I'd rate the MP experience for this game at the bottom of all the games I played recently.
Really? Have you played UT3 or Crysis lately? Crysis in particular is infested with hacks like a freeze gun and now a one-hit kill pistol. UT3 has this nasty habit of dropping you because the map took too long to load, plus just trying to connect to a game is an exercise in frustration due to the poor UI design and GameSpy. Sins' multiplayer isn't perfect and I'm sure it will be improved, but to say it's the worst out there...well, either you haven't played those other games (which is totally normal; they're a different genre) or there's something going on with your network or ISP.
I just wish people would get it out of their heads that because they can *connect* to an MMO, or because they can play Halo 3 on Microsoft's paid servers, it's Ironclad's fault that they can't *host* a multiplayer game on their PC. Since the end of the blissfully firewall-free analog modem days I have had port issues with every single multiplayer game I have ever tried to host.
Your point is right on the money and I'd like to elaborate on it. There's no possible way Ironclad could predict every conceivable network setup. Sometimes people run routers behind routers which requires multiple DMZ's to be enabled or multiple pieces of hardware to forward ports. Other times there are ISP local offices that wreck havoc with online games. My particular Comcast local office has been atrocious about this and
will lie to you about the ports they block. They'll reference their corporate HQ which does not block ports when in reality the independent offices do. They'll also deny any sort of speed regulation slowing down gamers' connections because they "play too much" in the opinion of Comcast. They monitor what you do, when you do it, how much of it you do, what ports you use, and so on and actively block stuff to try to coerce people into "upgrading" to premium packages or business packages. I've had to call my local office multiple times because of these issues. Multiplayer problems are not always the fault of the developer, and commonly they're the result of your network layout/configuration, ISP's (Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, etc.), or internet traffic routing issues with different traffic servers.
Before you run around blaming Ironclad, I would take a good look at your ISP and see what they block and what they allow. There's normally fine print on top of fine print in the case of Comcast. You only get their corporate fine print instead of the local office junction's fine print which actually may or may not state what is or is not blocked regardless of what your router is set on. These days it's becoming less of a concern since so many people play games, but it does crop up a lot, especially when a company wants to corner you into having to upgrade.
