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While I'm pleased to see some discussion going back in this board, particularly with the release of this game coming up in a couple weeks, I'd ask that the discussion stay productive. Prompting discussion about how something would specifically ruin the game is largely unproductive. If you all have ideas about whether it's something you would like to see or prefer not to see, that's fine, as well as if you have ideas for how to implement certain aspects. As with any thread here on SC4D, intentional flaming of a topic is frowned upon.
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For my part (having gotten the formal admin-y thing above out of the way), I think, as long as there is a stand-alone single player option, a multiplayer experience that was apart from that could prove interesting. It's something we've seen several city building games try with varying degrees of success, but one that none of them have really seemed to nail down. Simulating a market economy is an interesting concept, and having real players engaging in it adds that much more realism (but it's nice to disconnect from that now and then for some basic, fundamental single player city building).
-Matt