True LAN Coop - Proposition

[Crynux]

To the whole modding team:

 

This is so exciting. A couple of friends and me are waiting for this mod to get done. Its really nice to see that you are making so much progress in a very short period of time.

 

Keep up the great work and much thanks for doing this.

 

Thank you for the support!

 

 

May I ask, when a proper video can be done? I mean I am a very cautious guy and well words are only words to me.

 

I had been thinking about making one really soon. However, I'm not sure if showing two screen-captures side by side would suffice. I want to record it with my phone or something, showing the 2 phyical computers.

 

There has been somewhat of a delay with the mod though. I have a emergency in my family; and will return to my place on Wednesday. I should then be able to start on the mod again, as I've left everything on my computer at home.

 

Thanks again to all,

-Crynux

[Shef]

If you manage to make this mod work, I will worship you. Me and my friends know how hard it is and wanted you to know that we appreciate this thing you're doing. Hope everything goes well with your family.

[Crynux]

If you manage to make this mod work, I will worship you. Me and my friends know how hard it is and wanted you to know that we appreciate this thing you're doing. Hope everything goes well with your family.

 

Hello, and thank you for the kind words and support.

 

I'm back home now, and intend on getting back to work on the mod quite soon. Additionally, I intend on uploading a video of gameplay soon... even though there is much to finish and syncrhonize.

 

-Crynux

[Zeklo]

How exactly is/will sanity be handled?

[Crynux]

How exactly is/will sanity be handled?

 

Just as it is in a normal game. Sanity will not be synced, as you cannot see someones hallucinations in real life anyway. Additionally, creatures that appear due to sanity will not be synced, however any drops they drop when killed will be synced.

 

We also have a concept of group sanity... if you have another player around you, you will get a small increase in sanity over a period of time. The same can be said if you witness a player die, you will lose a chunk of sanity. However, this is just an idea for now, and will likely be implemented quite late in development if it's decided to keep it. What do you think?

[Zeklo]

Just as it is in a normal game. Sanity will not be synced, as you cannot see someones hallucinations in real life anyway. Additionally, creatures that appear due to sanity will not be synced, however any drops they drop when killed will be synced.

 

We also have a concept of group sanity... if you have another player around you, you will get a small increase in sanity over a period of time. The same can be said if you witness a player die, you will lose a chunk of sanity. However, this is just an idea for now, and will likely be implemented quite late in development if it's decided to keep it. What do you think?

Sounds great although my one concern is... the shadow hands. I mean that might be a little strange if one person is insane and your not and suddenly you fire starts to be put out. I think that would make me feel insane .

 

Anyway do you have any plans on adding a feature where every player spawns in a different edge of the world and they have to reunite? So you would be forced to survive on your own for a little while? I mean this doesn't have to be the only choice, just something you can decide to choose when creating a world. I'm just spewing out ideas and not thinking of how difficult it would be.

[Crynux]

Sounds great although my one concern is... the shadow hands. I mean that might be a little strange if one person is insane and your not and suddenly you fire starts to be put out. I think that would make me feel insane .

 

Anyway do you have any plans on adding a feature where every player spawns in a different edge of the world and they have to reunite? So you would be forced to survive on your own for a little while? I mean this doesn't have to be the only choice, just something you can decide to choose when creating a world. I'm just spewing out ideas and not thinking of how difficult it would be.

 

For early versions of the mod, I think we're just going to disable shadow hands. However, there is another way you could look at shadow hands to make the situation you mentioned more plausible. Since we will likely have some sort of group sanity bonus, you could simply say that the person who is insane is just hallucinationg, when to everyone else... the fire was simply blown out by the wind. Though it wouldn't make sense for large fires to go out instantly... it would have to be really windy.

 

Spawn position at the moment is not server controlled. Additionally... players will not be able to create a world in early versions of the mod. All of the mobs/items/etc have to be served via the server on connect. To do this, I create a world, extract the prefab info from it, and then format that prefab info in a way that the server can understand it.

 

When a beta version of the mod is released, it will include a savegame for players to load while connecting to the server. There are other plans for methods of creating/getting maps, but at the moment, there will only be one for simplicity.

 

It should be mentioned, in case I hadn't mentioned before, that the mod will not be available via steam. The linux version will require an additional binary, and I'm not sure if savegames can be installed via steam... so it will be a non-steam mod.

