Servers are populated!

[Gorb]

It's rude to dodge the question, you know. I don't see why you reference that post now when you had ample time to reply earlier. Just another cheap shot intended to get a reaction. Welp, you got it!

Nevermind the fact that quote arose from you ignoring me, then starting up another biased negative slap aimed at the games development industry.

It's not denial when I'm asking you for clarification on your MP experience given that you're citing it to me as evidence for your arguments. It's called asking for clarification.

[Pseudonymn]

In point form then,

- I dodged no question. I've shown in other long-dead threads that the death of the Space Marine MP scene was both imminent and predictable and I see no reason to rehash all that over again here, especially since you refused to acknowledge the plain facts in front of you even then. It's a waste of my time and, really, I wouldn't have anything more to say differently, then as now. This is just one of those, "I told you so," moments and your reaction is equally predictable.
- I took a step back to allow time for observation and, as expected, you took your fair share of shots. I could have drawn on past experiences and pulled up quotes omnislash style, but it was just easier to let time do the work for me instead. You've outed me publicly, now I'm outing you. "Apologetic when necessary" implies insulting with foreknowledge of their impact. It's a cut and dry case of the pot calling the kettle black and you discredit yourself by doing so and I really don't have much incentive to debate with anyone proceeding on those terms.
- I've already given sufficient evidence of my online play: Enough to reach level 30something. I may not have 100's of hours, but I have enough to say that my late arrival to the field made competing against people with more time than I have on hand, who also had all the uber kits spec'd out by sole virtue of the time they'd invested rather than by their skill and skill alone, a frustrating experience; certainly more than it needed to be, and that over and above my technical problems. My time spent playing MP was in direct proportion to the rage generated by those problems, not because of my inability to compete or understand the mechanics of the game. I didn't quit because someone had a shiny perk that I didn't yet have. It was only a matter of time before I had them, and I was gaining them quickly enough. The only point I ever wished to make and the only one you should ever have taken was that it was more frustrating than it needed to be in getting there. Like pinball competitions against someone with a perk that overrides the tilt sensor. You have played pinball, haven't you? Maybe it was before your time and so your lack of time playing the game really doesn't qualify you to comment about it. (see how easy and asinine that assumption was?)
- I have a life outside of these forums and a job that places heavy time constraints on my availability, especially during peak season. I didn't thoroughly read most of your reply(ies) until today where I felt there was one that warranted a response. To say nothing about having the time to reply to every jot and tittle as you might like. We've been over this before. Moreover, apart from a one-liner or two, I directed my most recent comments elsewhere, even knowing you'd more than likely show up to reply, but not really intending to reply in turn. The comments weren't "for you".
- I'm out of time even now and so, as this is all off topic anyways, I must take my leave.

[Gorb]

Can you play MP these days? The only reason I (mistakenly) assumed earlier that you hadn't played much was due to your earlier (much earlier, in the early days of the game) complaints with regards to how unplayable MP was and how you could play that even less than you could play the broken SP (due to sound stuttering).

Question was indeed dodged, as you then accuse me of passive-aggressiveness and attempt to derail the current topic further.

My original calling of you out was because you were uttering suppositions about Space Marine MP that were (and are) patently incorrect for anybody who is decent at the game. You have, since then, attempting to crawl around the topic and make me out for being some kind of bad guy. Guess what? When people debate game balance, competency is required. This is the norm for any educated debate of the subject.

If you don't have time for this, fair enough. If RL is so important that you can't afford time to post, fair enough. But there's no point in returning to the topic after leaving a debate in the air to offer another jab at the games development industry, is there? All it does (barring being off-topic) is cause antagonism - something you can ill afford with such a lack of free time (ironically, I lack it as well but I've spent all day programming so this is my "break" ).

