My name was correct for the host, they just couldnt see my chat messages (not sure about race or checked in status). Rejoining fixed.
Also since you seem to be the right guy: Please default the distance filter to worldwide and auto refresh the game list!!! Everyone agrees this needs to be done, rather than spliting an already tiny player base! HW1 & HW2 were worldwide, and it worked great.
World Wide filters default & auto-refresh would be very much appreciated.
Yeah, it makes me tired too (even though I am only playing it for tests). I have passed your proposition to the guys who make decisions like that. I will keep you updated.
As one who was in that game the ticking and un-ticking still did not show for Snow, I had to host the game in question for the issue to disappear. The player zumpfi was set to team 2 and had been ticked in.
Seems no one has reported this yet but when the game is loading windows shows the game in the task manager as “not responding” even if its loading perfectly fine. If if you click your mouse a couple times while loading or waiting for other players to finish loading; windows bring ups the “program not responding” dialog box and prompts the user to kill the process even when the game is still working
Thanx alpha - that answers that.
Gonna play with the router this weekend see if the problem may be on my end since I have trouble hosting, more so than the bugs. My old dlink was flawless but I am running stock ISP settings since the pipe upgrade. Will update.
I always had a nagging feeling about this one! I would’ve sworn I waited out a crash once.
I have good news from the other guys:
This thing was already taken care of. Default filter and bug that prevented from selection being properly remembered between games are already fixed. Also there is change in UI that moves that option from the filter screen to the matchmaking screen.
That’s good to hear. Hopefully those fixes will make the next patch.
If there are people who would like to test new level loading code, please PM me.
(edit) As above seems to not be very clear - new code should address following issues:
There is special beta build so if there are people who would like to help and check new game loading code with few custom maps - that would be great. Of course, this beta-version must be enabled on all machines in the game, so if you have friends willing to give us a hand - let them (and us) know.
Thanks,
Cefasm 
Seems no one has reported this yet but when the game is loading windows shows the game in the task manager as “not responding” even if its loading perfectly fine. If if you click your mouse a couple times while loading or waiting for other players to finish loading; windows bring ups the “program not responding” dialog box and prompts the user to kill the process even when the game is still working
This is a known issue that is difficult to fix. This issue happens when a program in Windows doesn’t get Windows messages from the queue often enough, so Windows says the program is “not responding”. Loading some of the ship files and lua scripts in the game takes quite a while. I did what I could to force the game to process Windows messages during this loading process, but there is a bit of time that happens when loading starts that I’ve been unable to fix. This issue used to be worse (e.g. you would see this until the gameplay actually started), but now it’s a little better than it was originally (e.g. it will not respond for a bit of time when loading starts, but eventually will start responding during the loading process).
All tests done using the beta test code and a different custom map each time. (FYI, Proxy is my wife’s computer).
If we would have had more players to test more 5-8 player games, we may have had more issues. More players usually means more issues.
As the saying goes “The more, the messier!”
Thanks for your help and detailed report! The issues with “half-connected” zombie players in lobby apparently must be solved, but it seems that custom map loading works now.
As for the freezing upon joining lobby - there were no changes in this part of the code. We will see, maybe this thing is related to “zombies effect” and fix will solve two problems at the same time.
Ditto for me and @Gameg1rl
The first game of the day almost always ends up in crash. Once that is out of the way we do pretty good. If we have someone with a .300 or greater PING there is a chance the game dumps one of us(and others) to lobby which sounds like the cascade thing?
Most games we play are She and I, NC USA, playing people across the Atlantic.
-B8factor
Drop from loading screen or from the main game part (space 3D view) ?
Cascade drops is the situation where one player is leaving the game (leaving the game, bad sync, being kicked) and for no reason other players are also disconnected. Hence the name “cascade” - one drop leads to more player being dropped.
Ahh so I have not seen the cascade then.
For us, Wife and I are on the same network at home accessing Internet via Cable modem, We launch and while the launch screen is up 1 of 4 things happens. 1) We all get in game, happy ending! 2) Game starts for a few players that launched while others were dropped and the players that did make it can play on. 3) I am dumped back to the Main Menu. 4) game laucnhes but no ships are seen. Game seems to be stuck and players can talk in game but I have no idea if all players are present? I suspect not. In this last example we all agree tp exit and rehost. We have never stayed in the game for an extended period to see what might happen.
-B8factor
I don’t remember HW2, but Homeworld over WON had a status load bar and chat window on the load screen. Could that fix the issue due to both the graphic update showing status and any chat message updating Windows to be reminded that the game is responding?
This isn’t a shameless attempt to get the old load screen back, honestly, just trying to throw out ideas to fix the issue! 
Or maybe rotating screen shots? I think HW:C did that during loading from your own screen shot directory.
As one of the tester I’d like to point out that while the maps transfer the thumbnails don’t so there is no graphic to let you know where the start points are the next time the same map is used.
Also in order to use the transferred maps you have to move them to your map folder manually.
Indeed, there is general issue with unknown starting points when custom map is used.