ehm.. oni multiplayer

[lee1026]

Factorio multi-player is remarkably popular, and that happens over essentially shared control over a base.

[Yunru]

No, it's shared base-building with individual characters.

There is no player avatar in ONI like in Factorio.

[lee1026]

After the opening, the importance of the player avatar in factorio drops dramatically; after a while, it is the bots that do all the work.

[Steve8]

You can't directly control bots. They do their own thing. You can directly control dupes, which would cause issues 

[Gurgel]

7 hours ago, lee1026 said:

Factorio multi-player is remarkably popular, and that happens over essentially shared control over a base.

I have no problem seeing that. But Factorio has a fundamentally different control principle than ONI.

[tuxii]

I think multiplayer ONI could be fun and make the game more accessible. If I hosted a game on my computer and had a friend or 2(maybe) remotely connect, they could play ONI off their potato computers and still get reasonable gameplay because my computer can handle ONI.

Each player starts on their own asteroid and they own their own asteroid.  Players need to give the "invader" permission to do anything on in their home asteroid.  I think this could work like Rimworld zoning, where a player can dezone part of their home asteroid so they can entertain guests.

Players can only control dupes they printed/defrosted.  Door access could be modified to only allow your dupes through by default, so another player can only take your resources if you have no doors or you let them in.

Non-home asteroids could be a free-for-all.

For game speed make it so the host sets the speed for all and anyone can pause to avert a disaster.

Nevermind me I'm just rambling on again.

[Astrologic]

Yeah, oni multiplayer would probably be a lot like factorio after bots are unlocked.  You lay down the blueprints (tasks) and wait for the bots (dupes) to fulfill those tasks.
It works in factorio just fine, and that's extremely fun.
 

9 hours ago, Yunru said:

No, it's shared base-building with individual characters.

There is no player avatar in ONI like in Factorio.

You don't NEED an avatar for an online game.  Think of all the RTS games that exist, starcraft, age of empires, some other game I don't remember.
There are many examples of online games in which your "player" is essentially a command issuing overseer.
Oni is no different.  You just need your own set of units that follow only your command.  That's what makes it fun.
That's why I suggested player specific task lists.  Right now, there's a global task list that dupes pull tasks from.
You'd just need to bind that task list to player 1, and then replicate it for player 2.  
Have human-looking dupes for player 1, alien-looking dupes for player 2.  (or maybe different shirt colors or something)
Start them off on different planetoids, give them a deactivated teleporter between their worlds, and let the players work it out.

Will they merge their colony?  Will they build separate colonies and trade resources?  Will they compete for resources, blocking access to geysers and ultimately try to kill one another, or race to the tear?
Saying it can't be done is ridiculous.  Saying it wouldn't be fun is also ridiculous.
"It's a sandbox game, it shouldn't be multiplayer" - yeah exactly, imagine if minecraft was an online game.  That'd be SOO boring, right?
How could you ever sync up the graphics of the cows and sheep and stuff?
Oni has so much more information than minecraft, think of all those 2D tiles!
Or the power grid and automation (which factorio has both of, and works with multiplayer just fine)
I mean, yeah it's just beyond the realm of possibility obviously.  >.>

There is no unique aspect of ONI which would render multiplayer infeasible.  As for the speed control / pause, that would require some compromise, where players can choose between disabling pausing, both agreeing to pausing, or both being able to pause/unpause freely (if you have a competent friend this would work).
As for the speed control, you could either keep it at the first speed, or do fast forward requests where both players must agree to speeding up the game.
It's not rocket science.
Speaking of rockets, you could assign crew from both players.  Check the other player's dupes in the rocket list, then they'd have to also check their dupes in the rocket list.  If they are checked for both players, then when the rocket is ready to launch, all the crew will enter the rocket.
It's all fine.

