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[Fire phoenix]

I would love to see a type of multiplayer where you and your friends build each a fortress on a LARGE map,then you can trade,fight,sabotage and steal from the others.The awesomeness of getting free stuff from my friend in return for me protecting him from the 2 enemie guys,building an army and laying siege to the other place,waiting until their morale/food was running out and then ramming down the gates with some type of ram,so as far as i can see,a kindof large ranodmly generated map where upto 4 players can play,a trading system,friend enemy system and ofc you should add more "type"of soliders(more weapons and such)more rams,ammo types and maybe magic?so much potencial.

[Neowulf]

One of the top 10 most suggested features of all time for dwarf fortress. Also probably the second hardest suggestion for toady to implement, multithreading being the hardest (would require a complete rewrite of almost every bit of code).

You're new, so please try searching the suggestions forum. This game attracts a very imaginative playerbase, so there are a LOT of suggestions already put out and discussed to death.

[Babylon]

I used to think this would be great, nowadays not so much.  DF already has multiplayer in the form of succession games, and that thing where you all long onto the same server and fight for the controls.

[zubb2]

What IS a succesion game?


Also would it be equaly uber hard to make it localy multi... wait nevermind.

[Loud Whispers]

Multiplayer exists

Also, succession forts are forts where players all have a year or so to do what they will with the fortress, and take it in turns... Hilarity ensues.

[Sulz]

I think that muliplayer would be fun in adventurer mode...
You and some friends, wandering around and making quests...
And, since its adventure mode, a turn of actions (walk a tile, attack) would be made when all the players have made an action.
It looks pretty entertaining to me!

[Quarterblue]

Actually there is a sort of multiplayer mode.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=87683.0

[Starver]

IMO, the biggest problem with multiplayer with the game as it currently is, is the asynchronicity.  Can be largely avoided when running separate parallel fortresses (or Adventuring in totally different parts of the world), but particularly hard to imagine being handled very well when group-Adventuring and having fortress sites with intimately touching (if not overlapping) areas of influence.

What are we going to do when one Adventurer tries to move, move, move over the landscape with rapid taps of a direction key, and the others do nothing (or are checking their inventories, message histories, looking at the global map, etc.  And when one player in Fortress mode is busy micromanaging his units, switching job preferences on and off, does that pause everyone else's game at the same time?

There are solutions (e.g. enforced real-time[1], with no actual pausing even while drilling down menus) but there'd necessarily be a drastically altered sense of playing style from now.


Very much suggested, and that indicates a lot of people wanting it, but I worry that it would be game-changing.  Yes, a nearly complete re-write would be needed, but not necessarily 'just' to implement multi-threading.  There'd be mechanics changes galore.

Of course, such things can be done.  Look at how Minecraft servers work (at least comparable to how a multiplayer Adventure Mode would work), although I still have doubts over Fortress Mode multi-player parallelism being practical in any way readily identifiable as essentially the same game-mode (just with more players).


[1] But then you need to make it run at the FPS of the slowest participating machine, to be fair, unless you share out computations so that the legion of participating machines collaboratively tackles everything over the combined area concerned, every tick, the faster machines taking on more work than the slower ones...  or a central server, which is much like how the current 'multiplayer' system works.

[Sulz]

My visualization of multiplayer in adventure mode is like this:
There would be 3 game instances:
Movement: If combat is not iminent , you and your friends can move 1 tile per one and a half second, if nobody moves the game stays idle, if 1 person moves the time roll's and the other players are considered idle and dont move. If a player do nothing (move/interact with the char menus) for 30 movements, the game pauses.

Fast tavel: One player will be choosen to conduct the whole party.

Combat: the players will choose the next action and set its combat status as "ready", when all the players be checked as ready the next action will be made and they'll be marked as not ready. do loop while combat!=over

And sorry, english is not my native language.

[Starver]

Your English is better than my...  well, doesn't matter, what, because it's better than any of my foreign languages, whether or not that pathetic list includes your own.

i.e.: You're perfectly understandable.  Yes, that's one way to do Adventure Mode.  A bit more (possible) pressure on the player than currently, of course.

I'd probably suggest a permanent "movement leader", much as per your Fast Travel description.  All followers automatically keep pace with the leader, and their individual movements are "around the focus of the leader".  Over hilly (not always ramp-enabled) terrain it would need more attention in order not get stuck against a cliff (or at the top of one, the player's character not automatically jumping down it, if settings are set conservatively against such behaviour).  Maybe there should be a "follow-the-leader" mode, where the exact same path is taken (not just behind, but exactly following the possibly winding path of the leader, so echoed with a delay, not just at a simple translated position from their current locale).  "Break out" movement would be truly independent (includes each individual doing his or her own bit in scouting a town/cave system/general landscape, but I'm not sure how strict the synchronicity would have to be, perhaps as you suggest with that "go by the tick, or idle that turn" device.



