How would a Multiplayer TLD shape up?

[Kelbert]

I would be OK with COOP, but absolutely against any other kind of multiplayer.

We all know what happens when you add PvP into games like this. It turns into a slow paced match of counter strike with hunger meters.

[korxete]

Having a cooperative TLD would be so nice. This is not a shooter, nor an action game. it´s about using your wits and scavenging and with a friend it would be even better. Sharing the shivers while running from wolves or while looking for food... that´s my idea of perfection.

[wynarator]

I think that the presence of other player would ruin the amazing solitude of TLD.

[EternityTide]

Multiplayer has too many flaws that could not be negated by using the single player set up.

Firstly, your world is deleted when you die. so how does that work when you have multiple people in that same world? presumably your corpse drops with all its inventory, so you could just respawn an get all your stuff back, plus with full health, perfect condition, etc etc. This is both unrealistic, and takes away the threat of death that is implicit in the game.

Additionally, how do you melt snow, boil water, cook food, harvest materials, repair clothes and tools (etc etc) without timelapse? do you sit there for ages waiting for it to finish, or do you have to wait for all players to do something that takes EXACTLY the same time so that your timelapse is all in sync? not bloody likely.

As well as this, you will always get that one arsehole, going around the map with three rifles, belts of ammunition looted from other players, and marksmanship that would shoot a rabbit out of a wolf's mouth from 800 yards, and that just ruins the game, when you constantly have to watch out for sniper-gods. These people proliferate in games such as DayZ. You find a loot cache? oh, too bad for you, a sniper was watching this loot cache and has just popped a cap between your eyes, oh yes, he's now looting and teabagging your corpse (cos ya know, that's what they do, the immature bastards).

[robdoar]

Multi-Player just can't happen. Sleep requirements and time-lapsing kill it.

The only way it could work is to force people to sleep at the same time, regardless of individual needs. Boiling, cooking, foraging, harvesting, crafting, etc. all in unison, regardless of individual wants/needs. It would pretty much be 3 legged race the whole game.

I wouldn't want to play that game.

[elloco999]

Multi-Player just can't happen. Sleep requirements and time-lapsing kill it.

The only way it could work is to force people to sleep at the same time, regardless of individual needs. Boiling, cooking, foraging, harvesting, crafting, etc. all in unison, regardless of individual wants/needs. It would pretty much be 3 legged race the whole game.

I wouldn't want to play that game.

Another way to do it would be to have everything take place in real time (real game time that is) so no time speed up for sleeping, foraging, crafting etc. Then time passes at the same speed for everyone and it's not needed to sleep all at the same time.

But that would probably be an even worse game to play, as sleeping for 8 hours would mean waiting for your character to wake up for like 10 minutes of real word time...

Nope, I don't see any way this game can be turned into a playable and fun multiplayer experience.

[Renegade30]

The way I would see TLD multiplayer working is if other players can seamlessly appear into other peoples games. It would be possible to follow the other players around and form groups and friendships, even move together into another persons game.

The game mechanic would dictate that most people are reasonable kind of individuals and would use the psyche system that has been talked about. Killing other players would severely influence your psyche and make you feel awful, you lose appetite and become severely fatigued as you lose motivation to continue. Recovering from killing someone would require considerable time just to even make it out of bed to gather food. Your group would likely leave you as they would not have the patience to put up with you moping around, wasting time.

Cooking food would be changed such that you can place a piece of meat on the fire and come back to it a few minutes later, if you are too slow the meat will become burned and you get less calories from it.

Players who are in a group would agree (by voting) to sleep at the same time and time would accelerate as normal, unless there are other players who belong to a different group who are currently invading the game. If this is the case then then the other players (who have recently spotted them) would have the option to either leave them alone (players leave the current world) or they have 2 minutes to steal everything they can while the other players sleep. Only there is a chance that one of the players will wake up and be able to attack. If defending in this situation the penalty for killing will be less, but wounding will give no penalty and lock out the ability for the thief to steal anything until they are healthy, forcing them to retreat.

This would lead to people wanting to group together in small groups so that they have a better chance of one waking up to defend against thieves. If the group is too large then it becomes harder to feed, if it's too small then it is less likely to be able to defend.

To avoid trolls from starting new games every 5 minutes just to murder people it would take several days before you would be allowed to either transition into someones game or for them to transition into yours.

Waddya think?

[elloco999]

Okay, here's a hypothetical situation: you're in a group of 10 people. One person in your group has a low condition so the group decides it's time to sleep so this person can heal. But you forgot to drink before sleeping, so you loose 20% condition. After you've woken up it's time to go out to get some more supplies. You're very unlucky and get attacked by 2 wolves right after each other. Your condition is down to 30% so you want to heal up. But that means the whole group needs to go back to bed, but they've just slept for 10 hours...

