Multiplayer?

[reasonableJP]

From the Steampage i deduct that this game will not have multiplayer at launch.
Is this assumption correct? If so, will there be multiplayer at some point in the future?
As far as i understand it, the main reason for switching to turn-based was to make multiplayer possible - or am i wrong here?

EDIT: after some research, i now see that zero doesnt want to promise anything for Stardrive 2 that is not done already (a lesson learned from SD1), but it was mentioned during the "no mp for stardrive" crisis that SD2 (or Stardrive Unity, as it was called back then) will have MP.

So my guess (and hope) is that it is just not ready yet.

Originally posted by Zero:

It WILL happen in Unity though.[www.stardrivegame.com]

EDIT2: sorry for duplicate, see this thread for comparison

[A Humble Fry Cook]

I was given the same impression. I know it was said during the fiasco with SD1. Someone will soon post that nothing of the sort has been said and multiplayer in 4x is a bad thing......even though the game is modeled after Moo2 with was multiplayer.

[Avalanche]

I personally don't like multiplayer, i am sure others enjoy it and all, but this game really doesn't need multiplayer, i don't need multiplayer to have fun, but i guess you do?

[Hand]

Originally posted by Jamie:

I personally don't like multiplayer, i am sure others enjoy it and all, but this game really doesn't need multiplayer, i don't need multiplayer to have fun, but i guess you do?

To you the game does not need multiplayer as you dont like multiplayer, to those of us who do enjoy multiplayer the game does need multiplayer. We can go round all day you're opinion vs my opinion from each perspective both are right.

[A Humble Fry Cook]

And because you dont like it noone should. Some people are so thick it amazes me. When Zero said he was working on a new stardrive he did say it was because multiplayer could not be applied to the realtime and the new one would be turn based to accomodate. Without Multiplayer this game is the first game with turn base.

I can have fun without multiplayer, however for a game that is a spiritual successor to MoO2 i would think it would have it as well. I have played so much MoO2 multiplayer (my favorite game) and find it WAY more fun. SP if fun for a couple of games then it gets stale as AI employs very few strategies. Some people find it fun playing the same simplistic AI i guess.

[Cdnr1]

singleplayer is boring

[Army Pea]

Originally posted by Melchior:

And because you dont like it noone should. Some people are so thick it amazes me. When Zero said he was working on a new stardrive he did say it was because multiplayer could not be applied to the realtime and the new one would be turn based to accomodate. Without Multiplayer this game is the first game with turn base.

I can have fun without multiplayer, however for a game that is a spiritual successor to MoO2 i would think it would have it as well. I have played so much MoO2 multiplayer (my favorite game) and find it WAY more fun. SP if fun for a couple of games then it gets stale as AI employs very few strategies. Some people find it fun playing the same simplistic AI i guess.

I would enjoy SD2 if it had MP but many 4 x games , especially turn based, have difficulty making a good MP experience.

I think the major hurdles would be the time required for shipping building , upgrading and modifying. This game also has quests or events that aren't MP friendly. What would the other players do besides wait while I built a ship for 10 mins or boarded a pirate ship?
That could be a significant time sink.

The option could be taking them out completely to streamline the process for MP but that seems like a hard compromise.

I assume these are the major challenges Zero faced in trying to implement MP.

[A Humble Fry Cook]

Well said Army pea, I play with a group of people I have known since childhood. For us the waiting time is no problem at all. Endless legend has all the things you said (quests, battles, reading...) and MP works fine there.

I dont see a reason it would not work personally.

[Decay Tempest]

Ok, not a fan of MP, but that doesn't mean I don't understand people who enjoy it. Now from observing how things work from the Let's play and Previews, I have a few idea that could help for MP.

For people worried about MP balancing, that should be a non issue with how modable the game is SP wise. The hoster of the MP game could assign his own templates to the races, or just leave them open to customization.

Turns
Hoster can have a timer, 5,10, 20.. ect.. Minutes per turn, or once everyone end their turn if less. Since all Turn are resolved at the same time, that would be likely the easiest way to make it work.

Combat
Hoster can have the option to force Auto resolve, have a Timer + Auto resolve, or have Timer + Draw.