PS: if I got called out for complaining that hitting the ball with your left trigger is unfair because some people can hit it with more precision and understand the direction of the ball around that particular pinball machine, I'd take my lumps, funnily enough. You are debating with people (not just me) all of whom have hours upon hours more experience with MP than you. This is not, necessarily, your fault. However that doesn't mean you get to ignore the knowledge they bring to the table and attempt to turn it around into some kind of "Gorb is whack-a-moling Pseudo again".

[Kalimac]

I don't think I'm lying when I say most people here would not be upset if you took this discussion of yours (that keep popping up in most threads in this particular subforum, mind you) to private messages instead.

[Arbit]

I find this rather disingenuous when in the first place the core game itself never had a sufficient player population to play the game online reliably anyways. Reliably in the sense that connection speeds are sub-par for the kind of game that it is; not in the sense that, yes, it does load up and you can join games in progress. Getting mileage out of a game is more than just being able to turn it on and shoot at a cluster of pixels and I don't feel that you've adequately acknowledged this by your comment. The truth is IMO, for most people, they probably would get better mileage out of even a half pint of cheap, bad lager.

Hyperbole ahoy

Lag is definitely not as good as it could be but the game is quite playable, both at launch, pre-steam sale, and now. Maybe it doesn't meet your standards for minimum lag but it's good enough for me, and it meets the standards of enough people that I can get a good game on at pretty much any time of the day. That's a sufficient player population in my mind. It certainly does not compare with L4D or TF2* or other big name franchises, but if you've logged a lot of hours on those already (or have no interest in playing them) SM is a good change of pace.

The only times it's unplayable for me is when I play exterminatus and get matched with people from Australia. Orks skidding around, shit dying 3 seconds after you shoot it, etc.

* the lag I meant, but...

[FerociousBeast]

It's funny when the main criticism of a DLC can be solved by getting people to play the DLC

It's another example of the classic dilemma where what is rational for the group is irrational for the individuals making up the group. Like voting or recycling.

It makes a whole lot of sense for Republicans or Democrats (or Labor or Conservatives or whatever) to vote, but each political bloc is made up of completely expendable individuals who by making the effort to vote are really achieving nothing but wasting their time.

With Space Marine, the way they did their DLC, it makes a lot of sense for everyone to go out and buy the DLC, and if everyone did everyone would benefit. But it makes no sense at all for one person to buy the DLC when few others do. It is instead rational for the individual to wait for a large number of others to buy the DLC first and only then when the servers are populated to make the plunge and buy it for himself. Therefore as long as everyone is acting rationally, the group will not benefit.

[Zallis]

Actually, even if a crap ton of people bought the dlc, since they're different game modes, you're still effectively cutting the player base into seperate sections.

[Gorb]

I was under the impression there were only one or two other game modes, Zallis? Exterminatus came free as an update (thus splitting the userbase voluntarily with a mode that is, imo, hilarious fun) and they added more maps to the regular MP pool (thus strengthening the map pool if people bought it - yes, this is flawed in that selling map packs won't work well for anything but a large playerbase).

The only extra mode that we paid for was Dreadnought Assault, I think.

@Ferocious: you like applying politics to everything, eh? I can understand your reasoning, but there is a key difference here - money is involved. Something for £7.50 might not be worth it considering the limited playerbase. However, that same thing for £1.61? It becomes a lot more appealing, assuming you like the base game. If you don't like the base game there's no point even debating DLC

@Kalimac: noted, but issues in-thread should be resolved in-thread (assuming vague on-topicness) lest they not be resolved via PM and start up again in another thread. If individuals keep on making the same assumptions (myself included, but one or two of mine have been corrected in this thread alone) then these debates will always occur.

Honestly, everyone who wants the DLC will have now bought it. All I was doing was promoting the Steam sales and breaking down flawed arguments (which I should probably be 'above' doing by now, but at least some of you know that I can't ). I've said my pieces and at this point I don't want to sit around and defend SM as some kind of incomparable game you must spend money on.

[Pseudonymn]

It certainly does not compare with L4D or TF2* or other big name franchises

[snip]

* the lag I meant, but...

Fraudian slip? Just kidding.

