Idea for networked multiplayer

[CheeseonToast]

Coming from the days of ol' Freelancer. Have the dev's considered packaging a server version of the project, similiar to how it ran with freelancer? Except, perhaps, released with anti-cheat first haha

This would mean the company does not have to foot the bill for server hosting/bandwidth and can hand it off to the players - importantly, those who WANT to have multiplayer.

I know there is a lot of aspects to working in multiplayer: global server list, lobbies, player data storage and anti-cheat... to name a few. I would throw my hat into a ring for this (I did send an email for the programmer position(s))

Just an idea.

[Jamma]

It's still not doable from a technical perspective. A multiplayer game needs to be designed *completely different* from a single player game. It's not just the server infrastructure, it's the whole gameplay and the infrastructure within the game.

For exmample, in single player, you always know everything that is happening, you got the whole, complete picture of the game's state. In multiplayer, there are always things happening at the same time you don't know yet (from the programs point of view) - you'll get informed via network packets later, e.g. that the drone your player just hit, got already destroyed by another player 2ms ago. And you need to compensate for that somehow since you cannot synchronize all player's games.

[Johnny Hazard]

The game is made in Unreal Engine 4.
Using an old-school multiplayer style like 1 player server+ peer 2 peer, and LAN support, would mean a whole custom C++ code to override the one used by UE4, that is based on internet server+player clients.
Additionally, UE4 multiplayer costs way more than single player.
In the end, the devs would have to use a lot of their own code to make old school multiplayer work inside UE4.

[CheeseonToast]

Originally posted by Jamma:

It's still not doable from a technical perspective. A multiplayer game needs to be designed *completely different* from a single player game. It's not just the server infrastructure, it's the whole gameplay and the infrastructure within the game.

For exmample, in single player, you always know everything that is happening, you got the whole, complete picture of the game's state. In multiplayer, there are always things happening at the same time you don't know yet (from the programs point of view) - you'll get informed via network packets later, e.g. that the drone your player just hit, got already destroyed by another player 2ms ago. And you need to compensate for that somehow since you cannot synchronize all player's games.

Server-client model works for something like this, rather than client to client. The client indeed does need to know about certain things - but it only needs to know some stuff. It doesn't need to know a collision happened in a different area between two people. The scope of what the server needs to know vs what the client needs to know are hugely different. Server needs to know _everything_ client only needs to know what it needs in order to function correctly.

The question is retrofitting in something. This is wild speculation - but the game has been built with single player only in mind. Therefore, balance and other things are tailored to that environment. Moving to a multiplayer mode throws a lot of things out of whack (and rightly so) which requires a ton of extra steps and work in order to get things balanced and working.

I am aware of the absolute mammoth undertaking this would require the team to accomplish. It's just an idea about cutting certain things out and passing it off to the community at large to figure out (balance for the most part and area access/economy).... There is more to this than one post in this here thread would need lol.

Originally posted by Johnny Hazard:

The game is made in Unreal Engine 4.
Using an old-school multiplayer style like 1 player server+ peer 2 peer, and LAN support, would mean a whole custom C++ code to override the one used by UE4, that is based on internet server+player clients.
Additionally, UE4 multiplayer costs way more than single player.
In the end, the devs would have to use a lot of their own code to make old school multiplayer work inside UE4.

I know it is built with UE4... This particular game TERRIFIES me with how little actual C++ code was done (very very little to none, ask me how I know) I have built multiplayer VR games in the past that work both over LAN and WAN... The code works for BOTH, it is purely how the client-server setup is configured. Global servers provide a single source for every other server to report to and distribute data to clients. It's actually pretty trivial to set that up.

[ΛtryØx]

I would be up for this but co-op only. It would be nice to trade, say, duplicate legendaries, Borderlands style and also have a flying companion that doesn't jump away after 2 minutes (I'm looking at you, Elek) and can help with difficult Rifts.

No PvP...that would be toxic as hell.

If it came down to time and resource management, however, and there was a choice between perfecting single player (it's damn near close IMHO)/adding DLC, etc or putting said resources to multiplayer, sorry, I'd rather see the continued work on the single player.

[Geekbyte]

Hey folks.

Just for a bit of clarity as we've been asked about co-op & MP being included in Everspace 2 from the early Kickstarter up to current day, but just to be clear MP/Co-op is outside the scope of what we intend to achieve with ES2.

From the initial design and planning the team wished to create an immersive, narrative driven, single-player game with input from the community as we went through Alpha, then into Early Access. But the core element of being single player never shifted.

Adding co-op/MP would mean a BIG re-write of the code to make it work and as such we don't have the resources to do such a shift from solely SP to Solo/Co-op/MP, especially when we have further content to produce.

So, sorry for it sounding like a downer on your idea(s) but it's not a route that ES2 will be taking.

[Mystras23]

and for Everspace 3 co op mode ? would that be doable ?