First of all, I know that we are really, really, REALLY far from being even close to testing multiplayer in the game. But that is the reason that pulls me to bring this up. When I read the kickstarter goals for this game, I saw that a “persistent, connected world” was being taken into consideration for the game. Even if it didn’t reach that treshold, It was considerated. I believe that you must be really careful of how will you manage the whole MP idea. Most “Persistent” games are mostly managed by micro-transactions, timers and boring routines. I shouldn’t have to mention any games, ahem Clash of clans ahem and other ridiculous games that bring gaming down to its lowest pitfall. I don’t know how will the Radiant Entertainment Team plan to work the MP idea, and I am sure that they will do what’s best for the game and the community. I’m just saying, that whenever MP is looking close on the horizon, you must really think carfully and be sure not to let this amazing game be ruinned by annoying “Wait another 10 days for the barracks to be built. Or pay 5$ to get diamonds and build it right away”.
I’d love everyone’s thoughts on this topic.
It will definitely not have micro transactions, I believe they had a joke on the topic though, which was quite funny at the time, I believe it was an april fools joke.
In terms of design, I would have imagined it to be very much to Minecraft Realms: You pay a monthly fee to have a server running for you. It wouldn’t be one big world where everything is connected with each other and certainly not microtransaction based. Or if it was one big world, it might be subscription based.
This game isn’t a browser game. It’s not free to play. You pay to own it, not to play it. There’s no incentive that you waste as much time in your game (or wait) at all. I find it difficult to compare those kind of games to SH.
Also related, the design of MP itself is a bit wonky at best. There are two definitions spooking around:
Cooperative MP: All players play in the same world and can share resources and what not with each other.
Competitive pseudo MP: You basically play singleplayer/cooperative multiplayer and “find” villages/cities built by other players, along with their units (which might attack you too). Think of it like Spore, you’re not really connected with all those people, they are merely feeding you their content.
Minecraft Realms is run by Mojang, So far I’ve seen some large hosting company’s advertise Stonehearth Servers. So I don’t think it will be like Realms in that way, I don’t see there being more than 1 world on Multi-player so similar to realms in some ways I guess. I read on a form that Multi-player was going to be the same as Single player, Just with other people. which could be fun, Faction vs Faction. or a Friendly server where you just build with everyone, Which again sounds really fun. I intend on running a server as soon as Multi-player is available, The only two questions I truly have, Is will Multi-player have spawns like Minecraft, Always imagined how great of a spawn I could build to show all the amazing Hearthlin’s, And could we possibly custom make plugins like Towny?
As far as paying for things, Like you stated, If it was free and a facebook type of game, I’d see the purpose, But apart from the Owner of the servers having to pay for the servers, I’m 99.9% sure that’d never happen.
Just noticed how long this was, Must stop typing out of excitement, must press reply…
Yes, that offer has been around for over a year. I think right after the very first Alpha was released, that offer was already there - which is funny when you think about it. The game has no definition of multiplayer whatsoever but yet companies offer it - over a year or two in advance. It’s not even known if there will be dedicated servers, or if there will be multiple MP worlds or really just one, or what it looks like. For me, those offers are just shills.
That would just be a mod. I highly expect that multiplayer will allow mods too. Technically spoken, the game is already “multiplayer”, there’s a server and a client side, they just both run in the same application and don’t allow for external connections yet.
Yeah I know the Stonehearth servers have been advertised a long long time, and I agree with no idea of how Multi-player will work it does seem a little weird. Sorry run to many Minecraft servers, Gotten used to calling mods plugins But overall, Multiplayer seems like it’s going to be a load of fun!
In Stonehearth 1, you build the world. In Stonehearth 2, you explore the world that you’ve built in Stonehearth 1. And in Stonehearth 3, uh. I can’t remember that one. It’s Stonehearth 2 as MMO or something?
But overall, Multiplayer seems like it’s going to be a load of fun!