I don't think I'm understanding the imaginary thing that's preventing multiplayer from being feasible in ONI.
Is it because the game is played over countless cycles?  A game that might take a few days IRL to be satisfied with a colony?  Is that the issue?
Is it that people here can't imagine how to program it?  How to share things?  Is it because the endgame is just a meaningless dead-end when you enter the tear and nothing happens?

When people say the game would need to be reconstructed from scratch, why?
You already have dupes following commands, just create another list of commands.
You already have resources, seeds, planetoids, all these things.
recreating the game from nothing in hopes to implement a working multiplayer is absurd.
All the pieces are already there!  Like I said, you'd need a remote viewport, and that'd be the trickiest element, not by any means impossible.
The question isn't "can it be done?"  It's more "should it be done, and how can it be done effectively?"
I think it should be done.  No game ever became more successful by removing optional features. (emphasis on optional)

The more different ways to play, the better.  Klei knows this, otherwise you wouldn't have so many different starting options.
I can think of about a dozen people I would absolutely LOVE to play oni with.  I'd imagine if multiplayer did come to ONI, the discord would get a #multiplayer channel where players could invite each other to games.

There's so much possibility.

Pros:
- play with friends / family
- learn and teach others in real time
- more ways to play, cooperative, competitive, or a combination.
- more popularity for ONI
- easier to get your friends / family into the game you love, to share common interests
- more popularity for the discord server
- single player mode unaffected
- make friends

Cons:
- it would take a bit of time to develop.
- It might lower FPS if you're playing with someone who has either a slow connection, or a crappy system (play with someone who has a better pc)
- you might not use it, and prefer the single player experience.

So I mean, the pros far outweigh the cons, any argument you could make AGAINST multiplayer can be negated by the mere fact that you don't HAVE TO USE IT if it's implemented.  There's no real valid reason not to implement it, either than they might not want to.
That's ultimately their choice of course, they are the developers.  I just don't believe it has much chance of hurting the game, not unless someone wants to play multiplayer, thinks it sucks and quits, but such people wouldn't have been likely to get into single player ONI either, so it's still not really a loss.

Of course, I do think that the base game and DLC need a bit of polishing before such a thing could be genuinely considered.  There are still crashes with rocketry and such, I'm sure there's more being planned as well.  

If I were a Klei developer, I'd honestly create a multiplayer mod, (or beta) - release that, get feedback, and go from there.
At least that way, if something goes horribly wrong, it's expected and provides crucial feedback, and no one could say it's a broken feature, cause it wouldn't really be part of the game at that stage.


- I will admit there are a lot of large numbers when it comes to liquids and gases and germs, for multiplayer purposes, it might be better if those numbers were a little more rounded. 
Honestly, I thought that way for a long time, as it'd really improve performance for single player.  Maybe that could be a starting option.

[Yunru]

5 hours ago, Astrologic said:

I don't think I'm understanding the imaginary thing that's preventing multiplayer from being feasible in ONI.

The primary one is it's a low-value feature while also being a major development time sink. 

 

And counter to common opinion, development time isn't infinite, it's a scarce resource that should be carefully assigned. 

[NeoDeusMachina]

22 minutes ago, Yunru said:

The primary one is it's a low-value feature while also being a major development time sink. 

 

And counter to common opinion, development time isn't infinite, it's a scarce resource that should be carefully assigned. 

It's getting a bit old to be honest. If and when Klei decides to assign funds and man-hour to develop any aspect of the game (new features, bug fixes, new DLC, new game, whatever) it is their own business, not ours, no matter how much of a time sink it is. It doesn't mean we cannot talk about a topic or brainstorm about old or new gameplay mechanics/concepts. The whole "it costs money and time" argument is pretty meaningless on a forum where -players- are discussing their ideas, it brings nothing to the table, it is only appears as a way to shut off a discussion (who are you to do that really?). Last time I checked, anyone was free to express their opinions and ideas on this forum. Thanks for sharing your opinions about the topic btw, they matter as much as anyone else's. But please, others can also do the same, whether you agree or not.

