A real possibility of multiplayer

[mrbadger]

I do wish people had a larger capacity for understanding. I thought it was obvious that when I mean a new proposed idea, I mean a new proposed implementation of multiplayer, not the idea of multiplayer itself. It is obvious that I would not say this was the first proposal of multiplayer itself, because I state in no confusing words that I take many of the ideas from an already proposed multiplayer system.

Generally people are more interested if you have actual working stuff they can try. There are so many idea threads that go nowhere.

My advice is try to implement what you want, then post that and see who likes it.

[jjz-]

The issue with that is, it is investing time into something that may or may not take off. I have no intention of wasting my time.

Also, when did I mention interest? I mentioned understanding.

[Gavrushka]

@JJZ I don't think you're being criticised, just challenged on it - as the OP you'll often find people will add to the debate in such a way to give you a fuller understanding of it - I am sure this thread has added something to the long running multiplayer idea.

I am sure you, as I am, a bit wiser to the challenges involved in multiplayer now.

[mrbadger]

The issue with that is, it is investing time into something that may or may not take off. I have no intention of wasting my time.

Also, when did I mention interest? I mentioned understanding.

Time spent trying something new is never wasted. If you wait for the aproval of others before you start, then you are doomed, because the validity of your project depends on the opinion of others, not your own.

You are the only person who should be deciding whether your idea has value, and you should most definatelly be prototyping, or hacking up some scripts, playing with the idea. There is nothing to lose, only new knowledge to be gained.

I'm a bit jaundiced about 'I have this idea' type things, which I realise does colour my responses. It's been my experience that the people to really pay attention to are the ones who not only have ideas, but have something, an actual design written up, or some code, anything that shows its more than just a vague concept. Concepts are easy, actually working on them rarely is.

I have a 'great' idea for a distributed p2p based system that an X game could slot into, and be very similar to much of the present sandbox game. However all I have is the design for the underlying distribution system, and about 1/4 of the code written for just that, no game code.
So to anyone else but me it's a worthless concept, even though something exists, because it's far too complex for someone else to hack about with, unlike scripts. Even if I get it done, it may still be worthless, no-one may want it, or care about my 'cool' thing.

I don't care though, because distributed coding rocks bells, and I'm enjoying the challenge. Basically it's win win for me.

That's the attitude you need.

[Cycrow]

I was not aware someone proposed a peer 2 peer system exactly like I had. Is there another thread for this? If so, this should be merged into that one.

there has been several posts with almost the exactly the same idea. Not for TC, but for Reunion mainly, as for the threads, they are most likly buried somewhere in the X3R forums


as for the idea, what is possible is to sync player assets in multiple games. But this is only a small part of actually getting it working to an acceptable standard.

it really depends on what kind of experience you want with it.

you would never be able to do any player v player actions, combat would be out of the question, and there would be limited ability of controlling the ships in multiple games.

u'd have to force alot of rules on the players to allow it to run properly. Rules that cant really be applied automatically by the system, but ones that each player would have to uphold themselves.


also remember, there is no file io in scripting, you have limited access to sending and reciving data externally. It is possible using the language files to send data to the game, the plugin manager uses such a system to do this, but it can not be done to any real time level.

sending data out can only be done via writing log files.

for X3R i was actually working on some multiplayer mods, but i scraped it because i was too busy with other things to finish it

[X1000]

You could make a script that sends some kind of "log" to the other computer, then the other computer decpyhers it...

Example:

Player: "(Enter name here)" sent data,

12TL00-15 'your mamoth" is now at Argon Prime '000.000.000"

I think..

[jjz-]

Time spent trying something new is never wasted. If you wait for the aproval of others before you start, then you are doomed, because the validity of your project depends on the opinion of others, not your own.

It is a bad idea to take my refusal to do this without opinions as my way of dealing with all ideas. I am busy, and to take time off for a program that may be of use to a small number of people and have absolutely no benefits to me is, in my opinion, idiotic. It only makes sense to me to do it if I have some sort of guarantee that it will be used.

It makes sense to innovate without external opinions only when the pluses of such an innovation, if it were to succeed, are worth the risk of failure. I do not see this as the case.

Cycrow, yes, I already realize what you have mentioned. Although I did not know file io was not possible in x-scripting, and that would complicate things. The point of this thread is to take what you have just mentioned and figure out if, despite these issues, the system would be better than nothing and worth the time invested into designing it.[/quote]

[DeadlyDarkness]

I was thinking of a very simple system along the lines of this:

Implement a chat system in-game so players can talk to each other.
Keep the universes separate, but allow limited exchanges between them.

IE, player A says "help, I'm getting attacked in Home of Light", so player B sends a destroyer. This is then erased from player B's universe and an identical destroyer created and placed under the control of player C. When it's use is finished, it is returned back in whatever state it was left in.

Periodic updates could be sent about the battle every 30 seconds, ie enemies killed, damage sustained, or if the ship has been destroyed.

The same could work for trades, player A could request some E-cells from player B in a certain sector, so player B sends an SF full of E-cells, once more placed under control of player A. When it's use is finished, player A sends it back and it jumps out and reappears in player B's universe.

[MrOmniscient]

2 Sections to my post here.

First section: Relevant: I rather like this idea... it would be imperfect as regards combat, but by the sounds of it, you could get two players impacting the universe, imagine the possibilities, the players could fight economical battles, destroying NPC traders taking resources the other players want, working to accumulate materials for plots such as "The Hub", I'm sure, from what I understood by your proposal, that this would be a truly amazing step forward. This is of course, assuming both players are acting within the same universe... (I may have understood wrong, but i still like the idea!)

