Dedicated Servers

[Ozull]

I wish they would have dedicated servers for this game or allow people to host a server that can hold a group of people similar to Conan or Ark for instance. It'd be cool for it to be like Waterworld in a sense coming across tons of other people's rafts. There doesn't have to be pvp but maybe something to interact with one another! Idk.

[millerboy04]

That's not really what the game is about, the game is supposed to make you feel like you are stranded alone (or with a friend or eight) if they add that in it would ruin the feel of the game.

[456qwejos]

They are not yet added but depending on the host’s computer you should be able to have more than 8 people.

[SireSteelHell]

wonder if there will be the rubberbanding like conan though... game breaker

[Ozull]

Damn, to be honest, I thought this would be a typical 4 player Online-Multiplayer game, since most do it that way. But possibly more than 8!? Pretty cool. Wil have to test it now.

[werhsre334]

Yeah, really cool in all that you can have mutiplayer off the host but without having dedicated servers your stuck only playing when your friends are all online.

I get the astetic of being out in the middle of nowhere but this REALLY needs some sort of server support.

Ppl don't like playing for 3 hours and then the host leaving and you're just screwed til he comes back online.

At this point, considering the time it takes to really get going, there's not much of a point in playing multiplayer if only one person hosts.

I guess you can shuttle the game save around but that's kinda clunky.

I mean, comon, this is essentially a survival game so you know tons of time into crafting and getting to a sustainable state. I mean, what game do you know if where you could GET 8 people to line up on specific times based on whenever your friend that's hosting comes online.

Kind of a game breaker as far as multiplayer.

But, WHAT A GREAT GAME! I love it.

Just would be REALLY nice to be able to throw this on a server.

[Daldain]

Originally posted by Uncle:

Yeah, really cool in all that you can have mutiplayer off the host but without having dedicated servers your stuck only playing when your friends are all online.

I get the astetic of being out in the middle of nowhere but this REALLY needs some sort of server support.

Ppl don't like playing for 3 hours and then the host leaving and you're just screwed til he comes back online.

At this point, considering the time it takes to really get going, there's not much of a point in playing multiplayer if only one person hosts.

I guess you can shuttle the game save around but that's kinda clunky.

I mean, comon, this is essentially a survival game so you know tons of time into crafting and getting to a sustainable state. I mean, what game do you know if where you could GET 8 people to line up on specific times based on whenever your friend that's hosting comes online.

Kind of a game breaker as far as multiplayer.

But, WHAT A GREAT GAME! I love it.

Just would be REALLY nice to be able to throw this on a server.

You know.....this /might/ be possible with some launch options and a spare host sitting around....Im going to play around with this and see what I can do :D

[KyrenCross]

I would love a dedicated server so if you go to work and leave your computer on, your friends can still play the world you built together. And be surprised at the progress they made when you come back.

If the world is shared to other of your friends when you log out and continue on from there if you join the game again, then a dedicated server is not needed. Thats what makes dedicated server quite usfeul IMO.

[SugarD-x]

I still don't understand why this isn't a thing. I have to agree that it is a game-breaker for multiplayer sessions. Having the player-hosted option is great, but that is only good for small groups in private games. If players want to work together and play when the other isn't online, having to wait on the host is a bit much. Even having a cloud-synced save system that updates all players, (including the host), and didn't require the host to be online would be better than just what we have now. I would put a dedicated server online in a heartbeat if I could.

[steveman0]

Originally posted by SugarD-x:

I still don't understand why this isn't a thing.

I don't see why anyone should be surprised. Things like dedicated servers are always the last matter to address in the dev process. Definitely not something that should be expected in Early Access. It's more important to have a game foundation first.

[SugarD-x]

Originally posted by steveman0:

Originally posted by SugarD-x:

I still don't understand why this isn't a thing.

I don't see why anyone should be surprised. Things like dedicated servers are always the last matter to address in the dev process. Definitely not something that should be expected in Early Access. It's more important to have a game foundation first.

