Cross platform play

[Mr Moopsy]

With sea of theives recent launch, steam, xbox, and windows 10 store crossplay has been made possible.

I understand past limitations on the xbox/windows 10 platform did not allow steam crossplay, is that intended to change for deep rock galactic?

Id love to see the game open up to allow crossplay between all platforms/store fronts

[Cursed Hawkins]

You could have just used the search function M8!

[Chibbity]

No, it is not likely to ever change.

[Mr Moopsy]

Originally posted by Cursed Hawkins:

You could have just used the search function M8!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/548430/discussions/1/1696040635904030082/

Originally posted by Dwarfurious:

Cross platform is for xbox10 and windows live, both are microsofts area

very obviously, I did. The previous limitation was due to microsoft. this is obviously, no longer the case.

[StaunchStache]

Originally posted by Mr Moopsy:

very obviously, I did. The previous limitation was due to microsoft. this is obviously, no longer the case.

Is it really not? Sea of Thieves may have Steam/Windows Store/Xbone crossplay, but remember it's a Microsoft-owned IP, and DRG is just an indie title.

[0ptimistPrime (the Gray)]

Originally posted by Mr Moopsy:

With sea of theives recent launch, steam, xbox, and windows 10 store crossplay has been made possible.

I understand past limitations on the xbox/windows 10 platform did not allow steam crossplay, is that intended to change for deep rock galactic?

Originally posted by Mr Moopsy:

The previous limitation was due to microsoft. this is obviously, no longer the case.

I think this is an issue that is deeply more complicated than you assume it to be.

For one, there is a big difference between server-based games and peer-to-peer (P2P) games.

As I understand::
- Sea of Thieves is a server-based game. With a server-based game, the game developers or their publisher own the server. The player's platform (Steam, Xbox / Microsoft Game Service) routes packet data to/from that server where all the cross-platform communication actually occurs. I don't believe that Microsoft and Steam ever communicate directly with one another, they each merely facilitate data exchange between the players and the game's server.

- Deep Rock Galactic is a peer-to-peer game. There are no central servers. The player's platform (Steam, Xbox / Microsoft Game Service) plays host to the process of directly connecting players to other players, like an old telephone switchboard. Since XBox and the Microsoft store both use Microsoft's servers to match players, those players can connect with one another cross-platform; meanwhile Valve can't see players in Microsoft's servers, and vice versa, so they cannot cross-connect the two playerbases.

It makes 100% sense for Sea of Thieves, a server-based game, to allow players on Steam to communicate with the game servers. This is also very different from launching a game on multiple platforms, each having separate playerbases, and then later combining the playerbases into one; this is not what is happening to SoT, yet you seem to think it comparable to merging the tow versions of DRG.

The limitations of DRG being cross-compatible are not "due to microsoft" but rather the inability for both systems (Microsoft and Valve) to communicate with one another. It isn't the fault of one or the other, they effectively speak different languages and there's no way for them to currently work together.

...

Regardless, you can see below that the devs have been saying that they would like to be able to implement cross-platform compatibility, and maybe it can be a possibility down the line, but thusfar it has not been feasible because of the systems in play.

It seems to me that either GSG would need to start paying for servers to host game data, or some form of cross-platform network would need to be implemented (by the platforms/publishers themselves or by a third party) before we see Valve/Microsoft cross-play in P2P games come to fruition.

All the dev responses regarding cross-play that I noticed from the two most recent AMA's on Reddit:

February 28, Reddit AMA

Originally posted by Mike_GSG:

We do not use our own matchmaking but instead use the system provided by the various platforms so no, no plans for it right now but things may change.

source

Originally posted by Soren_GSG:

We have investigated the options and also considered the demand.
Our current situation is that we are using the built-in peer-to-peer network on Steam (Steamworks) for Steam players and a similar solution (called XIM) for the Microsoft versions on Xbox and Microsoft PC Store. This means that any cross-play needs to be a new network layer that covers all those platforms, including voice chat and friend connections - and it needs to work for peer-to-peer.
So, for now, the answer is no, we don't have specific plans to do this, but the future might open up easy opportunities for us to jump on.

source


May 14, Reddit AMA

Originally posted by Soren_GSG:

... We also hope to expand the game audience to more platforms. And we are looking into cross-platform options, though it is tricky with a peer-to-peer based game.

source

Originally posted by Mike_GSG:

Not at the moment, no but is something we definatelly would like to have.

source

Originally posted by Mike_GSG:

The current cross-play is between XBOX and the Win10 Store version. Steam is in it's own alternative universe.

source

Originally posted by Mike_GSG:

It's definatelly something we would like to have.

source

Originally posted by Mike_GSG:

No plans but we would certainly like to combine the two player bases for even more dwarven coop goodness. Perhaps further down the line.

source

[Cursed Hawkins]

Originally posted by StaunchStache:

Originally posted by Mr Moopsy:

very obviously, I did. The previous limitation was due to microsoft. this is obviously, no longer the case.

Is it really not? Sea of Thieves may have Steam/Windows Store/Xbone crossplay, but remember it's a Microsoft-owned IP, and DRG is just an indie title.

That has crossplay with the MICROSOFT STORE and Xbox One (or was it the PS4) because those version still match each other update wise, the version on Steam is effectively the most up to date version so crossplay would be causing a few bugs between the versions since the versions that do have crossplay as an example still have the flare upgrades while the version on Steam no longer do because as the developers stated "they didn't provide anything toward player progression"