Fear ? not really, losing can be instructive, I just dont have the time to dedicate to becoming decent at games anymore.

After playing a few years of MMO's and online games, I got turned off to the whole online thing by l33tz/trash talkers and just plain cheaters.

I guess I've gone from semi-hardcore to casual with time.

MP sins pauses (and gives the host an option to drop the player - replaced by an AI) if the lag is too high. The game picks up again once all games have caught up. So that tactic cannot be used.

As for how they got so good - they have been playing since it came out 9 months ago, or longer if they were in the original beta... Plus they play online which is a far better teacher then SP vs the AI.

Remember that we WANT new players to come online and to get better as it gives us more of a challenge. I can beat the Unfair AI 1v1, so that is no fun. Humans are fun. Plus the fact you can chat to all players in the game (or just your team) means that some funny stuff happens or is said... It is so much more entertaining then the AI telling me to evacuate plant ABC...

Of course thats why I did say I can't speak for this game.  I just can't sit infront of a computer and play a game for more then about an hour at a time.  With some decent sized breaks inbetween.  I guess thats whay keeps me from getting into this game online. 

I do agree humans are so much better then AI.  I have done this a couple of times on lan and the kind of things you see are different. 

Then play small maps and get good at the rush. eh.

Yep. Being stuck with the noobs when the enemy team somehow managed to get all the smurfs. *shudder*

I'm not allowed to play online   but no i'm not afraid of

'pro' players

I played a game last night with someone who has been playing online for a bit - I was screaming at him an hour and a half plus in to build a new fleet (he had lost his and wasn't helping me vs the 3 opposition who all came for a go at me - my other ally was on other side of the map rebuilding after the guy who was pounding on me came to try and kill my fleet).

His response was - no money. I was like WTF - you haven't expanded to a new planet or built anything, you MUST have uber resouces. I look at the roid and terran that he had colonised (only planets he held other then his capital). BOTH HAD -2.3 INCOME!!!!

Now we are not talking about someone with 1-2 games online - he has had quite a few (though not many wins/losses). And sure enough - he quit later into the game (even though we had won by that stage - 2 of the opponents had quit due to having their fleets halved before they ran away).

Moral of the story - I don't fear a noob, but I am wary of a newb - they could be a smurf, or they could be good from SP....

Am I afraid of experienced players? yes. Am I a noob? yes! Does that prevent me from showing up to play? NO!

I admit, I suck at rushing, or getting to use Returning Armada with the Vasari. I am a slow-paced player, but the point is to have fun, show what you got, and learn from your defeat. observe your opponent's tactics, see what you did wrong, and experiment with other tactics. Eventually, you will find a tactic that will appeal to your style of play.

I...AM...NOOOOOOOBBSSSAAAUUUCCCEEEEE!!!!!

Can't give you any examples as I haven't played mp, but stuff always comes up in games so I'm sure there's gotta' be something (if not done yet, to be done later).

Oh, and I'd call smurfing a form of cheating.  Only if you're actually seeking out noobs of course.

This. Unlike some 'elite' players I found in game after game (mainly FPS/MMO) new players don't care about dieing, or loseing they care about having fun. Being forced to spend 10-15 hours to get to the point where you might be able to have fun is not worth it for the vast majority of people. Thats why the autojoin match-making services on console do so well (now if there was only a way to get rid of n00bs who sing on voice etc lol).

Well i just created an ICO account, so you can expect to see me during the weekend, or you may not considering i live in GMT +2 timezone.

There are a variety of reasons why I don't play online multiplayer.

The main one is that my internet sucks, and I don't want to be a burden to anyone else. I've tried online play with other games, and everytime I had to drop out because I was causing everyone else to lag. In Supreme Commander, my ping reached quintuple digits, which at the time I didn't even know was possible. I think it peaked at around 15,000.

Another reason that I don't play online is that I hate to lose. I know that you'll say that losing helps you learn how to be better, etc, etc, but admit it, losing sucks. I used to play soccer, and my team had about 5 seasons where we lost every single game. We tried to learn from our mistakes, learn from the better team, etc, but we still got crushed every game 9-0. Losing is just not fun, no matter how much you learn from it.

I also always turtle. It doesn't matter what the game is, or how well turtling actually works, I always do it. In Supreme Commander I turtled so much that you could throw 5 experimentals at me, and they would all be dead in 10 seconds. I've never been able to pull off those rushes that other players can, so I turtle instead. Of course turtling doesn't work very well with Sins, so I'd probably just hurt whatever team I'm on.

Finally, I love the giant, epic battles with capital ships/super units, etc (depending on the game). In the few SupCom games I managed to play online, I hated how it was just a race to see who could spam the most tech 1 stuff the fastest. I wanted the massive battles with multiple experimentals duking it out and nuclear missiles flying every where. From what I've heard about Sins multiplayer, most people only build one or two capitals and everything else is frigates. I love my capital ships, and I almost always have all 16.

Maybe when Entrenchment comes out and I get a better internet connection I'll give it a try, but until then I'm sticking with single player.