"Our next game, Galactic Civilizations, won't have any multiplayer in it. Maybe in a sequel but not the first one. I want to concentrate on making a really good, in depth, strategy game and not have to assign one of our precious few developers to go and make sure that some kid can't hack into the server and screw with people in the middle of a game."

What do you think? Is it a mistake for Stardock to not include multiplayer? How do you combat the dweebs who try to wreck everyone's fun in multiplayer games?

Given Stardock's consistently stellar AI, the only thing that comes to mind is "THANK YOU BRAD!"

--Dave

Eveyone in the gaming industry are talking about how on-line gaming is going to be the next big thing. But I don't know now. Cheating could have a serious impact on the gaming industry, because people could become disinterested in playing online. I used to play UT on line all the time, but now I have a better time playing with the bots. At least I know the bots don't cheat. When I do play on line, I'm always questioning a player who has an awesome shot or who racks up kills very easily. Maybe he's an awesome player, but with the cheating that's going on I just don't know anymore. Something needs to be done, because all this cheating will have a harmful effect on the gaming industry! just my opinion!

Online games are fun, often, but most of my game time comes in the form of an hour or two snatched here and there, solo against the machine or occasionally a turn or two of a PBEM match. I don't have broadband yet; if and when I get it, perhaps I'll think differently.


But probably not. Why? Because of the problems Brad refers to. I hate cheaters in online games. It nearly ruins the experience. I like to "win," in these games, but mostly I just want to have fun, and nothing kills fun like cheaters. Also, I really hate the result of efforts to combat cheaters, efforts that companies have to introduce to survive. The vicious cycle that ensues, of hacking--countermeasures--more hacking--more countermeasures, etc., usually ends up making the game world too much like the real world.

Robert Mayer: "I don't have broadband yet; if and when I get it, perhaps I'll think differently."

I used to say that. Until I got broadband. Now I just admit that I'll never think differently.

My problem with Multiplayer gaming is that I'm just not interested in beating (or being defeated by) people I don't know. Especially people I don't know that are singularly obsessed and devoted to mastering the game at hand. Who wants to play a living person who also happens to be life-less in the "real world". Ugh.

But I often dream of finding (or creating) a "Shoot Club" of my own (minus the Trevor). I'd play Battle of Britain, X-Wing Alliance, Serious Sam co-op, Age of Empires, Crimson Skies and Unreal Tournament against people I know and enjoy crushing.

Who cares about that guy over there on Case's Ladder I say....

That said: anyone up for some Combat Mission PBEM?

~Bub

Where are the cheaters?

Y'know, I can't tell you how many articles and threads I've read that say, "Cheaters suck." Yet I have never seen anyone jump in and say, "I cheat, and you guys don't know what you're missing. It's a whole new level of fun."

Why?

If cheating is so popular, where are all the cheaters? Don't they read boards like this, or usenet, or wherever?

Are they ashamed of themselves?

I've heard of lots of "grief" players who cause you problems just to hear you kick and scream. Well, here's a whole thread devoted to kicking and screaming, c'mon griefers, pile on. You'll get a whole lot more screaming if you respond than if you lurk.

Regarding GalCiv.

I think that there would be great demand for games to use the high end CPUs for greater game depth rather than just 3D graphics.

With a Pentium II (let alone P3 or AMD), I can literally have the AI go through and think of very complex strategies. But more than that, because making games challenging is the easy part, the cool part is that you can have the AI be more real. Humans in multiplayer rarely (okay basically never) "roleplay". When I play an RPG or strategy game, I tend to role play a little bit. I want to get into the universe I'm in. The only want to complete that would be for the AI to behave intelligently in words and deeds:

The Drengin Ambassador has arrived:
"Your fleet is lost. Your economy in ruins. The invasion of Andevis III has crippled your production of battle cruisers. It is over. We shall allow you to live if you are willing to give up the 3 star systems in sector 5,2 to us."

