How would a Multiplayer TLD shape up?


junaid_hussain

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This is just a hypothetical. Imagine there was a chance for multiplayer in the long dark. How do you think that would take shape? What multiplayer aspects could be incorporated? Would there be a persistent world where you could run a dedicated server? Would it be couch coop so you're forced to do everything close to each other, rather than split screen squinting, or the reverse? Number of players?

We discussed this in the survival through hunting thread - but I'd like this discussed in its own thread, as it's food for thought. What could the scenario be? Maybe something a la Lost: You are a survivor of a crash, and you unexpectedly meet the other survivors on another part of the land, or they are survivors of a previous crash?

It's not within the scope of the current game I believe to include a MP component, which is fine. Maybe you think MP would ruin the survival aspect?

What if like Journey on PS3, you randomly encounter other players, who can either help you complete an objective and never to see them again, or to take resources you've found to survive themselves? Maybe you could trade resources through an exchange.

Let your mind go wild, I'd like to hear your thoughts on a multiplayer version of survival

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People are cold, cold killers online. You just need to look at DayZ to see the issues it raises and I believe it's got to be one of the major difficulties in building a multiplayer survival experience.

In DayZ, you start on a shoreline with nothing, no weapons, no food-- it's a large persistent world, dozens of players. If you survive long enough and manage to scavenge some weapons, water bottles, food and medical supplies, you become pretty immune from the zombies-- they're pretty easy to avoid, kill or escape from.

The real danger is the other players, who will kill you for the potential of a can of beans or simply for sport. So the game quickly devolves into kill or be killed, the downside of dying is high and the trust level of random online strangers with guns isn't stellar. Playing with friends is a totally different experience, but obviously a popular, broadly appealing game needs to address the issue of anonymous newcomers.

So I think the larger question is what devices can you put into a game that disincentivize murder? I can think all the way back to Ultima Online for one example-- if you decided to take the outlaw route, the murders would stack up on your character sheet, you're name would turn red on screen and when/if you did die you were pretty harshly punished in terms of skill points deducted when you respawned. DayZ doesn't have skill points, death is death, you lose everything-- so they tried changing the character model of bandits, so the more players you killed, the more you looked like a killer-- but then you run into questions of what's a just murder and how a computer can identify that fairly.

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That's an interesting aspect you bring in, with regards to rewarding killers. I think if you start going on a killing spree to survive, and steal other people's goods, you should be punished somehow. Since I don't think there is a points system in this game, you couldn't punish them with less points, and therefore encourage cooperation by providing bigger multipliers or what have you.

But then we are talking hypothetically. What you could have is some sort of good vs bad system, where the more bad things you do (steal, kill, attack etc) the worse and harsher the world around becomes, the more aggressive npcs become, your face is in the top 10 of survivors to avoid and so on. So perhaps some reputation system linked with the world?

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There was another game I heard about recently, I can't remember the name, that used a companion system where the other person playing was a magic light/fairy, something, and they could cast spells and pick up items and things during fights to help the other character. Basically making that character really important while not making the narrative about them.

(Your automatically attached to said other character. You are a dog/cat/light/whatever. You will help them, they will help you. If you are inactive we will match them with someone else that wants to play. Bad players go to a group that can only play with bad players and so discourages bad behavior by giving you a title and matching you with people that don't play in a conducive manner.

They have abilities you don't, you have abilities they don't.)

Or, you could go Journey (PS3) style. A more Co-Op style gameplay that rewards you as it does them for helping the other player get further into the game.

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I thought the coop in Journey was rather depressing, only because the moment a second player shares the experience with you, it's delightful, but as soon as they're gone, you're all alone again and it feels like a loss. But that would be keeping in with theme of TLD I guess, where it's an emotive narrative.

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I thought the coop in Journey was rather depressing, only because the moment a second player shares the experience with you, it's delightful, but as soon as they're gone, you're all alone again and it feels like a loss. But that would be keeping in with theme of TLD I guess, where it's an emotive narrative.

Yep. Loss, I think, is going to be something we get really personal with in TLD.

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I would love to see larger free roam persistent world multiplayer.

I do think you would get murderers, buy them again depending on how you play you might choose that route in single player.

