Multiplayer mod [Just ideas, for now]

[Maximum124]

Before you post your little emotes and sharpen your pitchforks and light your torches just hear me out.
 
If you don't want a mod like this then this isn't the thread for you, turn around and go. That simple.

 

But if you have any suggestions, want to help out with this project, or have any questions; then read on!
 
 
 
Now;
 
Multiplayer. *lightening strikes and thunder booms after the forbidden word is uttered*
 
 
-----

• Why would anyone want this?

Well I want to have fun with friends who are far away, it opens new possibilities to how the game is played and it offers something different then the normal day to day survival. Other people probably have other reasons, and these are just my own.
 
PvP, co-op, maybe even something akin to a base defense mode or a combination of a few; who knows unless we try right?

• Multiplayer won't work! Here are my arguments!

1. It ruins the feeling of loneliness in the game! Having people around ruins the horror atmosphere!

 
What horror atmosphere? Chester provides company, there's the pigmen, and Maxwell greets you as you enter the game. Wendy has Abigail, Maxwell his shadow selves, and the character is usually constantly talking to themselves, which makes it seems like they're talking to you.
 
I don't ever feel lonely when playing the game. Maybe hopeless or stressed but never alone.
 
This is just my opinion and the fact that you feel the game has a lonely atmosphere is an opinion as well.
 

2. Players will grief! There will be trolls!

 
Hopefully we'll be able to put in safe guards to prevent this or to deal with it quickly, such as only being able to connect to games who you know the IP to or games being invite only, basic admin privileges to the host and maybe even vote kick.
 

3. The devs have stated that multiplayer will never happen!

 

They have stated that they themselves will never implement multiplayer. I'm pitching a mod, made by the community for the community. You don't ever have to install it or play it if you don't want to!
 
These are just the general arguments that I'm aware of. If there are more let me know and I'll of them and I'll add them to this with a counter argument.

 

• How will this be executed? Who's working on this?

 

It's just me, and thats why I've made this thread, to recruit help and pitch out my ideas. If I had a team already, this wouldn't be necessary!
 
I'm not a coder, I'm not going to even pretend I know anything about coding. I would need someone who knows how to code, if not multiple people.
 
I can only offer up art assets and change dialogue as well as offer ideas up for gameplay and balance.
 
As my title says I am a dreamer. I can't offer much else.
 
So if anyone would like to help in anyway possible let me know! Once I get some people together hopefully we can start to divvy up tasks and make a time table!

 

• How would this mod play?

 

Every multiplayer game needs certain components to work properly, or workarounds for these basic features so that everything doesn't melt into chaos..

• People need to be able to communicate, so something like In-game text chat or a voice command menu needs to be available in game.
• Something to differentiate between players, nameplates, or different characters will have to be assigned to avoid confusion and distinguish enemies from allies.
• Multiplayer specific settings, which I'll go into.

 

Most people believe that Don't starve multiplayer would be co-op survival so lets touch on that first.
 
It'd be simple enough, 2 to maybe 4 players max spawn on the island, Maxwell's speech is probably taken out or altered to say something different to fit into the mod. The players could either spawn together or apart, (which way should be able to be chosen by the host before they start the game ) find each other and help one another to survive.
 
Resources would be about same and its up to the players to mange and distribute them between each other or risk depletion and eventually death, just like the single player game.
 

Balance for this gamemode

 
There should be world settings made available before starting a multiplayer game, to make the game easier or harder depending on what the host wants. They would probably have to be more limited then the single players world options to avoid completely breaking the game; but things like terrain generation how long the days are what season you start in shouldn't be a problem.
 
Mob health would have to be scaled to how many players are present, 2x the health for 2 players, 3x the health for 3 players and so on. Maybe food values would have to be scaled too to avoid complete food depletion however many days into surviving.

Certain crafting recipes, if not all of them might require more components to make. Tools should probably be exempt from this considering every player would probably need a each of the basic tools for themselves.

 

Adventure mode is not accessible but the teleportato should be.

 

What's this about PvP?

 

Combat In Don't Starve is very simple, so basic PvP wouldn't be that interesting without a entire overhaul to the combat mechanic. So unless someone wants to help me do that I have some alternatives.

 

One idea is to have one player take the role as Maxwell, sending monsters and obstacles towards the survivor player.

 

There would have to be a lot of work done to make sure its balanced and fair, but the Maxwell player should have something like timers or resources or both put in place so that way they just can't send a deerclops on day one and win.

