Multiplayer: Everything About It

[JohnMK]

I don't know how bliss found itself over there in Sweden, but everywhere else this game is played MP, there's nothing but problems. I don't have any problems with any other MP game I play; my Internet connection is fine and dandy. If HOI has the same MP base as Eu2, I'm very worried for Paradox.

Please log MP as one major bug, please. The whole ball of wax. Everything about it. It's getting so incredibly frustrating. I love this game, and the sloppy MP implementation prevents me from enjoying it.

 

[unmerged(8303)]

I've stopped playing MP completely because of various problems I've had with it. After 1.05 with the file check feature, my friend and I both did clean installs and patched and it said our files didn't match.

 

[Jens Z]

We mostly play in LAN and with NA 1.05 we have one or two CTD in 40 years game time.

However, EU as MP game is twice as fun as in SP so we keep playing.

 

[JohnMK]

We've had occasional lucky streaks too. The longest we've gone without a crash is, I believe, 20 years. Maybe a few more. But the typical experience is one crash every three or four years or so. Sometimes a game will crash instantly, and we'll need to reload several more times before it'll actually work through whatever problem it experienced before. Altogether it looks as though MP were an afterthought for this game, judging from the interface and the stability. Either that or it's just, as I said in my first post, sloppy programming. But I guess we'll never see it fixed, supposedly no new features for Eu2. As things are right now I'd say the MP is as stable as an alpha release, never finely tuned at all. And all the people who claim they never have Eu2 MP stability problems? There are three options:

1) They're lying (I don't believe this one to be the case)
2) Blind defense of Paradox (root for the underdog mentality), they've played MP once or twice, and it worked well for them. Or they always play with the same person and somehow the network/comp configurations have that voodoo magic that Eu2 works well on.

If you ever go to VNET and arrange a game there with say 4 or 5 or more people, or have a group of ICQ contacts from which you play (as I do), well then, you'll know what instability I'm talking about because you'll have experienced it yourself.

Come on Paradox. Rise to the occasion and fix what is your epic work and masterpiece. Make Eu2 MP robust.

 

[Jens Z]

Maybe the problem is a bit specific.

For example, we should differ between MP - Internet Games and MP-Lan games. Personally I only played EU2 in LAN so far.

Probalbly, the lag which sometimes occure in internet sessions, causes data loss crashing the computer.

Anyway, I also would like to encourage Paradox to hunt down MP problems. I am sure they will...

 

[JohnMK]

You're sure, I'm not. I think they'd rather let this one slip in underneath the rug and hope we all forget about it.

 

[unmerged(2833)]

Humhum, yes.... MP definitly would use a few bugfixes, or something. A few dozens, probably


Anyway, John is right. The MP can be immensely frustrating. I don't know why, but we all know that EU crashes in SP more often than average game. Sure, i can live with it, i remember the days when games actually hunged up your computer, so you had to restart, heck, i remember my old ZX Spectrum, when starting a game took 25 minutes or something


Oh well. Since evein in SP game there are occasional crashes Yeah, i know. Hardware problems, and such. Nevertheless, few other games somehow managed to avoid those hardware problems-and yes, some are completly unplayable. The question is, which game EU II should be

Or HoI, or CK, for that matter.


Anyway, we have odd SP crashes. Think about MP then. Crashes which usually happen in SP mean end of MP session. And throw in MP only crashes, such as infamous chat crashbug, or undefined string bug, or anything else.
And now you will see why we often spend more time getting all players to vnet or ip, and transferring savegames, than actually playing

Yes, it means the MP is frustrating as hell sometimes. I wonder why i'm still playing it. Perhaps because EU II is great game

 

[JohnMK]

Let me just add to something you brought up. It's an 'Undefined Nation' bug. As in this is what we see:

Damoces((Undefined Nation)): I'm going to crush you, Austria . . . gimme Bayern or else.

Now, if I try to chat, it will certainly crash that game. I can let everyone else chat, and some or all of them will be 'Undefined Nations.' And the game will proceed for a while, maybe a few years until something comes up that crashes it, unrelated. But a sure-fire way of crashing it upon the experience of that bug, is to try to chat, if you're the one seeing the bug.

 

[Jens Z]

Does your MP party consist of only NA 1.05 versions or different nations (Scandinavian, German etc.)?

Maybe there's a conflict between the country versions...