oh oh Multiplayer fanboy on the loose.....

Seriously, Stardock has now stated that the 8.95 option will probably be rolled into the next full expansion so they can concentrate on that .

If theh time to develop multiplayer can be justified, Stardock would do it. But it looks right now that a lot of other things are more important for a lot of the current users.

Remember, all current users are SP now, so Stardock knows it can count on a lot of current sales to pony up for the expansion pack if it improves on the SP stuff.

Let's hop they make oodles of money and feel comfortable enough to risk spending money to pay programmers to code the multiplayer stuff, or support a online hotseat type of game.

Making it less then a full dollar amount is a common buisness practice, aside from ice cream trucks and vending machines, nothing is priced to a full dollar amount anymore.

As for the $10- $20 thing, it is differant when you think about it. The $10 would be to include it in witht he game for everyone to play. Not everyone wants it, and some of those might not buy it if the cost were more. So, they lowered the cost to get those buyers. To go back and produce it now would cost the same, but the return would not be made up from every sale, so the price goes up. Since not everyone would be contributing to the cost speant to produce it, they must charge more to offset production cost, as well as make some money.

Example: Let's say 300,000 copies of the game are sold. A ten dollar increase gives us an extra revenue of $3,000,000. That would then pay for the expenses of the game addition. (Not taking into account any drop in sales due to higher price). But, if they sold the item seperatly (which still gurentees the most of the previous sales) and only 50% of the people want it, and they still charge $10, they only come out with $1,500,000. In order to make it worth it, they must raise the price, or take a loss in profit, or possibly not even break even.

I would have gladly payed the extra $10 for built in, but they felt the cost/gain/time ratio to not be worht it. I understand, and if the $20 pack comes out, I will likely buy it (depends if my brother is still playing, so the sooner the better!)

I hope you don't see this as a flame, I don't intend it as such, mearly an explanation of a reason.

Somebody call the WAHHHHHHH-bulance.

lol.

fair point.

but i still don't see where all the emotion comes from.

it sounds desperate...

you're not that desperate, are you?

(aye, playing with AI blowup dolls does mitigate a lot of "frustration"...but perhaps your appetite is stronger than mine.)

i can't say ive seduced many "people" with a "tone" like yours in the Original Post.

maybe i'm trying to play with the wrong sort of people...?

-0.

i dont think it'll increase the cost as much as "add value".

but that's just an assumption.

-0.

I'm with you on this Binnister. Specially on the mp-thing. They talk about 10$ and then they poll for 20$ without giving choice on how much people would buy it if it was only 10$. If the polls had any actual significance then they would ask 'cuz if the sales would be more then doubble on 10$ it would be worth it. Now they justed wanted a lot of people to say: no I won't pay 20$ you freaks! I say the poll the first day and already knew the answer. Not fair..

Cry me a river, smacktard.

Somebody call the WAHHHHHHH-bulance.

Quoted for truth.

to original poster, what type of MP would you want? Hotseat, EMAIL based? Surely you would not want to sit there for hours on end playing against a group of people online.

see, i think if all the people that wanted MP tried to "seduce" the devs, they might have considered it more seriously.

i mean, if you can "seduce" someone to come home with you (with all its "risks"), you can 'seduce' someone to write code for you.

and yes, theres a difference between "buttkissing" and "seduction"--if you dont know the difference, find out. i guarantee you'll be less "frustrated". (all though, in some circles the physical act of "buttkissing" is considered pleasurable...)

i'm just sayin it was possible. now, less so.

but i understand the disappointment.

I prefer good single player game.

How do you expect to have a good game in multiplayer in that kind of game ? It would be impossible to make a long game with the same player.

For thoses who know superpower 2, the game, the multiplayer is really fun, but it's really hard to play a serious long game in multiplayer, because you just need 1 idiot to ruin the game. (In superpower 2, you have nuke weapon so if someone start nuking other country the AI respond and thoses country with nuclear weapon too. lol, since it's 191 country playable, it's a ton of AI you know !)

I can not understand why those who want the game (AI) to be harder just don't go in and change the XML files. Just boost several or all of the attributes of the opponents (and/or set all yours to 0) and watch your butt get kicked. Or even easier, just push the Turn buttom 50 or 100 turns (on Suicidal, only takes a couple of minutes) without doing anything else and then see if you can catch up. I used this method to make HOMM3 maps harder when I had mastered the game but still enjoyed playing.

I would like to see some form of hot seat multiplayer so I could play with the kids if they are hanging out for the weekend. I think this is the easiest type to implement and I remember reading something on the forum about Cheat mode and the ability to emulate hot seat.

As to other multiplayer options, I have no desire to wait for long periods of time for someone to finish their turn, besides I play irregular at best (Maybe 10 minutes today, but 6 hours the next day, then nothing for a couple of days... so LAN/internet multiplayer would make no sense from my point of view).

Final note......Patience grasshopper(s). There will come a time when they release multiplayer, this is America and every teat gets drained dry (on the cash cow).

Cheers,
Superconductor

Stardock obviously wants to do a jewlery pack, so it presents it in the most pleasing form possible ($8.95 instead of $9). When GC2 originally was released, they indicated that omitting Multiplayer shaved approximately $10 from the price....and yet when the poll was done on MP, they asked if people would be willing to pay $20 (not $19.95 or $9.95) for the expansion.

Hmm.... Just thinking, it is a accepted marketing practice to use a off amount. 8.95, 19.99, 29.99. 19.95 for an item. Thats how pricing works for many items.

Studies show that people accept it, know that the real value is, for example, 9.20,30,20 dollars, know in their mind its a pricing gimmick, but are still much more likely to buy at the magic lower number. Go figgya. The trick is people no longer think its sleezy now, it is accepted.


Maybe, Frogboy did subconciously bias the survey by rounding up the multiplayer survey cost to the real value, instead of stating the marketing price point as he did with the other surveys. It may not even have been intentional, but may have been a 'freudian" slip or poker tell.

The bottom line is he will allocate resources tfor multiplayer as a business decision. He's not going to tell multiplayer fans to go screw themselves out of spite or something. Give the guy a break.

Appreciate whatcha got for pitys sakes .... Says the guy waiting inpatiently for the 1.12 Beta.