With combat, I would go for almost exactly as you say.  Everyone prepares their move and then the "player's tick" happens to all, simultaneously.  But I worry about participants freezing the game through inactivity (by choice, or otherwise), what happens if someone's link topples, mid-game (becomes NPC character with AI control?  ...freezes with a temporary invulnarability shroud?[1]  ...character just pops out of existence, for the duration of their controller's absence?)


[1] Open to abuse, so with some safeguards added.  In common with some MUDs of my acquaintance which react like this to PCs when their link fails/they disconnect with a hissy-fit.

[Sulz]

About the movement, I think that the better system would be the one that I described + the follow mode, and if all the players are following the same guy (follow a follower would make you follow the followed ) that guy would move pretty much like we move in adventure mode in single player when you got followers.

About a player taking too much to decide an action/getting out of the game, my idea is:
In combat, if the guy takes more than 2min to mark ready, a vote would be made to the other players choose if the want wait or give him an AI for the next action, taking then 20sec less to the vote appear if the same player dont mark as ready, giving 8 turns (7min) unil that player  get a full AI in the combat until that player do some action.

If a player drop out of the game, thee should be a vote to:
1 - wait for reconnect
2 - save game (if possible)
3 - give him an companion AI

To make the world's easier to synchronize, I think that a world needs to be created for that group of players (that will be recognized, idk, by a local login system at the host) and the world will be updated to all the players (that are'nt the host) before every gaming session, making then possible to the guy that dropped out play as his characther another day (if it's still alive, lol). Paragrapher tl;dr: everyone must be the same world as the host to start a game, and a game must only start if it has all of its players

[Tai_MT]

Why not a system where everyone shares the same worldmap but can't share embarks.  Fortresses would never see each other, but may occassionally get caravans from them.  There would be no "Pause" for the game, and everyone would run at the same time.  You would also have "adventurers" able to travel from embark to embark or explore the world map and do business as they please.  If a player logs out (on the Fortress side), the game automatically "idles" the location.  That is, sieges stop showing up, dwarves stop moving (but don't need to be fed or given drink), and it stays that way until you return.  HOWEVER... Adventurers would be free to come into your land while you sleep or AFK for weeks...  And completely destroy your stuff.  The game would accept "input" as normal, moving as fast as you could hit the button, until two machines had to "interact" with each other instead of simply relaying world information.  If two adventurers are on the same screen, for instance.  Their machines would "slow down" in relation to the world while you give commands during a fight or just during normal movement.  Each player would take turns with ten seconds to make a turn.  Don't make your turn, and you lose it.  After the two adventurers stop interacting (or sharing the same space of game world), time for them "speeds back up" and puts them back in the normal flow, as if it had taken no more than several seconds of play.  A fortress and adventurer, however, could probably act/react in real time in relation to each other.  You would suffer no penalties for "not eating" or "not sleeping" or "not drinking" during the time when it speeds back up after a fight or interaction, just to make it fair.  The coding would assume you did those things (if you had the items to do it to begin with).

Well, just my idea.  Probably not as good as others...  But it'd be cool to have a world full of Fortresses and have lots of people just running around and checking things out or trying to grief your fortress by getting around traps and the like.

[Sulz]

This would not work, this way a fortress would be in year 340 meanwhile another one would be in year 150...
Got it?

[dakenho]

One of the top 10 most suggested features of all time for dwarf fortress. Also probably the second hardest suggestion for toady to implement, multithreading being the hardest (would require a complete rewrite of almost every bit of code).

You're new, so please try searching the suggestions forum. This game attracts a very imaginative playerbase, so there are a LOT of suggestions already put out and discussed to death.

I would like to see multilayer if nothing else in the form of trading goods between fortress.  maybe when army's live on the world map a send troops option.

[Tai_MT]

This would not work, this way a fortress would be in year 340 meanwhile another one would be in year 150...
Got it?

How would that not work?  Not everyone has to use the same date/time.  Perhaps some cultures use a different timeline than other cultures?

Or perhaps an option of "servers" you could join in which they are a current timeline in order to start your fortress at the time you'd like?

Though, to be honest, I've never figured that "time" never really matters all that much in a fortress.