I already understand that the actual game needs to be completed first and that the netcode isn't a focus right now. I was just elaborating on why the multiplayer community pretty much doesn't exist.
See, I'd argue even THAT isn't the reason for the small multiplayer turnout. Now, don't get me wrong, our multiplayer code right now is atrocious, but even back in the Final Demo days, when the netcode was less painful and the single player was way worse, the number of players who played it compared to our single player was tiny. For the sake of explanation, let's split this up into three categories:
1. Players who play multiplayer for a significant period of time.
2. Players who play multiplayer a couple times, decide it isn't fun, and stop.
3. Players who never even try multiplayer.
Back when the netcode wasn't as bad, there was a larger percentage of group 1 than group 2. This makes utter sense as people who aren't having fun because of technical difficulties aren't going to continue playing. However, for group 3, the group that never even tries it, the quality of the multiplayer has nothing to do with the reason they didn't even try it. There has to be a different reason. Turns out, group 3 is by far the largest percentage, even back in 1.X.
While I have no hard statistics on this one, I'd personally wager the reason most players never even bother with multiplayer is that classic Sonic was never about multiplayer to begin with. While Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 had explicit multiplayer modes, they were very limited and I actually played multiplayer in classic Sonic more often with Sonic and Tails mode, alternating who got to be Sonic. The game was just a single player game at heart. While our game does feature multiplayer more prominently than the classics, it's not entirely surprising that someone who comes here to try out our classic-themed Sonic game plays it the same way they played the originals: alone.