This game screams for an Online Multiplayer tutorial and encouragement.

Who needs a campaign when you have online multiplayer?

from Sins Forums


All of this talk about how the game needs a single player campaign has compelled me to start an alternative thread about why the game needs an online multiplayer tutorial. Such a great game deserves to have more people playing it online. Sadly, Sins's online player counts aren't real high for a game that has supposedly sold a couple hundred thousand copies.

Solution? This game screams for an online multiplayer tutorial! The tutorial could hold people's hands and could visually explain how to create an ICO account and user names, how to join games and change the team you're on and your starting race, how to switch chat channels, and perhaps most importantly (the least obvious aspect) list the chat commands such as /w, /wf, /a, etc.

Also, perhaps the game could encourage people to consider playing online. "Congratulations, you've just defreated six hard Ai factions in a single game. You may be ready to play against real human opponents! Are you up to the challenge? Click here to learn more."



8,080 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

(Bump)

No one else likes the idea of an online multiplayer tutorial for this game or at least some sort of encouragement function?

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I like the idea. I'm still trying to learn the game, so I'm not ready for online play, but when I am, I'm sure I'd love something.

Why not put together something on YouTube, until an expansion is released?
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I usually give teaching games to new players to get them settle into multiplayer so this sounds like a good idea.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I think your assertion that "Sins's online player counts aren't real high for a game that has supposedly sold a couple hundred thousand copies" is probably mistaken. People play all the time, they just don't show up when they're in-game. ICO is just a match-making service, it's not a huge online chat room where people hang out for hours at a time. And I suspect many people, like me, play exclusively with their friends and just use ICO to create a game and get going.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Well, if you're in the Lobby you can see how many people are connected to ICO. As I understand it, it counts people who are in the Lobby, those who have joined games, and those who are already playing them.

I don't regard 150 people online or in the Lobby during North American prime time as a high player count; not at all.

As I type this (8:50 pm, U.S. EST) there are 135 people listed as being online.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
well If i'm not mistaken theres a glitch that disconnects you from ICO while your sill online so that you don't show up. its happened to me about 7 times now. so it could be very possible that there are more people online and you just don't see them cause ICO doesn't recognize them.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
well If i'm not mistaken theres a glitch that disconnects you from ICO while your sill online so that you don't show up. its happened to me about 7 times now. so it could be very possible that there are more people online and you just don't see them cause ICO doesn't recognize them.
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Yea..right..that would explain maybe 10 people missing tops. That's "glitch" has only occurred for me once. You're grabbing for straws, there should be thousands of people playing this game online.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
While I compltely agree that this game needs an online encouragement thing desperately. Age of Mythology was released how many years ago even Age of Empires 1 and 2 and Warcraft series? Those games have thriving online communities and most that I've listed are older games. I know Age of Mythology usually has 10-30 games still waiting for players and sometimes over 50 or so people in the chatrooms. Age2 has lot's also through gamespy (last time I checked since gamespy stopped working all of a sudden:( This game is really fun but takes lot's of time to finish also which is why I also think it needs a new speed level since setting it to fast takes around 2-3 hours online on average to complete for me with multi stars 30-1.5 hours to complete single star. If a new speed setting was added like fastest or extreme so we could finish a game on a multi-star within an hour and a half I think more people would play the game including the ones who already bought it leading them to everyonce and a while going online. Come on stardock add a new speed setting soon and the new graphics would help hard-core gamers to play more too I guess, even though I can only go up to high settings as it is now.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I enjoy playing single player much more than online. Online just feels too competitive for me. During the beta I loved online play! But once the game came out, people were suddenly playing it for the wins, instead of for fun.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with Windexglow. People online refuse to surrender with Honor infact I doubt half the people there play for fun. when beaten they would rather scuttle everything and quit then surrender. but hey to each his own. Its actually really starting to piss me off how people care about there records when they quit so much yet they don't want any losses. A person with more loses is a more appealing player to me since he's had more time to learn from them.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with spiral. Everytime I go online (I'm slightly above averadge when playing I guess) people are always yelling at you for things like; WHY DIDN"T YOU DO THIS FIRST YOU COULD HAVE HAD A FLEET SO MUCH FASTER you ****ing DUMBASS! Hey I don't mind people swearing since I do it a lot anyway but where's the fun in the game if you can't try out new things? I remember one time I tried just building caps to see what would happen online unfortunetly and one guy out of like 3 wanted to kill me for not getting ilums. We won the game anyway and I ended up kicking that guys ass with my caps (maxed out fleet) I say add the ability to choose to have a ranked game or non ranked.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
well If i'm not mistaken theres a glitch that disconnects you from ICO while your sill online so that you don't show up. its happened to me about 7 times now. so it could be very possible that there are more people online and you just don't see them cause ICO doesn't recognize them.
End of quote


It hasn't happened to me very often, so I don't think too many people are going uncounted as a result. I more or less agree with Adama. During prime time you would hope to see at least 500 people on at once if not 1000. This just strengthens my point--the game could use something to encourage folks to come online.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
I found the tutorial for this game one of the most borring in recent years. But I thought I'd just skip most of it and learn during the campain. Whoops! No campain. So back I went to finish the tutorial. I've also taught this game in person to two friends in hopes they'd play via Lan here. After showing them the basics, they both said they wanted to do the tutorial too anyway, and so, whith grimmised face, I let them at it. About 30 minutes later they come in and say "please tell us that the game is more fun than that tutorial, cause we are NOT going to go through that entire thing".

Anyway, they NOW have fun playing the game, and are waiting for 1.1 to see if online is any better before they buy it. But I agree, even just a short "Tutorial Campain" would have gone a long way to getting new players interested, and ease them into the game. . .