Merging DS with DST?

[LadyD]

Play nice everyone. Constructive discussion. Personal insults or slights are NOT acceptable in the forums.  I can and will lock this thread if this breaks down into people being rude to each other. 

[blubuild]

Thanks, guys. It's always good to find beacons of sanity on the internet. Kudos back, Johnnyprofane. BTW, I happen to be a guy.

 

There's no reason for Klei to put the work in to merging the two games.

Ah, you it looks like you've replied without reading the thread. The reasons were already discussed.

Also, provided DST is a rewrite, there's a great chance that it's more stable, optimized, less buggy and as such (compared to its predecessor), which is a reason in its own capacity.

 

Even if they were to merge them you couldn't just load your old single player world into a multi-player setting without some kind of conversion process which would necessarily change and potentially break some things.

The DS and DST save formats should already be similar - probably very similar. In fact, for one to assert that saves can't currently moved between the games without looking into it first, would be foolhardy. Needless to say, a converter doesn't necessarily have to break anything, or create any noticeable (by the player) change.

 

And this probably could be done with a mod now, so again no reason for Klei to do it.

Uh. That isn't a reason for a developer not to do something himself. Actually it can become a horrible excuse. And you should know that it's a known phenomenon that developers implement actual mods themselves into the base game in an update.

That reminds me. Is there still no way to scroll the crafting list with the scrollwheel? I couldn't find an action in the Controls menu that did this. I used to use a mod that allows this long ago. This happens to be a random example of a dumb thing not to add because a mod can do it. Anyway, does anyone know of a way to do this? Maybe it's this way only for me?! It's really annoying to be required to actually click arrows to scroll. I couldn't find an updated mod for it.

But there's a different issue I brought up. Assume a mod brought the DS experience to DST (and DST became feature-complete with ruins and stuff). Now there is no reason for anyone wise to ever buy DS and RoG, (except Adventure Mode - unless that will be added to DST as well). Would Klei not mind that? It's lost sales, literally. And it's obviously a reason for Klei not to do a merge themselves as well.

It also wouldn't fully solve the current problem of the "divided" mod community. After a merge, all mods would only need to be created for a single version of the game to be compatible with everything and every playing mode.

 

So we're talking months of work for what amounts to saving you a couple mouse clicks. It's just doesn't seem feasible to do so.

Now I'm certain you haven't read this thread, as I've already discussed in it how the above is wrong (months - and even for a group and not an individual! - is an especially good joke ). If you care for throwing out numbers, then I would hazard a guess that it'd take an experienced modder up to two weeks to implement this, if he was taking his time with it and only worked during his free time. For the company, it would naturally take less time. Remember, all we're talking about here are some changes in values and behavior (I've already detailed this before).

And if a couple of mouse clicks were the concern, it would be extremely easy to make a splash screen with buttons that start each game, even by a 3rd party and right now... or just set up shortcuts/hotkeys using some macro program. There certainly wouldn't a need to change anything in the games, sheesh. Talk about the wrong way of going about something.

[Lonestarr01]

Pretty sure SethR has said that DS and DST will remain separate games. At this point, merging the two would take huge amounts of work, for little payoff.

 

 

So we're talking months of work for what amounts to saving you a couple mouse clicks. It's just doesn't seem feasible to do so.

 

 

This, basically. 

[XopherPM]

Ah, you it looks like you've replied without reading the thread. The reasons were already discussed.

Also, provided DST is a rewrite, there's a great chance that it's more stable, optimized, less buggy and as such (compared to its predecessor), which is a reason in its own capacity.

 

The only reasons given are to have a single executable that lets you choose between versions, and to turn an old single player world into multi-player.

Of course DST isn't more stable, optimized or less buggy. Hopefully it will be at least equal to single player by release, but it won't be necessarily better. DST is much more complicated, as such there is much more that can go wrong. There is also alot going on behind the scenes in DST that is unnecessary in single player, it probably isn't noticeable by most people most of the time, but it does hurt performance. Why make people use a clunkier version when they don't need to?

 

 

The DS and DST save formats should already be similar - probably very similar. In fact, for one to assert that saves can't currently moved between the games without looking into it first, would be foolhardy. Needless to say, a converter doesn't necessarily have to break anything, or create any noticeable (by the player) change.

 

 

It doesn't matter how similar they are. They would need to be the same, and they aren't. I said a converter could potentially break things, and necessarily change things. There are things in single player that don't exist in multi-player and vice-verse, so yes, things will be noticeably changed.

 

 

...That isn't a reason for a developer not to do something himself...

 

True, but something that apparently few people want and isn't necessary for the developer's vision is what mods are best for. When RoG came out you couldn't even load a vanilla world with the new features, so I doubt an easy way to load a single player world in DST is going to be super important.

