Umm....hehe If this is also the ICO name/profile you used then I have to sheepishly admit that I do not remember you.   

I do know that there have been many people who've opened my guide pdf, clicked to the "port-forwarding" section and then assumed they'd done everything necessary. People do need to understand, I don't put anything useless in any of my guides. If it's in the guide, it should be read.

...then again, there was this one guy who claimed my guide didn't even mention "port-forwarding"... ?!?!? hehe

could that have been you??   


the Monk

The problem is that a match making system wouldnt work right now as you cant find people to play with/host the game at for a good amount of time regularly. You cant just log in and find someone(s) (with match making or on your own) that want to play a similar game. There just arnt the people/hosts to "match up" with. The port tunneling option (not my choice) will help allow just about anyone to host, thus maximising choices and games avaialble. However I think (i dont have server logs) the MP population has dipped since 1.03 (which they are working on uber fast - IC DOES recongnise the importance of MP regardless if you agree with their direction) and i think half of all available games being "curtained" behind a password or friends only slots, hurts as well, as even if there is a game or two avaiable, their possibly both curtained and not availble to join. Alot of people have bought this game, and atleast half want to play MP, so the people are out there. Being able to find, host/set up, and play with someone quickly and "easily" could use alittle massaging.

The other problem is that when you do host and get a game going, it desyncs and crashes in the first 10 minutes, for some reason there are some people who *can* play the game but its definitely not 99.99% of users as was suggested by Stardock. I'd guess its probably more like half of users. Remember, most people aren't technical enough to realize that the game desynced rather than just crashed, and alot of people aren't even trying to play Multiplayer either.

The problem with this game is I want to play it at a high level, and I dont feel like the AI is going to give me that experience, so I want to play it multiplayer, but I can't. A multiplayer RTS is not a game to be taken lightly. It requires a large amount of testing and a large amount of support just to get it working let alone well-balanced to where the majority of units, races, and techs are useful.

Its obvious that while the game itself is outstanding, Stardock is clearly outmatched here in having the money and people to have done this right. Maybe you can use some of the money you've made off of Sins to hire some more testers and QA people and get this game done right before its too late.