Plenty time to have tested mp

[Kalle]

One hint on the size of the mp community is to look at the participating clans of the cwc. Very many. A lot of them are new to me but both Aggony and Celtibero are in though and maybe some other old clans. It still feels great to win battles in tournament :)

Kalle

[ncbeach]

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

click the link at bottom that says "view steam players per game"

currently there are 13,561 playing etw right this second.. 17,740 was the peak today.

this includes everyone who is logged into steam, and has etw launched... lets say 90% are playing sp.. that leaves 135 online at the moment... it might be closer to 80% (265)given how easy it is to get an online game: there is a quick battle service, once you have gone through the hassle of setting up steam in the first place why not try the mp, a good bit of the achievement awards can only be gained in mp.. my guess on the % of vets.. id say 60-75% have played some version of tw before..maybe not online though.. of stw vets.. id say less than 1%.. ive run into maybe 5-10 players in the last 2 weeks that played stw.. out of the thousands ive played..

the part about the different servers.. ive spent some time trying to figure them out... i dont have all the answers and i could be wrong... but the usa has 3 main servers.. la, chicago, ny .. from there each server has sub servers.. there is a dc server which i go through.. atlanta, miami, boston, san jose and a few others..

from what i can tell... all usa servers speak to each other.. it doesnt matter which one you are on you will see game from all the other usa servers.. international servers im guessing working in the same way.. im betting hot spots like uk and aussie have a main server and sub servers to the same effect.. when i went to uk i saw many games listed by celti.. which i remember as a spanish clan.. maybe all of europe is linked like usa is.. i really dont know..

you cannot see games listed on the uk servers from usa and vise versa.. however.. you will see games hosted by people in your friends list regardless of which server they are on.. i can goto uk... host a game.. and anyone who is on my friend list will see it.. so for those trying to hook up with old tw friends... i suggest an exchange of steam id's so you will see each others game.. invites also work.. if im on usa server and invite someone on my friend list from the uk they can join. one thing i have noticed.. LAG.. when playing on the uk server i lag terribly.... on usa i can run 4v4 with no lag at all.. there is a green, yellow, red light system when viewing hosted games to show your connection speed to the host.. all of uk's games for me are yellow..

ive been hosting an early era, low fund, no restrictions, unranked, naval battle the last 2 days.. ive been almost unstoppable on land.. so i wanted to spread FEAR to the high seas.. i won 75% of my matches yesterday.. not as high as my land % but ill be working to get it there :)

[tgi01]

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

click the link at bottom that says "view steam players per game"

currently there are 13,561 playing etw right this second.. 17,740 was the peak today.

this includes everyone who is logged into steam, and has etw launched... lets say 90% are playing sp.. that leaves 135 online at the moment... it might be closer to 80% (265)given how easy it is to get an online game: there is a quick battle service, once you have gone through the hassle

Dont wanna hurt NC -s feelings but 10 % of 13561 is 1356 ... ....

and the MP % could be higher than that ... steam is very MP friendly most of the top games are mp or mp only ...

TGI

[ncbeach]

lol thx for pointing that out :P big difference!!!

[Nobunaga]

wow now im hyped

it seems that CA did a good job on ETW... How is the balance/game mechanics compared to STW/MTW? And is this really worth getting?? Thing is that I have get a new pc to run ETW properly so I am still not sure if I should get it now...

[phunkbot]

I'll try comment as well and also to add a few things I've come across over my ~100-130 mp games so far (on a low - mid pc configuration):

Firstly something I didn't see above - we do get Steam crashes that ruin games, although rare they do happen (most I've got in a single night was two, combined with people dropping out of games during loading and ruining games out of pure profanity it amounted to 5 out of ~10 games for the evening). Making friends (or having ones from previous titles, which I don't ) makes getting into worthwhile fun games easier.

As I've only played previous titles singleplayer I cant compare the balance with that; I'm at around 33000 skill points atm and move about the 30-35k range and I'm glad that there doesn't seem to be a pattern of the type "player 1 brings x units of type a and y units of type b and wins every time, if I do the same I get lots of haxxor skill rating points", also I've encountered people who clearly beat me in what's called "micro" only to then be beaten by my "macro" . I've come out on top against seemingly incredible odds and have had my army wiped out when I was certain I was winning. Against a honorably playing opponent you often get games that come down to 10-15% of the original armies deployed surviving, and when at the end you tell each other "hey, good game - thanks" you both mean it. I'd say its overall a reasonably balanced game, tactics and good fortune (specifically when your troops are being brave ) will carry you trough to victory more so than counting on beating by (abusing) superior unit statistics alone.


Performance-wise the game lives up to my expectations to the fullest; When you're on low - mid it isn't as pretty but it just works fine, it gets choppy for me only on 2v2 ultra armies or on 4v4, provided the game doesn't lag due to poor connectivity.
Also for some reason I have excellent connections when logged in the US- New York server, far better than the European servers and even the one I guess should be the most suitable for me Europe - Southeastern, with more than half the games being 3/3 connections, its noticeable in-game as well.

Without question the biggest thing to look forward to for me is the multilayer campaign, there isn't post victory rape and pillage in the game as it stands

See you guys on the battlefield (first one to actually join the org steamgroup chatroom gets a beer on me ! )