Sins Forums
Please feed the hamsters, the lag is awful right now. It takes a minute just to log in.
Sins online...it's a sad story to see such a great game get tripped up by server problems.
Guhh.
Usually this is where I troll you.
But, I cant be bothered.
dam. I cant even bring myself to bother to link to the fitting link i was planning on linking to.
really sad.
really.
That's a shame because millions of people play online multiplayer RTS as evidenced by Starcraft, which means that there is a large untapped market the game could potentially appeal to if it gained a reputation as a first-rate online multiplayer RTS.
I don't think Sins has all that big of an audience to begin with...
According to wikipedia (the most trustworthy source in the universe), as of 2008 Sins sold 500,000 units....
However, only 100,000 of those were digital downloads...so, it is quite possible that many people who bought sins aren't even aware of ICO, Impulse, updates, or the expansions...
On a good day Sins Diplomacy may have over 100 people...that is .02% of total owners...
Let's compare this to Halo 3, which has sold over 8 million copies (by Jan. 2008, anyway)...it was not uncommon for over 1 million unique users to play online at any given day during Halo 3's peak...I'm not a statistician but if people averaged 4 hours a day (which is probably an overestimate) then at any given time you could expect around 160,000 people online, which is only 2% of the total amount of owners...
That is 100 times more people proportionally than sins...
Why might things be like this? Maybe because ICO sucks, but I seriously doubt that is the only (or even biggest) reason....
One, Sins is an entirely different audience, and many people who bought sins are inherently inclined to single play...
Two, as stated earlier many people of sins (I'd easily believe over half) aren't even aware of online MP...
Third, Sins has mods that some people love...I for one don't play on ICO because I prefer a mod and can play LAN games with friends...don't have numbers here, but I know I'm not the only one (of the 6 friends I know that own sins, none of them have played on ICO)...
So, both absolute and ratio wise, sins MP audience is significantly smaller than most games...in addition, Ironclad and SD are very small companies with very small budgets...
It really does not surprise me they don't make a better multiplayer...there are simply so few people who play to begin with, and a better ICO is likely only going to attract people who already own the game and know about online MP to begin with...there's simply no money to be made...
Sins is not new, has balance issues, and doesn't have a large staff to oversee it...even with a pristine MP, I highly doubt sales are going to go up enough to justify it...if I was Stardock, I'd be more interested in making damn sure my next title is good than piddling around with an old game that's already tapped its market...that they still release updates and are working on a 3rd expansion is far more than we should have ever expected...
Perhaps part of the return-on-investment equation depends on how much confidence you have in the product. I think Sins is the best RTS out there and that it is unique in not being an APM-dependent clickfest, but that's just me. However, people need to learn about it and experience it to realize that.
So, if that is close to the truth, then if the game developed a widespread and well-known reputation as being first-rate for online multiplayer RTS it could potentially sell to a new audience--the Starcraft, Warcraft, Command-and-Conquer, Warhammer, Supreme Commander crowd. In other words, there may be a couple million potential sales out there if word trickles out to those people. They would learn about it from the enthusiasm of Sins fans and the growing evidence of Sins online multiplayer activity. (By evidence, I mean friends playing it, online chatter about Sins clan matches, and just general buzz about its being the cool online multiplayer RTS to play. This sort of thing grows and compounds on itself.) At this point most of the online multiplayer infrastructure is in place for the game. It probably wouldn't take that much (relatively) to fix the ICO lag effort and polish it up, which might not be a large investment to potentially reap the reward of a couple hundred thousand more sales.
Other than the lag on ICO, I think they have a pretty good product right now (far superior to the state it was in on release back in Feb 2008) and that Rebellion will also prove to be an excellent product for online multiplayer if they can release it in a polished state and address the ICO lag issues.
List of things that could have made ico much better:
1. Server Stability (The server used to go down fairly often)
2. Server Based Lag (This is a real game killer for alot of players)
3. Ranking and Stats (Stats are next to meaningless and there is no ranking system)
4. Smurfing (IMO overall this is detrimental to the online community)
5. Server Splits (Ideally chat and friends should be global regardless of version and you should be able to see all games being hosted in sins regardless of version [try color coding them based on expansion])
5. Game Lobby (Too easy to crash if someone doesn't like something about it; and kicking players has little effect unless you lock the slot also)
6. No matchmaking system (Sins doesn't currently have the player base to support this but not having this is like planning for failure [not that sins was a failure but if they make a sins 2...])
7. "Ignoring" Players and Bad Language (There is nothing stopping a determined player from saying anything he wants to you at any time)
I totally agree on 1 and 2. The lag is unacceptable and Ironclad should be embarassed with themselves for putting such a slip shod product on the market. It ruins their respect and credibility as a business and there is no excuse for it.
I agree that stats are next to meaningless, but this can basically be fixed by fixing smurfing one way or another. Without smurfs, or with a single record per ICO account regardless of screen name chosen, records may become useful again.
I think the server was split in a pathetic attempt to circumvent fixing their aforementioned embarrassing servers. Probably some cost cutting maneuver that saved them 5 dollars a month and as a result confused new players.
As far as the matchmaking system, i don't think not having one is planning for failure. The PUG system would work fine if records meant something.
With the current number of players the Pug system works, but if you get up to 1k+ players online concurrently it would be best to have some sort of matchmaking system.
Can you imagine the lag if they were to have 1000 players on ICO? hahaha it would take hours for your initial capital ship to build. Scary thought.
Then why waste your time posting on here, son? Go away.
Besides, this game is best LANed. I wouldn't play it online when most of my games are pushing 4-6 hours.
The problem with LAN games is that you are dependent upon having your lan-mates around in order to play. Also those games tend to be games of friends against AI, which is pretty lame since the AI isn't capable of strategic thought and essentially has one hand tied behind its back.
What you said about 4-6 hours for a game is a common misconception. In actuality your average 4v4 or 5v5 only takes about 1.5 hours to play.
How is that? Because the games are played with Fast/Faster speed settings on single star maps and in a locked team game you are only responsible for killing one opponent since you have one ally for every opponent. Also, players on the losing team will call it "gg" (good game) and quit once it becomes obvious that they are going to lose rather than force the winning team to go through the boring mop-up motions. (It also allows new games to start.)
Come give it a try against human opponents and discover the "real Sins game". You might like it.
Hey now...we play legit LAN games of humans v humans all the time...good 2v2s and 3v3s...
Granted, we usually play on normal speed...
I heard they downsized the server...don't know if that's true or not...
From someone while playing ICO...nothing official, so like I said, don't know if it's true or not....
ROFL 
can you help us understand the lag problems then?
Well I think most who play online know that the sever needs some kind of work done; in its current state playing over ICO is barely tolerable.
We're still investigating it, but the server's resources are barely being utilized at all. I'm wondering where folks who are playing together are from though? It could be that the distance to the server is a cause if folks from Europe are trying to play folks from North America or China or something.
Pleasant Grove, Utah to Salt Lake City, Utah
Pleasant Grove, Utah to Orem, Utah.
It is nearly unplayable after a 2 vs 2 game with friends vs AI is 20 minutes in. 20 seconds of play, 20 seconds of wait.
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