Castle Paradox

[Chenzi]

Seeing how the OHR is now in Freebasic, and freebasic supports usage of windows API functions, isn't it theoretically possible that netplay features could be added in the future?

If "Yes", rockin'. If "Yes, but we don't want to do it", send me a message and I'll see if I can contribute. If "No", well, then piss off. ;P
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[Bob the Hamster]

I'm not sure how netplay would actually work. Converting an engine like the OHR to multiplayer would be a *huge* change in scope of what the purpose of the OHR is, even without talking about network. Would two people control different characters in battle, like Final Fantasy 6's multiplayer? Would one player control the heroes, and another player control the enemies? Would there be more than one completely separate parties with separate camera views running around and doing different things?

How would it even work?

Other projects are better suited to multiplayer
http://themanaworld.org/
http://arianne.sourceforge.net/

[Chenzi]

For example, you could do stuff like:

ConnectToIP(ip)
SendData("blah")

if (DataReceived == "blah")
then (
Move NPC (1,4,north)
Disconnect
)

etc etc etc, it'd be up to the people making the game to decide how to use
the netplay functions. This way they could virtually make anything, chat clients, 2 player games, etc. I guess technically they could do a client-to-server game (MMO) as well.

Ignore the psuedo code, if necessary. I'm basing it off of my ever so brief knowledge of socket control.
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[TwinHamster]

Plus, servers are pretty expensive. Who would host it?

[Camdog]

In theory, I don't see why this wouldn't work. It shouldn't be too difficult to add a plotscripting command that simply allowed the plotscript to poll a server. Someone would have to write an OHRserver program as well, to send and receive data from the client programs, but if these interactions are kept extremely simple, with the expectation that the logic be coded in the plotscripts, then the server code need not be a major project. I was actually thinking about the logistics of implementing something like this the other day, and I don't think it would be impossible.

That said, it's a pretty major deviation from the original purpose of the OHR, so I don't imagine many of the current developers would be too interested in taking the time to do this. You'll probably want to do it yourself, and maybe even fork the project away from the main one entirely.

[Bob the Hamster]

[LongeBane]

I think if there was a developer devoted to netplay, he wouldn't be, of all engines, using OHR to bring it about. Just seems like a feature not worth working on. Gamemaker has a lot of MP fuctions, as well as dll's that allow for different protocols in which to connect, yet it's multiplayer functionability still sucks bad.

[FyreWulff]

I am implementing network functionality into the OHR as we speak. For netplay? Maybe. That's a lot of consideration and planning, and since I haven't gotten into the way the OHR entirely functions. Right now I'm just trying to implement an auto-update functionality.

At this point, network play would be have to be made basic so that even the most computer illiterate users could have fun working with it. My general idea is doing some tricks where I send an initial state, and then plotscripting commands are sent as packets between the host and client, etc. And using simplified commands, such as waitforclientkey() instead of waitforkey(). Or a special "net" NPC that moves where the other player goes. Or maybe just letting multiple people play "co-op" while in battles.

Right now I would suggest Game Maker for net functionality as drag-and-drop libraries for it to do Netplay.

(sidenote: the code I'm using right now supposedly both works for Windows and Linux, but I have no idea if that will change for Mac when FreeBASIC gets a GCC backend)

[TMC]

One of my unreleased contest entries for the gameathon contest (the secret one, not the one with screenshots) was meant to attempt semi-online multiplayer using a stock game.exe and an external program to mess with the save file (swapping data, probably in non-realtime).

I never got anywhere because it became clear there wasn't enough time to create it.

However, I wasn't really taking netplay functions in the OHR seriously, it was more of an excuse to learn network programming and php, doing what I always like doing (or merely theorising about, most often): exploring crazy ideas with scripting.
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[FyreWulff]

It should be noted that I already have code that can download a version file and read it.. I just still need to figure out how to work it into the OHR.

Working with this codebase makes my eyes go all screwy.

[DomGallo]

I think you misread, Fyre. Chenzi posted this, not Charbile. You can quit stealing his idea now.
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[Chenzi]

Oh yeah? Well, I invented the internet.
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[StellarX]

I'm working on the code for your internet as we speak...
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[MultiColoredWizard]

yeah? well, i shit in a pussy today.

[Chenzi]

Ooookay, so that was uncalled for.
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