Multiplayer is Unplayable

[sir_kris]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but the multiplayer in Civ 5 is even worse than the multiplayer in Civ 4, and maybe even Civ 3!

I just spent 2 hours on my first multiplayer game. The lobby was completely empty, so I hosted my own. About 20 minutes later, I was able to get 4 players. I had to tell them all to change their difficulty to prince, since for whatever reason they had all defaulted to chieftain when they joined (even though I didn't).

About 2 hours into the game, my screen went black. This is a bug I've encountered in single player as well. The only way to fix it is to open task manager, kill the Civ 5 process, and restart the game. Unfortunately, because you can't (re)join a multiplayer game in progress, there's no way for me to go back. AND I WAS WINNING!!!!


Now, here's my question: What genius on the dev team had the bright idea of making it so that you can't join a multiplayer game in progress?! Have they forgotten so quickly how problematic that was in Civ 3? Yes, in Civ 4 it was very buggy and sometimes led to game crashes, but I would think they could've focused their efforts on fixing that rather than just stripping out the feature altogether.

Here's the thing: In a game as lengthy as Civ, people are going to come and go during a multiplayer game. And here's another thing: In a game as *buggy* as Civ, people are going to drop like flies within the first couple hours. If there's no way for them to rejoin, you're basically making multiplayer unplayable.


What's so frustrating about this is that the dev team has never really seemed to take the multiplayer seriously. In Civ 4, they made a big deal about how MP was built-in from the ground-up, but when it came time for patches to be released and reported bugs to be fixed, most of the widely reported multiplayer bugs went unfixed to this day. And now, in Civ 5, rather than correcting these issues, they seem to have decided to just revert back to the Civ 3 mindset of making multiplayer little more than a lethargic afterthought.

I don't know if this is actually their mindset or not, but this is certainly the impression given by the seemingly lack of attention paid to this. As a long-time fan of the series, I continue to hold out hope that, one day, they will release a Civ game that actually meets the basic standards of online multiplayer.


Ok, that's my angry rant for the day.

--Kris

 

[wilson1225]

Why did you post your whinepost in the bug reports section?

Moderator Action: Now moved to MP. The_J

 

[swordspider]

Your argument is flawed and based on your own experience. In addition, it sounds like you playing it once, got pissed off, and wanted to rant. So here are answers to your rants so you can calm down and give it another try.

I just spent 2 hours on my first multiplayer game. The lobby was completely empty, so I hosted my own. About 20 minutes later, I was able to get 4 players. I had to tell them all to change their difficulty to prince, since for whatever reason they had all defaulted to chieftain when they joined (even though I didn't).

It can take time to get players and depending on what time of day you are playing it can take even more. People look for options they like playing, so if you don't have some key elements like 'quick turns' and 'enable turn timer', or if you host a large map game with few players, you're gonna have trouble keeping them too. If you look for a game at 7pm ET, you'll fill up immediately.

About 2 hours into the game, my screen went black. This is a bug I've encountered in single player as well. The only way to fix it is to open task manager, kill the Civ 5 process, and restart the game. Unfortunately, because you can't (re)join a multiplayer game in progress, there's no way for me to go back. AND I WAS WINNING!!!!

That is YOUR problem, I have played this game since it came out and never have had a 'blackout'. The only issue I have encountered is a lock up in the load when someone drops during the load screen. Perhaps you should update all your drivers and make sure your system can handle the game.

Now, here's my question: What genius on the dev team had the bright idea of making it so that you can't join a multiplayer game in progress?! Have they forgotten so quickly how problematic that was in Civ 3? Yes, in Civ 4 it was very buggy and sometimes led to game crashes, but I would think they could've focused their efforts on fixing that rather than just stripping out the feature altogether.

Here's the thing: In a game as lengthy as Civ, people are going to come and go during a multiplayer game. And here's another thing: In a game as *buggy* as Civ, people are going to drop like flies within the first couple hours. If there's no way for them to rejoin, you're basically making multiplayer unplayable.

