Dainem on 3/12/2008 at 22:28
Just created a new game mode: Capture the horn! Three players are playing "Down in the Bonehoard for T2". The fastest taffer collecting the horn wins!
Yesterday we finished "Willow Island" on hard. That was a great experience. Trying to hide in the shadows while the other one is shutting down the cameras is so challenging.
The replacement of the ini- parameters is fun! Unfortunately it´s not always helpful when both players don´t see each other and are looking 5 minutes for the other gamer just to realize he was right in front of you...
Playing with four players is also possible but it functions seldom. And I never had the bug TypeRED mentioned.
Some questions:
The KI, äh, AI seems to have problems with two players. It doesn´t matter if she has already seen you, you still can knock her out when she is focusing on the other player. Can you check this?
There is sometimes a strange bug: you cannot collect the keys and purses of dead/knocked out guards. Still no idea what really helps. Sometimes reloading did the trick. Another time getting killed and respawning was helpful.
Dainem
P.S. a new thread with a list of good playable MP- Fanmissions could be helpful...
demagogue on 3/12/2008 at 23:26
I guess I'll add my thoughts...
Me and RavynousHunter had a go at it; had a lot of frustration connecting until we read about Hamachi (is there a general TTLG group we should all join?); couldn't get Art of Thievery working; LotParty crashed; Equilibrium works but if you die you re-spawn behind a closed gate, so sort of annoying (a co-op version might just nix the gate altogether); Left For Dead starts with a briefing movie and a camvator sequence, one or the other crashed it for the client (but I bet it'd be good for co-op b/c it's so open ended; should try a re-packaged version that starts you right in the mission); and we finally settled on Ruined, which worked great, and is great for co-op. A few crashes for the client, but not many.
Some nice things about co-op are
- double-coverage when fighting attacking guards (but you have to be careful or you hack your friend);
- You can get a guard to search after one player, and the other can come from behind to KO him.
- exploring is more fun and you can divide up a hall or one guy takes right the other left;
- I noticed readables sort of get in the way playing co-op; you almost feel bad holding things up reading them, and when the other guy reads them you usually don't know where it is ... So I wasn't really following the story. I was going to say maybe it's better to play an FM you're already familiar with. But it's also fun to explore a new FM co-op. Just don't expect to follow the story; it's a different experience.
- What happens when 2 thieves lock-pick the same chest at the same time? Is it additive? Ruined has a chest that takes forever to pick, and I got the feeling having 2 picks going sped it up.
This is one of those things where you suspect something is going to be fun, but then you do it and it turns out to be more fun than you even hoped. And to think there are 100s of FMs at our disposal for it... Long live Thief.
jtr7 on 3/12/2008 at 23:31
So how do quickload and quicksave work, or not? I would think it wouldn't be a good idea, so I'm curious about what happens.
demagogue on 3/12/2008 at 23:35
Quicksave & quickload work just fine.
As I understand it, only the host can quicksave, though. Because of respawning, though, you only really need it when the client crashes to desktop. (When a player dies, they respawn at the start point and just run back to the action.) When there's a crash, then you just start a new-game almost like normally, except instead of pushing new game you load up the quicksaved version, and it starts with both players just fine where you left off. I haven't explored quickloading while a game is on-going though.
jtr7 on 3/12/2008 at 23:40
Good to know! Thanks, man.:thumb:
sNeaksieGarrett on 4/12/2008 at 00:35
Good to read experiences of multiplayer sessions..... :) This thief 2 multiplayer has so many FM possibilities; the kinds of gamemodes possible:eek:
I mean, I was just talking to my friend last night, and he had some interesting ideas... and I thought of some stuff myself. My friend came up with this one: One game mode could be a team based game (if it is possible to get 8 players in one game with decent ping) where it's humans versus zombies and the zombies protect the tombs of Down in the Bonehoard (or another level) while the thieves have to come in and steal loot without getting owned by the zombies.:sly: Sort of like thievery except with zombies and thieves. Though there could be a guards vs thieves type game mode too. Personally, I think the co-op type game modes should be fleshed out. That's where it is at. Especially since a lot of thief fans probably don't like deathmatching, and that's the one thing about thief that is left out. Another game mode my friend and I were discussing was Co-op on a Haunt Stadium type level. That is, an arena where you compete for the most kills of haunts. OR some other creature. I think that would be rather fun.:D I think one of the most exciting things to come out of this is if we can play ThiefKart online together.:sly:
typeRED: Hmm, that is strange. That is not the same bug I experienced. Mine was minor (just arrow floating in air) and it only happened once when I was testing Running Interference on two computers at my house.
