Well, it seems playing "real time" doesn't work as I had hoped. OTOH I'm not surprised, I've only managed to play once with local people through chat/VoIP.
Is there any alternative? PbP is slow as a snail and we'd loose at least a player (maybe we'd also win another but...).
As I said last Spring, if you need a player for Mariano in a PBP version, I happily volunteer. I lack any information beyond what has been posted here (and will need to refresh my memory of that) but I still find the put-upon antique dealer being dragged along by a cat to be an intriguing role.
Then, should we try this by PbP? (though it would hurt me a lot leaving Steffan high & dry - however I can try to find alternatives to show him the game online in real time, in a future date).