Multiplayer question

Is it going to be stuck at 8players in the multiple games ? Was really looking forward to atleast 12... . i know WC3 is 12...

so i am really hoping they bump it up a bit.. 8 players isnt enough any more ..

anyone has any ideas on this ?

 

Yes. Apparently it is kept at 8 but they are considering increasing it. This is official but I wouldn't be able to give you the link to it.

 

but y keep it at 8 ?

the more people playing a RTS at the same time is alot more fun that just 8 people..

i really hope they increase it..

 

I think 8 is just fine. Would be too much if it was 12 players. anyway welcome to the forums fellow newbie  :good:

edit:exactly kuvasz, was going to post something familiar but was to lazy

 

I also think 8 is enough. Why? Because if you think about it... with many worlds and solar systems in the universe, what's the probability that more than 2 races meet and duke it out? Or what's the probability that two opposing parties meet within a race? Not much.

The other thing that might explain capping the number of players at 8 is the strain on the computer. If you look at the details in models, textures and animation, multiply it by 40 (with 4 food cost/unit on average), multiply that by something above 8, you might just get to a result somewhere around 10-20 frames per second.

 

point noted kuvasz about it taxing the computers..

 

@ drdre , once again, please do not post unnecessarily. Especially in the General Discussion Forum. This topic would be BETTER in the Lounge although it could technically reside here.

I agree with having 12 players. I think it might add a new dimension, and you can always notch down the number of players, but you can't increase it.

 

Well blizzard made this game to suit most computers but playing 12 players and all with big armys, i dont think most of the comps could handle that dont you agree?

 

I don't really care about "most" computers.

I understand that most people can't afford high-end equipment, but if you like StarCraft and played the original, I would think you'd be willing to make an investment in getting a computer that can handle it.

I want something new, new gameplay, new units, new # of players.

Remember, this game may have to last us another 10 years. I don't plan to compromise.

 

Yes but with most i meant almost everyone, it would lagg really really bad of that im convinced. And yeah screw the money, i want starcraft 2!

 

8 is enough. You must also consider that there are LAGGERS everywhere, so if we are 12, we'll get more problems ...

 

I think that it should be twelve, but limited to only eight in Ladder games. This way we can have large UMS games yet still please most people by keeping an 8 person maximum for ranked games. Warcraft 3 did this, so why can't SC2?

 

I'd like to see the cap go to 12. Certainly some players would not be able to handle it, so they wouldn't use it. But it would allow other players a new experience. It is not as if they would be left out in a majority of games: in StarCraft today, a minority of games ever gets to a full 8, most people tend towards 2v2 or 3v3. They don't even touch the top, but it would be nice to have that option.

I feel the same way about larger maps (think 512x512). Certainly, most people wouldn't play most games on them, but it would let map makers have more freedom and give players different experiences if they ever look for them.

 

yeah, something ive always wanted (not considering lagg and such) is continental battles! It would be sweet to play a 512x512 map, maybe even bigger! It would feel more epic, with all the bases you have scattered, all the allies you have made..

 

i believe that is a very naive way of thinking my friend, paying $1000 (just to say something), to play a game, just because you liked the last one? wow, for me it stays as a game, not something in which i will spend that much money if i dont make it to play with super high graphics, on the other hand, i could spend that money to buy a computer that helps me in my work, or in school, etc.

and well, on the topic, for me 8 players is ok, the engine is using a lot of unique elements, so i guess many computers and internet conections wont make it if let say... 16 players wich 9 are zerg build a massive army, and of curse the maps should be bigger, it could be cool, but as in supreme commander, too big its not always too fun.

 

too many players also equals long games... and imho you can get enough variety with 8 ffa or 8 diplomacy or something...

 

Nobody would make you play games on large maps, or with dozens of players. You'd have plenty of choices of smaller games, large games would naturally be an extreme minority. But you would make us play with just a handful, simply because you yourself don't like scale? You'd tell us, "no, you can't" just because you don't want to play an hour-long game?

 

A nieve way of thinking of it? Or maybe it's nieve to think that you should be allowed to get by playing with less than optimal settings and slowing down the experience for gamers who cared enough about the release of this game to buy the proper hardware.

Or maybe it's nieve to fail to have a computer that meets a relatively low set of system requirements.

 

Well, if people are able to play the game, it is because they have the proper hardware, there's no way they'd be slowing anything down. What Blizzard does it make it so that the proper hardware is not the highest-end machines possible. You know, Blizzard could make the minimum settings a BlueGene/L with a few million gigabytes of RAM. That way, the four billionaires who cared enough about the release of this game to buy the proper hardware would get the optimal experience.

There is a reason Blizzard aims low on system specs! I own Supreme Commander, and when I go online to play, there are, at any given time, maybe 15 open games on the entire planet, and all of these games have titles like "2v2 Dual Core, 2GB RAM" because, the developers of SupCom irresponsibly chose to make their game prohibitively hardware-intensive. And guess what, even in those games, where everyone has a fast, fast computer, it still lags like crazy(the average game has frame stuttering and stops that would put the worst StarCraft games to shame). Why? It's not the player's fault, they're just doing whatever the game lets them. They're massing units to keep up with their massing opponents. It's the developer's fault for creating an experience that makes unreasonable demands of the players, and even then failing to keep up their end of the bargain and give the players a smooth game.

Blizzard doesn't do this. Blizzard goes out of their way to avoid alienating the huge number of people that aren't swimming in cash to throw at one game. Lower specs>>more people can play the game>>more people buy the game>>Blizzard makes more money.

"Thinking of the people that buy the right hardware" is a naive way of looking at it because the view completely ignores the huge number of people that won't go out of their way just for a game. I know that you you are not one of them, but Blizzard wants to sell games to these people, so it has to make the specs something that their computers can handle. It can't(or rather, is smart enough not to), like GPG and many other high-end-oriented game developers, prescribe system specs and just hope that a few million people and their wallets are up to the challenge.

 

Think of a map with 12 players and the only thing you could produce

would be:

Zerglings

Zealots

Marines