Again, that is your personal preference. I don't want people joining my game in progress that were not there from the start. What you NEED TO DO is build up a group of reliable steam friends and play with them. Then you have no bugs, you know you're all compatible online, and your 'friends' are not just going to quit. PLUS, if you want people to come back if they crash or load a game you have been playing when people have to go (which is inevitable in a game of this scope), THEY CAN! If you crash, you just right click on your friend's name in the game and say 'join game' and viola! You're right back in.

What's so frustrating about this is that the dev team has never really seemed to take the multiplayer seriously. In Civ 4, they made a big deal about how MP was built-in from the ground-up, but when it came time for patches to be released and reported bugs to be fixed, most of the widely reported multiplayer bugs went unfixed to this day. And now, in Civ 5, rather than correcting these issues, they seem to have decided to just revert back to the Civ 3 mindset of making multiplayer little more than a lethargic afterthought.

I don't know if this is actually their mindset or not, but this is certainly the impression given by the seemingly lack of attention paid to this. As a long-time fan of the series, I continue to hold out hope that, one day, they will release a Civ game that actually meets the basic standards of online multiplayer.

Civilization has almost always been about your PERSONAL conquest of the world. They have put a lot of work into the AI and into the single player portion of the game to make it very rewarding. Unfortunately in our society today with XBox, PS3, Wii, etc etc the attention spam of gamers has become equivalent to less than that of a gnat. In response, Civ is forced to include a multiplayer so that their game will appeal to immature teenagers who play Call of Duty all day and spit out chat insults in order to get out their new-age rage. The game was designed for YOU to play on your own, and was designed to be a conquest over time, not an instant gratification game to see who can rack up the most frags in 2 minutes. The multiplayer is there to offer an interesting alternative if you want to play against human players.

All I can tell you is if you truly like the game, then hang in there, it is getting better. When they first released it, it truly was almost unplayable, I will give you that. But they have made great strides and it has become a lot more fun to play. In addition, with a new patch coming out very soon, the gameplay in multi will become much more balanced and the games will be much more interesting.

The only thing I can agree with you on is they shoudl have waited to release the game when the multiplayer was at least at the level it is now, *but* welcome to the real world where game devs run out of money and investors and have to release a game in what used to be a final beta in order to generate enough income to pay their employees to complete it. It sucks, yeah, but that is what you get in a great recession.

 

[builer680]

I agree with sir_kris.

After trying MP out a few times today, I essentially experienced all the same things he did. Very frustrating, don't let the people saying "it's just you" get to you. It's not.

 

[Kyp Durron]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but the multiplayer in Civ 5 is even worse than the multiplayer in Civ 4, and maybe even Civ 3!

I just spent 2 hours on my first multiplayer game. The lobby was completely empty, so I hosted my own. About 20 minutes later, I was able to get 4 players. I had to tell them all to change their difficulty to prince, since for whatever reason they had all defaulted to chieftain when they joined (even though I didn't).

Depends on region your playing in as to how many players are online. Try New York region in your steam. Or try a MP league which i've stated the benefits in other threads.

About 2 hours into the game, my screen went black. This is a bug I've encountered in single player as well. The only way to fix it is to open task manager, kill the Civ 5 process, and restart the game. Unfortunately, because you can't (re)join a multiplayer game in progress, there's no way for me to go back. AND I WAS WINNING!!!!

This isn't a bug related to MP directly, its more so related to civ5 itself and your performance on your computer. And you can rejoin a MP game, you just need to have the steam of another player in the game. This wouldn't be a problem if you were in a league.

Now, here's my question: What genius on the dev team had the bright idea of making it so that you can't join a multiplayer game in progress?! Have they forgotten so quickly how problematic that was in Civ 3? Yes, in Civ 4 it was very buggy and sometimes led to game crashes, but I would think they could've focused their efforts on fixing that rather than just stripping out the feature altogether.

You can rejoin a game in progress as stated above.

Here's the thing: In a game as lengthy as Civ, people are going to come and go during a multiplayer game. And here's another thing: In a game as *buggy* as Civ, people are going to drop like flies within the first couple hours. If there's no way for them to rejoin, you're basically making multiplayer unplayable.

Right click persons steam: click join game. It rejoins you into their game.


