I play RTS’s pretty strictly for the mp. if I play sp, it’s to acclimate myself to the game mechanics. Then it’s off to mp with friends. I never plumb the random game sewer. I agree, facing off against some 13 year old who has all teh hotkeys and l33t builds memorized is not fun. Unless you’re a child molester and that’s your “in”.
I could really care less about how many people are online at one time. What I want to know is how many of my internet people are online and does the game allow easy connectivity between us. So far it’s not looking good. Probably won’t stop me from grabbing this though, because I’m a whore.
With the exception of Blizzard, single player RTS campaigns bore me to tears. But I have had a lot of fun over the years playing skirmishes against computers. It may or may not be a challenge (although in my experience I can always adjust the difficulty level and number of opponents in order to make it one), but either way it gives me a nice tactile and mental pleasure to work the game mechanics.
I confess I am generally intimidated by the mad skillz of online RTS competitors. I enjoy competing in a casual context with people I know, though mostly that just happens at LAN parties.
The only two that have done it consitantly that I see are Blizzard and Ensamble though and maybe C&C years ago. People get into the one game and just seem to stick with it regardless of what else comes out. Kinda like how most online FPS players are still cranking away at Counter-Strike after all these years.
Their matchmaking algorithms are ridiculously bad. Their game browser is absurdly slow. There is no reason this should be as terrible as it is. I have not been able to get a single random 2v2 or 3v3, no matter how long I wait.
Well, I might be wrong, but I genuinely believe that is because there are not 3 or 5 other people on looking for a 2v2 or 3v3. It is hard enough to find a 1v1 when you have a grand total of double digit online players.
I don’t get all the bitching and moaning about not a lot of people online…THE GAME JUST CAME OUT…I’m playing RVS online now for the 3rd year and we still have 200-600 playing during the day and night…give it time…I swear a lot of you have A.D.D.
I don’t want thousands of people online, 100-1000 dedicated non-uber competitors would be nice. I don’t like RTS’s generally but I bought this one and have had two good game experiences and one annoying one online so far.
They need to get rid of that play now crap…and just have everyone go to custom to create, join games…that’s all I do.
And to play the Cuotl you definitely have to be as defensive as possible until you get your uber units…its tough but somewhat doable.
I don’t think that’s it. There’s some other netcode screwup. Sometimes it gets all the people it needs, goes to “launching game” for a while, then starts over.
People are starting to make custom games called “2v2” and I got in a few that way. It’s got to be some bug in the auto launcher.
You’ve found a game that has 100 dedicated people who have played it for years who are not so good at the game that they make it fairly inpenetrable for newcomers?
Well…I found a good server with some good people to get my friend and I started…so definitely people make all the difference.
I played a ROL game last night, 2 vs. 2, and it was a huge map and after 20-25 minutes while i was fighing to my left, I thought my allie was fighting to my right but he had bolted and there was no notification. 10 minutes later the guy to my left bolted and I thought the other enemy was still playing…but he had also already left so I just kept fighting this enormously built up A.I. for about a half hour, then just gave up…those asshats.
Playing RTS games online against random opponents is my greatist pleasure as a gamer. I used to buy every RTS game that came out but I’ve now realised that the only ones worth buying are Blizzard, Ensemble and Command and Conquer games. None of the others have a core community that moves from game to game.
There are probably 40 people that play RON online? Even if they all move over to ROL and 20 more pick it up that’s not enough to get a random 1vs1 going any time of day or night.
Create and join games are for the birds. Once you get it worked out what the rules and the map and the game speed are you have to deal with who complains about what race you’re choosing or whether or not a rush is a fair tactic. At least the people who whine in random games do it while you are kicking their ass and you get one in the W column.
Unless you have five friends that have schedules exactly like yours then you are wasting your money buying an RTS game for online play if you want to play non-random.
Well, if it’s not going to be a super huge community playing, I’ll be far more likely to hop in to any Qt3 games before I finish the single player campaign. At least then I know I’m getting my ass whooped by someone who is at least a reasonable skill level, rather than getting my ass whooped who’ve been carved out of wood after a week of playing against the internet.
I’m not sure what happened but I think my single player campaign got corrupted. Today I tried to run 2 missions , the first time the screen went completely black but I could still hear the sound. Second time the entire screen got corrupted and I need to exit out and restart the computer to fix it. Everything was running fine last night.
Multiplayer seems to be picking up some. Played a couple of good games today. I’ll probably be on a bit later if we can get some QT3 games going.
I also need to learn how to play something besides Vinci.
BTW, does anybody know of a source of info on the detailed stats for the game? The manual is vague, and the game doesnt seem to have detailed info like RON. I can’t seem to find a strategy guide either.
Yeah, with a unit selected, there’s a looking glass icon on the gui that gives you range, armour, etc. I’m not sure how detailed you want but I noticed some of the numbers have decimal places in them :o
I’ve had a busy work weekend and couldn’t commit to anything I couldn’t pause. I expect to be online more this week.
Has anyone else had serious multiplayer problems like described here ? Five or six of us just could not get a game going the other night at all, but I haven’t heard much about it otherwise, and I was in a 4 player match today with no issues (once we went to custom game…quick match wouldn’t work). I’m going to put up a review of it in a couple of days, and don’t want to be unfair based on what may have been Gamespy troubles that have now been resolved or something.
