Hey guys, I'm planning on buying this game today so I'm just wondering - how is Multiplayer doing? Are there a lot of people looking for games/playing games online in Sins of a Solar Empire? How is the community? Does it take long to find Multiplayer games? My time zone is CET.
Thanks in advance,
Putn1k
Unfortunatly, Multiplayer is kind of dead.... though I expect some sort of revival when the new patch comes out.
That said... the only people that play Multiplayer now are the insane vets... and the occasional clueless noob that cant even beat a hard AI. Dont be that guy.
I suggust you buy the game (+expansions, of course...) .... it is so worth it, get familar with the game, and the game mechanics. Then watch the multiplayer replays in the strategy forum... and learn how wrong you were about everything... try again, defeat a few unfair or harder AIs, and youll prolly be ready for when the new patch comes out.
And everyone wonders why ICO is dead.
Those "Insane Vets" treat the room like it's their own special club. Ban them all and watch the numbers of regular people climb.
Myfist, what do you propose that the pro players do? Should they just kick new players out of their games? Should they throttle down their skill level?
To Putn1k:
Sins is a great game for online multiplayer against human opponents. However, like Pbhead said, sadly there isn't much activity. You won't find many people to play with on regular original Sins or the Entrenchment expansion since the players are mostly groups of friends playing against computer AIs.
The action is on the Diplomacy expansion which is where you can find the 4v4 and 5v5 games. There are normally a couple of those games every evening (CET time) but you will probably have to wait for about 30 minutes for a game to fill up and start. Some nights are better than others. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are generally a pretty good time to play. You will definitely want to play the game in single player for at least a month so that you can learn all of the game mechanics, the tech trees, the three races and their strengths and weaknesses.
Most of the people who play in the 4v4 and 5v5 games are seasoned, experienced veteran pros, but if you are patient and can accept being beaten for your first 100 games and make a conscious effort to learn the game you can become a pro, too. (I have seen it happen.) You need to try to enjoy the process of becoming a tougher and tougher player and a bigger and bigger pain in the ass. Note that not all of the people are pros; there are still some new players around and often a 5v5 will have one or two newer players in it.
Now, whether or not purchasing the Trinity pack is worthwhile is hard to say. If your goal is to play it online against human opponents you do need to consider the fact that the game has low player counts and that you are essentially paying money to sit and wait for a game to start. It is a great game but I don't know if it makes sense to spend the money needed to play it at this time.
funny. We are the problem. intresting.
No.
All i was trying to say was, we have a guy who does not have the game, and is already asking about multiplayer. I just wanted to save him from going straight to ICO after finishing the tutorials. ... In a join the local flag foot ball team before applying for the NFL sort of way.
The number of people we lose to the fracking trinity MESH FILES NOT MATCHING and the smurf witch hunting is so much greater than the occasional noob who refuses to learn the very basics before joining multiplayer.
Actually, I've played Sins before. I was wondering about MP because I wanted a new challenge, not because I'm a noob who can't handle a fight.
I'm an RTS and 4X player. It doesn't matter which game you throw at me. I'll learn it in a couple of days, and I learned Sins in far less.
It's not so much learning sins, it takes time and experimentation to get it right. Youll be surprised about how hard multiplayer is. some of those guys are insane players.
agree
the multiplayer base deserves to wither and die with that kind of mindset
It's like that in just about any online multiplayer game. There will always be veteran pros who know one another and who tend to bunch together. If that bothers people, they just need to grow some balls and tough it out while they learn the game. You just have to take your nooby lumps in order to be rewarded with being able to compete in online multiplayer. It's like that in many FPS games, too. When I started playing the original Unreal Tournament (1999) I could barely kill anyone and didn't even use my mouse for aiming, but I stuck with it and became a near-pro player welcome in pug matches. I do agree that it's harder to break into Sins online than many other games where there are thousands of people online at once including players of lower skill levels. (The pros are likely to congregate on private servers, perhaps playing pug matches.) The real problem with Sins online is that 98% of all Sins players never even contemplated trying to play it online. So, the hundreds of players online (at once) that are needed to offer lesser-skilled competition just aren't there.
Even shortly after the game's release the highest amount of players I ever saw online was about 280. Any game that only has 280 people online about two months after its release during North American prime time is destined to have low player counts later on in life. You can't blame that on the pros because back then almost everyone was a noob and few people knew other people.
Aside from 98% of all Sins purchasers never attempting to play it online, this game had a great many other problems that have nothing to do with pro players. Did you know that when it was released only about 15% of all players could host games and that minidumps were rampant? Do you remember what it was like to play without Quickstart and with a max speed setting of Fast? That made online Sins games take longer. Many people just concluded that it was a bad game for online multiplayer and left the scene then and there. Do you remember when Impulse was released and many players said, "F-that, I'm done playing Sins"? A large part of the problem is simply that online multiplayer just isn't very accessible and has barriers that require effort to overcome. I bet a great many Sins players have never visited the Sins website and are still playing the version that came in the box wondering what the "Ironclad Online" button was supposed to do and assuming that it's just a broken feature or a feature that was never implemented. I also wouldn't be surprised if many people click the "Multiplayer" button and conclude that online multiplayer is LAN-based only or that you need to know other people beforehand to play it online.
Now, I agree that the "insane vets" are part of the problem, just not more than 20% of the problem. Also, a great many of the people who play online, even in the 4v4 and 5v5 pugs, are not "insane vets". Many are merely experienced, decent or average players. I've seen new people come online and get up to speed in a couple weeks and attain that average skill level. Of course people who have only played it in single player for two weeks or even experienced single players who are new to online multiplayer are going to get squashed until they learn the game. (Shouldn't it be that way? If knowledge and experience doesn't make you a better player in a strategy game then there isn't much strategy to the game, now is there?) It's like that in any competitive online multiplayer game.
Wow--I missed this thread...
I have no problem playing the insane pros--though I find it very little fun usually. Here's how it's gone for me:
Scenario One:
Several "insane pros" who know each other are on. An equal number of noobs log on. The insane pros then log off or--if they stay--set up a locked game that sits for three hours while they eat and run errands and wait for other insane pros to see it.
Scenario Two:
The insane pros urge the noobs to join in a game. Then they arrange the teams so the noobs play on one side and the insane pros play on the other. Ten minutes later and after much chortling and self-congratulatory back slapping, they set up a locked game, go have lunch and run errands...
That's all I have seen.
It might take me a couple of years to get in the "100" games. I'm not blaming them for the online numbers...I think that's just a big part of how long it takes to play and its hard to coordinate...but the really bad sportsmanship I have seen can't be a plus to attract new players.
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