Multiplayer?

[Moral_Grey_Area]

I know its a rogue-like, and turn-based-ish, but I was thinking, what if there was multiplayer for Cataclysm?

I don’t know if its even possible, certainly not in alpha but, I imagine it as you connect with someone somehow, whether it be IP or server based, you both spawn into the evac shelter, and either make it real time, or make it to where one person takes a turn, and then the other person does, I can’t think of all the details because I don’t even think it’ll happen, just a neat idea.

Be driving a semi with a friend, plowing through hundreds of undead children through a park, explode in a blaze of glory as you smash half-way through a school, multiplayer mayhem.

[Ferodaktyl]

not really possible for games with time acceleration (like the wait function, sleep, read, craft, etc).

[Moral_Grey_Area]

Of course it is, they could do like they did in Minecraft (not saying they’re the same in anyway) and make it to where both people have to be using the sleep function for the time to pass. If one person dies they could just respawn at evac and have to travel back to their partner, or plain out be kicked from the server.

[drake1storm]

Of course it is, they could do like they did in Minecraft (not saying they’re the same in anyway) and make it to where both people have to be using the sleep function for the time to pass. If one person dies they could just respawn at evac and have to travel back to their partner, or plain out be kicked from the server.

That isn’t what he meant. Every action in cataclysm uses a number of time units, and no two actions use the exact same number. Multiplayer requires time to be synced between all those involved, but, due to how cataclysm works, someone drinking a can of coke or getting slapped by a zombie would immediately break that required time sync.

[system]

Ok, I will snort 500+ cocaine and insta-kill you as soon as multiplayer is added which will be never as soon as the devs complete the game.

[Iosyn]

Multiplayer could be fun. We could have infecteds-- and other fellow survivors.

Just stay the hell away from my fortress. If you don’t know the code you’re gonna step on a buried beartrap/landmine or spiked pit.
Also devs, make asbestos as a valid construction material.
I don’t wanna be burned alive in my own fort.

[wad67]

Multiplayer is simply not possible in any way.

[Asra]

There used to be something similar to multiplayer going, where multiple people existed in the same world but never directly interacted. How exactly did that work?

[Iosyn]

Multiplayer is simply not possible in any way.

They said that about real life too.

Asra, iirc that would be one person makes a character, goes and does stuff for a specified period, then saves and hands over to the next player. I can’t remember if they planned to modify the save or just delete the character.

[Austupaio]

With this game, there’s no framework for multiplayer to ever happen.

Although, since I saw SS13 in the ‘Other Games’ section here, with something like Byond, a similar multiplayer game could be possible. Not like it’s a trivial project, though.

[Bakit]

My idea is to add a “speed counter” like AP (action point) when you’re in combat and when you’re crafting something put a bar over the other character but it is only an idea

[Deinos]

I’ve played DDA multiplayer before. Got two characters going on the Freehotdogs server, find it on the roguelike /vg/ thread on 4chan.

Only problem is they like Z-levels, which makes the game even slower, and you need large amounts of time to pass to make DDA work (like for reading books), so I don’t usually have the patience.

You don’t directly interact with other players, but you can loot their stashes and see traces of their progress. Most memorable moment? Rushing to find the teleporter in the lab, which I knew was filled with other players because I’d come back to find a room with broken furniture.

[EditorRUS]

Multiplayer is nigh impossible. It can be implemented by making every player make their turn and pass to another (like zombies given their turn as the player runs out of moves) but just imagine how BAD it would be if we were playing it real time. It might be a good idea for turn-based strategy, not for goddamn roguelike sandbox zombie survival.

[Toskin]

There is also another interesting, although unfinished option; Mail-season MP. Principle is this: One player will create world, character, and play one season (or another time interval players will choose). After finishing season, he will send his world-save to next player in line, who will create his character, play one season, and send to next player, etc. etc. Of course, there is lots of fine-tuning of details needed.
Any opinion from your side ?

[i2amroy]

There used to be something similar to multiplayer going, where multiple people existed in the same world but never directly interacted. How exactly did that work?

This exists, you just gotta have someone set up a server (here’s some basic linux-based instructions for the process: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=150212.msg6255891#msg6255891). Once it’s up anyone can ssh in and play characters, though as previously mentioned you can’t directly interact with each other (and things can get really weird if two people are trying to occupy the same chunks at the same time, so try not to even be in the same building as other people, or have them log out while you help them out and then log back in once you’re gone).

[Fourty_two]

The main problem with multiplayer is the turn based system, for example if one person wants to craft something that for example takes 1 hour to make, it’s won’t be fair to the other player to instantly skip time and have them lose an hour of time, nor is fair for the person crafting the item to wait 600 in game turns. There is already a sort of multiplayer system where people share the same world save but have different character saves, but the problem is that two characters can’t be playing at the same time.

[Jarl_Redskull]

They could make it so the other play can do stuff while the other player is crafting, for example if they walk It’ll subtract 10 seconds of the time of crafting. So the other play doesn’t skip an hour. I don’t know how to word what I am saying but hopefully I’m making sense.

[X-PLODE]

Make the player crafting’s reality bubble a priority so everyone inside his range experiences the timeskip.

It should also suspend all calculations except time advancing in leaps and weather/daycycle.

Maybe it could allow for other players to assist in crafting or just to allow them to interact with basic movement/using until they leave the dominant reality bubble or the crafter finishes, that way things should seem rather seamless.

[Profugo_Barbatus]

[quote=“X-PLODE, post:18, topic:1266”]Make the player crafting’s reality bubble a priority so everyone inside his range experiences the timeskip.

It should also suspend all calculations except time advancing in leaps and weather/daycycle.

Maybe it could allow for other players to assist in crafting or just to allow them to interact with basic movement/using until they leave the dominant reality bubble or the crafter finishes, that way things should seem rather seamless.[/quote]

So if someone across the street starts crafting an item during a gunfight, the fight will just be suspended for eight minutes? Zombies beating at the walls, but everyone has to stop because dude over here batch crafted eight lard and now its night. That gets weird, really fast. Either time skips and just costs other people large chunks of their days by running on the fastest clock, or everyone waits for dave to size up the map for twelve real minutes if it runs at the slowest clock.

The time system for this game is basically completely incompatible with any sort of Synchronous multiplayer. Anything that exists would have to, at its forefront, completely forbid player interaction to the point where you cannot see someone. Then what do you do when a guy leads a horde to your base. Its not like you can kill him. What if he just starts lighting the place on fire, or driving vehicles through the building? Or drives off with your vehicle? All things you couldn’t stop unless you forbid players from interacting with things in the world.

At that point you’ve just got a bunch of people starting with the same world file then diverging off.

A mail session hand-off system “Might” be feasible, assuming you force an end-period to the game day, then hand it off to the next person, “roll back” the clock while committing their changes. IE, if I spend my day turning rags into thread, then finish my day, and let the next guy start the same day with his character, the rags will be replaced by the thread (assuming it was dropped by the other guy). Otherwise you end up with sync issues if you try to remember when an Item was taken. IE guy 1 takes the rivtech shotgun at 4pm. Guy 2 takes the rivtech shotgun at 3:55pm. The rivtech was “available” at both times, but now two of them exist and shit gets weird. You’d still be completely incapable of direct interaction with the players, but your changes would persist enough to permit cooperative play styles.

[stk2008]

If some smart person came up with a MP version of CDDA then TBH me and my bro already said…we would NEVER play any thing else.
It would be amazeing.
I have mentioned it a few times but no one as of yet has came up with an idea of how to do it and looks very hard/impossible :(.

It would totaly rule though imagine it…WOW