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[mickel]

This is a pretty advanced suggestion, one that I wouldn't be surprised if it had been brought up and discarded before, but I'll give it a go.

If the code was reworked into a client/server setting to be multiplayer over TCP/IP networks, there is no end to how much it would own. Imagine some people building fortresses, some recovering fortresses, and some adventuring on their own - all in the same world at the same time.

True, it's a major operation to do, and of course things like pausing and save/load would have to go, but you have to admit, it's an interesting idea.

You could even set up your fortress so that a friend can take over while you sleep, and keep it running...

[Lokum]

Dwarf Fortress can be thought as an RTS somewhat. But the fact of all RTS' remain that MMORTS rarely work.

A world may be big but still not even big enough.

Dwarf Fortress online would possibly work if there were say a dozen or two frotress for every world [server]. And many people would take on the task of ruling X fortress. The choices of raising an army and heading to another or establishing trade agreements would also arise.

But the question is, how do 30 player run a 'single' fortress? There would have to be some sort of chain of command but sadley there would probably be alot of ' no do this! ' or ' no dont mine here, mine there!!! '. Cooperation would be difficuly and theres always the possibility of a griefer [someone who plays just to make hell for everyone else].

The thing is, if its going to be 'online' and the world would constantly be in motion during the server uptime; there has to be a sure fire method that no fortress is going to fall simply becuase some people aren't working on it. So there must be alot of people per fortress thus increasing time zone and what not.This an issue for all rts' ( im offline, what happens to my base? ).

Adventure mode would probably be simpler becuase all your controlling is 1 person that would just 'sleep' when your logged off. But then youd have to put cool down times on doing certain attack moves and what not so to ensure the winner isnt someone who presses the keys faster.

Online Dwarf Fortress would definately be fun but the issue of 'what happens to my fort' is atleast for me too hard to solve. Lets see what other people have to say of this.

Edit: I really want to think about this idea in great length so right now im brain storming.

The prospect of having adventure mode and dwarf mode in co-exsistance is cool; save the fact some jerkoff might come into my fortress and try to masacare everyone.

Also a fortress that is dug out by 'us' is simply a colony. A colony to a much larger dwarven kingdom. Now im not sure if all the dwarf kingdoms work together? Cause theres like 3-4 per world I believe. So lets say you want to have an alliance with another fortress or go to war with another. The problem is that fortress might be in the same kingdom or that kingdom might have an alliance with the fort you want to wage war on.

What could happen is that its all preset or random.

Ex: Your kingdom declares war on another. All fortresses in your kingdom are now required to have a quota of military to send to X fortresses. So it would all be planned and the orders given to you instead of you deciding what to attack.

better ex: The kingdom of Lokum (^__^) has declared war on the dwarven kindom of Mickel.

Your orders (Fortress of Lokum#12) are to raise an army of 100 dwarves strong. 50 Axe dwarves, 25 Marksdwarves and 25 hammer dwarves and send them to a fortress belonging to the Kingdom of Mickel.

The Fortress is called 'Mickel's Fort#12'. It is a years walk and on the way are several other minor (AI) fortress (1,2,3) controlled by the Kingdom of Mickel.

Your orders are to either destroy these on the way if nessciary or avoid them all together.

You have 2 seasons to raise this army.

While the Kingdom of Mickel may give these orders

The kingdom of Lokum has declared war!

Your (Fortress of Mickel#12) orders are to send any available military to the minor fortress #2 and hold out there. Its a half year's journey. If unsuccessful you are to retreat and hold your own fortress (#12) while we give you reinforcements.

Now everything is real time. Rienforcements might take a long ass time to reach.

Personally I think this is how war should be conducted. At the same time a few players might take on the role of controlling the military instead of helping out the fortress by developing it. A dedicated player instead of someone switching back and forth trying to see the status of the fortress.

Edit: what also could happen is that I might take over that minor fortress before your guys get there. I have the choice of continuing my war efforts; wait for reinforcements [ Id have to send a messenger that would travel quickly but still take time ]; destroy this fortress completely and take what ever resources I can; or get every available dwarf to fight with me.

Heck, I might even meet your army while im walking to your fortress in the middle of a field or something.

[ July 13, 2007: Message edited by: Lokum ]

[ July 13, 2007: Message edited by: Lokum ]

[mickel]

I didn't mean online as in MMO, more like something to run during a LAN, between friends, and probably in the region of a dozen or so people to a server. If it's ran on TCP/IP it could easily be brought onto the Internet, of course, and one could even choose to make a server public, but I don't think it'd work all that well with a huge amount of people, for the reasons Lokum stated above.

As for 30 people in one fortress, I don't know where that came from. I meant something like one, perhaps two helpers - people that the owner of the fortress invites and that they hopefully know and trust.

The "thing" I was gunning for here is some sort of informal, sandbox type gathering where you can mess around and try to invade your buddy's fortress for fun, or see who can make the most money in 60 minutes, or whatever challenge you can come up with.

Edit:

What brought this on was the fact that when I first saw the game, I thought it was playable on the console in Linux, and envisioned it as a multi-console game. That is, multiplayer on one computer (usually a server).

The disadvantage to having the game multiplayer is that, with the loss of pausing, you can't play it "in between" while commands execute, like I usually play console games.

