A while before Rebellion, there was a bout of bitching and moaning over how the expansions had ruined the community by breaking the player base up between original, Entrenchment, and Diplomacy.  The complaint was expanded, with a few really special people deciding modders should stop splitting up the community too.

Stilat, you should actually read this thread before replying.  It might help with things like what I was proving with the comparison to WBC, replies to specific points aren't necessarily trying to show that assholes make a community smaller.

Hydraling starts an extremely insulting thread that would get him banned most places, tells off the first guy to reply despite him being accurate in what he said, and his replies devolve from there.  He's a prime example of someone adults want to avoid.

I wasn't even the one that blamed the players for the lack of a player base, someone that was part of it did that.  Hydraling's wonderfully mature response wasn't to deny that everyone is an asshole, oh no.  If only there was a tutorial, he wouldn't have to be an asshole!  I was so nice, I didn't even point out that there is a tutorial...

Character assassination requires character to assassinate, some people don't have any.

Oh boy I remember that whole shit storm. Though Rebellion tore a hole in everyone having a lot to do with the change with Steamworks and all that.

double post

Its amusing how when one of the rare times Seleuceia isn't trolling, nobody is listening to him. He has experience in all three subgroups of the community; as in modding, MP, and SP. You would be wise to heed his words.

I don't know of any modder worth his salt that is not a player first.  Or, as the old axiom goes, "Those that can; do, those that can't; mod."  Seriously though, modders appreciate what it is to be a player, and that means accepting the fact that as a player, you generally don't have a clue and don't care what goes into modding.  That doesn't always mean players are intolerant, and it sure doesn't mean hostile to modders - it just means ignorant of the all the creative effort involved. 

If a modder wants to mod a game for whatever reason, isn't the goal to produce something that is "played"?  If not, and they just want to share their mods with other modders to marvel at - then I'm curious as to the point (or am I just uncaring and ignorant?). 

SoaSE in particular just has a weird history between MP players and modders (probably SP would be better) for some profound reason.

I still fail to see how the two communities produce any symbiotic relationship to each other since they just keep to themselves in the first place. There is no interaction barring a few exceptions as Stilat would have us to believe. Is it as wide as psychoak makes it out to be? Most likely not. But there's was a pretty clear dividing line between the two groups.

Well I have nothing to comment on half his entire post is the condition of players of SP and MP on this forum and why SP players have tendency to be hostile to MP players. Same way MP is hostile to SP, there's probably some irrational reasoning behind a few jaded individuals.

This however would detail everything as to why the MP scene is dead in the water.

Kinda have to add that SoaSE in itself isn't newbie friendly though. The tutorials are extremely basic as Hydraling mentioned and tell you nothing of the strengths or each unit and force each player to drop in and figure out for themselves based on various descriptions and arbitrary numbers. And frankly the majority of people who come to SoaSE don't come for a competitive scene at all. I guess you would call them a group of casuals.

Smurfing was the devil though. I think that alone made us extremely paranoid of any supposed "newbie". You could truly be a "newbie" but every regular would look at you as if you were a monster waiting to be unleashed due to prevalance of smurfing at the time before Rebellion. We couldn't trust anyone with 0 games. I remembered when I first joined, the first question I got "who's smurf are you?" At the time I didn't know what the heck they were talking about and I thought they were just jaded at me for no good reason.

Unfortunately this has garnered an extremely poor reputation for the Competitive Community of SoaSE. Those few "asshats" really produced a negative impression on those who initially tried to a point that when someone asks them about MP in SoaSE. They'll just tell people that it's a load of crap due to its small closed off community that takes an arm and a leg to break into. Looking at the Steam Discussion Forums for SoaSE alone.

People nowadays don't even bothered to try for the MP scene just because they feel it isn't worth it at all. People are actually actively telling people before they even buy the game that the MP scene is a complete and utter joke. This isn't true but that's the impression that the community has created. Most would fail to see the reasoning as to why the community is as anti-newbie as it is. Even if it's well within reason that those "asshats" kicked them, they don't care. All they see was a bunch of "asshats" kicking people consistently considering how often it happens. They don't know the reasoning of why we did what we did but frankly they give zero shits for it.

While I haven't played MP, I have modded and done SP, reading the posts here I have come to the conclusion, that the problem with MP is a shrinking player base caused by yes glitches but also by skilled / veterans not wanting to recruit newbies because their ego driven, narcissistic competitive natures are getting the best of them, and newbies are being turned off by it and not sticking around. This is just a game folks its supposed to be fun its not the damn Superbowl or some other competitive sport with a 100,000 dollar payout if you win but nobody has had fun, then guess what you reap what you sow, I myself while I haven't play MP cause of time constraints and lack of broadband till now, after reading these posts probably never will even try cause personally I rather lose and have fun and clearly that kind of attitude doesn't exists in the MP community.

I think this post right here clearly gives the impression of what most SP players have of MP and how they're instantly turned off from MP. Most of the people who come to SoaSE are essentially a group of "casuals" that don't see the point in competitive play.

