{"id":339,"date":"2006-04-21T17:36:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-21T21:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/?p=339"},"modified":"2006-08-18T12:28:56","modified_gmt":"2006-08-18T16:28:56","slug":"wardell-fires-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2006\/04\/21\/wardell-fires-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Wardell fires back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brad Wardell, the big brain behind Galactic Civilizations II (one of the best strategy games of a young 2006) thinks I am wrong<\/a>. Or at least focused on the wrong things. And not just me.<\/p>\n

In my recent Round Table post<\/a> on gaming friendships, I noted that GC2’s lack of multiplayer handicapped it when compared to other strategy games available to us. I wrote how good MP experiences encourage me to look for this feature in the games I play. Wardell replies: <\/p>\n

I think if we sat down and did an inventory of strategy games that have come out in the past 5 years that the multiplayer fanbase has gotten served quite well. By contrast, people like me who want to sit down and play against computer players have gotten, in my opinion, the shaft.<\/p>\n

This is an intriguing interpretation of how gaming has developed. Have single player gamers gotten the shaft?<\/p>\n

If you look around at gaming coverage, the 800 pound gorilla of World of Warcraft can make it appear that everyone is playing multiplayer games all the time. I know that my multiplayer gaming has increased a thousandfold in the last year or so.<\/p>\n

But multiplayer is still very much an afterthought in strategy game design. Real time strategy game developers seem to spend more time on crafting lame single player campaigns instead of doing proper faction balancing – something that can only become really apparent after hours of multiplayer experience.<\/p>\n

Computer wargames are almost exclusively single player oriented – it often takes some kind of masochist to want to play the larger SSG games by email. Even a game that seems ready made for MP action like Second Manassas has no way to lose to a friend.<\/p>\n

None of the Paradox games have really worked all that well in multiplayer – especially the no-brainer Diplomacy – sometimes because of the huge time commitment involved, but as often because of poor networking. <\/p>\n

Civ IV has a great multiplayer interface and loads of options, but the Pit Boss wasn’t made available until fairly recently – about six months after release. No doubt what their priorities are.<\/p>\n

Wardell admits that the next GalCiv will likely have multiplayer, and I am very much looking forward to Society, Stardock’s upcoming MMRTS. So even he realizes that MP has become very important to people like me.<\/p>\n

But it’s not like I deducted points from GC2 because of the lack of multiplayer; I didn’t. My review was almost entirely enthusiastic, with my biggest complaints reserved for documentation. I still play most of my games alone, after all. As my gaming relationship post noted, I prefer to play with friends and friends are not always available. Single player is all of our first entrees into a new game.<\/p>\n

But the multiplayer experience is becoming more and more important to me. And games that provide it will probably have a longer life on my computer.<\/p>\n

By the way, I still highly recommend Galactic Civilizations II.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brad Wardell, the big brain behind Galactic Civilizations II (one of the best strategy games of a young 2006) thinks I am wrong. Or at least focused on the wrong things. And not just me. In my recent Round Table post on gaming friendships, I noted that GC2’s lack of multiplayer handicapped it when compared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5GFeQ-5t","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}