Have you considered playing only larger maps for online play, such as the Large Random Multistar system or the Huge Random single star Also, you could look for 2v2's on the Large Random single star map.

One thing that might improve the game would be if custom maps--maps made on Galaxy Forge and not with the in-game Map "Designer"--would automatically download when players join games.

Why customs? Because after a while it does get a little boring playing Maelstrom again for the 20th time or playing the Large Random single or multistar map for the 40th time. The benefit of having custom maps is that instead of being randomly generated, they will have been intentionally designed for team balance and/or to promote a certain type of play.

In my favorite FPS game, the standard maps are rarely played and a number of custom maps have been deemed either "fun to play" or "good for competition" and they are played frequently.

In the case of Sins, part of the game might not be merely playing the games, but also competing to produce the best maps that other people will want to play. Since it's so easy to design maps with Galaxy Forge (as opposed to making an FPS map) you could expect that the marketplace would be filled with hundreds of maps and that some of them would be fun.

When you think about it that way, it's almost as though the game's full potential (ignoring connectivity issues, etc.) hasn't been reached in that the really fun maps haven't been created yet and/or discovered by the online multiplayer community yet.

One thing we might see would be maps designed specifically for 3v3, 4v4, 5v5, 3v3v3, etc. For example, I submitted a map to Stardock that I designed for 5v5 matches and instead of its being a haphazard huge random single star map, my map was intentionally designed to be symmetrical and balanced and also so that players could secure a few planets before colliding in the middle. IMHO, it would be superior to the huge random map and might not take so long to be decided, but it's unlikely that anyone will play it online since it won't auto-download, which means that people would have to go out of their way to purposely download and install it in order to be able to play it online. (The map is 5v5 Red Crush LE-101, which I submitted on Friday night and isn't yet available for download from Stardock's site.)

Here's perspective from a very new newb... I'm just starting to play, and I'm not ready to airlock this game yet, BUT I'm not luvin' it at all.

My initial impression is this is a 'numbers game' much more than a game of tactics or strategy. I don't see myself going online anytime soon. The game simply isn't good enough to put up with a bunch of obnoxious crap from veterans. I don't mind a little hazing, but this game isn't worth it.

In relation to the paragraph lines and while Im no grammatical guru I dont really like to use them as spacers , thats not what they are for.(Theres not much more I can do if you are having trouble reading the post , putting more paragraphs in means I will be breaking up things on related subjects + I cant edit now) Im sorry it hurts your eyes.




I actually agree with you here, I have seen this happen with other games, specifically space force rogue universe but the differance being that was garbage from the outset. I realise there MAY be a risk of what you say because I have seen it in other games but I would still like to see a good patch that is full of content as opposed to a rushed out the door patch. The spaceforce rogue universe and alike games dont hold up to well because sins actually gets a great review and once more people learn of the game it will pickup. Also I have seen games killed dead because of unobjective forum cynicism so I think we have a responsibility to look beyond whats just convienant to ourselfs. (Give them a chance people, look at the amount of changes requested and think from their view......."is it realistic for everything thats been asked for to be finished at this time?"

The thing is I am trying to remain objective where the devs are concerned and I reckon really that the game isnt long out so we need to give them a chance. I have seen many succesful games that get heaps of patches over a period of months so I reckon its unfair to all go nuts and force the devs into rushing the process. (That is going to do far more damage)

Consequantly I have most of the games you suggest and they sit in a box unplayed so I hope we arent going to be wanting to go down the road of lots pf patches, lack of content. If you did read all my post you would see I wasnt being a fanboy either, I was trying to look at both sides of the debate as opposed to extreme doom or extreme delusions of grandeur regarding the game. (I reckon if we take into consideration they are doing content patches then we need to give them at least 1 month or we are being a bit unrealistic) If they fix the big MP /SP issues they should bring that out in a sub patch, that way people that are not patiant enough to give them a chance are getting a quick fix while the rest of us wait for the content patch) You have to bear in mind the sheer amount of requests for this patch, heck Im on here every day and the amount asked for is HUGE so please dont rush them because you are only damaging the prospect of getting a diverse game. Add to this the fact that they openly discuss differant business models and to some degree realise the traditional model doesnt work, well I dont know but maybe they are just aiming to give us true value for money so we need to give them time? The people who are having the minidumps I can totally understand them wanting it fixed fast as hell but I cant understand people who can play the game plus know the devs are actually giving us more content and not willing to give them the time required to do the patch.

