May be the games should be merged? And how about surveys?

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

Putting DST in DS

I've come to accept and actually like the idea of DST acting as a separate sequel game. SW didn't get to be standalone, because as it showed, at least the vocal players on the forum would prefer and were expecting an "expansion" to be a DLC, so, after a slight delay on the deadline, SW was integrated as a DLC instead of a separate game.

If I'm honest, with the Shipwrecked case, I was really expecting everything to be put together, like RoG had it coming, with a mainland perhaps and islands around, or the world being split into multiple islands, some large, some smaller. But alas, we got something rather strange... Probably something to talk about in another topic for another time.

DST, because of its multiplayer aspect overtook DS and now the single player game doesn't get as much attention. We are awaiting a new DLC, but the old issues are still prevalent and stuff feels incomplete. The decision to make DST standalone was due to it being easier to implement as a standalone, from what I recall. But never-the-less, the case I want to put forward is that because there's a split between DST and DS, all of these issues arise that just get in the way of development for either one or the other. Klei has plenty of other projects, so having one less game to worry about as a separate game that is supposed to still fall in line with an existing game could be a bit of a relief in the long run.

 

Some potential benefits to do this:

* Everything becomes compact and easier to work with in the long run.

* More frequent updates, patches, possibly for everything.

* May be single player worlds could be shared with others, if they don't become corrupted.

* Other DLC integration with Together would be not only be less work, but would be made to work with multiplayer right from the start.

* Modders will only need to create one mod, consistent with the game, and make it compatible for whichever version is possible or they wish to without reprogramming a new copy.

* Player-base won't really be split in any regard. You'll be playing Don't Starve, with friends, by yourself, with or without other DLC that you own as you wish.

 

Issues that could occur from doing this:

* Will take time to put the two together.

* At this point, it would be even harder to put DST as a DLC for DS.

* Saves may become corrupt.

* Questions of "but how will this be handled" will need to be resolved in one way or another

* Mods may need code adjustment to make sure stuff doesn't crash in the short term

 

I personally think now, that the positives outweigh the negatives in the long run, because if we don't want to see one side of a game being left behind, this may seem like the reasonable path to take.

---------------------------------------

Surveys

On another note, since Klei seems to get information from what players are interested in mainly on the forums, I think there's something that they could do to get more input from the broader fanbase, and that's creating surveys and advertising them in the games. They could even ask about what players outside of forum think about putting the games together, to see what their broader audience thinks of this.

[Sicko Hog]

"maybe if I post the same idea everyone disagreed with again a few months later, people will forget they didn't like it!"

 

also this isn't how a poll works, just make the options "yes" and "no". why is this so hard for people to understand

[csc_unit]

To me it is not anymore a relevant question. DS has so few to add to DST that it seems quite pointless. Just play DST. 

[fimmatek]

87,5% thinks that the games should stay separated and the rest 12,5% has the opinion that it could be good in the long run, but the expence would be too high for the merge. It's quite clear that most people here don't want to merge DST into DS.

What pricing would you suggest if they were merged, btw? People now get DST for $15, but if it were a DLC they would have to spend another 15 just to be able to play it. Or if Klei decreased the prices, they would get less money from selling the same games. 

8 hours ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

* Other DLC integration with Together would be not only less work, but would.

I guess you forgot something here?...

8 hours ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

* Player-base won't really be split in any regard. You'll be playing Don't Starve, with friends, by yourself, with or without other DLC that you own as you wish.

How wouldn't the playerbase be split? If a player doesn't own a DLC, were they be able to join servers with that DLC enabled? If no, then it would split the playerbase. If yes, some people would simply host a big server with all DLCs enabled and everyone could play all these extensions on that server without having to buy any of the DLCs.

8 hours ago, JellyUltra said:

also this isn't how a poll works, just make the options "yes" and "no". why is this so hard for people to understand

Personally I liked this poll better then a simple yes/no vote. Not every case is clearly white or black, and even I have often an opinion between two extreme cases.

[Korlie]

The current system is,

if you want to play Don't Starve as multiplayer you have to pay 15$ to buy Don't Starve Together

if you want to play Don't Starve as singleplayer you have to pay 20$ to buy Don't Starve and ROG on an inferior version of the game with ANR

if you want to play Shipwrecked or Hamlet you have to pay 15$ for singleplayer DS and 5$ for each expansion.

