Why no multiplayer?

[Hob Anagerik]

And besides, if all 300,000 players invested £100, or even just £50, I would rather see that money diverted not to MP but to making the game even better, perhaps with real planets and working solar systems etc like Frontier. Imagine what game we could have if the community said "Right, here's 10 million pounds, do us proud!"

[KoshZdryh]

And besides, if all 300,000 players invested £100, or even just £50, I would rather see that money diverted not to MP but to making the game even better, perhaps with real planets and working solar systems etc like Frontier. Imagine what game we could have if the community said "Right, here's 10 million pounds, do us proud!"

You forgot the [sarcasm] mark ...
No, I was talking more like "Right, here's 10 million pounds, we believe in this project , and we expect the results ... "

[softweir]

IP to IP support is all that is needed...A patch could do it...

And all you need to take an aircraft carrier to the moon is a big enough strap-on rocket.

While what you say may be true of a linear FPS*, it is not true of a large-universe sandbox game like X. In fact, it is very much NOT true. The whole damn engine would need to be rewritten from scratch with network play as a goal, because there is no way the current engine could support it. If you tried, the synchronisation problems would kill the attempt.

* In fact, even a simple linear FPS like Half-Life 2 is a difficult basis on which to create a multiplayer game, as the recent synergy mod shows:- It has taken 4 years to come to exist, required a tremendous effort of recoding, and STILL suffers from occasional synchronisation glitches and other bugs. All this, and the Source Engine was written with multiplayer support in mind. The X engine wasn't.

[Pogi]

@softweir...Um..I think you need to go back and re-read a few things in this post..Synchronisation problems are not a significant issue with my approach...Cheers

Edit: I can't see how one static station would cause a tremendous amount of synchronisation problems.

[Mergelsberg]

I'm no scripter, so I have no idea what can be done with scripts and what can't. But strictly speaking if you could implement a script that could write a file to disk and read that file back again you could implement a special station.

Have the script save the contents of that station to disk, then use an external program to sync those files across a p2p network between people.


Though to me this doesn't really qualify as multiplayer.

[Pogi]

@Mergelsberg...This is something Egosoft is going to have to decide to offer for it to be truly compatibly with the game....I was playing AI Terracorps a few months back..The scripter used Race1 for his stations..The game engine put them right to work trading as the new stations were created in the game....There is no reason that these unused races already in the game could not be used by coop players using my approach...I think there is a misconception that most players want a shoot-um-up multiplayer experiance from this game...There is an old saying..You can't please all the people all the time.....I would rather have a secure hold on that niche market myself.

[softweir]

I beg your pardon, I didn't see your earlier post on the idea of transferring or "cloning" assets between games, and in the context of this thread I assumed you were making silly statements about the ease of providing interactive, multiplayer combat. Sorry about that!

Yours is an interesting and possibly workable idea, which could be done using scripts and even by emailing "player empire clones" between players.

There could be issues that would need resolving, such as how to cope if two players almost simultaneously decide to build factories in the same place? Similarly, what if a player decides to plant a station in a place where another player's GoD module has decided to plant a station? Indeed - what happens if Kha'ak spawn in one player's game and wipe out stations?

I think these are potentially soluble problems, but they would need careful thinking out.

This is an interesting line of thought, and I feel this could go somewhere. It suits the X-Universe concept rather well!

[Pogi]

I think these are potentially soluble problems, but they would need careful thinking out.

That says it all..Thanks for your reply...


The logical choice for the gateway station would be the player headquarters

[Mergelsberg]

@Mergelsberg...This is something Egosoft is going to have to decide to offer for it to be truly compatibly with the game....I was playing AI Terracorps a few months back..The scripter used Race1 for his stations..The game engine put them right to work trading as the new stations were created in the game....There is no reason that these unused races already in the game could not be used by coop players using my approach...I think there is a misconception that most players want a shoot-um-up multiplayer experiance from this game...There is an old saying..You can't please all the people all the time.....I would rather have a secure hold on that niche market myself.

I can understand why you want Egosoft to offer something like that, but from what I gather from your idea, it doesn't really seem to be something that is out of reach of the modding community.

Personally if Egosoft were to add multiplayer to X3, I wouldn't want it to be MMO like at all. That would ruin the game as I'd no longer be able to hold monopolies or be able to just be a builder/trader player.
Then again if Egosoft did add it, I'd want something that is real time and frankly quite a bit more than just some gateway station. Being able to only trade with other players as opposed to NPCs adds no real value to the gameplay for me.
Being able to cooperatively play with my friends, would add significantly to gameplay for me.

