Mysterious Game ????

I play SINS because I love the game and because I can turn off. Get lost if you know what I mean.

My substitution is not a game but coding and I really enjoy it at the moment and while I'm coding I really don't feel the pull I felt before when first thing I did when I came home was load SINS to see if there is good game set to go on.

Do any of you guys ever play vanilla SINS anymore, or even Diplomacy and Entrenchment?  I haven't ben on those in a while, but I am thinking on re-visiting.  Because those games are balanced, I was just wondering if there are many people playing those online anymore.

I feel like slapping you, OP writer. Nothing personal. But it's a bit early to declare this game dead. Slap slap slap slap slap slap 

But on the whole,

-Lord Brony

Its more like 80% of the 80 people are all waiting to join a game and 80% who join a game have an 80% chance of being kicked for being low skilled or are suspected smurfs. Which means that 80% of people who join a game have a 20% chance of beating any of the pro's in 80% of all games played each day.

Which could also mean that those 20% who join a game could be smurfs with 80% more skill than  80% of the hosts who want to kick them out of games. This paradox only concludes that the probability that rebellions multiplayer survives 80% of its expected life time before the next installment is 20% which has resulted in its online player count dropping by more than 80%.

Considering that 90% of Sins players play SP only i think Sins in general is far from "dead". Sins has a strong fan base. A strong modding community, and the Dev's are still supporting the game.

You shouldn't judge a game solely on its MP potential. Which i will admit is Sins one, and only weakness. However like i said Sins core player group is SP only. TBH if Sins dropped MP support i (and the other 90%) wouldn't lose any sleep at all over it, because like the X series of games, and most 4X games. Sins doesn't really need MP to be enjoyable.

If anyone is "Killing" Sins, It is the 10% that is the MP crowd. with their relentless bitching, whining, and trolling of these boards. Which is kinda funny, because it is the 10% that is posting on these boards. Turning off any potential new Sins players. Who may not give a damn about MP. Maybe its time for the silent 90% to step up, and say something.

If 90% of Sins players play SP only, which is an invented statistic but I'll agree it's still the majority, how many still play the game? There's really no way to know is there. Most of that invented 90% also contribute absolutely nothing to game community. They simply play it and probably never visit or post on the forum. The "MP crowd" are the main drivers and contributors to the game's life past release with balance and strategy feedback, replays, helping beginners with questions about the game, etc. Modders also extend the lifespan of the game with their creations as well. Purely SP players do not contribute much at all if they aren't involved in mods. I'm curious what this "silent 90%" would actually have to say if they "stepped up". They definitely help the bulk of sales, but really they do nothing for extending the life the game and the community of the game past release.

Minidumps and desyncs still occur on a regular basis....wouldn't call that fixed...there was also just recently a report of the AI still getting into a loop of inactivity...and of course, still a whole host of problems associated with the autocast AI, diplomacy, ship pathfinding...the list continues....

Rebellion has made some major improvements, but the big issues (most of which affect both SP and MP) are still issues...

Wait, people play this game just so they can get their ass handed to them?

That explains everything!

I think they like baby S & M. You know similar to S & M for adults but it is happening in game not RL.

Dirty Sanchez is probably the biggest MP cheerleader there is, and he is by no means a troll...he's helped new players online and even made an excellent map pack available to all players...

Greg (DieHard) and Sareth (Carpetbomb) are some of the best players online, and both have been giving excellent advice to new players over the years....both have also posted replays or videos for the community so that newer players have something to watch in order to get better...Greg is about as far from a troll as one can get, and while Sareth has stepped on some toes, that was mostly with devs or with other MP players....barring the last week, Sareth has been one of the nicer and more helpful MP people this community has ever seen...

HowThe? is one of the best players online as well...he made the goldlist of MP guys back in the day and has reported several bugs on these forums...hardly a troll...

Ekko_Tek started an entire thread dedicated to setting up mentoring between skilled players and new players...it failed, in no small part because some of the "mentees" were actually SP people who just wanted to troll us through steam chat....Ekko has also posted lots of advice and tips for new players...