I believe it belongs to Klei to decide what is and isn't a low-value feature, a development time sink, what they can or can't afford to work on, what they want or don't want to work on, when they want to do so, etc.

[Yunru]

1 hour ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

I believe it belongs to Klei to decide what is and isn't a low-value feature, a development time sink, what they can or can't afford to work on, what they want or don't want to work on, when they want to do so, etc.

Yes, and they've stated from the start that Multiplayer isn't one of the things they'll be working on. That's how common this is.

[Gurgel]

7 hours ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

It's getting a bit old to be honest.

Well, pretty hard facts have that tendency. They do not really change. The smart thing is to accept them and move on.

I do understand that for non-experts it is pretty difficult to understand what is being asked for. That does apply to software in general and is one of the reasons we have so much bad and insecure software in the world: Many, many people believing software is far easier than it actually is. In reality, the complexities are very high, the engineering is not well understood and hence any major change comes with a very real risk not only of failure of that change, but of failure of the whole project and sometimes bankruptcy for the company behind it.

These risks are real. I am not using hyperbole to make a point. The history of software engineering is full of examples. The question of ONI multiplayer is even harder: This would not only be a major redesign and may well require a reimplementation (so we are talking a few years elapsed time of effort where nothing else gets added to ONI), it also comes with a real risk that the result does not work well or that it is not fun and people look at it for a few hours and that is it. 

[babba]

As a first iteration it could be Co-Op...Two player game play. Perhaps as ONi2 title ( I would prefer to have ONi1 developed "forever" ) or even as a Co-Op DLC...tied in with new 2 player intended game play features.

I really hope they will work further years on the game, in 10 years we will have great CPU`s with superfat l1/l2/l3 caches

8GB level3 cpu cache would be great Like in the year 2077 playing ONI

That means I need to get around 100 years old - Maybe I`m blind by then.

[DolphinWing]

24 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

The history of software engineering is full of examples.

Not far away The Big Merge and A Breath of Fresh Air not just solve a lot of issues but also create many new problems. 

I just want to say Go Klei we're with you! 

[NeoDeusMachina]

16 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

Well, pretty hard facts have that tendency. They do not really change. The smart thing is to accept them and move on.

I do understand that for non-experts it is pretty difficult to understand what is being asked for. That does apply to software in general and is one of the reasons we have so much bad and insecure software in the world: Many, many people believing software is far easier than it actually is. In reality, the complexities are very high, the engineering is not well understood and hence any major change comes with a very real risk not only of failure of that change, but of failure of the whole project and sometimes bankruptcy for the company behind it.

These risks are real. I am not using hyperbole to make a point. The history of software engineering is full of examples. The question of ONI multiplayer is even harder: This would not only be a major redesign and may well require a reimplementation (so we are talking a few years elapsed time of effort where nothing else gets added to ONI), it also comes with a real risk that the result does not work well or that it is not fun and people look at it for a few hours and that is it. 

My comment was not about ONI multiplayer, but about the overall repressive attitude displayed by that poster. As I have said before, I am not personally interested in ONI multiplayer, I am not defending the idea, especially not in a coop version with shared control of a colony. But I do believe people can talk about it all they want without being (im)politely invited to stop talking, even if it was discussed before. If people are not interested in talking or reading about it again, they can "move on" to the next topic and let others talk about it if they want to.

When I read some posts, it almost sounds like some people posting here are member of the executive board at Klei. What do we know of their -current- thoughts on the idea or any other idea posted on the forums for that matter? Is it possible that companies have changed stance over years of operation in the past?

Pointing out technical difficulties in doing something is one thing, and I respect that. Using it as a way of closing a topic, no so much. I did not get the impression that anyone here was asking Klei to stop developing ONI + SO and start working on a multiplayer option today. I do get that this would be a long term project and have potentially great risks, but what is the harm in letting others discuss it if they want to? That is the part I don't get.

