Online coop?

[JugsOfHolyness]

or is it couch only?

[Biggest Bird]

Currently the devs don't have the budget for the servers to support online play. They want to if they can afford it somehow

[DeWitt]

Soo just make it P2P for 2 players or Local network.

[Timothy]

Originally posted by DeWitt:

Soo just make it P2P for 2 players or Local network.

Worked for Soulsborne.

[Fei the SCREAMING BEAN!]

Originally posted by Jerman Jesus:

Currently the devs don't have the budget for the servers to support online play. They want to if they can afford it somehow

if players are allowed to host their own servers then the devs wont have to worry about that problem. why do people always automatically assume that the devs have to host the servers

[Mazzle Dazzle]

People have been doing online co op for this by doing steam in home streaming, and using hamachi. They use hamachi to pretend they are on lan and then use steam in home streaming to link up. This only works if you let the other person log into your account which is dangerous. As such, there are alternatives such as Nvidia's gamestream to allow local co op on those devices, some thing called moonlight also for nvidia cards that allows it. And for all of us others that have AMD there is a program called kinoconsole at http://kinoconsole.kinoni.com/. Apparently you can do the same thing without sharing your steam account.

[Cradle Games]

Originally posted by Gusty:

Originally posted by Jerman Jesus:

Currently the devs don't have the budget for the servers to support online play. They want to if they can afford it somehow

if players are allowed to host their own servers then the devs wont have to worry about that problem. why do people always automatically assume that the devs have to host the servers

We are not talking about dedicated servers, but about matchmaking/cloud servers. But even then, all the support to make the game fully online is a cost we cannot aford right now.

[Cas]

Originally posted by Cradle Games:

Originally posted by Gusty:

if players are allowed to host their own servers then the devs wont have to worry about that problem. why do people always automatically assume that the devs have to host the servers

We are not talking about dedicated servers, but about matchmaking/cloud servers. But even then, all the support to make the game fully online is a cost we cannot aford right now.

But you have enough to be able to put it on Xbox One and PS4 eh? Seems like you would be able to set up a simple P2P system when even indie games that are 2 bucks on steam can set that up. Just saying.

You could at least bother to make the tags a bit less misleading. Just leave it at 'shared/splitscreen'. By putting both 'local coop' and 'coop' tags, it gives the impression that there's both local and online coop.

[Cradle Games]

Originally posted by Raiko:

Originally posted by Cradle Games:

We are not talking about dedicated servers, but about matchmaking/cloud servers. But even then, all the support to make the game fully online is a cost we cannot aford right now.

But you have enough to be able to put it on Xbox One and PS4 eh? Seems like you would be able to set up a simple P2P system when even indie games that are 2 bucks on steam can set that up. Just saying.

You could at least bother to make the tags a bit less misleading. Just leave it at 'shared/splitscreen'. By putting both 'local coop' and 'coop' tags, it gives the impression that there's both local and online coop.

Noted on the "local coop" vs "coop".

At this point, we are not promising anything for multiplayer except what was officially announced; splitscreen. Anything else is subject to change. Of course, what we want is online, but we have to do what we can with what we have.

[Cas]

Originally posted by Cradle Games:

Originally posted by Raiko:

But you have enough to be able to put it on Xbox One and PS4 eh? Seems like you would be able to set up a simple P2P system when even indie games that are 2 bucks on steam can set that up. Just saying.

You could at least bother to make the tags a bit less misleading. Just leave it at 'shared/splitscreen'. By putting both 'local coop' and 'coop' tags, it gives the impression that there's both local and online coop.

Noted on the "local coop" vs "coop".

At this point, we are not promising anything for multiplayer except what was officially announced; splitscreen. Anything else is subject to change. Of course, what we want is online, but we have to do what we can with what we have.

And yet, like I said, you can put your game on PS4 and Xbox One. You know, if your game is going to so blatantly copy Dark Souls right down to simply renaming the stats, you could at least copy the coop, but oh well.

But the very least you could do is fix the tags.

[Mazzle Dazzle]

Originally posted by Raiko:

Originally posted by Cradle Games:

Noted on the "local coop" vs "coop".

At this point, we are not promising anything for multiplayer except what was officially announced; splitscreen. Anything else is subject to change. Of course, what we want is online, but we have to do what we can with what we have.

And yet, like I said, you can put your game on PS4 and Xbox One. You know, if your game is going to so blatantly copy Dark Souls right down to simply renaming the stats, you could at least copy the coop, but oh well.

But the very least you could do is fix the tags.

I had no issue interpretting the co op as local co-op when I bought the game. Co-Op = true and local co-op = true. Online co-op = false(and its not present). The tags don't need to be fixed as it truly represents what the game is. A broader tag is still true even if it doesn't include all subsets. Any confusion is purely on the part of imagining features you wish it had.
I would rather have both tags as when I look for games by tags, I rely on the tags to properly represent the game so I can find them. As someone that frequently looks for co op/online co-op/local co-op games/multi-player and local multiplayer games I find them very helpful to accurately represent what they feature. The other thing is that networking adds a whole other layer of complexity that a small studio may not be able to afford. Its not impossible but if it wasn't built from the start with hosting local servers in mind, it is not something that can easily be rigged in after the fact.

