Multiplayer

Favian · Powder Monkey Posts: 16 **481 Gold** -

Hi all,

I was thinking today about multiplayer and how to make it work. From what I've read about multiplayer capabilities on XBOX, it is drastically different from the PC version. Lots of different stuff happen. Anyway... I got to thinking how our modding community could implement multiplayer into this FANTASTIC game! Razz

Well... my first problem when thinking about this was that there's a lot of stuff that you would have to change so that it's a human community rather than just a person going through an AI community doing their own thing. That's a lot of modding to do mind you! Then the idea hit me... well what if you didn't change anything in the game... but just added more human players? For example... hook up with 3 other friends of yours... or 5 even if you want with everyone playing for one country and the 5th being the pirate (I would expect that this would be the most difficult position since the pirate is ALWAYS at war with EVERYONE hehe.) Perhaps one slight mod would be made so that you could not attack anything that your country was at peace with? Not sure here... just throwing the idea out there. Anyway, the idea is that you are trying to help your country dominate the carribean by plundering all those ships that threaten your country while sacking your country's enemy cities and converting them to your own. I admit... the Caribbean is a huge place for only 5 people! Well... maybe not that big... but it's not really that small of a world either in my opinion. Smile

(off the topic but I really would like to see a world map for this game! Razz

) Is it possible at all to add multiplayer with mods or anything? Just throwing this question out there with some ideas on how to make it work without changing very much of the game in the process just to try to make it work. Any ideas or comments or opinions?

Avenstar · Swabbie Posts: 59 **408 Gold** -

You cannot mod multiplayer into games built purely on single player in most games being developed today. It's not simply adding in another player or changing a few features. Games built to include multiplayer have to be built that way from the ground up. For a game like Pirates, I would assume that only small sections of the world are loaded as you sail around. Therefore, to have 2 ships sailing around in different areas would require the computers to load at minimum twice the area they previously had. Many game rules are also based on single player. Time passes based on a player's actions. When you dock, 2 weeks are added. When you go to jail, time speeds up. This concept simply does not work with two people. Jail/strandings could last hours for a player while the other sails around conquering the world. There's more, but I can't put it to words at the moment, and the previous arguements weren't even greatly stated, but the key point is: no, it cannot be done.

Best to just wait a few months for a pirate game built for multiplayer.

Willard · Powder Monkey Posts: 24 **12 Gold** -

The Civilization series wasn't originally multiplayer. True you can't change the basic frame work of the game through modding, but in this age of add-ons I think ol' Sid can conjure up a multiplayer version.
Perhaps something along the lines of Freelancer where players are on the same side. Or, perhaps something like Diablo where you can choose to run with the pack or PK.
Perhaps...

Pilo T · Swabbie Posts: 121 **107 Gold** -

bigchief · Seaman Posts: 137 **5304 Gold** -

I have been part of the Morrowind mod making community for over 2 years, and while I am not as active as I once was, I still keep up with things, and I can tell you that there is not a multi player mod. There never was one, and there never will be one.

People have been claiming they were working on one, or that they heard about one, or that they saw one, and everytime it turned out to be a lie. It is not possible with Morrowind, for the reason stated above. The game was not made for that, and the only way to do it would be to have an entire team of professional programmers working on it full time every day to reverse engineer the game, and redesign it from scratch.

Avenstar · Swabbie Posts: 59 **408 Gold** -

I also keep up with Morrowind, and have even designed a few mods for it. I update my collection of player created mods every couple weeks, and I have never seen a multiplayer mod, and I don't expect to. Modding using the Construction set is one thing, but basically hacking the game to force in multiplayer is totally different.

When multiplayer is hacked into single players games(GTA3 comes to mind), the results are incredibly unstable and very restricted. Even simple single players games cannot overcome these limitations. The original X-Com and Transport Tycoon, both of which have been around 10+ years, have had multiplayer attempts at them. X-Com multiplayer is limited to combat only on a scaled down map with reduced options. Transport Tycoon multiplayer cannot be played for more than 10 minutes without a crash.

Even if a programmer managed to get some form of multiplayer function into a single player game, what has he accomplished? Let's take multiplayer Morrowind for example. Any incarnation of multiplayer in that game would have to have some rediculous restrictions when playing, not to mention being inherently unstable, as that is a given in any forced multiplayer. So why play a buggy multiplayer version of a single player game when you can play any number of comperable stable multiplayer games already on the market?

Trajanus · Powder Monkey Posts: 23 **269 Gold** -

watson42467 · Cutthroat Posts: 350 **573 Gold** -

With all the stuff going on with atari, who knows what we'll see.
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Emmerson · Swabbie Posts: 105 **1743 Gold** -

Trajanus · Powder Monkey Posts: 23 **269 Gold** -