More than 85% complete & Firaxis still aren't prepared to talk...

Alex 14 · July 28, 2001, 08:23

Sid Meier Says:

We’re working on some unique things with multiplayer, but we’re not ready to start talking about it yet. It has always been challenging to make multiplayer really fun in turn-based games and we’re looking at new ways of approaching that.

New ways of approaching multiplayer? I wonder what they are? Any ideas?

Wiglaf · July 28, 2001, 10:58

Hmm.. interesting he said that. Maybe a major matchmaker (similar to battlenet), or some advanced form of turn movement.

We'll find out soon enough

ChrisShaffer · July 28, 2001, 11:15

Maybe Simultaneous Turns of Play?

See http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000343.html#5

MarkG · July 28, 2001, 11:53

who mentioned 85%?

Solver · July 28, 2001, 12:14

Well, simulatenous turns are nothing new. I believe they got something absolutely new there.

ChrisShaffer · July 28, 2001, 12:54

Asynchronous simultaneous turns are definitely new. We're not talking about the simultaneous turns while directly connected (via LAN or IP) - we're talking about something that's a lot more like PBEM. Click the link above and read the proposal.

Solver · July 28, 2001, 13:24

Your right, for sure. Programming nightmare it would be, I think then.

Inverse Icarus · July 28, 2001, 17:17

i remember my first simu. moves game. and my last one. infact they were the same one.

Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto · July 28, 2001, 19:48

"85% complete and still not ready to talk."

they may be 85% done with the entire game, but they might just be only 10% complete with multiplayer.

and personally, I have know idea what their talking about..."New Multiplayer ideas that we're not ready to talk about."

ChrisShaffer · July 28, 2001, 19:50

How can you remember a simultaneous moves game? We're not talking about CivNet style here....nobody has ever implemented a Civ-style asynchronous simultaneous move game. Did you click the link above and read the proposal?

ChrisShaffer · July 28, 2001, 20:16

None of us know what they're planning to do with multiplayer....it's just that some of us have high hopes for improvements. I'm currently playing in six Alpha Centauri PBEM games - and they've all been running more than a year. I really hope Civ3 has better options!

TCO · July 28, 2001, 20:55

I think they're planning to leave MP as an expansion pack. Look at the performance with Civnet and Ultimate civ2.

Inverse Icarus · July 28, 2001, 21:01

one the zone, www.zone.com/civ2multiplayer, people were playing SIMULTANIOUS (sp??) MULTIPLAYER GAMES.

everyone MOVED their units at the same time.

Sabre2th · July 28, 2001, 23:20

Quote:

Originally posted by GP
I think they're planning to leave MP as an expansion pack. Look at the performance with Civnet and Ultimate civ2.

Firaxis wouldn't do this unless they were suicidal. I can say with some certainty that a lot of people here wouldn't buy the game if this were the case. Firaxis has to know this, at least. Plus, they've said that it was included already.

Alex 14 · July 29, 2001, 04:24

Quote:

Originally posted by MarkG
who mentioned 85%?

Someone did.

Locutus · July 29, 2001, 05:29

You have to consider the company's (and game's) interests. If they do have truly revolutionary ideas and publish those in an early stage, another gaming company might read them and decide to put the same ideas in one of their own games and rush that to the market before Civ3 is released. If they'd succeed in doing so, they could claim Firaxis stole their ideas and even sue them for it, forcing Firaxis to either pay them millions of dollars or remove the relevant features from Civ3.

ChrisShaffer · July 29, 2001, 09:03

UberKruX, that's a completely different kind of simultaneous movement. Try clicking this link:

http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000343.html#5

and read the proposal. It's not the same thing at all. The kind of multiplayer you are talking about requires:

1) That all players are online at the same time
2) The player who clicks the fastest, gets the advantage.

Asynchronous simultaneous moves isn't like that at all. Please click the link above and read the proposal.

Solver · July 29, 2001, 09:16

I highly doubt it's possible. How could the game handle that without crashing, I can't imagine. But, if done, this will make MP games much faster and, therfore, more enjoyable.

ChrisShaffer · July 29, 2001, 09:56

Solver, it's not a tremendously difficult programming problem. After all, it's been done in numerous other formats - see:

Galaxy: http://galaxy.pbem.net/

Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord: http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories...598448,00.html

and many others. It's just that nobody has done it with a civ-style game yet.

Adagio · July 29, 2001, 10:06

I have only once seen something simular done before, and it was in the game battle isle. That is the closet thing of that idea I have seen, but I guess the idea can get into a civ game

meriadoc · July 29, 2001, 16:20

Okay, I play almost no multiplayer Civ games so really what kinds of MP they include don't matter to me. However, the proposal for Asynchronous Simultaneous MP sounds interesting. If they could implement it, and maybe implement into single player as well it could be very interesting.