I'd Imagine we'll be the ones figuring out what the cut off should be in the beta testing process. With the the extended beta SD should be able to get the data needed to find the point that the game becomes unplayable. It will probably be sub 5kbs.

You're forgetting about the tactical battles.  

We can't really be sure how much bandwidth tactical battle takes since there's very little info on that subject. If it is just queued orders however I can't imagine this to be a big upload issue at all.

And remember - Elemental is going to have  a pure client-server netcode so it's nothing like on the scale of Demigod where you have to communicate with all players simultaneously.

Starcraft played just fine on a decent dialup connection. Hell, WoW *still* plays fine on dialup if you're not into something that saturates the connection (raids, or Dalaran).

I just can't see what Elemental is going to be doing that would require high speed upload. Demigod has that problem becuse it's P2P nature causes expoential growth in the data being sent as the size of the game scales up. Elemental is going to be talking to a single server and thus only really uploading what *you* do, and acknowledgements. It'll be downloading what everybody else does.

Unless this limit is set extremely low, its going to cause problems that shouldn't be necessary.

Alright. That's it.
I was extremely sceptical to their "all games will be on our servers, achtung!"-approach from the beginning, for a wide array of possible issues that will inevitably crop up in the (far) future. I really wasn't expecting this to be one of them, though.

With an already shaky line with wildly fluctuating speed and no options for anything better, this killed it for me. Not because I'm a huge multiplayer, but because the practice in itself. It's especially disheartening to see a company previously lauded for their business practices to pull something like this.

Unfortunately it doesn't really do anything with me walking out like this, since I've already pre-ordered. But yeah.

I'm off.

It should be a feature that is optional, and I don't think it's a good idea for this type of game. People continue to act as if broadband speed is available to everyone nationwide. It's not. DSL wasn't available across the road until three days ago where I live. I am fortunate to have cable with crap upload on pretty much any tier though. Other people I know use Sat. or 3G. Considering I play 99% with friends and family, I am willing to put up with a lot just to have fun. I wouldn't appreciate any company telling me I am not allowed to put up with an iffy connection if I want to. I understand other people won't want to.

The only reason people are jumping to conclusions is extremely vague information was given out. It's one thing to broadcast connection speeds and allow players to decide on whether or not to continue with someone with low "marks"; it’s another to artificially prevent them from playing MP entirely.

The issue shouldn't even exist. If the games are client/server, it's up to whoever hosts the game. For instance, LAN parties don't care about internet connection speed. Hosted servers in Europe wouldn't care if the lag with a US server is important.

If Stardock still plans to host all multiplayer games itself (meaning no hotseat or LAN and probably no pbem), then such issues may arise, but are unlikely as Cari said and she knows best what she's talking about.

Honestly, if you connection speed is THAT low, good riddance. Some people actually want to be able to enjoy MP without getting the 600+ ping ambush everytime they want a casual match.

You know, I really dislike this attitude. I don't think I've seen a recent launch on this forum without someone pretty much saying they could care less if someone leaves or not. Hey, I think it's premature for people to stop following the game because of half-baked information given in an interview not even about the game in question. It is probably even premature to cancel a pre-order, assuming someone has pre-ordered; I certainly haven't. I rarely do for a number of reasons myself. I think someone should be able to vent their frustration without someone telling them not to let the door hit them on the way out. On the other hand, I certainly think saying you are going to leave based on unofficial information is not exactly stellar either.

I believe he meant play with LARGE numbers of people, most (99.9%) of connections should be good for 1v1 with all right latency between the host and player.

If the game is able to inform the player of other players latency or upload rate in the lobby, I don't think it would be necessary to enforce minimum bandwidth/latency restrictions. The players will be able to take their own informed decisions.
Beside, latency is a relative measure. I don't know how this applies to Demigod or Elemental but, if European players drag everybody down because of laggy oversea connections, I guess you'd better setup a mirror server in Europe.

Finally, I'm no specialist but if a TB strategy game needs more than a handful kb/s to send turn orders - even in tactical battles and not talking about graphical resources or mod upload - I would think there's something wrong.

This is why PBEM should be included.