Sorry about the big post again but I always try to cover both sides of the coin in my post and that usually gets me hated from both sides lol



Im sorry to hear that and while I havent had this in MP I do know it happens, if you want a game I would be happy to go mp with you. We could play against each other or even against ai if you wanted. Feel free to PM me but unfortunately what you talk about happens in all MP games, its just finding a decent bunch of people and they are out there. I domnt know if you have considered this but join a casual clan, I cant be on sins all the time and the clan Im in (hopeful horizons) give me weeks of notice prior to a game. (The clan has been around a bit now I think, It has a small/medium amount of members and their forums dont have so much as a bad word spoken as of yet. I will finish up here but seriously if you want a game, want to ask anything PM me, you will probably know more than me but if not I would be happy to help.

Just to to say regarding the comment immplying that we should have a finite numbers of resources , if they altered resources like that I would stop playing since I like the fact if people play a huge map it can go on for ages. (I will say though I have ntoiced a drop in the number of players on MP the small time I have been here but I think its because of the balance issues for the most part.)

Redwing, the vast majority of the vets are quitting, GE is pretty much disbanded informally and we were the only clan big enough to consistantly have in house games. Between us and the fact that I haven't seen or heard anything from X recently leads me to believe anyone with skill is leaving, not to mention the 10+ individuals who I consider to be among the best of us in sins say that any appeal for the game is gone for them, and I agree.

1.1 Isn't going to bring me back unless it's amazing, as well as soon, not to mention the longer they delay the dev tools the more these modders look to other games. Many of which are likely going to hop onto sc2 for it's editor if it's an improved wc3:TFT world editor. Almost anything can be done in that editor, almost nothing can be done with our "dev tools" for sins.

The UK/europe release isn't going to save this game's multiplayer, it's going to fade into obscurity and never establish itself. We used to have over 400 players online at times, I haven't seen over 200 in a while. That's not good. The europe release will die down probably quicker, it won't be as massive an influx.

And again, the point is delaying is hurting more than rushing at this point redwing. If 1.1 doesn't come out before demigod closed beta I'm done for good, as are many people I've talked to. Not to mention a lot of people are headed to AoC from GE at least. They won't be back.

Dam that isnt so good at all sorry to hear that. I still think things may work out okay but I have played a HELL of alot of games and I am kinda getting sick of games that I pay out a fair bit of my cash on going down the tubes I seriously hope this doesnt happen with sins.(Especially considering it was the most expensive game I looked at on the page I was on+ got great reviews that made out there were proper fully fledged faction missions, makes me wander if half those reviewers play the game for maybe 5 mins or worse ) Im going to see what this 1.1 patch is like and maybe give the game another month or so, if I see that the numbers start going up again I will be sticking around . I still love the sp side of the game though.

In regards to the modding kit all I can say is I unreservadly agree on this issue because it doesnt allow scripting and I was hoping it would be getting altered so we can script event based text campaigns through the diplomacy screen.

As for AoC I have heard it all before IF thats the MMO , MMOS have been claiming to take wows throne for years, the fact is MMOS have a monotonous uninspiring aspect to them that wow managed to take and dumb down hence its success. I in the past loved MMOS but now I can see them for what they are: 2 months of diversity, 2 years of repitition (If your lucky). I believe I heard such claims from pirates of the burning sea, FF online, EQ 2(one of the best wow type MMOS if anything I would say thats the only one that come close to being better) and many many others. Then theres the MMO which is going to be made by CCP and white wolf studios, now while I LOVE the WoD them heres a prediction for you, that merger has disaster written all over it. Actually come to think of it I remember Dungeons and dragons online was supposed to be something special as well when in reality it had voice acting like something out in my garage, in fact I just got a mail from the company begging me to come back and play for free. Sorry bud I can empaphise with everything you say but I detest MMOS now , they are garbage and are just going to make gaming dull if they get much further, every one is the same.

I am really sorry to hear of those clans though and maybe its just the case I havent had the game long and am too optimistic but I am going to wait and see what happens for the time being. I really hope things pickup, Im fine atm but if it all goes wrong Im seriously going to reconsider the amount of games I buy because its getting to the point Im thinking its just one big "racket" if quality and diversity is out the window. Still the fact its a content patch and being a software developer I know if they are truely doing something special then that will take some time, hence why I am hanging on, plus if they were just saying all they were doing are bug fixes and no content maybe then I would be more worried. (I still think give them a chance but then I guess if you folks have been here from beta I can understand I guess since thats some wait)

I hope the patch works out and keeps you folks here(I will miss the replays as well from good players assuming it works out that there isnt an influx of players to come) and thanks for keeping things civil!