[Gurgel]

29 minutes ago, DolphinWing said:

Not far away The Big Merge and A Breath of Fresh Air not just solve a lot of issues but also create many new problems. 

I just want to say Go Klei we're with you! 

Very much. These things have to be done carefully.

[babba]

10 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

Very much. These things have to be done carefully.

Somehow the Klei forum icon hooked me with the red heart "Valve"

...After 10 minutes the multiplayer penny dropped in my brain !

Halflife ! Must be good multiplayer Omen for ONI Halflife was all about positivity and ended in cuddly Counterstrike.

[Gurgel]

1 hour ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

Pointing out technical difficulties in doing something is one thing, and I respect that. Using it as a way of closing a topic, no so much.

As an engineer you just see that some things are not within reach and will not get within reach in any useful time-frame. Seeing people asking for such things and claiming that these are obviously easy or non-problematic to do grates. It basically says we have no clue. And hence we speak up about the actual nature of reality here. This is not "shut up" though. This is "you know you are discussing a fantasy, right?". Also note that a core goal of engineering training is to make people "see what is" because, you know, engineers as individuals can do incredible damage if they fail to do that. Ordinary people no so much. 

Edit: That said, engineers and scientists also have a moral duty to educate the public and part of that happens in discussions in forums such as this one. Sure, sometimes the ideas are so outlandish (for example: "Mars colony in 10 years" or "The covid vaccine can turn you into a crocodile") that there is obviously no point in pointing out the complete disconnect from reality. But the discussions here are not of that nature, because the complexities and pitfalls of software are just not obvious even to an educated and smart person, because software as an engineering discipline is still in a very early stage of its evolution. Things are rather primitive at this time and what can be done is first restricted by technological feasibility, then by budget and time and available skill, and only then by creativity. Quite a lot of things get promised to the public, but it is not even known whether they are possible at all (true AI, Quantum Computing, just to name two examples) and claims of fundamental breakthroughs that are anything but abound. This is both an exciting and a frustrating phase and it will continue for at the very least for a few decades.

[NeoDeusMachina]

33 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

As an engineer you just see that some things are not within reach and will not get within reach in any useful time-frame. Seeing people asking for such things and claiming that these are obviously easy or non-problematic to do grates. It basically says we have no clue. And hence we speak up about the actual nature of reality here. This is not "shut up" though. This is "you know you are discussing a fantasy, right?". Also note that a core goal of engineering training is to make people "see what is" because, you know, engineers as individuals can do incredible damage if they fail to do that. Ordinary people no so much. 

Your original reply made me genuinely laugh - no disrespect intended - the edited version even more so. I understand all that, and I agree that reading comments not backed up by anything really meaningful can be grating, which is ironic in this case. Moving on 

[pether]

14 hours ago, Gurgel said:

"The covid vaccine can turn you into a crocodile"

Just for the record - I had the vaccine and I can't see any scales... So yeah, turns out the vaccine idea was one big lie and waste of time

[Yunru]

21 hours ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

My comment was not about ONI multiplayer, but about the overall repressive attitude displayed by that poster. As I have said before, I am not personally interested in ONI multiplayer, I am not defending the idea, especially not in a coop version with shared control of a colony. But I do believe people can talk about it all they want without being (im)politely invited to stop talking, even if it was discussed before. If people are not interested in talking or reading about it again, they can "move on" to the next topic and let others talk about it if they want to.

I'll thank you not to assign your own implications to my words, especially incorrect ones.

 

I'm not saying "we can't discuss this", I'm saying "this is why it won't get discussed."

[arvenil]

Would love to see ONI Together, aka shared control of the same base. ONI Multiplayer seems rather unlikely, because of the challenges of what to do when one player disconnects (ok, maybe both players start on their own planets and if one disconnects the other can take a control of your base - still sketchy). In any case ONI Together is like first step, a base, to even talk about ONI multiplayer. I'm curious how many people look for something like building base together vs building separate bases - maybe a pool?