn't do multiplayer with that result, since he wanted at least a 66% win for MP to make it profitable.
Things have since then changed a bit by the look of it, and it appears to be planned for the expansion after DA, if DA sells well enough for MP to look profitable by then.
Again, not a matter of "MP beats 50%, let's do MP", because that would result in a very fine profit margin. 66% percent means it's economically realistic judging from the present userbase.
And as has been said, gc2 has sold well enough that they don't need to gain extra market ground to survive. They don't even need to release a second expansion, if DA sells less than expected."

I'm not disputing that creating multiplayer or any feature wouldn't take time, money, effort, energy and introduce the possibility of spending all of the above and still failing to create a marketable product. Or worse yet, spending it, realizing it sucks, releasing it anway, and torching the brand. I'm disputing the figures and survey data that people on here seem to quote about how not enough players want the MP exprience for the price.

Also...
True and false. For every copy of product you can sell, you can reduce the price of each unit. Selling more copies, if you close off market segments, i.e. those who want MP in their games, then you are driving up both the cost to produce and the cost that you have to sell at to make profit on each unit.

"they don't need to gain extra market ground to survive." Yeah actually they do. Even though there isn't much competition in the market segment, they have tons of compeition in the computer game market as well as entertainment in general.

I want to applaud the decision for not releasing a MP game that would be as buggy as the 1.0 SP release that I got my hands on and would crash over and over and over again. Would have recommended even more beta testing of that initial SP product but again I understand it's a series of trade-offs and in that series hindsight is always 20-20, but looking at what your numbers were for dev costs and also how your initial release exceeded expectations, you might want to spend a lil of that capital getting a more accurate read of the demand for a well done MP exprience. If we have to wait for Sins of a Solar Empire, then perhaps so be it. But I just think that SD can and should do it better and at least make an attempt.

So do it after this release if you can.

Hotseat is tradition of TBS genre.
That's what made HOMM famous.

And is least time consuming Mp mode to make.
A real pity it didn't make it into "expanded" dark avatar feature list.

I mean, you can already through cheat swap the active players, only thing missing is diplo interface and a few tweaks.

I would be bold to say making this is more a patch material then expansion feature.