(I have tried playing RTS games like that and it usually goes down the toilet pretty fast.   )

[ July 13, 2007: Message edited by: mickel ]

[Lokum]

oh LAN. Cool then XD

Oh well..Im going to go ahead and still think about true multiplayer .... kekeke

[ July 13, 2007: Message edited by: Lokum ]

[herrbdog]

I had an idea along these lines a while back. To start your base (different game idea I had then) your initial location would be hidden from everyone else's view until your presence was large enough to be made known. This would be the presence of armies, massive deforestation, lots of farms (outdoors), mines, &c. So you could always have a safe small base. Unless you made an enemy, then they would be able to find you, but you would not be immediately visible. You would have to be searched for. This, though being somewhat unrealistic, would provide a safe haven for newbies, small traders, and the like. Only when you wanted to take on more aggressive actions would your home base be made vulnerable. Of course the threshold for vulnerability could be set anywhere.

Edit: Oh, and other players could either start their own base, own single character (who could make a base or form a party to start a colony), or join another base, to the capacity decided by the player whose base he wants to join. Therefore griefing could be kept to a minimum, as you could kick out anyone who was an ass. Then bases could function as guilds as well.

[ July 13, 2007: Message edited by: herrbdog ]

[Core Xii]

TCP is a very slow protocol to use in games. UDP is what you want.

[zhe republican]

well wont it suck when you go out for lunch, come back and your entire fortress is destroyed by some guy that lives in Japan?  

[Tormy]

DF multiplayer would be awesome. It would certainly need an option to save the game and reload it when all players are available again. Hopefully we will have something like this when the development progress will allow it.  

[puke]

it wouldnt work for consistant real-time interaction in a persistant shared world.  it would have to be done such that one person's timeline does not effect others.

something like "Animal Crossing" where you could share your fort for others to visit, and someone could adventure into a fort while it was running, or something.  but there would be no real effect, otherwise.

[Spelguru]

For now, I think the only actually viable multiplayer option, if the Great ToadyOne would choose to make one, is just something as simple as saying "send this and that to another fortress", once the stuff has been sent, be it soldiers or a caravan with goods, and left the map, it's packed into a neat little file. You send said file to a friend, and they load it.

Voila, an army/caravan pops up on their doorstep in a season. They trade/fight/backstab the merchants, and then once all are dead or the caravan/surviving soldiers leaves the map, a new file is made to reflect this. It's sent back to the first player who loads it. In another season the army/caravan returns. With loot!

A big security flaw would be that the first player could just send this file to 20 people. What would happen when all the files returned? Easy protection: the game will only allow you to load 1 return file, then some key hidden inside the returned file is stored and prevents any other returned files with the same key (which they would have since they came from the same sent file) to be loaded.

It's a pretty simple thing. No real network code needs to be written, since the whole internet part is done by the players.

You have to consider that the multiplayer code for a game like this would probably be something monstrous. Do you want to wait X amount of years for a multiplayer mode that most likely would be quite awkward, with people being able to cooperate like they are nowadays in gaming? That would probably mean no new releases for DF during that time, and probably slow down the future ones to ensure compatability with true multiplayer.

ToadyOne is just one guy. He may be uber, but he's not omnipotent and able to snap his fingers to create 50k lines of code.

[axus]

I like pausing my fortresses!

Multiplayer adventure mode would be pretty cool, that would be a whole new project in itself.  FFXI is enough for me on that front for now =)

Suggestion: create your own multiplayer game inspired by Dwarf Fortress!  I would try it  

[AlanL]

Heres an interesting idea, the server admin creates a fortress and plays like normal, and when clients log in, they play the roles of individual dwarves. The dwarves would have AI run them if there isnt a player there to. It would be interesting the more complicated chains of events that could happen when people are trying to play roles...

(after a bit of an argument about making bags useless with encrusting...)
(person 1, controlling a jewler) *sneakily starts encrusting (person 2)'s masterpiece bags*
(person 2), grand master clothesmaker, is throwing a tantrum!
The spinning <<Rope>> strikes (person 1) in the head!
It is bruised!
(person 1)'s left eye had been blackened!
(person 1) is knocked unconcious!

And then the admins personal friend could take the role of the hammerer   :p

[ July 16, 2007: Message edited by: AlanL ]

[Tormy]

Actually DF MP would be possible. The biggest problem would be the pause function. Players constantly pausing the game in an MP game are very annoying, and since DF is extremely complicated compared to the RTS etc games, the pause function is a must have. So I dont knbow how could this work in MP.
[There are games with pausable MP mode, like Kohan for example]

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by axus:
Suggestion: create your own multiplayer game inspired by Dwarf Fortress!  I would try it    

Yeah, when I get rich enough to afford my own dev team, complete with offices and the like, something like that is definitely on my "to do" list. Until then I'm stuck offering ideas to others.

But I still think it's doable. I can't say off-hand how to solve the syncing and pausing issue, but there have been good suggestions in the thread, and if nothing else works, there's always the option to disable it altogether.

I only pause for potty breaks anyway, if even that. As long as you're not actively developing, the fortress runs itself pretty much by itself, barring major events.

If you went for the option to not allow pausing, you'd need more automation though, like being able to allocate jobs more efficiently - something I think should be done anyway - but that's another thread entirely.

[Axehilt_VuP]

Massive multiplayer seems unreasonable and totally divergent from the game's current design, but just a normal coop mode seems like it would be possible, with the right programmer joining the team who knew how to do such things.

An alternative multiplayer suggestion might be a way to share content around.  10 players play DF or Adventure Mode and their play data is automatically uploaded to a master server.  Other players would then be able to connect to that server, download that fortress info, and play in a universe that incorporated all 10 player-built civilizations or heroes/villains.

It's the same sort of content-sharing that I get the impression Spore will have when it's released.