Will MP suck?

[Heraclitus]

-No mention of Pitboss, the ideal form of MP for a game that rewards micro management like Colonization will.

-Only 4 civs, means lacck of diversity even if we can have more players (bule Spain, yellow Spain, purple Spain, ect... )

-If I'm wrong in my assumption above, and we can't have several players playing variations of the civs, then we have a whole new problem. Since there are a lot of people who will quickly tire of the games with few players.


PS Will Col come with a scenario where you can try your hand as the natives? If so why not make it a MP scenario?

[Dale]

From the latest PALGN preview:

The multiplayer menu comes fully stocked with LAN, internet, hotseat and play-by-email options. We didn't get to try out any multiplayer games, but imagine it will involve each player trying to cut themselves free of their homeland while also competing for territory and resources. It's an interesting prospect, but it's almost inevitable that the vast majority of Colonization game time will be spent in single player mode. It's good to have the option, though.

Does "internet" mean lobby or pitboss? We'll have to wait and see I suppose.

[Heraclitus]

I pretty sure lobby. Since that's what it meant for civ4.


Also I'm disappointed they didn't try to invest more into the MP aspect. This was what really made Civ4 stand out in the civ series.

[snoopy369]

It probably means lobby, but that doesn't mean there isn't PTBS. That was always a separate executable, and you can't expect reviewers to have half a brain, not to mention actually look for that ...

I'm fairly confident the MP will be there and solid, or as solid as it could be. Understand that Col is primarily a SP game, because you're always fundamentally competing against Europe first... you can compete with other players also, but it's never going to be as direct as Civ.

[Grandpa Troll]

PBEM is also interesting

However I am in a PITBODSS game with dedicayed players and we have IIRC, 6 different and do a turn about every 24-30 hours

Very good turn rate, often times much quicker!!

Im looking for a PBEM and also writing a storyline alongside with hopes to get a few fellow participants with same mindset!

[conmcb25]

No

[Ellestar]

Multiplayer will suck, no doubt about it. Noone from Civ3/Civ4 ladder was in beta. That means that developers didn't even try to balance the game for multiplayer.

[Heraclitus]

[Dale]

Originally posted by Ellestar
Multiplayer will suck, no doubt about it. Noone from Civ3/Civ4 ladder was in beta. That means that developers didn't even try to balance the game for multiplayer.

There is no way for you to know that.

I know for a fact that there were some MP testers.

[Ellestar]

Originally posted by Dale
There is no way for you to know that.

You mean, when developers don't do any basics so to make a good MP, a miracle may happen and MP will be ok? Sorry, i don't buy it. Try to base your faith on something solid, maybe it will help to convice others.

Originally posted by Dale I know for a fact that there were some MP testers.

Maybe there were "Some" MP testers but that doesn't change anything at all. If i'll test a fighting game or a racing game or a chinese-english dictionary, it will not do any good. You need a good competitive players so to test MP balance. Say, War3 had 5000 beta-testers testing specifically Battle.net matches, yet it took many balance patches and an expansion to make it somewhat good.
Also, if devs don't listen to MP testers then everything is pointless anyway, as it was with Civ 4.

[Dale]

Originally posted by Ellestar

You mean, when developers don't do any basics so to make a good MP, a miracle may happen and MP will be ok? Sorry, i don't buy it. Try to base your faith on something solid, maybe it will help to convice others.

You mis-understood me. I said you had no way to know that as you were not on the beta test. It had nothing to do with developers.

Maybe there were "Some" MP testers but that doesn't change anything at all. If i'll test a fighting game or a racing game or a chinese-english dictionary, it will not do any good. You need a good competitive players so to test MP balance. Say, War3 had 5000 beta-testers testing specifically Battle.net matches, yet it took many balance patches and an expansion to make it somewhat good.
Also, if devs don't listen to MP testers then everything is pointless anyway, as it was with Civ 4.

So, like Civ4 you demand that the developers listen solely to the 20,000 MP players and ignore the other 1.96 million single players? (Based on Firaxis figure of 2 million Civ4 units). I know which number I'd be listening to.

[Ellestar]

Originally posted by Dale
You mis-understood me. I said you had no way to know that as you were not on the beta test. It had nothing to do with developers.

No way to know what exactly? I'm saying that it's possible to make conclusions based on knowledge of what beta-test was and what it wasn't, and on a previous developer's practices.

Originally posted by Dale
So, like Civ4 you demand that the developers listen solely to the 20,000 MP players and ignore the other 1.96 million single players? (Based on Firaxis figure of 2 million Civ4 units). I know which number I'd be listening to.

Well, you only strengthened my point of view.

1) If you want a good MP, you need a good balance. Good MP balance doesn't make SP games worse, it just means that many different strategies have about equal effectiveness and game is not dumbed down to a set of strategies that are more effective than other strategies no matter what. So, there is no need to ignore SP players, MP-quality balance makes the game strategically deeper.
Also, it's worth to note that Col2 at least some of the beta-testers don't understand it. That's why it's not enough to have "some" MP testers, you need an experienced MP players, and many of them, so to balance the game.

2) With Firaxis approach, only 1% of the players played MP. That just proves my point that Civ 4 MP sucked and Col2 MP will suck as well, after all their approach to MP didn't change. Balance aside, do you remember how hard it was to start a game when Civ 4 was released with all it's connection bugs and router issues?

[Dale]

Originally posted by Ellestar

No way to know what exactly? I'm saying that it's possible to make conclusions based on knowledge of what beta-test was and what it wasn't, and on a previous developer's practices.

