Galactic Civilizations Multiplayer

Either as an expansion or a sequel I am 100% in favour of multiplayer in Galciv. BUT, not if it is going to cut parts/fun from the single player aspect of the game. For me its first of all a single player game and then anything else. (that is for all my games btw).


~SDC~

Yeah, nothing pushes a game to its true potential like multiplayer.

Multiplayer is not going to happen- not now, not ever for GalCiv. In a future version, who knows, but it will not be an aspect of GalCiv as it is now.

oh, multiplayer can't be to far off. Multiplayer is the "hip" new craze its bound to happen sooner or later.

The issue has been discussed more than once and it's definite that it will never happen in galciv(1).
YES it would be cool, but it would be nearly impossible to implement it for galciv was designed as a 1-player game from the beginning and adding multiplayer would result in a insane ammount of work.

However, there have been so many people demanding it that, I guess if there ever is a galciv(2), the chances that it will include multiplayer seem quite good.

Well, when you were done with your tantrum you made a good point. It is quite definite that galciv's 2 will have multiplayer. But if there are as many people as you say there are demanding multiplayer, than the game designers would be under great pressure enough to get multiplayer on the road. Its probably already underway as we speak. If its not then thats just bad bussiness.

If I'm not mistaken, they are concentrating on coming up with a "downloadable" character, which will play as intelligently as a human, just without the hassle of the internet connection. Isn't that why Stardock is downloading all of our game info?

The problem with multiplayer turn-based games is volume of sales. There aren't enough "hard-core" players around to sell to. People who aren't hard-core (i.e., don't have hours a day to play the game) don't buy the game, because if you only run a few turns (or 1 turn) a day, the games take forever to play out.

A perfect example of this is "Stars!". They could never get the sequel game published simply because there aren't enough people out there to buy it. All the people like me and my co-workers, who initially started playing it gave up on it, simply because multiplayer took MONTHS to complete, and the AI wasn't very good for single player.

Right now, TBS games work best as single player. I can learn all the same strategies, and share ideas with the experts, even though I will never be able to complete games with the speed they do. If I can complete a game a week, I'm doing good.

Now real time games are a whole other story. I'm glad to hear that SWG has good options for soloers. EQ required WAY too much time and large guild organization to play at the high end, for someone with a limited play schedule.

Well, Crushbone, I also have examples of games that take ages to complete yet people still play them, Empire Deluxe is one of them. I had games taken years due to not enough time, but there was never a problem finding people to play with. And I am talking about PBEM not "live". If the game is good, it works and people want to play against other people then people will buy it.


~SDC~

If people could take the time to play single player, then that amount of time could also be put to play multiplayer. Any person that loves playing galciv's for single player will certainly enjoy playing it for multiplayer. The resources to make it for multiplayer would be considerably high but they would get a lot more in return when people buy it. As for enough "gamers" to play it, they're all right here in the metaverse and in the forum. There is something about the feeling of knowing that you are playing another person that satisfies a person's gaming 10 times it would on single player. Multiplayer would most likely make everybody happy and want to spread the word.
-The same situation was debated in Ambrosia's Escape Velocity Nova but with enough pressure they eventually gave in to the people's demands.

Hm. Maybe you didn't get my point.
Anyway, as I said it has been discussed before.
Check this thread:
http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?id=44154&BID=GF&page=1#62783
Frogboy and CodeMonkey explained very well the reasons against adding multiplayer to galciv1.
It is no minor change - it is more like trying to turn a motorbike into a car. And the effort to do this and the ammount of time and work needed therefore just doesn't pay and would stop the stardock team from doing other wirk and updates for several months.
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As someone who solely plays singleplayer, I support a multiplayer initiative ONLY IF it does not take away resources that could be used to make singleplayer better.

I actually am glad GalCiv does not have multiplayer, since it feels those resources were used to make the game style I enjoy playing better.

I am a selfish and horrible man.

-Yook

Yes, but the point is, how many NEW games of this type are getting development dollars spent on them? My guess would be a number approaching zero. The question isn't whether there are some people who would play, but whether there are enough of these people to justify the development costs.



But, the problem with that theory is, if I only have half (or a quarter, or a tenth) of the time as another player, we're probably not going to play a PBEM game together, cause I can't do turns fast enough to suit them. The fast guys will play amongst themselves, and they will be relatively few, while the slow guys will be few in numbers cause it takes too long to play (for most people's tastes).

Note, I have nothing against a multiplayer version coming out, I just don't think it's likely, given the probable market size available. If I'm wrong, well, then good for you guys who would play Personally, I'd probably never bother.

I must be the only one (ok, maybe me and Yook) that doesn't give a fig about multiplayer and never will. I don't have the time, schedule, or contacts to play any strategy games multiplayer. I play computer games to entertain myself for about an hour at a time. It's more stimulating than television, at any rate.