[Cas]

Originally posted by Mazzle Dazzle:

Originally posted by Raiko:

And yet, like I said, you can put your game on PS4 and Xbox One. You know, if your game is going to so blatantly copy Dark Souls right down to simply renaming the stats, you could at least copy the coop, but oh well.

But the very least you could do is fix the tags.

I had no issue interpretting the co op as local co-op when I bought the game. Co-Op = true and local co-op = true. Online co-op = false(and its not present). The tags don't need to be fixed as it truly represents what the game is. A broader tag is still true even if it doesn't include all subsets. Any confusion is purely on the part of imagining features you wish it had.
I would rather have both tags as when I look for games by tags, I rely on the tags to properly represent the game so I can find them. As someone that frequently looks for co op/online co-op/local co-op games/multi-player and local multiplayer games I find them very helpful to accurately represent what they feature. The other thing is that networking adds a whole other layer of complexity that a small studio may not be able to afford. Its not impossible but if it wasn't built from the start with hosting local servers in mind, it is not something that can easily be rigged in after the fact.

By having 'shared/splitscreen', 'local coop' and 'coop' all being tags, you don't see that as the least bit redundant in the least? 'Coop' by itself is entirely misleading, and many games simply use the 'local coop' and 'coop' tags and not 'shared, local coop, coop, online coop, local multiplayer, online multiplayer' all at once because they are, as I said, redundant.

And no one ever said it wasn't complex. But that doesn't mean it's beyond the realm of possiblity by any means.

[Mazzle Dazzle]

It is certainly redundant. But if I do a search for co-op tag, then I'll find it. Local co op I'll find it. Multiplayer I'll find it. And so on. I can't blame the developer for putting tags on a game when said tags are how people find games with features they want. I know other develpers put one or the other and that is what makes it difficult for someone to find thier game.

I understand the perspective if it says Co-op and local co-op it could be construed as having more than just local co op as there are 2 tags. While I do understand that, these tags are like HTML tags in terms of finding a game. I think the issue isn't with the developer but the steam interface itself. They really should have a tree of Co-op and local co op would be under it and that tree would be under the mulitplayer tree. They should only give developers the option of choosing the more narrow tree and then when you search you should be able to search every narrow and broader element to find the game you want. To me, that would eliminate 100% of the confusion and improve the functionality.

[Biggest Bird]

Originally posted by Raiko:

Originally posted by Cradle Games:

Noted on the "local coop" vs "coop".

At this point, we are not promising anything for multiplayer except what was officially announced; splitscreen. Anything else is subject to change. Of course, what we want is online, but we have to do what we can with what we have.

And yet, like I said, you can put your game on PS4 and Xbox One. You know, if your game is going to so blatantly copy Dark Souls right down to simply renaming the stats, you could at least copy the coop, but oh well.

But the very least you could do is fix the tags.

I'm confused about why you seem to think that giving the PC version online multiplayer is somehow more important than porting the game to other consoles. If they want to be able to distribute the game to the broadest demographics they can, it's an absolute no-brainer that multi-platform is the path to take.

[Cradle Games]

For example, porting/testing/submission on PS4 might cost us X $. But in return, you reach a different platform and more potential copy sold, so you hope to make profit and repay that port cost.

We currently evaluate the multiplayer at 4 times X $, but it doesn't reach any different platforms. Arguably, you can say we might make more sells if the feature is there, but it's a lot harder to prove.

From a business point of view, porting is a better idea. Obviously, our goal would be to do both. We would be glad to chat more about it if you know an investor is search of a deal opportunity. ;)

[Cas]

Originally posted by Cradle Games:

For example, porting/testing/submission on PS4 might cost us X $. But in return, you reach a different platform and more potential copy sold, so you hope to make profit and repay that port cost.

We currently evaluate the multiplayer at 4 times X $, but it doesn't reach any different platforms. Arguably, you can say we might make more sells if the feature is there, but it's a lot harder to prove.

From a business point of view, porting is a better idea. Obviously, our goal would be to do both. We would be glad to chat more about it if you know an investor is search of a deal opportunity. ;)

If you rate online coop as so valuabe then why take what's arguably a riskier route? I mean think about it, if you have a game with coop, then one customer can turn into two or three if the entire group of friends gets a game. Hell plenty of people will simply not buy a game if it lacks coop. Or a game that may not have been bought as a single player game suddenly becomes a worthy purchase if you know you can play through it with a buddy.

As for investors, wouldn't it be your job, especially after running a very successful kickstarter, to find an investor? Why ask your playerbase?

And if coop is hard to prove as being a profitable factor, then porting is even less so. Really you can't be sure either way if porting will actually help the game. One could make the argument that porting has no guarantee of success and could cause the game to flop as console players might not be as interested as PC players. Hell I usually find that PC presents a better platform for indie games than do consoles. PC players are also used to the concept of early access and bug reporting for games more so than consoles, which greatly helps games that are starting out in development and might need to make some changes before full release.

My suggestion would be to make a better, more complete game on PC first. Release on PC (early access even), iron out the bugs, listen to community for feedback, add more features (including implementing online coop), and THEN porting to other consoles when you're confident, based on community feedback, that the game is in its best state for profit. What you're wanting to do, port to consoles first and hope it does well enough to create more features, just seems like an overly risky strategy.

In the end, it's your game so you can do what you want, but I just don't see why you believe the PC market to be too small of a pond to make a profit on the same level as a console game.