Multiplayer has many problems, playing with friends is a workaround for most, since you can always revert to a saved game, something hard to do on ICO right now.
On ICO you have :
- exploiters (exploits fixed in 1.03, at least the known ones)
- host leaving for whatever reason (defeated, crash, ragequit) will interrupt a game, and this problem is found in sins only, i don't recall any other rts having a client/server setup for multiplayer games (in a p2p setup there is no host) - NOT fixed in 1.03 afaik;
- client crashes, occuring for various reasons, mostly attributed to mods and drivers, i can assume they are partially fixed in 1.03, i recall the devs saying they were getting minidumps and were working on them;
Right now it's unplayable, you have mostly new players on ICO who leave after a few games (usually out of 10 games, they manage to finish 1, these are pretty common stats for ICO players). The next patch will help alot, but still the issue that when the host drops, the game stops, needs addressing.
Personally i'll be back after 1.03, but i will avoid large games, and will mostly host myself.
