Soldier,
I also am puzzled. This game is SO cool. Boatloads of people should be playing this all the time.
Jack B)
Hi.
I can only speak for myself on this issue. I have been a MP player since 1991, and have played a boat load of MP games, even have had my own clans, and it pretty much boiled down to getting along with one another, and making the people that you play with feel comfortable, and not make them feel ashamed for making mistakes....and....SOWgb is niche software, not everyone is a ACW junkie like some of you are.
Times Zones play a very large part, responsibilities of daily living. What I have found interesting is that instead of hanging out in the game lobby, it has now become fashion that you are requested to have Teamspeak, and join the GCM to even get a game started.
It would better suit SOW to one day have the ability to allow everyone to run their own game server (like all the great FPS games), and have a main game server list all the servers up, and running. Start your game, select MP, select whatever, and start the game. All new people wishing to join in would join in on the map, and if they do use voice, have SOWgb have Built in Voice support.
Personally, SOWgb is a Excellent MP game (the few I have played), one of the best on the market. I would like to see SOW grow to the point that people would be complaining on how difficult it is to choose which game to join because there are so many great SOW games being played.
Note1: There is something I forgot to mention before saving, and that is no one hangs out in the main SOWgb game lobby. I think that the Mp community is working in reverse. New purchasers of the game login to the main MP lobby, and they sit there for awhile waiting, and no one shows up because they have no idea about Teamspeak so they move on thinking that the Mp community is dead. Also what if a new person says "hey, I don't want to use Teamspeak"...answer would most likely be "your out of luck, sorry".
Note1a:MP is really the high selling point for SOWgb, and I do suspect that not everyone who downloads the demo reads the forum posts to figure out that Teamspeak is highly recommended for MP play when in fact it should not be the main focus of the MP part of this game anyway.
Note2: Please let people play by their own style of play. What I mean is if a player joined, and wanted to command a Brigade, please don't make them feel like they would be letting you down because they wished to play the style of play they are most comfortable with.
Like I said this is only my personal opinion.
Anyway...