 

 

Assume a mod brought the DS experience to DST (and DST became feature-complete with ruins and stuff). Now there is no reason for anyone wise to ever buy DS and RoG, (except Adventure Mode - unless that will be added to DST as well). Would Klei not mind that? It's lost sales, literally. And it's obviously a reason for Klei not to do a merge themselves as well.

 

 

I don't know if Klei would mind that. They seem more concerned with sales of DST right now. I'm sure they'd love everyone to buy both DS and DST, but I suspect they're happy if people buy one or the other.

 

 

It also wouldn't fully solve the current problem of the "divided" mod community. After a merge, all mods would only need to be created for a single version of the game to be compatible with everything and every playing mode.

 

 

I don't think this 'problem' exists, or at least this is the first I've heard of it. Some mods are easy to make for both versions, some are easier to make two versions. Some are pointless for one version or the other. It depends what exactly you're modding.

 

 

Now I'm certain you haven't read this thread, as I've already discussed in it how the above is wrong (months - and even for a group and not an individual! - is an especially good joke ). If you care for throwing out numbers, then I would hazard a guess that it'd take an experienced modder up to two weeks to implement this, if he was taking his time with it and only worked during his free time. For the company, it would naturally take less time. Remember, all we're talking about here are some changes in values and behavior (I've already detailed this before).

 

 

I came to my estimate of months with your hackneyed idea of how to 'easily' implement this. It may be easy in the sense of problem solving, but it would take a lot of busy work. There are hundreds of prefabs, components, and brains that you would need to go through and write in single player behavior for, and world behavior on top of that. Then testing and debugging after that. I don't believe a modder could do a thorough job in just a couple weeks (if someone thinks they could then give it a try.) As far as a group doing it, 2 weeks of work for 5 people (for example, I don't know how many coders currently work on DST) is 2 and a half months of work.

 

Furthermore the end result would be a bloated nightmare (more-so than the DS scripts already are). It would be that much more prone to bugs and more difficult to optimize as well as mod. If Klei really wanted to merge the two I'm sure they would want a better solution.

 

 

And if a couple of mouse clicks were the concern, it would be extremely easy to make a splash screen with buttons that start each game, even by a 3rd party and right now... or just set up shortcuts/hotkeys using some macro program. There certainly wouldn't a need to change anything in the games, sheesh. Talk about the wrong way of going about something

 

 

Other than the hope of moving a single player world into multi-player, that's exactly what was described in the OP.

 

So maybe after DST and Through the Ages is finished something like this will be done, but I'd rather Klei work on new stuff rather than something I can get by quitting one game and opening another.

[blubuild]

At this point, merging the two would take huge amounts of work, for little payoff.

What are your thoughts and reasons that led you to assert this? Is there any basis for it?

 

This, basically.

Is actually complete bullcrap. Read the thread.

I'm off, clearly people will endlessly spout and repeat crap forever, even if a post literally one above theirs corrects the ignorance. Lesson in futility indeed. XD

/thread

EDIT: If someone finds a way or a mod to use the scrollwheel in the crafting list, do tell me, though.

[blubuild]

Fine then, one last time, as you've already posted and it wouldn't be respectful otherwise.

The only reasons given are to have a single executable that lets you choose between versions, and to turn an old single player world into multi-player.

Again, why even mention it - something so roundabout shouldn't be done.

You're forgetting seamlessly turning multiplayer mode on and off in-gameplay (at will), and within a world, easier maintenance and compatibility for developers (including modders) and general benefits of not extraneously splitting a project into two. I'm probably forgetting things, myself.

 

"Of course DST isn't more stable, optimized or less buggy."

DST is currently in beta, but by general rule any application will always be improved as described when rewritten - especially if it's rewritten late, after its scope is realized, and many things are known and set in stone that weren't when it was first written. Hopefully, you understand the reasons for this.

 

DST is much more complicated, as such there is much more that can go wrong. There is also alot going on behind the scenes in DST that is unnecessary in single player, it probably isn't noticeable by most people most of the time, but it does hurt performance. Why make people use a clunkier version when they don't need to?

 

DST is, by definition, a remake of DS in which world handling is split into a server component. There isn't more going on in the background that doesn't have to do with networking, offloading and synchronization, if there were then it would be completely random... so there isn't any real excess work that runs in singleplayer, especially self-hosted (i.e. non-dedicated) DST - and as mentioned, optimizations may make it even run better.

As mentioned, many games work this way in singleplayer (by logging the player into a locally hosted server to facilitate the game) and some even support others joining in without even needing to do anything special. I don't think such games are particularly 'clunkier' for doing this.

DST can run singleplayer right now. Even though it is in beta, is there any evidence that it performs worse than DS?

