How about a little balance? Multiplayer is still borked.

[WarpStorm]

Of course AOE2 and Warcraft3 had a few tries to get it right, not to mention publishers who don't jack them around.

[Acemo]

My biggest problem with MP so far has been finding good players, players that will finish games and not just drop out when they get a little behind.
Granted, the game still needs work, but it is certainly playable and a whole lot of fun, at least when I can find dependable players.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Acemo
My biggest problem with MP so far has been finding good players, players that will finish games and not just drop out when they get a little behind.

That pretty much the problem with all mp games

One reason many of us wanted direct ip is you avoid these matchmaking lounges which are usually full of losers and unreliable players. Its the same with Civ 2 - the gamezone room is a circus.

[yxhuvud]

Someone should tell them to go and look at the network code in freeciv. Now there's a civgame that is lagfree, and without any of those awful out of sync crashes. I really can't see how the amount of information that has to be relayed would differ much between that and civ3...

[Coracle]

I know what the review said on Gamespy.com about MP:

It doesn't work.

Well, that's not entirely fair. It does work, but only after a patch. And it doesn't work well. For an expansion focusing on multiplayer as the key addition, that's a big no-no. The whole of the multiplayer experience is an exercise in frustration as the game will crash and it may do so in a severe fashion. Woe unto those who enjoy the benefits of "Alt-Tabbing" out of the game, as this not only caused my game to crash, but my system to restart as well.

So MP stinks. End of story.

[Psycho Billy]

Originally posted by Coracle
I know what the review said on Gamespy.com about MP:
So MP stinks. End of story.

So whatever happened to:

Originally posted by Coracle
The computer gaming "reviews" have been revealed to be a farce. Back in December before even the first patch they gave a messy beta game glowing reviews. So I'd never waste my time with reviews again as they are written by Industry shills.

Are computer gaming "reviews" now legit? Should we trust reviewers now?

[Dinner]

I guess Coracle only likes reviews that agree with him. That said I have heard an over welling amount of negatives about MP. Even after the lastest patch.

What's the point in buying an MP game when the MP is buggy and the interface is poorly designed? I have to say that Warcraft 3 has a great MP and even CTP2 (which is two years old) has a great, fully functioning, MP. I just can't excuse Firaxis shipping a product like this for the second time in a row.

[Cyclotron]

That... is the funniest thing I've seen all day. Go hypocracy!

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by yxhuvud
Someone should tell them to go and look at the network code in freeciv.

Of course, then they'd be subject to GPL and have to give out the source code to the entire project. I'm sure that the corporate bean counters at Infogrames'd have something to say against that.