Still I see quite a few issues with the design of the game that make it neigh impossible to make it multiplayer.
I for one would not much like to lose SETA. Not that I'm some SETA exploiting lamer who leaves it on for 8 hours and goes to take a nap, but I don't want to have to wait for NPCs all the time.
What if you just need that last 200k Cr? I just SETA until some UT or CAG makes a trade run and collects the money for me. No SETA would mean that I may have to wait an hour for something as trivial as a few million credits.

X3 just isn't designed or meant to be a real-time multiplayer game and quite a few design choices made by Egosoft are based on the notion that this is a single player game in which the relative speed of time can be altered at will.

Frankly if the multiplayer aspect can't be real-time then I'd rather Egosoft spend their budget on things like eye-candy, more single player features, better modding options, nicer music, proper multi-core support or even nVidia/Ageia PhysX support to calculate ship trajectories with. Generally anything other than a half baked multiplayer implementation.

[Pogi]

Being able to cooperatively play with my friends, would add significantly to gameplay for me.

That is exactly what my idea allows...Your friends become Race1 or Race2 etc. They can buy ships/stations/wares whatever in their game and spawn them in yours to assist your fleet or protect your assets...I, like you am totally against MMO and feel that it would ruin this great game. This approach however I feel preserves the original feel and still allows for cooperative play/chat/trade among friends. SETA is not relevant with my idea, as each player stays in his own world...For example:

If 5 players were playing this coop style game and one was running SETA all the time in his game..He may be the first to be able to build a station in Red Light..Great! Now all the other coop players have this Race1 or Race2 etc. station in Red Light..While he was doing that another coop player was exploring the X universe in his Disco..Great! Now all the coop players have a bigger galaxy map (note: I say Galaxy not Sector as each players sector "real time" is different.)..Yet another coop player was out capping ships to enlarge their coop blueprint collection..See where this goes...The possibilities are endless....The only "real time" involved here..is your own.

The game engine itself can simulate your friends physical presents quite well if allowed to do so.

[(/\)arped]

Being able to cooperatively play with my friends, would add significantly to gameplay for me.

That is exactly what my idea allows...Your friends become Race1 or Race2 etc. They can buy ships/stations/wares whatever in their game and spawn them in yours to assist your fleet or protect your assets...I, like you am totally against MMO and feel that it would ruin this great game. This approach however I feel preserves the original feel and still allows for cooperative play/chat/trade among friends. SETA is not relevant with my idea, as each player stays in his own world...For example:

If 5 players were playing this coop style game and one was running SETA all the time in his game..He may be the first to be able to build a station in Red Light..Great! Now all the other coop players have this Race1 or Race2 etc. station in Red Light..While he was doing that another coop player was exploring the X universe in his Disco..Great! Now all the coop players have a bigger galaxy map (note: I say Galaxy not Sector as each players sector "real time" is different.)..Yet another coop player was out capping ships to enlarge their coop blueprint collection..See where this goes...The possibilities are endless....The only "real time" involved here..is your own.

The game engine itself can simulate your friends physical presents quite well if allowed to do so.

I heartily approve of this idea.

[Pogi]

Thanks...I posted a full description at Devnet yesterday under the heading:

GAMEPLAY - Low Latency Coop Multi-Player Without Major Synchronizing Problems X3

Maybe some of those guru's over there might take interest...I wouldn't hold my breath though..lol

[Memnoch]

That will give them something to mull over while we are enjoying the game as is.

[Frankenleigen]

Definitely a good idea, I'd love to see something like that implemented.

Although this would require a little more work than Pogis' Idea, I would love to see LAN games, like just 2-4 players. Save and exit Age of Empires style and to reload all the players would need to be reconnected.
Also I suggest "cruise engines" (sorry to harvest yet another Microsoft game feature) like the ones from Freelancer to combat SETA while travelling. Charge up time beforehand and while activated they would give a considerable speed boost.
Possibly slightly decreasing factories production round time would compensate for the faster freighters and the profits would roll in fast enough to feel more like SETA.

