What is the problem with SE5?

Uncle_Joe · #1 January 24th, 2007, 05:56 PM

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If they're content with their current, single player market, and that market has no interest in multiplayer, why do they need to implement multiplayer?

and

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As an aside to Uncle_Joe's post, I'm also one of those who don't do multiplayer (and GalCiv would likely have been worse with it added) and I think Stardock have a valid point in seeing single player games as the majority market.

And IMO if they want to do a single-player game then thats fine if it works (which it appears to do). But what bugs me about it is the attitude that they are so right because of their 'poll'. If you conduct a 'poll' under heavily weighted conditions, then you can get the results to favor whatever premise you choose. And thats what I feel happened there.

For example, if you went the PBW forums and asked if MP capability was important in a 4x game, I seriously doubt you'd get the same response! So to go to a game forum where mostly single-player gamers are present and conduct such a poll is equally worthless IMO.

But I do understand what you are saying ('why bother adding what their majority of their CURRENT customers dont find important?'). And it makes some sense. But the way it was presented at the time (and since) really rubbed me the wrong way. And unfortunately, it does NOT tell them how much of a market they lost by not having MP capability (and it might be tiny or it be much greater, but that 'poll' still cant measure it since the sampling is mainly of people for whom MP capability has lesser value).

Phoenix-D · #2 January 24th, 2007, 06:18 PM

That and its not like implementing MP takes much time or effort (with the exception of TCP/IP play).

AstralWanderer · #3 January 25th, 2007, 01:03 PM

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Phoenix-D said:
That and its not like implementing MP takes much time or effort (with the exception of TCP/IP play).

Doesn't that really depend on the game design? Multiplayer can raise issues like simultaneous changes to (and visibility of) game elements, robustness and security (to prevent cheating), data structure size (who wants to have to download several gigabytes of data for a single turn?) and even basic features like whether a player should be able to pause at will. For some games, MP is certainly going to be simple but for others it could require fundamental design changes.

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Uncle_Joe said:
And IMO if they want to do a single-player game then thats fine if it works (which it appears to do). But what bugs me about it is the attitude that they are so right because of their 'poll'. If you conduct a 'poll' under heavily weighted conditions, then you can get the results to favor whatever premise you choose. And thats what I feel happened there.

Well any poll they conduct is going to have some element of bias. As long as the poll is open to all though, that is about as fair as a website can get. Also Stardock have produced several MP games prior to GalCiv (e.g. Stellar Frontier, The Political Machine) so they are likely to have plenty of experience with the issues involved.

geoschmo · #4 January 25th, 2007, 02:00 PM

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AstralWanderer said:
As long as the poll is open to all though, that is about as fair as a website can get.

If by "fair" you mean accurate, then from a statistical analysis perspective a web poll open to all is just about the worst kind of poll you can do. Really the only way you could do worse would be to go out of your way to find a biased sample group. Something like taking a survey to see if people support tougher sentencing laws, but only asking convicted felons.

You have to do all sorts of random sampling and other statistical stuff to get a survey that produces data worth using. Web polls are useless are far as getting useful data. The only thing they are good for is driving traffic to whatever site they are on. People like to feel like their opinion matters, and a web polls gives them a nice warm feeling. But the only people seriously paying attention to the results are the other people who voted.

Geoschmo

Mephisto · #5 January 26th, 2007, 05:57 AM

I also don't see why it should not work, yet he declined to implement it. But maybe if enough people peg him with a stick...

Suicide Junkie · #6 January 26th, 2007, 07:20 AM

CK:
Well, that puts me out of ideas for why it wouldn't work.

Kana · #7 January 24th, 2007, 06:35 PM

At the GalCiv2 site they had a poll in May 06 asking...

Would you purchase a $20 multiplayer-only expansion to GC2?

The results were 33% said yes, and 66% said no.

Also they had a poll asking what features players would want in a sequel...

Phoenix-D · #8 January 24th, 2007, 06:41 PM

That is, er, the poll he's complaining about.

PDF · #9 January 25th, 2007, 12:29 PM

No, there's a real difference that has nothing to do with trends or buzz: compare to real life manual manipulation, with your hands you take an object, keep it in hands then put it elsewhere, you can't take it and then put it without having carried it in the meantime !

So drag&drop is more "natural" as it's closer to real life behavior.

Atrocities · #10 January 25th, 2007, 01:06 PM

The Log window is one such area that could use some attention. Scrolling through tones and tones of combat info is not helpful. This information should be minimized and only expanded if the player wishes it.

The fact that when you click on an object featuring details in the main screen, say a planet or a ship, all you get is a larger, useless image of that object. However there is this small little icon that you click and it brings up item information. I think these need to be switched. You click on the item, you should get that items information, not a larger image of it.

I posted about improving information on the main screen when you have a planet with several ships in orbit, currently the system provides no intuitiveness and you must click on each individual item to determine its status. I think this area should be improved along the lines of what I have already posted about. (Had an image and all.)

Image Link