 

The other idea is for each player to have a base, able to collect resources to add and defend the base, but then also has to take out the other players bases in order to win. Whether or not you could kill other players is something that needs to be ironed out as well as respawn times if you can.

 

These are just some rough ideas and I'm also open to any ideas you guys have!

 

• I read all that, what now?

Thanks for reading! I know that multiplayer can be an overdone, as well as a sore topic for some people so I appreciate that you read through my post.

 

These are all just my basic ideas, nothing is set in stone.

 

As stated before I need people to help me make this mod a thing! So I have this nifty little form you can fill out and PM to me on here if you're interested in working on this.

 

Forum username:

 

Steam username*:

 

Skype contact info:

 

Email:

 

What you can offer for this project:

 

Have you worked on other Don't starve mods? If so which ones?:

 

Anything else you feel like you need to to tell me?:

 

*The steam username is optional, but always helps if I can't contact you through Skype or your email!

 

For an example here is my information

 

Forum username: Maximum124

 

Steam username*: Maximum124

 

Skype contact info: Chaostheory124

 

Email: maximumchaostheory124@gmail.com

 

What you can offer for this project: Art assets, testing, custom characters and can write in-game speech text.

 

Have you worked on other Don't starve mods? If so which ones?: I've made one reskin for Wilson as well as my own custom character for my own personal use

 

Anything else you feel like you need to to tell me?: Nope!

 

As for the thread itself; It should be changed as ideas and kinks are worked out and people added to the "who's working on this"

 

Again I'd love to hear feedback and suggestions! 

 

That's all for now, thanks for stopping by.

[ARamblingSpider]

I can see this ending terribly.

[Maximum124]

I can see this ending terribly.

 

The worst that can happen is that the mod isnt made, and we move on with our lives

[ARamblingSpider]

The worst that can happen is that the mod isnt made, and we move on with our lives

Don't forget the flamewar that you potentially started.

[Maximum124]

Don't forget the flamewar that you potentially started.

 

What flamewar? Theres only one that I know of being sorta in and I was standing my ground on not wanting to be misgendered.

[ARamblingSpider]

What flamewar? Theres only one that I know of being sorta in and I was standing my ground on not wanting to be misgendered.

"Potentially".

[Maximum124]

"Potentially".

 

Well then I don't see how it matters.

[HoneyHam]

*Sharpens pitchfork and lights torch*

JK

[NikMik]

Multiplayer! *scoff* Multiplayer WILL NEVER HAPPEN! *Hateful comments* Had enough? Well, too bad!

Your mother...

is (hopefully) a lovely woman.

And you deserve to...

have a nice day

...for even bringing up Multiplayer!

 

But since this isn't "multiplayer should be in the game as more than a mod" I'm not going to hate on it. I don't think Multiplayer would work - for many reasons, especially with how easy it would be to destroy all the resources before anyone else can get to them - but modders can do what modders want, so long as they don't make a hugely offensive mod.

If some people want to make a mod adding co-op, let them! What are you going to do about it, anyways, beam into the internet and steal the luas, then destroy them? No, and it shouldn't even matter that much to you if you're not going to use it.

 

Multiplayer as a thing in the game: You could say it wouldn't matter to you if you play singleplayer, but it could lead to children (Or bratty teens, or a**hole adults) who'll just destroy things and make it hell for everyone else, and then people complain to Klei and just adds onto the pile of repeated threads that drown out all the other, more important threads. Just like my experiences with Garry's Mod - or many games I've played. Multiplayer attracts griefers, who ruin the community.

 

Multiplayer as a mod: It would be smaller, attracting less griefers. the mod-makers would probably get more of the complaints on the mod page, not clogging up the rest of the forums. If the mod-makers can take that, then it'd be all fine.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Mr. Tiddles

[Full Metal Kirby]

On the topic of mob health scaling, I'm going to point out that just increasing the health per player is a bad idea for quite a few reasons.

 

Item/armor durability, sanity drain auras, makes even the easiest things exponentially more difficult and discourages multitasking, makes boss monsters even more of a grind, makes monster in-fighting even more effective of a tactic, lessens the usefulness of tooth traps/slurtle slime/gunpowder, ranged weapons become even less useful, food becomes harder to aquire because it takes longer to kill things along with needing to fill 2-4x more bellies. Also keep in mind that with 2-4x as many people they need 2-4x as many supplies, so to make getting monster drops take just as long as if there was only one player, will by itself be exponentionally more of a problem than you think.

