Don't Starve Together Progress Report

[TheKingofSquirrels]

It means that one player's computer must communicate with others in the game's code in order to keep the game updated. For example, if one player picks a berry bush, the other player's computer must know that. Otherwise, you could have berries forever from one berry bush, or, the game could crash . . Hope this helps.

Oh ok, I think I get it now. By informing they mean it actually happening, like if a friend of mine picks some berries, I should be able to see the action of him picking the berries and the berries disappearing from the bush. 

[vekien]

Oh ok, I think I get it now. By informing they mean it actually happening, like if a friend of mine picks some berries, I should be able to see the action of him picking the berries and the berries disappearing from the bush. 

 

Basically, you need to know so everything is in a constant state.

 

Imagine the scenario.

- Bush has berries

- You pick bush

- Friend picks bush

 

Both of you drop your berries on floor. The bush now yield x2 berries. Think of this, with everything, kill an animal? If its not sync'd on both clients (clients = players), then you could kill the same animal multiple times for each client and duplicate loot.

 

To create a persistent environment, everything gets sync'd, so whenever you do something, all other clients is aware and their local game reflects.

 

Being able to "See it in action" does not have much to do with it (kind of). If I go burn a forest and you are on the other side of the map, your client still needs to know the forest has burn (or sometimes they inform your client to update when in that region), so that if you wonder over to where I am, you see the already burnt forest.

 

There is a nice article here http://wiki.jc-mp.com/Feature_Overview (Just Causer 2 SP only game being modded to MP)

 

There are a lot of actions you can do in DS that another client would have to be aware of:

- When you move

- What you craft and place down (chests, machines, etc)

- What you gather

- What you kill

- What you drop

- If you die

 

probably many more I forgot, and those are just generalising.

[dnjswns951]

I think supporting MODS is something that you guys should spend more time to consider whether you really want to support it or not.

 

Because It can potentially destroy the balance between players and ultimately the game itself.

 

this is just my personal opinion and I am really positive that you guys can manage it well  

[enlimleahcimneb]

An idea i had that popped up in my mind as soon as i read PvP, was basically an 'arena' mode, where two, three or four players could spawn in a map, with nothing on their character and they would have an allocated time limit (30 mins, 1 hour etc.) to get resources and fight to see who would win, you could team up against each other or just go alone, who knows the possibilities....

[fireboss569]

Can't you guys make a really really really early alpha where multiplayer JUST works? Like DayZ. Cause that would be awesome! Like you just did so you could play together and then you put it out?

[Pyromailmann]

I think supporting MODS is something that you guys should spend more time to consider whether you really want to support it or not.

 

Because It can potentially destroy the balance between players and ultimately the game itself.

 

this is just my personal opinion and I am really positive that you guys can manage it well

The host has to decide the mods, not the others joining the game/ lobby.

[spiritcrusher77]

So, it's been over two weeks since this thread was made... anymore progress yet?

[jbeetle]

So, it's been over two weeks since this thread was made... anymore progress yet?

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/37862-fireside-chats-with-a-video-game-designer-june-27-2014/

 

Take a gander.

[YetiFoot]

Hey Guys,

I know many of you have been anxiously waiting for more information about Don't Starve Together; so while I still can't provide much in the way of specific details on the game just yet, I can provide you guys some information that I think will answer some questions as well as giving you some more interesting things to discuss.

First of all, the response to Don't Starve Together has been amazing. For the most part we saw an outstanding amount of support and excitement for DST. Not everybody was super excited of course, and we are sorry for that, but hopefully everybody can understand that we just want to put together something that people will enjoy; unfortunately that's not always going to be what everybody wants but we will certainly try to keep in mind these concerns and they do help to influence and affect how we approach things.

While we can’t answer much right now, even just discussing your thoughts on how certain aspects of gameplay might work is very useful in letting us know your expectations and helps provide us a picture of what it is you guys would like to see.

Let me quickly run down where we are at. This is all going to be pretty loose in regards to info, and all of it is subject to change at any time, but for the most part, this should give you guys a good understanding of what is going on.

Where we were, and where we are now. 

When we first made the announcement we had a proof of concept, and that's pretty much it. A few people here at the office jumped into a game together and and poked around in a very simple version of Don't Starve. Most things weren't hooked up and only the most very basic functionality of the game existed. However, there was enough to see that multiplayer Don't Starve had a lot of potential and proved to be something we wanted to explore.

