Will Rimworld ever get official multiplayer support?

[DiamondDuty]

Modders are amazing, and with the newer multiplayer open world mod, it shows the possibilities of the game.

I am curious, is this something even on the radar as far as something that may be potentially added to the base game down the road?

Multiplayer works surprisingly well on this game, and it would be awesome if it were added and streamlined for convenience without having to port forward and all that.

[whatamidoing]

Probably not. You'd most likely still have to forward a port to host, too.

[Robo]

I don't think so. The majority of people into the colony sim genre are single-players. This is because building a colony is more personal than building an empire in Stellaris. Roleplaying with another player in RimWorld is also virtually impossible since the game is designed for the AI storyteller to tell the story, not the players themselves. This is not even bringing the fact that PVP wouldn't work since colony growth is too slow and there aren't enough strategies to utilize for that to occur.

Not only that, but because of my point of multiplayer not being popular in this genre, it's not economically feasible for Ludeon to do so. They would have to create a brand new game that is entirely built from the ground up with multiplayer in mind to maximize the chances of a successful return investment. Think of Elder Scrolls Online or Don't Starve Together.

[Veylox]

The various mods did show that there is potential there, keeping the game mainly solo and developing the overworld to be focused on multiplayer could lead to really cool stuff. Basically make the game lean towards civilization but with much more focus on each player's city/colony

[Astasia]

A couple years ago, not long after the main multiplayer mod released and made waves, Ludeon announced they were looking to hire a multiplayer specialist, and RimWorld was added to a Steam function for dedicated server hosting. I honestly expected 1.3 to have some form of official multiplayer. It hasn't happened yet though and it's been quite a while, so either they are taking their time on it, the multiplayer stuff was meant for a different game they haven't announced, or it fell through. I still think it's fairly like official RimWorld multiplayer will happen, but a couple years ago I would have put my odds at like 75%, and today I think it's more like 40%.

[ʍolɟ ǝɥʇ ǝsɹǝʌǝɹ]

how about limited support where you can trade with others/ or visit them in real time

[Gnasty Gnorc]

And how would this work? You wouldn’t be able to speed up time. Everything would be wildly boring.

[Robo]

Originally posted by Havik:

And how would this work? You wouldn’t be able to speed up time. Everything would be wildly boring.

By voting to speed up time. I think Project Zomboid has something like this, though that might be a mod rather than a vanilla feature.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Havik:

And how would this work? You wouldn’t be able to speed up time. Everything would be wildly boring.

Why would you assume you couldn't speed up time? The current popular multiplayer mod allows any player to access time controls and speed up time as per normal, and if that is confusing you can just agree with your friends that only one of you uses it outside of emergency pausing or whatever you want.

Competitive real time colony vs colony gameplay is not what people are generally talking about when they bring this topic up. The main MP mod is coop, multiple people in control of the same faction, though they can be controlling things on different maps. Asynchronous multiplayer on a server based scale would also work, there are mods that do this to varying degrees, mostly trading/visiting other player's bases, again not competitively trying to wipe each other out.

[Gnasty Gnorc]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Originally posted by Havik:

And how would this work? You wouldn’t be able to speed up time. Everything would be wildly boring.

Why would you assume you couldn't speed up time? The current popular multiplayer mod allows any player to access time controls and speed up time as per normal, and if that is confusing you can just agree with your friends that only one of you uses it outside of emergency pausing or whatever you want.

Competitive real time colony vs colony gameplay is not what people are generally talking about when they bring this topic up. The main MP mod is coop, multiple people in control of the same faction, though they can be controlling things on different maps. Asynchronous multiplayer on a server based scale would also work, there are mods that do this to varying degrees, mostly trading/visiting other player's bases, again not competitively trying to wipe each other out.

I’m aware it’s not colony vs colony. But having multiple people able to speed up time for the individual groups simply doesn’t work well, if at all.

And if speeds up for the whole group, what happens when one person doesn’t want it sped up?

As the person above you said, I could see it being a vote system, but that’s not PZ vanilla. A mod for sure.


The game simply isn’t designed to function in a multiplayer setting.

[MadArtillery]

Originally posted by Havik:

Originally posted by Astasia:

Why would you assume you couldn't speed up time? The current popular multiplayer mod allows any player to access time controls and speed up time as per normal, and if that is confusing you can just agree with your friends that only one of you uses it outside of emergency pausing or whatever you want.

Competitive real time colony vs colony gameplay is not what people are generally talking about when they bring this topic up. The main MP mod is coop, multiple people in control of the same faction, though they can be controlling things on different maps. Asynchronous multiplayer on a server based scale would also work, there are mods that do this to varying degrees, mostly trading/visiting other player's bases, again not competitively trying to wipe each other out.

I’m aware it’s not colony vs colony. But having multiple people able to speed up time for the individual groups simply doesn’t work well, if at all.

And if speeds up for the whole group, what happens when one person doesn’t want it sped up?

As the person above you said, I could see it being a vote system, but that’s not PZ vanilla. A mod for sure.


The game simply isn’t designed to function in a multiplayer setting.

You should play more strategy games. Been doing time speed management in stellaris for years and it's never been an issue. It works just as well in the multiplayer mod for rimworld. Multiplayer game speed mechanics changeable on the fly are if anything standard issue not some challenging thing. Played with game speed in countless games in coop and it's if anything an ages old mechanic at this point.

[DarkOutX]

Btw, as many modders told, DLCs (as example of official conent) are too hard-coded and not provide enough flexibility for modding. So imho it probably even better that MP mod is being supported by community

[DaTank]

I wish they would make official multiplayer, the current mod is nice but later game you have way to many desyncs.

[Antearz]

I wont Rule it out.
Because anything is really Possible.

But I dont think its Likely that they will go that Route.
However. If it actually happens. It would likely be quite far in the Future.
As to actually make more Sense. They would first need to Revamp the Worldmap to actually have more things You can actually do with Friends.

[Mno]

Hopefully not. I don't understand why people who like multiplayer can't just play, you know. multiplayer games instead of trying to change the ones that were never intended for them...

[Robo]

Originally posted by Mno:

Hopefully not. I don't understand why people who like multiplayer can't just play, you know. multiplayer games instead of trying to change the ones that were never intended for them...

Note that these are the same people who get mad when you ask politely for a proper singleplayer experience in a co-op/multiplayer title, e.g. Barotrauma. So it goes both ways.