some limited multiplayer support next... please please?

[nielsw]

I've bought every X game from start to finish so far, and I find it a great achievement by Egosoft to have carved out a nice franchise with steady new releases in a game genre that's currently not favored in the market.

For me personally, what did it, is the nice support, excellent and generous updates and sheer depth of the games.


But, while these later installments keep getting more polished and far deeper than any other single player games I know of, I have neither played Reunion nor Terran Conflict to the finish. Its starting to feel the same thing, and lacking even the slightest multi-player support is really driving me away from the game at this point.

If I could strategically compete against even just ONE other player in the game, it would be a whole new game. Of course, if 4 or 6 players were supported, it would be even better.

But the largest difference in multiplayer support is the difference between zero other players and one other player to play with or against.


Of course it would be cool if you made enough money on your X franchise to make a full MMORPG out of it.
However, MMORPG's have certain limitations and grind requirements, to where that couldn't replace the coolness of a limited Multiplayer support for TC...


So, yeah, I said my piece...

[KipperTheFish]

Try reading the 1000's of threads telling why this will never happen.

[Ozman202]

Get your heads down lads, Storms a commin

[Khas]

Try reading the 1000's of threads telling why this will never happen.

I'm quite interested in this, actually. Perhaps this could be used as a summary thread on the issue, a single one to point to each time? Hell, maybe even sticked? If it's asked that often of course.

[space pirate]

or perhaps you could just do your own blasted homework and use the search function.

[ThommoHawk]

er ... har har har lads, I'm leaving the sector for a couple of weeks - be back when the bodies have been counted.....

[CBJ]

Take it easy people. The question may have been asked a lot, but not everyone has been here as long as you have and they may not have seen the threads. On a forum as busy as this one, even using the search facility isn't necessarily going to indicate this to a newcomer.

The summary: Adding multi-player support to the game will be expensive and time-consuming. There is no such thing as "limited" multi-player because any form of multi-player (aside from some obscure examples that most people wouldn't class multi-player) requires most of the same work to be done as a full MMO game. Anything other than an MMO would generate virtually no income over and above that generated by a single-player game, making developing it completely non-viable, so "limited" multi-player is actually one of the least likely scenarios to actually come to fruition. Probably the only way it could happen would be as a side-development from, or test-bed for, an MMO game.

[Khas]

Ok, taking the polite and kind suggestions of other posters, I have reviewed 13 pages of posts and threads on this subject. I shall collate my results here. (Italics are my opinion.)

99.999999% of posts in these threads: "ZOMG NOT ANOTHER THREAD". This is not useful. If you have seen it all before, either post constructively, or please, please, please shut up. All it does is make it harder for people like me who did search. All that comes up is your whining again and again and again. If you want to stop these threads, stop whining so the signal:noise ratio goes up.

CBJ and pjknibbs have both on separate occasions listed the only true reason: money. I see CBJ has done that again. (Can you tell I'm an academic? I reference everything.)

A number of other arguments come up regularly:

"LOL THER AM EEV". Excuse this, but f*** off. I have played Eve since beta, and my character is the oldest on the server because of that; and I've played X since it was launched. Further, there are multiple types of multiplayer games, MMOs are just massively scalable ones.
Why am I here then? Because the two games do entirely different things. Yes, I would love to see a merge/cross between the two: i.e. a decent, useable interface like Eve (even though it, in itself is atrocious, it's a bazillion times better than what we have to put up with in X); and the ability to manage and run an entire empire with AI helpers.

"It would not be the same experience." The primary reason for this is SETA, which has categorically been marked as technically 'insignificant' by CBJ himself (for example, get a slipstream drive).
I would be prepared to wager that alot of people would want this for one reason: not travelling, but making money during 'quiet' periods in their game. However, I can see there may be issues, but arguably, they might be generic issues about the game in general (i.e. sectors are too small and the delineation feels 'wrong' sometimes, so make it huge and open and flat (a la the Galaxy Continuum Project).

"Lag." My degree is in network science, and lag is the big beast that comes up to bite my ass every two bloody seconds, so I can see there being an issue with this.
However, there are ways round it, and (professionally) I don't think this is as big an issue as people make out, especially if it's a limited multi-player game of 4 players. Hell, lag is the huge beast that kills trully massive combat in Eve, and CCP have done so much work on optimising their code it's possible. And that's 100 bits of information about 500 other pilots, twice a second. That's a lot of potential lag.

