I sure hope that it has a matchmaking system to rival Battle.net and that it integrates seamlessly with Sins.  Supposedly it's in Beta testing now.  I think I even started a thread asking about it but I don't think anyone ever responded on it (or I posted it at a forum I don't normally read and forgot about it).

so basically their doing absolutely nothing to address an online issue. I know stopping smurfing wont give the MP community a HUGE boost. But atleast itll be a start. Maybe some more advertising and contests could draw people to the MP community, but to be honest I think they need to start with the Smurfing issue before anything else when it comes to increasing numbers. Also creating some more MP exclusive content would help in that area as well.

Yeah, they'd have made enough money to pay off the development of Diplomacy already if they just hit Siddy with a 10$ charge for each of his smurfs.

I used to play age of empires 3, and many people (smurfs) did that. Some would say I have purchased the game 4 times. lol. I was like wtf?

I think people should be able to have 1 account only. Simple. Also there should be some ranking system. Sure they don't usually work perfectly, but its still some indication.

Here here.

I was smurfed in a pug late last night by COH!.  It ended up being COH!, Kitesurf, and Fortune on one 5-man team with just myself, 2-Face, N1M, and some no names on the other team.  If COH's true identity had been known we probably wouldn't have agreed to play it with those teams.  Nice stacking job.  I guess I'm partially at fault for being passive during the draft, not demanding to know COH's real identity (assuming he would even tell us), and then not realizing that the teams were getting stacked so that I could bail out.  I guess I can't really complain; I've done the same thing before going the other way and now I've seen a new Vasari strategy that I need to learn to counter.

There is a flip side to smurfing. I use smurfs so I don't get a gigantic target on my back. Do I use them often? No. I use one of my two mains (regular and clan tag) until I start getting frustrated. What constitutes getting frustrated? Every opponent I fight is fed like a mo fo because his allies want to neutralize me first.

I am not trying to be cocky. I am only citing what happens. That gets real old real quick. That's when I get out the smurf, but I don't use it long. TBH I'm not sure how JJ puts up with it.

I'd theorize he enjoys the challenge, fighting off 2-4 people while his allies grow.

i have problems with htis too amish, where i may not be near as good as you i have been picked first by a captian just to split me up with my clan member, i was not the best person there but htey just did it to split us up, i ended up on a team of noobs who got rolled and i was basically the only person who had won against my person.

but i mainly smurf to try new strats, or learn new races.

Yeah,

It doesn't take long.  Before you know it, the capts in a PUG will start whispering, "...who is (so and so)"  and the replies are like, "I think he is JJ, he rolled everybody last game!". 

What would be awsome, and would help discourage or neutralize some of the need to smurf, is if random maps could have the starting positions assigned to each team.  Like aggressive players on flanks, support inside of them and ecos in middle.  Might establish a dynamic within the game of "position players" and smurfs wouldn't find the need to go undercover as much.

That may be doable in Galaxy Forge, but they would end up as custom maps.  It's an interesting idea.  People would further develop reputations for playing certain types of positions--flank, next-to-flank, eco-anchor (if all five teammaes are bunched next to each other).  However, people would probably have to leave and rejoin in a certain order so that they can get certain starting positions.  (Flanks might be the players in slots 1, 5, 6, and 10, the eco guys in the middle might have to be in slots 3 and 8, etc.

You guys could also play custom 5v5's.  I have a couple that are almost ready for release and just need a little polishing-up.