No Multiplayer For Stars Beyond Reach.

[eRe4s3r]

Offtopic: eRe4s3r, I think your views on D:OS's coop implementation may just be a difference of tastes and opinion compared to mine, but I just wanted to say I actually really liked what they did.  The premise was you're roleplaying both characters, and they actually LET you roleplay both characters if you wanted to - you can have an arguing couple, or a meek follower who only has their own opinion in conversations without the other one, or all sorts.  The main issue is probably the bad initial implementation of the AI personality - if they had actually made some personalities, recorded different responses for every conversation in the game (ideally with some justification for those and not the really basic ones it originally shipped with) and then documented that, it would have been fine.  I was also disappointed with the initial pair of options, but they did add some later.   Plus... it's the only RPG that does support co-op multiplayer truly properly. Ever!

Of course, everything is a matter of subjective perception after all and don't mistake my freeform rant on their implementation for SP as saying that COOP was badly implemented. NO, the contrary is the case, COOP was implemented very well. But at the cost of immersion and design (as well as writing and thematic mood setting) continuity in Single Player... Had I known they would be putting such barebones AI personalities in the game I would never have backed this game. I am not schizophrenic and thus can not roleplay 2 characters at the same time, and worse, having them TALK to each other.... If I wanted to talk with myself I would just do that. And believe me, that is a lot more fun than playing rock paper scissors against myself (I mean.. WHAT was the thought behind that to leave this actually in in SP?) ;p

To be honest, as absurd as that sounds, to me the best solution would have been a simple question at the start of the game "Do you want to control 1 or 2 main characters (Story will adapt to this choice)"

Instead we got preselected dialog choices aka "AI Personalities" and a checkbox that disables "Dual Dialogs"

That is like BG2 asking you in options whether you want play 50% or 100% of the games dialog. Absurd. Horrible design imo. Who puts in a checkbox in a game that disables game content that is integral part of the game.

[Mick]

I thought being able to control both sides of the conversation was clever myself...

[screamingpalm]

This is good news imho. Not that there won't be multiplayer, but rather that the game has focus and is evident that it wouldn't fit. Feels like too many games try to cater to too many styles these days. I mostly play singleplayer as I would tend to agree with Keith's assessment but also play multiplayer on occasion. AoW 3 I feel is actually much more fun as a multiplayer game- Civ and Endless Legend the opposite.

[Teal_Blue]

I haven't played Civ:BE, so I can't comment.  Honestly it didn't have much appeal.  I've played Civs 1, 4, and 5 extensively, though, and Alpha Centauri a fair bit.

I honestly don't think that you'll have that problem with SBR, heh.  The odds of you militarily conquering everyone are... extremely low.  As the endgame for SBR has been evolving, the interesting thing that has been so far emerging (it needs more testing, though, before I'm sure) is that there are basically "hybrid" victory conditions.  Basically where you're safe from Race A because you have them locked up in economic agreements.  You're safe from Race B because you subjugated them militarily but let them live.  You're safe from C, D, and E because they died from whatever causes (you and others, etc).  And so forth.

There are of course some endgame scenarios that are very singular, like blowing up the planet or escaping the planet, but the others are really coming to feel more mix-and-match at the moment.  There may be some problem with that that isn't yet evident, but it seems like it's a solid thing thus far.  You win not by becoming the world leader per se, but by creating semi-perfect safety from every other race.  Which doesn't just mean turtling like a boss, it doesn't work that way.  You'd still be at risk of all sorts of things then.

Anyway, military is definitely a part of this game, but it's maybe 10% of what is going on, whereas in the Civ games it seems like it is closer to 80%.  I have trouble comparing this to other games because I can't really think of any.

Ireally like the sound of this, sounds like it will be  alot of fun. I mean up until now, all the games i know of have you commit to one type of strategy and that is taht. It will be interesting to play something where there are several ways to play, and win. 

Thanks forthe  info.
-T

[Zebreu]

I want to add my support for the "control-one-faction" multiplayer idea for an expansion.

I had a lot of fun with games that do that, especially Anno 2070, and it feels much more cooperative (with the on-the-fly division of tasks and communication required).