Second Section: As a suggestion, would it not just be possible (and here I go with no coding, scripting etc knowledge) to have a second player's client program take control of just a single AI controlled ship in the host players universe? Basically, unable to have an empire, only able to shoot/fly. BUT this is a solid step forward...that (to me) seems like it would only take a small amount of coding. It would be a single small step forward to prove the concept of having two programs on different PCs sharing data... with some reasonable spectacular results.


Answers to second section, best to keep them short, so as not to derail the thread.

@OP: Awesome idea, I don't think you should care what other people think, so long as you can find someone who is familiar enough with scripts to help you get it off the ground.
Good luck man, I'll definitely take a copy off your hands when you produce something, anything, even an ingame chat

[Aro]

Game spits out file containing object info or recent big changes.
Gobetween application takes that file, send it to web server.
Gobetween application requests current object info (or first time it gets all changes then future requests gets only new changes), puts that file on the drive.
Game reads it and makes the changes.

Very very basic, in theory it could work but...


Is it possible to kill GoD? (Maybe show it a Babelfish then toss a QED at the end?)

[Cycrow]

Time spent trying something new is never wasted. If you wait for the aproval of others before you start, then you are doomed, because the validity of your project depends on the opinion of others, not your own.

It is a bad idea to take my refusal to do this without opinions as my way of dealing with all ideas. I am busy, and to take time off for a program that may be of use to a small number of people and have absolutely no benefits to me is, in my opinion, idiotic. It only makes sense to me to do it if I have some sort of guarantee that it will be used.

It makes sense to innovate without external opinions only when the pluses of such an innovation, if it were to succeed, are worth the risk of failure. I do not see this as the case.

then maybe this is not a project for you, script and modding should be done because you like to do it, and shouldn't let other ppl influence that.

theres no real point in doing a project if ur dont enjoy doing it, thats the sorta thing u only do if u will be getting paid.

u'll find out eventually, that most things u do will get more critisim than it will praise

Cycrow, yes, I already realize what you have mentioned. Although I did not know file io was not possible in x-scripting, and that would complicate things. The point of this thread is to take what you have just mentioned and figure out if, despite these issues, the system would be better than nothing and worth the time invested into designing it.

there are way to make use of external programs, but its not something u would be able to do real time with any kind of accuracy, which is y multiplayer combat is out of the question.

if you are serious about trying it, then i would suggest looking at a few scripts that do simlar things.

The plugin managers purgeship/ware scripts, the X3 External Property Maager, the G15 Keyboard applet and the Custom Gui dll hook. These are all for X3R thou

these all make use of external programs

[Cycrow]

I was thinking of a very simple system along the lines of this:

Implement a chat system in-game so players can talk to each other.
Keep the universes separate, but allow limited exchanges between them.

IE, player A says "help, I'm getting attacked in Home of Light", so player B sends a destroyer. This is then erased from player B's universe and an identical destroyer created and placed under the control of player C. When it's use is finished, it is returned back in whatever state it was left in.

Periodic updates could be sent about the battle every 30 seconds, ie enemies killed, damage sustained, or if the ship has been destroyed.

The same could work for trades, player A could request some E-cells from player B in a certain sector, so player B sends an SF full of E-cells, once more placed under control of player A. When it's use is finished, player A sends it back and it jumps out and reappears in player B's universe.

tbh, that would be fairly simple to implement. Infact the Custom Gui mod i made for X3R did have a chat room ability, althou the front end for it was never finished

[jjz-]

then maybe this is not a project for you, script and modding should be done because you like to do it, and shouldn't let other ppl influence that.

theres no real point in doing a project if ur dont enjoy doing it, thats the sorta thing u only do if u will be getting paid.

u'll find out eventually, that most things u do will get more critisim than it will praise

Well, I didn't plan to script or mod anything, just program the peer 2 peer portion.

I never said I wouldn't enjoy it. I would enjoy programming a peer 2 peer system, because I have only coded a p2p program once before. However, I could do other things with that time (such as actually playing x3 ) that I find more enjoyable.

I don't need to be told about getting more criticism than praise. I worked in Japan for a year programming and bugfixing a horrible mix of vb.net and vb6 code without any type of recognition. Before that, I worked as a teaching assistant, which was also a horrible and rewardless job.

[brekehan]

I don't think there is any point to multiplayer without realtine dogfighting. What you are describing would just add and remove assets and would probably only be good for OOS if at all.

[Gavrushka]

I wonder if the commercial wherewithall is there to ever create a genuine multiplayer interactive experience is there.

Developing on the idea of control passing 'help being sent' and the like, it is not so far away from the idea of a player owned sector and the passage of control of any ship leaving that sector to another players sector going to computer control, with the player maintaining the more simplistic OOS form of interaction with his ships, with an enhanced range of options.. - A very different game to TC I guess and I think at least part of the reason for the desire for multiplayer is so the more aggressive amongst us (As mentioned by brekehan) wanting to go toe to toe against another player to prove once and for all my Shrike is better than your Thresher -

[mrbadger]

I wonder if the commercial wherewithall is there to ever create a genuine multiplayer interactive experience is there.

It always has been, the issue has been financing the effort. It would cost many, many millions.

[brekehan]

I think we players should just make out own open source engine and stop hoping for decades that we'll see the features we want.

I've been working on my own for 6 and sure could use some help, I've got some networking code that would fit nicely too. Problem is I haven't met a single person that has the desire _and_ the expertise as well. It's not a simple task or one that a few lessone on gamedev.net are going to get you through. It is a gargantuan amount of research and development.