Civilization certified as a professional game?

[Henrik]

Originally posted by eNo
a possibility is that Firaxis could work something out with Gamespy and have a built in player-matching service like Lionhead did with Black and White. (It's like what Starcraft has except I think Gamespy maintains the servers instead of the game publisher/developer).

If this happens mac users wont be able to play this way (gamespy is not available to the mac), that might not mean a lot to most of you but there are plenty of people who use macs.
The myth II server that Bungie (and now Microsoft since they bought Bungie) runs is/was great, you could connect to it (both PC and Mac gamers) and then play games on it, all for free, plenty of "rooms" and several hundreds (if not thousand games) per day still take place.
Something like that would be better.

[Rasputin]

hopefully they will leave th eoption of connecting via IP address as is case now. I dont use anything but ICQ or apolyton to find games now, i hope it doesnt change ...

[BorderPatrol]

Originally posted by Rasputin
hopefully they will leave th eoption of connecting via IP address as is case now. I dont use anything but ICQ or apolyton to find games now, i hope it doesnt change ...

I don't want them to change that!! Don't get me wrong, that is a great option, that should stay!

What I am saying is that it would be FANTASTIC to have a site where games can be #1) rated, and #2) have the results recorded into a statistical database. The best way to do this, I believe, is to have those games played and saved on a Firaxis (or approved vendor) server.

I also like the idea someone brought up of Firaxis farming this out to another company that specializes in these kinds of networking issues. That way Firaxis doesn't have to take any resources away from game development.

Rasputin, if they leave that ability to connect by ip, the only issue you would have to deal with as far as this idea is concerned is if it is too successful you won't be able to find people for ip games because they will all be playing on the server! :

[BorderPatrol]

In looking at the results of the poll thus far, I must say I am quite surprissed at how many of you don't care how good our game is a s far as multiplayer is concerned! I find this quite disturbing since the game may very well be as good as we make it. If you don't think Firaxis is watching this forum and guaging thier efforts for multiplayer capabilities on thread such as this one, you better think again.

You guys who just think it's some kind of joke to be negative about whatever the topic is about are going to ruin Civilization III for all of us.

I was hoping to get intelligent responses by posting this poll/thread but this crap is really discouraging me about the quality of Apolyton forums.

[Executor]

I would just prefer that Firaxis spend their time perfecting the AI rather than the multiplayer.

[KoalaBear33]

my online thoughts

I have been trying to figure out online perceptions but people are flaming me badly on another thread. I'm trying to figure out how strategy games are when it comes to online features. Anyway here are my thoughts...

Don't even compare civilization to chess. Civ just isn't where chess is. Strategy games are just in their infancy when it comes to online gaming.

The first and most obvious thing is that the game must be balanced. If there are a few strategies that will win out all the time, then everyone would go for that and it won't be much fun. If there were tournaments then everyone would do the same thing and it would be pointless. This basically means that the developers should address any faults with the game on a continual basis (kind of like RTS games).

The second thing is something I'm not sure about. How long does it take to play strategy games online (I have never played online)? Hopefully a game will finish in a few hours, or in the worst case a few days.

They also need to come up with a good scoring system. If games finish quickly (few hours) then wins/losses is probably sufficient. But if they last longer then it is probably more meaningful to come up with a system that values your resources, cities and so on. I don't think they should use the in-game scoring system because those are often exploited and might not even cater to online gaming (online vs single player is usually a big diffrence because you are playing against "smart" people unlike the dumb AI ).

As far as how to do it, there are many choices. Since civ is a turn based game it should be very easy to create a good online environment. The best thing is to have a matchmaking server (as in RTS games eg. battle.net for Blizzard games; The Zone for AOE; WOL for Westwood games). I don't know if the developer/publisher of civ can afford this but I think they can.

Once all these are satisfied and online gaming is stable, then civilization can follow one of two paths. First option is for the developers/publishers to set up their own tournaments, ladders, and so on. In this case, the developers must monitor the ladder and watch out for abuses and that sort of thing. The other option, which is more desirable, is to get accepted into something like the PGL (professional gamer's league), where people play for prizes (I think there is a small entry fee for everyone though).

KoalaBear33

[JellyDonut]

I'm probably going to play Civ3 single-player the vast majority of the time. I would like to play with someone sitting next to me if possible and I might consider playing over the internet, but I definitely won't if there's a fee attached. I never bothered to play Civ2 multiplayer because of ICS, and won't play Civ3 on the internet if ICS is not contained.