I don't know I would not want to put my life in the hands of 9 other people who have to decide if they all want to sleep so 1 person can heal. And what if someone gets food poisoning but there are no antibiotics?

Then there's still the issue with foraging, harvesting etc.

I think you've put some thought into how it could work and you've come up with some novel solutions but TLD is designed and build from the ground up as a single player game. There are simply too many mechanisms that don't work in multiplayer. And changing all these mechanisms so they will work would result in a game that's no longer TLD.

[Renegade30]

My counter argument would be that my idea really explores group psychology and would be quite an interesting experience. If you are well liked in the group people would be willing to help you and wait for you to recover. If you aren't well liked then your group could leave you, but then the group would be weaker and may need to recruit another player to be strong again.

It would lead to interesting situations. Shall we leave this player and hope we can find someone who is more competent? Or shall we help them and train them to be better or assign them to another task? Or.. My group is full of assholes, should I try and join the group that only I have noticed stalking us and share the loot with the strangers? Or shall I tell them that we are being followed?

Foraging would have to be different in multiplayer, either you have to use your hatchet on specific deadfall to yield wood, or pieces of wood are randomly dispersed. Harvesting and repairing would take real time (maybe not as long as it is for the single player), a group member may be nominated to do some repairing etc while the rest of the group hunts\cooks\forages for wood.

Although one of the main themes of TLD is that you are alone and have to look out for yourself, obviously a MP experience would not be able to provide that. But what it could provide is a survival experience where you have to work with a group you may not trust, but still have to rely on. It would result in interesting social interactions while you brave the desolation of the wilderness.

Don't get me wrong I don't think this would happen any time soon or even at all. But I do envisage an excellent MP experience if it is executed well.

[Lux]

Killing other players would severely influence your psyche and make you feel awful

That is actually really really funny. The only way multiplayer could exist for this game is if you could not kill other players. Why would you want to kill other players anyway?

If you want to play a survival game and kill other players, play DayZ or RUST. Its already been done and its awesome and horrible, fun, and boring.

[Renegade30]

Killing other players would severely influence your psyche and make you feel awful

Why would you want to kill other players anyway?

Because having other players be hostile towards you or your group would be fun. I think there should be a chance you can get killed, just like if you get attached by a wolf. But deliberate killing should be discouraged or severely penalized, maiming or injuring would be the usual way to defeat players while still keeping them in the game.

Not that I've played Rust or DayZ but from what I gather it's just a bunch of 13 year olds gunning each other down for no reason. Not at all what I would want to see.

[Bill Tarling]

Although it hasn't really been covered; another reason why Multiplayer or Co-op wouldn't work in this game edition is because you would then also need to make all the 3rd party character meshes and animation (including variations for all equipment).

While that might not seem like much of a programming task (since so many games have it), that doesn't mean it's a simple process given TLD already has so many character variables, and even that's growing with every update). The programming time required (aside from having to scrap and redesign all the game mechanics) and cost simply wouldn't fit within the budget at this point.

There's always a chance there might be MP or Coop in the sequel game, but that would be because they would plan for it right from the first design stage. The devs won't want to add it in (at least not as a planned major feature) if it's going to perform poorly... if/when they do add it into one of the games, they'll want it running smoothly, and fluidly as part of the main game system.

[ChillPlayer]

I am too totally against any form of PvP in this game, it's why I never played Rust although I had it much longer on my radar than TLD. I also see the problem with coop but there is another form of "soft" MP if you like, something along the lines of how MP was implemented in the Dark Souls series, minus the PvP.

Imagine that due to the magnetic storm, somehow we would see ghostly shades of people who are in the same area in their instances of the game and just died, maybe even see how they died. Players could also leave some notes for other players, say to warn them from the wolf pack around abandoned lookout or to give a hint where a rifle might be. This would especially be useful when many more maps will be integrated into the game. Not all notes would be presented to all players, the game would chose at random what notes to show and limit the number of notes.

Yes that's pretty much exactly as it is in Dark Souls But I think it's the only form of MP that would actually add something to the game without breaking tension or the original idea of lonelyness in the wild. But that's also a lot of programming and might be even too late to be implemented now if the game wasn't designed from the beginning with this in mind.

An even softer form of MP would simply be to integrated statistics of the games of other players. Leaderboards of various sorts, a screen that shows how many players are in the same area right now, how many died today and what killed them, how many reached a certain achievement or how many reached certain marks today of survival, >20 days, 50, 100 and so on.

So although there would be no direct interaction with other players, people would still feel connected. Lonely but connected

[Lux]

But deliberate killing should be discouraged or severely penalized,

This never works. The problem is there are people that want to come in to the game and kill/grief other players only to do just that. They don't care about the penalties. The only reason they spawn is just to find someone and attack them and end their experience. If there weren't "perma death" it wouldn't be as bad but that would pretty much end the survival experience.

