Gamespot says: "Just about the only disappointing thing about Civilization III is..."

[Provost Harrison]

Take what all reviewers say with a large Dead Sea full of salt. I remember one British gaming magazine that reviewed CtP more highly than SMAC and Civ2. Pah! Posterity didn't agree with them, did it?

I just hope that the issue of the MP isn't going to cloud the judgement of the reviewers as people should still be informed how the game works as an SP experience and let it stand on it's own merits...although I could understand their belligerance...

[Lee Johnson]

So, as you said, the actual reviews of hardcore civvers are the only indicators whether civ3 is good or not.

No, that might only be true if you're a hardcore Civ player. The rest of us might have lower standards.

[Deathwalker]

So long as that is the only problem with the game, we should be alright

[Howling Chip]

Originally posted by Jack_www
I would like to ask all the sp players out there a question. Do you guys ever get tried of playing the computer?

Was thinking about this last night in a way. One facet of why I enjoy CIV is that even with an AI that was not awesomely impressive, there were enough play angles (strategies, role play, empire simulation) to keep my replay interest high. I've never played CIV MP. Not because I did not want to.

The MP discussion, especially the ones on how to implement MP perked my interest. I've done several other games MP, bit not CIV.

The "block" I always have to get through is the "I will probably get my butt kicked" syndrome. And what is going to help me through this? How easily the MP system keeps frustration low. You know, getting online, getting into a game that has player attributes that match whatever my skill level is at the time, the management of dropped players (either from the "I quit" angle or network connection lost angle) etc. etc. No one wants to spend a ton of effort getting into a game only to get their butt kicked. I want to play, have fun, improve my skill, and play some more. Going through an arduous in between game process to get through this, or having games end prematurely for whatever reason, will turn me off to doing CIV multi player.

So yes, I get tired of playing the computer. No, I do not get tired of playing CIV solo. And yes, I hope that there's a point in the future where I am in a game with YIN, Jack_www and the other MP'ers.

[The diplomat]

Ok, ok, Yin, I think we get your point by now.

let us pretend that civ3 were the opposite of what it actually is, Yin's review might look something like this:

I got civ3 today, and started playing. The game is really dissapointing. Graphics are average. Music is repetitive. The new concepts don't integrate with the rest of gameplay. The game is way too easy on even the highest levels. But most importantly, the AI is still lame. It just doesn't understand basic concepts like attacking en masse. It still attacks one unit at a time.
But the game absolutely rocks because it has MP out of the box. This game is totally worth it with MP. Now, if the developper had done something like not include MP, I would have been mad, but the developpers are geniuses as they give the player the ability to hook up with other players in several different modes right from the first screen. You don't even have to bother with Single Player. Besides, nowadays who does anymore?

I think you get my point: if the game itself were bad but it had MP out of the box, would you be happy? The most important thing is the game itself. You can have the best MP, but if the game itself is crappy, then it does not matter. And this review seemed to indicate that civ3 will be an excellent game. That is what matters. You will get MP later. So don't worry!

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by The diplomat
Ok, ok, Yin, I think we get your point by now.

let us pretend that civ3 were the opposite of what it actually is, Yin's review might look something like this:

Actually, Yin26 beat you to it 3 months earlier.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22758&highlight=review

[The diplomat]

I just find it unbelievable that Yin is able to completely ignore 99% of a review that praises every part of the game, and zooms in on the 1% of the review that happens to mention something negative.

[HalfLotus]

Seems that Yin really wants others to agree with him. In this case he spooges all over himself when he sees that a "reviewer" (ooh-ahh) shares his point of view. If he wants MP, great, but why the excitement when someone from Gamespot agrees with him? Does he feel vindicated, justified? Neither Yin's or Gamespot's views on MP should affect other Apolytoner's views. For those who want MP, its a disappointment, for others it doesn't matter. Yin seems to want EVERYONE to care about MP like he does. That will simply never be the case.

[GoofyBoy]

There are many games out there that do have mp, but have failed and are worse off for it.

One of the was Vampire: The Masquerade and its Storyteller feature. Basiclly it was a FPS with multiplayer added where the server admin could "create storylines and manipulate the environment". But apparently it was an unworkable system and nobody or very very few people play it. They would have been better off not including it because people bought the game for this purpose, the single player was secondary to them.

The other problem with multiplayer is that its alot of work which only a small percentage of people will use. Its a whole other testing cycle to test it and could most likely delay the game.

There was a time where MP was a good selling point in a game. But unless its done correctly with a large people willing to play, its just added bloat.

[korn469]

posted by goofy boy
The other problem with multiplayer is that its alot of work which only a small percentage of people will use. Its a whole other testing cycle to test it and could most likely delay the game.

There was a time where MP was a good selling point in a game. But unless its done correctly with a large people willing to play, its just added bloat.

well maybe (who knows for sure) a small percentage of civ players, but some games like many FPS huge percentages of players play the game in MP mode only

and your second comment borders on surreal...why don't you declare that grafic cards will soon be a thing of the past as players move towards text based adventures...muliplayer is here to stay and it will get more important as time goes on

posted by Father Beast
How would I feel if there was only mp and no sp? beeen there, done that. Diablo II. I complained (to deaf ears) and never bought the game. never will unless they fix that abominable save system.

i only played one game of diablo2 single player, and that was because battle.net was down for the weekend and because my brother was out of town

i loved playing diablo2 hardcore
that was so fun
worrying if the player i was playing with was a murdering dog, trying to fight, to survive! it was great
the only reason i stopped (besides repetitive stress injuries) was a lack of time...what i am trying to say is that a well done multiplayer experiance can certainly add more enjoyment to the game

