Multiplayer Development

Everything about development and the OpenMW source code.
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krugman25
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Multiplayer Development

Post by krugman25 »

Everyone,

Just a quick background on myself. I am a software engineer. I work in the gas and oil world. My claim to fame is that I helped start the company for and developed the worlds first complete pipeline monitoring system. I work for and continue to develop software for said company. I am also a long time RPG gamer and want to find a way to contribute some of my time and skills to extend the value and functionality of these great games.
I generally work on algorithms, scripting, back-end systems so that is more of my forte. Because of that the mechanics for developing a multiplayer feature is more up my alley. I don't know a terrible lot about modding Morrowind, but I have been reading around that adding multiplayer is not possible. It's hard to tell because those statements most likely are coming from non-programmers. If that is true it seems that the development of OpenMW has potentially opened up the possibility. Again I am very much green when it comes to Morrowind modding and OpenMW, which is why I am hoping that this will reach a few OpenMW developers and I can get some good educated feedback. If it is a possibility I would really like to dig into it and see if it is a viable project for me.
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wareya
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Re: Multiplayer Development

Post by wareya »

Tinker
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Re: Multiplayer Development

Post by Tinker »

Personally the last thing I ever want is multiplayer OpenMW, if ever comes to be I hope you fork OpenMW into a a multiplayer version and go off into a place I cannot see you.
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krugman25
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Re: Multiplayer Development

Post by krugman25 »

wareya wrote:Games network programming 101: http://gdcvault.com/play/1022195/Physic ... Networking
Thank you for the resource. I apologize if my original post was not very clear. I am not really looking for resources on how to implement it. I am already experienced with network API's and network theory at a code level. This is most likely an answer I could eventually figure out myself but I am big on efficiency, so I am hoping to tap some very knowledgeable software engineers here if the statement is true that Morrowind in it's amazing ability to support modifications, wouldn't support an overhaul as reaching as adding in a multiplayer feature. If that is a true statement, does OpenMW "open the box" so to speak, and allow something as reaching as multiplayer. If either statement above is true I will most likely get to work on it and not bother anyone else about it until I have something testable, haha.
Last edited by krugman25 on 16 Jun 2015, 19:49, edited 1 time in total.
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krugman25
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Re: Multiplayer Development

Post by krugman25 »

Tinker wrote:Personally the last thing I ever want is multiplayer OpenMW, if ever comes to be I hope you fork OpenMW into a a multiplayer version and go off into a place I cannot see you.
I am curious, why would you not want multiplayer added to OpenMW?
wheybags
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Re: Multiplayer Development

Post by wheybags »

Tinker: Image

Really though, a lot of people want mp in openmw, if you did do it, that would be a killer feature.
It's just difficult and awkward, because neither morrowind nor openmw were architected for mp.
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sjek
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Re: Multiplayer Development

Post by sjek »

most part what have been following it has been the "reguirement" of mmo like content modification.

simple players in lan or network with shared journal would be nice.

question what comes in mind how to make the world rendered in separate pipelines if not naturally implemented by different comps and share the worlds state. combat AI would have to be modified for multiple targets or taken from how it's implemented for group combat / single target. as a barebone solution

if the player wants to pvp. be that so and it's same as fighting npc but way better ai
somebody would even sneak to steal the stuff left in random container and cave already visited :D
no mod checking so anything can happen althought that lead to how to handle texture and model errors. dmg and such would have to be calculated from dedicated server of sort leaving also possibility for certain modpacks if one wishes so.
error could be given from differing packs but
savegame using combapility responsibility in on users end
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krugman25
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Re: Multiplayer Development

Post by krugman25 »

wheybags wrote:Tinker: Image

Really though, a lot of people want mp in openmw, if you did do it, that would be a killer feature.
It's just difficult and awkward, because neither morrowind nor openmw were architected for mp.
sjek wrote:most part what have been following it has been the "reguirement" of mmo like content modification.

simple players in lan or network with shared journal would be nice.

question what comes in mind how to make the world rendered in separate pipelines if not naturally implemented by different comps and share the worlds state. combat AI would have to be modified for multiple targets or taken from how it's implemented for group combat / single target. as a barebone solution

if the player wants to pvp. be that so and it's same as fighting npc but way better ai
somebody would even sneak to steal the stuff left in random container and cave already visited :D
no mod checking so anything can happen althought that lead to how to handle texture and model errors. dmg and such would have to be calculated from dedicated server of sort leaving also possibility for certain modpacks if one wishes so.
error could be given from differing packs but
savegame using combapility responsibility in on users end
So the vibe I am getting is it "may" be possible although difficult to plan for all of the idiosyncrasies of single player features that would somehow have to be handled in a true multiplayer environment. I think the best way to handle projects like this are to create a very basic and working sandbox. Once the sandbox is made begin tackling each specific feature 1 by 1. The 'basic sandbox' makes a lot of assumptions and would be initially developed with the least amount of variables; I.E. no mods, no saved games, etc. Once a basic sandbox is working and stable you can begin handling all of these specific concerns one at a time.
I know there is a demand for this type of feature. For me personally some of my best gaming memories happened over multiplayer with my best friends, so that is a bit of the driving force of why I would be willing to champion and develop such a feature. Also I sometimes need a break from gas & oil related programming, lol.
Tinker
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Re: Multiplayer Development

Post by Tinker »

krugman25 wrote:
Tinker wrote:Personally the last thing I ever want is multiplayer OpenMW, if ever comes to be I hope you fork OpenMW into a a multiplayer version and go off into a place I cannot see you.
I am curious, why would you not want multiplayer added to OpenMW?
To start with MW was designed as a single player game, it would not translate easily to multiplayer and secondly I do not want my playing enjoyment to be ruined by some snot nosed kid whose mother told him to turn of his computer and go to bed.
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psi29a
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Re: Multiplayer Development

Post by psi29a »

Hey krugman25, if you wish to work on it, don't let anyone here stop you. :) We've always said (search for yourself) that multiplayer was on the roadmap for post 1.0, but if you would like to get a jump on it, then feel free to do so.

There is a bit of discussion as how best to handle this, but last thing I remember that most people wanted a sort of co-op where one person's client becomes the de facto server for everyone else. This way state is shared in a client/server fashion, the server then acknowledges and processes requests and the clients are just GUIs.

I would recommend using (apache) thrift to allow the clients to talk to the server, but perhaps google's protocol buffers could do the job as well.

KISS
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