Ship-building
That one is ... Depending on the length of your Timer. There's no quick fix for that, but maybe making your ship out of the game itself, like from the Arena when not playing MP, and making a lot of Templates, that you could use while in MP, might lessen time spent.. If it's just tweaking your pass design, vs making a whole new one, you'd save time.

Questing
That could be a MP issue, but then again.. it's all about how you decide to spend your time on your turn also.

From what I have seen, I think MP could be possible, without having any drastic changes... but would it be a MP Everyone likes? That I can't really say..

[Army Pea]

Originally posted by Melchior:

Well said Army pea, I play with a group of people I have known since childhood. For us the waiting time is no problem at all. Endless legend has all the things you said (quests, battles, reading...) and MP works fine there.

I dont see a reason it would not work personally.

One of many games I need to play is EL. Especially considering how much I enjoyed Endless space.
So how does the quest system work in EL during a MP game?

It's cool that you have friends to play MP against but you can see the issue if you started a MP game against a random opponent.
Personally, I don't get many chances to play a game for more and 2 hours at a time so I have to take that into consideration when playing any MP game.
(I was that guy who harped about being on time when I used to raid playing WOW and SWTOR)

So depending how SD2 Mp was set up, I may not be able to enjoy it unless I had a rare day off from real life duties.

[Joseph]

I have not seen anything that I would presume a MP feature was in the offing. The game just has not been built with MP in mind. From what I can tell from videos etc a lot of what makes it a good SP experience would have to be dropped for MP.

Star ruler 2 looks like a good MP game even though SP lacks depth. The supply chain concept is cool, not anywhere close to as good as distant worlds though. But the main point is that it seems to have been built to make MP an enjoyable experience.

It would require a total conversion to make MP work on SD2, disable simultaneous turns, add in a lot more balancing, disable a lot of the random events etc. Would make it a different game. Not saying it will not happen but even just reading between the lines its not on the cards.

Similar to reasons it could not be made to work on SD1 either I suspect. Although the SD1 engine had other issues that made MP a bad idea and a dead end in general, still a fun game though just make sure to keep your games smallish. SD1 suffers from end game boredom so its better to keep games small anyway.

At least the Dev has been saying no from the start to MP, this time. Man some people really took it personal when it did not happen in SD1 even though it was never sold with that feature on steam, just the initial kickstarter project which most got for $10-20, seriously, it was a great indie game at those prices even without MP. But I brought it on steam (at $25 I think) with no expectation of MP.

I love that the new game did not have even pre-purchases let alone public beta etc. Should really cut down on the entitled whinging that normally drives me away from forums.

[JuggGonzo]

I thoth that they made SD2 be cause of MP desire by community. And here we see no MP again? I guess dev team dont like money too much and is doing games for himself as a hobby or something.

[nosavynada]

I loved MOO 2, I will play SD2, but it is absolutely amazing that a turn based game in the 21st century modeled after a game in the 90s that had multiplayer, has no multiplayer. In particular if it had stated as part of the reasoning for making it turn based was to accomodate multiplayer. It is disappointing.
However having said that it also is not going through "early access" and so has some leeway on delivering multiplayer if he intends to.

[ColonelSavage]

I found this dev response from a thread back in October of last year - it seems to directly address multiplayer in Stardrive 2:

Will there be multiplayer in StarDrive 2 ?

If there will ever be a multiplayer feature for StarDrive 2, you will only learn about it when it is implemented. In our opinion, your decision to purchase StarDrive 2 should be based on the game’s Steam page feature list, and reviews by press and peers.
Our and Steam’s policy is to never ‘promise’ through official communications anything that isn’t already developed and ready for implementation. We will continue to abide by that policy in future.

To which I say, thank you for your honesty. My honest reply, however, is that I will not be buying this game without it. Good luck, I hope your game does well and satisfies your customers.

[PTCGho5t]

Originally posted by cdnr1(ned):

singleplayer is boring

google "FRIENDS"

[Onishi]

so are we getting MP or not guys ? for me this is a massive factor (the main reason i didnt get on with SD1). I'm pretty sure the whole point of SD2 was MP so where is it ?