For a long while now people have been speculating, discussing, and saying how easy it would be concerning EV Multi-PLayer. Some people think that EV Multi-Player would be easy, and not so hard, and especially not a big deal making. Actually, I've compiled a rather large list (there are 44 of them) of things that must be done to Escape Velocity in order to make it multi-player. Here they are:

Quote

Things that must be done to make Escape Velocity Multi-Player:

1. Programming must be changed to allow for internet play.

2. Programming must be changed to allow for players to join and host games, as well as leave games.

3. Main Screen must be changed to allow for players to join and host games, as well as leave games.

4. Hyperspace travel time must be changed to allow ships to see each other more often (reprogramming).

5. Com PICT must be changed for hailing other multi-players.

6. Programming must be changed for hailing other multi-players.

7. Programming must be changed to allow for messages to be sent to other multi-players.

8. Programming must be changed to allow for messages to be left on planets for other multi-players.

9. Screen must be changed for “Dominated Planet” com PICT (i.e. “Dominated by: (Multi-Player Name))

10. Programming must be changed for “Dominated Planet” com PICT.

11. Programming must be changed for “Allied Government” for when other multi-players com other multi-players. They must know what government the other multi-player works for.

12. Programming must be changed for when player lands on planet.

13. PICTs must be changed for when player lands on planet.

14. PICTs must be changed for when you walk into bar and another person is already there.

15. Programming must be changed for when you walk into bar and another person is already there (for talk when in bar between multi-players).

16. Programming must be changed to allow video to be seen of player over the internet when in com mode.

17. Programming must be changed to allow video to be seen of player over the internet when in bar talk mode.

18. Programming must be changed to show that another player is attacking a “defense fleet ship” and not just “Rebel Destroyer”, “Rapier”, or “Confed Frigate” (to show that someone is attacking the defense fleet).

19. Programming must be changed to allow players to trade maps and gain more info, while in bars or in com mode.

20. Programming must be changed to allow players to give each other credits, while in bar or in com mode.

21. Programming must be changed to allow players to refuel each other in time of emergency.

22. Programming must be changed to show same news for all people, including special mission news.

23. Programming and writing must be changed to show “Who” did special mission news (i.e. “The famous (player name) has succeeded in...)

24. Programming must be changed for when other players cloak.

25. PICTs must be made for when player sees other player cloak.

26. Programming must be changed to allow players to hail (NOTE: This is hail, not com) other players.

27. Programming must be changed to show messages to players who have just lost a dominated planet to another player (i.e. “You have recieved this message: The planet Deneb III that you dominated has been dominated again by (other players name), thus taking it away from you and thus taking away your tribute.”)

28. Programming must be changed to make sure bounty hunters only attack a specific person.

29. Missions must be changed to make them give more credits, and thus speed up the game (time constraints).

30. Programming must be changed so that when someone leaves a game, their ship will automatically land on the nearest planet, or just hyperspace out.

31. PICTs must be made for when player sees other player decloak.

32. Programming must be changed to allow Escape Pods to be standard on all ships whether you have bought them or not, for when you are killed by another player you still survive.

33. Programming must be changed to allow escape pods to go to hyperspace.

34. Programming must be changed to allow players to meet on certain planets.

35. Programming must be changed to allow players to tell other players to meet on certain planets.

36. Programming must be changed to make news broadcasts every time someone dominates a planet (i.e. “The infamous (player name) has dominated Landfall”).

37. Programming must be changed to make escape pods launch from players ship whenever his ship is captured by another multi-player.

38. Programming must be changed to make escape pods launch from players ship whenever his ship is made an escort by another multi-player.

39. Programming must be changed so that the changes to a players ship is not changed when it is captured or made an escort by another player.

40. Programming must be changed so that when a person starts a new name, other players see his shuttlecraft accend from Levo and then stop in orbit.

