I see... how typical

Greedy devs ditch their games for money

Resulting in a shitty product

And gamers just... quit

It seems I'd have to wittness yet another downfall

Even though I've just come here

Ryat the only troll here is you. You have not even responded to a single one of my thoughts, and it seems to me that is becoming a pattern. I spent alot of time writing this up, finding various quotes, all of which I believe 100%. Quite frankly, if you don't have anything constructive to add, fluff off and dont respond to my posts. At least Seleuceia does that.

And lmfao, do you even have a shred of fluffing evidence for that last part? Seriously gtfo if you don't have the time to even write a decent comment.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I really doubt you have played rebellion multiplayer (or at least 100+ games). Back in 2012 and 2013 when I used to play regularly, games could not last one hour before me or somebody else MDing (look up my previous posts, jinglycats, or Seleuceias if you dont believe me). This ruins the game because an AI is not a suitable replacement for a skilled player. Everyone in the lobby is now forced to quit and re-pick teams, a process that can take over 30 minutes...

Although it is not quite as bad today as it was over a year ago, that does not mean the problem went away. I've noticed that around 1 in 7 games end prematurely due to some kind of technical issue... and they're not all MDs/disconnects these days. Now we have a new one to deal with: runtime errors! It is quite unacceptable in 2014 for a product to have these sorts of issues, especially for one whose player base have been screaming for fixes since day one. It just seems Stardock does not care about improving and expanding the multiplayer aspect of this game; a shame considering they have a real gem in their hands.

And thats not even getting to ICO features either, a massive fail if I ever saw one. My 16 year old starsiege tribes game has more functionality than that.

You are still stuck in the old trinity mindset. There is no Advent synergy anymore; at least not until the very late late game. Titans and vettes have made most of the early game ships obsolete. And what changes in rebellion gave TEC huge bonuses to their economy? The TL did get a research for two SBs (and theoretically quad trade ports) but that is tier 8 and almost never gets built. 

As for vasari, they have finally been nerfed down to reasonable levels. And it only took two years.

I ENVY YOU

MDs are terrible...it is rare a game finishes without at least one person MDing, and by "finish" we aren't even talking a true finish, but rather when one team decides to quit since they know it is over...

I've heard all these "excuses" like "maybe it's just your computer", but that wouldn't explain why 2-4 people can MD at the same time (I think the record I've witnessed is 6, but 2-4 is common enough)...I've also heard excuses like "it's just cause you play on faster game speeds with 10 people", but that wouldn't explain the MDs I've experienced in 1v1s or games on normal speed...even if you don't personally MD, any MP player that plays regular "experiences" MDs, if only in the form of someone else in their game getting an MD...

 

Back on topic though.....

To my knowledge, Stardock and Ironclad had no real experience with competitive multiplayer before SoaSE...the mentality needed to create a good SP game is not necessarily the same mentality needed to make a good MP game, and so it is understandable that a studio well versed in SP can have some problems trying to make a good MP game on the first try...perhaps most importantly, when Sins was made, it was not intended to be a big MP game...my understanding is that the MP was more an afterthought, a little implementation so the devs could have some fun...

As we now know, Sins is an excellent game for MP...the UI and simplified gameplay combined with deep and diverse strategy make for an excellent competitive game, but that is more by chance than by design....even when it became apparent that this game could be an MP jewel, we still have the issue of the experiences the developers possess...if you don't have experience working with MP, you can't magically become an expert just because your game has potential you didn't realize...

It is an unfortunate situation....MP devs have to play their own game a lot more in competitive environments in order to fully understand the game balance and mechanics, and that probably is not a luxury the Starclad devs had...if you are an SP kind of dev, you don't play your game for hundreds of hours against other really good human players because that just isn't good use of your time...we can complain all we want, but Stardock and Ironclad are what they are -- I think though they will have learned a thing or two from this experience and will be more prepared next time...

 

 

As for the general criticism levied at the devs...

It is true that MDs are really bad, this is a problem that either the devs are not aware about or simply do not care about....but lets be really clear here, by "do not care about" I'm NOT implying the devs are greedy buggers who don't give two shits about their players...by "do not care", I mean they have recognized that the time, effort, and resources needed to fix such problems simply would not be justified...in other words, it would not be worth the trouble...the SP experience seems to be highly stable currently, and that represents the majority of the player base...it is also possible the devs aren't aware or don't believe MDs are rampant -- most of mine don't even log a dump file since they are runtime errors...

