Is anyone interested in the idea of a multiplayer rogue? Not that I
want to write such a beast (I haven't any sources anyway.) , but perhaps the
original authors might find my ideas interesting.
I don't think that it would be as hard to program as you might think.
Several players could be in the dungeon at once, and they could be treated as
*Special* monsters as far as the other players are concerned. Since monsters
can carry and drop items in some rudimentary fashion already, I don't think
this will be a problem. Fighting between players could be handled in the same
way as fighting with monsters is. Since monsters can't be on the same the same
space as you are, I would think that any collisions between players could be
handled without much trouble ( There is that stepping on an Orc Bug in 5.3 but
bear with me).
The main problem I see is maintaining a single dungeon for all players.
My guess would be that each player would have his own process running rogue, and
he would access a global data-structure holding the dungeon for all the players.
Whenever a player makes a movement or drops an object the global dungeon would
be updated. But, this leads to some interesting problems:
- How often is a new dungeon generated?
My guess is every day or two, otherwise players would know the dungeon
too well, and take advantage. This suggests that game saving will only
be allowed for the time between updates, and that only the player's
position and possesions will be saved.
- Won't the upperlevels of the dungeon become depleted of resources as
players make their way down?
This is a tricky problem, because players will arrive, die, or win
at any given time. My solution would be to add items to a level as
soon as a new player climbs down the stair to that level. This still
leave a problem of more than one player on one level at a time. The
one who was there first might take all the items before the other gets
a chance.
- What do you do with a player's possesions when he dies?
I want to leave the possesions (including the gold) right where the
player dies so other players can find them. In the lower levels,
where everyone gets killed, there will be a jackpot of all the good
stuff people carried down.
- There is only one amulet of Yendor.
This makes it even more fun, everyone will fight over it!
Some interesting playing styles might be used:
- Players could cooperate in killing the monsters.
- Players could fight.
If one guy has the amulet, the others might gang-up on him an kill him
to get the amulet, and his gold.
- Players could trade items between themselves.
This would be implemented by having one player drop an object, and the
other pick it up. You could even sell objects by having one player drop
gold (or an agreed upon item) and the other dropping the item that is
being sold. Of course, one guy could cheat the other by picking up the
object before giving his object. These kind of disputes could be
settled with a fight. I can hear it now: "Your gold (rings,wands,etc.)
or your life!".
- Players might be allowed to talk to one another.
If they aren't in the same (physical) room, there would have to be some
mechanism to talk to another player so that they could cooperate or
trade. If you were in trouble (ex. dying of starvation) you could shout
for help.
( This could wake up all the monsters on the level, possibly. )
This all sounds like a lot of fun to me, anyone else have any ideas?
Anyone want to write it? Are you listening: Ken Arnold, et all?
Paul van de Graaf U.C. San Diego sdcsvax!sdccs7!ee163aca
Consensus is that multi-player games are far, FAR better than single-player
games. There are two basic types: team play, with various teams competing
against each other, and "rogue"-type games, where players individually
try to off each other.
One exception to this rule was a game called "battin" (named after the
author), a "rogue"-style game with seven 1000 x 1000 mazes arranged in
levels. The "city" levels had no monsters, but shops where you could use
your gold to buy enchanted armor, weapons, etc. They also had "bars", where
you could meet and talk with anyone else in the game who was also in a
bar. There you could barter and trade things. Every now and then you'd
run into some super player who would out of the goodness of his heart
just devolve about 3,000,000 gold pieces on you.
Most games had the concept of an "operator", who could in some ways control
the action of the game (much like the "wizard password" in rogue).
This would involve creating new monsters in the database, altering a
player's statistics, or editing the maze (if it were a permanent maze).
I was an operator in one 20-level D&D game which installed a new maze every
month: each operator got to design a level. The non-random character
of the maze made mapping interesting in itself as the pattern generated
by the designer gradually became clear.
The main thing needed by all of these games is a common, centralized
database with record-level locking. That's the "game board". It's difficult
to live without this capability. PLATO was a single computer with terminal
lines strung cross-country. With a decentralized, network-based game you
need an expert in protocol design, as well as a crypto expert to prevent
forged network packets from taking over the game. It's very hard.
[----]
There is a game on the CERL PLATO system here called 'avatar,' which cannot
be easily described here. It is the closest thing to real D&D that I have
ever seen. Inter-player communication is fully supported anywhere, and
items and gold may be exchanged when both characters are in the same location.
The dungeon automatically repopulates with monsters every 15 minutes or so,
and there are 15 square levels 30x30 each. There are a huge number of magic
items, monsters, and spells that can be cast. You can run in groups or
individually, something that especially makes sense because players can have
different classes and alignments. Dead players can be carried back up to
the morgue, where a fee must be paid for a raise (lost of consititution stat).
Stud characters can cast 'resurrect.' An interesting feature is that you
can be 'quested' for a monster or item, which means that you are required
to defeat that monster or find that item to make level. Unfortunately,
avatar took several people (3 or 4) a few years to fully develop, and you
will probably not find anyone other than students to do such a thing.
Avatar also uses graphics (512x512) to display the view down the hallway and
to display the monsters. It would be difficult to do something effective with
24x80 terminals.
Mark Papamarcos ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsg!mzp
"DING! Good answer! Show me, 'commie pinko liberal.'"
John Hobson
AT&T Bell Labs--Naperville, IL
ihnp4!iwlc6!amigo