Multiplayer Expectations: We Should Lower Them

Every day somewhere I see comments about Multiplayer with predictions and expectations. This is my short response:

 

My expectation is that there will be pixels, possibly ones and zeros. I think we can expect graphics, or possibly not. It will definitely be a form of designed information in the format of a game expansion.

Parsnips are possible.

Lastly, I think I will be pleased if no hamsters need be fed into a USB port to fuel the game.

*flitters away*

 

I really don't see a great way to integrate multiplayer into this game. Maybe just drop in/drop out of existing saves? It really doesn't lend itself to many players at once

 

The fact that we can't really imagine how multi is going to work just makes me that much more excited for it to come out. I want to see how they're gonna do it!

 

I want to play a save where 30 cats is intentional.

I'm worried about mods breaking, too. Certain mods have become essential for me--particularly Longevity and TimeSpeed, which I don't see being compatible with multiplayer.

Sharing a farm with someone, helping each other plant, harvest, and manage resources, could be really nice. However, there are question marks. A big one is spouses and how they'll fit in, if at all. Another is how much you'll actually be able to do together (mining? holiday events?), if it'll just be limited to the farm map, or what. How multi is multiplayer? I guess we'll have to see. (Maybe this has been discussed, but I don't follow the news on it.)

I'll try it out if my single-player mods will be safe, but I don't foresee it replacing my regular saves in terms of majority time spent playing. It's also not how I'd want to experience the game as a new player. It's more like a thing to do after the main story, IMO.

 

I'm pretty mod-dependent myself - since it gets compared to Minecraft so much I wonder if it'll work the same as servers/LAN worlds work wherein all players joining a world have to have the same mods and versions downloaded. The only person I'm really dying to play multiplayer with is my boyfriend so getting him all the same mods as I have won't really be a problem, but I can see it becoming quite a headache when trying to play with say, someone from the forum. I dunno though - I've already gotten hours upon hours of gameplay from singleplayer so in my mind, whatever they come up with for multiplayer will just be the frosting on the cake. I am super curious though and hope they give us some kind of preview or something soon.

 

And with something like TimeSpeed, to have the same tick length set? It could be adjusted, but you definitely couldn't just hop into someone's game without thinking about it. I could probably live without mods in multiplayer, but it would feel really weird after having them for so long. What I'd be really afraid of is multiplayer somehow breaking mods or forcing them to be reinstalled every time. That would make it not worth it for me, personally.

I haven't played Minecraft, but my partner and I spent a lot of time in Terraria's multiplayer. I was wondering if it would be like that, where there's a local host and people have to connect to their game, or if it would be more of a cloudy situation. That could potentially make a difference to the mod issues, but I don't know nearly enough about it to speculate as to how.

Hopefully it all works out, and I'm interested to try it, but I think I'll be hiding in a corner until the wrinkles are ironed out, lol.

 

Uh, yeah...if it means reinstalling all the mods every time forget it. lol I've lost count how many I actually use. I can't even take my game over to my mom's when I'm up there anymore, because there's too many things to switch out. (Though I wonder, can you just like...swap Content folders and call it good?) If it gets that complicated we'll just stick to Minecraft. We'll see though. I'm sure they've thought of all this, probably why it's taking so long.

 

Did we ever actually get a confirmation that multiplayer is coming? I might have missed it somewhere.

 

Way back at the end of last year, they said they expected it to be ready in early 2017...and I think they've since said it's going to take a bit longer. That's all the more specific they've gotten, as far as I'm aware. (Someone else will probably know exact quotes and dates but I'm not going to go digging for those. lol) We do know they're working on it, but that's about it.

 

Ah, I see! I almost feel like it'd have to be a completely different game to suit multiplayer. Maybe that's what's taking so long.

 

http://stardewvalley.net/stardew-valley-localization-feedback/
This is the last news in which multiplayer was mentioned. After that CA only twittered that PC would have it first because of the confusion with the switch version announcement.

My opinion on the topic: I just have the expectation that it will be all players on one farm or everyone on his own. If you have higher "expectations" you are trying to hype yourself for no reason. I wouldn't recommend doing that.

 

I've retextured so many folders without backing them up cause I was lazy, so if I needed to revert i'd be screwed...I don't even know what folders are or aren't vanilla right now. I can't help myself though, nexusmods is just so tempting

 

#Modderz4Lyfe

In all seriousness, though, mod issues would be a bit of a dealbreaker. I've got a lot of things that I just can't play without.

 

@sunlite Is it bad that I check Nexus daily to see what's new? lol I may not actually grab much (cuz I'm generally pretty happy with the mods I'm currently using) but I always like to see what people are coming up with.

My only dealbreaker is Timespeed. Everything else I could reinstall again or simply suffer without if I had to, though it would take a long time to get them all again if I couldn't get over the default colors and sprites. x.x' I'm especially spoiled on the fancy farm cave that comes with a regen spring and the stove in first house but lacking them wouldn't stop me from trying multiplayer.

 

After Steam wiped my mods a couple of times, I finally bit the bullet and organized all of my XNB mods into a backup content folder that I can just merge with the vanilla content folder if it happens again. That and a folder full of mod zip files because I definitely can't be bothered to find them online again if anything happens to the backup.

I don't blame you with how slow you've mentioned your days are! My ticks are only 10 seconds outdoors and 15 indoors and even that's enough to refuse to go back to vanilla time.

At least with multiple people working on one farm, though, time probably wouldn't feel quite so... crunchy.

 

I shant be having this problem.

 

I don't expect multiplayer for this year anymore. I don't know, but I have this feeling. CA doesn't post anything about SDV at all during the last months and Chucklefish is also very quiet.
Plus I would love to see bugfixes for the problems caused by 1.2 before another big update.

 

Yeah. It was announced for after this summer or end of year, but it has been too quiet for that to be realistic. I consider myself a patient gamer. So in my opinion they can take a while longer if the multiplayer needs that to be good.

Edit: With the GoG summer sale just finished and the steam summer sale just kicking off there are plenty games to play in the meantime.

 

So it's not just me that feels like CA is missing in action? Good.

I cannot stand the default colors, it hurts my eyes. And oh dear, some of the flooring is atrocious in vanilla. Not that the textures are bad itself, but they just don't fit my aesthetic.