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[Btwilley]

I'm not taking this as a it should be done, but more of a what would it actually take.

Way back in highschool in the only coding class I've ever taken the first day written on the board was the greatest words that I've ever seen written about coding. "You can not design something that you can not imagine." Which strangely enough has stuck with me after all these years. I don't see problems anymore, I see my goal and the steps that  I need to take to accomplish it. So lets break this down like that.

Goal: DF as a MMO
The first set of questions would be:
What kind of game is it?
*A cooperative / compeditive mmo based on teamwork and hard work to accomplish a groups goals. Nomatter what they are.
What kind of aspects would need to be added or removed to make it into a MMO?
* The major addition would have to be a full 3d graphics set. I'd envision the graphcs being akin to the FFT series. Someone made a set like that once, and that would work greatly, because those sprites are built to be 2 units high, and 1 unit round. This size would be expanded for larger creatures and also be used to determine a creatures hit box size when it came to combat.
The biggest thing to be removed would be the games dependence on grinding crafts for trade. Yes things would still be grindided for skill, but a marchant shouldnt take 900 mugs, I mean really who needs 900 mugs each year?

Right now the game can create it's own maps, and theres already a 3d visulizer, so after a few days worth of processing an entire map could be generated by itself. That itself is a huge advancement over many of the other MMO's on the market. All that DFO (Dwarf Fortress Online) would have to do to create more space would be to add in a new string and hit generate world. Not that it should ever need more, because even in a 3x3 map (or however much room each group gets) there is generally enough room to keep players entertained quite a while.
------------------------------
I invision gameplay going much like in "A Tale in the Desert" where every job has some cost to it, the cost being time, effort, or skill.
You start off in one of however many MTN Homes, these would basically be newbie zones that you could learn the game in and work your skills up to the normal starting level of a dwarf (10 points not higher then proficent.)  In order to get out and start your own place in the world there would be a few options:
1. You could start your own party, party leaders would be able to allocate points  to what their group is going to take, choose the starting location in the world, and invite others to join their party. Once 3-7 people are ready to go your wagon is instantly teleported to your leaders starting location and the real fun begins.
2. Join another persons party. (See option 1)
3. Migrate to a fortress. This option is a bit more tricky than the others. This would be like joining a guild, because inorder to join their map you have to be accepted and then wait. (Say a fort sets their migrants to once an hour)In your application to join their fort it would like your skills, as well as what items that you would bring with you. These would apear as a personal chest when you arrive. (Like the origonal groups wagon)
4. Start a hermits nest. This is the different option, by doing this you do not show up on the list of available forts that can accept migrants, and your fort is escencally instanced. (Not joined to the normal world) You would start with diminished stockpiles (1 dwarfs worth verses 3-7 per the other options)

From here the fun begins. You think it's hard to control your 7 dwarves think how hard it is to get other people you have barely met to do something constructive... The first thing that your party leader would be is to drop a claim stone, this keeps other groups from teleporting into your new home. Then everything happens as it would in DF. A big difference would be crafters through. If any of you have played ATITD then you know that in that game skills and actions are not instant. If you want to make 100 bricks you first build a brick rack. then gather sand and mud and grass, then you wait for the grass to dry, and then you place those on the brickrack and wait 30 seconds for your bricks. All that for 12 bricks... so do that 8 more times to make the other 88 that you need.

Items: In DF dwarves can only carry 1 item plus whatever your invetory is. I think that's a little rough for a MMO, but using something like diablo's invetory managment screen would work great. That way as a worker you have to figure out is carrying that extra ax (incase your old one wears out) worth the log that you could carry back. Everything would become a time verses effort but in a way that actually counts where a loss to a fort is felt by all. Because John was a great cook his food both filled up the hunger bar (so you didnt die) but it also gave stat boosts.

Death and dieing in DFO:
Getting injured shouldn't end your life as badly as it in in DF. Taking toughness into account each hours should tick and have some wounds healed automatically. This could be spead up others using first aid, or dwarves who specilize in medicine ect. There are some deaths that just can't be avoided however. If Jonny decides to take on 30 goblins he may find himself teleported back to a mtn home without any items. With hopes that his skills get him an invite to a fort. (or back to the same fort after a few hours) but is Mike decides to cause a cave in dropping himself in lava... well grats, he gets to create a new character. This character would get some skill boost, but be a whole new character.

Anyone want to add things?

[Tamren]

Um to be blunt making DF a cooperative MMO in the same vein as A Tale In The Desert would kill the spirit. It would have a new spirit of its own, granted but who wants to dig holes in the ground for 4 hours?

The fortress mode part at least would not work. The whole thing revolves around one player as "god". THe world maintains permanence because there is only one guy saving and loading the game.

