Kane's Multiplayer Suggestions and Ideas Thread.

Some of this is kinda silly... Considering it's in a lot of games and would probably be added into Starbound anyway but...

Wow... I'm impressed, not just with your experience but with your suggestion as well.
Also

I noticed should go through and fix it up some, I was all ready to just call this a pointless post because grammar was off and I thought you were some kid who thought he knew something, but than I finished reading it, although I still think your a kid (at heart ) .

 

One thing i heard is that in post game, when modding is added, you will be able to automatically download and install mods while joining a server, then if you go to another server, it will have it back or vanilla (Or to the mods the second server haves).

 

If they put in a system like the above, that would be great as well. Though that may be complicated. I see some mods that simply tweak settings and add things of that sort in games like TF2 and CoDmw but i do not believe iv seen conversion mods operate the same.

I could be wrong, i prefer my games vanilla generally with certain exceptions. (Skyrim, oblivion, minecraft (now anyway))

 

If you mean this system.

They've already stated that this is a planned feature for mod supportability. And it's not that hard, just have the game check with the server database for what it's supposed to do instead of it's own database.

 

Its a bit more difficult than a check. The database has to be setup so that it can offer a mirror to the file (or a direct download off the server) as well as an on-the-fly installation. Which is not easy by any means as some gamers (Like me) dont install to the direct C:\Program Files. Its a bit more difficult to setup an automatic download/setup system when gamers are as varied as color can be with how their systems operate.

I dont know much about programming but i do know that its not that simple. :<

 

First, I must say that Godcraft is an absolutely amazing server. Congratulations on that.

As for the suggestions, they all sound wonderful. But #3 and #5 are definitely my favorites. Whitelisting is one of those things that irritates me to no end. It slows down the process of getting the player into the game, and provides more work for hosts. I really like the idea of being able to change the difficulty of a server. Once a game starts getting too easy for me, I lose interest in it. If I could set the difficulty setting through the roof, I'd be a much happier player.

Thanks again for making such a well-thought out thread. Hope to see you host a Starbound server once it comes out.

 

kane the great

 

Only issue I see with making everything server side is the whole your server needs to be godly thing....and will servers be using tcp or udp connection?

(Also just realized that if it was purely server side, it would be hard to play on different countries servers, as dodging stuff would be incredibly difficult with the delay (since most terraria people hosted on their local machines or hamachi)

Couple of my suggestions from hosting my own servers:

1. Allow multiple access to a chest since this will be client side no duplicating of items will happen
2. Allow purging of redundant objects (empty chests as an example)
3. compress and send map region to client I'm not entirely sure if this happens, as map file itself is definitely not compressed
4. no limitation on values of any kind, where the limitations are set on the server configurations files (except for hard limits on INTs etc...) - example, allow max region monsters X, allow max world monsters X, allow max server monsters X, allow max server tile updates X etc...
5. Server side disabling of certain features items (ie/ terraria - dynamite)
6. and since i cant think of anything else, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NO MORE EXPLODING DOORS.

This statement pretty much is false, you'd have a mod location which would override any default values/images/data inside starbound itself and only upload that across, you wouldn't actually modify the game files that would be silly. It wouldn't matter where you place your game windows knows and thats good enough for any programmer.

 

Great ideas! +1. If they could implement these things it would be great. Plenty of multiplayer options & control right out of the box. May be a chore but it would most definately pay off.

 

Suggestion #7 is already planned, if I'm not mistaken. Good suggestions though! I am either neutral or agree with all of it.

 

I think they should also add some sort of voice chat capability into the game, because it'd make chatting with people in servers a lot easier. Plus, people doing Multiplayer LPs (like I plan to do) wouldn't have to slow down their internet when playing with friends by using external voice chat programs like Skype- which REALLY lags- or Teamspeak, which is still pretty laggy. It's just a suggestion, and probably should go into its own thread, but I thought it'd be better here because this is something people would actually READ.

 

You should make a new thread for that. The developers prefer it.