"something that apparently few people want"

Eh... I was going to say that we don't know that, but... the whole need and desire for DST in the first place came from people wanting friends to join up their singleplayer worlds. That's also the reason that mod was made. Whoever yearned for DST yearned for this, actually they yearned for it first and what they hoped for and requested was most likely a multiplayer mode in DS rather than a "new product"... This desire is lowered by DST, but DST still doesn't quite fulfill the original one, ironically.

 

It doesn't matter how similar they are.

Well, it affects the complexity and difficulty of making a converter. Whether it's a relatively simple and quick matter, or not.

 

There are things in single player that don't exist in multi-player and vice-verse, so yes, things will be noticeably changed.

Those would be trivial to preserve, all the same, as all such entities would exist in the merged project. Upon gamemode change you can have them hidden or removed as a design choice - if you want, it's not a necessity. In a present-day converter it would, of course, be needed to lose things that don't exist (not don't appear) in the target version. 

 

I don't know if Klei would mind that. They seem more concerned with sales of DST right now.

Eh, this strikes me as so very naive. There are good economic reasons for DS, RoG and DST all being separate products. Imagine a 3rd party basically offering two of them for free to anyone who has the third.

This is a company we're talking about, and even a single developer could take offense to that.

  

I don't think this 'problem' exists, or at least this is the first I've heard of it.

It certainly affects me as a player. Simply put many mods cannot be loaded in both versions straight out of the box, not all mods are even available for both versions (that should be), many times a different modder has to take a mod (from another author) and convert or remake it in DST, etc - and I unfortunately need to manage two separate "loadouts" for my mods, one for DS and one for DST.

Actually, if this problem didn't exist, it would suggest something along the lines that many "prefabs, components, and brains, world behavior" etc all don't need to be changed between present-day DS and DST.

 

I came to my estimate of months with your hackneyed idea of how to 'easily' implement this. It may be easy in the sense of problem solving, but it would take a lot of busy work.

So you based it on my idea. That's what was ridiculous - how did you get from a bunch of if statements to load different values and use different behavior in certain specific situations? There aren't even that many differences in terms of gameplay between the two versions.

 

There are hundreds of prefabs, components, and brains that you would need to go through and write in single player behavior for, and world behavior on top of that.

What?! No... there isn't even a total of sum of a hundred differences between gameplay of DS and DST with one player (do correct me if I am wrong). All those things you've mentioned wouldn't need to be adapted at all, their DST implementations would work as they are.

Consider me dumbfounded. It's almost as if you're suggesting something like every single enemy's AI would need to be altered, just because there might be only one player logged on or there may be more. What. Well. I just don't get it.

 

I don't believe a modder could do a thorough job in just a couple weeks (if someone thinks they could then give it a try.)

Different HP given to mobs, different behavior upon death and activation of touchstones/effigies... what more is there to do (again, not counting feature incompleteness of DST) to give DST the behavior of DS when one player is logged on? Is there anything that is fundamentally more difficult than those?

 

DST can already be played singleplayer as-is. Multiplayer can already be seamlessly "toggled at will" by disconnecting and reconnecting your internet. It already works fine when there is sometimes one player logged on and sometimes more, so there is no need to change anything. It can even handle zero players. All that needs to be changed is making the aforementioned behaviors match the current mode. I've no idea what you're on about when you go about modifying hundreds of things, pardon me, perhaps I am mistaken, but it just sounds like complete nonsense.

 

Furthermore the end result would be a bloated nightmare (more-so than the DS scripts already are)

Yeah... as per above... no. Simple if-else blocks definitely aren't bloated nightmare-inducing.

[XopherPM]

@blubuild It sounds like all you're worried about is health and damage values. This is easily modded already, why would Klei waste their time with making it a different game mode?

 

 

 

You're forgetting seamlessly turning multiplayer mode on and off in-gameplay (at will), and within a world

This sounds like nothing more than a 'nerf everything' button. It doesn't seem like something Klei would want built in. I know I wouldn't want it.

 

 

 

easier maintenance and compatibility for developers (including modders) and general benefits of not extraneously splitting a project into two.

 

Klei has said they felt it would be better to make DST it's own project. I have no reason to doubt that.

 

 

 

any application will always be improved as described when rewritten - especially if it's rewritten late, after its scope is realized, and many things are known and set in stone that weren't when it was first written. Hopefully, you understand the reasons for this.

 

The application is brand new. It just uses the same resources. Hopefully by release it will be equal to DS or better in terms of performance, but that doesn't seem like a good reason to spend time constantly reworking single player along side multi-player.

 

 

 

There isn't more going on in the background that doesn't have to do with networking, offloading and synchronization, if there were then it would be completely random... so there isn't any real excess work that runs in singleplayer, especially self-hosted

These things still all exist in a self-hosted game. Again most people won't notice a performance loss most of the time, but in extreme situations (such as hundreds of entities on the screen) DST does perform noticeably worse.

