Two-/Multi-player campaigns?

[tephlon]

Hello,

Me and my girlfriend like to play Wesnoth together and give our (AI) enemies some serious bashing. (Haven't played against eachother yet - for peace's sake ) Well, we feel that we would really like to play longer games together, not just one scenario and then it's all over. We'd like to play campaigns together - many scenarios, perhaps within a storyline. So, is multiplayer campaigns something worth considering? Is it perhaps something that you have been considering or maybe even a planned feature?

Well, cheers.

[Dacyn]

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2673

[tephlon]

Oops! Sorry about that... I guess I searched for the wrong phrases when I looked for some thread about it.

Thanks!

[Dave]

Yeah I agree, my wife and I would like to be able to do this too....

David

[MadMax]

It could actually be pretty easy to implement. Dave, do multiplayer scenario files support 'next_scenario' tags?

[Elvish_Pillager]

It could actually be pretty easy to implement. Dave, do multiplayer scenario files support 'next_scenario' tags?

They don't work in [endlevel] tags, at least.

[Dave]

It could actually be pretty easy to implement.

Excellent. Thank you for volunteering to implement it. I look forward to seeing your patch.

David

[MadMax]

It could actually be pretty easy to implement.

Excellent. Thank you for volunteering to implement it. I look forward to seeing your patch.

David

Sorry.

I was saying that if the next_scenario tag worked, it could be done easily with WML.

I am no coder.

[tweek]

I realize this'd almost certainly have to wait until 2.0 or more... assuming the game even gets to that point...

I doubt story-based campaigns like the single player ones (which, by the way, are excellent - at least the ones I've played) would transfer well to multiplayer, because of the amount of possible outcomes - whether the players play against each other, cooperatively, or a combination of the two - one side or player loses, the other wins, or perhaps one member of a team is eradicated in battle... it'd be unplayable, and I doubt it'd be easy to implement on the other end.

Ever play something like Close Combat II, where both sides get to allocate resources, etc. to a massive area, controlling battles in several different sectors at a time? - Such a format, I believe, *might* be applicable here.

Only a suggestion. Not sure whether it'd actually be as playable as I think it would, or if it would kill simplicity, or if it'd be physically painful to implement.

Multiplayer campaigns would be awesome, even if they're years off...

[Gafgarion]

I realize this'd almost certainly have to wait until 2.0 or more... assuming the game even gets to that point...

I doubt story-based campaigns like the single player ones (which, by the way, are excellent - at least the ones I've played) would transfer well to multiplayer, because of the amount of possible outcomes - whether the players play against each other, cooperatively, or a combination of the two - one side or player loses, the other wins, or perhaps one member of a team is eradicated in battle... it'd be unplayable, and I doubt it'd be easy to implement on the other end.

Ever play something like Close Combat II, where both sides get to allocate resources, etc. to a massive area, controlling battles in several different sectors at a time? - Such a format, I believe, *might* be applicable here.

Only a suggestion. Not sure whether it'd actually be as playable as I think it would, or if it would kill simplicity, or if it'd be physically painful to implement.

Multiplayer campaigns would be awesome, even if they're years off...

Personally I could easily see this happening by 0.9 or 1.0... I imagined that all these campaigns would be coop, so it I don't see the hurdle in a story-based multiplayer campaign.

[tweek]

... I imagined that all these campaigns would be coop, so it I don't see the hurdle in a story-based multiplayer campaign.

Consider a two-player cooperative multiplayer story-centered campaign. AI plays for a player if s/he is absent, both sides are involved in all scenarios. What happens if one side is killed off? Is the campaign over for both players? - That'd be very annoying. Is the player that died off dead for the rest of the campaign with no AI replacement? - That'd also be annoying; now you have a single-player campaign. Does the dead player magically come back for the next scenario? - That'd throw balance off; it'd make the campaign easily winnable, one player could simply rush in and die, while the other could organize a clean-up attack, perhaps composed of level 3 superunits; not to mention other downsides.

In a single-player, story-based campaign it's good enough to assume the player will eventually win all scenarios - after all one cannot progress without winning. In a multiplayer gaming environment, battles can, will, and must be allowed to be lost, or partially lost, without stopping the progression of the campaign. (Wesnoth does a great job of making a partial 'lose' situation in its single-player campaigns - you might win the scenario but be on turn 24/24, in the red, and have lost all of your great units - and yet the next scenario will still be winnable to the point where the player won't simply retry the scenario s/he just completed for a better result. However, in multiplayer one player can be completely wiped out and this format doesn't adapt well to that fact.)

I'm not sure if this is a good substitute, and it'd probably make for a very different game, but - how about this for multiplayer campaigns; instead of a story for one player to progress through, you give all players a map, a few objectives, lots of gold to throw around in different areas, and let them go from there. They'd then proceed to make their own story. Battles could then be won or lost, experienced units from a winning battle could be recalled to fight in other sectors, and if all else fails the leader could be called into a battle. Campaigns could still be done cooperatively, or as free-for-all skirmishes. Numerous possibilities, but it could very easily become outlandishly complex.

Like I said, a very different type of game, but - just an idea.

[Dacyn]

I thought you could load saves in multiplayer... at least you should be able to in multiplayer campaigns.

[Integral]

I really don't see the problem with cooperative multiplayer campaigns: the scenario objectives will just say that both leaders have to stay alive in order to win the scenario. Yes, that means you have to protect the person with whom you are cooperating. That's why we call it a cooperative campaign.

I don't doubt that enhancements are possible, but it should be possible to get a basic cooperative campaign working just fine. (I suspect most of the ideas you threw out can be done in WML once the engine understands multiplayer campaigns, anyway)

Daniel

[CapTVK]

This is a bit aking to ASC's (a GPL Battle Isle remake) battle world. The trick to make this sort of multiplayer scenarios work is it that players don't have to be online at the same time. You could let players compete on map that's split in smaller maps. The only condition is that you complete a game (win or lose) in a set time period (could be 24 hours, couple of days or even a week or a month). The loser pays a penalty and can pick an easier battle the next time. If you win you get points and can advance to a tougher part of the map. Let's say the battles becomes harder the nearer you reach the center. The AI get's more gold/income/troops at the start etc... The first one (or team) to reach and conquer the center tile wins.


It works in theory but that ain't the hard part.

[tephlon]

Well, actually, I would really like it to be an ordinary Wesnoth campaign, but with two (or more) non-computer (hotseat, LAN or whatever) players, just like the multiplayer games work in Wesnoth at the moment, but extended over many scenarios, and within a story-line. I second what Integral said, that since it's a cooperative campaign, then both (or all) human players would have to survive each scenario, otherwise the campaign is lost.

Maybe the idea of not forcing the players to be on-line at the same time is good for some games, but not in the sort of multiplayer campaigning I had in mind.