What if you started a fortress with 12 people and 12 dwarves, and the next day only 7 people show up? What do the 5 uncontrolled dwarves do?

[ January 03, 2008: Message edited by: Tamren ]

[valcon]

wrong, wrong, wrong

you are both going about it the wrong way

you don't want to share 1 fort with 10 people

you want to share 10 forts in one WORLD with 10 people, or 100 people, or whatever

if DF ever goes multiplayer, it should just be people playing in the same world, allowing interactions between the forts, people to send aid relief to disaster stricken forts, alliances, betrayals, war, et cetera

a buncha guys building the same fort would have a "neato" appeal for a few hours,

but a bunch of people playng in the same world could extend a single forts life to a LONG time as well as gather players who can't stand to go it alone.

just my 2 bits anywho

both are pipedreams though, DF seems suited extremely well to singleplayer format so i doubt we'll see a change from that

[ January 03, 2008: Message edited by: valcon ]

[Tahin]

I still want to play adventure mode in a world with hundreds of forts made by different players.

[Railick Stonemane]

I think valcon's idea is best. Trying to make it 3d and turn it into a normal mmo would kill the spirit like was said before.

To take Valcon's idea one step further, say Toady created a server with a randomly generated world for us. From there you could log in and set out a party or create an adventuror ect just like single player. The only difference being that at the same time other players are creating their own forts or having their own adventures. The way I feel your fort would have to keep running while you're gone however, so you might come back and all your dwarfs would be dead for one reason or another. Maybe when you're logged out your dwarves will go into sleep mode where they don't do anything but stand around and defend the fort, but they don't die from old age or need to eat ect. So barring any attacks from other players your fort will be exactly as you've left it ? Of course your fort could just go offline with you while you're away but that would lead to people logging off when they get attacked to avoid losing their fort wouldn't it ?
It might just be easier to make one map where people can interact through messages only, no war with each other. You could send your own trade caraven to other forts but not actually see them that way it doesn't matter if they're logged in or not. This would create one world with a shared history between players. There could be an ingame message board or chat feature so you can talk to others directly while playing ect and set up trade agreements. You could also send your dwarves to other forts as migrants if you want to help a budy out who's had hard times. For example send him 4 miner dwarves because his were all killed in a freak cave in ect.

[Reign on your Parade]

quote:Originally posted by Serondal:
<STRONG>that would lead to people logging off when they get attacked to avoid losing their fort wouldn't it ?
</STRONG>

You could make it stay around until any current actions toward it had ended. So, if someone had sent an attack, it would still be running until the attack was over.

[Railick Stonemane]

True, that would make it kind of like the player is link dead. His dwarves would follow their last commands and run their AI Normally but otherwise there'd be no one at the helm. Would certainly make players think twice about trying to log out to save their fort   Of course that could also lead to one player have more than one fort at a time, and that'd be kinda cool but also hard to manage. Maybe you could only conduct raids on other forts? Kill everyone and take everything you can but leave the fort when you're done. That could also lead to people doing cave ins to protect their last couple of dwarves so after the attack is over they could rebuild Would make some awsome fort stories.

[Railick Stonemane]

Whoops, double posted some how! Sorry

[ January 03, 2008: Message edited by: Serondal ]

[Tahin]

If you manage to destroy all of a player's dwarves, you should have the option to immediately reclaim the fortress, thereby taking it over.

[Railick Stonemane]

Having two or more forts running at the same time would certainly be a challenge. Maybe you could go so far as to name a Count or a Baron (which would be another player) to run that fort for you kind of like having a guild. The main player would be the king or emperor or what have you and use his guild mates to create new forts and take over other peoples forts for the clan ect.
Also having the option to reclaim once the other players dwarves are all dead would be a give away that he's hiding dwarves in a caved in area. If you kill everyone you can find and still don't get the option to reclaim you know something is up Then you have to decide if it is worth digging the entire map up to find them or if it would just be easier to leave and come back later to try again ? heh sounds like fun to me.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

Running multiple forts at the same time would be a challenge.

First step is timescale.  What server could handle running a world full of fortresses at the same time?  Client-side processing would be smart, but would open up a huge can of worms because of cheating.

And, if you ran it client-side, what happens when one player turns their computer off?  What would process their continuing world?  More, what fps would you have to lock the game at in order to allow all players?  The game code structure would have to be changed to a fixed number of logic frames per second, and it would be unbearably slow to most players.

Remember that fortresses would have to be designed to run autonomously.  There would be no pause for vile darkness.  You might be sleeping when your dwarfs desperately needed a lever pulled.  Traders might show up at any time, and you'd need contingency orders setup.

