I have always got the impression that when a game says skilled, a host can kick anyone out who they believe are smurfs or unskilled enough for the game

However if a game says 5v5, then nobody can be kicked or asked to leave, unless he is a smurf or a person who is listed as a 'blacklist player' 

I understand a lot of peoples views about how this is ruining the community, but it didnt do me much harm, I can still remember the days when Howthe and other DT,BIA players kicked me from there games because I was unskilled. I got better, and I eventually beat them.

I know the community is getting smaller, but Smurfing and Kicking unskilled from games is probably the LEAST issues that caused the downfall of ICO. Minidumps and a variety of other problems decided ICO's fate along time ago. Frankly,  Developers made a game that was unfit for the online community for a very long time and that destroyed its online credibility.

Serious initial bugs made it next to impossible for Sins multiplayer to get off the ground, which resulted in very low initial player counts.

But now that the game is old, the low player counts online are reinforced by the very high learning curve... those playing online have mainly been playing for years. It just isn't fun for a newbie to play and lose 30 games in a row before you start to understand what the heck's going on in a multiplayer game.

And those with attitude problems online don't help either, even though there aren't many of them. Add to that the fact that newbies are often kicked from "skilled" games... well, you get my drift. The exclusiveness of ICO is a problem.

Wrath, here is how I work: my main goal is to host a 5v5.  If there are enough on that warrant Skilled Only, then that's what I host.  So basically, most of my games aren't Skilled Only, just when most people are on.  Also, I do help the new guys get started and try to teach them tricks.  LoKi and David the Conquered are good examples.

Well, despite that, you don't seem to have a very good reputation. Even if I decided to go on ICO, and if I was skilled enough to play against anybody I chose, I would still stay away from a LOT of people because of their reputation, their attitude, and other deciding factors. After my police career was cut short by getting shot at a 'routine' traffic stop, most of my tolerance and patience for those I don't know, like, or trust practrically faded into oblivion. Seeing the state that not just ICO, but pretty much every MP game I've had/heard of from someone who has/had it has more than its fair share of Class A Jackasses, well... game over.

Just ignore the jackasses like the rest of us do. Learn to play compeditive sins. You'll have fun. Really!

There's no need to trust anyone.

I don't doubt you. I just can't force myself to interact with said jackasses while doing something I enjoy. It sucks the fun right out of it for me, like how space sucks your skin dry.

FYI--I have no problem with restricted games.  Note my comments.  No offense there.  But I'll agree with JA--a lot of us wouldn't want to play some of the players on...and not because of their "skill".

IE Siddy.

Today's low player counts are primarily the result of the problems Sins had early on and its low player counts.  I bought the game in early March, about two or three weeks after it was released, and the most people I ever saw online at one time was 280.  That might seem like a lot considering the current player counts, but that's a tiny number for a hot new game.  If a game only has 280 people online one or two months after it's release, it's probably going to be doomed to have much lower player counts years down the road.  Sins online multiplayer suffered from numerous technical difficulties until Entrenchment was released, and at that point the fate of the online multiplayer player counts was pretty much sealed.

In contrast, if Sins had had 5000 people online at peak times, that would have been enough to sustain a larger community for a couple years.  Even if the peak player count dropped 95% between early 2008 and today, that would still give us a peak player count of 250 today.

In summary, I think that today's low player counts are primarily the result of early technical problems and the game's purchaser player base being composed overwhelmingly of people who are predisposed to playing single player offline.  The introduction of Impulse probably didn't help matters--there must be Sins players out there who are still on vanilla Sins v1.02 or v1.05 who have never visited the forums nor heard of Impulse wondering what the Ironclad Online button is supposed to do.  (If it were for Multiplayer, wouldn't it be the Multiplayer button?)  They've probably concluded that it's just a broken feature.

Siddy's really not the bad guy he's been made out to be.  He and I were Sins buddies back in the day and we even teamed up for many 2v2's and 2v3's.  Sure, he's a little rude and crude, but not in a way that anyone who knows him would take seriously.  He's just one of those obnoxious guys who enjoys vulgarity and talking smack, like an excitable sports talk radio host.

Your statements would have much more credibility, Sanchezz, if you weren't so biased against singpleplayers who don't want to be trolled, called smurfs, etc.

You've admitted that you smurf yourself. That takes away even more of your credibility.

One of the things you have going for you, though, is that you're not as pig-headed as some people who haunt these forums and ICO. For that, I've got to give credit where it is due...

Maybe it's just my years on 4chan talking, but if you're internet-savvy you should know that it's best to have an extremely thick skin. I don't know Siddy but it sounds like he'd only be a problem if you don't know how to shrug him off as an immature attention-seeker.

You may be right. I don't know. What I do know ia that I no longer have a thick skin.

I don't think so...

-ID

Siddy... with 0% of 0% respect due... please go back to the hell-hole in which you came from and burn. You caught me at EXACTLY the wrong moment...

NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR YOUR RACISM

Now go back to your hole and die, you pathetic excuse for a human being.

I have thick skin and I'm sorry JA_JA BiNks for your lack of tolerance for all things Siddy.

U should learn to tolerate people like siddy cos theres more where he came from and u best be ready. 

JA_JA u r flaming =siddy. U r no better

Well, now that I've cooled off significantly, RiddleKing, I'm going to ask you once, nicely, to stop calling me JA_JA Binks, or any variation of that. If you do, I will stop responding to comments directed at me with that... name... in them.

And don't tell me I'm just as bad as Siddy. I'm no racist.

And please learn how to spell and use proper grammar. Thank you.

i cant- English is my fourth language lol.

Siriously though u should consider using JA-JA BiNks has your name because the name suits u.

lol @ RubbleKing

This is really all just insiddyious.

The problem with the behavior discussed here is that it isn't "funny".  Siddy obviously doesn't have the maturity to get how he comes across or to care what effect it has.  That's a self-image problem we can't fix here.

I grew up in the Deep South in the 60's and there is nothing funny about what was going on.  There's nothing funny about Hiroshima jokes when you are talking to an elderly person from Japan or Nazi jokes if you are talking to a concentration camp survivor.

Siddy doesn't have boundaries and that's the problem.  The bigger issue to me though is the players that rally to him because he's a "playah" in the game.  We'd have a better game if we didn't endorse guys like this in any way.

I guarantee you we have blacks who play here and the humor isn't funny.  Prepare for thread lock and I bet Siddy might actually get that forum ban if he keeps on.

If only we could lock Siddy in a room for a weekend with Lawrence Fishburne, Samuel Jackson and Michael Clarke Duncan.  I'd would pay to watch that.

Racism isn't tolerated here at all.

Locking this now.