[JellyDonut]

As for the format of the Internet playing, I would like to see something like Warcraft II Battle.net. A free server where Mac and Windows users can both play.

However, I don't think wins/losses will work well, because only 1 out of 7 people wins a 7-player game, so losses will be much higher than wins for most people. It should take into account the fact that so few people "win" the game and how long you lasted, i.e. if you play a 7-player game and are among the 2 left and lose, you should get more points because you outlasted 5 civs, or if say 4 civs are left and one goes to AC, the other 3 should get credit for staying around until the last civ won. It should also take into account resources, cities, economy, culture, etc. as was suggested earlier but civ score might work if it is not easily manipulated in Civ3.

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by BorderPatrol
In looking at the results of the poll thus far, I must say I am quite surprissed at how many of you don't care how good our game is a s far as multiplayer is concerned! I find this quite disturbing since the game may very well be as good as we make it. If you don't think Firaxis is watching this forum and guaging thier efforts for multiplayer capabilities on thread such as this one, you better think again.

You guys who just think it's some kind of joke to be negative about whatever the topic is about are going to ruin Civilization III for all of us.

I was hoping to get intelligent responses by posting this poll/thread but this crap is really discouraging me about the quality of Apolyton forums.

• People DO care about multiplayer options for civ3
  
• Firaxis IS watching the forum, but one thread with a couple of negative responses will not affect the game.
  
• Nobody thinks civ3 is a joke.
  
• The game will not be ruined by this one thread.
  
• There are intelligent responses in almost every thread, if you take the time to read them.
  
• Peoples' responses to your poll/thread have nothing to do with the quality of the Apolyton forums, merely about the people who post in them.

[Sabre2th]

Also -- I think a multiplayer setup like battlenet would be a vast improvement over previous civ options.

[KoalaBear33]

Originally posted by JellyDonut
However, I don't think wins/losses will work well, because only 1 out of 7 people wins a 7-player game, so losses will be much higher than wins for most people. It should take into account the fact that so few people "win" the game and how long you lasted, i.e. if you play a 7-player game and are among the 2 left and lose, you should get more points because you outlasted 5 civs, or if say 4 civs are left and one goes to AC, the other 3 should get credit for staying around until the last civ won.

I like your suggestion. When I said win/losses I meant that you will get a score and not a win/loss. For example, you might get 3 points for a win, and 0 or maybe -1 for a loss. A good example of a win/loss system is Starcraft's (RTS game). Starcraft (SC) awards points based on how good the opponent is (more points if a lower player defeats higher ranked player and vice versa). Let me paste what SC uses:

Winner's rating increases by K * (100% - probability_of_winning)
Loser's rating decreases by K * probability_of_winning

K=50 for new players
K=30 for players who have played 30 or more ladder games
K=20 for players who have attained a rating of 2400 or higher

Probability = 1 / (1 + 10^(-difference_in_ratings / 400))


A system similar to Starcraft's is suitable if they games are fast (ie. each game is only like 1 to 2 hours); if the games are longer then you want a more sophisticated system (otherwise everyone will end up with similar scores since they will play a small number of games).

It should also take into account resources, cities, economy, culture, etc. as was suggested earlier but civ score might work if it is not easily manipulated in Civ3.

Yep I want to see that too. I want to include resources, economy, etc in the scoring since that is more appropriate in a strategy game. But you have to watch out for exploits. For example, if it is easy to get a high score by having a large number of cities then people will just try to artificially boost the score by buliding tons of cities even if it makes no sense. So this must be designed well. In any case, I want to see resources, etc being counted. After all, this is Civilization and involves more than an RTS

KoalaBear33

[KoalaBear33]

Originally posted by Sabre2th
Also -- I think a multiplayer setup like battlenet would be a vast improvement over previous civ options.

What exactly do strategy games use now? Are they popular?

KoalaBear33

[Grumbold]

Please, please, please take general discussion about strategy gaming and online competition to the off-topic forum. When I get 10 minutes to read a few new Civ-3 posts I want them to be about Civ-3 not tournament scoring systems!

[Sabre2th]

This is a discussion about civ3 multiplayer, Grumbold.

[Hasdrubal]

While I do hope that all the wishes of you MP-ers out there will be fullfilled, I'm really only interested a good SP game.