Paul's Post-Stream Multiplayer Playtesting

[coasterspaul]

Apologies in advance for all the attempted alliteration. Okay, I’m done now. For real.

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After some initial confusion, and crashes (possibly mod-related), I got a game working, and @YMIHere and @Spell_Blade were able to connect. I had a ton of fun.

This thread will be my general multiplayer thread - I’ll put my feedback here right after a session before writing proper suggestions/bug reports, I’ll announce when I’m running a multiplayer game if anybody else wants to join in, and I’ll chronicle some of our (mis)adventures.

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Granite Fortress

Turns out saves get named after the host's town, which seems a little bit egotistical. But this spot in the desert was known for its mountain with a huge pink stone top, which served as natural fortifications (The seed's 1771795968, which I took from the Interesting World Seeds thread, if anybody else wants to play here.) I settled on top of it, planned to turn it into an actual castle, and then weathered out two sandstorms back-to-back.

Here’s how far I got before we had to quit for the night:

Spell_Blade started an Ascendancy mining town on the nearby foothills (and partially inside that mountain):

YMIHere found a nice flat expanse of high ground and started farming (also as the Ascendancy.) We wanted to see what happened if a player logged out, and it turns out their Hearthlings do disappear (which is good, because a large patrol of stonelings stormed there afterwards) but it does make these pictures from afterward look kind of creepy:

We communicated almost entirely through the in-game chat, and used the trading system quite a bit.

Some stuff that happened:

• I played with the Cafe mod enabled, without really realizing it

• Both Spell_Blade and I had crashes at first (possibly the Cafe mod?) but overall not many errors once the game was going, and mod downloading worked smoothly for YMI.

• When collecting wood to trade for some stone braziers (my town was way too dark) I ran into some undead in the fog. I promoted a footman after calling a town alert - then he danced around admiring his sword after I’d given him an attack order, until I called off the town alert.

• I built my first new editor building that actually built instead of throwing up a bunch of bugs. Yay?

• Spell_Blade found a mostly floating bunny statue!
  

  

• My new weaver, Anea Rynn, arrived on a mountain overlooking YMI’s farms. I gave some ore as a reward for building a ladder and rescuing her.

• Much mischief was had - mostly on accident, I think - when we realized all players could control the game speed. Perhaps there should be an option for only the host to have that power, or to put it to a vote? I think all of us were used to playing on high speed and pausing, but that doesn’t work well in multiplayer.

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I thought I was pretty excited for multiplayer. It ended up still being way more fun than I expected. Can’t wait to see where it goes from here!

I’ve also started thinking about all the possibilities of other game modes for multiplayer, so hopefully people much more experienced in modding than I are ready to answer a lot of questions.

[Spell_Blade]

Why build houses when you can let the mountain be the house? It’ll be a mining fortress.

With lots of food.

And I may have to give that bunneh statue a pedestal so it doesn’t look so odd.

[coasterspaul]

Okay, I have a research paper to write, and I’m feeling pretty tired, so probably no multiplayer tonight.

… was the plan. I"m pretty addicted to multiplayer at this point, so I might end up hosting/joining a game anyway.

Edit: Okay, I’m gonna do it. White Cliffs biome after the dev stream ends, probably going to have a super-short run for about an hour after. Anyone who can is welcome to join in! (And I’m still accepting Steam friend requests. Username “coasterspaul” as always.)

Edit: World’s shut down now. Recap soon.

[coasterspaul]

White Cliff River

I decided to give the White Cliffs Biome a go today, and @Unreal_Gam3er
joined in for my brief session.

Let me start off by saying I love this biome. It looks so good! I was a little unprepared for all the snow, but that’s my fault, and hopefully I’ll be able to get my new weaver going if/when I return. But it’s particularly interesting in multi-player. Either you’re spread apart very far by the mountains, or cramped in pretty close between them, which is what happened in this game. I founded the river town of Deltawood in one of the valleys, and Unreal started the mining town of Blizzard on the summit, but ended up climbing down to set up farms nearby.

The towns begin.

A bit further in, during three days of solid snow:

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Being able to disable client control over game speed is great, being able to trade with money is nice, and I’m glad to see some of the changes made with the building editor. I also found some more annoyances brought to the building editor, but I won’t go into those here. Overall, dev stream included, a good night.

[Unreal_Gam3er]

it is… quite a challenge in MP to be honest (especially if already established eh @coasterspaul ) but a lot of fun regardless… if MP i think you should balance the green (mod creator who i forgot the name of) a tiny bit more?

But yes… its fun in any mode, just dont expect a full party of 8 (unless you have Giant Maps installed )

Regardless my current SP biome of choice

and was amazing catching a live stream for once @max99x (UK timeings being what they are) was nice to meet you

[coasterspaul]

Ah, yes, and how could I forget that one Hearthling spawning in on part of the mountain only connected diagonally, requiring way too many ladders to rescue? And the Stonelings that spawned on yet another block connected for it. Definitely some problems for MP. Although this may have just been a particularly cramped map, as well. The preview on the mod’s page looks quite a bit better than where I ended up settling, and there were some spots on the larger map that would have been a little bit better.

[coasterspaul]

Starting a canyon game right after the stream. Feel free to join in if you’ve added me on Steam, and I’ll try to respond to Steam friend requests as well.

Edit: And, it’s on!

Edit: And, it’s off. While this was great the first time, and I’ve had fun since, it seems there’s not much demand for MP games at this time, so I’ll rethink my schedule. And maybe do less hosting in general.