"There has been no successful game where twitch-based space combat has been introduced." This was specifically brought up by brekehan, who has obviously not done his homework very well. SWG with JTL (before the CU - although like most I left after the CU, so don't know if it changed JTL at all.)
Yes, I was flying Imperial TIE Fighters against those thrice-damned hippy rebels, on a server where there were a few thousand, some land based and some space based, and it was fine! In fact, there was minimal lag involved - I've had worse graphics lag in X3 than I had network lag in JTL.
Further, I'm fairly certain Vendetta and Jumpgate are both twitch-based (the 'let's make Eve twitch based' thread comes up on the Eve forums as often as it seem the 'how about multiplayer X' threads here do.)

"Polls have been conducted, and no-one wants multiplayer." Well, academically, that survey would be thrown out - this is a biased survey group, I'm afraid, if even because you still play a single-player game. Perhaps the rest of the world would buy X if it was multiplayer, but they didn't get to vote, did they? As such any such decision based on those polls are moot.
I'd also argue that alot of people that voted 'no' did so taking the whole picture into account - feasibility etc., all of which hasn't been discussed properly. It's a knee-jerk reaction. They might actually love the idea, and had they said so it might be here by now, wrinkles all ironed out.

"Within months, you wouldn't be able to actually move around the universe for ships and stations. New players wouldn't get a look in." This is only true in MMOs, and I actually completely disagree with CBJ that if you make it 'limited' multiplayer as opposed to 'true' multiplayer (seeing as everyone seems to consider MMOs as the only damned multiplayer games out there now - I played Doom over IPX, so take that view and shove it ) it needs the same work as an MMO. With 4 player multi-player, there is a very, very small chance of filling the entire galaxy, and like 'old style' multiplayer games, the game players tended to be set for the duration of the game. This argument is exactly the same as 'but if a new player joins a game of Red Alert half way through the game, then he won't have as big as base as everyone else!' Sorry, but 'duh'! Don't join in the middle of a game!
Limited multiplayer is eminently more viable than an MMO for X, and in fact preferable given the other problems that would be faced in an MMO in the style of X. The ability alone to disallow new players in the middle of a game proves that point. Further, in Eve there is a huge problem with 'flavour of the month' ships and the gear in those ships. In limited multi-player X, that doesn't really matter because there's enough room to still be competitive using nothing more than player preference, without huge amounts of rebalancing.

There is a nice thread here that asked for comments on the possibility of multi-player style X, and for features that would like to have been seen. It is a fairly constructive post, but people still seem to hold back on to reality when answering, and do so conservatively.

That's all I can think of just now, but I'm sure I've missed something. If people could point out other arguments that I've missed, with a link to the thread, I'll add them to this. Hopefully we might be able to collate a list that all those people who say 'oh god not this again' can instead be useful and post a link to it.

[WildAce]

id be happy with even a LIMITED version of MP, and my definition of limited MP would be...

you supply a ship, in the command options for the ship you select Co-op Pilot, at which point a friend can join and at which point he chooses from the ships that have the co-op pilot command on and it will show the location and sector of the ships. "you could be an ass and if you friend isnt paying attention when joining.. place an m5 on patrol in a xenon sector with co-op enabled and he joins in that ship just to get blasted lol "

basicly the co-op player would be joining in as a hired gun, he would still count as a Player ship so any kills he gets still give the main player the mission rewards, but the co-op player can die and respawn in another co-op enabled ship (if theres no other co-op enabled ship then all he can do is spectate the host until the host can supply another ship or leave)

the next thing you gonna ask is what about SETA! well the obvious solution is to keep it as is except that when theres a co-op player in game you only get LIMITED SETA, SETA will only turn on when you and the co-op player or players are locked in formation. and only enabled by the host.

basicly this Limited MP, would make any single player save game joinable by a friend as a hired gun. you could give your friend a bunch of money if you have it and have him go build a complex for you if he wants to help out in that way too, any structures placed by the co-op player are owned by the host.

i think the most ideal player count would be 6 players (isnt 6 the max position in a ship? (pilot, turret up/down/left/right/back) would allow you to full man a capitol ship with friends

Freindly fire would be on at all times so if you chose to you could just save your game and give your friend a ship and just battle to the death to a game over for fun ect and have your own deathmatches. host would just reload the game if he dies.

honestly i think most of that can be done on a small budget and i think it would pay for itself with the extra people that have bought the game for co-op, i know a few people that wont play because of no co-op. and im sure most people here have a friend that would buy the game knowing it had co-op.

well that my idea of LIMITED MP and i think would be the cheapest and easiest to implement.