41. Programming must be changed so that one player can ask the bartender whether or not he has seen another player.

42. PICTs must be made so that when one player can ask the bartender whether or not he has seen another player.

43. Missions must be made so that if a planet has been dominated by another player, they can give the player a mission to destroy this other player.

44. The EV or EVO Title Page must be changed to show that it is “Multiplayer EV” or “Multiplayer EVO”.

Feel free to add more.

-Captain Carnotaur
cdp@pautsch.com

------------------
To Escape Velocity: Nova and Beyond!

Well? What about it?

------------------
To Escape Velocity: Nova and Beyond!

To be honest, all that stuff like "Programming to allow multi-players to exchange smiley faces" seems really redundent, and some "requirements" seem extragent. Seriously, exchanging video in the bar? Why not some sort of chat room. And for leaving messages, you can have passworded forums. Also, you expect that net-EV will be massively multiplayer. Net-EV could just as easily act like Terminus, which allowed 8 people to play through the mission string, or it could even be some sort of multiplayer "conquer the galaxy" game.

However, I ultimately agree with you: net-EV would be a massive and ultimately unprophitable underatking. Those who keep suggesting that we need net-EV can be safely ignored, until rumors start leaking out of Ambrosia...

BTW, here's a few items you missed:

Reconciliation of competing plug ins.

Servers to support all this.

Network support for outside servers in case people want to make their own games.

Missions must be changed to support "Deliver q on x in n minutes" instead of days.

Ability to turn off game features, such as "No Planet Domination" "Can Kill Human Players".

------------------
"What the hell are you staring at?" --Duckman

That sounded like a Wish List to me. This message http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum20/HTML/000005.html has some info on multiplayer.

------------------
Signed,
Brian Schack
"DOS Computers, manufactured by millions of companies, are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form."
--The New York Times, November 26, 1991 (also quoted in MacAddict 4)

That list is pretty complete, but is mostly just common sense. A multyplayer EV would probably start from scratch, so a lot of it wouldn't even really apply (most new games handle the ai mostly like players, and all players like clients on a server). Some of those "wishes" are probably not useful or worth bandwith/processing power, such as video feeds.

If you REALLY wanted to do it, you might as well start with Quake (for the graphics engine, networking, and programming language) and go from there. This way you wouldn't really have to worry about networking (Quake handles ~8 lan/cable/dsl clients well, QuakeWorld handles up to 32 modem clients fairly well and 32 lan/cable/dsl clients very well). The other thing is that Quake has been in development for years by other moders (think of AirQuake, QuakeRally, TargetQuake), and has been opensourced and ported to almost all platforms capable of running it. The mods I mentioned show quite a bit of how much is changeable through QuakeC, and how QuakeC could be expanded to make it much better.

Airquake: control an A10, x29, helicopter, dogfighter, bomber, stealth bomber, SAM tank, tank, hovercraft, or Humvee and fight against each other (ctf mode is supported, and further modes could be easily added). Weapons include aamrams, tank shells, autocannon, paveway bombs, Maverick missiles, and many more. Some maps show cool environs: AirCity, AirFox (AirWolf!)
QuakeRally: drive one of various cars in a race against time or mount some weapons and shoot each other in deathmatch. (again, other modes could be added)
TargetQuake: think Quake meets Mario World. This has some weird bugs in it (one is the save dialog that Westlake added to make it more mac-like). (this one shows how the POV could be changed for 2d emulation so QuEV wouldn't have to be like Terminus' representation).

Other cool mods include TeamFortress, Alien Quake, CTF, FBI, SWAT, etc. but these diverge even further from the QuEV goal.
------------------
-- Nikolaus Wegner

(This message has been edited by nwegner (edited 12-01-2000).)

