The Darkness 2 Crack Multiplayer Games
Charise Zelnick
I haven't played 7D2D in about a year, and I have returned to play the Darkness Falls mod with a friend. Upon joining a MP DF server (I have tried three), receiving and loading the configs, and downloading the map, the game crashes to desktop. The furthest I have gotten into the game has been a few seconds following spawn, which happened once; normally, the crash occurs the instant before I can spawn. My game version is alpha 20.6, and my Darkness Falls has been updated accordingly. (I did validate my files after updating to 20.6, as well.) Note that I can create a single-player game and play just fine; I am able to spawn in, initiate the DF starting quest, loot items, adjust video settings, and so forth, all without a crash.
You will notice at the end of my log (here) that I am encountering a fatal SIGSEGV signal. I tried combing through the log's WRNs and found nothing remarkable. The attached log is very typical of all the other logs that have been generated during my attempts. Hopefully the signal and the stack frames will provide clues to someone more knowledgeable.
I will also note that that CPU is right on the cusp of what Vulkan supports. IIRC 5th-gen intel chip drivers aren't supported by Vulkan, and your particular chipset is basically the lowest spec first press of the 6th-gen. As a whole your system isn't really set to run a major overhaul like Darkness Falls. Even if you were using Windows and DirectX.
I do recall trying with GLCore. If I remember correctly, running with GLCore makes the menus and server browser more responsive. With Vulkan they're a tad laggy. I have been wanting to upgrade my CPU for quite some time; ideally I'd want to upgrade to a newer generation chipset, but I might need to buy a new mobo to support that, IIRC. (I have a Z170X. I think that'll support 7th gen but I can't remember for sure.)
Also, yes the Z170X does support 7th gen. I would go with a minimum of a 7700k if you're upgrading. Pair it with an Evo 212 cooler and you will get good boost for a reasonable price. Can probably even OC it some if the MB supports that.
DF mod require a much more RAM then vanilla, and amount of consuming RAM increases with each new Alpha. My PC is 16GB RAM + 10GB SSD swap, with 1060 Video, and starting from A20 I may play only with lowest possible view distance and textures, either game craches after above 20mins with memory error. With lowest settings game looks like piece of rock, but at least it not crash almost hour, to be honest RAM consumption depends on how much you are exploring map, I suspect it not clean correct from memory, so more explore=faster crash.
Memory consumption with heavy mods like DF or UL is just insane, multiplayer servers restarts every 1-2 hours, and reset regions each days to keep performance. SO for this game at current state 16GB RAM is nothing (I do not talking about vanilla, because do not play it since A17)
We have time and speed and everything in game, so we could use that system to prompt players to queue up actions that will happen after everyone has queued up and once one queued up action has been completed the game will pause and prompt the player with an empty queue to queue up another action for example.
One HUGE issue right there tho would be all it would take to completely stall the game for everyone is for one player to go afk or something and not queue his turn. It wouldnt matter anyways. There would need to be major wholesale re-writes of the codebase to allow multiplayer, nevermind a re-balance of mobs. It would be almost a totally different game really. Its usuallt not something you just tack on as an after-thought. Generally games are designed with multiplayer in mind from the start. Its fun to think about though I highly doubt it will ever happen.
The multiplayer for this game was never really popular, as the shapeshifting concept was clunky and awkward despite its potential. You'll probably want to handle everything in the Capture the Flag gametype first, so start up a match with the following settings:
Have both players be on the same team so you can take turns just waiting at the other flag to run it back to your base. You move much faster by jumping with , as it allows you to cover large distances. Your first win and first game with a flag capture will get you:
That's CTF done, so the remainder of the grind will be done in Deathmatch. Start up a DM game on Subway, Humans vs. Humans, and make sure one hit kill is turned off. Anything else is fine. Meet your partner in the center platform and have them hit you in the body with a pistol a few times. Then run off and grab some armor under the stairs and the large hearts lying around. Go back and get shot again. Repeat this process 5 or 6 times without dying to unlock:
Have the winner go up to the high balcony bridge area that connects the 2 buildings and look down at the courtyard where the fire hydrant is. If the killer stands far enough back against the wall and close to the door, the person being killed down below can instantly respawn in the same place by hitting upon dying. Have the killer fire down on them as they tap to finish the match incredibly quickly. Doing this in a lobby of 4 players total unlocks:
1) I know ideas are a dime a dozen - and I guess aspects of my idea are kinda unconventional.