[MegaJohnny]

An online X would suck, the whole point of it for me is that you can make a big empire and nobody powerful enough to stop you gives a damn what you do until you shoot first

If you got a factory complex in an Xonline/MMO and one of the really big powerful doods in the server didn't like you having that money he'd just blow it up, nothing you could do about it

Plus there'd be nothing to do, since the Really Big Powerful Doods would spam lasertowers near the gate to shoot down anything that's slightly pirate-y, so nothing to grind on.

You'd have to make the progress a LOT slower, because of the people that become Really Big Powerful Doods in about 2 days and end up with 5-Titan patrols in every sector and enough complexes to fuel the entire Xenon resource requirements indefinitely

[WildAce]

which is why i dont want an MMO, i just want MP.

and just because this a MP thread doesnt mean its only talking about an MMO

MP doesnt = MMO

i personally dont think an mmo would work very well based on the current game mechanics ect. the most logical step is the type of mp i mentioned a post ago. where it essentially revolves around the hosts game, and joining players are treated as hired wingmen and not thier own super powers in the galaxy.

i think after they have the limited MP i have mentioned before ingame and ironed out, the next game after that could add TRUE MP where each player can control his own growing empire ect. and can either assist fellow players or be thier enemy.

this is a sandbox game after all the storys in the game arnt real deep or long, and if there was a FULL mp mode, it could just as well use the Custom game mode where theres no plot enabled. and each player could choose a Race character picture, and choose to place a PHQ in any non xenon sector or Khaak sector. and would start neutral to all the race, and would get a TS and M4 model based on the race they chose.

things would have to be rebalanced tho an AI would have to be improved to make the game playable in a no SETA experience. so basicly ships would need to be faster but the AI would need to be improved so they run into as much stuff.

player death would also have to be delt with diffrently maybe make it so enemys dont or cant attack you when your in a space sit? so you have a choice eject when your ships gonna blow or stay in the ship and die and have to rebuild your empire from scratch.. but if you eject you have to wait for a rescue ship to collect you and return you to your PHQ where you can build a new M4, and if you dont have the money to pay for it enter a debt that you have to pay off before you can buy or build anything better from either your PHQ or friendly shipyards.

the only ships at your PHQ for production are the starting TS and / M4, to get more ship designs at your PHQ you need to buy or capture then from other races or even players, (you can go to a friends PHQ if your allied with them and buy ships from them and choose to give them the money instead of npc races. but that player has to have the recources there to cover about 3/4ths the ships cost so he still makes a proffit but its not 100% free money.

the complexes need to be redon also. like you could build a few crystal fabs and once you have 3 stations in close proximity to each other you can choose to build a Station Complex for a price, and it will combine them into a single larger station, and then any time you place another station next to that one you can choose to add it to the complex for the normal price of a complex constuction kit. maybe put a limit on how many stations can be in the complex like 50? enough that it will keep most areas from being clutterd and laggy also let you choose from a few diffrent models for the complex so theres some variety and not station complex clones all over the galaxy.

[maphys]

honestly i think most of that can be done on a small budget and i think it would pay for itself with the extra people that have bought the game for co-op, i know a few people that wont play because of no co-op. and im sure most people here have a friend that would buy the game knowing it had co-op.

Based on what experience in computer game development and project management on this scale?

I am not trying to be combatative here but unless you do the job it is hard to estimate the effort required. REALLY hard. It is a sore point for me because a pointy-haried-boss recently did a sort of Dilbert to me.
Him: "That sounds easy" (i.e. I don't understand it but most of the words you used sounded English)
Me: "It is not easy, please don't promise we will do this for them."
(A day later)
Him: "Remember that work we talked about?"
Me: "Yes?"
Him: "I sort of promised it to the customer."
Me: "Arrgh!"
Him: "He agreed it sounded easy enough and we decided that you could do it in a month"
Me: "It is three months coding just to build a prototype!"
Him: "Well, it is one of your assessed objectives now, your payrise depends on it..."
(Sound of my head hitting the table repeatedly)

I know that I don't know enough about games to have an opinion and I code a fair bit these days (badly). My instinct says it is a huge job that'll change the game mechanics (SETA for example) a huge amount. Most of the people who work for Ego on here seem to have said roughly that in the past.

M

[WildAce]

honestly i think most of that can be done on a small budget and i think it would pay for itself with the extra people that have bought the game for co-op, i know a few people that wont play because of no co-op. and im sure most people here have a friend that would buy the game knowing it had co-op.

