Can anyone tell me how to start a multiplayer session with assigning all six of the characters to myself. I mean, what do I have to go into and such...

Thanks in advance.

Go to the multiplayer button on the game menu
Choose connect on the next menu
Choose TCP/IP connection
Choose to Host Game
Pick a game name, your name, and password--this will keep out random callers
Then start new game

You will be taken to the character arbitration screen, where you have to click on the various positions, and create or import your characters. Then click on the check marks next to your characters and the start game button will become clickable.

Go ahead and start your game, you will have control of all the characters you created (since you didn't assign them to other people).

Once you have saved your game, you can copy the save folder from the mpsave directory to the save directory, and then load that game from the single player mode. A few advantages this gives you: no chance anyone will interupt your game with a join request, it removes the extra chat line from the screen, and you don't have to deal with the character arbitration screen anymore. You will still have control of all the custom characters that you made.

You can play the multiplayer game with anywhere from 1-6 custom characters, so if you wanted to make four of your own, and still have room for 2 of the regular NPC's, you can do that too.

Thank you very much for your help