 

Also, you should go talk with the 'True LAN Coop' people, since they've already started working on something similar to this.

[Maximum124]

On the topic of mob health scaling, I'm going to point out that just increasing the health per player is a bad idea for quite a few reasons.

 

Item/armor durability, sanity drain auras, makes even the easiest things exponentially more difficult and discourages multitasking, makes boss monsters even more of a grind, makes monster in-fighting even more effective of a tactic, lessens the usefulness of tooth traps/slurtle slime/gunpowder, ranged weapons become even less useful, food becomes harder to aquire because it takes longer to kill things along with needing to fill 2-4x more bellies. Also keep in mind that with 2-4x as many people they need 2-4x as many supplies, so to make getting monster drops take just as long as if there was only one player, will by itself be exponentionally more of a problem than you think.

 

Also, you should go talk with the 'True LAN Coop' people, since they've already started working on something similar to this.

 

Im not a coder, I can't actually help them

 

As for health scaling some has to be added, either that or more mobs otherwise taking care of spidernests and the like would be a breeze for a few people concentrating on it.

[KidneyBeanBoy]

Forum username: KidneyBeanBoy

Steam username*: KidneyBeanBoy

Skype contact info: I don't own Skype

Email: I'd prefer to keep this secret

What you can offer for this project: Writing, Moderating, and other things similar to those two

Have you worked on other Don't starve mods? If so which ones?: The Waverly mod, though that was from when I was less experienced

Anything else you feel like you need to to tell me?: If you honestly need something like email, PMs would work best. And, if I may, it would be nice to be able to have alternative servers with mod support, for expansive mods like the Waverly mod (I'm not saying this just because I worked on it, it has a spell system implemented) or U&A, or the DLCs.

[Maximum124]

Forum username: KidneyBeanBoy

Steam username*: KidneyBeanBoy

Skype contact info: I don't own Skype

Email: I'd prefer to keep this secret

What you can offer for this project: Writing, Moderating, and other things similar to those two

Have you worked on other Don't starve mods? If so which ones?: The Waverly mod, though that was from when I was less experienced

Anything else you feel like you need to to tell me?: If you honestly need something like email, PMs would work best. And, if I may, it would be nice to be able to have alternative servers with mod support, for expansive mods like the Waverly mod (I'm not saying this just because I worked on it, it has a spell system implemented) or U&A, or the DLCs.

 

This was supposed to be in a PM but this works too

[seronis]

Why not just contribute to the mod that is already actively being worked on that has its own thread visible on the very first page.

[Maximum124]

Why not just contribute to the mod that is already actively being worked on that has its own thread visible on the very first page.

 

Because I don't check the mod forums and I've already stated that I can't code

Edited March 2, 2014 by Maximum124

[KidneyBeanBoy]

By the way opening speech.

Why hello, there/ you two/three/four.

Suppose it would be safer to travel in groups?

I suppose you would be right, under any normal circumstances, but they aren't, are they?

Well, I'm off. Don't kill yourselves.

Edited March 2, 2014 by KidneyBeanBoy

[Pyromailmann]

I've got an idea for multiplayer!

Everyone shouldn't all be the same character.
You'd end up 4 Wilsons, which would be boring.

How about when players choose their character, the chosen characters are silhouetted or crossed out.

So you could end up With something like Wilson, Wolfgang, Woodie and Wes

The only reason why I'm contributing is because I agree with multiplayer as a mod because it being in the game would cause a flame war between devs and the community. Plus I do have friends that play D.S (Don't Starve abbreviated) and one is very close and we play games like TF2 and Terraria! Don't Starve is excellent for Co-Op in ways and your ideas (discluding the "mob health", players will have enough problems finding food!) are perfect!   As for people saying "singlelayer gives more atmosphere" Well I don't see that unless you're under attack by hounds or a Deerclops or something. Atmosphere could come with multiplayer in D.S with random boss spawns, not many spots for rescources, such as Silk, Rocks, Gold, Wood, Grass, Twigs, Food!, etc. But if all the players survive together, then, you've got the problem of sharing food, who will get Chester and more hounds from hound attacks (so like [x # of hounds] X [# of players]= y [Y representing the output of hounds vs players].) And about Maxwell's quote with multiple players here's what I've got:

"Say pals, you don't look so good! Good luck surviving before night comes, if you make it!"- Maxwell's multiplayer quote, 2014

[Maximum124]

@Pyromailmann I like your spunk kid

Edited March 2, 2014 by Maximum124

[Desblat]

Because I don't check the mod forums and I've already stated that I can't code

What you wil do in modmakers team if you cannot code? What so you have plan, code, ideas? Seriosly, everey modmaker who is coding mod have thousands of ideas what to make. Noone will listen even more things to do. Every one can talk a lot about multi, but only a few will try to make it.