 

Basically they have designed the system to spread out their content as much as possible and sell it all individually so people are forced to buy their game twice just to get access to multiplayer, ANR, Shipwrecked and eventually Hamlet. Because there are two versions of the same game being sold on the market, one having multiplayer and a free exclusive expansion while the other is technically outdated and requires you to pay more to get access to an old expansion you get for free in the other version; so if you want multiplayer you have to buy one copy of the game for the full price and another copy of the game for access to the pay to play singleplayer expansions.

It's probably the most awful publishing system I've ever seen from a company, and they seem to be completely fine with the way it is now because it forces people to buy their game twice if they want all the content for it. And they appear to be adamant about it staying that way, if them releasing yet another singleplayer locked expansion that will force people who bought DST but want to play it to pay for the game a second time to get access to it, wasn't evidence enough.

If they merged DST and DS they would essentially be cutting their profits in half at the cost of a huge amount of work because they rebuilt the multiplayer game in a different instance as an excuse to sell it separately. So they would have to back port it onto the singleplayer, going through the work they avoided in the first place, and have to port all the ANR content as well.

 

Capcom did this too, they claimed the Dark Arisen expansion was "too big" to sell digitally so they sold Dragon's Dogma again with the DA expansion on the disk and so people who bought DD had to buy the whole game a second time just to play the new expansion. The only difference is, Capcom didn't then release exclusive DLC expansions for the original DD, so new people who bought the new version of DD with DA weren't forced to buy the inferior original version of DD to play those exclusive expansions.

 

[Rellimarual]

How many times does it have to be explained that while the games look very similar on the surface they are technically fundamentally different? This is because DS was never intended to be multiplayer and a completely new game had to be designed to make DST.

[Lumina]

1 hour ago, Korlie said:

 

If they merged DST and DS they would essentially be cutting their profits in half at the cost of a huge amount of work because they rebuilt the multiplayer game in a different instance as an excuse to sell it separately.

No, they planned at first to have DS and DST as the same game (but the price would have been higher, of course).

DST was never planned to be free anyway, and people can choose if they want DST and DS or only one of them, instead of having to buy both if they want only one.

Seriously, i don't understand a reasoning that conveniently forget that DST included in DS would had raised the game in price anyway.

 

I'm not saying this is the best option ever, but the choice was limited, anyway. Also, we don't pay "twice", and some people are happy to have possibility to have only one version of the game, without the game being more expensive because of a part that they don't like.

Also, since it's possible to play DST solo, if someone think that DST+RoG+ANR is better than DS+RoG, and don't want to play Hamlet/Shipwrecked, then it's a totally valid option, too.

 

I think maybe they will use is as a possibility of experiment : it's just a feeling but i think Hamlet could bring some new experience that possibly is better solo, when Forge is really a  multiplayer content. So maybe for the moment, the two games are too close, but in the future they will acquire each their own personnality, and so attract different player, or player liking both, without one being inferior to the other.

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

12 hours ago, JellyUltra said:

"maybe if I post the same idea everyone disagreed with again a few months later, people will forget they didn't like it!"

May be I thought the points that were brought here weren't brought up before? I've never really followed topics about merging the two games before.

I do wonder why people think it's better to just leave the games separate, but I'm not really getting these answers, just opinions of "yes" and "no" more or less.

2 hours ago, Rellimarual said:

How many times does it have to be explained that while the games look very similar on the surface they are technically fundamentally different? This is because DS was never intended to be multiplayer and a completely new game had to be designed to make DST.

Shipwrecked was originally intended to be a separate game. DST was intended to be PART of DS. But we got it the other way round. So, to say that DST couldn't be integrated because coding can't meet multiplayer mechanics is very flawed. Do you have a clue about how networking works? If no, then how is this a valid point on your end? I've actually worked with networking, and while yes, I had to rebuild my game that I made and port content into it, I could have very well worked from it. The multiplayer-integrated code could have just replaced the single-player code. Whether things would crash or work, that is what testing, debugging and holding various versions of the game to go back a version is for. It's a lot of work, but it's not something that wouldn't be feasible.

4 hours ago, fimmatek said:

87,5% thinks that the games should stay separated and the rest 12,5% has the opinion that it could be good in the long run, but the expence would be too high for the merge. It's quite clear that most people here don't want to merge DST into DS.

The question's worded in a way that it shouldn't be done if the expense is too difficult. I do wonder why people don't actually want this, considering this could be more beneficial for updates and not leaving a game hanging.

4 hours ago, fimmatek said:

What pricing would you suggest if they were merged, btw? People now get DST for $15, but if it were a DLC they would have to spend another 15 just to be able to play it. Or if Klei decreased the prices, they would get less money from selling the same games. 