 

EDIT: I wanted to give some kind of recent development update. The image below is what the current test map looks like in the servers view. The image is a realtime image of the map... similar to the ingame map. There are 2 squares (I know, really creative)... that represent the current players inagme. All other green dots are prefabs extracted from the test map save data, in which have been served to the players ingame from the server.

 

 

Thanks for your questions

-Crynux

[InaneDugong]

To the whole modding team:

 

This is so exciting. A couple of friends and me are waiting for this mod to get done. Its really nice to see that you are making so much progress in a very short period of time.

 

Keep up the great work and much thanks for doing this.

This. My girlfriend and I are anticipating your mod very enthusiastically. 

 

And thanks for the work. 

[Crynux]

This. My girlfriend and I are anticipating your mod very enthusiastically. 

 

And thanks for the work. 

 

Thank you for the support. Today we've managed to get the first step in animation synchronization done. We plan to create some sort of video tonight, showing the base of the mod, what works, and what's left to be done. I'd expect a video demonstration soon!

 

-Crynux

[InaneDugong]

Thank you for the support. Today we've managed to get the first step in animation synchronization done. We plan to create some sort of video tonight, showing the base of the mod, what works, and what's left to be done. I'd expect a video demonstration soon!

 

-Crynux

 

Sounds very exciting. Will stay tuned to catch the release. 

 

Jeez, this project certainly is skyrocketing forward! Really, projects like this are quite the inspiration to communities. I'm sure many people will come to thank you and your team in due time. At the very least, I hope it makes for a good port folio for yourself. 

[Crynux]

Sounds very exciting. Will stay tuned to catch the release. 

 

Jeez, this project certainly is skyrocketing forward! Really, projects like this are quite the inspiration to communities. I'm sure many people will come to thank you and your team in due time. At the very least, I hope it makes for a good port folio for yourself. 

 

Thank you for the support!

 

Here's a video we made yesterday, and just finished uploading today. It isn't much, but you can see what we have so far. Sorry for the lag in the recordings. Enjoy!

 

 

-Crynux

[jbeetle]

hopefully you keep up support unlike pretty much every other attempt from other modders. I really want pro-multiplayer people to have their mod.

[InaneDugong]

Holy meatballs, that's amazing! I'm seriously excited to be able to play this game with my girlfriend. Bless you, Crynux - and let your family and camels live prosperously. 

[Zeklo]

Wow, looking really good, can't wait!

[Crynux]

hopefully you keep up support unlike pretty much every other attempt from other modders. I really want pro-multiplayer people to have their mod.

I plan to.

 

 

Holy meatballs, that's amazing! I'm seriously excited to be able to play this game with my girlfriend. Bless you, Crynux - and let your family and camels live prosperously. 

Lol camels...

 

 

Wow, looking really good, can't wait!

Thanks!

 

 

Anyways... as somewhat of an update for today.

 

-Maxwell intro has been removed... it no longer plays when you start the game. The reason it was happening is because whenever I restart the server, the time gets set back to 0, for everything.

 

-Trees, flowers, and all other ground-things have the same look across all clients. Additionally... the tree animation while chopping, along with the sound of chopping are synced.

 

-I've continued work on item drop synchronization. Currently anything that spawns on the ground is syncrhonized (flint, seeds, etc). It shouldn't be long before other drops are synchronized too. It's been decided to make all loot server-spawned; ensuring synchronization acrosss clients.

 

Besides that, I'll be sure to keep updating as we progress. The current focus is synchronization of items/structures and player animations. The focus after that will be mob movement, then likely mob animations.

 

Lastly, I was wondering if there is anyone who would like to do some drawing for our mod. I'd like to have some kind of logo or banner, but I'm not good at drawing. If you're interested, just make note here in a reply, or send me a PM.

 

Thanks again to everyone for the support ,

Crynux

[vonis22]

Thank you for the support!

 

Here's a video we made yesterday, and just finished uploading today. It isn't much, but you can see what we have so far. Sorry for the lag in the recordings. Enjoy!

 

 

-Crynux

MAN this looks so awesome, even without the full sync's... Keep up the good work man, can't believe you already got so far as you did right now! When do you plan on releasing a open beta? 

 

Heavily Supporting you bro!

[Crynux]

MAN this looks so awesome, even without the full sync's... Keep up the good work man, can't believe you already got so far as you did right now! When do you plan on releasing a open beta? 

 

Heavily Supporting you bro!