_________________________________________

i understand that civ3 is more geared towards single players, but firaxis did plan on civ3 having a multiplayer component, and a demo, and an open beta...but they had to shelf all of those to get civ3 out in time...so what we don't know yet is if by cutting out those things is did firaxis have enough time to make a legendary civ3, or is it just a pretty good game...that is my main fear about civ3 not having multiplayer

this isn't a fear, instead it is a pet peeve...firaxis has a perfectly good justification for not including MP: time and money constraits

the gaming industry is brutal and it is certainly dominated by economic factors...civ3 is a prime example

so Firaxis doesn't need any other reason than to say that time and money factors caused MP to get cut, and that is a legitimate reason

but then here on apolyton you have a bunch of people who seem to think that they need to make excuses for civ3 and firaxis...who then go and belittle the Multiplayer Community and the Multiplayer Experiance in general

this should not happen...there are just as many people who participate in MP as who create scenarios (probably more) and i would hate to see if firaxis had of cut the scenario editor instead of MP, people insulting the Mod community

there are many facets to the Civ community, and despite their size, all of those parts are equally deserving of respect...i more than understand the members of the MP community being upset since they are on the short end of the stick this time, i just hope that some elements of the single player only community will stop acting like the multiplayer community doesn't matter

lets hope that civ3 MP comes out soon either as a free patch or part of the civ3 expansion, and lets hope that the lack of MP doesn't cripple Civ3 in the highly competitive world of computer games

one last hope, i hope we can all come together

[GoofyBoy]

Originally posted by korn469

well maybe (who knows for sure) a small percentage of civ players, but some games like many FPS huge percentages of players play the game in MP mode only

Some rare games its a huge percentage of people.

http://www.gamespy.com/stats/

After the first handful of the games, the number of players/servers drop dramaticly. Same sort of thing on the weekend/evenings.

Except for MMORPGs, like you said, people buy games for singleplayer.

and your second comment borders on surreal...why don't you declare that grafic cards will soon be a thing of the past as players move towards text based adventures...muliplayer is here to stay and it will get more important as time goes on

Let me back up my statement;
Recent top 10 PC games

http://www.voodooextreme.com/comments.taf?postID=21723

Except for D2 and Op:Flashpoint these are all single player games. No multiplayer. (Unless Sims have MP).

I hope that Civ3 eventually comes out with multiplayer (I have a feeling its going to be something like Battle.net) but considering the gametype its silly not to buy it because of the lack of it.

[CDN_Harbinger]

I cancelled my pre-order of the LE tin because there is no MP in the game.

There are some principles at stake here: I am not going to pay up to $140(Cdn) for what I consider the complete game - $80(Cdn) for the LE tin and possibly another $60(Cdn) for the MP expansion (should one come available, as I'm sure it will; and yes this includes taxes).

I'll wait as I did for Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire and buy them together as a cheaper boxed set or separately at a song. Plus, it gives me lots of time to read the reviews and determine if it's worth buying at all. I still have a bad taste in my mouth after Test of Time (realizing that Firaxis and Infogrames had nothing to do with it's release).

Regards.

[korn469]

GoofyBoy

you are drawing the wrong conclusion from your stats

right now on the gamespy there are about 57,000 people playing half life

right now on battle.net there are about 239,000 people in about 112,000

in the current top ten games, three of them are diablo2 related, and three of them are the sims related, as far as i know the sims is the best selling game since it came out with diablo2 right behind it...so the top ten isn't quite as skewed towards single player as it seems...amd they are going to release the sims online (the multiplayer version of the sims) in the not too distant future...also don't forget that diablo2 has a very strong multiplayer following

here is another thing to consider...the civ franchise has sold four million copies...do 57,000 people still play civ2 on a day to day basis?

so that might just be civ and civ2 or it could be civ, civ2, SMAC, civ:tot they didn't specify

so the conclusions i draw from your facts are that there are jundreds of thoursands if not millions of enthusiastic multiplayers, and that it could really hurt civ for it to reject all of those players

however like i said, firaxis didn't have the time or money to include multiplayer, most likely because of the chaos of brian reynolds et al leaving and costing about 7 months of civ3 development time

so hopefully by cutting mp that gave firaxis enough resources to make the single player game excellent, because if it then it has nothing to fall back on

plus i also see scenario development as an abstract form of multiplayer, as is interacting on these communities

also you misquoted me, because i never intended to mean

like you said, people buy games for singleplayer.

multiplayer is just as important as single player, and if you ignore it then your single player must be even stronger, or you can expect to sell less games...its like in football, you can be strong or fast, but it is better to be both. Civ3 if the development process hadn't of been messed up at some point should have been able to produce a civ3 with both single player and multiplayer and have those items ready at the same time...if you schedule the process right then both segments get completed simultaneously, its not like they finish single player first and then move on to multiplayer...if the rumors are true that firaxis didn't start on multiplayer till august right before the game went gold then they knew quite a while ago that civ3 wouldn't have multiplayer, and it would have probably been best to let the fns down early

however i hope civ3 is great, and that we get multiplayer soon

[Wittlich]

Trust me, when Multiplayer Civ3 is complete - it will NOT be free. It will be sold as another game just like Civ2MGE and CIVNET before that.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Wittlich
Trust me, when Multiplayer Civ3 is complete - it will NOT be free. It will be sold as another game just like Civ2MGE and CIVNET before that.

Doesn't it depend on how much work is put in the MP? If MP is just civ3 slightly modified to include various MP modes then it should probably be a free dowload. But if MP turns out to be almost a different game in itself, with a different interface, different options etc then it would be unrealistic to expect anything less than a "civ3MPE".