Sure there would be some people that want to team up but there would also be people that want to team up with the sole purpose of making you believe they're your friend and only after that point, they'll kill your character in cold blood for no reason at all except for their own devilish satisfaction. Its really is unfortunate but its the reality of the situation. If you have played DayZ or Rust, its pretty evident. Sure, other players add a certain amount of tension to the experience but they camp spawns and set up ambushes with the sole aim of ending other peoples games. They revel in your tears.

Not that I've played Rust or DayZ but from what I gather it's just a bunch of 13 year olds gunning each other down for no reason. Not at all what I would want to see.

And yet this is the exact crowd/mentality that would be pulled in to the game; along with hackers/exploiters who's sole aim is to get the gear they need the fastest in order to eliminate other players. Its a competitive online gaming trope, sure, and its real, and proven.

By not allowing other players to kill players (how 99% of people in RL would act in 99% of situations) you would have your only shot at pushing TLD in to multiplayer territory. Sure, if you die of natural causes, other players can scavenge your body and resources, isn't that enough? I'm sure there would be players that still try to cause other players to die of natural causes in any way they could just to say, "i won....don't cry internet tears"

Also, the maps aren't large enough at present to support this kind of environment. In all honesty, they're pretty correctly sized for a single player as they stand right now. I don't know how many players you were invisioning on a map but the maps would have to be far far larger.

I think ChillPlayers idea about Dark Souls is interesting and might work, but multiplayer in general IMO is just a bad thing.

I mean, I wouldn't even be surprised if some of the people that want to push for multiplayer are solely doing it so that after its implemented, they can ruin other people's experiences. I know... that's paranoid. The problem is, these types of people exist.

The thing is, TLD seems to attract the kind of player that is a loner/lone wolf and enjoys the solitude TLD atmosphere offers. Mankind vs. Nature/the elements. You against yourself. I'm one of those people if you hadn't guessed that already.

[Orwell 1984]

Hello everybody!

Lets forget your first thought on this topic, I know what TLD is, and it is much more than anything you were about to compare your multiplayer experiences when you saw the subject in the topic's name.

I will go over the mentioned problems listed below, I am not going to describe my concept right here and now, I just make a note if my design would solve it or not, so continue to post only if you have constructive feedback.

People are cold, cold killers online.

True, lets investigate why -> nothing except looting and killing what they can do together or against each other.

/Solved/

I think if you start going on a killing spree to survive, and steal other people's goods, you should be punished somehow.

Not true, why -> Stealing stuff and killing others is an important fun factor in online gameplay just like surviving in a survival game, you do these to achieve benefits, and it is not something you can control with punishment without loosing a significant fun factor from it.

/Solved/

I would love to see larger free roam persistent world multiplayer.

The size of the world problem, why -> tons of work for not much (I bet it is not even considered for this game)

/Solved/

History shows us we where the hunted until we started hunting in groups .

/Very important part of my design./

Lots of admins and moderators to get rid of the idiots.

/Solved/

@Out2lunch I dont think they would ever start to work together for the greater good, it's just as Doobeh said: Nearly all survival games that have a realistic, unforgiving, unpunished multiplayer end up in a hide-and-seek pvp experience.

Nice remark, however what is the problem with that if you can keep the joy for lonely hunters, and keep the joy for those whom totally against pvp in the same system?

/Solved/

If you were going to do serious multiplayer with large numbers of people able to play the same server

Why would I limit the capabilities of a game to only that aspect?

Everybody thinks that is the best solution, however it is one particular area of the whole solution for your online experience. (not the way you think of it)

/Solved/

From a veterans (long lived) player point of view, that newcomer armed with a stick of celery could attack and take their much loved shotgun, so killing them entirely removes that threat.

Trust issues definitely a problem in the existing multiplayer games, however my design solved that too.

/Solved/

Could be treated as a daily/quest to secure resources for the day allowing players in a region to come together in order to make surviving on their own a little easier.

TLD is completely different, it is about surviving on your own, and that is definitely the right tone for it, why would we change it involving the chance that others may ruin any aspects of your day, when you actually start TLD to have a place where you control your own life or death?

/Solved, nobody gonna slain you when you do not want the risk/

My only concern is that with multiplayer it devolves into the types of things I see in DayZ and Rust. I don't like that it ends up being a "trust no one" mentality, rather than a game of teamwork and surviving the elements.

&

I think that the presence of other player would ruin the amazing solitude of TLD.

TLD have it is own genre, style and immersion, this is something what you dont see in every second or 10th games, worth to keep it that way, the multiplayer mode must be an addition, and not something what degrade it to the levels of the mentioned games.

/Solved/

If there were to be a MP mode, deathmatching would certainly be a huge problem as it can be in other survival games.