You make a good point there; if people wanted only the multiplayer expansion, they would need to buy the single player first. I certainly think that DST is a bit overpriced, since it was supposed to be a free update for DS and most of the content is still just the same stuff, repackaged in a functioning multiplayer setting, and considering they are getting money more from skins anyway than sales probably at this point. A few ways they could go about it are:

* Having it as a DLC, DST would cost $5 - $10 on top of single player experience. For those who own DST already, would get DS with the multiplayer attached already.

* Having it part of the game, and pushing the price up to $25 - $30.

If you wanted both games, right now, they would cost you $35, which for some may already seem like too high of a price to be paying for an indie game package, without any DLC.

4 hours ago, fimmatek said:

I guess you forgot something here?...

Yes, sorry, it's been corrected: "* Other DLC integration with Together would be not only be less work, but would be made to work with multiplayer right from the start."

4 hours ago, fimmatek said:

How wouldn't the playerbase be split? If a player doesn't own a DLC, were they be able to join servers with that DLC enabled? If no, then it would split the playerbase. If yes, some people would simply host a big server with all DLCs enabled and everyone could play all these extensions on that server without having to buy any of the DLCs.

Nobody can actually host giant servers like that. Most players have around 10 players going around max on one server, if the server size is extended. Worlds can only support so much, and after a certain point, people have to play separately because there's too many players in one spot. If you wanted to play single player adventure mode, you'd have to first play on your own, which would mean hosting the game yourself. Or, you'd need to play from a friend's computer. I honestly don't see it being a huge problem. DST already gets some DLC content for free, so this system doesn't seem that bad.

[. . .]

I'd like a skin survey, they should survey which skins we want the most because skins are amazing !!!!!!!!!!

[ButterStuffed]

What's the point of combining the two games at this point. It would be redundant and would take away attention towards making actual new content. The whole idea just seems like a time and money sink that would marginally improve a system that for the most part functions fine.

[MondayNight]

4 hours ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

I do wonder why people think it's better to just leave the games separate..

I do wonder why people don't actually want this, considering this could be more beneficial for updates and not leaving a game hanging.

Most likely it has to do with status quo bias - "If it works, why change it?! As it's more likely said change will cause additional problems".

As others stated, at this point the proverbial cr@p already hit the fan and now is mushed all over the wall. Would be, indeed, a drag to undo it even if it seems counterproductive or not the best choice in the first place otherwise (for starters from what I've read LUA script language may be good for single-player but problematic in online/server setups). I for one would very much prefer Klei concentrated on new updates ("Forge-like event nr.2") or game balance/fixes (WorldGen, characters etc) than redo something that's not an actual problem in game functionality and content.

[Zeklo]

As someone who appreciates the game's lore, I'm fine with them being separate. I don't really want them to paste Charlie's reign atop of Maxwell's. They'd have to make ANR toggle-able, which is reasonable, but then there is the issue of characters. In, DST all characters are unlocked at the same time. In DS one character will always be on the nightmare throne iirc. Certain workarounds could probably find a way to make it work, but I think it would lose the feel in place of mechanical wellness. 

[Sinister_Fang]

7 hours ago, Korlie said:

Capcom did this too, they claimed the Dark Arisen expansion was "too big" to sell digitally so they sold Dragon's Dogma again with the DA expansion on the disk and so people who bought DD had to buy the whole game a second time just to play the new expansion. The only difference is, Capcom didn't then release exclusive DLC expansions for the original DD, so new people who bought the new version of DD with DA weren't forced to buy the inferior original version of DD to play those exclusive expansions.

That was something completely different. The expansion was just additional content that could have easily been sold separately. In the case of DST very large portions of the game needed to be completely rewritten from the ground up. So it's not really the same game being repackaged and sold again, even though it does look like that on the surface. It's kinda more like a sequel then anything.

[Szczuku]

Dst should stay as Dst- multiplayer with skins and events

New Reign on the oher hand is a dlc material that needs (obviously) a few changes to fit singleplayer. 

