Multiplayer

Started by Zknar, September 25, 2013, 02:37:29 PM

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Hypolite

I was thinking about an asymmetrical multiplayer mode where one player is controlling colonists, and the other one would control events and raiders like a game master, but as I was typing it started to be less and less good an idea.  :-[

Yarkista

Quote from: Tynan on September 25, 2013, 06:12:32 PM
I suppose there's no real need to even set a goal on it. After all, we don't do that in SP either. Just put several groups in the map and let them do as they please. If they're friends on Ventrilo they'll probably cooperate. Or maybe not.

Not that multiplayer is planned or anything.

Yea, just thinking hypothetically at the minute, the map would have to e rather big if it took a good while to meet up with other players, how big if a map can the engine handle?

Tynan

Currently it's 200x200 (40000 squares). I've tested 250x250 (~60000 squares) and it's okay. Beyond that some performance issues start to become really problematic.
Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

Hypolite

I assume the scale is roughly a square = a meter, but it's really not a good idea to start comparing in-game and real life scales, as a colonist in RimWorld has to spend most of his day to travel 200m  ::)

Tynan

Quote from: Hypolite on September 25, 2013, 06:26:47 PM
I assume the scale is roughly a square = a meter, but it's really not a good idea to start comparing in-game and real life scales, as a colonist in RimWorld has to spend most of his day to travel 200m  ::)

In fairness, it's more the time that is weird than the distances.

I imagined a square to be something like 120cm. But it's obviously variable and not exactly "realistic".
Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

Jakadasnake

Quote from: Tynan on September 25, 2013, 06:12:32 PM
I suppose there's no real need to even set a goal on it. After all, we don't do that in SP either. Just put several groups in the map and let them do as they please. If they're friends on Ventrilo they'll probably cooperate. Or maybe not.

Not that multiplayer is planned or anything.

That's awesome. Not that multiplayer is planned, but yeah. More freedom = more awesome.

Yarkista

Quote from: Tynan on September 25, 2013, 06:27:46 PM
Quote from: Hypolite on September 25, 2013, 06:26:47 PM
I assume the scale is roughly a square = a meter, but it's really not a good idea to start comparing in-game and real life scales, as a colonist in RimWorld has to spend most of his day to travel 200m  ::)

In fairness, it's more the time that is weird than the distances.

I imagined a square to be something like 120cm. But it's obviously variable and not exactly "realistic".


Damn, that's still pretty huge.

Hypolite

Quote from: Tynan on September 25, 2013, 06:27:46 PMIn fairness, it's more the time that is weird than the distances.
That's what I meant, the different scales (time, distance) are not weird in themselves, but comparing both is unadvisable.

thekillergreece

Multiplayer?Would be good idea ACCORDING to this TYPE of game.(PA, cant have MP because it doesnt fit the game well), but MP would ruin the game. Most companies put effort on MP rather than SP. So, no. Lets wait for the game to be fully released..

British

Quote from: thekillergreece on September 26, 2013, 12:32:12 AMMost companies put effort on MP rather than SP. So, no. Lets wait for the game to be fully released..
The idea behind those companies is supposedly that they'd gather more crowd with MP than SP.
The real problem starts when they stop caring about the SP (which most of the time ends up sucking hard), and divert their resources to MP (which might not be so good either).
That's probably different in the indie world, though

In any case, the way I see it: make a good SP *or* MP first, iron-it out, THEN you can think about expanding.

Conti027

Quote from: Tynan on September 25, 2013, 05:58:00 PM
If I did multiplayer I think it would be in a co-op context.

Making the game into a competitive RTS would really break a lot of the core concepts driving the design. Namely: it's not about winning, it's about the story.

A competitive context would break because the game isn't close to being balanced (what with all the random events and degenerate strategies). In this context competition becomes meaningless.

If we had several players working together, however (say, on the same colony, or in allied colonies close together), they could experience the AI Storyteller's stories together, maybe help each other in times of need, stuff like that. And we wouldn't have to balance the game for PvP.

Put me in the list that would love to see MP. Especially a Co-op kind.
I wouldn't care to see pvp or anything like that but not against it. I love co-op stuff who doesn't like playing with a friend or 2 :P
Also I don't think adding co-op would take out from the SP since it would still play pretty close to playing SP.

Like Jakadasnake said
"I suppose I just imagined it would be more akin to having the two players on their own just like in a single player game, but with the knowledge of the others' existence. Might offer incentive to try and explore towards another person or force a more nomadic play style between the two until they are able to meet up and join forces. If the two develop independently one might pull ahead and try to stage a rescue of the other team.
Working adjacently certainly would offer its fair share of interesting dynamics as well"  Would be really cool to see.

If you ask me MP adds a lot more life and longevity to a game. Example I love Prison Architect but only played 10-15ish hours while my coop games I play for ages. That said PA isn't a game where MP or even co-op would work well. One reason I backed (bought on Ludeon site) was my love for PA... That and it sounds awesome!!
I wouldn't mind seeing MP show up after release or even a paid DLC for 5-10 bucks. It could even go up on Steam Early Access so you could still bring in money if you wanted to add MP before release.
BUT! I'm not the game Dev. Its all up to you. I just wanted to voice that I would absolutely love to see MP/CO-OP.

Turbo

The ideal way, in my mind, to do co-op would be letting each player control one of the 3-5 survivors in the same colony. That way you
* Have to work together
* Have your own needs and desires
* Can die
Whatever happens, happens.

Finjinimo

I think co-op multiplayer could be interesting.

I like the idea that each player takes control of a small group of survivors just like in single-player. We all crashland on the same map.

What happens after that is entirely up to the players.

We could all just go about our business like in single-player and build our own little outposts.

We could raid each other for resources, slaves / prisoners etc.

We could abandon our little colony and go join a more successful one.

We could all band together to co-operate and make a mega colony.

But the choice of what we do is entirely up to the players in the game, none of it is set out by the game itself.

In the hypothetical multi-player, something like that is what I would like to see.

DrThanatos

Co-op would be awesome!

Ontogenesis

As people have said, this doesn't strike me as a multiplayer game, at least one that would work without changing the game quite significantly.

Also, have you ever considered map 'cells'? I.e. you step over one side and another cell loads. It would be one way of expanding the map drastically while saving on CPU. The loads are ugly, but it is a cheap way of making a large map.