How is Multiplayer?

[Hosakawa Tito]

I haven't seen one post about actual MP gameplay yet. Has anyone been able to tear themselves away from MP yet to post initial impressions?

[t1master]

i'm interested too, and relying on good reports about the mp experience...

this is what i've found so far, can anyone confirm it?

I'm disappointed by the maps available for MP and also the number of players allowed - there are 12 "field" maps - 10 of which are limited to 1v1 and the other 2 are limited to 2v2. There are 12 siege maps but all of them are limited to 1v1. There are 12 sea battles which cater for up to 4v4.

edit: i've read other reports of compatibility issues between those with a hard copy, and those who dl from steam...

other things, no lobby chat, only three florin levels: high medium low,

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

I be getting it later today T1, I be on MP this afternoon, so I'll report in and see if this is true or not plus I'll add my own personal thoughts then.

[pevergreen]

edit: i've read other reports of compatibility issues between those with a hard copy, and those who dl from steam...

Yeah, check Parliament for one or two of those.

I've checked in, but no one has been played, and no one will play with me. At least there are cool stat trackers!

[Masek]

Hi,

i have tried multiple MP games with Steam. Allways either the opponent or i was dropped from
Steam. May this be firewall problem? Does anyone know which ports to open?

Sincerely yours, Martin

[Lemur]

Could be a case of server overload, too. I'm unsurprised Steam is having problems supporting 250,000 15 gig downloads. Wouldn't have been a problem if they had allowed us to pre-load, rabble rabble rabble.

[RTKBarrett]

MP is a big dissapointment, needs lots of patching

[KrooK]

i will try empire this sunday (earlier i have to finish tourney) but guys from clan tells that
if someone tell something into game, everyone has chat turned on and they... can give orders using keyboard
nice beginning

[PorT_Lobo]

MP Campaign still a dream now that we verify that SEGA lyed about it.....

Sux

[Lemur]

Sega lied about nothing. They have said repeatedly that campaign MP will be patched in at a later date. Why not check the public record before you accuse people of deceiving you next time?

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

So hostile you people




Won my first game. Battle wise, was good but I was suprise with the chat lobby. Where the hell is the chat box at in foyer? In game I find it, but in the foyer?

[RTKBarrett]

If u had been keeping up with things u would realise that there isnt one...

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Yeah I kinda realize that chief from the get-go.

[Tomisama]

Fiered up the game, jumped into multiplayer.

Steam found me a Quick Battle opponent.

We fought and had a great time!

Everything worked well

[t1master]

how is the lobby set up? i've read that there is no general lobby, like previous, listing all who are online in etw.

[Paolai]

there is no chat in lobby

[t1master]

from the ccs forums...

Also a steam problem which is why baz couldn't join other peoples games I discovered is infact due to location. Americans can't play with europeans for instance. It's all to do with where you set your locatrion to in steam so everyone will need to change to the same continent if they want to play together.

so coupled with no apparent general lobby, it makes it hard for the old community to get together and play as in the past.

is this so for those who are playing online?

[miniwally]

no-one was on :( anywhere to arrange times at when people will be on in this forum?

[Sp00n]

there is no chat in lobby

No chat

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

there is no chat in lobby

Yup. No way to tell who is on, etc.....


I'm somewhat disapponted by this. The gameplay is kick- butt, it's good, so it lived up to my expectations, but the ranking system isn't what I thought it would have been plus no chat, so I think it's a good game.... Just could be better!

[Swoosh So]

Sounds like total fail from ca to me, still it was halfway expected just dident think they would slack off as much as to not include an online lobby for chat, considering i find lobbys for community communication as of the utmost importance for games as i stated in the past and campaigned for with ca i will not be buying this game.

No online chat? im sure multiplayer will be getting alot of attention then....

[Swoosh So]

So what happens when you log multiplayer theres a list of games and doesent show whos online you just enter or host game and cant chat till in game?

[tibilicus]

So what happens when you log multiplayer theres a list of games and doesent show whos online you just enter or host game and cant chat till in game?

Just presents a list of games and tells you who the host of that game is.

[Swoosh So]

Really sad to hear, what were they thinking :\

This game needed a better and more user friendly foyer not the removal of the most basic of features :\

[Togakure]

It sounds to me like a short-sighted attempt to mitigate the kind of balogna that went on in main lobby chat--if you can't chat til your in game, you'll join a game hosted by someone you know and all chat would be contained therein. This eliminates the constant haranguing that went on in the main foyer, but (lol) also eliminates all the legitimate communication that took place. As I wrote, a rather short-sighted solution if this was their line of thinking.

[t1master]

it's broken up by regional servers, so it divides the small mp community even further. divide and conquer is the simplest of tactics. ;) i think it's more a steam thing than a ca thing, but it appears mp has been tacked afterwords, like the last two titles. a small module, but look at the discrepancy in posts between mp and sp here and in every other total war forum.

[Swoosh So]

Im starting to hope that this game is terrible in multiplayer because it would be an absolute sham to have a gem of a totalwar game again with no lobby or ways for the community to interact divided by region etc.

I wonder how much of this is under cas control, if they would be able to patch in a chat lobby. They obviously knew the game would come without using stream. So i guess wont be as easy as just patching 1 in.

[RTKBarrett]

from the ccs forums...



so coupled with no apparent general lobby, it makes it hard for the old community to get together and play as in the past.

is this so for those who are playing online?

Yep it was a nightmare for me... heres a basic look at the problems with the game atm *Excuse the lack of numbering points, i copy and pasted*

Units get tired too easily. Charges go into thin air. Cavalry lose formation too easy. Infantry can run away from cavalry in formation. Square formations are made of rubber infantrymen. Commands get ignored. Groups bug out. You hear random clicking sounds as if from the UI activity of other players. You can't see shot range on snow, because it's grey on grey. Impeding objects fail so bad that they carefully avoided putting any on MP maps. Single player is a collection of bugs and AI quirks & cheats.

[Kanamori]

Yep it was a nightmare for me... heres a basic look at the problems with the game atm *Excuse the lack of numbering points, i copy and pasted*

Units get tired too easily. Charges go into thin air. Cavalry lose formation too easy. Infantry can run away from cavalry in formation. Square formations are made of rubber infantrymen. Commands get ignored. Groups bug out. You hear random clicking sounds as if from the UI activity of other players. You can't see shot range on snow, because it's grey on grey. Impeding objects fail so bad that they carefully avoided putting any on MP maps. Single player is a collection of bugs and AI quirks & cheats.

Have you played MTW VI? Because if they scaled the running around down to the old fatigue system... i'd love it, and also threw the kill rates down (I have no idea if this was balanced in MP with valor/armor or not). And I disliked the chargefest that the powerful charges rome-m2tw made... but I haven't played Empires yet...

Are the formation problems worse than they were in Rome and M2 (first ranks only charging and cavalry fanning out to never group back in and actually attack the unit they're supposed to be attacking)?

[Kenchi_Sulla]

There are some bugs to be found.... I have played about 12 online battles now (some 1 v 1 and some 2v2) and the overal pace of the game is nice. I like what I see so far. Battles are about good teamwork and superior manoeuvring...

It needs some work, but it leaves a much better impression than RTW or MTW2 did initially