 

Hey, thanks for the compliments and support!

 

Regarding an open beta... there is no concrete date yet. There's still quite a bit of synchronization left to do, and I would like to get it to the point where you can actually play with other people... and survive, before releasing a beta.

 

With that said, keep in mind that I'm a university student, and at the moment we're nearing exam time... so I'll only have a little bit of time for serious development in this last bit of March, as most of April will be study and Examination.

 

For the summer, however I will be working, which should mean that I'll have even more development time then I have now.

 

But generally, I want to finish all item synchronization and drops... in addition to mob movement. Once that's done, then there will most likely be a beta.

 

Thanks again to all,

Crynux

[Crynux]

Hello All,

 

Just thought I'd give an update, so here it is.

 

I spent most of the weekend working on item and inventory synchronization. As of this moment, all loot in the game (if I haven't missed any, which it's likely I have) is server-spawned. That is, if you chop down a tree, or attack a mob, the loot comes from the server, and other players see it just as you do.

 

In addition, any intractable such as berry bushes, saplings, etc, have their loot spawned from the server.

 

Aside from that, as you may have noticed in the first comment on synchronization, mob health is now synced.

 

All loot dropped is stored on the server, so even if the server restarts, it will still be there, unless a player takes it.

 

Regarding other parts of the mod... for the beta, it has been decided that we will likely use some sort of button interface for communication, rather than a chat. There would be about 12 or so messages you can choose from to send. This is quicker to implement... and in addition adds anonymity to other players you play with on the server. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Another question I have... at the moment there isn't any type of login to the server, or user accounts. So when you disconnect, we need to decide what to do with your inventory.

 

There are 3 options as I see it at the moment.

1. Create some sort of password locked player chest. It would be built like other structures, and would have enough slots to store your entire inventory.
2. Just delete everything, or drop everything on the ground, as if the player had died.
3. Have some sort of character-persistence. Characters keep their inventory, rather than players. So if you play as Wilson and quit the game, then when another player connects and spawns as Wilson, they will have all the stuff you had, and so on.

Which of the above do you like more? If none, do you have any suggestions?

 

I hope to get more synchronization done today, as the rest of the week will be quite busy. If not, I'll at least do some testing.

 

Thanks again to all,

Crynux

[Zeklo]

As for connecting and reconnecting I would prefer the data to be stored on the character rather than anything else. Anyway great to hear progress is being made!

[InaneDugong]

Hello All,

 

Just thought I'd give an update, so here it is.

 

I spent most of the weekend working on item and inventory synchronization. As of this moment, all loot in the game (if I haven't missed any, which it's likely I have) is server-spawned. That is, if you chop down a tree, or attack a mob, the loot comes from the server, and other players see it just as you do.

 

In addition, any intractable such as berry bushes, saplings, etc, have their loot spawned from the server.

 

Aside from that, as you may have noticed in the first comment on synchronization, mob health is now synced.

 

All loot dropped is stored on the server, so even if the server restarts, it will still be there, unless a player takes it.

 

Regarding other parts of the mod... for the beta, it has been decided that we will likely use some sort of button interface for communication, rather than a chat. There would be about 12 or so messages you can choose from to send. This is quicker to implement... and in addition adds anonymity to other players you play with on the server. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Another question I have... at the moment there isn't any type of login to the server, or user accounts. So when you disconnect, we need to decide what to do with your inventory.

 

There are 3 options as I see it at the moment.

1. Create some sort of password locked player chest. It would be built like other structures, and would have enough slots to store your entire inventory.
2. Just delete everything, or drop everything on the ground, as if the player had died.
3. Have some sort of character-persistence. Characters keep their inventory, rather than players. So if you play as Wilson and quit the game, then when another player connects and spawns as Wilson, they will have all the stuff you had, and so on.

Which of the above do you like more? If none, do you have any suggestions?

 

I hope to get more synchronization done today, as the rest of the week will be quite busy. If not, I'll at least do some testing.

 

Thanks again to all,

Crynux

 

I do love how easy you make it to read your posts. Please don't change. <3

 

 

Okidoki, few thoughts:

 

I spent most of the weekend working on item and inventory synchronization. As of this moment, all loot in the game (if I haven't missed any, which it's likely I have) is server-spawned. That is, if you chop down a tree, or attack a mob, the loot comes from the server, and other players see it just as you do.

 

In addition, any intractable such as berry bushes, saplings, etc, have their loot spawned from the server.

