So earlier today I finally got some time to myself. The wife took the kids to a birthday party so I had a few hours to do what I wanted for once. I knew I wanted to play something...I was in the mood for a strategy game but wanted multiplayer. Total War and Civilization games take too long, so I figured Sins was a safe bet.
Oh yeah...then I remembered why I don't ever get to play it very often: having to wait for people to pick teams. I can understand if you're waiting for a game to fill up, that's just something you have to deal with. Oh but then the whining starts about uneven teams, or someone's unhappy with the captains...and oh yes! Trying to figure out who's a smurf, because dammit we've GOT to unmask them...well just because.
Getting accused of being a smurf? Well that's a new one for me. It never seems to enter into some people's minds that there are some who are casual gamers and don't take this stuff so seriously. When I play multiplayer, my top priority above all else is to just have fun. Take a look at this:
#1. http://i.imgur.com/XlTgzdN.jpg
#2. http://i.imgur.com/LZnTgrf.jpg
Yes, I play as Uberstew. My life doesn't revolve around racking up 300+ wins or whatever in order to be accepted by some community of <100 people.
What if I had been a new player? Jeez they'd be scared off in short order because of being harassed. DaKnife and I actually ended up on the same team and yes our team won.
It was a damn good game....in my corner Bombshell and I took out one pretty skilled player, Arch...something. The positioning was actually pretty balanced. For Arch to take both of us on like that, he did damn well. I've been stuck in those positions before and its no fun. Bombshell had a larger fleet than I, so I was mainly supporting his. I did manage to get an Orky built on one key system. Arch attacked, I defended, upgraded SB armor twice, rolled out a couple of regen bays. The battle was very even for a good minute or so, but he STILL managed to destroy it. THAT was impressive...I took too long to upgrade (as in 15 seconds); Bombshell came along and wiped up his fleet though.
I have auto-saves of the game, but since it's been so long since I've played I didn't realize auto-record was turned off by default
So to summarize: DaKnife, not everyone is a smurf...and now you have another win on your stats.
Pretty much everyone on ICO is a paranoid bastard. There's isn't much you can do about it considering how small the community is.
As of this moment I have never smurfed....
This thread is inclining me to start..
Atmosfear and the Formidable Felines of Gaming fully support this endeavor to make the SOASER community more newbie friendly and make training accessible for the fresh player.
Even before Rebellion, Sins multiplayer wasn't noob friendly, so it doesn't surprise me one bit there are still serious people who take the fun out of it for us more casual gamers.
I plan on getting back into playing Sins soon, probably when school calms down. I only recently figured out why my computer was being uncooperative and finally installing Sins on it, but its not connected to the internet, so I can't currently get Sins isn't updated or play the expansions (Entrenchment and Diplomacy) on it. I also reverted the graphics card on my parent's computer, so I can technically play on that with the expansions, but it really doesn't perform as well as my computer.
I'm gonna change my ICO name to iAmASmurf next time I play online, just to see what people say, as well as how many ICO players read the forums.
host your own games..
not the best idea, if there is another game with someone well known as the host, the poor casual can wait forever noone will join his game.. I saw it many times, there was a xVx game, 1-2 joined, someone opened another game of the same type and everyone joined that one.. just because the host was someone pro..
50 games are enough to be accepted if you have a winloss ratio not that bad, like 2 times more wins than losses. But if you are 0 games, noone can tell who you are, only solution is to be honest, tell 'em bitches da truth, I was accused of being a smurf after my first game because I wasn't playing as a 2 years old little child (like they expect every noob to play like that, cant even beat a normal AI or something like that). I told them many times I read stuff on the forums, tested them myself against AI etc etc, the truth can solve things, and if they dont believe it, their problem, you sure can find normal people to play with even in this small community, add people as steam friends who behaved kind to you and next time if you want to play and see them online ask them if they want to play with you.
Mine will be UMShouldChainDmg
It's actually not too bad if you do 1v1s or 2v2s, and you get a variety of skill levels in such games too.
I thought of higher number of players (like 3v3 or 5v5), but yes, it can work with 1v1 or 2v2
I have my concerns about the following Quotes " Its ok to be a noob so long as your a modder"
Im not going to say who said this but the state of current gaming is modders are preaching this shit .
There are a number of simple "rules" regarding how to build a dynamic and growing online community. Unfortunately, the loudest voices in the multiplayer clique chose to stomp on all of them. With predictable results.
This doesn't bother me too much, because my schedule pretty much requires that I play vs. the AI anyway (although it should bother the heck out of Ironclad/Stardock, because they chased away a lot of customers), but I do object to the idea that these folks are the best ones to determine what Sins "needs" to do to improve in the future. They are not.
