Unless they snuck some just-in-case netcode into Dredmor, I doubt we'll be seeing any actual, simultaneous multiplayer for this game. However, that doesn't mean we can't make the game into a social lark. For example: Asynchronous "succession" gaming. Get a handful of people who want to accept shared responsibility for a character. Play for 40 turns, or 1 floor, or 20 monsters slain, or 15 doors opened, or whatever... then save the game and send the save file to the next person on the list. When someone dies, the next person on the list gets to create the next character! Synchronous "racing" gaming. Everyone creates a character, then waits for the signal. Via ventrilo, IRC, or the like, someone says "GO!" Everyone then simultaneously tries to get as far as they can, as fast as they can. Each time you level up, you get 1 point. Each time you go down to a new floor, you get 1 point. You gain one extra point for being the first to achieve any of these objectives. The first person to die gets 3 points, the second person dead gets 1. After 1 hour, everyone stops where they're at. 2 bonus points each get awarded to whoever has: the highest wealth, the greatest number of completed quests, the highest-level piece of gear, the most active debuffs, the greatest number of alcoholic beverages in their inventory, etc. Casual "chat" gaming. Everyone plays for fun, but keeps an IRC window open, or a Skype session active, or whatever, sharing anecdotes and such. All of these can be further stepped up with special self-adhered rules. Rules like: no going up a floor no shirt/armor (topless dance mode!) or no shoes (halfling mode!) no gods you must immediately equip any piece of gear you are adjacent to or standing on (but you are allowed to avoid distant pieces of gear you don't want) you must turn left at every available opportunity, even if that means going down/up stairs everyone must be a Vegan BGH no wizard skills / ALL wizard skills ONLY no skills or items with trap sight radius / trap affinity allowed never learn any skills when you level up If you try any of these ideas, make sure you & your friends take screenshots and post cool stories to the forum!
I like the asynchronous idea. My job keeps me from doing much synchronously, but I could totally do like "open 15 doors" once a day and post the file up for the next person to take over.
I do like the succession characters (though I haven't actually yet signed up for the thread going on now oddly enough) but I do really like that idea.
I propose the following: Everyone uses the same 1.10RC5 beta client. Everyone uses the same mods as they decide and agree upon. (Or no mods if that is the group desire.) ONE person generates a character with the skills agreed upon by all participants and posts the save at turn one on the forum thread for that group run. Anyone who wants to downloads the save and plays it until they either beat the game or die. If you know you are going to die, save first so others can load your save and see how far you got. Otherwise, backup your save every level or every time you manage something cool. (Like a zoo or a levelup.) For example I may make one using the mods Clockwork Knight, Dragon Knight, Mana Mastery, Interior Dremorating, Monster Menagerie. The character would have Clockwork Knight, Dragon Knight, Mana Mastery, Golemancy, Mathemagics, Emomancy, and Dual Wield. Anyone want to try? I can make a thread for it right now. It would be a Going Rogue character. No PermaDeath. That ruins saves that others would like to see. Save all you want, and even save-scum if you must. No holds barred. (No actual cheats though. Obviously.)
I got discouraged with the whole idea early in the beta phases because I couldn't even load my own saves, much less anyone else's. So I'm sorta waiting around for a solid, mostly-bug-free 1.0.10 release before seriously tackling multiplayer again. But if you create a character with a couple of mods and upload the save, I'm willing to create a separate install of the game and see whether I can load your thing.
Sounds good. Tell you what. I will make a simple one in a day or two. (Right now I have to follow up on something Daynab told me about your mods. I now think half the mods I thought were broken are not.) Please remind me in a day or two if I somehow forget. I hope we can find a way to make this work. I have a better idea. You have more experience with all this stuff than I. You decide upon the client version, the mods, and the skills to use. The goal if you will agree, is to beat the game at any cost. We each take a turn of a level. PD off. We can backup the save and save scum as needed to beat each level. We should aim to make the character viable and not cut the wind from the other players sails. While not required, it would be a courtesy to drop items that the other player had by the stairwell we will descend at the end of our turn. (Obviously only valid for items removed that the other player may have had a use for. Like when we change weapons. to something we consider better, but the other player may not agree about.) Feel free to try and try again if you fail to finish a level. We do not descend until the level and quests are completed. It would be very helpful to notify the next player that there are Anvils/Lukefisk shrines unused on the level when we upload our finished turn savegame. (I sometimes pass them up until I have a good item to enchant, or enough lutefisk to make a worthy offering.) I (And anyone else wanting to join) will uninstall and reinstall a clean version of the client of whatever version you decide upon. And the same for the mods. (Be careful to let me know if using any outdated mods, as I will otherwise use the newest version available.) This is as close as can be had to Cooperative play. If you decide to "Share" a save that is about to die in a turn or two, please consider that a failure and try again unless the character build is simply not going to work. We should always start a turn at the stairs, right (Before or After?) the descent. (If before, save scumming would net you a new dungeon level every time you try it. If after it will be static and unchanging. Your call.) I am using Windows 7 x64. What OS are you using? (Only asking since Mac limits the choices of mods and versions considerably, and I have no Mac.) I am thinking of the following simple mod build: Radiant Renovations Clockwork Knights (And Megacrafts Mod if you want it too.) Dire Gourmand (Because everyone needs booze to cast from.) And finally Interior Dredmorating if you can get it to work in the client build of your choice. The reason for the above? Radiant Wizard is so very squishy. It can be played, but it is made of silly-putty and explodes when hit. I have never managed to get one past DL4. Clockwork Knights is awesome, as is Interior Dredmorating. And I think you may have heard of Dire Gourmand before. Obviously the only skill I must insist upon if you can get that mess working together is Radiant Wizard. But if you make it all melee you are clearly wanting to mess with me. (I have a sense of humor, but Radiant Wizards are the squishiest of all.) If you have a better idea, let me know. Mayhaps I should go ahead and make a thread, since this is getting pretty long. (Feel free if you like.) Each person has one day to do their level. No limit on attempts. And if you fail to submit your save within 24 hours, the next in line can decide to take their turn, or can choose to give you a bit longer. If we can find a solid build and mods set then this thing will take off. That is a big *If* though. *Edit* Here: http://community.gaslampgames.com/t...iplayer-build-and-save-exchange-program.2659/