What's so hard about having AI that comes up with that? If a crappy programmer like me (and believe me, I suck) can do that, anyone can. And I truly think that lots of gamers really would like to see diplomacy and tactics and strategy done intelligently. Even if it means no multplayer.

My opinions:

1) Multiplayer is not so significantly better an experience than single player that entire games can be built around the concept of throwing tons of people into an environment and it becomes a fun game. (e.g. Ultima Online and other so-called "massively multiplayer" attempts)

2) On the other hand, several games naturally lend themselves to being fun when played in groups, either cooperatively or antagonistically. In which case no central server is needed, just a way for people in a room or across the country to connect and play. System Shock 2, Baldur's Gate, many RTS games, and many others (as well as Diablo I believe) can work this way and really eliminate the need to make the multiplayer aspect of the game ultra-secure.

Of course, putting these two concepts together means that game companies have to put functional and reliable multiplayer into the game before its releases and give up untold millions they could have otherwise had bilking players out of $10/month in subscription fees. I suspect this is the driving factor of the kind of centrally controlled multiplayer companies keep putting in their games.

If #1 is true, why are games like UO and Everquest raking in unparalleled amounts of money, the only content-related internet business that's making any money at all? There have been a lot of mainstream news articles about exactly that phenomenon, and the suits are starting to pay attention, so I wouldn't expect massively multiplayer to go anywhere any time soon.

Cheating is a huge problem for online games. Even Sissyfight 2000 has this problem. There's a whole session at the game developer's conference this year just about cheating in online games. And so forth.

"What do you think? Is it a mistake for Stardock to not include multiplayer?"

Brad's right, and I'm going to subscribe to Drengin.net as soon as GalCiv is released.

"I used to say that. Until I got broadband. Now I just admit that I'll never think differently."

This is something I was trying to explain to Mark. The adoption rate for broadband is glacial. The world cannot change as all those hyperbolic .com 20-something business plans and their VC pals thought, until this happens. Period. It really is that simple.

"Cheating could have a serious impact on the gaming industry, because people could become disinterested in playing online. I used to play UT on line all the time, but now I have a better time playing with the bots. At least I know the bots don't cheat. When I do play on line, I'm always questioning a player who has an awesome shot or who racks up kills very easily."

You're mixing two issues here. First, cheating is a HUGE deal-- and developers need to consider it their top priority, as Valve and Blizzard do. The more popular your online game becomes, the more important this is. But as long as developers have the right perspective, it's not a deathblow. It can be stopped, or at least be made so inconvenient that it ceases to be a factor.

Second, the issue of skill. This is where counter-strike, and to a much lesser extent, team fortress classic, have succeeded brilliantly. Playing on a team is fun even if you aren't the Micheal Jordan star player. Counter-strike goes a bit further because of the lethality of the weapons, the team money system, and the randomness. A little randomness is a good thing-- it tends to reward those who play cleverly, putting themselves in the best strategic positions over time.. rather than those with the best twitch reflexes.

I know a small, gnarled part of Tom Chick dies every time I say this, but Counter-Strike absolutely nails the teamplay formula. It's, without a doubt, the best teamplay FPS ever made. Nothing else even comes close. It's a friggin' juggernaut-- even today, still growing-- and deservedly so. But plase don't take my word for it. Visit the gamespy stats page.

"If #1 is true, why are games like UO and Everquest raking in unparalleled amounts of money, the only content-related internet business that's making any money at all? There have been a lot of mainstream news articles about exactly that phenomenon, and the suits are starting to pay attention, so I wouldn't expect massively multiplayer to go anywhere any time soon. "

The whole MMORPG thing is a red herring IMO. The real breakthrough here is the subscription model. You could easily make the same $$ by requring players to pay $5/month for a battle.net or won.net key, respectively. And as long as developers use that money to evolve their games-- introducing new maps, and other new goodies-- I'm totally for that.