This game is not as early in its development stages as Steam makes it seem to be. Sure there are bugs, but it is a fairly stable game at this point. The developers are even adding more items to it constantly. This far in, if dedicated servers were going to be an option, it actually SHOULD have already been added. That is a significant change to the code-base that would have needed heavy testing prior to all of these new additions to make sure everything syncs properly like it does in co-op mode. After some previous comments I've seen in other topics about this, I unfortunately don't think the developers intend to add this because of the changes to their framework that they would have to do.

[City Builder]

Originally posted by KyrenCross:

I would love a dedicated server so if you go to work and leave your computer on, your friends can still play the world you built together. And be surprised at the progress they made when you come back.

.

And why can't you do that now? Leave your computer on and let your friends connect while you're gone.

A dedicated server to me would be an outside source, a hosting service so that I connect up to that server with Raft as do a whitelist of friends, not leaving my computer on all the time. The way that Minecraft does it would be nice.

However, I recognize that Raft has performance issues when the raft gets too big so it's kind of pointless at this time to have a dedicated server since it doesn't take long at all before you've hit the wall and start lagging too much due to building your raft too large.

[steveman0]

Originally posted by SugarD-x:

Originally posted by steveman0:

I don't see why anyone should be surprised. Things like dedicated servers are always the last matter to address in the dev process. Definitely not something that should be expected in Early Access. It's more important to have a game foundation first.

This game is not as early in its development stages as Steam makes it seem to be. Sure there are bugs, but it is a fairly stable game at this point. The developers are even adding more items to it constantly. This far in, if dedicated servers were going to be an option, it actually SHOULD have already been added. That is a significant change to the code-base that would have needed heavy testing prior to all of these new additions to make sure everything syncs properly like it does in co-op mode. After some previous comments I've seen in other topics about this, I unfortunately don't think the developers intend to add this because of the changes to their framework that they would have to do.

Nah, the game already has multiplayer support. There's no significant changes to the codebase from the point of view of existing features. But there is the whole building the dedicated head which is independent of anything else. Doesn't make much sense to focus on that until content is filled out. Besides, the coding skill to build a dedicated server framework is different than regular game content and they may not have someone who's particularly fluent in that kind of development. That could mean relatively higher time investment than otherwise anticipated. Time is nearly always the limiting factor in game development and sinking an unknown amount into a feature generally used by a small fraction of the market is not a wise investment. These guys seem to have a good grasp of what they are doing so I expect they know this.

[Sarge of Greyhawk]

Originally posted by siresteelhell:

wonder if there will be the rubberbanding like conan though... game breaker

Rubberbanding is caused by the server you are playing on..... That is usually caused by the amount of CPU or RAM being used by the server...... If you are just talking about the game freezing or lagging that could be anything from the internet connection somewhere between you and the server or in the client computer... If it is jumpy or the frame rate goes from tolerable to sudden stop then after a bit it resumes. That is GPU lag. Check your graphics card...

[SugarD-x]

Originally posted by steveman0:

Originally posted by SugarD-x:

...a feature generally used by a small fraction of the market...

This is far from accurate. Dedicated servers vastly outweigh simple P2P connections in multiplayer game environments. Very few games use strictly just P2P these days for players to connect to each other. The ones that do mimic it through a background dedicated server application being hosted directly by a user, which often can also be run manually to set up a true dedicated server with no end-user hosting requirement.

Also, it's 2022 and there's still no dedicated server support. Looks like I'll never get to enjoy this with my friends after all.

[steveman0]

Originally posted by SugarD-x:

This is far from accurate. Dedicated servers vastly outweigh simple P2P connections in multiplayer game environments. Very few games use strictly just P2P these days for players to connect to each other. The ones that do mimic it through a background dedicated server application being hosted directly by a user, which often can also be run manually to set up a true dedicated server with no end-user hosting requirement.

Also, it's 2022 and there's still no dedicated server support. Looks like I'll never get to enjoy this with my friends after all.

Wow, a 3 year old necro. How unusual... especially considering how the game aged in that it is drastically lacking content still to be worth revisiting yet. Obviously they don't have time to write dedicated servers as it takes them years to add anything to the game. No point in adding something that isn't necessary until they make the game worth playing again.