With limited ammo, the use of guns would be sparce last resort type of thing. Esp especially if the game was persistent, as ammo would run out after a time.

After the initial flush at the start people would have to work together for the greater good. Perhaps I have to much faith in my common man though, and want to see the best in people not the worst.

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This is the part i fear the most as it could end in another shoot them all.

Killing is taking risk and taking not needed risk is suicide .

Animals never kill more they can chew ,steak will be fresh daily .

Human weakness is loneliness everyone loses hope or sanity after longer times .

Body to body heath can not be done with a corps ,get over the sexuality or die :)

Hunting together is less risk more chance to succeed ,defence is more easy when not alone.

History shows us we where the hunted until we started hunting in groups .

That was real life survival may we can copy paste some of that and bring it up to date ?

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TLD doesn't strike me as a game that will draw in players that would be looking for your GTA type experience, so I reckon for the most part it wouldn't be to bad. From what i gather combat is going to be extremely risky and dangerous, so the payoff would be relatively low. Lots of admins and moderators to get rid of the idiots. For TLD I reckon a Journey like system would actually add alot to the experience of trying to survive.

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@Out2lunch I dont think they would ever start to work together for the greater good, it's just as Doobeh said: Nearly all survival games that have a realistic, unforgiving, unpunished multiplayer end up in a hide-and-seek pvp experience. Of course there are often survivors that form groups, but normally only, because it's easier to kill loners, when your are outnumbering them.

It's not bad like that, because I think that in a lawless apocalypse it is VERY likely to turn out that way. But on the other side I would not really prefer it like that, because most multiplayers can get really annoying when you have to care even more about other players, than about other survival elements.

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In my dream world, I'd love a multiplier that allowed us to form little communities, try to survive together, deal with other communities, etc.

Very few people will be able to survival TEOTWAWKI scenarios solo. You need the support and security of a group.

If you were going to do serious multiplayer with large numbers of people able to play the same server you would have to make sure there were serious consequences for in game death to help avoid people just coming in the game and attacking a random survivalist camp or doing other crazy stuff.

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I'd argue that permadeath, be it for that game, that server per day, or even total lockout of multiplayer for a time-period actually increases PvP deaths because the cost of death on both sides has been increased while the trust level hasn't. From a veterans (long lived) player point of view, that newcomer armed with a stick of celery could attack and take their much loved shotgun, so killing them entirely removes that threat. From the newcomers view, they have nothing of value, so the cost of death isn't as high as the veteran but if they can 'level up' quickly by acquiring a great weapon, or cache of food, then that's a huge win to them.

It's like going to a casino each day with $1000, knowing that you get to keep your winnings and if you lose, someone will give you another $1000 to try again the next day-- you're always going to take the risky bets. I think it all comes down to the morality of online play-- the internal moral cost of killing another person online is pretty much zero.

If I were trying to build the ideal setup for a multiplayer survival game, I'd focus on essentially building a permanent lobby, where a small group of gamers get to play together consistently and vet themselves each iteration.

So you sign up against a particular server instance of the game, this is your home server, you don't get to jump to alternates easily, that instance also has a dedicated forum just for those members. It's moderated by a real human from the game company, or someone voted in from the community of that game instance, and when you get enough people together the game begins.

During the game (which I picture running for, let's say a few days to several weeks) if you feel you've been wronged, you can drop a note to the moderator. The moderator makes a judgement call based on the detailed replays etc available to them and optionally suspends the offender. A post goes up in the forum to detail the event and the community (including the offender) of that instance can vote and discuss if the moderator made the right call and whether the player should be reinstated or banned from that instance. Having it a community decision makes the gray decision areas more approachable.

When the game is over (set time limit, most food, most health, last man standing?) everyone on the instance gets ready to play again at the next start time and the holes left from moderator/community decisions get filled from other people waiting and wanting to join that instance, if there are more applicants then slots, the community can vote on who to accept. Also, because you've now built this community, you can discuss future games, Susan might say "Hey, this time around, I'm going to pretend to be a sociopath, so you better watch out!" which then would garner various feelings from the community and help self regulate when the moderation came into play. "Hey, Kevin, yes, Susan killed you-- but she did mention it in the forum before play, and everyone seemed cool about it".