 

Aside from that, as you may have noticed in the first comment on synchronization, mob health is now synced.

 

All loot dropped is stored on the server, so even if the server restarts, it will still be there, unless a player takes it.

Okay, so, is the server going to be dedicated or act as a client as well? 

 

As for your progress, I only wish I could do half of what you do (hell, I'm stuck trying to figure out what local means in LUA). This is quite an amazing project and your progress only lends tribute to yourself. Well-well done. 

 

A question: what will happen if 1 player enters caves but the other player remains up-ground? Any plans for that, or are there no issues there anyway?

 

Regarding other parts of the mod... for the beta, it has been decided that we will likely use some sort of button interface for communication, rather than a chat. There would be about 12 or so messages you can choose from to send. This is quicker to implement... and in addition adds anonymity to other players you play with on the server. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Honestly, I'm not sure you have to go further than that. Many team-orientated games get along fine with just a 'chat-wheel'-like feature, for instance Dota2 and League of Legends. Sure, they have a chat feature, but most of the time it's more convenient to relay simple messages to others. E.G. Setting Up Camp, Foraging Wood/Minerals/Food/etc, Making Friends With Pigs, Ok, Another Time?, We Missed Something, and so on. 

 

There's also the question of whether chat would be a good feature at all within Don't Starve. Whilst any decent human being would ask 'why wouldn't you?!...', the problem is that most people probably aren't accustomed to the general audience that is gamers and how immature they can be. For example, you pick-up some widely-accessible loot like some carrots and plan on sharing them with your fellow player, but they don't know or assume that and take to the chat with "Hey, a$$hole, how am I going to survive now?!". 

 

Etiquette isn't something widely understood and I don't see people responding kindly to others ignoring/muting chat as a result of unpleasant past experiences. 

 

I suppose chat can go either way and many affiliates would appreciate the feature. It's only the 'open lobbies' I fear all chat for. Perhaps chat could be disabled for non-passworded servers? A very conservative approach, yes, but something to consider at least.

 

There are 3 options as I see it at the moment.

1. Create some sort of password locked player chest. It would be built like other structures, and would have enough slots to store your entire inventory.
2. Just delete everything, or drop everything on the ground, as if the player had died.
3. Have some sort of character-persistence. Characters keep their inventory, rather than players. So if you play as Wilson and quit the game, then when another player connects and spawns as Wilson, they will have all the stuff you had, and so on.

1 or 3. I'd personally go with the box only it'd be accessible by all new players (and not pre-existing players). 

 

My only concern with all of this is Admins kicking players to take their loot. Since everything is spawned server-side, it means that most drops won't accommodate more than 1 player. This also means that, if you did make it so drops accommodated every player in the game, then one player could take all of the drops, leaving the Admin with the choice of kicking the player to take all the loot. This is only an issue with my compromise of Option 1 and 3.

 

Is there any way to have all drops client-side and only updates in inventory server-side? This is unless you envision the game with 1 set of drops between multiple players. This style could work as it'd force cooperation and offset the imbalance of having multiple characters doing what, essentially, one character could accomplish. 

 

 

Difficult decisions. I'm sure you'll figure something out either way. :3

Again, fantastic work. <3

[emerphish]

Another question I have... at the moment there isn't any type of login to the server, or user accounts. So when you disconnect, we need to decide what to do with your inventory.

 

There are 3 options as I see it at the moment.

1. Create some sort of password locked player chest. It would be built like other structures, and would have enough slots to store your entire inventory.
2. Just delete everything, or drop everything on the ground, as if the player had died.
3. Have some sort of character-persistence. Characters keep their inventory, rather than players. So if you play as Wilson and quit the game, then when another player connects and spawns as Wilson, they will have all the stuff you had, and so on.

Which of the above do you like more? If none, do you have any suggestions?

 

I hope to get more synchronization done today, as the rest of the week will be quite busy. If not, I'll at least do some testing.

 

Thanks again to all,

Crynux

 

 

I think that It should be so that on a server,once one character is taken then you can't join and play as the same one, regardless of whether or not someone else in online playing that character. That way you can implement a sort of player save, but really a char save. 

 

If that made no sense, as I usually don't make any, I'll try to rephrase with an example.

 

I chose to spawn as WX-78. I do my thing, and collect some basics, but then I have to log off. Another person is logging in while I am off, but WX-78 is blocked, as in they can't choose to play him. When I come back, I play as WX-78 and have my whole inventory. 

