Well, having the day off today and wanting to just hang out, rest, and have a little fun for a change, I did a bit of campaigning as the Takeda. After a few battles, the AI wasn't enough, and I found myself hankering for human opponents. So, I fired up MTW-VI for the first time in ten months, and headed into the MP foyer. Yes I know, this is the Shogun forum. Bear with me.

In three hours of playing (actually about an hour and a half of playing and an hour and a half of waiting around), I experienced all the classic VI baloney: foul-mouthed adult children in the foyer; foul-mouthed elite clannies denigrating everyone they could; the player who takes 25 minutes to choose an army of all archers and one berserker, and then takes another 15 minutes to set up, gets annoyed at "being rushed," sets up directly in front of me in a 2v2, stays in front of me no matter how I try to get around him, and routs through me, causing my army to chain rout; and finally, the classic situation of getting rolled over and over again by three very talented (and obnoxious) SA clannies who always teamed together against me and a changing collection of relatively inexperienced players. Gah, gah, gah!

It's really not a big deal that CA has messed up MP. It would be a messed up experience no matter what, because of the way so many people behave when playing these games online these days. Too bad about the VI revival attempt--I thought maybe I'd come back now and then for some games, but after tonight's reminder, no way. It's a sad thing. Because ...

When I was playing Shogun MP, it wasn't nearly as bad. People tended to be polite, and if new players weren't they got what for from the experienced players right away. If they persisted, they were ignored and weren't allowed to play until they chilled out. Clannies and top-notch players split up and balanced the contest when there were a new players in a game. Hosts attacked most of the time. Experienced players helped the new players learn--if the new players were receptive and courteous. Compared to VI, it was another world. It wasn't perfect; we still encountered the problem folks. But it wasn't nearly as bad. What happened?

Anyway, salute, to all the Shogun MP players who made it such an enjoyable experience. I don't know what got into me tonight. I guess I just forgot how it was in VI. Well, a few hours later and I've had my fill, and won't be returning to vanilla VI for another long while. I may drop in tomorrow to see if there are some SamWars games going though. That small but quality crowd is so much more enjoyable. Too bad we can't make our own room and avoid the foyer stench. Oh well.

Cheers to all you Shoggie MP has-beens out there! You are missed.