/Solved/

I normally have more fun in games with just me and a few friends than running around with people everywhere in survival games. Also it kind of keeps the isolated feel as it's just a group of 3 people alone in the wilderness compared to the feeling that anywhere you go there could be a bandit waiting to kill you.

Both is possible in the same system.

/Solved/

I would be OK with COOP, but absolutely against any other kind of multiplayer.

We all know what happens when you add PvP into games like this.

There are things out there what nobody saw yet, I do enjoy finding innovative solutions for problems which others gave up on a long time ago, it is easy for me, because I am weird.

/Solved/

Additionally, how do you melt snow, boil water, cook food, harvest materials, repair clothes and tools (etc etc) without timelapse? do you sit there for ages waiting for it to finish, or do you have to wait for all players to do something that takes EXACTLY the same time so that your timelapse is all in sync? not bloody likely.

Multi-Player just can't happen. Sleep requirements and time-lapsing kill it.

I have 2 different solution for this, both user friendly, depending on which design the devs may support.

/Solved/

Although it hasn't really been covered; another reason why Multiplayer or Co-op wouldn't work in this game edition is because you would then also need to make all the 3rd party character meshes and animation (including variations for all equipment).

The amount of work you have to invest can be minimized by planning the multi in a way which requires only small aspects of what you already implemented in the alpha, the rest can be forged according to your will and future plans.

If you are interested how I solve these issues, try to make me tell you my secret.

If you have further concerns about the multiplayer feel free to pm me or post here, I will do my best.

[The_Hawk35]

First none of your links work.

Multi player would kill the game. Your solutions of doing away with the time shifting would kill the game. NOONE is going to play a game where sleeping 10 hours takes 2 hours when they can't do anything else. That alone makes this a non starter.

There is no way that there wouldn't be player killers just because they like to grief folks. Think of folks that corpse camp in games. There doesn't need to be any reward for these folks, the misery of the other players IS their reward.

[Orwell 1984]

Thanks for reminding me, sorry for misunderstanding, those are not links, those are notes.

The multiplayer you imagine would kill the game.

I did not provide details about the mentioned concept on purpose.

There is no impossible, only if you think like "there is no way".

Example: moon.

[ChillPlayer]

I did not provide details about the mentioned concept on purpose.

Well why don't you enlighten us then?

I still, even more than before, see only one way for MP in this game and that's what I already proposed some posts earlier. Everything else would make it a different game, there might be even two games like they did with "Don't starve" and "Don't starve together" for all I care, just don't add multiplayer to this game we are playing right now. Make a second version of TLD with MP in it and leave SP players play the game they do

[Orwell 1984]

leave SP players play the game they do

You do not have to worry about my intentions, as I mentioned I know what is the magic in TLD.

I shared multiple ideas previously, and had to explain it in depth (what should be not necessary if you talk to an open minded person), also had to repeat myself many times in the form of reasoning to "defend" the otherwise already clarified parts of a concept, and the reaction happened to be the same as the participants first reply, just simple because of predestination.

Something like, "nah I dunlike it, but I see your point", what is far less than the time I invested in it supposed to worth.

So I decided to ask for your concerns about the MP except the already mentioned ones of course (that is why I made the list itself).

Anyway, it will be awesome and I am almost sure everybody (bloody killers and pacifist players) gonna like it if I can make it happen

[elloco999]

All I see is someone claiming to have all the answers but not giving any of them...

Unless you can give us an explanation of how you think to solve all (or at least the main) the issues with MP, I'm still going to be against MP in TLD.

[mnaah]

I think if there were a MP in TLD it should be a two-player (or a few player) co-op, not a huge MMO-type game.

The killing problem could be solved very easily by not allowing it at all (making it impossible).

Time shifting wouldn't be a problem when playing with a friend either: The game could simply give you and option to do it in real time or ask for time shift from other player (of course if the other player start to do something that has a time shift it automatically switch from real time to time shift).

I think the biggest problem (or the one demanding the most work) would then simply balancing the in-game word so that the mode would be meaningful and difficulty correct.

[Myshaak]

The only way for TLD to work as a multiplayer game is by adding/removing so many features that it basically stops being TLD.

There are a few ways you could bypass the time shifting, but the main question anyone should ask is:

Would it still be fun?

For me the biggest point of TLD is being alone in the wilderness. Now that I know most of the maps so well that I can find my way around them pretty easily even in a blizzard, they are too small for me. Having more people there would make the game so much much smaller. So... that's where all the wishes for procedurally generated maps come from.

One person survives, more people build, so I expect that people would start wishing for base building and stuff, beause there just wouldn't be enought stuff to do. Then PvP...

And voila! You've got a completely different game that has nothing to do with the concept of TLD... except for the snow.