@Zeklo Said that NR would need to be toggle-able. In single player we can already do that. When you create a new world you have an option to make it shipwrecked, RoG, vanilla and to be compatible with shipwreded after you choose RoG/vanilla.By choosing NR the world would have no maxwell's door (or could have it to expand the lore and maybe see queen charlie in-game) we would be greated by Charlie herself or some shadow minions. Character quotes would be changed so they don't say anything related to multiplayer (for example quotes for maxwell statue would stay the same as in the singleplayer)

I could see that work

[Zeklo]

1 minute ago, Szczuku said:

@Zeklo Said that NR would need to be toggle-able. In single player we can already do that. When you create a new world you have an option to make it shipwrecked, RoG, vanilla and to be compatible with shipwreded after you choose RoG/vanilla.By choosing NR the world would have no maxwell's door (or could have it to expand the lore and maybe see queen charlie in-game) we would be greated by Charlie herself or some shadow minions. Character quotes would be changed so they don't say anything related to multiplayer (for example quotes for maxwell statue would stay the same as in the singleplayer)

I could see that work

Yes, I said the toggeability is reasonable, but there would be the issue of characters. You'd end up with only ANR off having locked characters and ANR on having all characters unlocked. That just struck me as weird.

Now that you mention it as well, characters would need to have two sets of strings. Which is possible of course, but a huge waste of space.

[Mr. Despair]

9 hours ago, Korlie said:

if you want to play Don't Starve as singleplayer you have to pay 20$ to buy Don't Starve and ROG on an inferior version of the game with ANR

Can't you just play DST offline?

[Mr Pig]

Guess I'll throw my hat in the ring with this.

Lets see we have a system that works fine as it is. We could go over past intentions between DS and DST whatnot but we all know them and what's in the past is in the past. At the end of the day we could either.

 

A: Merge the two games for what I'm assuming would be a significant time and money sink purely for the convenience of the player base, cause minor issues in the games lore, and be doing it for what at least from my point of view seems like no way to forward profit which is necessary for the game to continue development.

OR

B: Keep our current system which while not the most refined works and doesn't seem to cause to any major issues.

 

 That's my take on it anyway, and I personally just say keep it how it is because it works. If it ain't broke don't fix it

[TheKingofSquirrels]

My only issue, is that all the new stuff goes to DST.

If they added stuff to BOTH DST and DS, then there wouldn't be an issue and everyone would be happy. I don't understand why they can't do this.

19 hours ago, Mr Pig said:

Guess I'll throw my hat in the ring with this.

Lets see we have a system that works fine as it is. We could go over past intentions between DS and DST whatnot but we all know them and what's in the past is in the past. At the end of the day we could either.

 

A: Merge the two games for what I'm assuming would be a significant time and money sink purely for the convenience of the player base, cause minor issues in the games lore, and be doing it for what at least from my point of view seems like no way to forward profit which is necessary for the game to continue development.

OR

B: Keep our current system which while not the most refined works and doesn't seem to cause to any major issues.

 

 That's my take on it anyway, and I personally just say keep it how it is because it works. If it ain't broke don't fix it

OPTION C: Add elements from DST to DS that DO NOT CONFLICT WITH LORE. Stuff like fences, Beefalo Riding, extra-adorable larvae and a few non-specific Charlie bosses. By doing so, the DS remains relevant (there's a reason the single-player forum here is dead) for people who are looking for a single-player experience. 

Also, I would say that the fact that there is not Shipwrecked multiplayer is a pretty major issue. But this was destined to happen, ever since they decided to segregate content. 

20 hours ago, Mr. Despair said:

Can't you just play DST offline?

 

On 04/04/2018 at 3:06 AM, csc_unit said:

To me it is not anymore a relevant question. DS has so few to add to DST that it seems quite pointless. Just play DST. 

For the people who say "Just play DST". DST really isn't the same as DS. DST isn't permadeath, there's literally no tension in DST with death (that's not even considering the horrible "Rollback" feature). Some will argue that they've balanced the difficulty by having super OP bosses, some of which are impossible to beat by yourself without exploits, like using fences/walls (i.e. Bee Queen). Also, and this purely a personal opinion, it's just not an enjoyable experience to grind bosses by yourself (because they are clearly designed to be tackled by multiple players).

Also, Hamlet makes things difficult. Why are they adding new content to the "old version" of the game?

EDIT: ALSO, as a massive Woody fan, I can't play DST :/

On 04/04/2018 at 4:45 PM, Mikro said:

What's the point of combining the two games at this point. It would be redundant and would take away attention towards making actual new content. The whole idea just seems like a time and money sink that would marginally improve a system that for the most part functions fine.

Because

A) Some people prefer DS and want to have the new content (at least stuff like fences and Beefalo Riding)

B) They are releasing DLC for the outdated version of the game...This is just dumb. I want everything in one place. 

[Mr. Despair]

1 hour ago, TheKingofSquirrels said:

....

