Trying to play LAN co-op on two computers with one Steam account (or family sharing)

[JoQsh]

I have used family sharing to allow my wife to play from her account, or I can start the game from my account on both computers. (which pushes one "offline", though I would think it would still have access to LAN) No matter what I do, I can't seem to get this to work. Google seems useless for such a niche case. Can anyone tell me whether this is possible, before I spend more time trying to make it happen? We can play split-screen, but for controller purposes and monitor purposes, it would be really nice to get it working over LAN.

Interestingly, my wife's computer does not have the option to join via invite in the co-op menu. I can't figure out why. The game is up to date on both PCs.

[DaTank]

Buy a second copy. In no world should what you're trying to achieve be allowed, no offense. I can't think of any game where you pay for one copy and it can be used by more than one person at the same time, at least online that is.

[JoQsh]

No offense taken. I don't see any reason to not allow LAN play with one account - LAN basically ensures the game's owner is involved, (I think, but I'm not much of a networking guy - maybe you can get around that with virtual LAN or something) and in general I think it's ridiculous that many devs refuse to support multiplayer without every player owning a copy. That said, I take no issue with it being impossible on stardew. They've added splitscreen, so local multiplayer is available, and I imagine LAN multiplayer between family members is an extremely niche market, It would just have been nice.

I will also add that I've seen posts on reddit where people have done this with older versions of the game. Perhaps it was intentionally changed to prevent this because of some method of piracy I'm not aware of? Anyway, I guess we're doing splitscreen for now.

[Jaunitta 🌸]

Remote play will allow you to add a friend only you need to own the game up to 4 players.
You start the game then rightclick friend and invite. Its a shared thing though.
https://store.steampowered.com/remoteplay
Co op both parties require the game.
Family sharing everyone must be friends in Steam and have a Steam account validated verified etc.

[JoQsh]

Thanks, KITetsuna - I don't really want to mess with pirating it, though.

Jaunitta, I actually tried remote play, but for some reason it freezes almost immediately while loading on the non-host machine. It gets audio, but never shows anything but the remote play loading screen.

We've started just playing split-screen, but that forces one of us to use a gamepad sitting on the floor - not ideal, but oh well. It's better than buying a second copy at full price.

[nodehappy]

The discussion of piracy is not permitted on the Steam forums.