Expectations of the Game

[Mizhir Starsurge]

"I will start with bad equipment and have spend countless of hours being roflstomped by players who are not only better than me, but got better stuff as well" - Damn I was happy when I first logged in a learned that everyone has the same tools available. Finally a game where it is player skills that matters.

[luchelibre]

When I found out about the game and saw that it had a captain/crew setup with cooperation essential to victory, I expected that the playerbase would have headsets, use them, and be active in giving orders, following them, calling targets, etc.

I played for 25 hours, mostly as a gunner, and I've honestly never been so disappointed by a playerbase.

At the beginning of every game, I would tell the captain that I was relatively new and wanted orders and direction. I got them every 10 matches or so, perhaps not even that. The others were silence or 'do whatever'. I did have one afternoon where I was crewed with the same few active guys for several matches and that helped a lot. However, I can't count the number of times I was on completely silent ships or ships with disobedient crew on those rare times I had an active captain.

I honestly can't fathom how so many antisocial people thought it a good idea to install such a completely social game.

And yes, you do have a mic. It's 2014. You have a mic. You're one of the 3 who don't? See that $3.50 in your pocket? Go buy a mic.

After 25 hours, I'd had enough and uninstalled. I know the game is amazing when you can find 3 other guys who know how to vocalcord and order/obey. I know I could make those 3 friends ingame. I also know I don't want that level of sameness hour after hour. I want to play with a lot of different people: Crazy pubbies with nutty builds and geniuses with OP roflstompers. But there were just too darn many in the playerbase that are mute and apathetic.

There was one singular match that epitomized what I'd hoped the game would be. We had a brand new player on the ship and he sounded nervous. His first match, IIRC. I believe he was a gunner. The captain was active and I called target positions, gun status, etc. with gusto, as was my custom. The team worked well together and we got the win. The game did its part too with heavy sounds and visuals, and whiteknuckle action made whiter by intensity of the crew chatter. Before the guy left the match, he said that that was amazing and he had a huge amount of fun. Loved the game. The tone of his voice literally made me smile.

I can only hope his next 10 matches weren't the same as mine.

[Lord Dick Tim]

Orginal Assumptions
*There is a harpoon gun, and this ship is called a Junker, lookout for skywhales.
*Its team based, god dammit I'm either going to be fixing or leading again, I just want to shoot skywhales!
*Some weapons have multible areas of function that others dont, doesnt seem to be deliberately superior, there has to be a designed counter.
*Captain is proactive, engineering is pro or reactive and gunning is best done by assignment.

What Iearned
*Harpoons are for killing skywhales, they have no other use, keep searching.
*Every strategy has a counter, intentionally designed or not, ship/weapon choice changes with map selection.  Who uses the terrain best wins.
*Gunners are an extension of the Captains will, a strong harmony between a captain and a skilled gunner is more important than a skilled engineer.  Dead ships dont shoot back.
*The combat follows a theme like a story, there is a beginning, middle and end to each conflict.  Each phase uses different tools and weapons, and each ship is more or less proficient at each phase, read the scene correctly and you will win.

[The Sky Wolf]

I loved the pyramidion at first sight...  I thought I'd have to buy ships but as soon as I found out that they were all free I looked through the ships and was deadset on the pyramidion. This was before I even played the game at all.

[Captain Smollett]

When I found out about the game and saw that it had a captain/crew setup with cooperation essential to victory, I expected that the playerbase would have headsets, use them, and be active in giving orders, following them, calling targets, etc.

I played for 25 hours, mostly as a gunner, and I've honestly never been so disappointed by a playerbase.

At the beginning of every game, I would tell the captain that I was relatively new and wanted orders and direction. I got them every 10 matches or so, perhaps not even that. The others were silence or 'do whatever'. I did have one afternoon where I was crewed with the same few active guys for several matches and that helped a lot. However, I can't count the number of times I was on completely silent ships or ships with disobedient crew on those rare times I had an active captain.

I honestly can't fathom how so many antisocial people thought it a good idea to install such a completely social game.

And yes, you do have a mic. It's 2014. You have a mic. You're one of the 3 who don't? See that $3.50 in your pocket? Go buy a mic.

After 25 hours, I'd had enough and uninstalled. I know the game is amazing when you can find 3 other guys who know how to vocalcord and order/obey. I know I could make those 3 friends ingame. I also know I don't want that level of sameness hour after hour. I want to play with a lot of different people: Crazy pubbies with nutty builds and geniuses with OP roflstompers. But there were just too darn many in the playerbase that are mute and apathetic.

There was one singular match that epitomized what I'd hoped the game would be. We had a brand new player on the ship and he sounded nervous. His first match, IIRC. I believe he was a gunner. The captain was active and I called target positions, gun status, etc. with gusto, as was my custom. The team worked well together and we got the win. The game did its part too with heavy sounds and visuals, and whiteknuckle action made whiter by intensity of the crew chatter. Before the guy left the match, he said that that was amazing and he had a huge amount of fun. Loved the game. The tone of his voice literally made me smile.

I can only hope his next 10 matches weren't the same as mine.

Wow, this is incredibly insightful and I hope the devs see this.  I'm not sure if the poster is still checking the thread but I'm curious whether this was in beginner lobbies or in regular matches.  When I joined the game a million of years ago beginner matches didn't exist and the vets were chatty as heck due to the small player base.  Most players had mics and that honestly is what made and still makes this game so incredibly fun.