Since then we have been working on actually making things... work. As we have mentioned before, pretty much every single part of Don't Starve needs to be changed in one way or the other to support multiplayer gameplay. Simply put, every little piece of the game has to be made to so that game client works with it in a different way than than it would with single player. When one player picks up some berries, everybody else playing needs to be updated with this information as well.

I don't know all the details there because that's for the programming wizards, but suffice it to say that it's a ton of work. And it's coming along really well. They ran their first successful test across the internet (not just through the local network) last night, and things seem to be looking even better than they had hoped.

So this means the actual engine behind the game communication across the internet is moving along quite well, but it still has a little while to go. Next week, we are going to be cracking into the actual gameplay and beginning to address how the game would actually work as a multiplayer experience. While we have plenty of ideas, like anything with Don’t Starve, it’s all really going to come down to how it plays.

What we have to do.

Let me take a little step off to the side here for a minute and explain what it is that we have to do.

Essentially, we have a few parts to this project that I am guessing many of you would be interested in understanding a bit better.

First, we have the engine. This is the core of the game; all the systems and everything that makes the game possible to be played across a network. All the stuff I was talking about above, this is what we have been focused on since the announcement. We need this to be done before we can really see how the game functions as a multiplayer experience.

Then we have the gameplay itself. How do tents work? What happens when a player dies? How would sanity work? Moggles? All the stuff you guys really want to know. This is the stuff that is really going to need to be investigated, tested and addressed to work in multiplayer, but still remain a distinctively "Don't Starve" experience. I will go into more detail about where we are going here later.

Then we have operations. One of the biggest challenges we face with Don't Starve is how it will function operationally. How can we make sure people have positive experiences with other players? How will players find each other? How many people should play together? Can we keep the game "safe" for younger players? We don't have answers to these questions; we have some ideas, but we aren't quite ready to look into answering these questions yet.

What we know. 

So, now that we got that out of the way, here is what we know. Again, much of this is pretty light on the detail, but this is really to give you more of a sense of how we are approaching answering all the same questions that you have.

We know you guys have a lot of ideas and opinions on what you would like to see in Don't Starve Together. Thanks for all the awesome feedback and suggestions, they really have gone a long way to let us know your concerns and it really gives us some great things to think about as we move toward giving you guys something to check out for yourselves.

We know you guys need choices. This means that many things in Don't Starve Together will be optional. We will provide you many choices for how DST will be played. This means, similar to the world generation options in single player Don't Starve, DST will include several toggles and options for you to choose how your game will be played. Persistence/Session, PvP/Co-op/, World Size, possible alternate game modes and Chat will all be optional in your game.

 

How you'll play.

So how will your games be played? Well we aren't all the way there yet, but we are working toward a few things here. This is pretty straightforward stuff.

First, dedicated servers. We will provide a standalone server that will allow you to set up your own dedicated servers on whatever host you want whether it be from home or from a 3rd party host.

In addition, you will also be able to play local games that you will not need to run a dedicated server to play. So, all you couples and families can not starve together

Next, we have matchmaking.

This one is pretty simple. There are not many questions here. You will be able to choose to play with friends or strangers. There will be a server list in the game that you can jump into public games at any time. This is of course optional for the server operator to appear on this list. Servers may also show up on this list but require a password. How this all appears is still TBD, but we want it to be as easy as possible for you to find a game at any time. However, what is most important is that this remains as much a positive experience as possible. We definitely intend to do everything we can to avoid chaos here. There will likely be a sort of reputation system that will all people to choose "official community" servers and "off the grid" servers. That means, if you want to play with others in completely off the rails experiences, go for it. But, for everybody else, they should know what to expect.

Now that we have covered the operation and functional end of things, how about gameplay?

Items need to be balanced, mechanics need to be addressed and potentially even new interesting features and mechanics will be introduced. But we don't have a heck of a lot of information here yet.

We do know that much of this might come down to optional choices. For example, permadeath; one of the hotter topics. It's pretty safe to say that this will be a choice for the server operator here. How exactly it works is still unknown, but we do feel that in order to have the best experience for everybody, we need to provide this as an optional aspect of Don't Starve Together.