2) I haven't been part of this community for a looong time, I don't have a clue about current plans and state/health of the Dark Mod community.
3) I doubt what I suggest is close to technical feasibility. Nor have I any idea about the implementability. I might look into that though, because at least I find the following idea of mine interesting
4) I never really played multiplayer games. My idea below is purely hypothetical, might already exist in this exact form, might be interesting in my head but totally boring to MP veterans... ok... enough excuses for now.
Imagine
1. a real-time, online Multiplayer for Dark Mod (or similar 3D-first-person-medieval-theft-style game inspired by thief)
2. every real person has an account with a virtual money balance as acquired by playing the game
3 however, if one's virtual character dies, so does the account, and then the money is gone. One can decide to start fresh with a new account though.
4. top players and their accounts are listed somewhere on the games central website, bla bla bla, so there is motivation to have a long-lived character with a lot of money
So far so good (?). Now for some gameplay specifics:
5. there are maps, of course. Everyone is free to design Maps. (since availability of maps is certainly one of the bigger bottlenecks, the initiative for someone to submit a map should be rewarded, or at least not made difficult).
6. There is an official entrance for the map, where the guards enter. And then there is a (or several?) inoffical entrance(s). There thieves might enter. The map creator is responsible for making sure both types of entrances (official and inoffical) exist. (As with single-player maps, the map creator should make sure there are official and inofficial routes throughout - in other words, an interesting, explorable, thief-style map).
7. The map creator is also responsible for making some riddles, which potential thiefs must solve in order to get into the map. Riddles should be hard (only solvable with a "hacker-mentality" - think of the cognitive tasks thieves face when trying to get entrance to a complicated system) (or, metaphorically speaking - the thieves play out their own version of a cutscene before a heist - of course only in their mind, not with a video )
8. The goal of the guards is to, well, guard a specific object (or keep thieves from achieving a certain objective) for a certain amount of time. If they succeed, they will be paid accordingly (or rather the player's accounts)).
9. Per map, there is a maximum number of guards. This number is defined by the map creator. Also, the map creator equips each guard. Before a map starts, each guard position must be filled. If more people are interested than open positions exist, there will be a competitive selection procedure (maybe one-on-one fights in a "sandbox" mode against contestants? Or a quiz how well they are familiar with the map they want to guard?)
10. Importantly, the map creator CANNOT specify routes of guards. This is up to the players playing the guards.
11. Even more importantly - the group of guards do not know when of even if thieves will appear. This should encourage patrolling-style behaviors automatically.
12. The entrance riddle of thieves should be difficult. This is the main trade-off for the lucrative prize, together with the high guards:thieves ratio.
13. Within the map, there is no chat. People (guards and thieves) should only be allowed to cooperate via game-play elements. Therefore, guards writing letters should be possible, but thieves might steal this information within the map. (maybe talking is also possible, but this should be audible in a realistic way - thieves should be careful to not raise their voices and were they want to speak)
14. When the set time for a map is done, the players may decide each time if they want to play for the guards or the thieves next time.
All in all, I believe this gameplay style would offer trade-offs for each party (guards, thieves) to make it difficult for both but balanced. Going back to the disclaimer: I'm aware that the online, real-time nature of my suggestion is difficult to implement at best, impossible at worst.
But then, why these specific ideas? I believe such an approach could circumvent several dangers Dark Mod is facing:
- rather unrealistic/easy AI --> not an issue here, because there is no AI, only natural human intelligence.
- small ratio between map playing time : map creation time (not so much an issue as maps may be reused, but the feel for the mission is kinda new each time)
- this might inspire some opening up of the community to new players, or encourage people to hand in maps, with the prospect that they might be used in a real-time, MP, higher-stakes scenario.
So! I think I'm ready now being torn apart by you guys