Good luck in calling modmakers.

[Desblat]

Btw, balanse and other stuff your mentioned are always last thing to make. And we will try NOT to turn DS into mmorpg.

[kraken121]

Btw, balanse and other stuff your mentioned are always last thing to make. And we will try NOT to turn DS into mmorpg.

@Maximum124 

remember my "get off maaaaa lawn! " lol

 

@Desblat

Just so you know, mmorpg is not the same as MP in a game, MMO = massive multiplayer oline (usually 100s if not 1000s of players per server), mp is just multiplayer and usually only coop or 4 or less for games like this...

 

I don't see Max doing anything wrong, he's just trying to get people together to work on this, others have attempted as well, whether it can be done or not successfully is another question, He made a well thought out post and there is absolutely no reason to bash him for trying.

[Desblat]

@Maximum124

Do you still draw pictures about DS? If you are not busy, it would be great if you will draw picture about multi player. (I found something what can do person who want multi, but can not code).

 

@kraken121

I mean another side of mmo-games, I mean levels, classes, farm and other stuff like what. We will build a "survive" multi player. (no respawns, even ressurctors will not work, char is lost on death, etc)

 

I dont understand why he started new thread, if he could ask if "true-lan-coop-team" (me and Crynix) need any help.

[Maximum124]

 

Do you still draw pictures about DS? If you are not busy, it would be great if you will draw picture about multi player. (I found something what can do person who want multi, but can not code).

I mean another side of mmo-games, I mean levels, classes, farm and other stuff like what. We will build a "survive" multi player. (no respawns, even ressurctors will not work, char is lost on death, etc)

 

I dont understand why he started new thread, if he could ask if "true-lan-coop-team" (me and Crynix) need any help.

 

I still draw, Im just sick at the moment and heey both of you i dont really mind gendered pronouns but it says right on my profile to refer to me with they/theirs/them thanks

 

As to the whole coding thing did you read all of the post? I clearly said what I can do and that did say "Art assets"  among other things

 

I also said NOTHING about levels and classes

 

And is it so bad that'd I'd like my own project separate from yours? Im also talking about online multiplayer not a LAN multiplayer, which if you're using the true definition of the word means you'd only be able to connect to other players in the same network and I want people to be able to connect to eachother world wide

[Crynux]

I still draw, Im just sick at the moment and heey both of you i dont really mind gendered pronouns but it says right on my profile to refer to me with they/theirs/them thanks

 

As to the whole coding thing did you read all of the post? I clearly said what I can do and that did say "Art assets"  among other things

 

I also said NOTHING about levels and classes

 

And is it so bad that'd I'd like my own project separate from yours? Im also talking about online multiplayer not a LAN multiplayer, which if you're using the true definition of the word means you'd only be able to connect to other players in the same network and I want people to be able to connect to eachother world wide

 

Howdy,

 

Just wanted to say... yes LAN does mean Local Area Network, and the name of our mod technically is incorrect... the mod will be eventually intended for WAN gaming. However in these inital stages, there may be more data sent over the network than required, as we are trying to get the mod running before optimizing. Once optimization is done, then it should be more practical for WAN gameplay.

 

In fact, Desblat and myself test our mod often, and we're on opposite sides of the planet... so it does work... it's just we're not sure how well it will work at this point in time with multiple players, as it hasn't been tested for that yet. Additinonally, mobs have yet to be synchronized, which is another hunk of network data. Because of that reason, we're keeping the LAN name... don't brand things for what they may not be able to do well(yet)!

Edited March 4, 2014 by Crynux

[TheSurrealTruth]

I'm utterly useless for this, but I definitely support this idea. I'd use it. I'd be happy with a simple minecraft style multiplayer for LAN. Get about 4 friends together, create a room, connect locally, have at it.

 

Best of luck.