Silliest Developer quote of 2005

[imperatormike]

OK, I know it's way to late to change anything about the design of KoH, particularly toward multiplayer, but I'm going to vent here because this is deserving of scathing contempt:

On April 20, 2005, Frujin had this to say about KoH and multiplayer in an interview at pcgamezone.com:

"Q: Battles are the only aspects of the game, which is supported in multiplayer. What was the reasoning behind this decision?

Vesselin: The only reason for this is the essence of the game mechanics and rules behind the game. It is meant to be played by a single player on the giant map of Europe. Because it’s hard for me to explain it I will give you an example. Imagine that you play the game and all your enemies are AIs. If you lose a battle the enemy AI can still come to you with a peace proposal, can ask you for a land or gold, but will hardly destroy you without any negotiations. In the other hand, if you play with your friends and get in the same situation when player X is stronger than player Y, it is in the human nature that X will wipe Y from the map without any doubts. That’s why multiplayer games are always meant to be arenas where players meet and fight. To make such a multiplayer in KOH would mean to invent completely different mechanics and game rules. And that would mean a completely different game."

Is anyone else completely dumbfounded by the total lack of reason in that statement?

Are you kidding me that the developers think KoH multiplayer would be handicapped by the fact that the human players MIGHT BE TRYING TO ELIMINATE EACH OTHER???

Is that why counterstrike, warcraft, starcraft, mmorpg's, and a host of other multiplayer (both online and lan) games are so popular, because the players are all interested in living in harmony in the game world and NEVER actually trying to WIN??

Didn't he just say that, qoute: "That’s why multiplayer games are always meant to be arenas where players meet and fight." NO KIDDING SHERLOCK!! How about letting me meet and fight at a STRATEGIC level, so that the tactical battles have some actual meaning in a greater conflict!

Restricting the venue of where the players meet and fight to purely tactical battles that have no connection to a greater context and therefore are meaningless is a development cop-out.

This interview goes against the "there's not enough money" excuse I saw on this board several days ago, and leaves me with one question left to ask:

Since BSS designed this game with a huge amount of tactical, diplomatic, economic, and construction choices; but didn't design an AI opponent into the game that could actually UTILIZE all these options, who did they design all those options for?

Pissed but still buying the game,
imperatormike

[William Blake]

There is a perfect reasoning in his words. You just dont get it.

A) He says that game is designed to be a huge simulator of Europe. Which implies that there are dozens and dozens of kingdoms.

B) Then he points out that the game is a singleplayer by design. Which means that once a player gets into an action like a tactical battle or puts game on pause all dozens of AI kingdoms go on pause in "their" games.

C) Now if you player multiplayer against 100 people, no1 would wait for you, so the game would be played on strategic map only, wihtou pauses and since no1 can play only for 10 hours all europe game should be done in 2-3 hours max, which means that the game would be played on highest speeds.

D) If so, there would be no time to negociate or choose targets or even think properly, because you will have time only to move armies around and attack as fast a possible to get as much land and kill as many enemy human players as possible.

E) Or if you play one on one like say Ireland vs England with a human oponent. One battle will decide who will domintate and win it.

F) If you add several humans and rest is AI kingdoms, then humans will be fighting humans anyway, no peace, no talks. Because this is the main reason of multiplayer - to win against other humans.


Bottom line is that with KoH system, logic and game design you can't make it multiplayer on europe. You need another game. But you can make tactical battle to be multiplayer which they did, and did good.

[imperatormike]

William, I will have to qoute myself from another thread to give you my opinion on your statements:

"I've been playing the demo now for 15-20 hours, and I'm having a blast, well done Black Sea Studios!

KoH is the true inheritor of the Lords of the Realm 2 medieval gameply mantle, and in my book that is a compliment of the highest order.

My biggest disappointment with it is the much discussed absence of campaign multi-play, which seems to be a stubborn trend with developers; i.e. KoH, RTW, and Imperial Glory.

My suggestion is to take a lesson from LotR2, and let the GAMERS decide how long they can play a game, how many players they can round up, how often they want to save, etc.

Let me decide how many countries I want represented on the map, from the whole map to just the British Isles, or a France/Germany contest.The many variations on that theme alone would choke the boards with discussions and debates.

Don't decide for me how many players I can round up, just make it a choice at setup and password the sides. Let the players save when they want and continue when the want. (amazingly flexible thing, choice)

If I want to play the whole game at 3x speed, LET ME. You don't have to decide what the best setting is, let your audience decide what works best for them.

Don't worry about the whole "how do we handle battles" debate, (i'm gonna say it again) let me decide how I want to play the game. If I and my friends/opponents want to fight every battle, it's our time, let us do it. Also, let us restrict the battles by time limit if we wish, or restrict human commanded battles to only those where the players avatar (the king) is actually present.

What are the other players doing while battles are going on? I've got an idea, let me decide whether they can watch, whether the campaign continues while the battle happens, or whether they can just give orders in a paused mode.

I have come to think that some of the reluctance that developers have about multi-play and it's challenges is the loss of control over the gameplay. What they fail to realize is that is EXACTLY want we what them to relinquish to us as the gamers."

And in addition to that, the most interesting situation I can imagine is 2 fairly balanced nations (England and France) being played by humans, and using all the great diplomatic options and strategies to influence the smaller nations surrounding the opponent to enlist aid in the conflict.

And your post doesn't answer a salient question:

Since BSS designed this game with a huge amount of tactical, diplomatic, economic, and construction choices; but didn't design an AI opponent into the game that could actually UTILIZE all these options, who did they design all those options for?

All I want is the ability to decide how I play, I don't care how impractical the developers think it is, let me scale it to my interest and ability.

Cheers,
imperatormike

[William Blake]

Well, no1 is perfect. BSS designed and developped an ultimate singleplayer game best they could made. That was a priority.

Once they made such game they looked at multiplayer options. And they saw that the singleplayer game they had could not be just transfered to be a multiplayer game. So options were: they need to develop and modify the singler player game rules and design to make it be both good multiplayer and singleplayer, or leave singleplayer they had and make another game for multiplayer.

They wanted a best single player at the first place, so they didnt modify anything, and they had no time/resources to do another game for multiplayer. So they made only multiplayer battles.

The point is THEY WANTED A BEST POSSIBLE SINGLEPLAYER and they made it. You can like it or not. Multiplayer was not point of KoH, but bonus.

[Smirnov]

Eh, multiplayer where humans try to wipe each other out? I got one word for you all folks: coop.