So I’m watching the livestream of the Dragon whelp right now and the multiplayer question was brought up again.
I think the best way to solve the two methods of multiplayer issue would be to allow each player to control his own group of civs and allow them to build together or independently. If the second player wants to build his own, individual town he should be able to wander away and begin working on that.
That could have other implications, such as, what if you don’t want your friend’s civs using your tools?
Can anyone think of a better way to implement this, or issues with this idea?
Be forced to work on the same city exclude those who want a little of autonomy.
On the other hand allowing each player to start with their own villagers, resources pools etc etc … do not exclude building the same city and work together.
It should not be limiting as it is announced actually, that’s it !
It´s to difficult for both players to make a decission what they want while playing …
The best way would be that both ways are on different servers. That means you can open World1 on Server1 which allows Dualplaying on one City or you open World2 on Server2 which allows to indipentend build your city.
I think those two types of coop are going to make things very difficult for players. Basically, if you’re playing with 4 people, and two of them want to work together, and the other two just want to go do their own thing, then they can’t. All my friends who I play Minecraft with play differently. Two of them are always teaming up to do huge builds, while the rest of them are pretty independent.
I really think that if each player controls a group of their own citizens then the gameplay won’t be affected much at all. They can take their citizens halfway across the world and start building houses, or they can contribute to the town right there with their friends. The only issues I can see with it might be things like food supplies and other resources. But if all resources are going to be stored similarly to how wood is stored on the stockpiles, then there could easily be a lock button implemented. Click the stockpile and lock or unlock it. Unlocking it would make it freely available to any other players, and locking it would make it a private stockpile that only you can contribute to, or pull from. Only the original creator of the stockpile can lock or unlock it.
I think that would completely simplify the coop and keep everyone happy.
ADDITION: I suppose that there could be some pretty heavy treachery going on with the lock feature. Because civs seem to drop supplies off at the nearest stockpile (I mean, who wouldn’t? Ain’t nobody got time for that.) there’s always that chance that you’ll be mining or woodcutting or farming, etc., dropping your supplies into your buddies stockpile, then when it comes time to use those resources for crafting or building, BAM! He’s locked it on you and now you feel betrayed and sad.
However… You might just write Radiant a letter, thanking them for filtering out your true friends for you.
Having two players work on the same city sounds like it could be a major annoyance for certain people. Many people who play sandbox games develop a sort of OCD, and everything must be perfect, or at least the way they envisioned it in their heads. If you are for example, setting up a farmland. Your buddy might come along and stick a house right in the middle without being aware. Or, you could end up playing with trolls who want to cause problems and sabotage your build. Now, I am assuming that the Co-op partner you get will be selected by you from a list of friends, or randomly generated. I don’t think this system has been made clear to us yet. My suggestion for Co-op and PVP, is that each player starts with a group of settlers on opposite sides of the map, or at least with a decent amount of distance between them. This would allow them to do their own thing, and not run out of the minerals that want for their stuff. Also, the towns could probably trade between each other and send forces over to aid in attacks. One town could focus on building an army and supplying garrisons to defend towns and work areas, while the other could work on building large forts, or gathering food to feed everyone (Economy).
I don’t think that we will be hearing too much about any of this for a while now though, they got to make the game exist before we can play with each other, or worry about stuff like this.
This was the idea I had that I shared on Kickstarter but I’ll toss it here as well:
Basically units and resource drops could be flagged with an Owner(player) or as shared. You could move units to another player or make them shared at will if you wished. An owned unit would follow your orders first and foremost and could be set to then go help an ally with thier buildings. An owned resource drop would only allow for units of the owner to pull from them but you could tell some of your units to move the resources to one of your allies drop points for trading. This would allow for any of the major play styles we’ve heard of and even some of the minor ones to be played. Want completely separate cities? Make all units and resource drops owned and default them to such. Want separate units but one city? Make resources shared but not units. Want the one city ‘pure’ game? Make everything shared. And anything in between.