(a diverse campaign coupled with open endedness into this hybrid game is perhaps where they went wrong imo)

respect
redwingdw28

No edit but just contemplating what you are saying regarding these clans that does worry me a bit now I must admit.

QFT

i stopped playing since the game has almost no variety. Virtually the entire economic and tech trees are completely ingorned. It is just rush to LRM/HC and gangbang.

I stopped playing online when I started using the Sins Plus mod and the mod that gives you 10,000 fleet points. I found maps with 1 or 2 stars with tons of planets to be unrealistic and not as interesting as maps with 10-20 stars with less planets, and I thought the planet type variety was lacking. When you play with lots of stars, the standard fleet sizes(even using large fleets) are not enough to defend all of your stars. You get more of an epic feel with large maps with lots of stars, in my opinion, and I like the epic feel. I'm a guy who came to Sins from the 4X type of game instead of the RTS type game though.

The last week I've also been playing the GalCiv2 expansion pack. I'll probably play that for the next month, then come back to Sins.

Haeso, I respect your skill, as well as the time and effort you have put into this game.

Having said that, however, the bitterness of this post and certain replies I've seen you make lately to other posts do you no credit. You feel that Sins has lost its appeal, that Ironclad Online is dying, that the devs haven't given heed to basic issues like balance and modding.

I think your concerns are valid, for the most part, and I think the nine-member team at Ironclad is working hard to address them.

What I don't understand is how you are helping. You make detailed posts about balance issues, you post angry replies to suggestions on handicapping as a method for improving online gameplay. You are involved in your clan.

That's great, but what do you do to bring new players in to this community, make posts like this one? What do you do when you encounter a new player on ICO, do you show him how to play or do you ask him to leave your game? Do you give him a match he can use to learn with, grow as a player, or do you just run over him roughshod for daring to take your precious time? Where are the replays of your best games, with detailed analysis to help others reach your level of play?

You spend one game in three making helpful suggestions to your nubcake opponent, you make a replay post with commentary or add to others, you make meaningful contribution to forum discussion that doesn't involve insults and might even involve helping some clueless nub find his way. Then you will have the right to say the "community is dying" because you will have actually been a part of the community.

/rant off. Please understand, I have nothing against you as a person or a player, but posts like this one do nothing to address the issues you claim to have.
Kestrel

*cough summer/finals week cough*

I might try playing online again soon. Are there any good clans that are known for slower-paced long games? Being able to look away for 5 seconds and not be attacked can be nice sometimes..

I never played many games of Sins online even though I'm a rather competitively minded player; multiplayer is typically what I end up doing with games. Maybe it would be useful to write down some thoughts - what happened and why.

Sins MP was never (and to some degree still isn't) very accessible. We all know about the hosting problems and worse yet, perceived hosting problems in the form of false error messages. There was also the annoying joined/left channel -spam in the lobby. These kinds of things reek of shabbiness and lack of polish, and made the crucial first impression less positive.

What could be done? Well, the damage from a poor initial experience can't really be repaired. However, the European retail release might be a "second chance" of sorts; it'd probably be a good idea to make sure that MP works as smoothly as possible.

Multiplayer games need to be of practical and predictable length, and many Sins matches don't fall into these categories. The game needs to be short enough to accommodate people with varying timetables from all around the globe. You also have to include the time of getting into a game - this is easily as important as the length of the actual game. A predictable length is another essential point, as it's always useful to know beforehand how much time you need to set aside. Sins could use improvement in all of these areas, though pre-game waiting is not as directly alterable - it's more dependant on a critical mass of players, which in turn is dependant on accessibility.

Solutions? An even faster speed setting, toggle for combat resolution speed (ship health/damage), additional victory conditions, game startup options to affect research costs (faster access to late-game technologies in small and medium games.) Separate toggles for military and civic research costs would be very useful.

The lack of campaign can also be related to lack of accessibility. A good campaign eases players into the game, but in Sins everything is put to the table at once. With extensive tutorials and good campaigns, games can be deeper, more complex and still accessible. Players can deal with complexity when they're guided into it properly. The competitive success of Guild Wars is a good example - at top levels it's an enormously complicated and demanding game, yet it's quite accessible and easy to play for the casual player and indeed has a strong PvE following.