All I want is a good, clean, challenge at single player - I will never purchase a game based on multiplayer. Heck, I loved Diabloii and I ONLY played that single player.

Sigh...
What part of no is so hard for people to understand ? Brad has said this, and whatever this kid thinks, its Brad's choice in the end- no one else's.

I think people look at GalCiv and say, hmm, why is it not multiplayer like 99% of the games out there (99% is an inflation, but you get my point). And they ask why. It's a good question.

Brad told us why many months ago, but obviously not everyone was around then (new blood is always a good thing). So, in a nutshell, it's too hard to convert GalCiv, which was meant soley for single player, into a good multiplayer game. IT would have to be a new game, i think just to justify the huge programming/development cost. Brad had mentioned earlier they have yet to break even on GC, by the way.

Maybe for GC2 we'll have multiplayer, but don't count on it.

Yea i love this game but i will not buy another one unless its MP ....BOTF was the exact same game as gal civ & it was MP ,,, I had so many hours of great fun ..also I thought other things paid for gal civ ...

but no MP = bad in the future
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Personally, I hate it more when they take the concept of a good single person game and lame it by emphasizing multi-player too much. "Ooh, we got nice death match maps, but no campaigns." Or, "Look at our neat 50 zillion units you can build to kill your friends, but there is no random scenario generator and the AI totally sucks."

A design philosophy of TBS should be to make a great single player game and then maybe take it to the next level by adding multi-player and features to support that later. It became a pretty sad gaming world from my perspective when RTS and online gaming became the norm. People who had more time for solo gaming than multi-player gaming got left out in the cold a lot more often.

The people down at stardoc can make galcivs multiplayer without taking anything away from singleplayer. Yes it would take a lot of resources but the profit would be equally as great. It would take a lot of work to make it multiplayer but galcivs really isn't that much "RAM required" anyway. While they are at it they can give galcivs some new single player features as well. Now a day everything has a standard to meet. All computers are now usually AGP, all cars have to be able to go faster than 60mph. Usually when a product does not meet this standard it is often turned away and made useless. In time people will get tired of single and lust the intensity multiplayer.

I personally hope that day never comes. I'm not a fan of MPGs and I think the problem with most games these days is the developers think they have to make MP options, at the cost of gameplay.

Yeah, and then you'll hit 40, and have kids running around the house, and realize that a nice single-player game that's there for those short periods of time when it's convenient to you, isn't such a bad thing after all

No sir, I don't like it (MP), don't like it one bit.

-Yook, paraphrasing (badly) the (old) Ren and Stimpy Show.

Whew, are you done yet so I can wipe the tears from my eyes from laughing?

You, first off, have no idea what anyone in this thread or the others that were pointed out to you mean by resources. We're not talking computer resources, we're talking the real kind: money and manhours. Do you think that game designers are working with an unlimited Federal budget and competing for the future of youth mind control? No? Good, because then you should understand what real resources are.

If just one programmer has to work for one week on a feature they'll need to sell a couple of hundred extra copies just to pay for that. If it takes 6 programmers 6 weeks to implement some feature, then they need to sell several thousand extra copies to turn a profit.

If you think the half-dozen or so people on this board who have argued passionately for the alleged necessity of multiplayer would translate into the tens of thousands of additional copies it would take to justify adding it on then I hope you have a good financial advisor to keep yourself from going bankrupt and never being able to retire.

As for people dropping SP for MP, this claim has been coming up since the days games like WC2 finally gave us a reason to network our computers, and MP still represents a fraction of the gaming going out there on computers. Given human nature, it will continue to be a small fraction of the gaming out there. Some segments of society may indeed prefer MP, but most PC gamers would just as soon have a good, satisfying time killer that doesn't require anything more troubling than starting the game.


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Code Monkey definitely said it.

Personally, I am not too keen on multiplaying aspects. I used to play a multiplayer text-based browser game for 2 years. It was the only game I played. When I wasn't putting hours into the game or my school work, I was putting the rest of the day into forming connections with people, building relationships with people who wouldnt think twice of stabbing me in the back to benefit themselves.
Point is, multiplayer isn't all its hyped up to be. I bought EVE recently, played it a few times and havent touched it for a few weeks simply because the multiplayer aspect no longer interests me. GalCiv, on the other hand, does. A lot.
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Its very interesting what is going on in here.

At one hand we have those who want mp in this game very much, perhaps even too much for the good of their point. Then we have those who are "also" fanatic, but for the SP portion of it. So much so that they are scared that a MP aspect in the game will magicaly ruin the game for those who prefer the SP.

I just want to say something for most of those who want a MP in, MP is good when done correctly, also its not like we are talking about Counterstrike, having mp in a sequel lets say, does not mean that the SP part will be reduced to but a shadow of itself. Trying so hard to appear like most people hate the idea of MP is not doing good to the other side either.

Can't we all just get along? (under my boots)


~SDC~