Space MMORPG (more or less Oolite style) in the planning

[Davidtq]

Lotro (as run by codemasters in the uk) managed to get over the l33t speak and kiddy population problems, their "role play" servers enforcing "role play names" - so no Sir Pwnzalot's. They banned none roleplay conversation on the spatial chat. PvP was restricted to "monsterplay" areas, Where those who enjoyed PvP can get their kicks in a purely opt in system well out of view of the rest of the server.

Perhaps making only anarchy and feudal systems open to PvP, or perhaps introduce thargoid vs navy battle zones, where you can either turn up in your regular ship or when docked at a certain station choose to enter "thargoid" play where you get to play a pvp only Thargoid pilot that is restricted to the battle grounds...

That said I think just making a "no l33t speak" and "no smack talk" policy would be enough. Simulating realism would suggest against "unattackable" player ships. Perhaps using planetary government ratings backed up by serious consequences for piracy in civilised systems. If you head to Riedquat you know what to expect . All just ideas of different ways to introduce PvP whilst minimalizing "griefing" and taunting.

Ive rarely ran into unpleasant encounters on the RP server in lotro and in the couple of years Ive been playing I think Ive only encountered "begging" twice (which is another scourge of mmorpg's that Ive encountered.)

Oolites inherent modifiability I suspect would be easier to over come than the single player \ multi player issues, making the holding of player data server side and taking out the oxp scanning and hard coding the ships items etc into the game would be childs play compared to getting things multiplayer

[nijineko]

the largest challenge i see for an mmoolite mod would be the syncing between disparate computer systems and networks and the resulting effects on battle. i've played starcraft and a few other syncing sensitive online games to note that this will make a huge difference to space combat.

another thing that occurs to me is that once a player enters a system, it will have to not only remain persistent for a period of time, but it will have to covey the speed/direction/positional data for every object in that system to everyone who joins within the persistence period. after said period passes, the data can go to inactive storage. perhaps some data (planetary/sun/station/other celestial objects) can be updated at the next persistence period to represent orbital change over time.

this might serve as a halfway step between the needs of an mmo, and not having to constantly run 2k+ systems simultaneously.

some subsystems, such as the economics system could be run as a separate thread and both generate data for and pull data from the shipping runs. there is an existing game that would serve as a perfect model for that. amusingly enough, it is setup as a drug buying/selling game, though it is simple enough to swap out the names of the things being bought and sold. i forget the name off-hand.

it also occurs to me that it might be simpler to start such a project from scratch, rather than trying to graft or transplant the decidedly sp/fps-centric code into an mmo.

[Sendraks]

Ive rarely ran into unpleasant encounters on the RP server in lotro and in the couple of years Ive been playing I think Ive only encountered "begging" twice (which is another scourge of mmorpg's that Ive encountered.)

I played Lotro on one of the RP servers for a few months and found the general atmosphere of the server to be very agreeable. Clearly policing and enforcing the RP ruleset is very labour intensive, but can deliver on what it promises.

On the other comments in this thread there appears to be a belief that somehow if you keep out the kids/under 18s, you'll keep out a lot of the idiocy. In my experience the biggest idiots in MMOs I've run into (and by that I mean the most disruptive influences and biggest lolboyz) have always been adults with their own credit cards. Of course for some (or indeed perhaps many) the link between adulthood and maturity is very weak.

Unless the server/s are incredibly well policed (which costs either a lot of money or a wealth of enthusiasm) there will always be a part of the playing demographic above 18 which is playing for "teh lulz." They don't actually see griefing/spoling the fun for other players as being "immature" and resort to the "its only a game argument" as their defense. They're quite often the same type of person who thinks RPing an RP servers to be the home for "kids" who want to play in a "fantasy world" without realising the hypocrisy of their comments.

