Hi all, just tried to set up a multiplayer game with some friends online and had a few problems. Eventually we were able to play, but it took some coordinating in AIM, and some other minor problems. So I have a few suggestions:
1)When I connect to the multiplayer server, it puts me into a common room with a list of players, I knew the user name of the player I wanted to talk to but had to sort by name and scroll down to find him. If we went to different rooms, I don't know if I would have been able to find him. A search for user function would be really nice here.
2)When I tried to send messages to him, it said "you whisper:..." without specifying who I was whispering to, this left me uncertain as to whether I was sending the message correctly, as it goes against other similar text messaging conventions, where the recipient of the whisper is always specified. It turns out that he wasn't getting my messages, and we had to communicate on AIM and switch back and forth to coordinate our game.
3)I was repeatedly disconnected from the chat server. I don't know why this happened, maybe because of text floods from other people in my chat room, or bad servers, but I found it somewhat annoying that I had payed full price for dark crusade as well as the previous two titles, for the sole purpose of playing online, and was constantly getting disconnected.
I eventually got my game going and things went without a hitch from there...but it took a while to set up, and a lot of uncertainty along the way. I know that once you get used to the ui, things aren't so bad...but I just wanted to give the perspective of someone new to the multiplayer, and why I may shy away from it.
The lack of feedback on exactly what I was doing, and who I was talking to was the worst part, and I feel that this could be easily addressed with more chat options, a better UI, and more network stability.
I'm trying not to rant here, as I like the game, and appreciate the effort, but I think that it could be better, and here's one way to start. Thanks.
