Multiplayer

[BEARDEDFIGNUTZ]

How do you do multiplayer?

[[DCC] Joe]

Originally posted by BEARDEDFIGNUTZ:

How do you do multiplayer?

Hi, multiplayer is not available on the demo, but you will be able to play online with up to 6 players once New Retro Arcade: Neon is released :)

[BEARDEDFIGNUTZ]

OK. Thank you for the quick response. Great Demo. Looking forward to the final release as well as HYPERCHARGE. I am ready to throw my money at you for both right now.

[[DCC] Joe]

Originally posted by BEARDEDFIGNUTZ:

OK. Thank you for the quick response. Great Demo. Looking forward to the final release as well as HYPERCHARGE. I am ready to throw my money at you for both right now.

And thank you for such kind words! Well, you won’t be disappointed, & I’m sure you will definitely love Neon as much as you will HYPERCHARGE ;).

[BEARDEDFIGNUTZ]

Just found that HYPERCHARGE cartridge in NewRetroArcade. Did that open up the webpage when I activated the cart? Pretty cool way to advertise I actually really liked that.

[Hymanator]

I'm really curious how multiplayer is going to work. Are players going to download the hosts custom arcade configuration before joining their server or will they have to pre-configure everything to have an identical layout first? Or does the multiplayer only support the "physical" games and not the arcade roms?

[Vermillion]

Originally posted by Hymanator:

I'm really curious how multiplayer is going to work. Are players going to download the hosts custom arcade configuration before joining their server or will they have to pre-configure everything to have an identical layout first? Or does the multiplayer only support the "physical" games and not the arcade roms?

Someone else asked this today. I'll post my response below

Originally posted by Vermillion:

I would love to provide an answer to this, but unfortunately the team is in crunch mode getting the game ready for launch. There was a bit of a hiccup and the team is sorting it out. I myself wonder this as well. I ask that you please be patient and I will try to see if I can get in touch with them later.

The complete store description says the following:

Originally posted by NRA Steam Page:

Don’t meet your friends on the weekend; get together inside your own virtual arcade with your buddies instead! New Retro Arcade: Neon allows for up to 6 players online, so you’ll soon be reliving old memories and creating new ones too! Become the best of the best by defeating your friends high scores, work as a team and overcome challenges together or just listen to music, throw around bottles, cans, tapes, whatever you can find! And have your friends clean it up.

Having said all that, I still don't know if this applies to MAME and other emulation. I don't have a copy of the full game so I can't really comment on it entirely. Unfortunately, as of this writing, the development team has logged off for the night seeing as they are based mostly in the UK and Europe. I will follow this up with Joe and try to provide a clearer answer tomorrow.

[Lelygax]

So, you have a clear answer for today?

[Vermillion]

Unfortunately, due to the way Libretro handles multiplayer, some cores support netplay, but others don't. This includes pretty much all the currently supported cores. Players can meet up in eachothers arcades and play with the various other machines, but as of this writing multiplayer with ROMs is not supported.

[Hymanator]

That's a bit of a bummer to hear. Many people are going to be expecting to play ROMs online with this. Might want to put a disclaimer on the store page. I had a feeling that this would be an issue, because you generally will lose sync with players if they don't have an identical setup.
The only workaround that might work is if the host player "streamed" a live video of the emulated ROM and other players just remotely controlled the stream of the ROM in play. I guess there are no plans for adding anything like that though.

[Vermillion]

I actually suggested a video stream option as well to the developers but like you said, desync is a large concern. I'm pretty bummed out about it myself, but considering just how excellent NRA:N is for VR, I'm willing to put it aside and simply enjoy the atmosphere and play the games.

[Auto Sniper User]

This is the exact same reason I lost interest in Anarchy Arcade as well almost instantly. I'm still awaiting a virtual arcade that I can just shoot the ♥♥♥♥ with my buddies and force old obscure games onto them to laugh at and actually play. I have no friends to do this with in real life...

[Icemouth]

Originally posted by Hymanator:

That's a bit of a bummer to hear. Many people are going to be expecting to play ROMs online with this. Might want to put a disclaimer on the store page. I had a feeling that this would be an issue, because you generally will lose sync with players if they don't have an identical setup.
The only workaround that might work is if the host player "streamed" a live video of the emulated ROM and other players just remotely controlled the stream of the ROM in play. I guess there are no plans for adding anything like that though.

You realize of course that this would be massively illegal right?

[Vermillion]

Hmm its more of a gray area I'd say. Considering NVIDIA GeForce Experience has the option to stream games to another person for a set time, I really don't know.

[Lelygax]

Originally posted by HIIMETHANBRADBERRY:

You realize of course that this would be massively illegal right?

Except not, you can't have a ROM of a game that you don't have for more than 24 hours archived in your PC. Since its not in your PC when streamed but in someone else's, you will be fine.
Now if you say something like "some companies aren't okay with you streaming their games" then know that AFAIK law can cover streams where it becomes a worldwide stream like twitch or youtube, streaming for 1~5 friends is considered personal use.

[Vermillion]

Originally posted by Lelygax:

Originally posted by HIIMETHANBRADBERRY:

You realize of course that this would be massively illegal right?

Except not, you can't have a ROM of a game that you don't have for more than 24 hours archived in your PC. Since its not in your PC when streamed but in someone else's, you will be fine.
Now if you say something like "some companies aren't okay with you streaming their games" then know that AFAIK law can cover streams where it becomes a worldwide stream like twitch or youtube, streaming for 1~5 friends is considered personal use.

That 24 hour rule is just a myth unfortunately. You'll have to obtain your games legally, either by dumping them yourself or obtaining the roms from official packages, such as the Humble Neo-Geo bundle or the Sega Classics Collection.