I’ve thought up a way for multiplayer to be possible. Logically the game runs on turns(each turn is 6 seconds)now if you were to set it up that the game would not progress until all players have made their moves it would be possible. This idea however would only work for small games(ie a few players not 64 etc.) I’ll be back in a few hours this idea came to me in class and I’m sending this from my phone.
There are so many problems with this idea. Will you wait each turn for everyone to make their turn? You would have to wait after every step, and this will convert the game into slugfest. And I do not even start no how long would you have to wait while your character sleep or craft and others actively make their turns.
Nobody here has the skill to implement a multiplayer mode, so I think it’s a moot point anyway.
I think this will be possible eventually, and a roving band of pro coders might come across to help us out with doing this. For now though, we’ll have to wait - something like this has already been thought about unless you’re going to add more detail when you’re back in a few hours.
If enough people wanted, cared and had ideas on how to do it, it could actually happen.
Making a multiplayer game is harder than a singleplayer mode, but it’s not undoable.
It’s just that the aforementioned problem with turns would make a multiplayer mode utterly boring and pointless. Roguelikes simply don’t work well in multiplayer and that’s an inherent trait of the genre.
The closest thing you could have to a multiplayer roguelike would be a roguelike where you affect the levels that others will get. Two players meeting in a roguelike? Not gonna happen.
Easiest way to do it would be to expand turns into a system more akin to turn-based strategy where you can do a certain number of actions per turn. All existing things that consume turns would have to be adjusted into a certain number of actions, some simple ones like basic crafting recipes might have to be made to 0 actions. Complicated recipes might have to stretch through several turns. Vehicles would be complicated, but they would allow you to move many times per action. Waiting would be almost pointless, and sleeping might have to be replaced with something like “rest” where you give up your entire turn in exchange for some hp. Night time would be “set up a torch and craft” time, or get the jump on other players with your nightvision.
It sounds reasonably doable, but there’s no way for multiplayer like this to exist side by side with the single player that we have now. You’d have to make a whole new game and rework the turn system.
There is also a problem of world-processing. Right now it is limited to reality-bubble around player. If we have several players with several reality-bubbles - this would really tax the game engine, as far, as I see it.
Alright I’m back and a note before I begin detailing my idea.
I might need to start another topic cuz that just gave me a scenario idea.
ok I kept trying to phrase my ideas in a presentation style but the way it was written was confusing to me as I was writing it so basically just ask questions about it so I can handle this one at a time.(it makes it easier for me to explain) thanks.
I think that’s the only way it could work. I’d like a vmmand in the wait command to wait until the other player has finished.
So like, it would only be viable to play with few players, and coop, but there are engine problema i think.
Only way I could see it happening is if turns took place in real time. Miss an input? Lose that turn.
That was one of my ideas. I figured it could be up to the host to decide that as an option when starting a server.
Sleeping, in real-time. !!FUN!!
If you and your friends are sleeping at the same time. short wait IRL.
Use safety mode to return things to turn based. So if an enemy appears you can focus.
Players taking multiple moves per turn would break down under any combat situation. Combat is unforgiving enough as-is sometimes. Players taking turns normally would be agonizingly slow under the best circumstances. Playing in real-time would make actions requiring the inventory nearly impossible in combat. On second thought, memorizing item key assignments might make it feasible.
The idea would not be that the players take turns. but that. screw my explanation an example will explain better. lets say you are reloading a gun and it takes about 4 turns.(24 seconds in game time) and your friend attacks melee at lets say 1 turn per attack. logically your reload would take him making 4 attacks. it works the same as singleplayer.
That’s what I assume players taking turns normally would be. It would be agonizingly slow.
Why? At the contrary, is more fluid.
The only way multiplayer would work, I think, is if a full, fleshed out game is made to ‘recreate’ Cataclysm DDA, which would be unlikely but oh so amazing. I’ve been thinking recently about how a game like that would work, and though it’d take a long time and the risk of it being ‘casualized’ is pretty high… it would be truly amazing. Then coop / multiplayer would work.