The_Monk's guide helped me understand how to port-forward (though the damn thing was called Virtual Servers on my friggin router!!!). Because of that, I can now quite happily play this game with my brother.

Cease thy smack talking, foul heathen, and attend the lessons of the_Monk!

LOL, just messin' with ya. This game really should be a bit more user-friendly in terms of setting up a multiplayer game. I'm not really in the know about networking, and a lot of people who play these games aren't either. Simple fact is, most players of these games have been spoon-fed by Blizzard's Battle.net service with StarCraft, and expected rather more of the same from Ironclad. So I can understand and sympathise with your anger. I myself was at wit's end for a couple hours until I dug up the information.

Once you get it working though, the multiplayer is quite nice. I have only once ever experienced any issues with ICO. And that was when a game just randomly dropped my brother from the game for some unknown reason. No biggy, we just restarted and got back to kickin' eachother's butts.

My suggestion is that you do both. Dawn of War and SoaSE are both excellent games. Although I am told that DoW: Soulstorm is not worth the $40. So imo wait on that one until it's like $29 or something. They are vastly different games, as well. You can't really compare them.

I don't think SoaSE will ever be suitable for a ladder... unless they make a ladder version that removes the Save-Game and Quit options, and puts the game speed all the way up (or near to it), and limits games to small/medium non-random maps. You'd probably also have to keep a log of the number of "Disconnects" and make Surrender count differently than a victory for the non surrendering party, yet still count as a loss to the surrendering party. The large, epic, multi-session 10+ hour long games though? Nah, never - they'd never work on a ladder.

All in all though, I agree, ICO should make the multiplayer a bit more user friendly (in terms of set up) right out of the box. In the mean time though man, there is no reason to send vicious tones of voice out towards Ironclad, and even less reason than that to talk crap about someone who is trying to help people overcome the difficulties of setting up multiplayer, so that they can log onto ICO and play.

In Soase , games run twice if not three to four times longer then in conventional rts games. Of the 200 people online, more players will be tied up in a game compared to conventional rts games.

In Sins..(where games are slower to complete)
200 online
20 players available to join games , 180 players in-game

In EaW..(where games are faster to complete)
200 online
100 players available to join games , 100 players in-game

Because theres less people available at any one time , theres obviously going to be less games to join. You just have to be patient and just accept this.

You know, you could just start your own game...

Multiplayer is fine. I'm on a college network and I can host/join just fine. Fix your nub networks.



Sins. Dawn of War =/= a strategy game.

Leave now, and never come back.

There are as few as 20 people online at certain times of day. It makes me wonder how much of a future this game has. It wouldn't surprise me if the only way to get a game will be to organize it in the forums in advance come one or two years time.

I think it's mostly because this kind of slow paced strategy game attracts a more mature audience who are busy with things like work, uni and family and don't have time to live online and zerg rush all day like the kiddies.

The multiplayer is dong much better than b4.

B4 their where lots of ppl in the lobby, that couldn't get a game.

Now that number has been drasticly reduced, while the number of people actully online hasn't changed significantly, proving the IC/SD have done a great job improving multiplayer. (Though yes, it will need more, just saying we have come along way already)

This is why they need to make the AI better than the crap it is right now so people don't have to play online to have fun. A lot of people would rather play a game of sins over the course of a week instead of playing for five hours straight on a medium map. I think that's more important than the multiplayer which is populated by too many people who think they're "elite" because they spam LRMs and take advantage of balance issues instead of playing the game like its supposed to be played.

A lots of comments

First thing first, the Monk, I must admit you are doing a lot for this game

Trying to help everybody and more, the world need more people like you

And thank you for the info on patch 1.1 (let's keep our fingers crossed)

I will try the IRC in a near future maybe this weekend

Even if it does not seem so, I care about this game and I just wish the whole multiplayer experience will just get better

Most replies were helful or brought some information or just some opinions

Kade Shaderow, your reply just gave me a reminder of the good old American way: if you don't like something or dare to complaint: just leave and don't come back - well it's kind of funny since that's what happened with the American auto industry: The big three thought their cars were good enought and just sat on their laurels for decades - hundreds of thousands of consumers did left and they never came back - that's how you guys gave a large chunk of your market to the Japanese and others (yes I know they are also other factors involve in the downfall ...) see http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/autos/bigthree.html

Hoping for the best

ok the hosting issues aside... the fact that you log in and only find 1-5 games (regardless of reason) dosent mean there is "a problem" that needs immediate fixing or the servers will blow up but it does indicate that the multiplayer EXPERIANCE isnt that healthy. yea sins games are longer and players are ingame, that explaines it, but dosent offer a solution. Sins MP isnt dying. However it is alittle sick (even compared to itself a couple weeks ago), hosting issuses, slow resolution of host issues, 50% of games password protected or friended, 1.03 patch , being a RT4x not just an RTS or 4X and maybe a couple i cant think of, these arent "Problems" but are hurting the players experiance. Dosent matter what the reason is, 1-5 games isnt that good, if we could get it to 5-10 that would be better. All a player wants it to be able to log in and be able to have a choice in game they wish to play. It dosent need to be fixed... but as the MP is the core of the game (no campaign, no story, units designed for balance over purpose) it deserves to be improved as best as possible.

P.S - I think the password/friends only option are part of the problem. I cant say take them out but i think they are used more than intended because of the lack of mute/bann options. Should we allow booting (with a timer for rejoin), banning, and muting bet we will see less "closed" games as people will be more willing to play with "others".

A few of us are chasing down more net cafe players that play atm. Basically just waiting for people to pick it up and get used to the system because it has a mean learning curve. I mean I have a good mate who is a huge number cruncher, he hated it at first until he got used to how the game flows... now that he has sussed out the teams and how gameplay goes he's started his numbers game and totally pros it up. The biggest problem, as I have said is the learning curve, but I feel it is worth the early gaming grumbles.... just give it time.

Once our net cafe's players get good enough we'll be starting a league here in SE QLD Australia.

Until then me and my mates just LAN party it. Online is good, but yeah LAN

To be honest, I play using ICO but have no interest at all in public games. Instead, I found a mature clan on these boards and also have some other friends I know from real life or other games. I play private games with this group of people, solving two big issues:

1. People don't get all mad and drop if they are losing
2. We don't have issues with trash talking and all that other crap, since we're playing for fun and all know each other. We don't need to prove our manhood by kicking butts on the Interwebs.

It's not my job or problem to make sure that everyone else has public games. Sorry.