What's so frustrating about this is that the dev team has never really seemed to take the multiplayer seriously. In Civ 4, they made a big deal about how MP was built-in from the ground-up, but when it came time for patches to be released and reported bugs to be fixed, most of the widely reported multiplayer bugs went unfixed to this day. And now, in Civ 5, rather than correcting these issues, they seem to have decided to just revert back to the Civ 3 mindset of making multiplayer little more than a lethargic afterthought.

Sigh.... Agreed.

I don't know if this is actually their mindset or not, but this is certainly the impression given by the seemingly lack of attention paid to this. As a long-time fan of the series, I continue to hold out hope that, one day, they will release a Civ game that actually meets the basic standards of online multiplayer.

I hope that Civ5 reaches that standard at somepoint.

Ok, that's my angry rant for the day.

--Kris

In short, you can rejoin a game in progress, just need to know who your playing with. Which is why I only play league games, since we have a chat room with all the players in the game sitting right there. Someone drops we either let them rejoin or reload it for them.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

I would have to agree that if you are getting black screens you have a hardware or driver issue. Civ5 MP is not optimized that is true for sure and needs alot of work, but I also believe alot of the problems in MP games are people that are totally ignorant of the fact their computers are at or below the min specs for the game. And IMHO no one should even attempt right now to play MP with just the min specs, as the MP system is already fragile enough, playing on computers that can not handle the game just is stacking more weight on a house of cards.

And as stated you can hotjoin games, and there is also a link in my sig to the Civplayers steam chat, it is much easier to find league and non-league games in that chat than trying to use the dysfunctional steam regional servers.

The key to successful MP games is to keep games to 4 players or less, play with players you know are not going to lag the game, and come to an active chat room were your chances of hooking up with good players are better, and if drops do happen you can go back into chat and locate the players.

CS

 

[mike3640]

sir kris your 100% right and I can't stand ppl who would defend firaxis in this area. CiV mp is garbage, I played civ4 mp ALOT with good friends, we played only a couple of hours on CiV because it was terrible, I couldn't use scenarios, couldn't do much with the number of city states and civs playing and when we did play... crashes galore

 

[Achilleslastand]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but the multiplayer in Civ 5 is even worse than the multiplayer in Civ 4, and maybe even Civ 3!

I just spent 2 hours on my first multiplayer game. The lobby was completely empty, so I hosted my own. About 20 minutes later, I was able to get 4 players. I had to tell them all to change their difficulty to prince, since for whatever reason they had all defaulted to chieftain when they joined (even though I didn't).

About 2 hours into the game, my screen went black. This is a bug I've encountered in single player as well. The only way to fix it is to open task manager, kill the Civ 5 process, and restart the game. Unfortunately, because you can't (re)join a multiplayer game in progress, there's no way for me to go back. AND I WAS WINNING!!!!


Now, here's my question: What genius on the dev team had the bright idea of making it so that you can't join a multiplayer game in progress?! Have they forgotten so quickly how problematic that was in Civ 3? Yes, in Civ 4 it was very buggy and sometimes led to game crashes, but I would think they could've focused their efforts on fixing that rather than just stripping out the feature altogether.

Here's the thing: In a game as lengthy as Civ, people are going to come and go during a multiplayer game. And here's another thing: In a game as *buggy* as Civ, people are going to drop like flies within the first couple hours. If there's no way for them to rejoin, you're basically making multiplayer unplayable.


What's so frustrating about this is that the dev team has never really seemed to take the multiplayer seriously. In Civ 4, they made a big deal about how MP was built-in from the ground-up, but when it came time for patches to be released and reported bugs to be fixed, most of the widely reported multiplayer bugs went unfixed to this day. And now, in Civ 5, rather than correcting these issues, they seem to have decided to just revert back to the Civ 3 mindset of making multiplayer little more than a lethargic afterthought.

I don't know if this is actually their mindset or not, but this is certainly the impression given by the seemingly lack of attention paid to this. As a long-time fan of the series, I continue to hold out hope that, one day, they will release a Civ game that actually meets the basic standards of online multiplayer.


Ok, that's my angry rant for the day.

--Kris

O lord this is such mumbo-jumbo. As per 2K greg didnt you know that civ5 multiplayer is "awesome".