Gradually you'll get an evolution where certain instances are low-violence, high cooperation, and others are more winner takes all mentality, and as the moderator gets the feel for the particular characteristics that gets mentioned in that instances 'join here' page to give other players an indication of the instances play-style.

If you find yourself dead and your instance doesn't start a new game for a few days, you can pop off to the non-moderated server instances to play quicker games-- perhaps noticing other interesting players and slowly building this social network of similar gaming-minded players to feed into the moderated instances.

Not that I ever consider these kind of things...

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  • 2 weeks later...

If multi were an option, a few things:

1.) Could be treated as a daily/quest to secure resources for the day allowing players in a region to come together in order to make surviving on their own a little easier. Perhaps the burnt wreckage of a car in the game has a story to tell - enter an instance about a car crash in the middle of the wilderness; 10-20 players go to investigate it. whatever you take away from the instance goes with you as your loot from the wreckage (case of soda, half empty water bottle, seat cushions, etc.) however the players interact in an instance should be true survival, fair game.

2.) if we are talking about a co-op possibility the game difficulty should definitely scale to reflect the presence of a second person playing - whether it is environmental changes, npc aggression, what have you.

I think in any survival situation the decision to steal or kill is a very realistic one. If we are trying to avoid another GTA or shooter game, perhaps killing in-game places a de-buff on your character (maybe "the scent of blood/death") causing the presence of bears/wolves/cougars/bloody footsteps to make your game play much more difficult to survive.

I like this conversation! you all have brought up a fun topic and i will be flagging it as one of my favorites. :)

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  • 4 weeks later...

I think that the coop aspects of call of duty zombie mode would actually translate well to a sandbox survival mode for TLD.

1. Play til you die. The best part of zombie mode is the fact that you will lose, it's only a matter of when. The when is what gives the game it's replayability. An online competitive leaderboard adds to the fun. It's ok by yourself, but add in some friends and it's much better. The survival sandbox mode would work well under this concept. The goal is to survive as long as you can. There could be random problems to make things interesting(storms, bears, etc.) teaming up with friends would allow you to divvy up the tasks(shelter, water, food)and survive longer.

2. Community driven exploration. In zombie mode, there are hidden quests that unlock special weapons in the game which help you survive longer. The best part of this is that there are no clues in the game as how to complete the quests. Forums and YouTube posts where people discuss parts that they have figured out make it a lot of fun to figure out the hidden quests and create the super weapon that is usually bad ass and helps out a ton. With TLD you could have parts scattered in areas that make a great shelter, or parts to a fishing rod, or keys to some old cooks hunting cabin with an "end times" stash in his basement. Find that and your chances of survival increase a lot.

3.teamwork. I touched on this already, but teamwork is why zombie mode is so fun. You have to work together with your friends if you want to survive long enough to get in the top million on the online leaderboard. The same could be true of TLD multiplayer survival sandbox. In a survival situation, it is obviously more advantageous to be with a group working together over being alone. It's great to have someone maintaining the fire while you are fishing. In the game you could do the same. In a storm you could have people support the shelter while another stokes the fire. Others could build a windshield so the fire doesn't blow out. The game mechanics might be tricky, but the general idea is there.

Overall, I think a co-op survival sandbox play til you die would be the way to go!

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  • 1 month later...

My only concern is that with multiplayer it devolves into the types of things I see in DayZ and Rust. I don't like that it ends up being a "trust no one" mentality, rather than a game of teamwork and surviving the elements.

Maybe it is just me, but when I play a multiplayer game it is to cooperate, rather than troll others online. Perhaps this is something that could be resolved by having the option of PVP damage or not, like in some of the cooperative games out there (or servers for that purpose). I want to build community, not break it down.

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I believe that "The Long Dark" should have a multiplayer similar to the one in Journey - however, how would it work? What happens when you go offline? Can the players just leave? Or if you go offline you stop the game? I think multiplayer is a fantastic idea, but very difficult to implement, therefore this discussion is not very realistic...