Red Rubby has been keeping a thread alive with replays of skilled players so that new players have excellent recordings to watch and improve their gameplay...

Some of the best MP cheerleaders ever are no longer with us...gentlemen like Raging Amish and Darvin were extremely helpful to the community...those guys made multiple threads giving in depth analysis of large team games, game mechanics, balance, etc...one of Raging Amish's threads is still referenced even to this day...

Myself and other MP guys have made efforts to clear up the worse trolling on ICO...some of the long time trolls like kbroke and KoK are no longer dragging games out...other players like HuyMac have toned down after multiple hosts refused to allow them to play unless they behaved....

MP players like Zombie and Pbhead did/do a lot of behind the scenes work with the devs (hence why they are in the special thanks category)...and if you want to question whether zombie falls in the MP crowd, I'll remind you that he is just as skilled and experienced on ICO as many of the clearcut MP guys....

Many other MP guys (PlayerSlayer, Auqia, Slackah, WarNeverChanges, ARISEV, the list goes on) have participated in balance discussions, ICO etiquette discussions, and the like...none of the people I have mentioned up to this point are hardcore trolls...only 2 of the people I've mentioned thus far really troll to any degree...

So which MP people are actually true trolls?  Nightraid3r?  At least he posts replays, which is more than what a lot of people do to contribute to this community.  Who else...Mecha_Lenin?  Cpt. Siddy?  Those guys hardly ever post...there's a few others that troll, but their either harmless (Teun-a-Roonius) or hardly ever post as well (Fallen_One)...

Maybe you're thinking of me when you say troll...sure, I troll...I also make oodles of posts giving advice in regards to strategy and etiqutte...I've heavily participated in balance discussions since diplomacy...I initiated and hosted a balance mod that was heavily influenced by community input (btw many of those changes got implemented in the v1.2x diplomacy updates, most likely due to the MP advocates in the "Special Thanks" category)...I've tested several mods and given feedback...I've helped new players on ICO, even played games with them specifically to help them get better...I've even PMed the devs on specific bugs and text file issues....

The vast majority of your MP people on these forums are hardly trolls...there's maybe a handful that troll on a regular basis, and of those, many still make valuable contributions to this community aside from their trolling...

Then I think of some of the true trolls...I mean, the guys who troll or act like asshats with virtually every post....like OddskiBoddski, who (though rather harmless) doesn't even play MP...then there's RiddleKing who never plays online...I think of the silly food porn wars between me and Boshimi (who btw hardly plays online)...I think of Semaz and SwissKnight (who are modders, have virtually nothing to do with MP)...

Then I think of some of the SP only guys who love to blame the MP community and conveniently forget all that it does...I mean seriously, you guys are just as good at pointing fingers and making blanket statements as the worst MP trolls are...

I made that line above for a reason...take every person I mentioned above that line (other than zombie) as well as all your other MP players I didn't mention...you know, all those asshat trollish MP guys you hate...take them away and what would you have left?  Seriously, what would you have left?  Mods for sure, and lots of mod support, but not much else...

The bug reports would be rare and far between...you'd have virtually no quality balance discussions...a lot of your mod testers would be gone...pretty much certain you wouldn't see any replays or casts...the advice that new players would get would be mostly crap, and just frustrate them even more...many of the changes in regards to gameplay would never have been fixed, and I'm not just talking about balance issues (broken features, frequency of MDs/desyncs/disconnects, etc.)...

Zombie, Goa...maybe Bilun, Bama, and 1 or 2 others (I assume they aren't MP but I could be wrong)...those would be the only people left in this community that actually understand this game and could give good advice or have solid, well-founded balance discussions...

I'm not by any means going to try and take away the contributions from modders, and I do acknowledge that SP guys do bring attention to some gameplay issues...but y'all are kidding yourselves if you think this would be a better place without the MP community...

The OP asked why the online scene was dead. 

I gave my opinion that trolls might be ruining the online experience.

Seleuceia, Didn't you post a whole thread about that very issue?

So we are in agreement there, I didn't name names, you did.

Even if everything was spot on balance wise, the game will naturally have it's player base drop off..it's  just the way things go once someone gets a taste and then moves on.

Lol....