The hyperbole pendulum swings both ways and even if I am guilty of that as you say (I don't believe that I am), I'm just providing a point of view from the flip-side of the coin, my friend. Some people here like to paint the game in rosier colours than it deserves and I believe it misinforms people who are getting ready to put new money down on the table for it. Sure, it's being offered at the cheapest sales point we've seen for this game... BUT ... There are a whole lot of other more worthy, far more deserving titles out there at the same price point whose longevity are much more assured than Space Marine has proven to be. I don't say any of this because I "be hatin' on dat gehm". I believe I've made it clear elsewhere and in the past that I enjoy it in principle except for the fact that I can't play it properly and I wished it had hit the ground with better legs so that issues like mine could have been addressed more diligently. I've said what I have about it because, as it is now and as it has proven itself to be, it is a poor investment in the medium-to-long term. After all, the game was effectively dead less than 9 months after release and it's already showing the same signs; specifically, already less than half the observable peak population following the start of recent sales events.


@Gorb:
I'm going to make this real quick since people here are tired of it, I'm tired of it, I'm sure you're tired of it - everyone's tired of it. I don't claim to be an balance expert in this game, never have. I tend to steer myself clear of those discussions for the most part. I know things have have changed with recent patches that I had no measurable part in. Balance was never, ever part of any point I was trying to address in this thread. The only point I wished to make and the one that you routinely either skirt around, ignore, or twist into something else entirely is just this one simple thing:

The game is harder and more frustrating for new players to get into with a room full of L41 perked out dudes than it needs to be. The perk system is flawed. I know it because I've been there.

That's it. I'm done talking with you about it.

[FerociousBeast]

The game is harder and more frustrating for new players to get into with a room full of L41 perked out dudes than it needs to be. The perk system is flawed. I know it because I've been there.

Agreed. It took two or three days of playing to get to the point where I wasn't constantly considering quitting multiplayer. Two or three days isn't THAT long... but I can imagine others quitting, especially if they didn't figure out like I did that I could still earn XP by capping and uncapping in seize ground. It was when I was trying to play annihilation, and I'd come out of a round of play with <300XP, that I got most fed up.

@Ferocious: you like applying politics to everything, eh?

Analogies to politics are easily understood... but actually my critique is from economics: considering the scarcity of a resource (time or money) with the anticipation of reward (having one's voice heard or getting a good game in), it makes little sense when the reward WILL NOT be gained by expending the resource. Anyway...

I can understand your reasoning, but there is a key difference here - money is involved. Something for £7.50 might not be worth it considering the limited playerbase. However, that same thing for £1.61? It becomes a lot more appealing, assuming you like the base game.

It becomes more appealing IF you can assume that many others have bought it or will buy it as well. You're right, though, it becomes much easier to gamble on the game when the price drops, since you can reasonably assume that others will act similarly and buy the product, making your own investment worth while. Thanks for the heads up yesterday on the price drop, by the way. I went ahead and gambled

However, consider what the base price, when they're not running any sales, is: $10.00 for Chaos Unleashed and $10.00 for Dread Assault. $20.00 together. For me, not having tons of disposable income lying around, that's just too much to consider, and I'm sure I'm not alone. If you need to run sales to get people to buy your DLC, you're doing it wrong.

[Gorb]

Good to hear that you've gambled! With enough of the dolts now having the DLC I may try to organise some dolt games when I'm back with my gaming PC (spoiler: could take a little while). At least, there are more than enough dolts to populate a server of MP (or even have a few games of Exterminatus on the go; you only need four for that)

The base price could be more than too much for a lot of people - I agree. Particularly for Dreadnought Assault as it requires something of a full MP team (or at least a good ten players) - Exterminatus, as usual, is far less of a problem with four people required (or less, though that gets pretty frigging hard ). It's a shame that the game never took off in any real way, really. That's the price you pay for risking a new game (if not a new IP) with modern games development though.

