So we shut down the whole thing and watched Mythbusters (the airplane on a conveyor belt episode) and then a episode of Smash Lab.
This is some of the things that went wrong:
- Somewhere along the bugfixing-road I've introduced a new, nice one making it impossible to pick up placeables in MP ( I use them to represent importent items in the game until OEI fixes this loot bag flaw). If I didn't see this bug happen by myself I would say it was impossible.
- The game score message broadcast don't work in MP. Only the PC that solves the quest sees the game score pop-up. This seems like a little problem to solve and it is, but due to bad coding there's a lot of testing to do to see that it works for 19 separate quests. (I keep call them quests but it's really more points you get for laying parts of the puzzle).
- When interacting with objects in the game I use three methods. A. conversations, B. Floating text over PC, C. Cast spell, Unique Power. In MP it shows that the other PC's in the party will feel a bit off because they don't know what's going on in the interaction with the object. I have to look at broadcasting all written responses to the party's info box. Like the score message broadcast it is a huge job to find all scripts that "talks" to a PC.
- Originally there was only one light source because there was only one player. In MP there's too silly to use only on lantern per party. OK, it makes it harder to play and more realistic when everybody has to stay close to each other to avoid being eaten by the meanies in the dark, but it's also tricky to play. PC's stumble to each other etc. I need to rethink this and maybe give each PC a lamp. The limited burn time must be preserved, which means 4 lamps with 25% fuel instead of one with 100% (it will fail if all PC's uses them at the same time) or 4 lamps with a common time based fuel depot (it means that when one lamp has burned 100% of it's fuel all lamps will go out). None of those solutions are perfect so re-thinking there is.
Thank for reading
Amraphael
3 comments:
I can't believe how much more complicated it must be to write a mod for multiplayer rather than just single player! You have my utmost sympathies! Sounds like you have a handle on things though :)
Thanks! Well, multiplayer isn't so hard to write for when doing the more normal NWN1/2 modules. You have to use global variables for many things and such. But puzzles and other complex things can be a real pain. Especially if you do like I did - no thinking before building. ;)
Normally the lamp burn time wouldn't be a problem in a MP-mod but being true to Zork I states that there is a fixed amount of moves (turns) that the light can burn.
I try to support multiplayer as best I can but don't have the facilities to test it. Good luck to you sir. Based on the quality of your work previous work I'm sure you will do very well.
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