Rather then beating horse right now I'm going to grab a sandwhich. And then go play some joint ops, while I'm dead and waiting for a respawn I'll be dreaming about how cool it would be waiting for a MP opponent to fire back a diplomatic response in GALCIV2 MP.

I don't usually mind bad spelling, but usually I have some vague idea of what was meant. In this case did you mean "indelibly" or "inedibly"? In either case I still have no clue as to what you meant.

I dropped the 'd' in the word, call it a typo.

If you don't get it, then you don't get it, no sweat off of my back.

I dropped the 'd' in the word, call it a typo.

That's fine, everyone has typo's, no offense intended. So which word did you mean?

If you don't get it, then you don't get it, no sweat off of my back.

No need to get hostile, as I said no offense was intended.

I think there's a big difference between a typo here and there and poor use of the language. The typos I can get through, but when people make almost incomprehensible posts, that's somewhat irritating. Aside from people using English as a second language, I really wonder how some people can write so poorly.

Anyway, the OP is about hotseat, but the thread has wandered into the topic of multiplayer in general. I think the problem is hotseat has many of the same design hurdles to get over as other forms of multiplayer so when talking about hotseat, you're talking about the other modes of multiplayer as well. Personally, I see the value of LAN play, but not so much internet play. It's the same situation when comparing those two modes of MP. So, it sounds like a case of all or nothing since the various MP modes share the same challenges from a production standpoint.

Just to say, I think that almost nobody who didn't buy galciv2 because of the lack of multiplayer would ever buy multiplayer expansion. It's simply because he would have to buy galciv2, expansion dark avatar, and expansion multiplayer... How much money would be all of that? Nobody would be happy with just galciv2 and multiplayer without DA, knowing the DA's possibilities... I know I will not buy it, and I admit that I would rather buy DA than multiplayer because I only want hotseat and I'm not willing to pay for internet LAN and other things I will never use...

It's simply because he would have to buy galciv2, expansion dark avatar, and expansion multiplayer

Considering that DA will only be going to retail as a combined GC2+DA package which will replace standard GC2 on the shelf, it stands to reason that (my personal prediction, do not interpret this as an official statement) if we do a Multiplayer expansion, the same thing will apply. Those who hadn't bought the game at all before can pick it up for a competitive price and jump right in, without having to spend lots on the base game and prior expansions separately. And to them it would be just as if the game had the new features from the start.

I admit that I would rather buy DA than multiplayer because I only want hotseat

As noted on the other thread you posted, DA will not have multiplayer, hotseat or otherwise.

That's all I wanted to know, and are very happy that expansions will be stand-alone packages!
Kryo, you have been one of the most helpful persons on this forum, all other just think they are smart and talk rubbish!

Kryo, you have been one of the most helpful persons on this forum, all other just think they are smart and talk rubbish![/quote[

That's because kryo's paid to do this, we aren't. Thus we have much more freedom of speech

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

I'm actually gonna stand up for StarDock on this one. It's not as easy of a change as yall think. When having more than one active player it adds a lot of special cases that need addressing that aren't already.

For the interface side:
How will trades work between two players? - yes, this does mean that the entire trade module would have to allow for what both players would agree to. Also, it does kind of throw the value of diplomacy off, since as you research diplomacy, it will not physically in real life make trades sound better to your buddy.

How will turn ordering go? Does one player always get to go first and it stays in the same order? This would change ship battle and invasion strategies like crazy, not to mention value of AI trading compared with turn position. And you can't just alternate... when you add hotseat you're adding for X players, not just a second.