More about gameplay

To reiterate, we have a lot to do here and we are aware that we don’t know exactly what we are up against. However, once we get into the thick of it, we are going to be checking in with you guys pretty often to let you know where we are at and what kinds of things you have to look forward too.

 

Mod support

 

Mods will be supported. How exactly they will be worked out is still being worked on, for all the reasons stated above. But it should be noted that we consider it a high priority item and our aim is to make mods as easy as possible to access and use in multiplayer.  

TL;DR is that we are about half-way to really having something ready for people to play.

 

Please keep up all the great suggestions and feedback!

What will happen to woodie and the rest of the gang? Will it be a real challenge and maybe even take a while for woodie to be added to DST?

[Pyromailmann]

What will happen to woodie and the rest of the gang? Will it be a real challenge and maybe even take a while for woodie to be added to DST?

Klei's working on it so that means (obviously) all characters are going to be seen in Don't Starve Together (yes, this means Woodie)

[Eyjolf]

In addition, you will also be able to play local games that you will not need to run a dedicated server to play. So, all you couples and families can not starve together

I know that it's still uncertain if DST will be puplished for the PS4. But I was wondering if this means that I can play DST with a friend or family member via offline splitscreen? Or will it be 1 player per PS4 only?

[T4T3RGR3NAD3R]

Will there be tasty tasty human flesh? If so, will there be crock pot recipes?

[the truthseeker]

At this time, DST is Computer only (Steam.) Thel will see how well it performs before considering other platforms (PS4, Vita, etc.) 

[Gumhoy]

My real question is if there will be dialogue when observing other characters, more importantly - if Maxwell would spawn at the start of every DST game.

I can see the other characters thoughts on Maxwell now... 

[the truthseeker]

My real question is if there will be dialogue when observing other characters, more importantly - if Maxwell would spawn at the start of every DST game.

I can see the other characters thoughts on Maxwell now... 

Check out their play test posting.

 

 

The video shows players can type text to other players and it appears above the typing character's head like any other message. 

[Gumhoy]

Check out their play test posting.

 

 

The video shows players can type text to other players and it appears above the typing character's head like any other message. 

Oh I watched it all the way through, that is not my question.

I understand you are able to chat with other players using text.

My question is if you hold ALT and click on another players character, what will YOUR character say?

For intstance, if i'm playing Wilson, hold ALT and click on say Willow. What will Wilson say when he examines Willow?

Something along the lines of, "Pretty, Pretty Flammable. I don't trust that one."

What if I'm controlling Woody and do the same thing to say WX-78?

Will he say something like, "Not made of wood, but he gets the job done."

Even more hillariously, what if Woody observes: Willow, Wendy or Wickerbottom?

"I chop trees, she burns trees. We get along."

"... That one gives me the creeps." or "Does your flower talk to You?"

"I never liked school."

I think some of the most interesting dialogue in the game will come from the observations of characters about other characters - and I am extremely curious to how the characters feel about one another. It may be a small thing, but I feel these observations would massively help the characters feel of actually existing together within the Don't Starve Universe.

[Auth]

I have a suggestion. If one player dies, Perhaps player 2 could build a meat effigy/science-ify a touchstone and make Player 1 re-appear. Having an option to take an existing world and just have a friend join it would be a good feature as well. And sleeping? Perhaps just have it so one player can be resting, but in order for time to fast forward the other one needs too as well. Perhaps an option to stop sleeping? Moggles would be easy, as just one player would get the effect. I think insanity would be hilarious to see, just having a friend swinging at nothing on your screen. Maybe when you both go insane you can see the same monsters? 

 

I'd like to see adventure mode somehow possibly maybe kinda sorta get put into DST.

[the truthseeker]

Oh I watched it all the way through, that is not my question.

I understand you are able to chat with other players using text.

My question is if you hold ALT and click on another players character, what will YOUR character say?

For intstance, if i'm playing Wilson, hold ALT and click on say Willow. What will Wilson say when he examines Willow?

Something along the lines of, "Pretty, Pretty Flammable. I don't trust that one."

What if I'm controlling Woody and do the same thing to say WX-78?

Will he say something like, "Not made of wood, but he gets the job done."

Even more hillariously, what if Woody observes: Willow, Wendy or Wickerbottom?

"I chop trees, she burns trees. We get along."

"... That one gives me the creeps." or "Does your flower talk to You?"