"1) Multiplayer is not so significantly better an experience than single player that entire games can be built around the concept of throwing tons of people into an environment and it becomes a fun game. (e.g. Ultima Online and other so-called "massively multiplayer" attempts)"

More and more I'm thinking that games should be designed exclusively for singleplayer or exclusively for multiplayer. There are definitely merits to both models, and I don't think it's possible to serve both masters without compromising your design.

But all other things being equal, there's something endlessly fascinating against playing against other people. Not that other people aren't annoying as fuck a lot of the time, but that's part of the charm in the long run. I've probably played the map de_dust in counter-strike a thousand times, with a thousand random, anonymous internet gamers.. and I swear it's never been the same game twice.

de_dust should win the friggin' nobel prize for mapping. The quintessential cs experience is a 20 player game on that map.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"Serious Sam co-op"

Or anything co-op. I've always loved co-op games, going all the way back to the seminal vector graphics arcade game Rip Off, and co-op play is still the key to fun multiplayer. I believe this is part of the appeal of battle.net Diablo: playing with your friends and slaying the silicon hordes. Pretty much the same fun can be had with your friends playing on the same team against faceless Internet competitors. Beats the pants off of free-for-all deathmatch.

co-op multiplayer gaming has to make a comeback in some form. i remember playing quake 1 coop when the demo was released. . . we had upwards of like 10 ppl in a group taking out the levels. was mightily fun. alot of the first quake engine games were fun in coop . . . i really liked hexen 2 in coop, was sorta like an fps adventure game. same with heretic 2. . .great LAN coop game.

coop in pc games should be emphasized more. . . diablo 2 and everquest are testament to its popularity. though i think rpg's have a better chance at coop than strategy. . .i rarely see ppl wanting to play coop in any rts (though i played a few coop Sacrifice games a month ago. . . was fun!).

if they can make a 3d diablo for pc (which has kind of been done with the Dreamcast Phantasy Star Online) we will have a winner!

btw, PSO is a good Diablo clone. .. in fact its more FUN then both Diablo's imo.

anyway,

etc

I come from a country where online gaming is expensive because you are charged for time on the internet. I actually wouldn't miss online multiplayer very much. What I do miss and get frustrated about is the lack of co-op multiplayer support for LAN multiplayer games. I really enjoy playing Diablo II with my girlfriend and friends every weekend and I cannot understand the thinking behind games like Blade of Darkness and Rune where you cannot play through the 'single player game' with a friend. This was a fantastic feature in Quake and Diablo I & II. Deathmatch is boring and the ability to play through a game (like Mechwarrior IV) with a friend(s) instead of computer AI should be included in games in this day of multiplayer gaming.

While I don't spend a lot of time gaming online since my college days with UO, I often indulge in multiplayer gaming via LAN. Several of my friends and I go head-to-head as often as we can, and are trying to make it a more regular occurrence, so I'm always looking for a game's multiplayer features. I don't really get into games like Baldur's Gate multiplayer -- it just takes too much time to finish a game to get several people into it, for me -- but for a quick fix, I love a little Warcraft or Red Alert 2.

Online gaming would be cool, if it weren't for all the cheating. Well, that and the lack of broadband. If only it were possible to set up shards for cheating and some for playing it straight, and have people actually adhere to them.

There are many good points in this thread. I like the multiplayer games I've played, but for busy people, the MMORPGs are a daunting investment.

So the only real multiplayer I get is deathmatch or racing (4x4 EVO type stuff). And deathmatch is fun, but it can also get boring quickly, even without cheaters. I really like the idea of coop, and agree that is an area that could be explored more. The ideal mplayer situation is really a Shoot Club deal, where you can be social, play with friends, and if desired also build expertise in a particular game together - plus performance on a LAN has to be better than my cruddy 24kpbs connection.

Yeah, if you ask me multiplayer on a LAN is hundreds of times better than via the net. My connection is not dependable enough to play much online, either. I plan on getting broadband, soon, and then perhaps I will engage a little more in online gaming, but I don't think it could ever compete with LAN gaming.

