how can people play online with the mini-dumps. I have stopped playing but still stick around waiting for the fix.

Only affects a small percentage of games.


And yes, most of the good players stopped playing by 1.04. Random resources surrounding planets is a big reason.
For this reason, I always welcome newbies, and i hate (read HATE) it when people ask me to boot a newbie. I usually just put them on my team unless it's a pro match in which case i feel sad kicking them out.

Moral of the story, everyone needs to be nice to new players!

I agree with a few of Haeso's observations. I've also noted that quite a few of the closed beta testers have stopped playing, with a few commenting that they do not like the direction Sin's has gone since going gold.

Sin's is lacking depth and variability with most games playing the same way.

This is kinda expected given 1) focus on ship battles at the expense of other effective ways to win..i.e. culture, 2) infinite resources that are at the root of the 'spamming' phenomena i.e. we no longer have, as in chess, an 'end game' and actual risk based decisions, 3) complete lack of decent modding tools which could alleviate 1) and 2) as players could set the game up as they would like.

Point 3) is very important, imo, if you want some type of sustainable online community. Presently, I am not sure how much longer some of the larger modding teams can maintain enthusiasm with their projects with not even an ETA for the mod tools.

i tried online and for the record if im a newb why can i play a 9v1 locked teams unfair ai and win because i didnt have many wins they kicked i tried joining 10 match in a hour i gave up on sin online and nobody would help me when i did play they said newbs die hahah i am not playing well back to single player i guess

@Herodias
...and me

I would love to play online if

A) There were more games online to actually join...

There weren't only 2 or 3 viable strategies to succeed...

Javaslinger

Double post.. sorry...

I think no campaign is a big part of it. (The biggest part from the newbie perspective+no promise of any campaign in the current game and how can users be sure the expansion will live up to expectations if it wasnt possible to do a campaign in this game? Whether thats fair or not thats how many think and Im saying this not as a person who hates this game but as a person who really likes how it plays.[Im not leaving anyway ] )

Also as far as modding goes I really think the devs need to update the current modding setup so that users can script things like game events and most importantly make lots of additions to diplomacy so much so that we would see modded campaigns via the diplomacy screen, which can be triggered by events and ship spawns. If this isnt possible it needs to be made possible, because then you give the game true scope beyond skirmish.

Disconnection issues are another cause but my previous comments are what I think are the most serious problems , well those and faction balance.(Actually hate the idea of balance lets say that every faction needs powerful abilities in their own right)

Some not so severe problems but ones that could be still killing player base , at least newbie player base is hardly anyone on ICO plays with the default options .

Also the fact that people can pad wins 100% by disconnecting, now when new players join why would they want to play someone who by looking at there stats should demolish them in game so much that its limited what they can learn. (True new players may not even know about the DC exploit)

Heres another severe problem:: I dont think the game has been advertised enough, heres the thing I found it by pure chance while looking for other things , it doesnt seem to be getting as much time from the major game sites as other games.

Just to finally say about the modding , yeah I agree about the dev tools from what I have seen and read, a modding kit without scripting isnt to great imo.

Just to finally say, if they couldnt fit a proper campaign in they should have done what I have said many times , expanded diplomacy so the factions spoke to you hundreds of different convos just through text and events+ if you added a modding kit to enable players to add more , that would have really made the game something special and would have meant modders could have produced innovative and new things for the community, as I imagine theres only so much skins and what not you can do before you get bored, maybe Its because I do software development but please immplement fully fledged scripting which enables the modder to spawn and handle in game events + text campaigns

(What worrys me is the game is in no way shape or form designed to handle that basic functionality because it maybe wasnt properly thought about at the outset?

Like most of you guys, I have stopped playing online. It's near the end of the school year, and not having enough time to play a drawn-out game is really annoying.

However, when school ends i might begin to play some more online. Also, I totally agree with p5yy; they made it, people will come.

No edit but even though I get theres no campaign the game did cost significantly more than some other games with good campaigns so it makes me worry what the expansion will cost........am still buying like I promised though . (because its one of the very few strat games where actual gameplay is fun - on that note be very very careful what balance changes you make , this area must be difficult because when it comes to players all of us to some degree have a vested interest in our preffered factions. Thats why I think devs really need to look into any proposed changes highlighted via the forums regarding balance, thoroughly!!

Most people are probably playing offline now rather than online.