 

 

 

As mentioned, many games work this way in singleplayer (by logging the player into a locally hosted server to facilitate the game) and some even support others joining in without even needing to do anything special. I don't think such games are particularly 'clunkier' for doing this.

 

Compared to what? Do these games have a stand alone single player version made without any networking capability to compare them to?

 

 

 

"something that apparently few people want"

Eh... I was going to say that we don't know that, but... the whole need and desire for DST in the first place came from people wanting friends to join up their singleplayer worlds. That's also the reason that mod was made. Whoever yearned for DST yearned for this, actually they yearned for it first and what they hoped for and requested was most likely a multiplayer mode in DS rather than a "new product"... This desire is lowered by DST, but DST still doesn't quite fulfill the original one, ironically.

 

I was referring to the fact that 28% of this admittedly small and most likely biased sample voted for a merge. I thought the desire for DST was ultimately to play with other people, not necessarily show off their current world. But I don't know the ultimate reason.

 

 

 

"It doesn't matter how similar they are."

Well, it affects the complexity and difficulty of making a converter. Whether it's a relatively simple and quick matter, or not.

I was responding to:

 

The DS and DST save formats should already be similar - probably very similar. In fact, for one to assert that saves can't currently moved between the games without looking into it first, would be foolhardy.

I took that to mean that because they are similar one should simply be able to copy a save from one game to the other. Apparently that's not what you meant.

 

As for some kind of save-file-converter; if Klei were going to do anything to appease people on this subject I think this would be the best solution. However, that's assuming it would be relatively simple and not require a lot of upkeep. You also are assuming they're doing this when DST if finished, and sure it might happen, but again I'd rather get new content than something that could feasibly be modded.

 

economic reasons

Is your whole point that you think Klei is covering up how 'easy' this would be so they can sell a few more units of the old game? I find that hard to believe considering they've given out millions of copies of DST.

 

As for the mod 'problem'. You referred to a "problem of the 'divided' mod community." Which I took to mean some problem modders had. As I said some mods would be easier to make with one game, some wouldn't. Any mods not being updated for a new version would be a problem either way. I understand it's a pain for you to manage mods for both games, if that's a problem for many people there's probably an easier solution involving how players interact with the mods.

 

I'm not going to go through and find all the differences between the two games, would you care to go through the files and count them? My point wasn't that there are hundreds of things you think need to be changed, but there are hundreds of files that need to be looked at and considered whenever a change is made.

 

Again if all you're worried about is enemy health then get a mod for that and let Klei work on more important things.

 

Lastly if everything that was different between the two games had an "if singleplayer then 'prefab(A)' else 'prefab(B)'", then I would consider that a bloated nightmare.

[RalphKastro]

wait, this discussion is still going? What would be the point of the merge again? couple more months of dev time just to not have to play in Private LAN mode? Even I am not that lazy...

[Pyromailmann]

@blubuild, I think we're just killing this thread by now. DS and DST will forever remain two separate games. There's no way we can really fix that now.

I think if we get rezecib to explain why DS and DST are two different games since he knows lots more of the coding behind Don't Starve than I do. I think another reason why DS and DST were split into different games is to possibly also save storage space and confusion but that is just me thinking up reasons why the two are split into different games.

[rezecib]

@Pyromailmann, I've been avoiding this thread because usually when XirmiX says "I don't understand why [insert topic here]", it's pretty much a lost cause, based on experience.

 

But independent of technical details, all it really boils down to is this: would you rather have the convenience of having them integrated into the same game, or would you rather have it done 6 months sooner (and this means 6 more months to spend on other content or games, like Through the Ages)? It seems like a no-brainer to me.

 

And of course now that the pricing structure is defined, it would be even more of a hassle to go back to old behavior. These kinds of things are much easier to do from the start, and they did start out with merging them in mind. But it was a design decision to separate them because it made many things much, much easier.

 

Edit: There are better arguments for being able to port worlds between, and that would be an easier task and just mayyyybe something they might do, but it's definitely not a priority right now and I wouldn't count on it happening at all.

[RalphKastro]

Oh, yeah, sorry for continuing this thread a bit more after Rezecib's finalizing words, but I just noticed: You guys are trying to repeat the Minecraft 1.3 disaster. Let's not do that.

[blubuild]

rezecib didn't finalize anything. As for me, I am simply past the point at which I'm still willing to repeat myself.

To the contrary, rezecib simply repeated, yet again, an already disputed fallacy and he, like others, unfortunately, didn't include any basis for it at all. He simply made an empty statement. I'm, of course, referring to what seems to be the claim that merging would take months, even for an actual company, and in his case the claim going as far as 6.

On the surface, it would appear like he didn't read my posts before replying, either, since as I've mentioned, DST already supports singleplayer and the difficulty of incorporating a different experience (such as the Don't Starve experience) in it while it's played in singleplayer is quite trivial, akin to adding a new gamemode. Damnit, there I went, repeated myself again.