"I never liked school."

I think some of the most interesting dialogue in the game will come from the observations of characters about other characters - and I am extremely curious to how the characters feel about one another. It may be a small thing, but I feel these observations would massively help the characters feel of actually existing together within the Don't Starve Universe.

 

They haven't even gotten to that point yet, but I'm sure our suggestions will be considered.  

[Gumhoy]

 

They haven't even gotten to that point yet, but I'm sure our suggestions will be considered.  

Yay! I can't wait. Time to let my glee and bottled up emotions take over this post and hope for the best!



Just kidding, I actually have to contribute if I'm going to make a post and I think I'll be addressing the issue of sleep.

Straw Roll = +33 Sanity, -75 Hunger
Fur Roll = +33 Sanity, +30 Health, -75 Hunger
Tent = +50 Sanity, +60 Health, -75 Hunger
Siesta Lean-to= +50 Sanity, +60 Health, -25 Hunger (Only when overheating in Summer)

Unless I'm not aware of other methods, these are the only ways you can sleep. Providing Sanity in exchange for a massive deficit to your hunger. (Half or more on most characters!) Except in summer, where the Siesta Lean-to gives the benefits of a tent for a 1/3 of the Hunger Cost (You only sleep during the day but wake up in the evening after all.) Quite useful if you're ever majorly down on sanity and have the resources to spare on sleeping equipment. (ALSO HANDY FOR MAKING WINTER FEEL FASTER! GRRRR...)

Now. Since not every character can sleep. 


And some characters don't want to go to sleep because their powers are best at Night.


My solution is that the team should be able to go to bed in the evening or night as they wish, WITH THE CONSENT OF THEIR TEAMMATES. By this I mean a PROMPT should very clearly appear showing you WHO is trying to sleep with an answer YES or NO. SLEEPING is a BIG decision! LET THE PEOPLE CHOOSE! Of course this could lead to situations you would not want, such as one player does not want to go bed, yet you want to. Is it better though to have a troll instantly start the sleep timer once it hits evening by popping a sleeping roll and skipping to the next day with all that time lost? No.

Once you use an item to sleep: either of the rolls, tent or lean-to; It will ask you very clearly, "ARE YOU SURE?"

Once you commit to sleep, you cannot back out. This is to stop abuse from having characters pause their stats, then just get out of bed the next morning without sleeping.

Once one person uses a sleeping item, their hunger and sanity pause completely (Monsters cant get you if you hide under your blanket!), and a timer starts.  It should probably go up with the number of players for instance:

4 Players = 120 seconds (base)
3 Players = 90 seconds (base)
2 Players = 60 seconds (base)

For every player trying to sleep in your group, deduct 30 seconds from the base of the timer.

• So lets say I have 4 players, one of them tries to go to bed. They vote, it's a yes.
• For all other players a timer starts at the top of the screen (Time for Bed) with 90 seconds counting down, showing the character portrait below for who is trying to sleep.
• If a SECOND player goes to bed, deduct another 30 seconds from the timer.This would leave it at 60 seconds
• If a THIRD player decides to sleep it would drop the timer to 30 seconds.
• If EVERYONE goes to bed the timer will then be 5 seconds, counting down and it will skip to the next day.
• IT CANNOT CHANGE TO THE NEXT DAY UNTIL THE TIMER IS UP, REGARDLESS OF SEGMENT LENGTH OR TIME OF NIGHT.

Everyone will have their stats affected depending on what they slept in, and anyone who DID not sleep will remain AS they were the previous day without any penalties or bonuses. If you were awake at Night next to a campfire while everyone else on the team goes to bed, the next day you're going to be exactly the same just with less sanity loss cause it's not dark anymore while all other players have their hunger/sanity/health affected and it'll be morning. (Your campfire will be out though due to passage of time, also it's day.)

You cannot be killed by The Grue if there is no light while you are trying to sleep, since you cant get back up once you start trying to sleep to stoke the firepit. It would be unfair for it to be able to kill you this way, and blankets have always been the perfect protection from night monsters.

While it may suck to have 3 people in a 4 player group not let you sleep. It's more important that the sleep system cannot be Abused!
Besides, if they let you go insane, who knows what could happen? 

