No. A thousand times no.

"con: it has no multiplayer" is NOTHING compared to "con: the multiplayer is terrible" when it comes to how reviewers bash things.

Something marketed as SP only is treated that way. Nobody docks points from Mass Effect because it doesn't have MP. People DO dock points when the MP support is just bad, or in the case of Elemental doesn't work for a month (when reviews are being written) and is then bad afterward.

If you're doing bad MP just to get reviewers to shut up, you're doing it very, very wrong. And that doesn't even count the pissed off customers who see "MP", buy it, then get angry when it's not done well.

"If you can't do it right, don't do it at all" as a rule applies to MP just like everything else.

As for it taking over the forums... well you know. It's been treated as the red headed bastard stepchild for a while, and people want to know if that is going to change or not. As of yet, I haven't seen a direct and firm answer to that.

If a turn based game is good single player, it will be good multiplayer concept wise. The area you run into is say speed/time of game play. Even the TotalWar guys have decided being able to play the main part of the game multiplayer would be worth it.

Yes. But I'd prefer the more leisurely pace of PBEM, over the RTS-like stress of online.

FB has said he's working so hard on WoM because years from now, when people look back at the game (or pick it up in the bargin bin) that is won't be a negative experience; so it will be positive; a good legacy.

MP was not just listed on the box, it was talked about in depth durring it's creation process.  So SD has two choices: They can put in a great MP (as was advertised and touted) and have people enjoy it for years to come, and look back on the game as a positive, or they can leave MP where it is (laughable and broken).  Right now the "legacy" MP has on this game is down right embarrassing.

Like I wrote before, AoW did it a decade ago, and Stardock can't now???

And I want to thank people like Haldur, who don't care one way or the other about MP, but understand for MP people, it's a make or break thing.  When you buy a game for MP, to play with friends/family, and there is NO mp, there is really no game for you either. . .

Then there's some other people, who seem to think that if they improve/fix MP, that that Stardock will fire everyone but the MP people; put yellow police tape around where the SP game people use to work, and say "Hey, were going to improve MP, so NOBODY goes near the SP work area ever again!   

To answer the poll question, YES.

Until it's implemented, and implemented right (i.e. not the half-assed MP we have now or some "streamlined" version), it's $50 I wish I could have back.

They really don't have to do a lot to please me, just have the same SP experience as a playable option in MP.  I couldn't care less for streamlined, stripped down, multiplayer modes.

I really don't understand what is so difficult about this concept for Stardock to grasp.  There's a lot of people asking for it, and from the outside perspective it seems like the easiest route to go.

What worries me is that I see the MP community expressing that they want the SP version of the game in MP over and over and over, but I don't think I can recall a single post for people  saying they want a streamlined MP version... yet Stardock seems insistent on going that route.  

It bothers me because it reminds of me the disconnects Brad had throughout a lot of the beta process in regards to specific feedback about areas that came back to bite them after release.  He's said in later post mortem interviews that he can be "very obtuse" and I don't know if this is what's going on here (I'm not saying this in a trollish/insulting way, I mean no offense) or what.

Brad's said a lot of times he doesn't enjoy TBS games in MP and doesn't play them, so IMO that makes him a very bad candidate to determine the course of the MP design in Elemental.

Again, just my two cents, I hope nothing came across as rude or offensive.

No , a working game is my main desire!!

I think collecting the answers can give a false impression. I personally don't dislike the idea of having MP, ceteris paribus. But having it requires A LOT of effort from the development team, and given a fixed amount of resources (money, time..) this implies that other things in the game will be given less importance, or eliminated.

I'd rather ask people how much they deem MP important on a scale from 1 to 10. For me, the answer is 3. There are other things more important, like having the single player functioning and enjoyable first, or having co-op option against multiple AI.

So, answering just "yes" to this question would give developers the wrong message, at least in my case.

The point is it would be played more than an MP that cuts out lots of things that are fun in SP, not that it would be played significantly. There is a reason that I have stated that the portion of the MP crowd that Elemental would appeal to is the casual players (as opposed to the hardcore for whom MP is the reason they are playing the game).

Any MP that uses a diffrent balance from SP is clearly targeting people that play competitively.

Gwenio1--I understand your point, but i still prefer games that are not multiplayer balanced.

No interest in multiplayer in any turn based game.