Multiplayer

[Wulfbaine]

I am personally a big fan of this game and have spent lots of time talking to my friends about it, I go and buy and then i realised that there was no multiplayer mode. I know that this is fairly new and that multiplayer integration is raelly difficult but this game has so much potential for it. I was hoping for an Age of Empire like multiplayer, where you could build towns on the same map and build trading ships and trade with each other. I wouldn't go so far as to say that we would need armies but still this side by side 2 person or 4 person co-op would be lots of fun. Anyone else agree?

Go ahead and post your ideas of multiplayer here. Mabye the devs will see it and take it into consideration.

[Lenkdrache]

This very idea would take a great game, and make it flippin' awesome...... multiplayer, you can trade, you can fight, all we'd need is a 3rd party antagonist (such as "natives" suggested in other threads) and we'd have one hell of a game :)

[enhjester]

It would take a lot of upkeep to do something like that. You would have to have a server to serve the multiplayer game and then how is that done. Do you have dedicated servers? Or do you allow the option for a player to host their own behind their firewall?

The idea is an okay idea, but is really what's ruining games these days. I do think that adding the ability to send out a trader yourself as a player to neighboring villages would be awesome, but have variables like: Time v Distance or just have the trader be gone two full seasons. Have orders in which need to be fulfilled which could take precedence over what you tell them to take, but stay completely single player.

Again, this is my opinion, and a Multiplayer idea may be awesome, and may just need to be thought out more, like you are in fact doing. My gaming niche is more retro, I'd rather take an old machine and emulate games on it, I believe games from 10-20 years ago are better than 99.9% of games today.

So, again, just my opinion! So keep thinking!

[Ardith Prime]

As i said before, on another of these topics. It'd be a good idea. if you set it to either co-op mode, or Versus. Tropico 5 did well at this.

[Wulfbaine]

Originally posted by enhjester:

It would take a lot of upkeep to do something like that. You would have to have a server to serve the multiplayer game and then how is that done. Do you have dedicated servers? Or do you allow the option for a player to host their own behind their firewall?

Yeah I get what you mean as far as the server thing dedicated servers require tons of upkeeep, I know this from personal experience, I think a prime but old example would be a game like minecraft, it allows lods of modularity to it so players could port-forward, purchase a dedicated server or use third party software like Hamachi.

My question is weren't there third-party games that allowed a co-op game to be hosted not just in LAN but also using valve servers, or is that just restricted to valve games? Also could they not partner up with another company like if you have player Medieval 2: Total War, the main company partnered with GameSpy to allow players to do 2v2 and i think 4v4 battles, without giving away creative rights.

[Wulfbaine]

Originally posted by Lenkdrache:

This very idea would take a great game, and make it flippin' awesome...... multiplayer, you can trade, you can fight, all we'd need is a 3rd party antagonist (such as "natives" suggested in other threads) and we'd have one hell of a game :)

That is a good idea but I think that to add fighting, and an attacking AI, they would need to reformat lots of things like how trading would work, or how towns can be built. If they did that they would also need a town defense mechanic i think.

I am not saying its a bad idea though, I am just saying it would take lots of work to do, so it might slow down time to release multiplayer.

[Wulfbaine]

Originally posted by enhjester:

I do think that adding the ability to send out a trader yourself as a player to neighboring villages would be awesome, but have variables like: Time v Distance or just have the trader be gone two full seasons. Have orders in which need to be fulfilled which could take precedence over what you tell them to take, but stay completely single player.

I get what you mean. On the single player side I really wish you could see (a) town(s) growing in close proximity to the starting point or spread out. i haven't really reached the Nomad mechanic so if this is what that does I take it back.

As for the Time v Distance, and Time Controls, I think Napoleon: Total War did it nicely, where they allowed a player to essentially "vote" on increasing time in a battle in progress, if the other player did the same thing while the "vote" was running then the time would speed up or slow down. Otherwise it would stay the same, it is really nice if you are on a call with someone, but I don't know about a Matchmaking wise scenario. I usually only play with my friends while we are on a Steam or Skype Call together so we can shout at each other until we agree to change it.