Problem:

Lobby isn't intuitive and doesn't promote interaction.

Channels aren't intuively found and there's no 'general lobby' area, just race specific and pirates.

Situation:

Two days ago was the first day I tried joining IronClad Online. I usually play with my friends over Hamachi mainly cause we were used to it and that was how we played most of our games.

However when I entered ICO, it told me I was in a Lobby...and yet I couldn't type anything (didn't know I had to join a channel). I thought no one was around and that there were only 40+ players online all inside games. I gave up and quit and decided to try another day.

Yesterday I tried it again. 45+ players and no one around again. I noticed there was a Channel button after some fiddling but when I opened it up it asked me to enter the name of the channel (for some reason I don't remember seeing any default channels specified or maybe I was blind) so was at a total loss as to what name to enter. Asked my friend and he said try typing TEC Corner which I did and entered and all the default channels popped up as well in the Channel list when I clicked add/change channel.

However in all the channels there was no one around and it felt very very lonely. My friend said that he has tried it a few times as well and got similiar results. We were completely puzzled with so many sales on what is at core a MULTIPLAYER game, that there were very few people actually playing online?? A few hundred thousand sales and only....40 players? Granted the timezone diff but still...from the comments in multiplayer it doesn't seem that I am alone.

Solution:

Now I am no stranger to online gaming. Been playing WC3, Starcraft, Supreme Commander, World in Conflict online. Yet I was really really puzzled when I tried typing into the lobby and nothing came out. I thought 'maybe cause there's no one on in the lobby' and therefore didn't try to join a channel.

There should be a default channel

There should be a default lobby channel without a name like TEC, Advent or Vassari which seems like a race specific channel. The Pirate channel seemed like a general chat to talk about stuff....Without having any people inside to define them, it felt confusing.

The channel should be autojoined. At its current size one channel should be enough but should it be massively populated then it it will spawn a Lobby 2 where players will be placed inside. However players can freely switch between Lobby 1 and Lobby 2 should they want to find their friends.

This would also create more of a community. Not everyone knows how to use IRC except the most ancient members of the internet community (ok exaggeration but yeah).

Further thoughts

I believe this should be quite simple to implement and needs to be addressed ASAP. I know that GPG and Stardock are coming up with their multiplayer ranking/ladder interface which should solve all these issues. HOWEVER, the people that I know who play Sins are already frustrated with the multiplayer matching system and always feels like there's nobody on.

All I'm saying is that by the time there is a single player campaign to keep people happy playing with themselves and until the full multiplayer system is up, it may be too late already and people may have found another game to occupy their time.

I know you guys will say 'well if it's good they will come back once the system is in place' but as superb a game is, if there is a negative stigma to it (I can't find anybody to play with online....) then most likely if we find something else that is also fun we'll just stick with that.

This default LOBBY area doesn't solve all these problems but it's definitely a step in the right direction.