What's the point of competitive play? Except just what I said, "Feeding ego driven, narcissistic competitive natures"

If not being "ego driven, narcissistic and competitive" makes me casual then so be it sounds like there are more of me then there are of those like that, and I guess we can all blame MP lack of success on that.

Because competition is fun. That's it. People have fun because they are challenged. It isn't some ego drive narcissistic nature.

To be challenged is fun, otherwise its boring, but the outcome of that challenge is irrelevant, but to a individual who has a ego driven narcissistic nature to them the outcome is EVERYTHING, without the outcome they need there is no fun and they become a raving lunatic, similar to those you can find on these boards and many other MP boards.

Where exactly in this thread did anyone mentioned that we cared solely on the outcome? I would love to hear the basis of your generalizations. Because frankly now you're spouting off the same crap that made the MP and SP communities so jaded against each other.

The underlying issue of the "anti-newbie" atmosphere was that a single newbie threw off the balance of the game and made 1 team be curbstomped. Thus it didn't produce the fun challenging game we wanted. Nowhere have I read that it suddenly threw off their chances to win.

  First off since as I said I must be considered a SP not a MP I wouldn't say I am jaded though, just realistic. As to what has or hasn't been said, nobody has said specifically that the outcomes matter, but after careful review of this post and a few others like it in the MP forum my conclusions are what they are.

  I myself see no obstacles in MP that cannot be overcome by the right kind of players sure to those kind I mentioned above the obstacles given wouldn't suffice those type of class A personalities, but as I said, I think MP is suffering because of those type of personalities, which of course is natural that they be drawn to MP games, so I suppose in someways my observation are kind of irrelevant your not going to get those types of personalities out of the MP environment.

  The reason I make these observations however and comment on them is if people want to strengthen not lessen the MP roster then maybe just maybe, outcomes need to take a back seat and the older more skilled players need to take more newbies such as myself in and not regulate them to newbie vs newbie games. You talk of game balance and challenge, someone mentioned a faction as stronger then another be creative, pit 2 veterans with this superior faction against 5 newbies and such, as I said in the end what matters who wins or if the games crashes in an hour. Did everyone have fun while they played that hour is all that matters, except of course to those like I have been describing to them all I can say seek therapy :-)   

As this thread has clearly shown, the hostile attitude between MP and SP is mutual...it is simply unfair to blame one side when in fact both sides can be equally ignorant...I will tell you that many MP players, even if they do have an ego, really just want a fair challenge, not necessary a win....

If you look at the win/loss ratio of most skilled players, you will find that there is little correlation between skill and win/loss....the best players aren't looking for a win, they are looking for a challenge, and they want lobbies filled with skilled players so they can test their skills...this is why skilled MP guys in the past have deliberately recruited people and trained them, in order to fill the ranks and increase the number of viable challenges...

The nature of Skill Goldlists exhibits this as well...while some players are just egotistical and want to be higher on the list, in many cases their real gripe is the overall accuracy of the list, not the ranking of themselves...it is easy to look at their complaints and think they are just egotistical asshats, but that is usually not the case....

As an example, I have problems with the most recent lists (and really all of them) because there are people way above me on the lists that I have routinely beaten and people way below me on the lists that I routinely struggle with or lose to...it's not a sense of ego that I have been misplaced, it is a sense of fairness and honesty...

This goes back to why it takes so long to setup a game and why we fear "noobs" to be smurfs...we want fair challenges, not easy wins...

As a fan of mods (in every game, not just Sins), considering how hostile most MP guys are to playing modded games, I just don't bother.  There was that Pros vs. Modders game I was in where I kinda got wrecked in 15 minutes, so that really soured me on any further MP adventures since I can have a lot more fun stomping computers while playing the very large selection of Sins mods.

Its funny to see people who don't even play MP commenting like they know anything about it.

 And Seleuceia, I could not have put it better myself. Seleuceia speaks with the MP community's voice.

I literally ROFL when I read sparda's comment. So he hates multiplayer people because they are better than him? Jealousy much?

Please point out exactly where in my comment I said I hated the MP people, because after several readings of my own words I clearly can't.

What I said, or was trying to say since apparently you think otherwise, is that the MP community and I just have differences of opinion on some things.  I prefer mods, as opposed to what appears to be the majority of MP players, and found getting my face stomped in by pros not soon after game start essentially a waste of my time since I didn't, in my personal view, get to really play Sins, as in the 4x aspects, since it ended so quickly.  If I want to play games where its all decided by the opening rush instead of a slow build towards two empires slugging it out, I'll play Starcraft 2.

That sentiment epitomizes casual players.  You go online looking to enjoy the game, and instead the player base is expecting you to treat it like a job.  If you don't, you wont survive to experience more than a small fraction of the game, and will need to play regularly to maintain the necessary level of skill.

There are about as many casual games as there are skilled games...of course, you wouldn't know that if you don't regular ICO...