I just thought I'd note that not one of your 'requirements' addresses the actual problems in implementing a multiplayer game. The real problems are not minor issues like 'altering picts' and logical modifications that are really very secondary. In order for a game like EV, in its current form, to be reimplemented as multiplayer would really require it to be completely rewritten. The greatest problems involved would be those such as net lag, and dealing with networking errors such as loss of synchronity. Saying 'Programming must be changed to...' says absolutely nothing, and doesn't even hint at the complexity involved. Although this probably borders on character assassination, I quite frankly don't think you have any idea what you are talking about. I also note that this whole issue has been brought up far, far too many times, and that your take on the subject is the most ill conceived that I've read so far. The accepted, if, unfortunately, largely ignored, and probably undocumented policy about multiplayer EV in the Ambrosia forums is simply this: code it yourself, or stick a cork in it.

CB

you also forgot...
46. programmers themselves
47. sprite blitters
48. developing team of experienced (college level) c++ or asm coders that know what they're really doing, not just "b31n9 4n 3l33t b451c h4x0r" that has no clue what inheritance, classes, etc are

49. a clue that designing a game is a whole lot more than just making a list of "things needed"
50. permission from AmbrosiaSW to use any part of EV, EV:O, or EV:N as part of your game... this applies to, well, all your numbered "things" in particular, any one of the items that includes "reprogram" where are you going to get the sourcecode to begin with? (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/~mburch/ee3")www.ambrosiasw.com/~mburch/ee3(/url) ?
51. a clue that what you're suggesting won't happen. period.

that just about sums it up for now...

------------------
"the bathroom ain't preety, let's keep it that way." - Adam Corrola

(url="http://"http://www.oxy-web.com/tiev/")Oxy Soft: Ti-EV(/url)
~ Robin ( (url="http://"mailto:funky_cheeze@usa.net")mailto:funky_cheeze@usa.net(/url)funky_cheeze@usa.net

Listen to cburns, you guys - he's got it right.

The main thing preventing MMEV from existing right now, whether made by Ambrosia or anyone else, is that it would require large amounts of bandwidth (>56k) on the part of the client and server. And most people don't have cable modems or DSL yet.

Changing communication PICTs are the least of your worries.

------------------
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

Here's to the crazy ones.

we are really trying to ipmlement all this.
Sebek Du'Law - EVArena Team

------------------
--
live and let die...

:rolleyes:

When I posted this, I was not trying to start people working on an EV multiplayer. I was JUST trying to tell people how HARD it would be! And DON'T blame me if I left out a couple!

------------------
To Escape Velocity: Nova and Beyond!
--------------
Millennium. Its coming, prepare for it.
Coming to the EV Chronicles.

(This message has been edited by Captain Carnotaur (edited 12-02-2000).)

Quote

Originally posted by Captain Carnotaur:
**:rolleyes:

When I posted this, I was not trying to start people working on an EV multiplayer. I was JUST trying to tell people how HARD it would be! And DON'T blame me if I left out a couple!

**

I'm not blaming you, but unfortunately, you missed the point completely (no offense meant, just stating what I see).

And of course, every newbie who hears about multiplayer EV has to say how cool they think it would be, and re-hash what has been said a million times. Any topic dealing with MMEV quickly degenerates into a slew of what-ifs and "wouldn't this be cool?".

------------------
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

Here's to the crazy ones.

Quote

Originally posted by Chrestomanci:
**Listen to cburns, you guys - he's got it right.

The main thing preventing MMEV from existing right now, whether made by Ambrosia or anyone else, is that it would require large amounts of bandwidth (>56k) on the part of the client and server. And most people don't have cable modems or DSL yet.

Changing communication PICTs are the least of your worries.

**

While I fully realize what Chris Burns is talking about, I will note that MANY games can be played over a 56k modem. Everything from Ares to 3D shooters. It is a matter of how well it is coded. Though it takes alot of experience in programming to cut down a game, especially a 3D shooter, to go through 56k.

------------------
Labor conquers all things.

You're absolutely correct, mikee. Note that I never said it wasn't possible to cram it through a 56k connection. My main issue was that the good captain's post wasn't particularly indicative of the difficulties involved in such an undertaking. In order for something like multiplayer EV to be done, it would be almost essential that it work with only 56k. Most people can't afford cable.

CB - 56k