How do you WANT multiplayer to work?

Rather recently I've been wondering about the endless possibilities that multiplayer can hold, more specifically, HOW will it work. So I've come up with some ideas that i think would be cool, but probably never possible.

1. A universal 'game' everyone is connected to one game, at one point. So you can literally play with thousands of other players, create factions inside that 'super server' and go to war with other people, populate planets as your faction becomes more popular, conquer other factions.

2. A 'no distance limit' game. (this one is more possible) this idea is pretty simple, you and the people your playing with don't have to be near each other. e.g Person A is mining a rare mineral on planet Zeta while player B is building a base on planet Alpha.

3. a 'Single-player-multiplayer'. The way this works is that you can see people that you might have on your friends list, but they will appear as 'Ghosts' in the background of your game, and they can 'hop in' to your game by clicking on you, as you can do the same to them, (if they allow you to join). I believe that this can make multiplayer feel more real, so you don't have to go back to the title screen if you want to join your buddy for a few minutes.

Got your own impossible but awesome sounding ideas? then let me know!

(i put this in General discussion rather than suggestions because these are ideas that are very unlikely to happen.)

 

I think 1 would turn this more into an MMO than a sandbox adventure. Number 2 already exists or is planned for the game where players on the same server can be on different planets. I think... I feel about 90% sure that they already said that multiplayer will work like that. Number 3 reminds me of Fable, or Fable 2 (the only one I played), where you could enable or disable these orbs that show where people are and you could interact with them or set them to only see friends or none at all and set who's allowed to join. You could also gift people things with it.

Anyways, the way I want multiplayer to work is less of a system, but more of a people problem. I want the multiplayer to work where people played legit, encouraged legit playing, or at least didn't just hand out awesome stuff or a lot of stuff to random people or anyone who asked. It totally ruined my multiplayer experience in Terraria where everyone on every server has awesome stuff or gets the awesome stuff from someone else or spawning. Or maybe a little bit of both where the admins just spawn stuff to give to people. Then everyone just fucks around and kills things not really playing a large part the game which was getting things and progressing. Then, there's the griefers and hackers. Obviously everybody wants multiplayer to not have any of those around.

 

^This
I've had too many griefing issues on servers with only like 10 people on it.
Private whitelist servers are much more efficient these days.

 

I think 1 and 2 should already be possible in the game. The first option would require the server to have a large amount of bandwidth, but Chucklefish has stated that there will be no artificial player limits on the servers. As for 2, I don't see why there would be any restrictions about movement in multiplayer. Each player is free to fly to any planet with their own ship independent of anyone else.

Point 3 is definitely more complex. I don't see that happening myself but it could be interesting. It reminds me a bit of Dead Island where the game notifies you when you're near another player in the game world and you can press a key to join them. You can't actually see them in that game though.

 

(useless derail post. Ignore it and resume your lives)

 

Okay, back on topic.

Another thing I wanted to point out was the devs said they were going to use Steam to it's full potential.
I know in steam tools there are dedicated server softwares that you can directly download to you client.

Do we have to host in-game or will there be an external program (Or both, like terraria did).

 

I think what lags servers the most for me is because running Steam, Skype, The Server, and occasionally Chrome tend to tax my bandwith to hell.
But if Starbound can run on potato-powered internet then that should not be an issue.

 

Never played fable 3 or 2, i never liked the art style, first one was a good game though. And sorry about not knowing that number 2 already exists....i like to keep myself in the dark and when the game comes out it feels a load more cooler/awesome.

I didn't say anything about having to play in these types of games, they are just some ideas i thought up. and again, i keep myself in the dark so the game feels so much better. Thanks for your opinion. It's good to know what other people think.

 

I'd prefer it if Starbound's multiplayer was composed of small, private servers rather than big MMO style servers.

 

In addition to private community servers made for multiplayer, I'd like to be able to invite friends into my single player game.

 

1 and 3 are absolute no. 1 would make it an MMO, so It would be hard to get a planet all to yourself, 3 would be VERY annoying, because the "ghosts" could be extremely annoying if you don't want them, and if you want to play with a friend you would have to track your friend down who could be very far away, and/or doing something like standing in the middle of a hill they destroyed, but is still-intact on your game, so you couldn't even get to them either way.

2 is pretty much the way it works, and is the best way.

 

I wish it were a kind of in-game server. Whereas each server is a universe/galaxy that you can join from some super giant teleportramutilizurlatorinator.

 

1. would only be something i could stand, if there are so many planets, that its hard to find other players.
3. = Nope. This would just be annoying.

I'd be mostly okay with 2.

 

1. No Thankyou!
2.Yes Please!
3. SO MANY GHOSTS!

 

Okay, so I've changed some of the ideas I've came up with around a bit.

1. instead of a "global server" how about "linked" servers? This idea is similar to the first one, but different in the sense that your not in a massive "global server". it works like this; All the servers that you've been on, lets say, a Role-playing server, a PvP server and a free-build server, are "connected" but at the same time not. So when you go back to your "HQ" you can use a computer (playing starbound while playing on a computer in starbound. computer?) That allows you to go to different planets, galaxy's, etc. but not in the same "game" that your in, so you could hop between servers while still being in the game.

3.With the ghosts idea, how about selecting people you know well? via steam? so that when your best buddy is playing on his single player world and needs your help, so you can get to him quickly? instead of having to go back to the title screen and by that time he could be dead.


Also, i see people talking about my ideas, but does anyone have their own opinions on how they think multiplayer should work? even if it is an impossible idea?

 

Silly people, this game will involve breaking huge chunks of terrain and building, any sort of background playing would be ridiculous. I remember playing as a glitched ghost in terraria, freaking out people with my corpse's wallhax

 

I know, these are just some ideas that i came up with and wanted to know what people thought of them. And to see if people had their own ideas that they thought would be good. This thread is just supposed to be about ideas that would be fun, but never possible.

 

As long as servers can be set to use server-side characters only, I'm fine with anything of those mechanics.

 

#1 isn't bad. (In the original post.)

However, it is GODAWFUL if it isn't the game's gimmick. Planetside 2 isn't ruined by continuous multiplayer because that's its thing. It does that.

Starbound would be. If there's one thing I don't want any more of, it's "Must-be-online" gameplay. It has been HORRIBLE in every game that had single player it was tried in, and it would be horrible here.

Also, multiplayer is already confirmed to work one way, why suggest different things? Work within the rules you know exist, anything else is insanity.

 

This actually makes it SLOWER.

What if your friend is in a far away world? You could take an hour to try to find his/her planet with no reference as to where he/she is, or just quickly save and quit to the title screen and join in with the multiplayer options while your friend quickly teleports back to ship or pauses their game.