I've always thought Muse should somehow mention that a mic and communication are the keys to both victory and an insanely good game experience.

To the original poster, if you ever want to give the game a second chance, I encourage you to look into some of the larger clans in the game since almost all of them play this game for its social and cooperative value and use mic's extensively and are large enough you wind up meeting tons of cool players.

[Omniraptor]

Agreed, a microphone and speakers should be in the game's system requirements next to the other hardware.

[Dutch Vanya]

I agree that it should be made more obvious that this game is about teamwork and communication, people aren't used to that. Before guns of icarus, i had never experienced gamers using their mics for anything other than obscenely insulting eachothers mothers and telling eachother to shut up.

[luchelibre]

Wow, this is incredibly insightful and I hope the devs see this.  I'm not sure if the poster is still checking the thread but I'm curious whether this was in beginner lobbies or in regular matches.  When I joined the game a million of years ago beginner matches didn't exist and the vets were chatty as heck due to the small player base.  Most players had mics and that honestly is what made and still makes this game so incredibly fun.

I've always thought Muse should somehow mention that a mic and communication are the keys to both victory and an insanely good game experience.

To the original poster, if you ever want to give the game a second chance, I encourage you to look into some of the larger clans in the game since almost all of them play this game for its social and cooperative value and use mic's extensively and are large enough you wind up meeting tons of cool players.

While I appreciate the kind words, I don't believe my post is either insightful or helpful to the devs.

The devs already know the absolute importance of headsets. However, they also know that mics are worthless if the playerbase won't use them or uses them but are disobedient or apathetic , which is more often the case. They have so tightly balanced their game that 3 will almost never beat 4 and the naval pace of the game allows for rich chatter. My post doesn't tell them anything they don't already know.

They will also find out from their logs that I haven't played a match in many, many months and so my experience may, in their more-informed opinion, be obsolete (which is different from 'wrong'). The only reason I'm here is because Muse sent me an email about the latest game update. I love the game itself, and Muse does already have my money, so I checked out the update. I also came to the forums and saw this thread. I checked the other forums and threads to see if silence and apathy were still a major problem and decided that it was. I especially noticed that Muse has been working on 'voice' commands. This would be particularly helpful for people of different languages on the same ship. However, my experience would suggest that it was primarily introduced as a concession to the mute and a recognition of their pervasiveness. I hope I'm wrong.

All that said, to be honest the more time I spend talking about GoI, the more I want to try it some more. The game itself truly was very good.

If I give in and you should see me in-game, then for Muse's sake, give me some freaking orders. ;-)

[awkm]

The only thing people seem to manage to say into microphones are oftentimes expletives.  OR when someone says something useful or asks a question, they get expletives in response.  It's not a problem that Muse alone can solve, the unruliness of the internet, but we hope that we set good examples by enforcing a strong ethical code of conduct (use that report player feature if you need to!) and creating a game that NEEDS good teamwork.

We've tried to put some additional functions like the Crew Signals (radio-like) command system.  It's a little buried ATM but we intend to do more tutorials on it in the future.  Hopefully that helps.

[snor-laxatives]

What I thought:
"Yar Har, Lets all act like Pirates"
"Yar Har, Lets all run into each other"
"Yar Har, I bet there be a ton of scalawags to cause mischief with"
"Yar Har, Perhaps I will learn more seaworthy words than 'Yar Har"

What I Found.
"Not as many pirates yet, but lots of different animals"
"Ramming is still my favorite thing to do.... to a fault"
"Good community (not perfect, but good, and hopefully we can keep plugging up the leaks)"
"Nautical terms, yay!"
Bonus:
"Im not as good of a multi-tasker as I thought"
"All though I may be "captain" I'm only as good as my first mate.  When bullets start to fly my mouth starts to shut (something I'm working on)
"Ramming is still my favorite thing to do.............................. to a fault"

[macmacnick]

What I thought:
"Yar Har, Lets all act like Pirates"
"Yar Har, Lets all run into each other"
"Yar Har, I bet there be a ton of scalawags to cause mischief with"
"Yar Har, Perhaps I will learn more seaworthy words than 'Yar Har"

What I Found.
"Not as many pirates yet, but lots of different animals"
"Ramming is still my favorite thing to do.... to a fault"
"Good community (not perfect, but good, and hopefully we can keep plugging up the leaks)"
"Nautical terms, yay!"
Bonus:
"Im not as good of a multi-tasker as I thought"
"All though I may be "captain" I'm only as good as my first mate.  When bullets start to fly my mouth starts to shut (something I'm working on)
"Ramming is still my favorite thing to do.............................. to a fault"

Did someone Say Animals? Mrau.


 ^—^
(O^O)


I also initially expected the game to also include Ai ships that would be on par with real enemies.

[AlmaShade]

My initial assumptions of the game. All of which I now know are wrong.
"I'll mostly be playing gunner."
"People will fight to be the main gunner."
"Occasionally, at least two crew members will be too stubborn to give up being a gunner."
"The other classes aren't very interesting."
"This game will be will be quite complicated."
"The Manticore is overpowered."
"The captain will often behave like dictator."
"The Gattling Gun is useless."
"People will hate me if I suck."
"Everyone but the captain has captain-mind-reading powers, so I don't need to use voice com." 
"Port is the right side of the ship, and Starboard is the left side."