Quote Posted by typeRED
btw, has anyone checked that the thief2.exe from the MP patch is noCD cracked? :P
I can interpret this question 1 of 2 ways. Are you asking whether anyone has checked to see if it does because you want to know, or are you asking whether
anyone else noticed it, as you found that it is cracked? (i.e., you already know, you just want to see if anyone else noticed.)
Quote Posted by Tos
The client server browser is nearly complete, but there's still more work to be done on the global server app itself. I don't know whether this will make it into the next release or not, but I doubt it.
:wot: :eek: I thought it was going to be a long way down the road to expect any kind of server browser. This is amazing. Also, I was discussing a master server with my friend last night, and the question came out whether you would actually want to do it and maintain it. So the question stands, are you actually planning on having your own multiplayer master server that people can use to make their own servers? That would be a lot of work to maintain. Unless there is another way to have servers online ?:confused:
jtr7 on 4/12/2008 at 00:41
The LGS Thief devs' idea of "TheftMatch" is coming true ten years later!
RavynousHunter on 4/12/2008 at 01:48
Also a bit of a bug, sometimes, when you die and respawn, your camera starts to tilt ever so slowly until you die next. It makes things a bit more difficult, but it makes things very... interesting.
Otherwise, a pretty damn awesome patch! Delicious cake goes to Tos and vort for their magnificent work!
Tos on 4/12/2008 at 02:09
Quote Posted by Dainem
It doesn´t matter if she has already seen you, you still can knock her out when she is focusing on the other player. Can you check this?
The same rules that apply to blackjacking and guard awareness in single player are observed in multiplayer as well (even for clients) -- the only difference is that guards knocked out by clients will die. You can knock out any guard that isn't currently aware of you or is stunned, even if they've already seen you once. I've been thinking about adding some difficulty settings to the host game window that would allow you to change things like that though, and maybe make that a bit harder.
While I'm on the subject, I have a request for anyone who knows more about DromEd than I do: is it possible to create a trigger of some sort that will apply the Knockout stimulus to an AI and actually knock them out?
Right now, when clients hit an AI object with a blackjack the host determines whether the AI is currently aware of the player or not, and then applies a BashStim with an intensity of 9999 to it if they're not (thereby killing it, which is why they appear to die). I've tried using the Knockout stimulus instead, but it doesn't seem to do anything. If it's possible to do this through DromEd, I might be able to figure out what I'm doing wrong if someone were willing to create a simple test mission that had a knockout trigger on it somewhere.
Quote Posted by Dainem
There is sometimes a strange bug: you cannot collect the keys and purses of dead/knocked out guards. Still no idea what really helps. Sometimes reloading did the trick. Another time getting killed and respawning was helpful.
Yes, I knew about this one but I forgot to add it to the list of known issues. I don't know what's causing this right now, but I'll look into it. Thanks.
Quote Posted by demagogue
I guess I'll add my thoughts...
That's odd that you weren't able to get Art of Thievery or Left for Dead to work. We tried both of those during testing, and they did work. We didn't complete either one so I don't know if you can or not, but they should at least be playable unless some recent change has broken them. The camvator sequence in Left for Dead was just a black screen for the client, but once that ended we were able to play.
I agree that the readables are an issue, and if I could find a way to disable pausing when viewing one I would. It'd be even better if there were some way to get them to display while in sim mode (perhaps centered in the middle of the screen), but that would likely be quite difficult.
I'm surprised that two players lockpicking the same object actually worked for you. I made a literally last-minute change to lockpicking before releasing this that allowed clients to see the handles moving while picking them, but I didn't think two players would be able to pick the same object very easily (if at all) under the new system.
Quote Posted by Gecko
new little video with 4, 3 and 2 Players :)
Nice! Have you been able to try it with more than four players yet?
Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett
:wot: :eek: I thought it was going to be a long way down the road to expect any kind of server browser. This is amazing. Also, I was discussing a master server with my friend last night, and the question came out whether you would actually want to do it and maintain it. So the question stands, are you actually planning on having your own multiplayer master server that people can use to make their own servers? That would be a lot of work to maintain. Unless there is another way to have servers online ?:confused:
I thought this would take a while too, but progress has been incredibly quick this time (almost suspiciously so, I'm still waiting for something to go wrong :p). I should have started over with this new design much sooner.
I'll be hosting it myself initially at least since I'm sure it's going to need quite a few updates after people begin using it and problems are discovered. If I'm unable to continue hosting it on my own machine I'll release the server program to the public. The DNS host name of the global server can be changed through ThiefMP.ini, so in theory anyone would be able to run one if I were to do that.
