All are quite true, and i obviously see how you criticize SP. I only use it if i can't find any good online games or if I want to test a new strategy; if it kills on a medium map in thirty minutes or less, odds are it will keep me alive vs a good player for at least the first 10 minutes.

I've found that after playing MP, the AI is just too easy to kill. Even diplomacy's vicious and cruel difficulties are easy to take down. MP is generally faster paced. Single star random maps are the most popular, and generally people will join larger games that are more cramped and leave less room for anything but military. Though you can find people wanting to play smaller games on large maps, which allow for more civic research before encountering an enemy. Playing against humans means that players are looking for decisive attacks that you will never recover from, which often times involves destroying your HW. Humans just play smarter than the AI, so you have to be equally as smart and cunning to stay alive.

Im an avid SP player, not because I believe the AI is a challenge. In no way is it something that keeps me on my toes. But simply, I really dont like the MP atmosphere. And I know alot of people will agree when it comes to the reason MP is so small is because.

1. People dont have time on their hands even to sit down and play two hours online with someone when they have bills to pay.  And are working two or three part time jobs just to accomplish that.

and

2. Ive heard alot of people bitch that MP players (not just on here but any MP you go to) are elitests and shun (Ive tried online play once, and for two hours I continuosly got booted because I was an unknown) new comers just because they prefer to play with their friends. Which seems to happen more often in this line of games then others like Halo where I absolutely never got booted for being an unknown. People there just wanted to get in to the game as fast as they could. And smash as many people as they could. But that isnt the same with a game like this where it can take you literally 2 hours (minimum) to smash your opponent. As well, its a team effort which means its going to be exceptionally faster then if you played AI on its hardest setting.

SP= uber-long multistar games. Oftentimes, SP is the only way you'll play mods. And I LOVE mods.

MP= short&snappy high-speed low-drag games. You'll find the occasional comp stomp sure, but not often. Moreover, very few play mods on it.

Allegiance86 People online will more then likely BOOT you if you do not provide a "Main" account because unknowns aer likely to be smurfs.  You may have to host your own game, like a 2v2 or a 3v3.  To get a little online expirience, a bit of a record, and people who will vouch for your name.  For the most part, people online are not necessarily 'elitist' they are just impatient to noobs that can negatively affect the gameplay ballance.

Whisky Browse the forums to look for people wwho play the mods, ive seen many people online arrange MOD games at given times where people meet and the like.  MP doesnt like MODS because mod developers seem to have no sense of unit ballance.

I shouldnt have to prove myself when Im on my main account. People rather play Smurfs in MP then new players. People have constantly admitted to Smurfs owning up to who they really are so they could stack teams. So obviously its a bias against newcomers. Not everyone represents these elitests but theres enough to keep their community from growing which makes it a big issue.

Again, newcomers shouldnt have to prove themselves not to be someone else. Theres no way in hell to actually prove yourself in a chatroom anyway. IC continues to back the right of players to smurf, and it will continue to hinder the online community. Which in my eyes, IC doesnt care much about. They take into consideration what MP has to say about stats because you guys push the game to its limits and can find the actual bugs. But really, to me atleast, IC views MP as nothing more then free labor. They get you guys to test it for them, report the them, they fix it and you dont get paid for helping improve their product. While SP continues to enjoy the game and its many improvements while MP seems to get ignored when features are requested.

You only say that because you smurf more than you don't smurf sunny.  It keeps getting said because its just that annoying to those of us that don't smurf.

And to allegiance, they shouldn't have to prove themselves new but there is no way for newcomers to prove they are actually new except for sucking persistently and by that point it doesn't matter anyways.  The smurfs are trying to pretend to be new to the detriment of the actual new players just for some team stacking advantage.  It would be nice if something were done but it won't be likely.

[_]-Greyfox

I really wanted to play that STAR vs STAR

With the emphasis on losers.  Congratulations on make MP a niche clique, boneheads.

I started years ago playing an open source  game called BZFlag.  It had a total playerbase of about 200 and most were developers and contributors to the project--it was pretty much unknown to the "gaming world".

There were two private servers set up and the developers who liked playing as much as developing all beta tested and played there.  Everyone knew everyone and it was "by invitation only" to get to these servers--which did not show on th global list. I stumbled across the game and nudged my way in--playing the open servers and over time, the old hands saw I liked the game, had a sense of humor and didn't mind getting killed. 

What really got me "in" though was the devs seeing me in games helping newer players and teaching them how to play.  That was why they had a private server--to avoid the hostility of mass groups (which is backwards from most game communities now).  It was absolute fun to play that game.  Everyone was a gentleman (most were Germans and the rest mostly American).  People wrote custom programs for use in my personal business...another introduced me to Flash and taught me actionscript.  Someone else showed me how to set up and run a business server.  Another helped me with graphics and audio editing and I got a ton of free computer advice.  Many players there are friends with me now almost fifteen years later. I even learned to tweak the game worlds to the point where the developers started asking what I was doing and changed some of their approaches to developing featrues in theb game.  The game is still a blast now but it is bigger and has a lot wider variety of players.  Still, well moderated and has a decent ethic compared to many gaming communities--an inheritance from its old days which are passed on and most don't know it.

My point for SINs is this.  It's cool to be good and want challenging players but you gain so much more when you include instead of exclude and treat everyone as valuable.  The trend towards "tough" and "too bad" attitudes on the net is costing more than most people on the web know.  This game could be a changepoint in someone's life.  It might make an insecure person get some confidence, a lonely person some friends or introduce a young person to programming or a professional skill.  You never know.  Some people might have the worst day of their life in the world and come online to relax--would be a lot nicer for them if they actually could.

I play SP as I am playing with maps but I like the MP for the challenge.  I would never knock someone for not being as good as me and I don't mind losing--but I do want to have fun.

So to quote Bill and Ted, "Be excellent to one another.".