Usually, I dislike IGN. They often judge games unfairly and give great scores to games that dont deserve them. This time, though, I have to agree with them. This game makes me sad every time I see it or hear of it. It has so much potential and is just plain awesome at times, but it has little content apart from mods. I think you guys released it too early, but I am not an expert in such matters. I believe there is only one way to save this game from total ruin: Multiplayer. It would fix almost all of the important flaws (Poor AI and very little to do despite the incredible amount of weapons and soldiers) and capitalize on it's strengths (Best physics I have ever seen, fun concept, many options to choose, and base building/semi random maps).

I beg you data, before it is too late, if it is not already: please add multiplayer so this game does not die. That would be a colossal gaming tragedy and a monumental waste of talent and potential.

There IS multiplayer, what are you talking about?

No one has friends IRL anymore lol.

He's obviously talking about online multiplayer. Most of my friends actually agree with him. They think cortex command is a fun game with some flaws and they're happy to play it when they're over at my place, but they'll never ever consider buying it without online multiplayer.

As far as I understood it (and please, someone correct me if I'm wrong on anything I say here, I'm rather ignorant when it comes to networking), online multiplayer is never gonna happen, mainly because of the randomness of cortex command. Blow up a dropship and all the gibs and effects will go a different way on each client connected to a server, so creating a synch between the client and servers is impossible, meaning the server might say a gib dropped ontop of your brain, while your pc shows it missed you. But why exactly is this an issue? Can't the server just decide what happens and then transmit the video to the clients, while the clients only send the controller feedback to the server? What exactly is the problem with online multiplayer, why can it never happen?

This idea has been floating around for a bit, and would work well enough. I think at this point it's just not having anyone on the team who could do the networking and such.

Holy ♥♥♥♥, really? That's all? That's just such a waste...I figured it must be something technical that meant my idea couldn't ever work, but if it really is just a lack of manpower it seems such a shameful waste.
Considering the amount of posts quite similar to the OP's about online multiplayer being "needed" to make this game a true succes, hasn't data ever considered hiring an outsider to do the networking? Or does he really only take on people he already knows? The rest of the dev team used to all be modders or were otherwise known to data right?

The code is (reportedly) such a mess that trying to make it into networked multiplayer would be a nightmare. Retrofitting networking code into a local game is hard in of itself, but doing that on a game whose code is a mess would be terrible.

Ah fair enough then. Still a shame, but I really can't blame anyone for it, considering the development process and time frame of cortex command.

There are programs out there that let you remotely view and send key presses to other computers, I wonder if something like that could be used with the split screen mode to "fake" an online multiplayer mode.

I suspect it wouldn't be very practical due to the lag time involved. Unless you restricted control of units in the field and only ordered/placed stuff, whoever was acting as the host would have a pretty significant advantage in any kind of actual fight.

This thread made me remember an old comment Data made on RPS regarding MP over the Internet, and I actually managed to find it. This quote might clear up some of the confusion:

BTW, PRS's Tim Stone did a review of CC that actually manages to be both full of relevant critique and flattering at the same time. You can find it here: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10 ... x-command/

Nevermind my comment about mess then.

Nice, this has been really informative. That snippet from data really answers any questions I had.