You stated that MP will suck and that the developers didn't try to balance the game for MP. I simply stated there is no way for you to know that as you weren't on the beta test. Making a conclusion based on the past is a bad practice to have, both for games and in real life. I bet you would be proven incorrect quite frequently.

Well, you only strengthened my point of view.

1) If you want a good MP, you need a good balance. Good MP balance doesn't make SP games worse, it just means that many different strategies have about equal effectiveness and game is not dumbed down to a set of strategies that are more effective than other strategies no matter what. So, there is no need to ignore SP players, MP-quality balance makes the game strategically deeper.

Actually, I would counter that in MP 99% of players are only interested in military conquest, rushing and defeating someone as soon as possible. That does not fit your "good balance" and "different strategies" methodology. If a builder is playing and wants to build an empire, they are ALWAYS the first target in an MP game. I know, because I quit playing Civ4 MP because I was that builder. And this is the same for every MP game I've ever played. People are only interested in defeating you as fast as possible in MP. This is NO GOOD for single player.

2) With Firaxis approach, only 1% of the players played MP. That just proves my point that Civ 4 MP sucked and Col2 MP will suck as well, after all their approach to MP didn't change. Balance aside, do you remember how hard it was to start a game when Civ 4 was released with all it's connection bugs and router issues?

You are talking about a company with limited funds, resources and staff. If you owned the company would you like your team to spend 50% of the time on something that will only benefit 1% of purchasers? Absolutely not.

And quite frankly I had zero issues playing Civ4 MP when it was first released.

The bottom line is, Civilization and Colonization are NOT designed as multiplayer games. They were originally designed as, and have always been designed as, singleplayer games first and formost.

[Ellestar]

Originally posted by Dale
You stated that MP will suck and that the developers didn't try to balance the game for MP. I simply stated there is no way for you to know that as you weren't on the beta test. Making a conclusion based on the past is a bad practice to have, both for games and in real life. I bet you would be proven incorrect quite frequently.
***
You are talking about a company with limited funds, resources and staff. If you owned the company would you like your team to spend 50% of the time on something that will only benefit 1% of purchasers? Absolutely not.
***
The bottom line is, Civilization and Colonization are NOT designed as multiplayer games. They were originally designed as, and have always been designed as, singleplayer games first and formost.

First you state i can't know that it will suck because i wasn't in beta and then you state the core reasons why it will suck, and everyone knows these reasons. How much sense does it make? As i said, you just prove my point by your self-contraditing posts. Yes, they're SP games first, and once again company didn't try to make a good MP game from it (i pointed at the clues that prove it), hence my conclusion that MP will not be any better than in previous games.

Originally posted by Dale And quite frankly I had zero issues playing Civ4 MP when it was first released.

"Me" hardly is an intelligent argument in a discussion.

Besides, even if you personally didn't have a problem with your connection, when you tried to join a game where at least one player had a bad connection, you weren't able to connect to the game and your Civ 4 became bugged and wasn't able to connect to anyone else until you restarted Civ 4.

Obviously, that bug had dire effects on MP community: someone created a game, players joined in until the one with a "bad" connection joined in (closed ports, NAT etc.), and noone else was able to join after a "bad" player. But game was shown as half-full in lobby, and more players tried to join it. Everyone who tried to join that game got a permanent "can't connect" bug, and new players didn't know a workaround for that bug so after a "bad" try they weren't able to join even "good" games. All lucky "good" games become full and so they quickly went out of he picture, while lobby was cluttered with "bad" games forever.

That bug alone made a lobby unusable for all inexperienced players.

Originally posted by Dale
Actually, I would counter that in MP 99% of players are only interested in military conquest, rushing and defeating someone as soon as possible. That does not fit your "good balance" and "different strategies" methodology. If a builder is playing and wants to build an empire, they are ALWAYS the first target in an MP game. I know, because I quit playing Civ4 MP because I was that builder. And this is the same for every MP game I've ever played. People are only interested in defeating you as fast as possible in MP. This is NO GOOD for single player.

That's a common misconception of a less experienced players regarding many MP games, and it was proven to be false. First, i suggest you to read that article - Playing to Win, i'll never be able to explain is as good as in this article so there is no point trying to do that.

Second, you don't understand the concept of a balance. If you constantly lose in a game, that means that your strategy is suboptimal. In your case, you should balance your development with your defence (if you don't want to attack himself). Obviously, if you spend more resources for growth but you don't die in a process then you'll win with your "empire-building" strategy because of the economic advantage. When you're making a wrong choice and neglect defence, you pay for YOUR mistake with a loss. After all, it's a strategy game, not Sims. You're the only one to blame here for making wrong strategic decisions.

The game wouldn't have been balanced if it wasn't possible to defend against a rush and the only winning strategy was to make warriors/archers non-stop until someone wins or loses. This is not the case, so game is more or less balanced in regard to rushes, rush is not the only option you have. There were some issues with rushes with some units in ladder games (say, Camel Archer in Renaissance start), but they were banned. However, i doubt that you played Renaissance start. Also, that just further proves that the game wasn't balanced enough for MP as such imbalances shouldn't exist.

It's the same in SP games, you can't have zero defence near agressive AI civilizations - that's a losing strategy. In MP games, you need to scale your defences according to a situation in the game (you have a demo screen, power graph, scouting, emergency slavery for that). You do the same in SP - you'll not build as much defence near the same religion Ghandi as near Caesar, Napoleon etc.

[Heraclitus]

Actually Civ4 MP is one of the best in the civ series.

And the Diplo games of Civ4 have made the game seem almost like it was designed for MP.