Based on what experience in computer game development and project management on this scale?

compared to other multiplayer implementations it would be a vastly smaller budget than a full blown multiplayer experience with each player essentially having the same control over the universe as the host.

such as the second example i gave in my prev. post. thats a full blown MP experiece and the budget for that would be Massive compared to my first post.

essentially Limited MP where each additional player is treated like a wingman and joins a players already existing single player game wouldnt take nearly as much coding or reworking, SETA would only need to have 2 modes, Single player mode where you can enable it all the time, and MP mode where the host can only enable it when all mp players are locked into formation with the host.

the game doesnt have to be reworked much at all compared to other mp modes. and would be a good stepping stone for the devs because it DOESNT CHANGE the single player experience AT ALL. its the hosts choice to enable a co-op spot on one of his extra ships or on a turret in his ship.

the real challenge for the devs would be getting mp code sync everything up and a game browser/search funtion working. and to be honest they could skimp on it and only give us the option to join by IP because i think most pc users know what an IP is.

but as far as the actual game content that needs changed, its pretty minor. sence it leaves the entire single player experience intact and the player or players that join are just hopping into ships that you already bought or captured.

for the player joining they would have to add a screen that shows all the ships with co-op positions available and thier location, make it so thier kills contribute to the hosts missions, disable SETA anywhere and enable SETA when in locked formation only, a bank account for the joining player for when you give him money to spend, and allow to joining player to give basic commands to your fleet like navigation, trade ect. so he can order TL's around ect.

nothing major but in the end would add to the replayablity to this game immensly and compared to other more complete MP modes would be a much smaller budget like i said. and would get the people that wanted mp to buy the game, and wouldnt affect anyones single player experince at all.

[maphys]

compared to other multiplayer implementations it would be a vastly smaller budget than a full blown multiplayer experience with each player essentially having the same control over the universe as the host.

You've coded up these sorts of multiplayer games then? Or something equivalent? That was what I was asking. If you have not done this sort of large project (had experience of both the coding and the management side) on a platform like the home PC then you simply cannot accurately assess the level of effort required.

I've read about caesarians, doesn't mean I am qualified to tell a surgeon how easy it is to do one.

M

[WildAce]

i wasnt saying it would be easy, just easier than a full MP and easier than a full MMO experience.

it would be a stepping Stone, even if its a big one, while it might not provide immediate huge extra proffit to completely cover the costs of the mp part, it would probly be enough to cover most of it. and then they would have the ground work done for future mp experiences and games which wouldnt require the initial breakthrough funding as the foundation would already be there. short term it would cost money, but long term it should end up making them more money because lets face it more people tend to buy games if they include some sort of multiplayer. not only does mp help add replay to a game, it also can spread easier among friends because they can usually get friends to buy a game if it mean they will be able to play together.

[b1rd]

A limited coop would be my X wet dream.

X lan party anyone? ^^

[maphys]

i wasnt saying it would be easy, just easier than a full MP and easier than a full MMO experience.

And would have a more limited audience as has been said over and over by the guys at Ego. Until you get into some serious cash outlay versus potential income studies, a balance of investment analysis, then you cannot even tell if it would make money. Saying "I have a mate or two who I think would buy it" doesn't work either because only a few percent of a potential market generally crystalises.

I am not trying to be rude or unpleasant but arguing that Y is easier than Z is pretty pointless. The point is does Y make money? Enough money at a low enough risk for it to be signed off by a project team who are exercising due diligence for their shareholders (or just watching their company's back)? We cannot know. We don't have the background in coding, channel marketing and management.

Cutting my foot off is easier than cutting my head off but neither option is that good for my health...

M

[nielsw]

There is no such thing as "limited" multi-player because any form of multi-player (aside from some obscure examples that most people wouldn't class multi-player) requires most of the same work to be done as a full MMO game.

thanks for your answer, CBJ... I would however, like to argue the point on limited multi-player being the same expense as a full mmo title:

Freelancer, Homeworld and Armada being good examples of limited multiplayer, I think Freelancer supports 16 people, and, well, Armada was like 2-4, can't remember for sure, it was an offshoot of the old wing commander.

The multiplayer ability made them interesting well beyond any single other feature they had.

Anything other than an MMO would generate virtually no income over and above that generated by a single-player game, making developing it completely non-viable, so "limited" multi-player is actually one of the least likely scenarios to actually come to fruition. Probably the only way it could happen would be as a side-development from, or test-bed for, an MMO game.

I was not suggesting to give us multiplayer for free...

But I'd strongly argue that we've run out of other things to add to the game that give good bang for the buck.

So sell us another Sequel, call it X4, don't waste any more time on corny storylines - leave everything the way it is, ADD ONLY ONE THING multiplayer - and I bet the box will fly off the shelves.

I'll be the first to go buy a box at full price, if I can play it with friends.

As it is, I'm lounging around in miserable old eve, just cause X gets to be a lonely experience very quickly.


