Desktop Tuesday: Multiplayer Basics

[jomaxro]

http://www.stonehearth.net/dt-multiplayer-basics/

Other Announcements

Stream should happen as usual on Thursday at 6:00pm PST on Twitch. This week it’s Artist Allie, so come bring your questions about buns, tier stuff, biomes, Northern Alliance, templates, or titans!

The new building editor is almost ready for the unstable branch! If you’d like to make sure we get as many bugs as possible before we go, you can check out the details to get to the special rickety building branch, also on discourse.stonehearth.net

[CrazyCandy]

Play with friends? What is this thing you call friend?

[Spell_Blade]

I’ve heard tell that you can find them on days when the internet is down. It’s rumored they can also be found at things like conventions. Now, keep in mind, this is all rumor and speculation. I’m afraid I don’t have any scientific data to back this up.

[Bearwhale]

YES!!! I’m so ready!!! I’m sharing this video with all of my friends.

[Wouter_Sikkema]

same code as the… “valliant” little testers ;)? or a new one again? /cant wait to test the ever living -turnip- out of this

[coasterspaul]

Yeah, I don’t know anyone else who plays Stonehearth IRL, which has been a bit of a problem. I’ve been thinking maybe once it’s out for all of us to test, we could try organizing multiplayer games here. I think right after the SH stream ends would probably work for a lot of people? (Well, not Europeans, but that would probably be pretty laggy anyway.)

[Wouter_Sikkema]

Probably not so bad, depending on the amount of data that needs to go to and fro, at least us dutchies are Basicly ON the trans Atlantic cable so…

[Moai]

My computer is about 5 years old now, I’m thinking of saving up a little bit and building a rig that can move mountains. I’ll have to wait, though, for the next time you can buy a decent video card without selling a kidney. Freaking crypto.

[Averest]

I’m going to friend all my favorite Stonehearth players/modders on Steam. I hope you guys don’t mind.

[Fornjotr]

Will we be able to take our three favourite hearthlings with us into multiplayer?

[Relyss]

I don’t see why not
The roster / loadouts screens are the same than in singleplayer.

[krschreyer]

So how do we request access to rickety_building branch, as mentioned in the post? I’m not seeing a thread for it.

[Relyss]

The rickety_branch thread is this one:

NEW BUILDER VERY UNSTABLE BRANCH O.o

Holy cow, we have a new builder! What is this? This is a complete, top-to-bottom redesign and re-implementation of the entire Stonehearth building experience. We have a totally new building “core” that should allow hearthlings to consistently and correctly build almost any structure you can design–and if they can’t, you should be alerted before they even try. We also have a completely new user-experience and UI for the builder, with far friendlier and more powerful tools with which for you to …

But if you mean for testing multiplayer, the password might be different. We haven’t opened it yet.

[Avairian]

Hmmm can you (or will you be able to in the future) host the game on a dedicated host?

[Yohane]

@Banto are we finally getting a grip to play together after a year since we met?

[megashub]

@Avairian

Hmmm can you (or will you be able to in the future) host the game on a dedicated host?

While I can’t speak for the roadmap, right now, the game requires windows, and in the case of Steam ‘join game’ facilitation, a Steam account, to host games. You could run Stonehearth on a standalone Windows machine, and it would act as a dedicated host today. Of course, the server’s town would sit unmanaged, which would be sad.

Based on the client/server nature of the multiplayer implementation, I imagine dedicated server should be at least possible. Even more so when the game gets a Linux port. Whether or not it’s in the cards to provide, I defer to the dev team to answer.

[RepeatPan]

@megashub

You could run Stonehearth on a standalone Windows machine, and it would act as a dedicated host today.

Which isn’t a dedicated server in my humble opinion. If it requires to render the whole graphical user interface (as opposed to just running the simulation), then it’s not really usable for server hosters/most VMs out there. Not to mention that Steam Workshop won’t work that way, because it requires a Steam account with a copy of Stonehearth.

I think for the source engine, that was the differentiation between a dedicated server (srcds.exe, really just a console running the whole thing) and a listen server (hl2.exe, running the whole game and a server).

[megashub]

@RepeatPan

Which isn’t a dedicated server in my humble opinion. If it requires to render the whole graphical user interface (as opposed to just running the simulation), then it’s not really usable for server hosters/most VMs out there. Not to mention that Steam Workshop won’t work that way, because it requires a Steam account with a copy of Stonehearth.

Agreed. I was just talking about ways to provide a quasi-dedicated experience in the meantime, that’s all.

[krschreyer]

Yes, just looking for the builder right now. Thank you!

[nikosthefan]

I think investing time in allowing a dedicated server is worth it, unless it would take another half year or more. (political statement of feedback.) If you play with a group of friends, and it is possible for this group to set up a dedicated server, then that would be good for optimisation reasons, right. I don’t remember excactly what is and isn’t run on the server. But if the amount of hearthlings (for example) that can be present in the game before lagging out is determined by the server, then you absolutely want the ability of a dedicated server, as that means towns (multiple towns, with multiple populations) can play and expand longer.

---

(As a bonus, people who have the hardware for it can maybe get a performance boost by using a dedicated server multiplayer session with just one player, using two computers.)