 

Now if I understood correctly you can make char specific inventories but not player-specific. So since WX would be locked to everyone but me, then it is, on surface level, a player-specific inventory.

 

Hope I helped, sorry for redundancies! Btw keep up the amazing work

. 

[emerphish]

Honestly, I'm not sure you have to go further than that. Many team-orientated games get along fine with just a 'chat-wheel'-like feature, for instance Dota2 and League of Legends. Sure, they have a chat feature, but most of the time it's more convenient to relay simple messages to others. E.G. Setting Up Camp, Foraging Wood/Minerals/Food/etc, Making Friends With Pigs, Ok, Another Time?, We Missed Something, and so on. 

 

There's also the question of whether chat would be a good feature at all within Don't Starve. Whilst any decent human being would ask 'why wouldn't you?!...', the problem is that most people probably aren't accustomed to the general audience that is gamers and how immature they can be. For example, you pick-up some widely-accessible loot like some carrots and plan on sharing them with your fellow player, but they don't know or assume that and take to the chat with "Hey, *******, how am I going to survive now?!". 

 

Etiquette isn't something widely understood and I don't see people responding kindly to others ignoring/muting chat as a result of unpleasant past experiences. 

 

 

With don't starve, at least on PC, people tend to be pretty well behaved, as a quick comparison to almost any other forum out there would reveal. And this mod isn't going on PS4, duh, so I think we would be fine. Also the option to mute people would be nice, admins could chat ban, others could just make it not show their messages, and the person being muted would be notified "Emerphish has muted you for __ mins".

[Crynux]

As for connecting and reconnecting I would prefer the data to be stored on the character rather than anything else. Anyway great to hear progress is being made!

 

What do you mean by on the character? Do you mean that Wilsons stuff stays with Wilson no matter who plays as him?

 

I do love how easy you make it to read your posts. Please don't change. <3

 

 

Okidoki, few thoughts:

 

 

 

Okay, so, is the server going to be dedicated or act as a client as well? 

 

As for your progress, I only wish I could do half of what you do (hell, I'm stuck trying to figure out what local means in LUA). This is quite an amazing project and your progress only lends tribute to yourself. Well-well done. 

 

A question: what will happen if 1 player enters caves but the other player remains up-ground? Any plans for that, or are there no issues there anyway?

 

 

Thanks for the compliments! The server will be dedicated. The first player to see a mob will host that mobs brain, or at least this is how it is planned to work at the moment.

 

As for caves... caves will not be in the beta, and we're unsure if they'll be in the full version of the mod. At the moment the main focus is the basic world. I'm sure though, once the normal world is finished, it wouldn't be too much work to add the caves and such, as all other sync would already be done!

 

Honestly, I'm not sure you have to go further than that. Many team-orientated games get along fine with just a 'chat-wheel'-like feature, for instance Dota2 and League of Legends. Sure, they have a chat feature, but most of the time it's more convenient to relay simple messages to others. E.G. Setting Up Camp, Foraging Wood/Minerals/Food/etc, Making Friends With Pigs, Ok, Another Time?, We Missed Something, and so on. 

 

There's also the question of whether chat would be a good feature at all within Don't Starve. Whilst any decent human being would ask 'why wouldn't you?!...', the problem is that most people probably aren't accustomed to the general audience that is gamers and how immature they can be. For example, you pick-up some widely-accessible loot like some carrots and plan on sharing them with your fellow player, but they don't know or assume that and take to the chat with "Hey, *******, how am I going to survive now?!". 

 

Etiquette isn't something widely understood and I don't see people responding kindly to others ignoring/muting chat as a result of unpleasant past experiences. 

 

I suppose chat can go either way and many affiliates would appreciate the feature. It's only the 'open lobbies' I fear all chat for. Perhaps chat could be disabled for non-passworded servers? A very conservative approach, yes, but something to consider at least.

 

Some very good points there, thank you! The current idea with the buttons, is to have a few messages, as said, and when the button is clicked, the message would appear above the characters head, and their talking sound would play. There wouldn't be a chat-box with this concept, you'd have to be near a player to see/hear them talk/chat.

 

 

1 or 3. I'd personally go with the box only it'd be accessible by all new players (and not pre-existing players). 

