Multiplayer - what are your opinions?

[carpetmilk9]

Would you play a multiplayer version of Urw, eg survival, realistic gameplay, 2D graphics and so forth?

I think it would be interesting but maybe too competitive because of permadeath (annoying to be killed by a kid that could train skills for 100x hours more than you). But in another way, it would be even more realistic than Urw because of the unpredictability. No save scumming, if you die you die.

The weirdness would come from the fact that people could just logout to avoid unpleasant situations, and stuff like that. But there might be ways to avoid it..

[JP_Finn]

I don’t see it would work. Not when the game is turn based. Unless you’re suggesting tanning a rinsed elk skin really takes 8h of real life hours too?

[Tinker]

Even if it did work in some way I would never play it, I do not entrust my pleasure to some others persons schedule.

[PALU]

Multi player invariably results in sacrifices of single player functionality because they don't work in multi player, or the resources were just spent mostly on multi player. Multi player is thus a warning label to me. As mentioned, turn based is a spectacularly poor match for multi player. If you want to get killed by a random kid there are a bazillion of multi player FPS games, so there's no need to destroy single player ones.

[ModernNorseman]

I have yet to try a multiplayer survival game, that makes me feel as relaxed as this game does. Heck, I can't think of a single game at all, that I can spend so much time in while actually relaxing and enjoying myself all the way.

My feeling is that gaming overall have an extreme focus on competitiveness, effectiveness and grinding for you to beat everyone else. There are always those people who spends the majority of their time getting better than everyone else. I see it in the MOBA I've played for years, a casual CS:GO game, or people actively trying to ruin each others camps in DayZ for example (And I think the communities suffer from this, with extreme toxicity as to ranking and such).

When I come home from an 40 hour working week, I really can't be bothered in the long run to get home to some competitive gaming experience, since I'm already exhausted. The reason I have put in 1200 hours in Unreal World and keeps coming back to it, is the relaxation I get from playing it and the use of my imagination while playing it - escaping from reality for a bit, while I'm just a Finnish survivor, eating a hearty stew of fish, turnips and a bit of seasoning in a cabin in the cold of winter. Even if it was just a co-op gaming experience that weren't competitive, I wouldn't be able to get as immersed if I was to be on Discord with a friend at the same time.

[Night]

I've thought about MP in depth for quite awhile, there's no real way to implement it into the game in a way that both players could play within the same world, not easily anyways, since the game is based on taking actions in turns, and those turns happen to be very small turns, going between players to sync the world time would be a game-breaker.

There's other ways to go about MP though, for example instead of having two individual players on one map, you could have each individual player on their own map, and then have actions that can affect the other persons game in an "event" based system (trading, robbers, quests, etc).

I don't see a workable PvP version, maybe just for fun if you wanted to setup an arena with generated characters, with no real passive play, just a sort of arcade mode, even then the time system would need to either be replaced or you would have to let AI handle the characters.

Another way you could do it would be a dungeon master vs player style, similar to the event based system only you'd have a DM to play vs instead of another player in which you could reciprocate against.

Another method I've though about was a hot-seat mod where players could share characters over a server, whitelisted to your friends or whatever, could even have a public setting, anywho, you'd have characters on the server anyone or players from list X could play as, and they'd just download the characters folder to their PC, play, and then when they're done playing, save the character and reupload to the server, and mark it as available for other players who have access to that character, I believe players did this manually in the past, but it would be neat to see it handled via code and listed for others to enjoy. Could even handle different game settings and such for character replayability.

There's probably some other things you could do that I haven't thought about yet, but I think this encompasses what would be possible as far as MP is concerned... most of it requiring a massive overhaul to the code, I think the enormous elk team is focused more on content, functionality, and realism so I wouldn't expect to see an official multiplayer for awhile, if at all, but I can only guess .

[StefanPravda]

I'd rather make a text browser based multiplayer game based on this, and add human interaction. Take all the UW actions, make them browser based, add human interactions, like living in villages, communities, the ancient variant of village mayor who is chosen somehow, shamans, families, wars between villages or areas, etc.