Balance would be difficult to achieve.  Players would want to be able to send out armies, but starting players, especially off-line starting players, would easily be wiped out.

If adventurers were added, just consider the potential for grief.  I'm sure all of us have, at some point or another, wiped out a human town.  What happens when we can start a throw-away adventurer and, fairly easily, massacre tons of friendlies before getting killed?  What happens when adventurers are able to dig, and end up digging stupid holes in forts of off-line players?  And you know that adventurers should be able to dig.

Conversion to multiplayer without changing the tone of the game sounds unlikely to me.  A huge company with a lot of resources could do it, with centralized servers and anti-cheating tools, but griefing would remain a constant concern, and nonsensical workarounds would have to be instituted.

[valcon]

quote:Originally posted by Nil Eyeglazed:
<STRONG>Running multiple forts at the same time would be a challenge.

First step is timescale.  What server could handle running a world full of fortresses at the same time?  Client-side processing would be smart, but would open up a huge can of worms because of cheating.

And, if you ran it client-side, what happens when one player turns their computer off?  What would process their continuing world?  More, what fps would you have to lock the game at in order to allow all players?  The game code structure would have to be changed to a fixed number of logic frames per second, and it would be unbearably slow to most players.

Remember that fortresses would have to be designed to run autonomously.  There would be no pause for vile darkness.  You might be sleeping when your dwarfs desperately needed a lever pulled.  Traders might show up at any time, and you'd need contingency orders setup.

Balance would be difficult to achieve.  Players would want to be able to send out armies, but starting players, especially off-line starting players, would easily be wiped out.

If adventurers were added, just consider the potential for grief.  I'm sure all of us have, at some point or another, wiped out a human town.  What happens when we can start a throw-away adventurer and, fairly easily, massacre tons of friendlies before getting killed?  What happens when adventurers are able to dig, and end up digging stupid holes in forts of off-line players?  And you know that adventurers should be able to dig.

Conversion to multiplayer without changing the tone of the game sounds unlikely to me.  A huge company with a lot of resources could do it, with centralized servers and anti-cheating tools, but griefing would remain a constant concern, and nonsensical workarounds would have to be instituted.</STRONG>

All excellent points, one of the many reasons we should be glad this hasn't gone big dev team for as long as it has, because a less experienced or greedy game dev might've jumped the shark and wasted his life away on MP code and we'd still all be playing the 2d madness on buggy hacked servers.

[Railick Stonemane]

It would be best without direct interaction like I sort of mentioned before. Instead of having the players being able to attack each other and explore each others forts in adventure mode simply have a message system.

It would work like this. One central server with the world which several players can use to start their forts. (No adventure mode) Each player can access their fort and play it and when they're done and log off the fort pauses just like single player, the entire game takes place on the players computer. When he logs off the fort is saved onto the server as is for later access.
Now you could either add a diplomacy direclty into the game OR you could have the options before you enter your map. For example you log in with your user name and password (same as forum maybe?) And from this screen you can start a new fort, continue your old fort, view the message board or chat, and then access the diplomatic dwarf. From that screen you could send offers to other dwarf fortress like trade offers and pacts that would allow the two forts to help each other out. Send your dwarfs to their fort (in a friendly manner, not to attack) THEN when they log in, they have this message waiting for them, and if they accept then the agreement goes into effect in both forts. So if he sent an offer to say, trade 2 miner dwarfs for a great deal of obsidian then the other player can accept. Now the server switchs these items between the two forts and when either player loads their fort they will have a caravan arrive with the new dwarves, or goods that will come straight a new trade building for diplomatic agreements.
Of course, this is all just talk because Toady is WAY to busy to do any of this Who knows, maybe 2 or 3 years from now he might think about it but really I doubt he ever will. Dwarf Fortress is just fine single player after all.

[Helmaroc]

I enjoy DF single player, and guys ITS STILL IN FREAKING ALPHA! I think if DF were to become an online multiplayer game would be...not fun at all. I mean, I've played games like Trovian (sp?) where you do something and then leave, and come back to a destroyed town. Anyway, it could be hard to maintain servers with just one guy doing EVERYTHING! I see your ideas, but I'm just not sure they would be as fun or as overall appealing. Maybe a long way later something like this could be created, but now, I'm happy with DF the way it is.

[Markavian]

Answer: *Copious amounts of Endless Grind*

Some people like that. No really. DF Online? Not in that way, thanks. I imagine more of a spore-like sharing of fortresses appearing in other people's worlds as they adventure onwards. A central content service would really help that a long, but as for fighting along side fellow creatures in some pregenerated world, no thanks. Maybe not MMO, maybe multiplayer with friends, organised squads of adventurers, but no competitive grind, that's not the attractiveness of this game.