For the under the hood side:
How many of your CPU's have trouble handling one player now? If you ever lag between turns, it's going to be exponential as you add players. These are more objects that are going to have to be loaded, activated, deactivated, etc. And it is also going to be a lot of information passing. Yes, you can "change" the active player in the save files, but that hack isn't an actual solution to a multiplayer environment. Just because you can swap who's at the helm through a filesystem does not mean there is a capability for control swap inside of one turn. The bottom line is we don't know how these guys have engineered the actual .exe. Their control driver could be fairly complex and written specifically for one person as a special case. Your program and object design make a huge difference when expanding on something like this. In this case, hotseat mode may be an entirely new driver, which i'm guessing isn't too much less than a few thousand lines of code... but that's assuming they've wrote this in C, C++, like most desktop games.

Don't get me wrong, it would be nice like crazy to have... but unless you have a programming background, and have seen their design model or source... don't assume this is such an easy change plz.

For me, it would be enough to start as a team with one player (already possible), have shared vision with him (minor tweak?) and have my friend play as my teammate (via ctrl+shift+z cheat), no need for different diplomacy, when i will do trading with my friend, computer diplomacy as it is now will be fine (we will just use gifts)... and order of things could be:

1. I play "default player" empire, (then ctrl+shift+z and we go to part 2.)
2. My friend plays "his" empire
3. All of the AI players play, and me and my friend look what is happening (allied vision. No need for replaying AI moves)

In DA we will be able to customize all AI players (and the one that my friend will be using), so all we need now is two things:

a) shared vision (I don't know how hard is this)
on step 3, the AI must play all empires except mine and my friends! Maybe this can be solved like this: AI just start playing with first empire available (the one after my friend, i think it is already like that), but one minor tweak: before AI starts to play, it reset "player control" to default player (ME), so i don't lose my turn.

I'm hoping that this is not more than a one-hour-job, and someone will make my prays come true (and list this as undocumented feature until real multiplayer arrives). If it is a big-time-job, then don't bother, I will wait for multiplayer expansion!

No hard feelings!

I'm hoping that this is not more than a one-hour-job

It is far, far more than that to do any sort of multiplayer, including hot-seat.

I'm hoping that this is not more than a one-hour-job

Will you direct me to your dealer please?

I'm hoping that this is not more than a one-hour-job

Why do i have a feeling this is coming from somebody who would take 3 hours to write "hello world" in a new language?

By the way, is there any feasible way for a developer to get a hold of your guys source or an engine? Obviously it's not an open source project, but the more I think about it the more curious I get.

n0v4k4n3,

We currently don't have anything in place for people to license our code.  You'd have to get a job on the games team and move to MI to see our source code.

 

we'd have to make several changes to the interface in order to handle true hotseat mode including changes to the main menu, options screen, setup screens, diplomacy screens, end game screens, etc. We'd have to re-write the turn handling code. We'd have to re-write the ship moving code. We've have to re-write the message handling code. There would be several hundred (if not thousands of places) where we would have to change the code to account for the fact that there are multiple human (non-AI) players instead of just one.

Wow, that sounds like a lot more work than I thought it would be. It's pretty easy to see how people just assume that hotseat would be a simple one hour operation though. It's a shame that the game wasn't programed with hotseat in mind from the get-go, as you would have saved time putting in MP when/if you later do a multiplayer expansion, and it probably wouldn't (correct me if I'm wrong) have taken too much extra effort in the first place.

Rolling eyes!

It's pretty easy to see how people just assume that hotseat would be a simple one hour operation though

Yes it is, they're ignorant.

Also, I'm fairly sure I recall Cari or someone saying it'd never be hotseat.

and it probably wouldn't (correct me if I'm wrong) have taken too much extra effort in the first place

Although it sounds like you have no software development experience, you do have the right idea. When you have your base design you make it in a way that allows change in certain directions so it will be easier later. The trade off is that flexible design usually means more initial development time. I'm fairly certain this has been said many times, but the market for multi player, of any kind, is just too small to make it worthwhile.

Yes it is, they're ignorant.

That's a pretty mean thing to say... you sound like me . But seriously guys, I'm an experienced programmer, so I have a better idea of how long things will take. *However*, with my experience I know this: unless you can see exactly what you are working with and have at least 80% idea of what you're doing you can NEVER accurately measure difficulty/length of implementation.