 

Though I can't fully understand that part of his post:

 

"would you rather have the convenience of having them integrated into the same game, or would you rather have it done 6 months sooner?"

 

The 2nd part of that sentence is unintelligible to me, I can't even tell what "it" (emphasis mine) is referring to, there.

Anyway, I don't know who he is, or why he would make such a claim, or whether something could drive him to make such a claim even if he doesn't have any underlying basis for it.

 

@Pyromailmann: "Forever" is an unrealistically strong word. Even Klei would avoid making any such statement, so as to not limit their future options. Remember that DST is currently a beta and can essentially be considered a fork (a partial rewrite) of DS that is currently incomplete - there are good reasons for it to not replace the original program, in its current state. Of course, the aforementioned won't apply once it's complete, and it's also a possibility that Klei will retain a single program in the future and sell it for a higher price, as they've originally considered. It would certainly be a good idea if they decide they don't wish to continue to spend time separately maintaining two different programs.

As for "no way we can fix that now", oh man. I've actually explained how even a modder could do it. So it seems you're just making arbitrary statements. Suit yourself.

 

 

You guys are trying to repeat the Minecraft 1.3 disaster.

What was that, I wonder?

 

Again, nobody knows a way to scroll the crafting list without manually clicking the arrows? That would be time for a feature request, as well as a bonk on the head to the developers.

[jbeetle]

stuff

Other than the obvious caves/adventure mode addition, what exactly would singleplayer bring to DST anyway?

[RalphKastro]

The 2nd part of that sentence is unintelligible to me, I can't even tell what "it" (emphasis mine) is referring to, there.

DST. He means DST.

he doesn't have any underlying basis for it.

Knowing Rezecib, I'm quite sure he has more basis to it than the devs...

Again, nobody knows a way to scroll the crafting list without manually clicking the arrows? That would be time for a feature request, as well as a bonk on the head to the developers.

is all this mess only for this? Anyway, I am quite sure a dev mentioned somewhere they're going to be revisiting DS after DST is done for some improvements. And when DST is done, you could just, y'know, play singleplayer DST if you don't want to wait.

Also, gameplay-wise, keeping these 2 different structures of games together(pun non-intended) would be terrible. Let's just keep both separate games with different rulesets and avoid massive balancing and tuning headaches.

[Dipps]

The 2nd part of that sentence is unintelligible to me, I can't even tell what "it" (emphasis mine) is referring to, there.

Anyway, I don't know who he is, or why he would make such a claim, or whether something could drive him to make such a claim even if he doesn't have any underlying basis for it.

 

That's exactly the same thing anyone here can say about you.

 

Instead of babbling, how about you give us specific examples of a code integration between DS and DST, handling the actual core language. A concrete view over how you would handle LUA would be sweet, considering that the devs want to keep these two games separately rather than merging the singleplayer into an one-player server, as that would make NO-SENSE for the actual storyline (and yes, there is a developer that properly administers the said "storyline")

 

If you take this out, there still are technicalities that would have to be worked around between the two engines, because lots of mechanics and levels (cave_level_1, cave_level_2, the whole friggin 7 adventure mode different chapters, do I even need to mention seasonmanager or the whole worldgen, layouts, rooms, setpieces made only for DST? or how much of a drag would be segmenting all tuning.lua values into booleans for DST?), all these will surely be handled different ways for the sole reason that this game was built without multiple Wilsons on a server in mind. And the last example I included into the brucket, the booleans, proved that your way would be very inefficient as well. 

 

It would be possible, but it would exponentially increase the amount of work over the bugs for everything they release into the game (if they use your "if multiplayer" booleans, of course, and if not, they have to segment everything in 3 different categories, vanilla, ROG or DST), while periodically having to draw a decent line between the design of two different procedures (especially caves), of two different engines, for two different purposes. All of this when you can simply quit one game and enter the other. Hell, even I am not that lazy.

[blubuild]

Knowing Rezecib, I'm quite sure he has more basis to it than the devs...

More than the devs?

And note I didn't say whether he has it or not, though he definitely didn't share any.

 

is all this mess only for this?

Try to follow. It has nothing to do with this, and is mostly off topic (it happened to be part of an example in one of my posts). I'm just asking here since I'm already posting, in an attempt to avoid creating a new topic just for it, as someone here might've been able to supply a quick answer. So far it seems there isn't a way and a feature request may be required.

 

"Also, gameplay-wise, keeping these 2 different structures of games together(pun non-intended) would be terrible."

The gameplay would be literally no different. If you start a world in singleplayer and later turn on multiplayer in it (or vice versa), then the effect on gameplay would be akin to taking a world save from DS and importing it into DST.

 

Let's just keep both separate games with different rulesets and avoid massive balancing and tuning headaches.