A final thought, the suggestions around having certain classes of system as more "safe" from PvP (Democracy) and others a PvP free for all (Anarchy) does awfully mirror the system of EvE Online. I think despite Oolite's simplicity in many respects, the varied political backgrounds of each system (and the wonderful OXPs developed to enhance these) would provide an opportunity to create something more interesting than a sinple sliding scale of safe to unsafe. Given the current design of Oolite, with a single witchspace entry point to each system, you'd want to avoid having any system as a free for all PvP, as it would be far too easy for someone or a group of someones to camp the entry point, pew pewing those who came through until a large enough force arrived. At which point, given the infinite number of exit points from a system, catching player pirates would be tricky.

[Katharsis]

it also occurs to me that it might be simpler to start such a project from scratch, rather than trying to graft or transplant the decidedly sp/fps-centric code into an mmo.

I think you´re right. It makes more sense to me to rewrite oolite, then trying to realize a MMO-Mod (i read the code .. and .. dude - this is pwnage for the brain).

So .. lets take our pencils and write like hell ...

Cheers,
Katharsis

[Diziet Sma]

Bon chance! have fun!

[tzooka]

Great! So we're gonna rewrite oolite? That's awesome!

I stumbled accross oolite last night and my house mate said "wow! that's like the old-school elite". I immediately thought it would make a fun multiplayer game, which brings me here.

I love programming, and can usually code like no bodies business, but the new born slows me down some what.

Has anyone started coding yet? Is there a repo for this? Or shall I start the ball rolling??


Peace.

Chris

[OneoftheLost]

*EDIT*

Holy necropost batman!

You realize this thread is from '09 right? Not many of the latest posters are still around.

I HIGHLY doubt anybody got anywhere with these ideas.

[tzooka]

From '09?

Talk about all bark and no bite! So, lets just take the ideas from here, and make a kick ass mmo space game yeah?

[another_commander]

Obligatory link to sticky:

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6173

[Commander McLane]

Hi, tzooka, and first of all welcome to the boards, and of course to this great game!

Great! So we're gonna rewrite oolite? That's awesome!

Are we? Not that I'm aware of.

The developers are fairly busy writing Oolite and getting it towards a next stable release. None of them is working on a re-write, AFAIK.

And none of the guys who wanted to make Oolite into multi player has stayed with the boards for long.

So I think it is safe to assume that there is no multiplayer Oolite currently in development, and it is highly doubtful if there will be one in the future. Please read through this thread, and some others which are linked to early on, to get an idea about the massive problems which would be involved in the creation of a multi player Oolite, starting with the question how much sense a multi player Oolite would make in the first place.

If you're a programmer and want to give it a try, please feel free to do so. But you should be aware that it's not a development priority for many people here.

[Smivs]

starting with the question how much sense a multi player Oolite would make in the first place.

This is the real issue here. Across the eight Galaxies there are 2048 worlds/systems. Because of the sheer size of space (even here in the somewhat distorted-scale Ooniverse) you would normally expect to come across only a fraction of the other ships in the system you are visiting.
The probability of encountering another 'real' player would therefore be miniscule.
Conclusion:- A multi-player Oolite would be indistinguishable from the oolite we all know and love. There is really nothing to be gained, and no point to it.

[aegidian]

A MP Oolite would of course work best as a cooperative multiplayer experience.

Imagine a group of 'good' players escorting a convoy, or a group of pirates raiding the same. That would mean AI ships and player ships in the same universe, much as Oolite is played now. Some smart scripting would have to generate these opportunities for play and a clever system for getting players to rendezvous at the appropriate system.

I'm increasingly persuaded that post v1.75 it might be worth having a go at it.

[Cody]

Personally, the idea is not at all to my liking, but one problem would be: how do you decide which ships, textures, planets etc are used?
We all have our own 'must-haves' and 'don't-wants', don't we.

[another_commander]

@aegidian: We'd still be talking about a major rewrite of the game, though.

Edit: Come to think of it, post-MNSR will be a major rewrite anyway. Still, getting the game coded as multiplayer is only half of the trip. The rest is setting up the infrastructure.

[Zireael]

Why have multiplayer Oolite, when we can have Hired Guns and Personalities, and (hopefully) Squadron Leader, and Galactic Navy...