What to do? Obviously, better tutorials and a campaign, maybe for an expansion or sequel. An in-game help system (learning mode in Rise of Nations for example) or computer assisted play (Rise again.) Computer assistance would probably be the easiest to implement, and very useful when coupled with an intelligent help system.

Some posters have stated that Sins has little variety and the tech trees are shallow and largely ignored. It's a fair assessment, and one explanation I remember is that the game had to be streamlined to cut unnecessary complexity. That's nice, but maybe things went too far and a better solution would have been to improve the learning curve. Again, depth is not a bad thing. Kohan, for example, managed to include simple unit customization into a real-time game.

Possible improvements for expansion/sequel? Something to strive for would be "complexity from simplicity", or using simple building blocks to enable more complex plays. For example, the cloaked/detector unit system in Starcraft is simple in nature, but allows for some unexpected plays like physically blocking a ramp or passage with cloaked Dark Templars. Stuff like this doesn't really exist in Sins - the gameplay options are mostly "isolated"; they don't build up on each other to enable new stuff, except for some ability combos. Repulsion is an exception, but it's somewhat problematic since it controls the opponent's movement too much. It's okay to slow down or even deny the opponent from moving, but something is wrong when you get to move his pieces.

Some useful things to add in the future would be more unit interactions (cloaked/detector, minelayer/minesweeper and stuff like that), better hit & run and sabotage units, simple unit customization. The approach to balancing in a good multiplayer game could be summarised by "you get what you put into it", meaning that strategies and tactics that are more difficult to execute should also be more powerful.

Many posters have suggested better modding tools. Indeed, better modability is always a good idea, but in my opinion that should not be a priority for improving online play at this juncture. Modding is pointless if the critical mass of players for online play hasn't been reached, and only the vanilla game can do that. I doubt that the playerbase could currently support a mod, and it's also unlikely that a mod could fix the underlying multiplayer accessibility problems of the game.

Sins is a good singleplayer game, but there's a lot of room for improvement for its multiplayer. I hope that the developers will keep improving that aspect as well. Sins is pretty much the only modern game on the market for some epic multiplayer space fleet action, it's a good niche to fill.

Amen to that.

I bought sins recently and have played one MP game so far. My first compliant would be that anyone with dial-up should not be allowed to connect ICO. I joined a 9 player ffa, which went to 8 really quick because of this. I have played other games where you cannot even connect to the online mode without having a min. bandwith. This should be implemented here.

Shortly after the host kicked the lagger another two players left without giving a reason, if there is a way to tell if they DCed or dropped I don't know it. Surprisingly, the game went on pretty well for the next hour or so, as alliences were formed here and there. I myself was fending off attacks from one human, and attacking an ai, on one front, and dealing with another human (green) on the other side of my empire.

Then things turned for the worse, I was fighting a large planet of "neutrals" (about a 15 ship mix of HC, LRMs, Flaks, and the like; with my main fleet. A kol, supported heavily with LRMs, HCs, and others. This fight was going well enough, wasn't loosing many ships, but by the time they were dead the kols shields were down, and this is when green decided to jump my undefended planet the kol was previously protecting.

The other 2/3s of my fleet was fighting the previously mentioned two front fight, about five planets away. With no other choice, I sent them to their death. Green had been massing caps and was attacking me with three of them, two were dreads. I quickly built some hanger defense, and as many ships as I could, and microed the hell out of the fight, and did surprisingly well, eventually chasing them off without losing my cap. (experience vs. numbers)

Unfortunatly, after chasing them away, I became preocupied with the other front again, and didn't build enough ships, or caps, to defend greens next attack. Which was made up of about 3 dreads, 2 other caps, about 6 strike carriers, and other small ships. The fight lasted a while, but I eventually lost that planet.

If anyone bothers to read this far into this post, you may be asking yourself "what is the point here"? Well, I'll tell you.

1. After all of what I just recounted happend, my ally (also the host) messaged something like this "Being sandwiched between two aggresive AIs is no fun, I'm outta here"-- Really? Because I doubt two ai is as bad as 1 and two humans, but I digress.

2. All things considered it was a fun and educational game, so there still is some life in the online mode.

3. After "green" stomped me, and my ally left, "green" suggested humans vs. ai, which would have been cool. Which is what I was typing when my game crashed.....

I guess there isn't an edit post option.

I forgot to mention that the main reason I was able to repel green's first attack, and last a good long time against a larger force the second, was because I had built 2 repair...(cant remember name, so repair satallites?) and about 3 repair ships, with the disable ability. I like those things.