One question: Do you think Homeworld or Starcraft would have ever become the run-away success they were without the multiplayer? Freelancer was LAME in single player, but Multiplayer saved it.

And we're not talking mmo development here. let me give a comparison of what has to be developed for an mmo versus a limited multiplayer game:


development jobs for limited multiplayer (like freelancer)

peer to peer IP protocols for game clients to connect (much easier now than it used to be, since you don't have to support different network architectures like you used to before the internet got ubiquitous.)

a proprietary game protocol to keep 2 or if you choose more clients in sync with each other, by efficiently relaying position data and damage data back and forth.

in case of making a co-op mode available, write code to check for number of players and spawn additional / stronger ships.

An admittedly large number of fine tunings, like efficient relay of damage data streams and such, and a big round of bug-squashing will be needed.

X3's game system should be well suited for multiplayer, cause the AI already has to react to your ship, other NPC ships and all your hired ships, that you can decide to control remotely at any given time.




development jobs for massive multiplayer (like eve, age of conan)

develop special server software to run on arrays of blade servers.

develop hack-proof client server IP protocols

add another 2000 star systems...

cut out 3/4 of X series existing features, cause mmo's don't work by letting you automate things.

replace with other features, like grind and delay, to make sure players will never quit their subscription.

Further nerf player abilities to force several players to act in concert to achieve goals.

Add zillions of quests to keep people from running off to the next new game coming out.

set up a real time billing system.

Hire GM's and other support staff.

Or let Sony handle servers and billing, and have people run, holding their noses, cause they once had some bad experience with Sony...



Well, either way, both lists are rough, but I think I made my point that an old style multiplayer game is a LOT less work than designing an MMO, I think its a magnitude of 10 difference.

And you can see, there are a lot of hairy mmo issues you don't have to concern yourself with for a limited multiplayer.



(anyone remember going through hell configuring Tom Clancy's early swat-team games on some junky old novell network?) without multiplayer, they wouldn't have had a game...


You say no extra income? Multiplayer sells boxes! I wanna play this with my brother or a friend? I either go out of my way to get them to buy a box too or I have to buy an extra box for them.

And a lot of people prefer regular multiplayer games over mmo's cause mmo's have some serious limitations, along with the monthly bill.

[maphys]

But I'd strongly argue that we've run out of other things to add to the game that give good bang for the buck.

Other than, say, dynamic race relationships (i.e. wars, trade embargoes, blockades etc), ability to construct custom ships at the shipyard (or at least tweak their stats, swaping say weapons for speed or whatever), enhanced fleet control, station piracy, true pirate starts (making it easier to play a pure pirate game), station construction OOS, sector takeover that isn't a script, diplomatic missions, military missions, guilds, better AI, research and development (unlock new weapons)....

peer to peer IP protocols for game clients to connect (much easier now than it used to be, since you don't have to support different network architectures like you used to before the internet got ubiquitous.)

a proprietary game protocol to keep 2 or if you choose more clients in sync with each other, by efficiently relaying position data and damage data back and forth.

in case of making a co-op mode available, write code to check for number of players and spawn additional / stronger ships.

Yuh - this reminds me of an old half-joke.
How to win the Nobel prize:
1) buy a white coat
2) get some safety glasses
3) ensure you have good power supply and ventilation for your room
4) unify quantum mechanics, special relativty and loop gravity
5) collect prize

M

[nielsw]

The point is does Y make money? Enough money at a low enough risk for it to be signed off by a project team who are exercising due diligence for their shareholders (or just watching their company's back)?

Its funny you should say that, cause I remember being shocked and asking myself "who the hell signed off on that" when I first saw X2's storyline cut scenes and voice acting... Eventually, I figured their new publisher forced the format on them in form of a check-off feature list deemed mandatory for a space title to sell to male teens.

I much preferred the way the story was told in XbtF and Xtension, using the whimsical X creatures talking to you over coms. It made sense, was more immersive and surely ate a lot less of the budget than these cut scenes, each of which made me cringe in embarrasment for having bought a product that contained something so amateurish.

We don't have the background in coding, channel marketing and management.

I do have a background in those exact areas, (yeah, I'm old) still, I couldn't tell from afar if something would pan out for a given franchise, maybe 90% of egosoft's customers are solitary tinkers, who wouldn't dream of playing with anybody else.

But maybe X would have different customers if they had multiplayer instead of a load of weak cut scenes. Thinking of Starcraft here... We played the same map over and over, cause with other people, it stayed interesting. In single player, I win a map/mission/storyline once and I'm done with it forever.