When will caves and ultimately giants be available in Together?

[Saxi]

Specially looking for caves, but I haven't played since Giants was added to the main game but since I can now play with my son, this is the only way I want to play (Together).  

Is the ultimate goal Together will have feature match with the main game (like caves and giants, and all new additions to Don't Stave).

[rezecib]

@Saxi, Reign of Giants content is definitely coming. Caves and Adventure Mode have technical difficulties that may mean they come in a slightly different form, but there will be some way to get at their content, eventually. 

[JoeW]

What rezecib said.

 

We have to tackle that challenge as we get there. The goal isn't to have DST a 1 to 1 copy of Don't Starve with multiplayer. So it's hard to say exactly what will all look like at launch. As rezecib said, there are some challenges that make caves and adventure mode a bit of a challenge, so we will have to see where it goes. 

[Saxi]

What rezecib said.

 

We have to tackle that challenge as we get there. The goal isn't to have DST a 1 to 1 copy of Don't Starve with multiplayer. So it's hard to say exactly what will all look like at launch. As rezecib said, there are some challenges that make caves and adventure mode a bit of a challenge, so we will have to see where it goes. 

 

Not sure what adventure mode is as I haven't played in ages, but I did only briefly use caves before and really want to play it again so I can fully explore them (my 7yo boy is especially excited about this as well).

 

Curious, what is the technical issues with caves, is it because it is another world/map?

 

We talking weeks or months to see caves?

[Shenny]

@JoeW

 

Well I sure hope you fellas didn't include thelucite items in the new trailer just to taunt us. Will ruins be released on Monday?

[Diabu]

Not sure what adventure mode is as I haven't played in ages, but I did only briefly use caves before and really want to play it again so I can fully explore them (my 7yo boy is especially excited about this as well).

 

Curious, what is the technical issues with caves, is it because it is another world/map?

 

We talking weeks or months to see caves?

Yes that's it. The problem is the "multiple world" management by the server. Players can be in two differents worlds. I did not look further, but I will

[rezecib]

@Saxi, Months, not weeks.

 

But you're right; in single-player caves were implemented as a separate world (the surface world would unload, then it would load the cave world). That approach doesn't work well with multiplayer, since players going in and out of caves could mean the server having to run 2-5 worlds simultaneously (there are usually four caves in a world). Lag due to servers not keeping up with the load is prevalent already, so that would make it much worse.

 

Conversely, if players have to go in together, that would make caves make very little sense in games where everyone isn't strictly cooperating (e.g. if there are groups of people forming separate bases, or PvP), and even for cooperative games would involve interface issues and a lot of tough decisions (do they all need to gather near the entrance first, or do you let other players teleport? what happens if someone's dead? how do you handle everyone agreeing to enter?).

 

The more you get into it, the more problems arise, so it will take some time to find a neat way around them.

[Pyromailmann]

All the comments above me.

[w0bbl3r]

@Saxi, Months, not weeks.

 

But you're right; in single-player caves were implemented as a separate world (the surface world would unload, then it would load the cave world). That approach doesn't work well with multiplayer, since players going in and out of caves could mean the server having to run 2-5 worlds simultaneously (there are usually four caves in a world). Lag due to servers not keeping up with the load is prevalent already, so that would make it much worse.

 

Conversely, if players have to go in together, that would make caves make very little sense in games where everyone isn't strictly cooperating (e.g. if there are groups of people forming separate bases, or PvP), and even for cooperative games would involve interface issues and a lot of tough decisions (do they all need to gather near the entrance first, or do you let other players teleport? what happens if someone's dead? how do you handle everyone agreeing to enter?).

 

The more you get into it, the more problems arise, so it will take some time to find a neat way around them.

 

 

I think the easiest way to do it would be to have the game tell everyone on the server that someone wants to enter a cave. Then it will take a vote on whether people want to enter the cave. Majority rules or something like that would then dictate whether everyone enters or no-one enters.

It's not perfect, but I guess it's one way around it.

And yes, using this system the other players would teleport. And same when leaving the cave.

I haven't played the caves much myself. I haven't played the game much actually since it was in early access. I have recently just been waiting for co-op mode to come out.

Maybe it would be an idea to have people choose whether they are in a cave server, or a "regular" server, and have it stay that way forever? 

But really, it's not like there is a shortage of things to do on the surface anyway, so I don't see it being a huge problem.

Reign of giants I can see people being more interested in having. Which I understand would be much easier to implement into DST

[Saxi]

I think the easiest way to do it would be to have the game tell everyone on the server that someone wants to enter a cave. Then it will take a vote on whether people want to enter the cave. Majority rules or something like that would then dictate whether everyone enters or no-one enters.

It's not perfect, but I guess it's one way around it.

