Multiplayer Trans

[whaleduck]

Offtopic
NOTE: Please tell me if I'm wrong, I've always assumed George had a team of developers

http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5228 suggested multiplayer, but the thread died.

Ontopic
Couldn't George and his team basically "duplicate" the Anacreon engine(when it becomes stable) and modify it so that you play Transcendence and not Anacreon?

But only if:
It is possible.
They have time.

It would 'enhance' the game (ex there will be a real username and not just "Wolfen-class gunship" in the targeting console, and other users may give you advice, take down that nasty Phobos for you, and the like)

And after all, most of the other "popular" games are at least multiplayer (think MMORPG's!)

I would like to know your opinions about this.

[TVR]

There should be a Kickstarter for this, because I'd pledge quite a bit for it, and I think many others would as well.

[Atarlost]

There is not a dev team. There is just George.

The Transcendence engine is single player from the ground up. Conversion is nontrivial.

The Anacreon and Transcendence engines have nothing in common except the author. They're not even programmed in the same language. Functionality existing in one does nothing to make it easier to implement in the other.

[Deltax]

But only if:
It is possible.
They have time.

You forgot to add They have funds. to that, even if making a multiplayer transcendence was possible it would take so much money and time to do that George probably would not even consider attempting it.

Though it would be absolutely terrific if it happened! (now where are those celebration smileys at?!)

[whaleduck]

There is not a dev team. There is just George.

The Transcendence engine is single player from the ground up. Conversion is nontrivial.

The Anacreon and Transcendence engines have nothing in common except the author. They're not even programmed in the same language. Functionality existing in one does nothing to make it easier to implement in the other.

Aww... I forgot Transcendence is written in TransLISP and Anacreon a mixture of HTML, JavaScript and other stuff. What is this is a community driven project? Then George wouldn't have to change his schedule.

PS: I'd do it myself, maybe collaborate with a few, but can't due to (currently) insufficient knowledge. [puts on to-do list: Learn LISP]

[Atarlost]

The majority of the issues are in the engine, not the scripts. The engine is in C++.

That's not to say the scripting wouldn't have to be redone. Too much relies on there being one gplayership at a time for backwards compatibility to be preserved.

[george moromisato]

Atarlost and others are right that the engine would have to be completely redone. A second issue is that the *design* of the game would have to completely change (e.g., can multiple people co-operated on the same mission? if so, you need to redesign every mission).

A third issue is that the economics of the game might not work either. Running a server (more likely, a server *farm*) to host Transcendence would be very expensive--much more expensive than Anacreon, which isn't real-time and has lower data traffic. World of Warcraft charges $13 *per month* to play. I doubt enough people would pay that much for Transcendence.

None of these issues are insurmountable, of course. But from where I'm sitting right now, the best path for Transcendence is to grow the popularity of the game by enhancing the current (single-player) engine, creating interesting new content, and encouraging fun and innovative mods.

Once the game is popular enough, a lot more paths open up.

[shanejfilomena]

unfortunately, I play WOW as well :O

While I have yet to pay for it, I know it racks up a nice income per player, even at Walmart Prices.

But my position is to make use of the chat to talk to family in Alaska that play it.

As for it compared to Transcendence ? not as involving in the actual role : you don't FEEL World of Warcraft, or the games by BigPoint either ( I used to play Dark Orbit, Alot. )

Transcendence has what the other games do not : Immersion of the player into the Role they take on.
As for Multi-player servers like the above games : I think the players would NEED TO CHOOSE PROFESSIONS and not just ships ( say a particular ship = 2 abilities: fighter/ freight ("Defensive" fighting ( can assist but gets no glory in a kill ); cargo missions : can only score profits off missions / commerce ) ), fighter / passenger ( defensive fighter ( can assist others but no loot or glory : only yacht missions of something like touring a system, passenger transport/ luxury taxi: ) and of course you have the Ultimate fighter/fighter ( can only score loot off kills, money on that loot ( kind of like the play is now)).

Now : why do I say this ? because in Dark Orbit ( spent thousands on that game ) I had to develop a " style " or go broke playing.
selling items is one thing but HOW YOU GET those items is everything to your ship's integrity, your over-all pocket depth and your Clan ( or raiding parties ).

Now I KNOW George is familiar with Pioneer Alpha : the space dock has a selection of missions available : cargo, passenger, assassination.. and that fits in with our beloved Mission Framework that adds missions to stations ( It is on my desktop, I miss that in my games ).

While, true, it would be expensive to do.....and I do wish George had more of the community handing in work on the engine that he can use and make it easier, cheaper and faster.......well : it's said, so the community can take it how they like and reach out to Our Icon of The Best game EVER to see if they have something worthy of adding into the engine.

I think IF we start with the Professions per ship design, and missions : the rest should fit in easy enough....but I am not a code writer, so "easy" for me is just easy to say : except I know Minecraft code writers whip out things pretty fast if they know what they want.

[Song]

Another downside to multiplayer is that players will, of course, disintegrate each other with domina powers/nukes/whatever they can get their hands on, and handling respawn would be difficult (Unless the players have uncles at the insurance company or something).

