Multi-player mode by yourself - cooperative missions
Racer1
Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9615Members
Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9615Members
When and if SN gets the traditional "see your friends swimming next to you" multi-player support is still unknown. Until then, perhaps the concept of multi-player should be re-thought. Here's an alternate interpretation, for those that would like to play SN with others.
This idea can be brought together in four layers, each builds on the previous. (The first two are actually variations from the permanence discussion on the forum):
1. Keep the players on their own local SN instance. However, provide them the ability to communicate with others on their "team". A team could either be a random limited selection of active SN players out there, a collection of steam friends playing SN at the time, or a specific list of players in a "clan"). Most of this is already supported by Steam, but would be made easier to use in-game (especially for loners that want to join in something bigger).
2. Provide feedback across SN instances that the other player(s) are present. This could mean persisting a few in-game objects across clients, or something more benign.
3. Provide missions for these teams to accomplish. The missions would be difficult (although not impossible) to do alone, but would provide benefit to all involved players once completed. A complex example might be mapping out an area with a new scanner, breeding specific species of fish together, building a new biome garden in that certain area, and introducing that new species to the area -- all while not destroying the existing ecosystem which is extra sensitive to certain technologies. Certain missions would take a few hours, while others may take days. As certain aspects of the mission are completed, their status would be updated to all of the players on the team.
4. Provide competition between the teams, allowing for greater rewards to be given to those who succeed earlier on. Competitions would possibly give the winning teams minor buffs, which could be used in the next competition.
Obviously #4 (and maybe #3) requires some type of master server to schedule the missions. However, it would not need to do very much. The missions could be scripted in such a way that once written, they could fire periodically, generating a pseudo-random mission each time. Players would be given an "impending mission" warning with time to meet together, and then each team would be briefed simultaneously. After the mission allowed time is over, the best times and teams would be shown for the world to see. (Players might even be able to submit their own missions, to be voted on and submitted to UWE).
TLDR: Competitions between teams of players, to fulfill specific missions. Players would still only see themselves in-game, but would get some feedback that others are working with them.
This idea can be brought together in four layers, each builds on the previous. (The first two are actually variations from the permanence discussion on the forum):
1. Keep the players on their own local SN instance. However, provide them the ability to communicate with others on their "team". A team could either be a random limited selection of active SN players out there, a collection of steam friends playing SN at the time, or a specific list of players in a "clan"). Most of this is already supported by Steam, but would be made easier to use in-game (especially for loners that want to join in something bigger).
2. Provide feedback across SN instances that the other player(s) are present. This could mean persisting a few in-game objects across clients, or something more benign.
3. Provide missions for these teams to accomplish. The missions would be difficult (although not impossible) to do alone, but would provide benefit to all involved players once completed. A complex example might be mapping out an area with a new scanner, breeding specific species of fish together, building a new biome garden in that certain area, and introducing that new species to the area -- all while not destroying the existing ecosystem which is extra sensitive to certain technologies. Certain missions would take a few hours, while others may take days. As certain aspects of the mission are completed, their status would be updated to all of the players on the team.
4. Provide competition between the teams, allowing for greater rewards to be given to those who succeed earlier on. Competitions would possibly give the winning teams minor buffs, which could be used in the next competition.
Obviously #4 (and maybe #3) requires some type of master server to schedule the missions. However, it would not need to do very much. The missions could be scripted in such a way that once written, they could fire periodically, generating a pseudo-random mission each time. Players would be given an "impending mission" warning with time to meet together, and then each team would be briefed simultaneously. After the mission allowed time is over, the best times and teams would be shown for the world to see. (Players might even be able to submit their own missions, to be voted on and submitted to UWE).
TLDR: Competitions between teams of players, to fulfill specific missions. Players would still only see themselves in-game, but would get some feedback that others are working with them.