And yes, using this system the other players would teleport. And same when leaving the cave.

I haven't played the caves much myself. I haven't played the game much actually since it was in early access. I have recently just been waiting for co-op mode to come out.

Maybe it would be an idea to have people choose whether they are in a cave server, or a "regular" server, and have it stay that way forever? 

But really, it's not like there is a shortage of things to do on the surface anyway, so I don't see it being a huge problem.

Reign of giants I can see people being more interested in having. Which I understand would be much easier to implement into DST

 

I personally would really like to see caves added.  It was something I only started to explore when it came out and stopped playing as I got distracted with other things.  My son is also excited about checking them out.

 

I think the teleport thing isn't a great idea it would cause a lot of logistic issues, but it could be done to get it released sooner than later as a temporary solution.  I also wouldn't like a cave or topside solution, it would take a lot from the environment and immersion.  I really hope feature parity can be very close, so just playing together is a viable option and you don't sacrifice lots of cool new things by doing so.

 

 

I am surprised performance is such a big deal since servers are only 6 players tops.  With the lag issues, I think optimizing the netcode is the most important thing, and caves might work better.

[BlitzKriegKjeld]

I also just got back to don't starve and had only recently started exploring the caves and RoG content.

It's probably a pretty safe bet to say that everyone would like to see these things added rather sooner then later,

but like rezecib said; It's got a lot of issues that need to be solved first, but are instead more likely to raise even more.

 

Personally, I really don't like the idea of teleporting ever. 

Since it can so easily be abused to just get a scattered group together with little to no effort.

I guess the best way would be to have everyone gather at the entrance and then pop up a screen where everybody has to agree to enter.

I realise that this is undesirable when playing in a server where not everybody is working together, but maybe there should just be a different game mode for that scenario. That is probably the best and easiest way to get this content live asap.

 

After all, the game is called "Don't Starve Together" and not "Bludgeon Each Other".

There's plenty of other games more suitable for that kind of thing anyways.

 

[rezecib]

@BlitzKriegKjeld, Well, the solution that makes the most sense to me would be to have world generation generate two islands; one a cave, one the normal land (twice the map size). The sinkholes would function like wormholes to the cave-island, and obviously the lighting would change when you do that. However, the lighting system would need some tweaks for that to work (but it will be necessary for Woodie, anyway), and the code pertaining to caves will have to be pretty extensively reworked. 

[Mastergamer2222]

What if when you set up/load a world; what if it also loads up the cave world.

[Diabu]

I've tried to set up a Dedicated server with a Cave world. Actually it's quite buggy, some textures are missing. You can't see cave spider, you died without knowing why. No so severe bugs, though.
 

 

As you can see, it's Daylight, so it's not really a "cave" :/

 

BUT you have to keep in mind that this was a Cave only server. So no "main/surface" world.

[ThomasD]

I would simply love to see something like the Wooden Thing and its objects implemented. Most of the fun imo is around trying to find the items to move on to the next world (and bringing your stuff!) before survival gets tough. Then more fun because you get to generate a new world generated to explore. There is a feeling of progression. That persistence, even though quite small is a major portion of the fun and something that DST is missing for us.

[Pyromailmann]

I would simply love to see something like the Wooden Thing and its objects implemented. Most of the fun imo is around trying to find the items to move on to the next world (and bringing your stuff!) before survival gets tough. Then more fun because you get to generate a new world generated to explore. There is a feeling of progression. That persistence, even though quite small is a major portion of the fun and something that DST is missing for us.

That'll be in eventually, for now it's optimizing the game.

[ThomasD]

That'll be in eventually

 

Awesome!

Everything else is working great. Disconnecting and reconnecting is perfect.

[XirmiX]

@JoeW

The caves would be something vital for DST. There are recipes of cave stuff already in DST and technically it's unreversable, as if Klei decidesto not to mplement caves in DST at all, the items that could only be crafted by using cave stuff would need to be removed. This would cause possible crashes for older worlds where people have used the console to get cave stuff. If the recipes get removed and say like a Potted fern gets smashed this might result in crashing of the world. Also I heard SethR say that Klei might make caves something that everyone has to join at once. This would be terrible. What I really don't get is how a server can't hold on to more than one world information for multiple people. But lets hope this will work eventually as well as the Ruins. If it does, the Teleportato might not be a problem either from there on out.

For adventure mode, I'm jot sure. It would be great to go through it with other people, however it doesn't make sense to me, so unless Klei has some ideas about this and it applies to the story, the adventure mode might as well not be implemented and be an SP thing only. Considering that DST is a sequel to SP Don't Starve, may be the world could generate a broken Maxwell's door which could be smashed or something like that. But the fact that you guys are planning to implement it makes me think that there might be a catch to it.