They definitely have some "tricks and tips" for the early game that are useful to know, but their entire style of play is adapted to a very limited set of starting conditions geared to generating a short, fast game. For the medium to long game, they really have nothing useful to say because they've probably never seen, or had the patience to play, a game that long. Modifying game parameters and capabilities to suit their preferences would be like letting the ADHD flea on the tail wag the dog.
Ironclad/Stardock has probably sold 600,000+ copies of this game. Their fine-tuning at this point should be aimed at the thousands to tens of thousands who still play it vs. the AI, as opposed to humoring the few who play a more limited game of their own devising and want tweaks to suit that highly idiosyncratic sub-genre.
Of the 42 steam friends I have that own Sins, only a handful still play anymore, and all of them are either MP or do work for the devs....
see what I mean HLT? Responses like this is what we have come to expect from a Modder.
Wow what a response by HLT, that man has some serious hate issues. By the way average MP 5s game takes 1hr30-2hrs to finish and i ve had games where it went over 4 hours! The more balances and skilled the game is the longer it takes to finish.
I dont know what qualifies for a "short fast" games in your book HLT but 2 hours per game( or longer) is more than penty for many players. Given the games's complexity and lack of hand holding it probably attracts older audiences and those people dont have 8 hours to play thorugh 1 game. Thats ridiculous!
Most misguided post of the month!
Its not Arch btw... Its Ach... as in Achilloraptor or Specter... or ME
and that game sucked. You guys should have railed me early with you being vas.
Hey I was impressed at that last battle, especially taking both of us on.
You'll be pleased to know then that I got my ass kicked just last night in another 5v5...got stuck in hostile territory at start. I know AeonX, VeteranCorp, X-Wing and someone else were on my team. I got cornered early, and rather quickly and I freely admit it is hard for me to work in that position essentially being forced to defend your hw with what little resources you have. If I had been able to hold out a little longer, maybe the game could have turned out differently, but Veteran really got steamrolled shortly thereafter.
lets arrange a forum game on the 25 of may at 11PM CST (that's GMT-6 for non eaglelandians)
Translation of this thread: u guys need to stop fuking up mah MP shit
My Story:
Joined ICO with 0 wins, 0 losses maybe 2-3 months ago.
Now I have 221 hours play time (9.2 Days), Over 150 games played, Over 50 wins, 5 Losses (because I stopped surrendering and just quit when I get doubled or fail to scout the neighbor fleeting).
I have noob stats if you can tell but I'm ok for now
So what did I do right up to now?
"I listened and I also told the host what I know about the game. I'm no stranger to this game but the hosts never knew that so I had to tell them that I'm still a noob but know the mechanics of eco, fleeting & scouting etc."
The problem is those who have never played or beat the ai wanting to join a 5s, 3s or 2s with skilled players and not introducing themselves.
If your getting accused of being a smurf its because your not introducing yourself and telling the host you know how to play. Your Guilty as charged.
Multiplayer Sins is the most alive it's been in years, thanks to steam sales.
Sins is a game that takes real patience and discipline to learn, and people on average aren't patient, so therefore it's a niche game. Sins is not a game for carebear whiners, most were chopped up and fed to the orkulus or illuminators long ago, and right now they are getting chopped up by early game spam.
Many players won't survive the learning curve because it's not easy and game developers like to make games easy to drug up their players on each player's own Hypothalamus(best chemical factory in the world). Cheap Easy drugs that make you feel like you did something, faster mmmkay! That is the attitude of the majority of the population, and that is what high dollar game testing is intentionally seeking to create within the mind of the player.
Learn the game, lose a few games, its not a real blow to your pride if you lose to someone who has mastered most of the game is it?
People need to learn to ask questions instead of complain about losing.
I played a game recently with a new player. He knew he had already lost, but he was determined to learn as much as he could from me.
After he did lose, I entertained all his questions and helped him form other counter strategies to the one that had played out.
Doing this helps ease the learning curve and gives everyone a productive end to an unbalanced game.
Less crying and more questions please.
Didn't realize people were still reading this. A week or two after I posted this, I figured I could either gripe and bitch about it on here, or I could play the game more and learn better strategy, so I chose the latter. In that time I've lost plenty but I was determined to become better at playing 5s. I absolutely hate playing against the AI as its so predictable and just plain boring. In that time I've become familiar with many of the regulars you can expect to find in a typical skilled 5s game and I've certainly learned better strategy.
I've actually played a couple of games with you and I know you're a decent player. I'm already familiar enough with some people that I know what sort of strategy or gaming style to expect from them, which has already helped me win a few matches.
In fact one of the best games I've had in the last couple months was just last week. I forget all the players, but myself, Doci, AeonX, Multiz, An4archy were there and we were almost too evenly matched that the game began to grind into a stalemate. Now seriously, with such experienced and skilled people, how often does THAT happen? I'll try to remember to upload a copy of the recorded game later.
And this is why you get karma.
Many people griped about this game going to Steam, but it's been the best thing that ever happened for the online multiplayer aspect of the game.
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