Nearly unplayable? Thread - Alpha Squad

DragonDivide,

I just purchased Alpha Squad after trying out the demo on XBLA Indie games and was hooked after a minute of playing. I realize that Alpha Squad is about real-time networking and geared toward online multiplayer; however, the way it's implemented seriously hampers even the single-player experience. While I'd love to player a multiplayer co-op game or host one, because the game is pretty new (I never heard of it until January 12, 2011) there won't be many people online to play it and host games for at least a little while (I'd give it a couple of days from release date to pick up).

I just wanted to immerse myself in the single player campaign to figure out the controls (since strangely, there's no controller layout on the options menu) and get a feeling for what the game is about. Unfortunately, even playing the single player game is difficult due to random "Network Connection Error" messages that pop-up while simply walking around trying to play the game. Because of this, I'm forced to save my progress almost every 5 seconds to keep from losing any progress I made from the start of the level since I'm kicked out of the only level that I'm able to play on (and I'm sure anyone can tell you how frustrating that is when you're being swarmed by enemies who seem to suck the life out of you in a few hits).

I've managed to somewhat finish the first level of campaign, but when I go back to play it over (to get more cash for health items as the difficulty level is astoundingly high), I'm again met with the random "Network Connection Error" from the start of the level to any transition point. Loading a save is the game's saving grace (no pun intended) to keep me from utterly deleting it (I really REALLY want to like and play Alpha Squad), but due to the nature of the random and game-ending "Network Connection Error", the game is nearly unplayable.

I understand and wholly appreciate your rush to patch the game as soon as possible, and I will patiently wait until you've posted the patch in the NEWS section of your website before I try to play Alpha Squad again.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and putting so much effort into creating a game like Alpha Squad. Once it's thoroughly patched, I sincerely look forward to fully enjoying it for hours and hours to come.

Hello TrueWarroir,

We are currently investigating the networking errors some players are experiencing at the moment and are already working on a patch.
As a temporary solution we recommend setting your online options to "private" in the options menu. This will stop all network traffic and remove the "network error" messages.

If players do want to play multiplayer we recommend setting your online options to "invite-only" and playing with friends by adding them using the X button at the lobby screen and overworld map screen.

Thanks,
Evan.

Thank you so much for the quick reply, Evan. I'll do as you suggest; if it improves the gameplay I'll more than enjoy Alpha Squad!

The first patch will go out around next Wednesday.

On Xbox Live Indie Games you are only allowed one submission to the service each week. This will give us a couple of days of testing before submitting the update. Honestly we didn't run into this while testing but it seems to be happening fairly frequently. I have had some succesful online game connections, but I've also kicked a couple of people off.