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Multiplayer issues are slowly strangling the Sins online community

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Multiplayer issues are slowly strangling the Sins online community

from Sins Forums
I love sins, like I really do.  I haven't been this into an RTS for a long, long time... and I want nothing more than to stay a hardcore sins player.  But the issue of players randomly crashing due to some nefarious "sync issue" is really starting to make Sins multiplayer impractical.  There is nothing more frustrating then having to wait anywhere from several minutes to a half hour just to find/fill a good game, to finally get that game launched and started, and then to have one or more players crash. 

What is worse is that who crashes and when is seemingly random.  It may happen a minute into a game or 30, you just never know.  When it happens in the middle of a good game...  well many players are just too deflated to rejoin.  Sins is the kind of game where the early game is critically important, but it is the middle and end game where the excitement usually happens.  To go through all the trouble of the early game, just to have the game crash halfway through is exhausting...

I already have school and work, getting a sins game going from start to finish should not be another job...

Even if stardock and ironclad recognize there is a problem, I think it is important to stress just how serious this issue has become.  I would say that in 1.04 close to half of the games end prematurely due to a crash.  Tonight I had 8 games in a row fail, with different players crashing at different times in different games with different hosts... I "only" crashed twice in that 8 game stretch.

Everyday I log into sins there seem to be less and less players in lobby and online.  When I purchased sins a month ago it was routine to see 200-300 players online at a given time, with 15-20+ in lobby.  Now there are usually only 100+ online at a given time, with 5-10 in lobby.

Frankly, given the multiplayer issues this is sadly predictable.  The average player is not as hardcore as myself, and will not stubbornly persist in trying to find a game online when there is so much frustration and false starts involved.  This is bad for the community since, while the hardcore is an important minority, it is the casual player that really makes up the heart of the online population and allows for a vibrant healthy gaming community.

If these issues are not fixed,and soon, I fear there is a good possiblity of losing this vital "casual gamer" majority.
51,443 views 29 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top
« Where are you guys getting these numbers of people online from? As far as I'm aware, [Stardock CEO] Draginol said that was only the number of people logged into the forums. »

Maybe ... but I seem to remember that a IC or SD representative, a month ago, stated, rather, that the number indicated in the Ico lobby ALSO included those players who were actively engaged in an ongoing mutliplayer game.

If that is correct, « 200 » (for example) would mean 200 gamers on that specific Ico channel in any capacity (waiting or playing).

If such is the case ... « 200 » would represent 0.1% of the last official number of SINS games sold.

My subjective impression is that the single-player advocates are right : very few of the people who bought the game ever spent any significant time on Ico.

I don't. Finding a reliable game for multiplayer newbies is such a ... frustrating chore.
Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top
LMAO. Once your King has tumbled over, it's generally a good idea to just shake hands and say "good game".
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top
For those interested:

https://forums.stardock.com/307025/page/6

"The number of people online represents the number of people in the chat forum (or were recently in the chat forum). It does not represent the # of people currently playing games online by a long shot."

Though it's a moot point since the issues affect any multiplayer game, not just ICO games. Remember, these games are peer-to-peer, it's not as if the ICO servers are buggy or something, there ARE NO ICO servers to speak of (at least for the purpose of hosting games). And there's no reason you can't have a 'casual' game on ICO.


My subjective impression is that the single-player advocates are right : very few of the people who bought the game ever spent any significant time on Ico.
End of quote


I don't think anyone disagrees with this point. Very few people that bought Half-life/2 play multiplayer as well. But the 'few' that do are a fairly large number despite being small relative to the total sales.

In any case, there is a multiplayer-specific dev team so there's no reason for people to BLATANTLY ATTACK the idea of fixing multiplayer issues (not directed at Sorceresss). As I've said probably 100 times on this board, those who play multiplayer and single-player ARE NOT ENEMIES. We both play the same game. I mean, imagine the utter hate someone would get if they went around saying 'no way you can't work on the single player game, stop coding the AI, WE WANT X IN MULTIPLAYER' - now is that unreasonable state of mind any less ridiculous when used from the 'other' side?


LMAO. Once your King has tumbled over, it's generally a good idea to just shake hands and say "good game"
End of quote


"I'm too lazy to respond to your post intelligently, so I'll just make a worthless snide remark using a tired, inappropriate analogy."
Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top
METTRA (post #28) :

« For those interested : https://forums.stardock.com/307025/page/6 »


Thanks for the reference, Mettra ! Stardock's CEO full post, there, is this :


« [He quotes another guy :] Look at your playerbase now, Frogboy, maybe 200 players online on a good day. That isn't going to go -up- when you make them pay even more to stay online, or divide them is it?

[He then replies :] People really need to stop claiming that there's only 200 people playing Sins of a Solar Empire online at once.

The number of people online represents the number of people in the chat forum (or were recently in the chat forum). It does not represent the # of people currently playing games online by a long shot. »


I unfortunately cannot edit my previous post (#26). The info I presented there seems to be incorrect, as Mettra's reference has revealed.

But Draginol/Frogboy does not produce any precise numbers to settle the issue ... perhaps because those statistics would reveal a steady decline in games being played on Ico, for the past weeks.

Not that I would want for such a decline to happen. I'm not an enemy of MP, and I agree with METTRA when he says :

« As I've said probably 100 times on this board, those who play multiplayer and single-player are not enemies. We both play the same game. »