[x4000]

Ooh, I was all excited about Anno 2070... and then saw u-play.  Dangit!

[topper]

I would be really happy with multiplayer that just lets all parties make changes and control the same faction simultaneously over the internet. This is how I prefer coop anyways since this way you are not indirectly competing for the same resources.

If this was added as post release content or an expansion that would be awesome!

A huge perk for this kind of multiplayer would be to have the other players cursor be shown on all players screens and actions described in some kind of history log/ticker.

[x4000]

It's pretty well definitely out of scope for an initial release if we're going to hit our target timeframe, but we'll see after that.

[Misery]

Ooh, I was all excited about Anno 2070... and then saw u-play.  Dangit!

For what it's worth, that game turned out to be more than worth the mild annoyance of putting up with u-play.  Absolutely fantastic if you can put up with the learning curve .

And I say "mild annoyance" because I'm also used to tolerating Origin.  U-play is not Origin.  This is a point in it's favor, I'll just say it that way.  Uplay at least is capable of installing things in a SANE way.  I'm not even going to try to explain the things I've had to deal with for Origin.  It is made of sorrow and tragedy.   Uplay at least you only have to deal with for about 15 seconds when starting up the game; the whole mess can be disconnected after that, the game wont care.  It'll NOTICE, but it wont care.  Unless you're playing with someone, but Anno is mostly about it's superb singleplayer stuff.

Seriously though, that game is incredible.  It's one of those "cant recommend it enough" ones.  And considering how negative I typically am, that's very high praise coming from me.

[eRe4s3r]

If you do get Anno 2070 + Addon, get the ARRC mod and Annocokie And yeah, I don't care where it's on. But I have had a lot of bad experiences with uPlay and Steam and none with Origin so far.

And you should wait for the next steam sale, because Anno 2070+Addon is always a very good pack deal then.

[ElOhTeeBee]

My one experience with Uplay was getting Assassin's Creed 3 free with a video card, and needing to download a crack for it because it refused to let me register it after installing.

Not touching anything Uplay-related again.

[x4000]

My wish would be to play with my wife on Anno, so multiplayer worries me there.  I will probably wait for a few years and I bet they remove the drm.  Or I hope they do.  I have no shortage of games to play, really, so I can afford to be patient.

[Misery]

If you do get Anno 2070 + Addon, get the ARRC mod and Annocokie And yeah, I don't care where it's on. But I have had a lot of bad experiences with uPlay and Steam and none with Origin so far.

And you should wait for the next steam sale, because Anno 2070+Addon is always a very good pack deal then.

.....it's possible to not have bad experiences with Origin?  What?

Okay, this is basically what happens when I try to ponder that concept:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ7pUADoo58


Steam though is the main one I dont get; I've been using it pretty much since it's been there, have some damn silly number of games on it, and usually attach every non-Steam game to it for the sake of convenience.   Not once in all these years has it produced an issue, even considering my extreme impulse buying where I buy who knows what at least once a week or so.

Uplay is.... I'm not really sure, actually.  I stuck it on there, it did... something... and I've never dealt with it since.  My entire experience with it is the brief appearance of some sort of blue window for about 5 seconds before Anno loads.  That's really all I see of it.   I just ignore it beyond that point.

I wouldnt expect the requirement to be removed anytime soon.  If anything, Ubisoft itself is actually getting worse.  The next Anno game after 2070 was.... a craptastic dumbed-down freemium browser game.  Just... what.   It's not QUITE on the level of the atrocities that EA did to SimCity, but it's close.  I've just ignored them since.  If I know my big damn stupid corporate-idiot publishers, the Anno series may be outright dead after that, as the damn fools stand around staring into space, wondering what went wrong and why money did not violently burst out of their monitors the moment they published the game.  Just like how EA has been doing that a few times lately.  Ugh.

[x4000]

I wouldnt expect the requirement to be removed anytime soon.

I am patient.  What's a decade between friends?

[Misery]

"Patient"?  I know not the meaning of this mysterious word.  I've a hard time waiting 30 seconds for the microwave without throwing something at it. 

And I just realized how far this thread has gotten derailed.   The train didn't just fall off, it sorta pole-vaulted off.