 

My only concern with all of this is Admins kicking players to take their loot. Since everything is spawned server-side, it means that most drops won't accommodate more than 1 player. This also means that, if you did make it so drops accommodated every player in the game, then one player could take all of the drops, leaving the Admin with the choice of kicking the player to take all the loot. This is only an issue with my compromise of Option 1 and 3.

 

Is there any way to have all drops client-side and only updates in inventory server-side? This is unless you envision the game with 1 set of drops between multiple players. This style could work as it'd force cooperation and offset the imbalance of having multiple characters doing what, essentially, one character could accomplish. 

 

 

Difficult decisions. I'm sure you'll figure something out either way. :3

Again, fantastic work. <3

 

Hmmm... those comments made me think. I haven't thought about administrative privileges on the server yet. I guess it's just not to that point yet. Even so, I don't think an admin would have a reason to kick someone for loot, as they 'may' have the ability to spawn things themselves. However, I don't want an admin to be a 'God' on the server... but rather more a moderator. It's likely that there would be a vote-to-kick system, which I think would work as there would only be a few players per server anyways.

 

For client side drops... I spent about 2 days making them server-side, lol, so I don't think I'll be changing it back. The purpose of the beta will be to help balance things. I can say that as it stands currently, the drops in the mod will NOT be the same as they are in the normal game, as since we're cutting out caves and such, we have to add other means of getting nonrenewable items.

 

Once again, thank you for your input and suggestions, it really helps us decide what should be done.

 

 

 

 

I think that It should be so that on a server,once one character is taken then you can't join and play as the same one, regardless of whether or not someone else in online playing that character. That way you can implement a sort of player save, but really a char save. 

 

If that made no sense, as I usually don't make any, I'll try to rephrase with an example.

 

I chose to spawn as WX-78. I do my thing, and collect some basics, but then I have to log off. Another person is logging in while I am off, but WX-78 is blocked, as in they can't choose to play him. When I come back, I play as WX-78 and have my whole inventory. 

 

Now if I understood correctly you can make char specific inventories but not player-specific. So since WX would be locked to everyone but me, then it is, on surface level, a player-specific inventory.

 

Hope I helped, sorry for redundancies! Btw keep up the amazing work

. 

 

You make sense. The only problem is that there are people with dynamic IP addresses, so there would be no means to identify someone without a username or password. Additionally, it would be possible with such a system to have servers where nobody joins forever, as some players had already joined, and decided not to play there anymore, locking all of the character slots.

 

I should mention... for the beta, there will be no character restrictions, besides Maxwell, as I want to stress-test the server in the beta.

 

 

With don't starve, at least on PC, people tend to be pretty well behaved, as a quick comparison to almost any other forum out there would reveal. And this mod isn't going on PS4, duh, so I think we would be fine. Also the option to mute people would be nice, admins could chat ban, others could just make it not show their messages, and the person being muted would be notified "Emerphish has muted you for __ mins".

 

Some good points there. Thank you.

 

 

I thank both of you once again for your input, you've given me some things to think about. When I manage to sum up some of those thoughts I'll post here again to see what you think of them.

 

For a mod such as this, I feel it's important to bounce ideas around, as it will help improve the mod. Collective knowledge is often better than singular, so we all make some sort of contribution, no matter how big or small.

 

Thanks, and if there are any further thoughts, don't hesitate to mention them. I'll answer your questions too.

 

-Crynux

[simplex]

As for caves... caves will not be in the beta, and we're unsure if they'll be in the full version of the mod. At the moment the main focus is the basic world. I'm sure though, once the normal world is finished, it wouldn't be too much work to add the caves and such, as all other sync would already be done!

When a player enters a cave, adventure mode, etc., the current game state is terminated and another one is started (the game calls StartNextInstance, which in turn calls SimReset, which performs the "reboot", usually passing some parameters to the next instance of the game state which is carried along by the game engine and plops up as the global Settings table when the next state reaches gamelogic.lua); a new state is completely independent from the previous ones, sharing no global variables. Since the game cannot run more than one state at the same time, if you'd like to allow for different players to be in different levels at the same time you would have to implement dynamic client-server switching on a level basis (i.e., if a host is the first one to enter a level, it becomes the server for that level, even if it was a client in its previous level). Since this adds some complexity to the implementation and decentralizes control of game state, you may want to force all players to switch levels together (though allowing the dettaching would sure be fun).

[Desblat]

@Crynux

I returned from a trip, waiting for you at skype.