- - - Thoughts on small-scale multiplayer for future X games - - -

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Cerbius Nirin
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- - - Thoughts on small-scale multiplayer for future X games - - -

Post by Cerbius Nirin »

Hello fellow Captains,

I always thought that the idea of inviting a small team of friends (perhaps up to 3 or 4) into an X campaign would be a great laugh and would perhaps add an extra dynamic to the game universe. To be clear, I envisage this as co-op only, perhaps in wingman format either by the campaign owner allocating some ships for their use or perhaps a 'Bring your own' setup if they have them available from their own campaign? - Naturally this would most likely be dependent on some form of P2P (Which is perhaps more viable than it was 5 or 6 years ago when broadband was relatively slow).

As far as I know there has not been much talk on this from Egosoft and I know there are 'other games that shall remain nameless' which encompass both small and large scale multiplayer already. - What are your thoughts on seeing such a feature in the future? It would be interesting to hear your ideas on this. Would it be something that could be done without risk of naffing up someones campaign do you think?

I realise this is looking way past the horizon at this point :)

Sincerely - Cerb
Falcrack
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Re: - - - Thoughts on small-scale multiplayer for future X games - - -

Post by Falcrack »

Be prepared for many salty replies from folks who are dead set against multiplayer of any form for X4. I'm personally in the camp of thinking it would be fun to have, provided they did not reduce the scope of the current game in order to achieve this. SETA would have to be either out, or all players present would have to agree to enable it , and anyone could cancel it at any time. You could join in as a "co-owner" where ever person on your team can issue orders to any of the assets on your team. Or you could be separate players, potentially acting as competitors or enemies.

I would like it except for the fact they have set the minimum requirements for X4 so high that I can't afford to have two computers in our home that can run it.
lavak9
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Re: - - - Thoughts on small-scale multiplayer for future X games - - -

Post by lavak9 »

I think it would be a great idea, 1-4 people sounds ideal to me as well. I'm more of a fighter pilot and my buddy likes to mine, we could make that work out together.
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KextV8
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Re: - - - Thoughts on small-scale multiplayer for future X games - - -

Post by KextV8 »

It would be fun for a small group of friend, but, they have to figure out how to split the simulation thread across multiple cores first or else the performance will be blargh. Added bonus is once they can figure out how to split it effectively, they can actually devote more resources to the AI and make the NPCs smarter without crippling performance.
Cerbius Nirin
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Re: - - - Thoughts on small-scale multiplayer for future X games - - -

Post by Cerbius Nirin »

Thanks for the replies.

With respect to:
Falcrack wrote: Sat, 15. Dec 18, 04:56 Be prepared for many salty replies from folks who are dead set against multiplayer of any form for X4.
No problem, And to some extent it is certainly healthy to be wary of what could potentially be a complicated, rocky road for the series.

I absolutely agree that the campaign and single player modes should take precedence to maintain what myself and many believe is the essence of the X series game play. Any co-operative elements in my view should be absolutely optional and not integral in this respect.

I definitely think it would have to piggyback off of an existing campaign, and work in a way which doesn't batter the hosts resources but perhaps that's a very tell order :)

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lavak9 wrote: Sat, 15. Dec 18, 05:01 I think it would be a great idea, 1-4 people sounds ideal to me as well. I'm more of a fighter pilot and my buddy likes to mine, we could make that work out together.
I had not thought of breaking it into separate roles like this but I very much like the idea, I expect however there would be a fairly uneven split between combat / mining and trading - the option to choose any combination would be great I think - - Or perhaps in combat scenarios on cap ships there could be a driver and gunners who man the turrets or drones.

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KextV8 wrote: Sat, 15. Dec 18, 05:04 How to split the simulation thread across multiple cores first or else the performance will be blargh. Added bonus is once they can figure out how to split it effectively, they can actually devote more resources to the AI and make the NPCs smarter without crippling performance.
You certainly seem to know more about the logistics of how it could work than I do. - I know that many console games utilise some form of P2P to reasonable effect which prevents the platform owners from having to provide dedicated servers and the like but thats about it :)
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KextV8
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Re: - - - Thoughts on small-scale multiplayer for future X games - - -

Post by KextV8 »

Cerbius Nirin wrote: Sat, 15. Dec 18, 05:24
You certainly seem to know more about the logistics of how it could work than I do. - I know that many console games utilise some form of P2P to reasonable effect which prevents the platform owners from having to provide dedicated servers and the like but thats about it :)
Well think about it this way, a P2P model is fine for small friend hosted games, but look at the number of people that are already CPU bottlenecking and getting bad framerates in some situations because of it. Well, hosting the server requires more CPU overhead, so before EgoSoft can really try to think about adding multiplayer, they have to tackle that issue and think of ways to further split that bottleneck. If they do that, it means our nice modern multicore machines will actually be able to apply more of their computational power to the game than they can right now. That would open up the door to a world of opportunity, multiplayer being just one of them. With more resources to work with, they can also make serious improvements to the life of the world. NPC behavior, increased universe populations, new interesting mechanics, that sort of thing.

That kind of development time may not make it into X4 as it may take a fundamental design change to pull off, but it would certainly be a worthy goal for them to include in their next game from the ground up.

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