 

Ok, wonderful ideas man and basically mirror my thoughts about running large servers.

however, I have a side note.
some of us will not be running large servers, so as a request to the devs, please make the "default" state essentially normal Starbound just like singleplayer but with friends, and allow the other stuff as options.
this way someone who just wants a normal starbound game with friends can do so easily and quickly, without spending 30 minutes tediously digging through a config file to disable controls meant for large servers.
(basically, don't do what Minecraft/Terraria did, but certainly don't do the polar opposite either.)

As selfish as this sounds, it should honestly be easier to set up a server for the guy who wants to play with 4 friends, then for the guy who wants to play with 60. Both would be preferable, but it just isn't feasible due to the conflicting needs of both types of group, and the one who wants to play with a few doesn't have enough long term motivation to deal with a massive amount of configuration.


Other side notes:
organize the config by importance of the option, preferably in clearly labeled sections so everything is easy to find. hell, make an actual config UI if you feel like it, just make it easier then the dreaded file crawl that comes with setting up a server.
and... thats all I got for now.

love the idea in general though Kane, brilliant stuff that certainly needed to be said.

 

I'm just gonna add onto what this guy said, which is probably the most important thing.

If every server is hosted individually, then of course the more customization you have for hosting the actual server, the better it will be for everyone. If you had just "standard" host features for the server then it wouldn't last long before everyone gets bored about it, which is why everyone start using programs which are (made to improve the server).

So logically, the more options you have for the individual hosted server, the more user-friendly it is also, the more servers would be enjoyable around the world. It would save people the time to search for server add-ons and twist their mind around all the commands and such.


Just a few examples of "high demand" functions for more serious servers:

• Protected region, point 1 to point 2 protection (Draws a square which protects by User IP etc)

This one is for those who don't want their house or something else "griefed" / "destroyed" by a random player that joined the server. Yes you could go around making a website to avoid such players, but in my honest opinion that is a bit too much for the avarage server hoster.

If this sort of function was focused on, and made to be much easier to deal with, it would be one of the best server options available, it is very high demand.

• Choosing if the server should stay night or day for a longer period of time, or just stay one or the other

Self explanatory, it's about the "atmosphere" of the server, the more options for this the better.

• Server economy, basically a system which balances the players on the server

For this in mind, you would let the players set up their own shops, and set their own prices of what they want to sell. Now- just this would give the server a personal economy, it could be defined by the server host to begin with, or another player which wants to earn money with his character on the particular server.

You might think this one is a waste of time, but it really isn't. What it does is give people in the server more of a reason to gather resources and create their own unique weapons etc. Not only for themselves at this point, but also to gain profit and to become noticed on the server for their efforts.


Thanks for reading my post, glad to share my point of view on this subject.

 

thats one hell of information, but i agree with you. there cant be enough detail. take you time but sometimes we want more details and configuration and admin stuff.

 

You deserve a sandwich

 

And a cookie

 

Third party anti-cheat apps do not play well with games that support, let alone encourage, modding. And for the love of all that is holy do NOT let that crapware punkbuster anywhere near this game. The intrusive HD scans looking for "cheating software" whether its running or not (some of us DO have legitimate use for dev tools, folks) and the jarhead attitude towards "cheating punks", PB and its crew are just another bunch of griefers in my book.

Seriously, whitelist/blocklist options, along with the option to force new characters, are sufficient. And the "protect X range of coordinates by account", along with a client side mute list, is an absolute brickwall to griefers.

On the protected areas though, if there is going to be anything in this game for a clan/guild/fleet system, setting up areas that are fleet only would be awesome. A completely custom place, call it a guild hall, fleet HQ, whatever... but it is something that is pretty much unheard of in online games.

 

I would very much hope that the way multiplayer will work is that the players character data is stored on the server side so players cannot join into a multiplayer world with their single player character.

This is what killed Terraria for me.. Once people could hack items easily there was no point in play on a server unless make private. But even then people could just log off. Go SMP. Inv Edit. Log back into server. Game Ruined.. :/

 

Okay I haven't read all the posts but if this has already been said but there should either be characters blocked by server (single player, public multiplayer) or at the very least, an inventory per server for the players. This would stop most of the cheating.