As Pogi mentioned "The game engine itself can simulate your friends physical presents quite well if allowed to do so". Why not the physical presence of all the players ships and stations appearing to your PC as another faction? Because of the command console most of the movement and action in the game is controlled by autopilot, the PC.
Because of this minimal bandwidth would be used, for eg. Your friend orders his Mercury to land at an equipment dock (Command console, dock at, Argon Prime, Argon equipment dock). The same command could be replicated and sent through the LAN to their mercury on your PC. If both games are working correctly surely calculated path would be similar if not identical? This would cost little bandwidth, and because of our slow moving human brains and extremities our given orders couldn't possibly compete with a PC capable of running X3. Every stop the freighters would transfer the next path to other players PCs so that they could be accurately simulated. Individual player movements and exact headings are sent on freelancer using very minimal bandwidth (56kbps dial up with no lag(2-4 players)). Yes, X isn't Freelancer, I acknowledge this but surely a similar system could be used. Even if not, I really don't think too many players would miss out on much. Player VS NPC battles would be fought on their own computer and an approximate representation would be sent through LAN - as opposed to all information sent to the server and the all mighty server calculates all. This would be because player movments and trajectories and that of their fired shots during Player vs NPC battles on the other side of the galaxy or even in the same sector aren't particularly essential unless your involved in the battle. Turrets would work fine, fighter battles between players however would be an issue should a Freelancer style system not be possible. For this I suggest PVP be limited to specific ship combinations or disallowed entirely. Player owned - but not piloted - ships shouldn't be too hard to adjust. Simply apply the "Attack..." command to the ships on both sides and let the AI sort the battle out - just as in singleplayer. As long as the end results are the same the battle is just gravy.
This feature wouldn't replace single player, instead run from a universe template (Along with Merchant, Bounty hunter, Normal, Explorer etc.) Called "LAN Universe" or something along those lines.
With the reasonably fast bandwidth of a LAN and the low latency requirements this is a pipe dream of my very own for people to ridicule, criticise and assess.

This is more of a longer term add-on type feature. To be included as a mod or part of a future release.

Please give opinions and explain, constructive criticism welcome.

Also at previously mentioned donation topic, I'd donate various currencies to Egosoft just in the hope something like the above would be included anyday. (Especially Pogis' idea which I personally think is brilliant)

[pjknibbs]

Although this would require a little more work than Pogis' Idea, I would love to see LAN games, like just 2-4 players.

That wouldn't require a "little" more work. As has been mentioned many times (and I think at least once already in this thread) just adding all the code etc. required for multiplayer support is going to take just as much effort no matter how many players you want to connect, and since the amount of additional sales Egosoft would get wouldn't cover the additional costs of writing all that code, it won't happen.

[Deman]

Ah this gets mentioned at least once a month I think

Would be good and bad, can see a lot of positives with playing with say 8 other people (Forget MMO) and also a few negatives.

The cost side of things in current game dev climates would be near impossible, good luck finding an investor for a 2-3 year project in the current situation. There are hugely successful developers going out of business (Ensemble Studios) let alone the smaller ones.

Never understood the relation of Eve to X that people give other than its in space the games are completely different. Mainly being your actually in control of combat in X and your clicking a target and pressing 1-8 in Eve while the engine plays out your combat. But that's a whole new can of worms..

Let's just hope X3 TC is hugely successful and Egosoft make huge profits allowing them to consider such ideas should they think of creating X4

[em3e3]

I don't necessarily buy into the 'it's too expensive' explanation. Too many games, even with limited/no budget include multiplayer, for it to be 'too expensive'. Doom has been out for 15 years with LAN multiplayer support, it's time for Egosoft to do something (which I'm sure they are).

So, instead of trying to convert the entire game into multiplayer, how about just a multiplayer version of the Xenon Invasion missions? No SETA, in-sector rendering only, players can choose which side they want to be on, and it doesn't need many of the extensions and scripts normally included in/added to the full game. You could call it "XM: The Xenon Invasions", and then there could be a whole series leading up to a full multiplayer trading/fighting/building/thinking version.

[KoshZdryh]

Thank you,but no,I'd rather do the XI by myself ... the harder the better.
Killing the unwanted help would be fun though ...

[Cycrow]

I don't necessarily buy into the 'it's too expensive' explanation. Too many games, even with limited/no budget include multiplayer, for it to be 'too expensive'. Doom has been out for 15 years with LAN multiplayer support, it's time for Egosoft to do something (which I'm sure they are).

but all those games were built, right from the b eginning with multiplayer in mind. IF you do that, then adding multiplayer on top is not as hard.

but if the game was never designed like this, then it would mean the whole engine would need to be remade for it to work.

also, games like Doom and Quake, were designed primarly as multiplayer games, the X series is not

infact with alot of those games, if you dont have multiplayer support then it wouldn't sell as well so you do get money from the additional development time


wheather you believe it or not, its very unlikly that enough new users, above and beyond the current userbase will buy thegame if multiplayer were to be added that would coverr the costs to make this in the first place.

its simple buisness, y spend £100'000 on adding a feature that will bring in an additional £50,000 profit. (the numbers have no relation to the cost of development and are just made up as a visual aid).

[em3e3]

but all those games were built, right from the b eginning with multiplayer in mind. IF you do that, then adding multiplayer on top is not as hard.

but if the game was never designed like this, then it would mean the whole engine would need to be remade for it to work.

also, games like Doom and Quake, were designed primarly as multiplayer games, the X series is not

Ooops, got sidetracked. You've hit the nail on the head. Take the knowledge of the existing engine, and apply it to a new, mission-only multiplayer engine.