Multiplayer in Starbound vs Multiplayer in Terraria

Given that the game is gonna be on steam at some point, it'd be nice if it gets enough steam integration to be able to do the neat join game thing that you can do via steam friends list. Beyond that, it's probably tricky to come up with a system simpler than "insert address, provide password if required, connect to server." Maybe a server list type thing, but then they'd need to have a master server to track all that stuff, and that's an ongoing cost to keep it running.

 

Some people can't like if you live in a dorm or whoever controls the router refuses to let you make changes and will not make them for you.

I believe right now they are using a protocol (like Upnp and/or nat-pmp) to try and get around it since they are on by default in most cases and do the port-forwarding.

PS: I do port-forward since I do have access to the router at my house. But not the one on campus.

 

You make a good point. I've never lived in a dorm so I didn't think of that.

 

Multiplayer in starbound should be a lot more public. A server list would be great, and you could password the server if you didnt want people to join.

 

The main issue I have with Terraria multiplayer is there is no way to save progress on a world when playing alone at different times. To fix this I built an app and a web service called World Share. It basically allows people to share world development when other people are not around. While it was annoying to setup a second account system, once setup you could share your worlds with others. So, my friend could play in the morning and make changes to the world. In the evening I could open the same world and see his changes and work on it myself. Finally, in the late evening we play multiplayer on the same world. Basically we wanted an asynchronous world development when we are not online at the same time.

World Share was made as a launcher for Terraria. The launcher then lists the worlds that you have shared (or you can add a new one). If someone is online and using that world it is indicated and shows you the IP. You can then launch Terraria from the app and join their game. Otherwise the world is "unlocked" and the launcher will fire up a server on your machine for that world. This could be done pretty easily with something like dropbox, thus negating the need for web hosting (not sure about their terms of service).

In no way do I expect Starbound to have something similar, but it was the most annoying thing my friends and I ran into with multiplayer Terraria. We didn't want to run a dedicated server and this was a fairly easy solution which required no technical understanding by those using it.

Note:
I never released World Share and I am not actively developing it further as our Terraria group has moved on to other games.

 

I'm guessing the reason you didn't want a dedicated server was system resources? Seems a rather elaborate setup to go through to get around having one.

 

For those using the service it was really simple and not intrusive to playing the game (other than setting up the initial account). It was basically just a file edit locking system, expect that if someone is online you can join in on their editing. It was fairly easy to setup, I built it in a day or two.

 

It still seems odd to go through the effort of making your app so you don't need to run a dedicated server, when you could have just run a dedicated server and been done with it a day or two sooner. I'm sure it was a breeze once it was set up, but you still had to sit there and set it up and make sure it works.

 

Port forwarding is tricky in some cases and is strange in some ways (or simply impossible living in a dorm). I prefer very much the solution of just a click on a program to play with my friends via virtual lan. However, I stopped using Hamachi because it got ridiculous and found a nice neet little program called Wippien. I can really recommend that for anyone who has trouble with port forwarding.

 

Couldn't you just go into the folder where it saves the world files and share them with each other online?

You'd just need to find a site that will allow something with that specific file's size and extension.

 

If I'm understanding the rest of his post properly, what he did was write an app to automatically do that, as well as be able to tell you if one of the other people with the app is running a (non-dedicated) server, so you can join it to keep the mapfiles from desyncing.