However, since this is hypothetical, then I believe that players should rarely meet other players, and when they do they meet only one or two players depending. This would help make the game filled with more suspense. In addition, the people meeting other people should be careful. True, there may be trollers out there, but the essence of the game can be that although you cannot trust anybody, co-operation is a benefit, as you can both co-operate to gather more food and more wood and protect each other from danger. I do not think that people who kill many others or are just mistrustful should be tagged, as this would make the game unrealistic. In real life, people who you cannot trust would not be tagged. However, it must be encourage for people to co-operate and help each other and trade, the way it would probably happen in real life, because it is a benefit to interact with other players.

I really do hope that they decide to put mp though. It would be so cool!

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I'm not big on the whole multiplayer scene but IF TLD wants multiplayer, they should make an open world scenario. Something like The Stomping Land. What is A Stomping Land? It's an upcoming MP game made by an indie game team like TLD where u survive in a land full of dinosaurs. You guys should seriously check this out, it's freaking AWESOME!!! So if TLD were to have MP, I'd recommend if they get inspired by this game.

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I think @Nic has made some good points and you cannot really trust people in this type of scenario. While you don't think tagging players is realistic, I think it partially helped in DayZ to identify trolls and "non-cooperators" by marking them as bandits and changing their name color to red.

Although, thinking of a multiplayer mod that could be interesting would be to create one based on the short story The Most Dangerous Game. Would make for a creepy game. A bit off topic, but it just popped in my head.

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  • 5 months later...

I do realize this is by now a pretty old thread. But I'm gonna throw in my 2 cents regardless seeing this is a really interesting topic.

If there were to be a MP mode, deathmatching would certainly be a huge problem as it can be in other survival games.

So killing other players should have some sort of penalty. Judging by what I saw from the live-demo/stream on Joystiq the other day, this could be accomplished in a non-game breaking, realistic and fair manner thusly:

Have your fatigue meter go up quite a bit, causing your character to shake severly when shooting, your arm become sluggish when raising your axe or fist (that is if the intended murdurer is trying to kill several people), your screen go a tad bit wonky and/or overall drowziness (the need to rest/sleep, which would mean less incentive to simply loot other people straight away as a game strategy) to represent the massive psychological toll it would take on your psyche to actually take another life (this from a psychological standpoint would apply to most people).

People in most cases (certainly during hardships) would want to find other people to band up with for the sake of additional security, companionship, cooperation and knowledge. For example; there's a reason solitary confinement in prisons are dreaded by most interns. We're a pack animal after all. So eliminating another player would simply represent the loss of everything that could have been gained if you would have done the opposite.

That said, this would not eliminate the possibility of a potential bandit and murdurer, but it would bring less incentive to pursue blood in the game. After all, banditry could make for huge drama and add to the game in a positive way, making you actually talk to people instead of sending bullets after them (*coughs DayZ *coughs).

Thoughts?

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  • 1 month later...

I think it would be good if there was at least the ability to just play coop with around 3 other people, so rather than making a huge community where there could be a minority with all the guns killing everyone, you would have a group of people who are probably friends that are trying to survive.

I normally have more fun in games with just me and a few friends than running around with people everywhere in survival games. Also it kind of keeps the isolated feel as it's just a group of 3 people alone in the wilderness compared to the feeling that anywhere you go there could be a bandit waiting to kill you.

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I think it would be good if there was at least the ability to just play coop with around 3 other people, so rather than making a huge community where there could be a minority with all the guns killing everyone, you would have a group of people who are probably friends that are trying to survive.

I normally have more fun in games with just me and a few friends than running around with people everywhere in survival games. Also it kind of keeps the isolated feel as it's just a group of 3 people alone in the wilderness compared to the feeling that anywhere you go there could be a bandit waiting to kill you.

I totally agree. Co-op will be awesome.

I think the game should support 2 or 4 man multiplayer. This will make game more playable again I think.

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  • 1 month later...

I think if they added more dangers to face, and rewarded people for working together, then people would work together. People would more than likely band together with some one (one or two other people) as being alone in the wilderness dramatically decreases your life expectancy. Groups would also be able to get much more done, and survive for longer, as they have 1 or 2 extra people to defend against wolves, gather resources, etc. I'm not saying add zombies, but maybe bears, more aggressive forms of wolves, packs of wolves. Maybe even an ability to find the wolf's den, and kill or scare them off, reducing or eliminating the presence of wolves in that particular are. I don't think this would turn into the DayZ standard of shooting on sight simply because resources (bullets especially) are so limited.

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