Multiplayer in December?

[alireza1354]

The multiplayer pit boss, which will allow persistent multiplayer games of Civ IV, will be released in December. Meanwhile, the software developer kit, which will aid mod makers, will be released in January





What does this mean?

 

[Ranbir]

I think it means one of the MP modes?

I hope that SDK is only that advanced AI one. And not the XML/Python stuff... Either way it's ok, since December is when I have holidays in my busy university year. Man, if I fail, I'll know who to blame...

 

[Raggamuffin]

Without the xml the game will only be an empty shell. So it's in.

 

[Robi D]

pitboss is the new MP, since nothing else was mentioned i'm assuming the other MP modes are in. It is strange, since they said it was all on track and the MP part of the game was finished, maybe they discovered a major bug in it, anyway i don't see as a big deal as for those first few months most people will be learning the way the game plays now rather then playing competative MP games. However if they want us to pay for it, well that would not make me happy.

 

[Mrdie]

Pitboss is a thing that allows you to quit and continue the game later on (I am 99% sure of this), like lets say...

Civ III

Ben: Okay..lets play!

Tom: Yay!

* Plays *

Tom: OH GOD I HAVE TO POOP! * Logs off *

Ben: God damnit!

Civ IV

Tom: OH GOD I HAVE TO POOP! * Logs off *

Ben: Mmkay..just continue this later then...

 

[warpstorm]

Another possibility is that they won't have the servers in place for Pitboss.

 

[CustodianV131]

Aye, its sad that its missing, but its not like Civ 3 where they pulled the whole multiplayer. Multiplayer seems to be very much in and in all kinds of flavors.

I rather have that they put in the pit boss properly in December, instead of rushing it in and getting all kinds of bad press because of the bugs.

Shame about the modding tools being left out, but maybe they'll now really make great tools out of them instead of the rudimentary tools the devs use. (They don't need nice interfaces because they work everyday with it, for them it only needs to get the job done)

All in all I'm still very happy how Civ4 is shaping up and I hope a lot of new people will experience the Civ goodness this way!

 

[Darwin420]

The python modding ability will still be in. The SDK is what controls the AI, and they've always said that it would be released well after the game.

Disappointing about Pitboss, but I think they probably realized they didn't have the server capacity - since they only had a small number of people playtesting MP, as compared to the number of people expected to buy the game.

Personally, I only really play the hotseat MP, so not having Pitboss isn't a big deal for me.

 

[CustodianV131]

Ah you're right about the editing tools! Even beter then. Still I hope they'll prove to be really userfriendly. Woud do the game a lot of good for sure.

Still I'll need the pitboss for most of my MP games, so I hope they'll have it done before the holidays in december.

 

[joethreeblah]

The python modding ability will still be in. The SDK is what controls the AI, and they've always said that it would be released well after the game.

Disappointing about Pitboss, but I think they probably realized they didn't have the server capacity - since they only had a small number of people playtesting MP, as compared to the number of people expected to buy the game.

Personally, I only really play the hotseat MP, so not having Pitboss isn't a big deal for me.

It is really not only for hot seat. If everyone is on at the same time, you can play normal, it just allows for continuing, without one person holding the data file - which is a good thing.

At least this way, maybe we can all practice and complain for a couple of months, and then get on there and play a nice epic fanboy vs the whiners game.

 

[Smeg]

as i understood it, when Civ4 is released, we can play online and LAN, etc and STILL save the game.

This new Civ4 expansion pack will be more like a league is my guess.

Basically you have a gamespy username/password, log on to their servers, play league games that are recorded etc, with statistics, etc.

Kinda like battle.net but with even better statistics, player matching, etc.

Then they can some how work out the best player with a certain race or best score, match them up, play a game, etc.

Or it might be something completely different!