How will coop multiplayer work?

I cannot think of a way the coop multiplayer would work if you can only control what player A controls also. What I was thinking on how it could work would be similar to maybe DF + DayZ.

You would start in an area with your settlers in a random location on the map or you can choose to start off next to your friends. Your friends cannot control your own settlers unless you give them “permission.” The settlers could also help other settlers that are allied with you to build certain structures but you’d have to order them for this. Everything would need to be tasked to help an ally but you could manage your own units.

I have no idea how this would work… I’m also thinking of coop multiplayer being similar to a Minecraft server where you can have 20+ people playing as individuals. Which would be awesome.

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Coop is usually a small amount of people, but I guess more is possible.

My idea of the co-op would be, I have my settlement at location A) you have your settlement at location B) and we play the game together to the point we can interact with one another and work together to fight off the forces of evil.

I could be wrong, but that was my guess on co-op.

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Umm I am going to guess coop is going to work a lot like the Anno series or well any other game. Hell if you have ever played towns or gnomoria… you can easily get over whelmed doing things. I can’t count how many times I would love to have another person with me playing the same town with me in towns there is a lot to do that in game. Just like Anno there comes a point in that game where things can get over whelming quickly.

I’ve never been overwhelmed on Gnomeria and I have a game file over 32 irl days long.

My “method” would allow another player to help you build and harvest but he would have his own individual faction. Say you could have humans and a future playable ork race. You could band together and defend with different types of buildings, maybe even hybrids.

I wouldn’t want to play coop where someone else controls what I control. That’s kinda boring. Lets have some freedom lol

Also in terms of the world itself, I’m pretty sure one of the guys in a stream said that it’s going to be like Minecraft, in that nothing changes between single and multiplayer, except that there will be more of you playing.

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i’m going to agree with @Cronus. But with the added option of using eachothers resource pile so you either build a village together or still build it apart if you would toggle this option off.

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I would be fine with that as well. I figure if they were going to work a way to do trading/sharing with friendly factions (like the rabbits) you could do the same thing between other players and just treat them as another faction. But sharing resources would be fine too. Have like, a global bank so you really had to work together to pull things off.

resources like wood are stored in stockpiles, so i don’t think there will be a global bank

You’re right, but that’s also early pre-alpha stuff. That could always change. Maybe you can build a large warehouse that could act as a “global bank” so players could have access to take out resources.

i think co-op should focus on more then sharing resources @Cronus,
for example: me and my brother will be playing Stonehearth from 2 different computers as we’ve bought donated 30$ (woot!), from what you’re saying we’ll be starting on the smae map each with a diffrent embark and work our way seperately until we could make a sharing stockpile of resources or basicly trade with each other the whole while.
i’d much rather see the co-op in two way
-the two players embark on the same map but do not see each other and their goal is to destroy the other player (RTS FTW) through raids and what not with increased monster spawning for more fun.

-the two players will share an embark or be really close to each other and their goal would be to prosper through resource sharing and increased monster/titan attack rate. (basicly a survivel mode) @Nyrixa

i would very much like to see those two options

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I’m pretty sure that the current intent is that Co-op is truly cooperative; you’re all playing ‘against the world’ rather than against each other.

-Will

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I’m wishing here that the coop multiplayer is like Minecraft though.

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A possibility is to give both players control about all of the villagers. If the unit control is similar to Dwarf Fortress (in that you don’t direct specific units, you just designate tasks and the closest unit that is specced for the job will carry it out) than two people can easily manage a single town. This can help in situations where battle is happening from two fronts or one person can be farming while the other is building homes. In the current build it doesn’t seem to pause the game when in blueprint mode, so that wouldn’t even be an issue. A similar idea would be that you both start with your own villagers, maybe you build together maybe you don’t, it would be interesting if you could go to war with each other but I’d like to work together on occasion. If the two of you control the same units than it could be set up in a way that one person hosts the map and the other simply joins in.

Interfering commands would create an issue here, say i want the villager to help out at the farms and my friend wants the villager to chop dem trees down

If they don’t control the villagers directly than it would be up to the sprite’s task hierarchy. If you grab a villager and tell him that chopping trees is his #1 priority, than he should be chopping down trees anytime that task is set. If he’s extremely far away maybe that will affect it as well though, if it takes him 5 minutes to walk across the map to chop down a tree when someone else is directly beside it that has tree chopping at #5 on their list, he would probably give it up to that one first.

I’d suggest tasks should be queried on villages first by distance, than by their personal preferences. Dwarf Fortress has a similar AI system, if dwarfs had no particular tasks to do they would hang out in a designated meeting area and chat with other off duty dwarfs.

This is how I imagined the game when I first read co-op.

I am 100% about working with friends to prosper and grow, I just don’t know how I would feel sharing the same village with someone. I would be fine with sharing resources, because then each of us could try to focus on particular aspects of the game. But then with the addition of seasons, things might get a bit wonky. Let’s say my friend was going to be in charge of trying to keep food stocked, but I played some without him and now I’m in the winter season and we have zero food.

It will be interesting to see what they do, and I would be fine sharing a village with another person to help simpify things, but I am also hoping for the minecraft attempt at co-op/multiplayer. (I run a private server on one of my extra computers and we have pvp off. We just sort of build our own things and then go exploring together, that’s what I’m sort of hoping in this game. Build my own city, but then we work together to complete the scripted events)

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im preety sure you wount be able to save you progression in co-op since unlike minecraft a player cant log off of a server and leave his village without orders while the other player just keeps on going

Everything @Cronus said, with the addition that you can choose to attack those people as well.

I think it can easily work. Just like any other RTS… just maybe with more strategy.

I don’t know how much I’ll play multiplayer… but I’m pretty sure I swore I’d destroy @Geoffers747 so I’ll have to dabble in it at some point.

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@SharpKris Are we sure you can’t issue orders? It seems like a build queue could be set up and gathering orders and leave the town to run itself for quite some time.

-Will