We can criticize the Beta of Rebellion, but really the only valid criticism is that it wasn't long enough...the devs didn't beta test the Vasari, who were grossly OP for months...but then again, they were OP for months, so I'm not sure a slightly longer beta test really would have fixed the issue...and then there are things like wail and the weakness of the Ankylon and Coronata that also weren't fixed for months, and those things were beta tested...this all points to the fact that the devs simply aren't MP naturals...it is what it is, get over it....

Finally, I'd just like to add some perspective...I encourage anyone who thinks SD is evil to look at the total war forums...the mayhem that has resulted from the release of Rome 2 Total War is a site to behold, and we're talking a AAA studio...bugs, frame rates, and balance issues still plague that game and those dudes have experience making MP games...it's also the 3rd game on that engine, you'd think they'd have it down pat by now...then there are the other 4x space games, like SotS 2 which was practically unplayable for months....do I even need to mention SimCity???

When you look at the industry, SD is still clearly far better in how they handle the community and their games compared to most companies...they aren't perfect, but they are pretty damn good...this anti-steam non-sense is a good example -- we wouldn't even be having this discussion with any other company because no other company even had the gamer bill of rights.....

To my understanding Ironclad is a pretty new company, and Stardock was best known for making the Galactic Civilizations series (which has had many complaints about no multiplayer included, which is why they're finally adding it in).  So that's not surprising to me.

Sins never used to minidump until I tried trinity on a Windows 7 machine, and when I got rebellion the issue just went away.  Never had problems on my older XP machine at all.  I didn't start playing multiplayer until around last spring or summer, but the only time I had a minidump issue was because I had just disabled a mod and forgot to let the game hit its first-time crash point...   fortunately it happened right after the game started so we didn't exactly lose any progress.

I should also add that other than private games with friends (which I've been doing a lot longer, and which was when I encountered my first trinity minidumps), most of my matches haven't lasted much longer than an hour or two, and I haven't had disconnects mid-game except when someone was getting slaughtered (and probably quit).

The only weird error I've seen is the game randomly speeding up, which is presumably caused by it going slightly out of sync.

 

I could imagine that any ideas of a new interface for MP were scrapped when they decided to integrate Steam. Which I still dislike very much.... but on the other hand... Stardock once stated that

 

90 % of all sales were over steam.

 

And while I hate steam with a deep passion for their locked in business model, only a fool would seriously expect Stardock to quit steam after such a success.

 

About the MP interface: Yes.... it certainly could be improved. But frankly.... it is not the worst MP interface I have seen the last decade. Not by a fair margin. It gets the job done. And considering the average number of players even in good times, it wasnt to difficult to find the right game for you.

 

Perhaps you are mostly used to games that are developed from the ground up for competive MP. Those games obviously try from the beginning to implement a good interface for MP. Which doesnt mean they succeed all the time. But they try. They spent money for a good MP interface because they know MP is a very important part of their game. One that will notable increase sales when it is done good.

 

That are the MP focused games. Many shooters fall into this category. And then there are SP focused games. Most RTS fall into this category. E4X games are usually even more single player focused. Those games do benefit from having a MP part.... but it is not their overall selling point.

 

How many C&C copies were sold? How many of those do you see on the servers?

 

The thing is.... arround 90 % of the player base is single player only. They never touch the MP even once. I would believe the number is sinking in more recent years, but the overall majority is still single player only. 

 

And that means that they are where the money is. If you ignore the MP community in Sins.... (which was not ignored, mind you) you might loose 10 % sales... but if you make the SP guys unhappy you may loose 90 % of your sales.

 

Thats why they nerfed the hard AI.... because it proved to hard for the singleplayers. I dont think any halfway competent MP players has  any issues with it.

 

About the stability issues:

 

I mean no disrespect and I dont question your words. But mabye... just maybe the minidumps are not such a regular occurance for the majority of players.

 

I understand that minidumps are extremely annoying for anybody having them. But a few things I dont understand:

 

• They cant be that regularly for the majority. Hardly anybody speaks about them on the web. Leaving this forum and a few people aside of course.
• I dont have them. And I run a rather old system by now. Core2Duo @2,40 GHZ, overclocked to 3.20 GHZ, ATI HD 4870, Win XP... 32 Bit.
• My friends dont have them. And they have significantly more modern hardware: For example one of my friends.... AND YES.. we PLAY MP.... 12 hour long slugfestes.... without any issues.
  Win XP Pentium IV, Geforce IDK -->  No issues
  Win Vista QuadCore HD4890 -> no issues
  Win 7 Hexacore... HD 6890 --> no issues
  
  Another friend.... XP and now Win 7.... no issues. Ever. And we even play with mods regularly.
• Did you send your dump files to Stardock? They cant fix it if they dont know what is causing it.... IF yes... did they never said anything about it? 
• My Star Trek clan is playing Sins Rebellion with the Armada 3 Mod. NO ISSUES.

