Online mode or split screen


SiegeCorrupt

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I've been playing this game for a little while now and my little brother has been watching me play and my brother and I have been wanting a online mode it does matter if it's split screen or not. It would still be cool if it wasn't split screen he could use my older brothers console. There should only be a maximum of two players, I think if there where anymore it would make it difficult to find the supplies necessary to survive.

Edited by SiegeCorrupt
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Player One is exhausted and wants to sleep for 12 hours.

Player Two is fully rested and wants to go hunt a moose.

Care to describe what happens?

Does Player One stare at a black screen with a status circle for one hour real-time?

Is Player Two forced to miss 12 hours as the game suddenly compresses that time?

The time dilation used as a core mechanic of the current game means you simply can't experience The Long Dark properly outside of single player. A multiplayer game would need to be a completely new system, which is only going to happen if Hinterland releases a new game.

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Both players have the options sleep or waste time. How will player 2 gain that much fatigue. You don't have to sleep for 12 hours anyway you could sleep for less time depending on your fatigue. Also most players would sleep before their level of fatigue is severe.

The players would start of with the same fatigue, which would only make sense that they slept at the same exact time, so how will the player have more fatigue then the other player. They could also use the same bed, bedroll wouldn't be counted, and would gain a added heat bonus as their sharing each others body heat.

Edited by SiegeCorrupt
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Different activities incur different fatigue costs in game. Climbing a rope, for example, quickly drains your fatigue, but even such things as being overloaded when walking will change how fast you drain your stamina. It's almost inevitable that different players will have different fatigue levels.

But that's not even the biggest problem. When you're next playing the game, count how often you enter time dilation. Crafting, cooking, carcass harvesting, sleeping, chopping branches, breaking down furniture, and a variety of other activities all advance time at an increased speed. The only option is to simply ignore the time of day advancing when one player enters time dilation, which creates more problems, such as when you are trying to wait out a blizzard or sleep through an aurora rather than risk wildlife encounters.

The game is simply not a good fit for multiplayer.

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I've given this a lot of thought, and the only way multiplayer could work is at the expense of immersion.  Player statistics would need to be decoupled from the passage of time.  In other words, player fatigue would be calculated per player, based on whatever they're doing. Any time-accelerated activity such as reading a book, harvesting a carcass, or sleeping would affect that one player's stats only, without actually advancing time.  So say you are completely exhausted, eat and drink until you're full, then sleep 12 hours just as the sun is going down.  You would wake up to see that no time has passed, and it is still the end of the day. However you are now well-rested, dehydrated, and a little hungry. Exactly as you would expect to see from sleeping 12 hours.  This would allow for multiple people to be playing in the same world space at the same time, while being fair in the sense that your actions still play a role in your condition.  However the passage of time would suffer, meaning that players would either need to wait out the night in real-time, or they'd be gaining a whole new appreciation for the value of lamp oil.

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