So you've got

1. The engine, as mentioned earlier. This also moves on to the stuff that's coded INTO the engine as well, as an engine change would require everything to be rewritten.
2. Balance & AI.
3. Content (is there actually enough for multiple people? I'd argue you'd need an entirely new campaign for multiplayer to work in, so as not to mess with the Pilgrim's story)
4. Money + George working on everything else. Who knows, maybe this will go away some day...but the amount of time needed for an engine rewrite is considerable.
5. The single-player isn't finished yet and we have a pretty small fanbase from which to find multiple players.
6. Mods + multiplayer = Fun. Although it's probably possible to set a campaign to not allow mods, you'd still need anti-cheat checks and a compatibility system so people can match up mods.
7. Everything else that's ever been brought up since 2003 or so.

[Deltax]

The player destroying player issue could be solved by either charging the destroyer with a fine or sending out ships to destroy them, like a "Mischief Police" kind of system. Perhaps it would lower your relationship with the sisters of domina and the commonwealth too?

Also, lets say multiplayer does become reality, then I think many of the current ships, particularly capital ships and dreadnoughts would have to have a considerable difficulty increase to encourage more teamwork between players.

[whaleduck]

In response to Deltax: Another idea is that you can only destroy NPC's, or a designated dueling station (The AI isn't smart enough to evade me ), the first half being similar to how PvP works on Minecraft Servers.

In response to George about the third issue: When I said "community driven project", I was hoping someone would realize that the community would host servers(if possible).

General: With 29 systems to explore, each with different dangers, I'd expect patient players to not expect multiplayer until Transcendence 5.9.

[shanejfilomena]

Once upon a time I targeted this annoying Bunny that kept stealing my Easter Eggs : the game would not allow me to fire on the Bunny, whom was actually a Player, because we were not on that kind of ground where players could legally fight .
PVP can simply be .xml to the target computer to prevent attack on other players : we can alot with the .xml , a "CheckIfPlayership" should not be too far out in space for a targeting computer since Clavis / Domina does the near impossible with OnDestroyCheck to catch you if your falling.


Anyway, that should cover the PVP outside of legal areas, but then again, you have Area weapons , like the Ares Nukes.
"NoFriendlyFire" I think, is Badly under used and you know I took to having ships retaliate on attack because I just did not like them being sitting ducks : but still , the balance between NFF and fighting back when it is called for was always a hard one for me. I think the ONLY time I did a good use of NFF was on the Oracus Power of the Shrines I used for the Escort missions.

LOOT ..yes. in most server games with Masses of players the servers spawn locations of targets : such as , your on a quest for Rats : Rats are spawned just for you until the quest is completed ( but others can kill your rats, so it keeps going until you got your fill but quest specific items spawn in the loot ONLY for the player on the quest.)

Stations : again, respawning stations is what is needed ; 3 to 5 minutes is the average for such things so everybody gets the chance to get the target. of course " Clearing a system" would be impossible at that point, there will always be targets / stations no matter how many times they got destroyed.

However that leaves the question of station loot : many of us enjoy not paying for stuff if a Phobos takes out a station and we can get free ammo .......but that would have to stop. the Corporate Cruisers would have to do double time to loot out stations ( but unlike for Corporate stations I don't think it should hunt the culprits that take out a Ringer/ Teraton.

As for the CommonWealth : I think a different ship would be appropriate for responding to a destroyed station: the Britannia is under used for most of the game and might be a good start on that.....

[shanejfilomena]

.......AAAAAAAAAAAAnd : let us not forget , while I am talking of ships : there are a nice selection of Member submitted ships that would fit nicely into the game, like the Stalwart and others.

I am Picky about ships: If they really do not fit in I don't use them. but still find a large number of ships that fit the theme of the game and Tech Level where I enjoy seeing them at least in traffic ( just not as over-kill : I like diversity but some ships you can just get tired of seeing . )

[whaleduck]

enjoy seeing ships least in traffic

I'll need to start making more playerships and implementing them into Transcendence. BTW how do you get NPC ship images from TransData? I am too lazy to make my own AND it will look like NPC traffic(too many IAV's).

I am not a code writer

But I am (python, primitive Ruby(ditched), primitive C++(taking MIT course), and on the way to knowing Java and LISP)

[shanejfilomena]

On http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=news

You can find everything that already exists , and I learned from RPC that PlayershipDrones ( http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mods&c=Wingman ) carries images that you might have missed out on in the other sections ( or just can't figure out which thing to download )

And I have learned to do the .Xml fir Transcendence, Barely : I am nothing as half as good as RPC and others : and the REASON I have yet to get anything more current out is the changes have hit so fast and the exact Source to use I do not have : I kind of operate like a Dinosaur in Space : I can fly the ship but I can't fix it, I need to see the Manual ( in print ) and maybe a quick video ).
TransData is Greek to me : I need the actual .Xml sources and compare them to current works by such Great Minds as RPC, Shrike, Arlost, etc to see how to work with the new engine / order changes : and it is this Dinosaur Mode that keeps me behind all the others with producing.

BUT : I am thinking on things I want to do and I THINK most of what I am already familiar with SHOULD still function : I just got to stop getting killed long enough to see if my ideas work