I tried online for 2-3 days. Won half my matches, but it just felt too competive. Offline you can experiment and have fun (however, I wish the enemy made a harder defense)
Back in the beta I used to play online all the time, and the matches lasted for hours (average lasted 3 hours!)

But keep in mind the weather has been very nice lately, so people are going outside more. It's also finals week!

I must be in the minority but I reckon from what I have played in MP sins is by far the most relaxing enjoyable strat , period that I have ever played online, its got complexity to the point where you cant just take one look at a referance sheet crunch some numbers and theres your killer strat like practically all other strats I have played. It lends itself to so many levels of play online. I actually reckon the current situation is fixable , (the multiplayer balance, Im actually confident that will be addressed in time and am kinda glad in a way the devs are opting for big patches - I will be happy waiting if I know they are actually working towards PROPER refinement of the game, I actually think where balance is concerned that will get fixed)

Its the modding stuff that people need to be able to make the game meet its potential is one of my main concerns. (Really for longevity enable modders to script text campaigns and events .

Yeah redmaw I happen to agree with much of what you are getting at irrespective of some of what I have said its just I dunno I still have some faith the devs will do their best and the game hasnt officially been out for long at all . The whole goals thing yeah agree thats why I think sooooo much give us scripting to handle events and make text based campaigns inter woven with realtime events. (Text base campaigns through diplomacy are basic arent they? but the fact is enable this kinda simplicity for gamers and modders can quickly setup lots of diversity to the point of text like rpg elements in sins(not like traditional rpgs), thats a whole load of scope and basic enough for the majority to do, then you folks concentrate on the expansion and by that time sins has a metric ton of text based content and missions, that alone will have sold copies. I do worry about the games lastability because of pure skirmishes all the way but I still think we need to give the devs a chance but also the devs need to realise the CURRENT game needs more if you want to attract real game status(As in loads upon loads online , I was going to say with big dedicated servers up like the ones people hire but just remembered the game is P2P. I know more or less the pros and cons and I still think P2P is not the best system, because with other games powerful dedicated servers can be hired and I just think client server is a better model, a fast connection should handle the hosting , theres no way for us players to test but I think it would have been better and plus servers like jolt servers etc could have been used , once those 24/7 servers are up people know they can always get a game and so more will play knowing they have no faffing around to get in a game. I have seen P2P used for a few games with loads of justifications and all I know is that every P2P game I play doesnt handle connections near as well as client server , at least what I have seen.



Agree, the thing is and I am guilty of it as well having been on the web and on some dodgy communities but really when it comes down to it the majority of people are pretty nice , its just the one or 2 that make the most noise really make an immpression you know? (I hesitantly say ranking is fine if it brings other players but what I worry about is maybe clans playing a certain set of rules online then everyone else thinks thats the norm, I mean at least a minority of the time people should encourage someone to play, in fact you know I was online the other day and a guy asked "Can someone show me the ropes please in mp?" . Now I was sitting in IC and the guy was polite and patiant, he asked twice and you know the answer he got: "I will play you if you go on the opposite team and I will show you how someone loses" (Cant remember exact words - they did appear to say it in a joking kind of way but I bet this person and their friend would have snapped up the chance to own this guy if he accepted). I actually went in game with the guy and myself and the person played us 2vs2 ai on a medium map. Fact is he said he was totally new but he actually knew as much as myself I think, actually helped my own game on with this guy, I just explained about buildimng the cap ship, pirates,black market, research,etc but the fact is knowone was going to give him a fair offer off help.

Also I didnt notice any ping indicators in the room when I was hosting, because of this I ended up getting someone in with a slow connection. They need to get peoples pings listed up next to their name in plain view in any room the join , the fact as far as Im aware that sins hasnt got this will be causing more problems because someone on a dial up modem or other slow connections can just not say anything and then the host will be wandering why all the lag and maybe attribute it to the game.

Sorry about the huge post , will make this my last but on a postive note I think we should give the devs a chance . I want to see the game going from strength to strentgh not dieing. At this point we need to think if the devs see people getting really impatiant they may just throw something together , if they are making a huge patch I say we let them take ages and do it right because another mistake or 2 could be bad. (Give them a chance the game is hardly out , at least with threads like these in which people arent being abusive they can get an indication of whats needed and at this point I still have alot of faith and can wait)

(I have had ample say thats me done with the thread , hope it stays productive!)