The balancing and tuning is already done. See: DST differs from DST in specific item behavior, character abilities, mob health and as such. And the number of those differences in gameplay between DS and DST can generally be counted in your hands, and it certainly wouldn't be tough to conditionally turn them on and off.

 

That's exactly the same thing anyone here can say about you.

Ad hominem tu quoque, and its premise isn't even right. Did you follow the thread? I've expounded on all of my points, as well as explained literally how one would do what I'm suggesting can be done. Undeniably, I also happen to be the one who had gone the most in-depth into this issue and its related concepts, within this thread. Try again.

Instead of babbling, how about you give us specific examples of a code integration between DS and DST, handling the actual core language.

I'm suggesting using the existing DST project and code, not some code integration or mishmash.Whatever you mean there, I've already explained how DST can be used as-is for singleplayer and the wondrous power of the conditional if statement can be used to make something happen one way if a certain condition is satisfied, and another if it isn't. I'm afraid whatever languages are used in DST isn't relevant to that.

 

A concrete view over how you would handle LUA would be sweet, considering that the devs want to keep these two games separately rather than merging the singleplayer into an one-player server, as that would make NO-SENSE for the actual storyline

You're accusing me of babbling, and these are your arguments? What the devs want to do is not relevant to discussing what can be done (and even either by them or a modder). There are also, naturally, various reasons for the devs to want something, and the reason you've given here is irrational.

First, what storyline? Don't Starve barely has any in-gameplay storyline at all, apart from the separate Adventure Mode gamemode, which could also be edited to accommodate multiplayer, but it's completely besides the point. It wouldn't make sense to make singleplayer a one-player server because of STORYLINE reasons? Whuh?! Those things aren't even related. What? Are you saying multiplayer doesn't make storyline sense? That has nothing to do with a merge (see: DST). And perpetual-night gamemode makes sense for the storyline? Or other gamemodes and setting changes? The very concept of DST itself? What does it matter and how it is any consideration in how to handle the game technically?

I guess all the games that have a whole plot and implement singleplayer as a one-player server totally botched their storylines?

 

If you take this out, there still are technicalities that would have to be worked around between the two engines

Nope, there are none, because we'd only be dealing with one engine, DST. And any modifications would only need to be done to the content. I started to repeat myself here again, but that's stupid. And clearly you either haven't read the thread, or are simply replying to arguments I haven't made, god knows why. In either case, screw that.

 

"the whole friggin 7 adventure mode different chapters" - Can either be properly incorporated into multiplayer, or made available only in singleplayer - which is of course one if statement.

"setpieces made only for DST?"

If those are generally good and don't only make sense in a multiplayer environment, there's no reason to touch them, so they'll be available in DST singleplayer as well. Same for any other changes and content additions that otherwise Klei should separately need to add to both projects (such as thermal stones not lasting forever). IF they are multiplayer-centric, then it can still only be a matter of adding a new worldgen customization option for them.

 

all these will surely be handled different ways for the sole reason that this game was built without multiple Wilsons on a server in mind.

:'( You fail at either knowing what you're replying to before you're replying to it, or reading comprehension, forever.

DST was expressly built to handle multiple Wilsons on a server.

The whole, and only, approach I'm advocating is making adjustments of trivial difficulty to DST to incorporate the DS experience within it. See Johnnyprofane's post if my writing style and long posts are hard to comprehend for you.

 

And the last example I included into the brucket, the booleans, proved that your way would be very inefficient as well.

I don't know what you mean or what's a brucket. Are you trying to imply that a...

if(condition)

do this

else

do that

...construct is inefficient, by chance?

 

It would be possible, but it would exponentially increase the amount of work over the bugs for everything they release into the game

Actually, my approach would decrease Klei's future workload by a lot, since they would no longer need to maintain (read: bugfix and adding, tweaking and editing of features) and continue to develop two separate projects. There would just be one.

 

"All of this when you can simply quit one game and enter the other. Hell, even I am not that lazy."

I don't know what you think you gain from repeating it, but I'm not even going to dignify that ridiculous statement anymore with a response, anymore. Do read the thread, and try again.

Well, actually, you don't have to; I mean try better the next time. From your and the others' well-explained, far reaching, strongly founded and completely relevant arguments, I've finally realized that I'm in the wrong. To say it what might be the local style; you win, and this is finalized. Thanks for proving me wrong and the learning experience.

[Kzisor]

@rezecib, I can see the other side of this argument once Caves, Ruins, and possibly Adventure Mode and World hopping are added.

• Modify a single option on world edit - number of players.
  • Make the minimum 1.
  • If 1 player is selected use tuning_single_player.lua.
  • If not 1 player is selected use tuning.lua.

The only real difference between the two games, after they add (Caves, Adventure Mode and World hopping), when you only have 1 player is the amount of health mobs have. Simply copy/paste the tuning file from single player, add the new item data to it, modify it to be for one player and viola single player in DST.