Honestly, my main love for SM stems from the fact that it was ever released at all, in addition to the MP content through DLC and the balance patch which actually dealt quite well with the issues with MP at the time. It could have so easily been axed like so many other THQ projects

[FerociousBeast]

Whooo! Dread Assault is fun... if you get to be the dreadnought. I got in the chassis once yesterday and proceeded to stomp around the map for 9 minutes, accumulating 39 kills! Pretty much single handedly won the match for my team.

[Kalimac]

Yeah, Dreadnought mode is fun for a while if the teams are somewhat balanced. Most of the time though you get one team that always gets the dread, while the other team has no idea how to take it down. The reverse situation, where you get a team who know what they are doing and take down the dreadnought within a minute, is slightly more interesting, but almost never happens.

[Cyke]

Oh, nice.
Remember what I was saying about getting stuck at one red bar on latency all the time in Asia?
Much better on weekends in the afternoon here (would probably be about 3am or 4am in Americas), there's more players from Asia on, possibly helped by the -84% Steam Summer sale on the Space Marine complete pack.
Managed to get scores like 12/3 and 14/4 and shit like that, with nothing but ASM (Power Sword) over the weekend, and simultaneously help the team win with 4 or 5 points seized every map, to boot.

ASM is way too fun, but I really need to work on getting Heavy Bolter Coolant for Exterminatus, though.. planning to be the Devastator in a team of friends to work through all the maps.

Also need to get Killing Blow, I read that that works really well on Exterminatus. Any tips on getting it? The Thunder Hammer/Daemonmaul doesn't seem too effective without Killing Blow, but I need to get kills with it to unlock Killing Blow in the first place!

[Kalimac]

Thunderhammer for Assault is actually probably the most ninja class you can play, and you need to play it like that (speaking of multiplayer, not exterminatus). Never approach an enemy head on, if they see you coming you will most likely die before you can swing away at them. Use your sidearm as much as possible, and drop grenades at devastators before you engage. Impenetrable and Ground Pound (or what it's named) should be a good perk combo.

[dirtyprotest]

another 80% steam sale this saturday pushed up the player base.
I enjoyed some CU CTF.

FTA of partied clan players on public STG.
dont cap home base of opposing teams which are mainly comprised of nubs & randoms.
I wont mention names (WN). Dont make newbs ragequit forever.
Play nice with the newbies and avoid the dark abyss "0 games available, 0 potential games".

[Zallis]

@Gorb

They're different game modes in the sense that it puts players into separate pools, and they'd never meet one another unless one group joins the other. Imagine if there were onnly 8 people playing, but 4 of them are in seize ground classic and the other 4 are in seize ground chaos unleashed. They're never gonna get a game started, since they're in separate pools despite the fact the chaos unleashed rotation still has teh classic maps.

[Cyke]

Kalimac: Got it.
Been using power sword mainly, gotten used to plinking people from the air with the bolt pistol and/or a frag grenade first before coming in for the jump pack pound (using Death From Above as well). I'm guessing that pre-damaging the enemy will be mandatory for using a Thunder Hammer without Killing Blow.
Problem will be even getting the hammer attack in consistently unless I can sneak up on someone, that thing takes a seriously long time to swing! True to the universe's fluff I guess, Thunder Hammer is one of the slow weapons that only gets to swing after everyone else

[Cyke]

So, it's been about a month now.. what's the consensus on who was right about state of the game?

I'm always able to find games, there's plenty of people to play with, and they're always fun.
On the other hand, I've gotten good enough to get quite a few Max Killstreaks already, so maybe that might somewhat skew my judgment on the "fun" part

I've added a few people to friends, and they tend to be huge 40k buffs like me, so perhaps that's what's keeping it going? It's too small a sample to judge, though.
Just so happens I've played with Zallis as well, and they were some good games.

I don't generally like to criticize the opinions of others, but I must say, it's a damn good thing I bought the game BEFORE I read some of the negative posts on this thread ("facts" that potential buyers need to "be made aware of"), because I might not have bought it.
Anyway, if this is a "dead" game as Pseudonym says, then call me a necrophiliac, because I'm loving it.

