As most of us know, there are two main communities in Sins of a Solar Empire, one for multiplayer and one for modding. Bar the occasional group of friends playing a mod on ICO together however, these two communities rarely interact with each other, besides occasional discussions of game balance.
Therefore I propose a little icebreaker in the true Sins fashion, complete with the typical disintegration of metal, screams of nuked worlds, and if we're lucky even the rare space pony sighting, that we've all come to know and love, regardless of which form of Sins we get most of our entertainment from. Yes, I think its time for the first ever Pro Player vs Modders MP game!
Of course as we are meeting in the Pro player's home court, I think in the interest of a semi-interesting game the modders will need a team advantage of some sort. Any ideas on the exact number of players on each team as well as the best time to arrange this will be welcome (I'd guess sometime on Thanksgiving weekend). And of course, if you're interested do let us know.
I'd like to have one pro player sort of be in charge of the logistics of making the game who promises to be there, presumably if any of the other pros don't show we can find substitutes at the game launch. As modders don't often log on to ICO don't commit unless you're sure you can make it at whatever time we agree on. Also if possible I think it would be nice for as many different mods as possible to be represented, but obviously filling the roster comes first.
Results:
Game 1 (4v4)
Auqia versus modders youtube
Modders FFA youtube
Replays
Yeah, I'm still not logging on to ICO, and probably never will. I've got more reasons not to than to actually do it.
of course, the first question is which mods are in FINAL stage. Which mods are on the table? Are they vanilla-esque or totally alien from vanilla? Where are the various major mods at in development and for which version of SOASE? Distant Stars, ST:SOA2, B5:SOTYR, SOTF, SW:SOAGE, Maelstrom, StarGate Invasion, 7 Deadly Sins come to mind. 7DS is still in Beta and still has a couple of weird mesh issues, but how about the others?
I will play if i meet the cut to join pros
Which mods???
I like 7 DS and Distant stars. Though 7DS still has some balance issues between races. At least version I own.
Distant Stars is a bit more balanced out then 7DS. And a bit more finalized with easier access.
Not to mention you know exactly who to go to for coordinating copies. *cough^cough*
So far the following people are interested. For now assume the game will be Saturday evening.
Pro/ICO Players
Modders
Seems we'll still need at least two more modders. Psycloak might you be willing?
While honestly I've never used it before yeah I was hoping to set something like that up.
The actual game replay itself can see all perspectives, but the video I'll be recording live for youtube will only be from mine.
Well, then we need both recordings. Meanwhile, TS is good to have. Each team can set up their own chat room after we get down the basics of the campaign. We can probably borrow Carbon's? Will need to ask.
Hey! I thought we were getting two modders for each pro. I am scared of pain!!
Can we at least require they play with their eyes closed?
Just go on there. There is never anyone on anyway.
I meant for gathering the bunch, but good point.
I don't have time or internet reliability to be committing to a game in advance.
You may want to back out of this while you still can then. No one will officially think less of you.
Yeah we still need another 2 or 3 modders. I'll leave it up to the pros to decide how bad they want the odds stacked against them, but a 4v6, 3v6 or a 3v7 seems to me the main choices. I guess it will depend on how confident they are and how big they wan their bragging rights to be... if they win of course.
That would be awesome. I would imagine the pros or at least [DT] has their own thing worked out they could use.
I think a good decision on that really depends on how skilled the modders playing are, rather than how confident the pros are. Given their numbers advantage, if the modders have even a basic inkling on how to double enemies, a 3v7 would be over (or at least decided) relatively quickly, I think. A 3v6 might have a similar outcome. Maybe.
An unfortunate thing is how much this depends on player placement and the randomness of the random map generator. If any of the ICO players are lucky enough to spawn next to another ICO player, they'll probably be able to somewhat easily kill the guy on their flank and become unstoppable past 30 minutes or so. Otherwise, if they spawn alone and are doubled with any efficacy... they may be able to hold out for a long time but may be overwhelmed by sheer numbers and territory disadvantage.
This is assuming that the modders know the very basics of what they're doing in a large cramped Random Huge map...
I do.
It all depends on how good the pros think they are. How many of us at once are they NOT AFRAID to handle and how many of us at once are TOO SCARY for them? Muwahahahhaa.
If there is a video made of this, I would love to see it...
Of course, I feel like more bad than good will come out of this match....
I should be able to fill in a pro slot if someone isn't able to make it.
Well I can't speak for the rest of us, but I only briefly tried a game or two online back in original Sins 1.1 I think (before any of the expansions when carrier cruisers were the unit of choice). I don't think I really learned much from that lol. Of course I do read most of the advice from you and other ICO regulars on the forums so I do have some idea of what to do in a given situation (whether front line, eco or suicide slot; what to do with a Sova/Starbase/LRF rush etc). Of course no amount of advice or AI battles will help our unit micromanagement much, so that will be one place where the pros will slaughter us. As for the doubling I don't have any practice with that but then if we are on teamspeak I think it will come pretty naturally.
That said I think 4v6 is the ideal ratio, not the least because we already have 4 pros and still need to get 6 let alone 7 modders lol.
Ideally this should just be a light hearted match just to do something different and to start a bit more interaction between the two communities. If the modders lose well quite honestly we won't care to much and if the pros lose well they can rightly say the odds we significantly against them, and no one will really think the modders were better players. What exactly do you think would go wrong?
If your going to use mods please don't use big ass files or graphics ehancement mods that cripple other systems.
So long as masterial (aka Master Shifu) is not on the pros side then its an evenly challenging game.
If game going on on Saturday unless it starts after midnight (GMT) I might have trouble joining it.
Luckily that is prime ICO time so there should't be a problem filling a spot with sufficiently skilled players. Auqia said he's interested....
As for 3v7 3v6 4v6.
In 3v7 if are at least medium skilled there shouldn't be a problem for them to win even against cream of pro players.
Thing about 4v5/4v6 is that bigger team has much better chance of getting econ players, so random factor plays big role. If 4 starts separated and without econ, then it can be rough even vs 6 relatively bad players.
i think if a pro team is assembled, it wouldn't quite be "pro" without auqia.
Auqia's not a modder? Come on I bet he's dabbled atleast once
You're assuming the modders know how to eco.
Good/bad assumption? I dunno.
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