Back when Baldur's Gate came out, I got together with a group of friends and we tried to play through it. We didn't make it, mostly because we couldn't get all six of us to agree on a regular gaming schedule. If even one person couldn't make it, that was it -- no go. Because of the story driven nature of the game, it didn't make sense for us to play if we were short a player.

Back in college, we played this huge game of Stars!. It worked because we didn't all have to be playing concurrently, and because there was minimal time pressure while playing.

I'm all for the return of co-op. In fact, I kind of wish the System Shock 2 co-op patch had been released earlier than it was.

- Alan

The thing that I missed most when I moved out of my college dorm and into an apartment was the Ethernet access. I got by with dial-up for free through college access numbers, but I got busy signals so often and it was so slow that its only redeeming factor was that it was free. Because of this, I'd just download stuff (like big 80mb game demos) on campus onto a zip disk, then bring them home. About a 14 months after I moved, we got DSL installed, and it's almost as fast as my old ethernet access was.

After a while, I realized that half of what I missed about Ethernet was playing LAN games with my friends that lived on my floor. We played everything under the sun during my 3 years living there. Quake I Team Fortress, Mechwarrior 2, Starcraft, Red Alert, Total Annihilation, Diablo, X-wing vs. Tie-Fighter, and more. In fact, except of one or two two-player Doom and Descent deathmatches, I had never played multiplayer before. It was so much fun because you had bragging rights over dinner, until you got beaten the next night. I miss the hour-and-a-half long Quake I Team Fortress matches, ones that left me literally exhausted after the adrenaline wore off.

Since getting DSL, I've tried playing multiplayer over the Internet a little bit, which was a new thing for me. Diablo II wasn't any fun at all, though maybe I just didn't give it much of a chance. The only other game I've played online a lot is Crimson Skies. Playing on the MSN Zone was a completely different experience than the LAN gaming I was used to. Overall, it's been a pleasant experience, though the stability issues and the cheaters are both very frustrating. I have been pleasantly surprised at how most people are both gracious winners and losers. The people in the squadron that I've joined are really great and chatting with them is like chatting with my college friends, even though I've never met them face to face. I didn't expect it to be that way.

Getting back to the topic of this thread. I think that not including multiplayer in Galactic Civilizations isn't a terrible idea, but adding it in a sequel would probably be the best compromise one could make.

Anyway, there's my $0.02

"Our next game, Galactic Civilizations, won't have any multiplayer in it. Maybe in a sequel but not the first one. I want to concentrate on making a really good, in depth, strategy game and not have to assign one of our precious few developers to go and make sure that some kid can't hack into the server and screw with people in the middle of a game."

How about adding only LAN multiplayer as a compromise? That way those of us that have LANs can enjoy the game together, and you wouldn't have to worry about protecting against cheaters and hackers. Would that still divert too many resources you need or prefer to use for other parts of the game design? I'm a game player, not a game programmer, so I wouldn't know what kind of effort it takes to add multiplayer support to a game.

"How about adding only LAN multiplayer as a compromise?"

I would concur with this opinion, though I too don't know how it might affect resources. It might seem wierd to some people to have multiplayer via LAN but not internet, but I think that they'd deal with it. It's a thought, though.

Here's my 2 Cents

First I think I can shed some light on this subject From a perspective of not playing online for about 8 years... Vga planets back then..wait maybe longer.