[the truthseeker]

Not to detract from the well-thought-out sleep idea you came up with after,
 

I actually have to contribute if I'm going to make a post and I think I'll be addressing the issue of sleep.


Straw Roll = +33 Sanity, -75 Hunger
Fur Roll = +33 Sanity, +30 Health, -75 Hunger
Tent = +50 Sanity, +60 Health, -75 Hunger
Siesta Lean-to= +50 Sanity, +60 Health, -25 Hunger (Only when overheating in Summer)

Unless I'm not aware of other methods, these are the only ways you can sleep.

Actually, the Mandrake (whether eaten raw/cooked knockout effect/eaten cooked [and 60 health, 75 hunger and 5 sanity for the eater if cooked and eaten] or in the area when another player cooks it in this case,) will put you/others to sleep for a segment of time and not just until it's morning, minus the sanity/hunger changes (besides the normal hunger/sanity decreasing for being knocked out for that time if applicable.)  What this can be used for-if properly planned, is bypassing effects such as freezing/wenness/overheating.  If the other players do not want to be included in such, they simply have to be outside the knockout effect of the cooking. (And no I don't know what it is nor is lt listed where I can find it.) 

 

Carry on.....

[Gumhoy]

Not to detract from the well-thought-out sleep idea you came up with after,

 

Actually, the Mandrake (whether eaten raw/cooked knockout effect/eaten cooked [and 60 health, 75 hunger and 5 sanity for the eater if cooked and eaten] or in the area when another player cooks it in this case,) will put you/others to sleep for a segment of time and not just until it's morning, minus the sanity/hunger changes (besides the normal hunger/sanity decreasing for being knocked out for that time if applicable.)  What this can be used for-if properly planned, is bypassing effects such as freezing/wenness/overheating.  If the other players do not want to be included in such, they simply have to be outside the knockout effect of the cooking. (And no I don't know what it is nor is lt listed where I can find it.) 

 

Carry on.....

I've never cooked a Mandrake!

Who knew they put you to sleep! I always eat them raw. Little buggers. 

To solve that issue I suppose what you could do is make the stat filling effects of the mandrake go down when cooked and split it into four pieces.

Then you give those pieces to each of your friends and once consumed starts a 30 second timer - if all four pieces are consumed everyone goes to bed after five seconds and it starts the next section of the clock. (Morning to Evening, Evening to Night, or Night to Morning.)

It would be handy - and if you hand it out at base then everyone runs away from camp you can all sleep through night without needing to be near eachother! Thankfully the Mandrake is a limited item! Personally I would use it for Pan Flutes as opposed to sleep fuel - though if you want to skip rain, freezing or overheating people should be more than welcome.

Also I had this idea that the Tent should be able to hold 2 people, rather than have like 4 freaking tents all right next to eachother when you want to go to bed. Might help manage space inside the walls of a base.

[Peacebyrd]

"At this time, DST is Computer only (Steam.) Thel will see how well it performs before considering other platforms (PS4, Vita, etc.)"

Please tell me you don't mean that... my computer does not like running Steam. I use the stand alone at this point... so will you have a lan or direct connect option?

"At this time, DST is Computer only (Steam.) Thel will see how well it performs before considering other platforms (PS4, Vita, etc.)"

Please tell me you don't mean that... my computer does not like running Steam. I use the stand alone at this point... so will you have a lan or direct connect option?

[the truthseeker]

"At this time, DST is Computer only (Steam.) Thel will see how well it performs before considering other platforms (PS4, Vita, etc.)"

Please tell me you don't mean that... my computer does not like running Steam. I use the stand alone at this point... so will you have a lan or direct connect option?

"At this time, DST is Computer only (Steam.) Thel will see how well it performs before considering other platforms (PS4, Vita, etc.)"

Please tell me you don't mean that... my computer does not like running Steam. I use the stand alone at this point... so will you have a lan or direct connect option?

You might want to check if your replies are posting twice. You might want to...just kidding! (But the first sentence was serious.)

 

 

Klei tests their games out on Steam first, then ports the game over to standalone, and then ports it to other platforms (in this case, PS4/Vita) 

 

 

 

Eventually, it will be on Standalone, but expect the Alpha/Beta only to be on Steam. 

[Silentdarkness1]

Yep, Klei seems to prefer Steam initially, because it's easy to doll out regular updates with it.

[KwwB]

Can't wait!