 

Swapping between maximum number of players on server, has already been answered in the bullet points.

 

Thoughts?

 

~Kzisor/Ysovuka

[RalphKastro]

And the number of those differences in gameplay between DS and DST can generally be counted in your hands

eeeeerm..... no....? REally no. I'm quite sure it's a big number right now, and it can only increase over time. Making the 2 one and the same would only restrict DST's capability to branch into multiplayer gameplay. And there is also TtA on the horizon.

But I give up. My only complaint now is that this is not hidden in the suggestions forum.

[Dipps]

Well, actually, you don't have to; I mean try better the next time. From your and the others' well-explained, far reaching, strongly founded and completely relevant arguments, I've finally realized that I'm in the wrong. To say it what might be the local style; you win, and this is finalized. Thanks for proving me wrong and the learning experience.

 

Thanks for maintaining your defensive posture over your entire post, this makes things way easier for me. The lack of receptivity you express when you bind your post by judging over other's behalfs, at this point in the conversation, empties the relevance of the message. So it makes your arguments very uncomplicated to avoid. Empty messages lead to no productivity at all, reason for which I suggest you to go on about your ideas from the get-go without the strain of opposing every single part of speech the others put together against you that is off the topic, as that you can ignore without missing anything from the actual debate. It's literally useless. Not including them into your dispute is what I call "trimming the fat".

 

I'll talk about these statements, however.

 

"First, what storyline? Don't Starve barely has any in-gameplay storyline at all, apart from the separate Adventure Mode gamemode, which could also be edited to accommodate multiplayer, but it's completely besides the point."

 

Don't Starve is based on a plot that was scattered around the update teasers made by the Klei team. The puzzle threads, in fact, were the most active topics of the forum at the time. The roots of the game don't necessarily base on that, I do agree, and the direction of the game may change depending on the will of the audience of merging these clients together, but the devs clearly stated that they want to keep the singleplayer version out of DST's business, and that they want the two to be different, reason for which they haven't implemented the exclusive multiplayer content into DS ever since october, back in the last year. They could put the engines together; they don't really want to. They want multiplayer and singleplayer to be two different experiences; and whilst I feel a bit like the inactivity makes the latter feel a bit outdated, the mechanism changes of the former does distance it from the first version of the game.

 

They might combine those two in one, but I don't really see a benefit in doing so, it only interrupts the current activities they are working on as of now. It is indeed a thing that would come after the Early-Access is done, but they probably won't stop with the updates by that time, as they didn't in the original game's and RoG's releases. The fact that they continue to prefer Together as being an individual and separated project isn't going to help either.

 

":'( You fail at either knowing what you're replying to before you're replying to it, or reading comprehension, forever. DST was expressly built to handle multiple Wilsons on a server."

 

I was talking about the counterpart of DST, since I assured myself to mention the "caves" concept, which is only available in singleplayer and it was not built to manage multiple players on one save, not at all - at the time, JoeW specifically mentioned that he can't see a multiplayer variant of the game working or fitting in any way (which also indicates that the team handles this game by following their vision, which probably has a basis of some sorts on the plot thread I linked above). In RoG Beta, early 2014, MarkL kicked in the team and, asked by the community to make up a good way to play with their fellow friend online, made networking possible. ^5 for Mark!

 

"I don't know what you mean or what's a brucket. Are you trying to imply that a... if(condition) do this else do that ...construct is inefficient, by chance?"

 

I meant bracket, I'm sorry for the mistake. Your formula is efficient when managing a function that trails the behavior of the said function in different circumstances. If you want to control the AI or the stategraph of a mob, or if you want to change its qualities when you enter the elseif line, sure, this works. But I want to see you handle a whole engine around this, it is both tedious and inefficient in intensive parts of the code, reason why you don't see RoG use elseifs to input every single function that differs from vanilla, instead it is considered as a whole another branch. This is not possible for DST, however, as there is no maingame from which it could ramify, they are two different engines. Porting these two without changing everything about singleplayer is just not gonna happen, and ultimately, the decision of assimilating both versions together, putting at risk the first's authenticity, absolutely depends on the devs.

 

The majority of the poll is against merging these together, so that should enclose it.

[leonseye]

Just seems completely unnecessary to me.

 

DST and DS are 2 different games, although they share a lot of base similarities.  Seems like a waste of resources to attempt to shoehorn the round peg into the square hole.

[Johnny5isAlive]

@blubuild, Everything you've said so far has sounded like the words of a politician or some barely functioning A.I, you're just saying "this is possible" and yet somehow managing to get away with not showing any proof of it's possibility! Like telling us there's cake but not showing us the cake.. Really if you fail at whatever you may be doing now consider a job in politics.