Anyway I'm on a braodband connection and out of work injured with too much time. So My buddies that I've been Lanning with for Years say "Join us at Battlenet" O.K. I'm there Well Let me tell U I and A couple of friends have been PLaying Blizzard Games since day1. I Solved direct connect issue for them on Warcraft1. Still waiting for my free copy. After About 5 bouts and a less than impressive 40% W/l ratio I pondered hmm what is up with this. My buddie that got me into this had like a 45% w/l after hundreds of games. He's an expert chess player and I've traveled the country Wargameing. Avalon hill games were my wargameing staples. So I check around and find about 7 map hack cheats. Any 2 year old can find and use these. Hope all you "hack" programmers are proud of your astounding ability to find and change a memory locations Byte Code. You've ruined a great game. You'll never meet a true challenge on that battle field in an even enviroment. But maybe Your not a capable enough group of lowlives to acually win against a master Stategist, So u have to all run and collectively shove your head u your butts and find a way too Destroy an otherwise Great Experience. What happened did your mama's Stop breat feeding you or sumthing? Anyway there are not alot of the programmers makeing these Cracks. I found out 1 but and am not about to do anything about it with my own finances, He's too far, lucky for him. But if I meet him on the street( vaction all over the world) the only hting beating him to the hospital will be the lights on the ambulance. Yeah thats right I advocate Violence! Get over it. If these pukes get thier butt kicked(spanked like thier mamas should have done to them when they were formative) maybe they'd learn some respect. The sad thing is they garner the respect of young rebels...of which I was a major part in my younger days. These younger kids use these pukes tools to do the actual attacking and go and run back to a forum to tell of how cool they are too. And the shits egg them on feeding thier ego's. Unfortunately they have a "littleman" complex and this is the way they have to get back at the world. Too bad theyre obviousley a bunch of bright guys. If they could get together and actually create a release they might get the recognition they're actualing looking from from thier peers. Of course a large majority either don't realize or just won't admit this is thier motivation.
As too Designing games with no multiplayer built in. Sorry thats just Plain DUMB. Not to be insulting(I'm good at it though) But I and many others I know have been attending lan parties since day one of lan gameing (doom/warcraft/civnet/PBM/Command hq and so on) I host and regulate the envirement and all those playing buy copies if they wish too stay a guest. But I nor have many of my peers and friend bought a game in years that doesn't include Multiplayer. Actually it's the opposite. We buy/register some that are only multiplayer. The problem with AI only is that an AI can never be Intuative enough to be a serios challenge once a good player finds the boundries of the game and exploites such. Look a t chess infinetly less variables than a conventional computer wargame and it took big blue(what like 900 cpus) and a team of coders and an entire database of it's opponents games to win just 1 game. What company thinks they can write code to beat that? Maybe if a true ai comes out someday but not now. The only true challenges lie in human interaction. BTW on lan games there's nothing more gratifying than looking over your screen at the opponent's face after a Coup da' Thrust. Like in Starcraft succsefully getting of a plague/emp shockwave/valkyrie splash combo and seeing 16 protoss carriers get wipes in less than a second heh.
Also noticed the cheating in counterstrike. Too back that is a great mod. But at least they have PUNKBUSTER.com Software it seems to work. need more servers running it though and kinda buggy with nt. But hey it's worth it for a fair game.

Damn this biard needs a spell checker.

Oh almost forgot my solution to the cheats. A pool of cash from the gameing companies to hire a couple of detectives to find out the fools writing these tools and confront them. I would be cheap and effective. Sometimes you need the human touch on things.

The internet is the future of PC gaming. Single players are, as consoles adopt better controls and even keyboards, far better served by a console format; standardized and great graphics, no hassle, ect. If you argue that single player gamers' often lack the time to devote to multiplayer gaming the inevitable conclusion is to play a console.

Multiplayer against other humans anywhere in the world is probably the most profound change in recreational gaming EVER; pen-and-paper role playing, chess clubs, ect, nothing comes close to the ability to meet an unlimited number of players from around the world. It also means like the article said, for many reasons cheating and hacking will become more prevolent. This isn't to say that specificially one or another game can't make it without multiplayer, but i think the trend for the industry is there (as in arrived).

What companies have to do is reconsile profitability and multiplayer support since a game that sells 30,000 copies and has 400 internet fans is just a money pit from the perspective of maintaining the multiplayer component. So there will be an endless war between the hackers and the companies, but wrestling with the devil is just a part of the game, and if your not willing to set out upon that path you may need to question your long term goals in the industry. Fortunately the smaller you are the less attention you draw.

I don't know if this has any relevance to the theme (whatever that is), but I would like to read a review on Starcraft written by you guys...