WithinAmnesia
commented
2 years ago So much complexity XD. I guess maybe LAN compromise; somehow? Halo 1 had LAN backported even though it was not shipped with online multi-player. I think it had local multiplayer / splitscreen at launch though so maybe there was some behind the scenes help along the way? I personally would love multiplayer support / LAN but like I would also really love to have Patch 1.14, 1.15 and beyond (if the stars align XD).
I remember trying to get a 3D unity physics based tank game and also a physics based 3rd person unity RPG going (think Mount and Blade with voxels); it was very hard even with throwing money at all the problems XD. I learned that LAN / multiplayer support should be forward-ported / not backported / not retrofitted in / do not think like a crazy person and be like ~'we can just add multiplayer later'. This was with Unity and more than half decade ago and Flare multiplayer would need to be backported (Yikes :-X). Good news (I guess), Flare is 2.5D and not too insane of a game (it is not Crisis) but it is not going to be easy or straight forward and it might even need a complete rebuild form the ground up (life can be like that sometimes; very hard XD).
@dorkster Sigh Is this even possible? This feels like the unbeatable boss that everyone just walks past for it is just that tough. My guess would be 9.5/10 complexity / heap big hair pull out time. just like, I feel as though even if I threw money at people (I'm pretty broke right now, but still!) I am not even sure this can be done without a rebuild given how much work went into Flare / how many people helped build the 'core'.
My best guestimation is that one of the only ways 'Flare Online' happens is: Money. As in some how a game is going to need to be commercially released (legally), then make some money and that somehow, someway money can be poured on this and other big issues / feature requests to motivate people / pay people fairly for their time and very hard work and extensive problem solving. This is like the ultimate 'wouldn't it be cool if' feature but like it feels like the end boss of implementation complexity and like -1/10 in fun to do (unless you want a really big problem to solve). Flare Online is like the issues of issues o.O.
It feels like to me this problem is like so complex and potentially frustrating; like trying to put out a fire that does not want to be put out and you don't have water and instead you (might) have money to throw at it. A very complicated, big and angry fire and the money is made of paper XD. Yet maybe we can soak the paper money first and put out the fire that way; metaphorically speaking.
This feels so impossible the ways things are (like Justin / dorkster can only do so much and still have good mental health / a life x.x). As in like I am not even sure I should even ask / post this; but I suck at coding (currently). So I'm not even sure if my best guestimation is on point; or if I am wildly off by a country mile x.X.
I must say I'm surprised no one's suggested this yet! It's practically a cliche at this point.
Anyway, I recently felt an urge to try the Empyrean Campaign again and beat it for like the fifth or sixth time after trying and being disappointed by an MMORPG. It's a real breath of fresh air! Which got me to thinking: maybe it would be nice to have online play support in the Flare engine? Not MMO-style online play or even PvP or anything like that (or at least not at first). But just co-op online play kind of similar to Doom, with one player hosting the game and one or more other players connecting to them and playing alongside them.
The main reason I think this would be cool is because having looked at it, the Flare Engine is probably one of the nicest engines I've ever seen. I adore how simple it is and how easy it seems to be to create games in it, so if online functionality were added, it would open up the door to some real interesting possibilities down the line. Not to mention, I think even being able to play the Empyrean Campaign with others would be really nice. 😄
It could start off with something pretty simple, e.g. having each client play locally and creating ghosts of them on other clients, and then more and more could be gradually added on.
Anyway, just a thought. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help with this; I have more experience in C than in C++ and I've never worked on any sort of online functionality, but I love this engine, probably want to use it at some point in the future, and would love to give something back to it if I can. 🙂