[Pseudonymn]

Uhmmm... Space Marine no longer registers on Steam's usage stats page, falling to some undefined depths beneath even Sniper Elite V2, another AAA game that is also dying a quick and ugly death soon after its retail release at only 844 (968) current/peak concurrent connections. It's a p2p serviced game. Lord Tzeentch saw the necromantic rites that brought it back from the grave the first time, and was pleased, but the Lord of Change will surely not allow it to persist. *BLAM* HERESY!! Draw your own conclusions.

Glad you liked it, hope you got your money's worth, enjoy it while it lasts.

soon.jpg

[Cyke]

I've gotten more than my money's worth already.. I'd say I would've gotten what it's worth when the game and DLCs were full-priced at release time.
With the price drop AND recent Steam Sales discounts, this was an insanely good deal.

However, I notice you sound very certain about this, and you've got experience with trending and the like, with usage stats pages and such, that I've never consulted in the past. My conclusions are drawn from the fact that I can jump in any time and find games, and play for as long as I want.

Maybe we should we employ the scientific method; posit a hypothesis about how long it will take for the game to "die", and what the specific conditions for "game death" are. Let's say, "in 28 days from today, there will be 0 Seize Ground games going at 20:00 EST on that Monday".

To be earnest, I suspect there's a good chance your estimated predicted date may prove true (though I hope not), but I'd like to hear what your expectations are.

[Cyke]

The 28 days thing was just a random number I pulled out my ass, you can probably make a more accurate prediction I guess.

[GeoffS]

However, I notice you sound very certain about this, and you've got experience with trending and the like, with usage stats pages and such, that I've never consulted in the past. My conclusions are drawn from the fact that I can jump in any time and find games, and play for as long as I want.

Your conclusions are based on experience, while Pseudonymn's are based on pessimism and a blind hatred of the way the game turned out. If you are enjoying the game and feel you got your money's worth out of it then that is the only thing that matters. Just ignore the whiners and keep enjoying the game.

[Pseudonymn]

Unless your intent is to further provoke me, is there any point to this thread or any like it?

[Zallis]

I vote we rename the thread "Pseudonymn is wrong!!!!!!1 Space Marine is teh shit!"

I have noticed that the game's population follows a, more or less, north american day cycle. You're not going to find people (or many people, anyways) playing at 12:00am on sunday, but daytime on even weekdays I see a fair amount of people. It may be because it's summer holidays for those in north america (I don't know if european countries have something similar, or at the same time) so there's a fair number of people just sitting around gaming.

[Arbit]

I've always been able to get a seize ground game using the standard map pack at any time, even when there is not a steam sale going on. There appears to be a small but dedicated core group that is going to sustain the game for a while, kinda like DoW2. The reason I started this thread was to let other people know it's possible to get a game on a non-standard map/mode. A dread assault game is almost always up, too.

Also Sniper V2 was released April 2012, Space Marine on September 2011. Getting close to a year now! Maybe just like DoW2 we can repeatedly pronounce the game SURELY dead this time, no takebacks totally serious it's DEAD this time for years to come. And if it dies tomorrow, eh, it still had a good run.

Got all my bases covered there I think

[Cyke]

Also Sniper V2 was released April 2012, Space Marine on September 2011. Getting close to a year now! Maybe just like DoW2 we can repeatedly pronounce the game SURELY dead this time, no takebacks totally serious it's DEAD this time for years to come. And if it dies tomorrow, eh, it still had a good run.

Word.

Unless your intent is to further provoke me, is there any point to this thread or any like it?

Look at the title, the point of this thread is to celebrate a game we love!
But in honesty, I'm sorry Pseudonym, it honestly wasn't my intention to deliberately provoke you. I also kinda jumped to the assumption that it was your intent. Just a misunderstanding. Let's just all be on our merry way

[Pseudonymn]

I wasn't talking to you.