You're right, I actually forgot how easy DST is compared to DS

But we still don't really know about the gameplay of Hamlet, It seems...weird in the few pics that we got.

[Sinister_Fang]

3 hours ago, TheKingofSquirrels said:

Also, Hamlet makes things difficult. Why are they adding new content to the "old version" of the game?

What if it does something that's not possible, or wouldn't work well in a multiplayer environment? Of course it's too early to tell, but it's still a possibility.

[fimmatek]

6 hours ago, TheKingofSquirrels said:

15 hours ago, Mikro said:

What's the point of combining the two games at this point. It would be redundant and would take away attention towards making actual new content. The whole idea just seems like a time and money sink that would marginally improve a system that for the most part functions fine.

Because

A) Some people prefer DS and want to have the new content (at least stuff like fences and Beefalo Riding)

B) They are releasing DLC for the outdated version of the game...This is just dumb. I want everything in one place. 

Just to clarify: do you want the games to be merged, or DST content ported to DS?

Because in the latter case it's the wrong topic, and it seems to  me that you want to play ANR stuff in DS, with the original, intense DS feeling. Which is really undersandable. But merging the games not necessarily would solve this problem. If DST were a DLC that you can enable just like RoG or SW, you still couldn't play with stuff from ANR without having to enable DST, but that would mean playing the multiplayer game (even if solo) with all its disadvantages compared to DS (like the lack of permadeatch etc). I think the only change there would be (regarding content) is that you start DST from the DS main screen and not as a separate game.

For example, you say that:

6 hours ago, TheKingofSquirrels said:

My only issue, is that all the new stuff goes to DST.

But if the game were merged, DST still could get its exclusive updates, like SW got Home Sea Home not long ago. Having them as DLCs doesn't mean that their updates and contents affect the vanilla DS as well.

So as a conclusion, I don't think merging were a solution to the DST-DS content problem.

 

6 hours ago, TheKingofSquirrels said:

EDIT: ALSO, as a massive Woody fan, I can't play DST :/

As a Woodie fan, is that spelling error in his name intended?

 

 

[TheKingofSquirrels]

9 hours ago, fimmatek said:

Because in the latter case it's the wrong topic, and it seems to  me that you want to play ANR stuff in DS, with the original, intense DS feeling. Which is really undersandable.

This is exactly what I want. 

9 hours ago, fimmatek said:

I think the only change there would be (regarding content) is that you start DST from the DS main screen and not as a separate game.

If they ported DST content DS, obviously certain things would be cut out and rebalanced. No more telltale hearts for example, and bosses' health would be re-balanced. 

9 hours ago, fimmatek said:

As a Woodie fan, is that spelling error in his name intended?

Oops.

12 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

What if it does something that's not possible, or wouldn't work well in a multiplayer environment? Of course it's too early to tell, but it's still a possibility.

That's not really the point though.

They point, they can't expect us to buy DLC for a game that is considered to be the "outdated" version. 

[PillsStealer]

Why are you trying to relight the fire that's been extinguished months ago.

[UnknowX]

Would`nt it be better to just make a Don't Starve Sequel already? DS came years ago and has had a good life span so far, but its old code limits what you can do with the game (the reason of the existence of DST), and insisting on making separated content for both games just make the players and fanbase unhappy. I know that alot of people, me included, have put weeks or months of work into their worlds and all, but trying to fuse the games will bring inevitable glitches and corruption of those beloved worlds, so it would be better to leave them as they are and move on to a new game, one that already has all the elements of DS and DST integrated. Sure, We`ll have to pay for a new game and all but think of all the benefits.

1.- Everything already there.

2.- New content could be released simultaneusly for single player and multiplayer, some could be specific for one of them if necessary (Like "The Forge", Made for multipleayer and Imposible to beat solo)

3.- One code, One set of mods

4.- Easier for Klei to deliver more and better content for the fanbase of both play styles, instead of dividing their efforts between the two.

5.- You get to keep all your progress in DS and DST with out the risk of corruption.

 

What do you think?

[Zeklo]

30 minutes ago, UnknowX said:

What do you think?

First off I think DST more or less is the sequel. It's the next page in the story building on the previous content.

However to write to what you mean... in order to justify a true sequel, the game would need to have significant core changes, because DST is basically DS multiplayer, but can also be played single player. A sequel would need to be a truly new game with new core mechanics, and because of that we'll have the same issue. People playing on the old DS/T games because there is something they prefer compared to the newer. So we'll have the same situation of people wanting those old ones to not be abandoned.