It would be pretty easy to do since you already have the individual actions from UW and you know what you have to do, and just add human interactions layer, tribes, etc. I'd also keep the NPCs too, and make NPC invasions, etc.

To make communities matter I'd make invasions a thing so you are encouraged to be a part of a community, even if you walk freely around an area. So if you are alone you have a high chance of being savaged by Njerpez warriors, etc., but if you are a part of a strong community, the Njerpez will ponder more if to attack you because they would be afraid of the retaliation of your community. So on. Mandatory wars, I.E., if you don't answer the call of the "mayor" for war, you will be automatically excluded from the community and be banned from joining other communities for 15 days or so ( people know your reputation and don't want a pussycat among their ranks, etc).

Etc, etc, etc.

[Labtop 215]

Live interaction in a turn based, tile based, rougelike wouldn't work.  But...  the idea makes me think of Nethack, specifically bones files.

I think it would be a cool idea to randomly stumble upon old settlements that have been worn down via a settlement aging mechanic, or perhaps stumble on a warrior who was wounded by a now deceased adventurer, or a secret stash that was once maintained by another player (who would be dead, since it would suck to have somebody steal your crap in real-time) and have this all facilitated via a server online that you can log into.

The world in-game would have to be far bigger though than it currently is or you'd be stumbling across stuff constantly.

[Privateer]

Character sharing like they used to with Legacy characters is about the only multiplayer that works.

[Homocommando]

Would you play a multiplayer version of Urw, eg survival, realistic gameplay, 2D graphics and so forth?

Yes, but without PvP. PvP only works well, if your skill matters a lot. And in this game very skilled, veteran player with just spawned character could get easily killed, by a new player whose character has much better skills, and is generally better prepared for fight.

I think it would be interesting but maybe too competitive because of permadeath (annoying to be killed by a kid that could train skills for 100x hours more than you).

Exactly. Also someone could grief your camp, and steal your items while you are offline (or even just away from camp, hunting elk, or something).

Probably only form of PvP which would be good in this game would be some kind of tribe wars, which you would have to agree to take part in.
And for this to make sense permadeath should be off for these wars, because PvP wouldn't be fun if it would mean ~60-80% chances that you will loose all your skills, items, etc.
I think just respawning without items, and with major wounds, maybe even some additional penalties (respawn sickness) would do.

I don’t see it would work. Not when the game is turn based. Unless you’re suggesting tanning a rinsed elk skin really takes 8h of real life hours too?

There is a few possible solutions.
1. Duration of all actions can be shortened. But it would change game a lot.
2. Actions are performed only at certain times. Everyone just prepared what they want to have done, and it is waiting. Then when that certain times come, these actions are done, and time is skipped, for all players.
3. But probably the best solution would be just letting the process finish on it's own. I.e. player starts building wall, he can go hunting, and when he comes back the wall is built.

And of course game couldn't be turn based in multiplayer.

Multi player invariably results in sacrifices of single player functionality because they don't work in multi player

Multiplayer and singleplayer mode can be different. A good example is Mount&Blade: Warband. It's a good game, where you start as foreign poor adventurer, you can gather an army, win battles, conquer cities, etc.
Just like in UnrealWorld, type of time flow makes it hard, to make it multiplayer. So they made multiplayer without campaign. You just pick your class, equipment, and take part in battles, sieges, etc. Multiplayer is just something else, and I think it could be done so in UrW.

I have yet to try a multiplayer survival game, that makes me feel as relaxed as this game does. Heck, I can't think of a single game at all, that I can spend so much time in while actually relaxing and enjoying myself all the way.

My feeling is that gaming overall have an extreme focus on competitiveness, effectiveness and grinding for you to beat everyone else. There are always those people who spends the majority of their time getting better than everyone else. I see it in the MOBA I've played for years, a casual CS:GO game, or people actively trying to ruin each others camps in DayZ for example (And I think the communities suffer from this, with extreme toxicity as to ranking and such).

When I come home from an 40 hour working week, I really can't be bothered in the long run to get home to some competitive gaming experience, since I'm already exhausted.

Yeah, I agree with you. But if someone was willing to make multiplayer UrW he can just simply do it without PvP.