We currently don't have anything in place for people to license our code. You'd have to get a job on the games team and move to MI to see our source code.

understandable


...looks like I'm gonna have to go up to MI and go Solid Snake on this

Although it sounds like you have no software development experience, you do have the right idea. When you have your base design you make it in a way that allows change in certain directions so it will be easier later. The trade off is that flexible design usually means more initial development time. I'm fairly certain this has been said many times, but the market for multi player, of any kind, is just too small to make it worthwhile.

Yeah, I don't have any software development experiance yet, but I am taking CS (first year right now), and I pride myself as a 'hardcore' gamer

Yes it is, they're ignorant.

Yeah, but those ignorant guys probably represent %95 or more of the people who play Galciv. I was ignorant of how much effort would be needed for hotseat until I read this thread.

Yeah, but those ignorant guys probably represent %95 or more of the people who play Galciv. I was ignorant of how much effort would be needed for hotseat until I read this thread.

There's a difference between thinking "It wouldn't take THAT long, would it?" (blissful naivette), "It would be done quick enough to throw in easily" (mild ignorance) and "You could do it in your lunchbreak if you wanted" IN A THREAD WHERE IT HAS ALREADY BEEN STATED THAT IT IS TOO LARGE A FEATURE TO IMPLEMENT (rampant stupidity).

understandable

You realise they're actually looking to employ experienced developers, at least last time I checked?

You realise they're actually looking to employ experienced developers, at least last time I checked?

Ya, but being dug in @ a job paying for ur schooling all the way in PA makes it difficult. Plus my expertise aren't in gaming, but these are just general software development comments.

But source is asking for a bit much with the xml mod configs...

And anyway, there's no reason to treat intelligent people as idiots. I ARE INTELGENT! YOU FEELINGS BAD ME MAKE!

My comment would have looked better had I used the right smiley ( not )

Other than that

And anyway, there's no reason to treat intelligent people as idiots

I try not to

I for one have no interest in multiplayer. I would rather the programmers stay the course and make their existing code as bug-free as possible and enhance it with extra features (like Dark Avatar).

This game was created from the start as single-player, I bought it fully aware that it was for one player, and will play it exactly the way it was intended.

If I'm in the mood to play multiplayer, I will play a multiplayer game, one that was designed from the beginning as multiplayer, as that game will offer a superior multiplayer experience than a game that was made from a single-player perspective.

This seems to be a universal problem with games... people want to make them something that they are not. Instead of expecting a game to do something other than was intended, it's preferable to purchase a game that accomodates what you desire from the start.

If I'm in the mood to play multiplayer, I will play a multiplayer game, one that was designed from the beginning as multiplayer, as that game will offer a superior multiplayer experience than a game that was made from a single-player perspective.

Than why hotseat works so well in heroes of might and magic, master of orion, and list go on for many TBS games? It looks to me that your view of multiplayer is "go and kick ass" and single player is "sit down and think"
for me, hotseat is just like playing single player, but with my friend as an ally; something more like a cooperative play

There are great TBS hot seat and multiplayer games out there, sure. And when I want to play hot seat or multiplayer, I play them, not GCII.

I think GCII has a lot of "candy" that would bog down a multiplayer game. Ship design in multiplayer? I can get lost for an hour in that thing without even noticing.

I don't see anything wrong with making a game that's created with just a single player in mind. You can go into great detail, much more than is tolerable for a multiplayer game in my opinion.

I don't use ship design, I just throw propulsion, weapons, armor and life support as needed on a hull, maybe put some wings or use one of my designs from before for my ships to differ; no one-hour-losing.
I don't know what would take more time? Even battles in galciv2 are shorter than in HOMM...
Other candy is candy for me and my teammate also because we both watch it, if we see something new and funny we both laugh...
Through the game we make suggestions one to another, what to do and stuff, in that way we learn one from another, it's cooperative and there is no "non tolerant things"!