Holy S***! NO Multiplayer Until Spring!

[Mister Pleasant]

Confirmed! I asked Firaxis about using Civ3 for my class next semester to participate in a Turing test and they wrote back:

Civ III is set to release in October, but the multiplayer component won't
release until some time next spring (May-ish), which will be too late for
your class this year. I could send it to you for possible use next year once
it's released.

[Provost Harrison]

Dammit, that is very strange. I thought with the experience gained with SMAC they would have had no problems. SMAC's MP worked straight out of the box, and thus I thought it would be even less of a problem with Civ3...and I sincerely hope they do not intend to charge for a new version of Civ3 so you can play MP...that would be seriously bang out of order...

[Urban Ranger]

But you don't need MP capability for a Turing test.

[Robert]

Firaxis would make a *VERY* big mistake by releasing the game without multiplayer !

It's 2001 !! Not 1996 anymore !
ALL major games that are being released these days are multiplayer !

Just only a *few* people will purchase a MP add on.

I just can't believe this to be true.
Releasing civ3 without mp sounds really impossible to me, and not really like an option.

Dan Magaha, can you clarify this to us ?

[Robert]

what's a "turing test" btw ?

[Bereta_Eder]

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by CyberShy
what's a "turing test" btw ?

It's a test devised by Alan Turing for artificial intelligence. Basically you have a human sitting there, either watching or interacting, and decide if what he is watching (or interacting with) is human or not. Of course, all the test object seeing is a computer terminal (or a PC in this case).

[Buck Birdseed]

Very interesting. Novel approach for getting news as well.

Still, being a born sceptic I'd like to ask you to post the whole message, please.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
But you don't need MP capability for a Turing test.

How else would you do it?

[Steve Clark]

It's a good thing that I don't care about MP at all (if this news is true). Hate to be in the shoes of someone who does.

[Patriqvium]

Well, this is exactly what that Finnish preview predicted... I think they knew it already, but were afraid to admit that...

[Provost Harrison]

I can manage without MP myself for a while, but I still find it a bitter disappointment that I will not be able to MP...especially if we have to wait a considerable period of time. You'd all better get up to speed on your playing before launching yourself into the MP arena...

[Ralf]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Firaxis would make a *VERY* big mistake by releasing the game without multiplayer !

Not that long ago, several civers thought it would be a really good idea if Firaxis waited with the Civ-3 release until spring-02 (the "they shouldnt rush it" argument). Now the single-player part together with all kinds of editors, is released before christmas-01, while the multiplayer-part is released spring-02. Why? Because Firaxis dont want to rush the multiplayer-part. Isnt this good news?

[tishco]

they said there would be revoltionry MP support which they woundnt say.
wot they ment was they are revolutionary in having none in 2001

[CapTVK]

Meanwhile...


Some caravan traders see a wandering hermit in the desert constantly yelling: "I TOLD YOU SO! I TOLD YOU SO!!"





Who wants to make a wager that the MP option will come 'free' with the first datadisk?