I've been MIA for a few weeks now due to finals. Hopefully in 2 weeks I'll be able to actually play something again! It's not that I dont want to play. It's just I dont have time for any games atm. Oh well, such is life. Hope 1.1 comes out around the time I'm able to play again

I'm new. Just joined...because of an advertisement I noticed for oh I dunno 2-3 months at Penny Arcade. I went into the gamer forums to find out what people thought of the game. It seems PA might have their own MP server but truthfully no one seems to be on it anymore. The thread has slowed to a crawl.

Still...I'm fresh blood and recently there were at least one or two other PA people who bought the game. 1.1 or the expansion + a good advertising campaign is really all you need to get numbers back. Easy to use Mod tools are also great for keeping communities alive. Look at NWN/NWNII persistant worlds, Morrowind mods, Counterstrike etc.

There's also the consideration that if you make a game good enough and don't fall into "Movie Sequel Syndrome" with your expansions you can get a TON of new/old players. Elder Scrolls, Might & Magic, and Warcraft are good examples of these. Blizzard also had/has teh shizzle marketing structure.

I for one haven't had the opportunity to play online since I've lived on campus at college, where the network blocks the ports needed to go online. Now that I'll be living at home for 4 months, I'll be getting on.

This is Foundation, a guy who sorta mingled with the "veteran" community for a few weeks but got sick of multi-player instability.

For a while I had relatively good luck completing online games, but after a few consecutive nights of mini-dumps and player drops, I got fed up and have picked up other activities. I might give Patch 1.1 a chance when it comes out, but basically the frustration of shoddy networking/programming has driven me away.

Sins is a fun game, but I can't substitute the "good idea" for the reality of "frustrating crashes."

Foundation, lurking

Aww Foundation come back...I played a couple of games against you a month or two ago as Gamma back when I was still spamming Sova embargo and you trounced me soundly. How can you flee to greener pastures before I get my revenge? Ideally upcoming hotfix will solve at least 50% of minidump issues and 1.1 will take care of hosting..

ah so basically the biggest culprit is likely not the developers, it's the community itself that's doing more harm than good. I figured a game such as this would attract a lot of anal nerds. Look not everyone buys a game at the day of release, we all start out as a newb. It's sad really, but they have their own self to blame then.

For me I'm still thinking about picking up the game, but after reading this I really have 2nd thoughts now. Plus, if there's no variety to the game as some people say, what's the fun in playing through a game that can take 4 or more hours to complete?

On another note given the length of the game, it has to be really annoying to play online and have someone drop during a crucial point of the game. Who wants to play for 2 hours just to have one of their allies drop? I can only see myself playing this game with people I know, I doubt highly if I join with randoms because of this.

Major Game Flaws:

1. Game crashes. Some say its your system or your video drivers, but I think its a MAJOR flaw in the net code. Try playing more then 1 online is just asking for the game to crash. Its BS to say it affects a minority of people online. Just go to the lobby and ask people if their game crashes while playing online. I would say 80-90% of the people will say that they have experience a game crash in the last day or so. Maybe thats why they say if affects a small amount of people, because most cant play online/multiplayer without it crashing forcing them to play single player only

2. Imbalance issues. Theres a reason why when playing online everyone who knows how to play will go LRMS. Going anything else is difficult and will usually spell doom. First hour is all about LRMS, second is hc and support if it reaches that far.

3. Slower then molasses. When playing online the difference between slow, normal, and fast speeds are a joke causing many people to either just disconnect or get disconnected. Trying to save the game and emailing the person the saved file is painful at best. Especially when the person doesnt know how to unhide a folder and if they are losing wont bother to rejoin the game, because it would be easier to join a different game in which you have a chance of winning. So this leads to the problem of either joining a clan and playing against other clans or just playing against people you know.

Trackiet, I think you may be confusing a crash with players leaving the game. This is something entirely different.

I think the game plays well with the fast speeds and I'm pretty happy with the game play the way it is. So what if you end up building mostly LRMs and Heavy Cruisers? The fun of the game is not in building a variety of pretty ships. Rather, it's about managing your empire and figuring out when and where to attack and how to spend your money and resources.

For those people who keep complaining about the LRM and heavy cruiser spam, would you guys care to suggest some additional and comparably useful frigates and heavy cruisers that could be added to the game? Would those additions be substantive or would they serve to just make the game a little more cluttered and complicated?