A Multiplayer?

[Acetrologer]

The game is great. I've only devoted a few hours into the game and hence have not played much. I think that adding a multiplayer component will enhance the fun. You could have individuals fighting for survival and making up alliances. Crafting things like tents and other things should be available. If someone's health is depleted, then he can either be rescued by his allies (If any) or has to wait for a particular time to play the game again. Something on these lines.

[toebar]

Welcome to the forum.

Multiplayer has been suggested quite a few times-- it wouldn't work well with the game's current time lapses that occur when sleeping, harvest, repairing, etc etc.

More importantly (to me), a single player game is what The Long Dark is. It offers a different experience than the are other survival games that already exist that work the way you describe.

[Acetrologer]

I agree with you on the single player part. And on that end, other than a few minor hitches, the ame is very good. Multiplayer is just an idea which can be implemented later on when the game has been fully released (Story mode and all). It'd be intersting to see how the people are able to play. As far as time lapses are concerned, there could be ways like:

Eg: If you sleep outside and someone spots you, he can kill you. But if you're sleeping in a cabin, the cabin can be locked and the other person can either knock on the door, become an ally and stay with the temporary master of the cabin. Otherwise he has to break the door down, which will create noise and will wake up the cabin master. This way the game becomes fair for both.

[EternityTide]

What is it with the gaming industry and releasing multiplayers all the time? It's actually quite refreshing to find a game that is solely single player.

If you watch any Zero Punctuation on Youtube, you'll find that Yahtzee makes a very good point - Multiplayer does not automatically improve the game.

There are plenty of other multiplayer survival games: Rust, Minecraft, DayZ, Unturned, 7 Days to Die etc etc etc.

The Long Dark is centred around the story at its core. It's meant to be a slow paced, brutal survival based game with a beautiful, atmospheric world. That's kind of ruined when you are trekking along in the snow, minding your own business, and end up with a bullet through your skull because the guy at the other end of the valley with the rifle has run out of baked beans and can't be bothered to go shopping.

There's also countless other reasons why Multiplayer wouldn't work in TLD.

Firstly there's the timelapse. When you sleep, fish, cook, break down wood, craft, etc, time is sped up. How do you implement that in a world where people will be in different states? Some will be walking, some will be sleeping, some will be cooking. How do you speed up time for them? you can't.

Secondly, the world contains limited resources. Aside from your semi-frequent calorie-bomb with teeth (yes I'm talking about Bears), the region will be hunted/fished/foraged out within a matter of days.

Thirdly, and I mentioned this earlier, people have a tendency to be rather violent in multiplayer games. Since TLD possesses no respawn mechanic whatsoever, you will be permanently booted from the game. What happens if you are hosting the server? You die, the server goes down. Or you become invulnerable because if you die, everyone loses everything, so you aren't a target.

Finally, the game engine as it is, is optimised for single player use only. There is no netcode whatsoever, not even the barebones of one. Starting to implement netcode into the game at this stage would be a HUGE undertaking, and is simply not worth it.

My advice? Enjoy your single player on TLD. If you want multiplayer, go play DayZ