terrible rusher then, you should never have had a chance to get more than 5 or 6 depots out, and he should have beaten through them with a half dozen or so zealots pretty fast, since you wasted credits on the depots, you don't have enough marines to counter, or have firebats yet, etc, etc, etc.

The OP is a bit of a tard tho. You can play how you want, but when online playing in a team at least discuss it with your fellow players first. If your going to turtle up with supply depots and siege tanks or something, at least let them know so that they don't rush the enemy immediately and get spanked because they are fighting 2 or 3 separate armies at the same time.

I personally think that Sins is a very unforgiving game. By this I mean its usually impossible to correct your mistakes that you made earlier in game. Like if someone who is inexperienced and they went civilian first with a enemy 2 jumps away. They are basically dead. They just can't respawn and correct their tactics, so the game basically ends right there for them.

Its very hard for most people to actually get better in the game, just because the time it takes from getting from the beginning to the end of the match, coupled with all of the other inconsistencies such as minidumps, disconnects, team members leaving and so forth. In TF2 for a example, a sniper kills me over and over. Eventually its possible to learn his pattern and kill him. Or if a team mate leaves, they are replaced with another one. Things like that just aren't possible in this game, which makes the learning curb very steep. I think the saying fits well "Easy to play, hard to master". One thing I learned is that you have to be a extremely good strategist to be dominant. And that there is little to no adaptability after you already made your move.

As a mediocre player, I am sorry to say that I play to have fun and relax.

Consequently, I never show my face on ICO and restrict myself to my deluded, petty SP quirks.

The OP is right : he should never have to endure me as an ally in a competitive human-vs-human powermatch.

The rare times I visit ICO, I cannot find a relaxed game that would admit ALL playing styles (civ builders included).

I never want to join games where I know that my "mediocrity" will pull down my team.

But the OP's extreme position polarizes the whole Sins community :

On the one hand, there are the extremely good MP players (such as the members of clans X and [GE]), a very small minority ;

On the other hand, there is the silent majority of SP "noobs" and "mediocre" players, who happen to have school-books to study, families to tend to, and relaxed leisure-time from a stressful day-job to enjoy (in any style and manner that they prefer!).

The latter group simply does not have the time and energy to seriously practice to become better than "mediocre".

Recently, on another thread, the expert Sins warrior and forum poster innociv (whom I do admire) told me that he had played more than 500 hours online, at Sins. You do the math : that would have required many evenings solely dedicated to online gaming, on a very regular basis.

I have a daytime job (sorry!). When my workday is finished, I am usually dead tired, and I have family chores to attend to before I can spend (at most) 3 hours an evening to play PC games. (And that's when my girlfriend "allows" me to neglect her for a whole evening!).

Consequently, I wonder.

I wonder who are those elite people who have the special privilege to be able to spend 4 to 6 hours per day, almost each and every day, to become so good at Sins MP.

And who then spit on us "noobs" and "mediocre" non-expert, non-warriors.

If I were a top executive of Ironclad and Stardock, I would ask myself :

"Of the more than 200 000 games we have sold, how many were in fact bought by people who think and behave like this thread's OP writer, and how many games were purchased by "mediocre" students and professionals who don't have a lot of free time available?"

I do not feel in the least humiliated by the author of the OP and by the existence of the awesome warriors of the MP clans (no sarcasm intended).

I simply do not have the time and energy to become as good as them, and I suspect that most of Ironclad's and Stardock's customers are in the same "mediocre" boat as I.

Be reassured, dear OP author :

You will never have me as a "mediocre" team8 in one of your soooooooo important online MP powergames.

I'll stick to SP.

I will continue to relax playing, in the few hours I have available, in any f*cking gamestyle I d*mn want to.

/rant off

Feel free to play on ICO Cybermage. Anyone who's seriously interested in playing the game competitively should do it either via a clan match or an organized pickup games (PUG) match. (The competitive community has yet to organize PUG matches nor even to set up a formal ladder or league.)

If one realizes the neccesarity to commit an act one must not hesitate and commit himself fully to the cause. If one is forced to act the actor should be capable of justifying his acts to himself at any time so that the act under constraint becomes not a burden.

There is nothing wrong with keeping an eye on the economic aspect, for it is capable of overpowering those who do not. Of course that is not ignoring the military assets on the other hand either, wich would be equally foolish.

The defender will have the advantage of terrain with reinforcements for the attacker having to travel - if considered at all.

If you bet on a quick victory and find hardened positions bent around resources and you fail to overpower the enemy you are in a very bad situation because you spent all of yours for that one daring attack.

There are also a lot of people always going for a fixed sheme, and if they fail and realize they exhausted their capabilities and their opponent establishing a solid position despite their attempts they do not tend to stick around either.

Maybe if he learns to spell correctly and not phonetically then I may pay further attentions to his pithy rants and mediocre ramblings.

lol, m04r locks plz?

For other RTS games the above is so true ^^, reading this post though and being a newbie Im worried about MP severely now as Im here to have fun and learn , couldnt care less if I lose as long as I learn from it. I also think that most other strat games are primarly rush orientated and I dont see that as realistic to a war scenario. Aside from your post sounding a bit elitist and perhaps a small part abusive you do make what seem like some valid and pragmatic points about building. I will try and always check in advance now whether a server just wants what they deem to perfect players and will stick to people who are in the game for fun and dont take winning to seriously. I have actually been on other online games(strats funnily enough which well its rpgs Im good at) and I have been subjected to extreme profanity and basically told I dont have the right to play MP until I have mastered SP. I dont see it that way since MP is a completely differant game experiance and way of playing but things like I have mentioned is enough to put alot of the new/borderline mediocre players off. Being quite extreme in some other game genres and to try and be fair I can see your frustration but what you have to remember is many many people have just started playing so I think its respectful to make allowances and even give them suggestions in game if possible(At least thats what I do in other games since everyone has to learn and even at mediocre level there still a hell of alot of learning and refinement of tactics to do and plus like one person says, some people have high pressure jobs, wifes and family and dont have the time or energy to spend every day on a game and as frustrating as it may be surely those people have a right too enjoy the game online as well[realise not everyone will see it this way though])