 

 

I could imagine that Sins does not like certain modern hardware and system configurations. Maybe it hates your high end graphic card driver. IDK. Whatever it is..... it seems to affect only MP people... which is odd in itself. Maybe certain circumstances can trigger a minidump.

 

Did you all update ALL of your drivers?

 

YES... I know.... MINE ARE OUTDATED AS HELL, too..... but then.... MY GAME RUNS!

Or maybe that is the issue... perhaps you should install drivers from 2010

I don't know what you mean by "web" but they are discussed frequently on ICO -- it is a common joke that most games are decided by one (or more) people dumping...

It may very well be the case (and probably very likely) that the majority of players do not personally MD...but then that begs the question, what is an "acceptable" number of unfortunate players who do MD?  If even 10% of the player base MDs regularly, then that means a single 5s game has a 65% chance of at least one person dumping...in fact, since about 2/3 of all games do end up having one or more MDs, it wouldn't surprise me if 10% of the ICO player base does personally experience them....that's a minority, yes, but a rather significant minority...when that many people are having "compatibility issues", the fault doesn't land on the consumer, but on either the software or the servers (in this case probably a combination of both).....

Runtime errors and CTDs do not generate any dump file...most of my MDs have been runtime errors since the last patch so I have virtually no dump files to send...I probably shouldn't enter the realm of hearsay, but here it is -- players I've talked to that have submitted dump files have never gotten anything more than "they didn't help, sorry"...the only times I've heard of dump files helping the devs is bugs that affected both SP and MP alike...

I think it is pretty well known and recognized that SP is highly stable...I believe it is also pretty well established that direct connect games seem to avoid MDs as well....whatever the problem is, it happens only on ICO, but it nevertheless happens a lot....people are crashing even when in the lobby after games, which almost certainly points to poor memory management...why some people seem to be more affected than others is a mystery, but shifting the blame to the consumer seems more like a cop-out than an actual explanation....

 

 

Just reload from the last autosave, let the others to rejoin and continue playing. I only play over ICO compstomps with my buddies, but when the game crashes on occasion, this is how we solve it and it works just fine.

 

I understand that, but at the same time, you have to admit, you cant blame devs for that, its the problem of the multiplayer community, who is not willing to deal with a little bit of inconvenience. You got to look at yourself first. Its you (meant as community as a whole, not you in particular), who does not want to reload from save in case of a crash, its you who arbitrarily decided that 5v5 is the way to go (even though say 3v3 would make the probability of MD occurence lower), its you, who decided to keep playing, even if one player drops out and is replaced by AI, at which point the game is hardly fair and balanced...

I am not trying to make any apologies for the devs. Obviously its their task to fix the game, so the players dont need to deal with crashes and stuff like that. They shall to keep any promises to gave in the past as well. But lets not pretend coding a computer game is a trivial matter. Neither is making the game completely stable and bugless for any possible PC configuration... actually i would say to organize 10 people into rejoining the lobby after a crash is potentially easier than to reproduce and fix some random crash/desync...

I think I disagree with the entirety of the OP, but it is a well written troll. 

I strongly disagree. Have you seen the internet? People are impatient. Even more so in an activity that they're supposed to be engaging in for fun. That is the market. A game should not require its community to painstakingly develop numerous subtle social practices just to get together to play it--and the sins community already does, including the naming conventions of lobbies, the PuG system, and the practice of quitting instead of trying to make a last stand or run out your opponents' patience.

And I'll second Sel's point about getting a game together. A 5s can take between 15 minutes and an hour to actually go, even after the room is filled. Getting those same 10 back together (even assuming they all agree to quit in the first place) is very unrealistic. Also, there's no guarantee that whatever caused the MD isn't still lurking in the save file, bound to recur at the exact same moment once this unicorn does appear.

PS: I also think the OP is exaggerating. This is a small studio game that has lasted way longer than it was expected to; it is a lot harder to hotfix most of the problems we're talking about than you may realize--and given the very small number of users who care about online play, it probably really isn't worth it to do so.