Maybe just like DoW2 we can repeatedly pronounce the game SURELY dead this time, no takebacks totally serious it's DEAD this time for years to come

Implying that SM hasn't already fallen off the charts once already.

Also implying that I have no experience with the game and have not based my opinions upon equal or greater measures of experience.



Whatever, Geoffs. You wear your tags rather poorly if that's the best you can come up with. And not the first time, I might add, that you've blown hot air out your ass. I call a spade a spade and a game that has so few people playing it that it no longer registers on usage tracking sites should make it pretty obvious to any reasonable, thinking human being, regardless of whether or not you can still join the game.

If a game receives zero official support from its publisher and has nothing more than a handful of people playing it, that would mean that it is indeed dead by any reasonable person's definition. Sing the game's lauds all you want but at least have the balls to call it like it is: It's dead. Again.

Shit, I can and do still play AVP2 online, a game that is 11 bloody years old, but I will be the first to admit that it's bloody dead because it fits that definition. Why can't you? No, you'd rather take pot shots at people whose opinions differ from your own, despite all available evidence in support of their opinions. Get real, dude.

Inb4 official censure for calling out a mod on his BS.

[Arbit]

When people ask if a game is dead, they want to know if they can play the game online with other people, not its standing on the charts or how many players it has relative to Sniper V2. If AVP2 has a player base large enough that you can still get games, that game is alive, too. Why should I care if it doesn't register on the usual tracking sites if I have no problem getting games? Unless I'm more interested in calling the game a failure and rubbing it everyone's faces, of course.

[Pseudonymn]

Whether or not someone can play the game online, especially one that makes use of the p2p model, has everything to do with how many people are still playing the game. It's highly dependent upon regional and demographic considerations and not everyone will be able to enjoy the good fortune that some of you people have. The very fact that we're having this argument, again, smacks of elitism and is at best extremely disingenuous if not outright dishonest. None of you can honestly say that the chances of a newcomer to this game finding a good, quality connection at whatever time of day they choose to play are as good as someone who, for example, wants to play a game like CoD that has legions of devote followers.

[Edit] If you've recommended the game to someone who cannot then play the game because there aren't enough people or the density of available p2p connections in his/her area is too sparse for reliable connection speeds - and this game wasn't free from exactly this issue even at its peak - then you've gambled with someone else's money and lost. And let me be perfectly clear on this point: I don't care how people enjoy the game. If they enjoy it, good on them; I won't take that away from them. I do, however, take exception to blindly recommending the game to someone on the chance that they might be able to enjoy it as you do without first providing them with the opportunity to make a fully informed decision. [/Edit]

You, all of you, are arguing semantics (again) and it appears to me for the sole purpose that you can pat yourselves on the backs and say, "See, we were right." Argumentum ad populum.

[GeoffS]

And let me be perfectly clear on this point: I don't care how people enjoy the game. If they enjoy it, good on them; I won't take that away from them.

But that is exactly what you are trying to do, take that away from them. Why else would you post your knee-jerk "the game is dead because I can't find numbers" bullshit in every thread where somebody mentions that they are actually playing and enjoying the game?

If you are enjoying the game and feel you got your money's worth out of it then that is the only thing that matters. Just ignore the whiners and keep enjoying the game.

[Pseudonymn]

Why else would you post your knee-jerk "the game is dead because I can't find numbers" bullshit in every thread

I've been avoiding this simply because, frankly, it's not worth the effort to explain myself. Again. However, today for your consideration, I'll let someone else do the talking for me instead because I share his views 100%:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...se-I-Love-Them

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...g-Tantrums-Win

That is all.

[Promythyus]

Wtf am i watching.

[Pseudonymn]

If that's all you got out of it, why post?

[Sword_Monkey]

I would close this, but I might break down crying if I do.

So instead of closing the only recently active thread in the section, I'll let it live. On the condition that you all play nice, emphasis on the 'all'.