Tons of FFAs with "all welcome" in the title, small team games, etc. etc....if you want to play casually, it's just as easy (or difficult) as playing skilled....

This is quite possibly one of the dumbest things ive ever read on this forum. I know plenty of "pros" that do not treat this as a job. In fact, most of them play only twice a week on the weekends, myself included. You're only diminishing your credibility at this point as you keep on posting irrelevant nonsense that proves you dont know a thing about ICO. I recommend that you stop posting before more ignorance is spewed out of your mouth. 

Singleplayer apologists five posts ago: this game takes way too damn long

Singleplayer apologists now: dafuq this game way too much like sc2, SCARY rush tactik nerf please

The cognitive dissonance going on here is amazing...

I play one game on a regular basis currently.  I put 300-500 games a year into League of Legends.  I play it competitively, almost exclusively ranked games.  I'm a middling player, really quite terrible compared to the people that actually take it seriously.  If you maintain your couple times a week, for the year, you'll probably put more time into Sins than I do into LOL.  Everything else is something I casually drop into when the fancy takes me.  You don't seem to understand just how much dedication you have to the game.  Most people don't put hundreds of hours into the game every year.  They spend a month or two chipping away at a single game, come back to it after weeks or months of not playing.  You take your gaming very seriously, and think of it as a minor time sink.

I see not much has changed since my last post, again I say ego is a huge problem with MP. Seleuceia you say its not about ego, but come on you said," The nature of Skill Goldlists exhibits this as well...while some players are just egotistical and want to be higher on the list, in many cases their real gripe is the overall accuracy of the list, not the ranking of themselves" Who gives a flying rats arse where someone is or isn't on a list or whether its accurate or not except someone with an ego that's is either being boosted or bruised depending on where one ends up on the list come on its all vanity for pete's sake, otherwise it wouldn't matter where one was or if its were accurate or not.

Sparda comes on tell his story and what does he get stomp on is how I would characterize it and for what again where is the,  Yeah man it can happen, but don't give up I know these veterans that are happy giving Newbies a helping hand, in fact they enjoy it cause its game after all  Nope not here I guess

Then Psychoak comes in and gives his opinion of the situation and again STOMP, just because he isn't a MP anymore.

A thread was put up with a complaint about the MP experience blaming the devs, some of us commented on what we have experienced and or just plain fear if we even tried (myself) and what do we get, anger, hatred, insults see the problem isn't the devs though I am sure the glitches are a pain in the arse, but then so are they in modding too, but I just take them as is, getting pissy about them isn't going to make them go away, it will just ruined my day, and its just a freaking game, not real life

The list isn't just for bragging rights, it's a discussion point for skilled players to make for better pugging, or team picking...balanced teams is crucial, and it really sucks when a team captain makes a really bad pick because they don't know the skill level of all the players in the room....

It also lets you see how other people feel about players you don't get to see very often....I might think Player X is really bad because he royally screwed up in the one game I've played with him, but then I go on the forums and see that most people think he is really good...that might affect how I pick my team the next time I'm team captain...

The lists are never perfect, but there is still a lot to be gained by the discussions they arouse...

They don't seed sport teams or athletes just for shits and giggles...they do it to try and communicate as accurately as possible the relative abilities of each entity, and those lists are used for rather important things like betting, tournament making, and drafting...a Skill Goldlist, even if a shitty one, is not fundamentally different...

Besides, the really egotistical players don't give a shit where they are on the list, cause they know how good they are....

I'll reiterate that the bias, foreclosed opinions, and hostility emanates from both sides...also, the words of one or two people shouldn't speak for a whole community, and as an FYI there are people on these forums (and this very thread) controlling multiple accounts so don't read too much into how many people are sharing one opinion or the other...

Seleuceia,  I can understand the desire to want to try and balance teams as I said a non challenge is boring might as well play the ai and give yourself a gazillion credits whats the point, if you know in advance you win in fact can you really say you won if you did that, might be able to say you had fun though and as a game well that's all that matters.

Then you said and I quote,

"Besides, the really egotistical players don't give a shit where they are on the list, cause they know how good they are...." I totally disagree here the ego maniac will never turn down a opportunity to put his or her name up in lights so to speak it just even more ego stroking for them

To this, "I'll reiterate that the bias, foreclosed opinions, and hostility emanates from both sides"

True but in my observations it seems that in this thread MP's have read opinions and taken them personally, while as a reader I see the non MP writers trying to convey what they think might be the problem that this thread brought up and being punished vigorously for their expressions which to me only proves my point I don't think the MP experience is a fun place to be unless one suffers from sadomasochism LOL.

And last you write,"...also, the words of one or two people shouldn't speak for a whole community, and as an FYI there are people on these forums (and this very thread) controlling multiple accounts so don't read too much into how many people are sharing one opinion or the other..."

I can accept with this and will be open to the possibility that a few are making it seem as a many are creating a very hostile and unrewarding environment, but then that too is a problem the MP community must deal with or suffer as this thread suggest.