 

Anyway @Dipps has made many good points and from a lore point of view Don't Starve Together IS the sequel to Don't Starve, even the word Together being that which represents unity ergo Don't Starve 2. That's the way I've always thought of it.

[oCrapaCreeper]

Lore wise, you could see DST as a sequel. But the lore for DST doesn't actually exist yet. Kevin is probably still alone in a dark room creating it as we speak.

[Pyromailmann]

@blubuild, has been killing this thread after rezecib's explanation.

 

But independent of technical details, all it really boils down to is this: would you rather have the convenience of having them integrated into the same game, or would you rather have it done 6 months sooner (and this means 6 more months to spend on other content or games, like Through the Ages)? It seems like a no-brainer to me.  

 

And of course now that the pricing structure is defined, it would be even more of a hassle to go back to old behavior. These kinds of things are much easier to do from the start, and they did start out with merging them in mind. But it was a design decision to separate them because it made many things much, much easier. 

 

 Edit: There are better arguments for being able to port worlds between, and that would be an easier task and just mayyyybe something they might do, but it's definitely not a priority right now and I wouldn't count on it happening at all.

 

 

[rezecib]

@Kzisor, You could certainly get a rough approximately of single-player with an approach like that. Even a mod could do that pretty easily.

 

But there are a lot of other mechanical differences that, individually might be solvable with some thought and effort, but they'd really pile up, if you want to produce real parity. And why produce parity when there already is a separate single-player version of the game? Here's some cases:

• Ghosts make no sense in single-player. This has ramifications in life-giving amulet mechanics, the portal, and especially meat effigy mechanics.
• Willow is a completely different character now.
• Gmoose, Deerclops, and Dragonfly mechanics. Bearger too, but his changes are less extreme.
• Old bell. Maybe this will be added to DST, though.
• Thermal stone mechanics.
• Fire propagation changes.

And then all the vanilla-vs-RoG differences... The devs basically avoided this entirely, and gave a vanilla-like mode. So they could give this a single-player-ish treatment too, in the way you're suggesting, but nothing to really replace Don't Starve as the authentic single-player experience whose design is really centered around that.

 

But then again, maintaining backward compatibility like that would always be a thorn in the development of new content, such as what's in Through the Ages.

 

But as I said before, the real nail in the coffin to the idea of complete integration is that the pricing structure has already been set.

[DarkXero]

The only real difference between the two games, after they add (Caves, Adventure Mode and World hopping), when you only have 1 player is the amount of health mobs have.

 

 

And that mechanics are different.

 

e.g fire.

Fire spreads instantly in DS, fire spreads with smoldering in DST.

We would have to switch components back and forth and mantain two components.

 

e.g dragonfly.

We would have to switch the dragonfly prefabs.

We would have to switch the dragonfly tie to the basehassler component to dragonflyspawner.

We would have to switch the dragonfly brain and stategraph.

We would have to generate lava ponds if switching into DST, removing or keeping them into DS.

(We can't currently transform a DS vanilla world into a DS ROG world and viceversa.)

 

e.g gamemodes

We would have to be able to switch between endless and survival?

Or do we have to specify a possible multiplayer mode when creating a singleplayer mode?

Spawn points are tied to world gen.

So do we generate spawn points everywhere to account for all possible modes?

Also, we can't currently switch between DS and ROG worlds, despite ROG having the prefabs of DS.

 

e.g transition DS-DST.

How would the transition be anyways? Build a portal you can activate. Activate.

Logic sweeps over the map and generates missing prefabs like spawnpoints.

(Or were those prefabs generated already but hidden and waiting for activation?)

But how do we change the components like the burnable component?

Remove component, add second component?

Or instead of having two components, we rewrite all DS components in DST syntax?

We basically reload the entire world with new files?

If prefabs change we need to go to the main menu and load the game again, as the fn in the prefab files only runs in creation...

or we make a for loop over all entities and remove them and spawn the multiplayer entity version on the old location?

Then we would need not to have one prefab, but two prefabs per entity.

Also, some information that is saved must be converted between prefabs.

 

 

And that balancing may be a problem.

 

e.g Dragonfly will burn my world!

Switch into DST. Dragonfly flies to arena.

 

e.g I want dragon scales.

I kill the dragonfly a trillion times in DS. I go into DST. I make scaled tiles. I profit.

 

e.g I don't want Bearger roaming around.

I go into DS. Bearger entity is easier to kill and disappears when station changes. No hibernation.

 

e.g I want to use fire farms.

I go to DS. Burn the everliving life out of giants, pigs, krampuses, birds. Go back to DST.

 

 

And what if caves or adventure mode are changed and have different mechanics?

The dragonfly was made a raid boss like.

So why not adventure mode? Having the same maxwell door teleport us to different lore instances seems counter intuitive.

We would need some prefab switching magic to make the door different.