Multiplayer/Co-Op & Frictional Games? NO!!!

[Spooder Wekd]

It could be done.
It would take a hell of a lot of work though. If I still had the amount of free time I had when I was in school, I would write up a multiplayer server and some client code in a heartbeat.
(well it would take some time, but I would accept the challenge in a heartbeat)

[Tanshaydar]

How would you do that while Amnesia's codes are not available? Just curiosity.

[hollowleviathan]

Probably by initially coding multiplayer for HPL1 and then doing hack-magic to get it into HPL2, or impressing Frictional enough with the HPL1 multiplayer that they integrate it or give him private access to the source to do it?

I assume HPL1 and 2 are similar enough for that approach to have merit.

[Tanshaydar]

I thought HPL2's rendering system was written from scratch.
But yeah, in your way, it's possible

[ZxBrad]

They made oblivion multiplayer. Sooooo why not amnesia

[Apjjm]

It is theoretically possible*, it would also be far too difficult to achieve (Lol @ even thinking about doing it in assembler). For example, just syncing up player models would be require additions to the game code - then what happens if the players are in different levels? Run a "server" which communicates placements but the players are in two independent worlds but can see each other if they are in the same map, yet syncs the monsters and tweaks the path-finding to weight multiple target nodes? Good look getting that working without the source code to the game, hell, good luck getting it working with the source code of the game, because it would take a huge amount of work.

*But not humanly achievable or feasible.

[Tanshaydar]

(07-23-2011 03:20 AM)ZxBrad Wrote:  They made oblivion multiplayer. Sooooo why not amnesia

I don't think it would be the same process. Since gamebryo engine has the multiplayer feature...

(07-23-2011 04:23 AM)Apjjm Wrote:  just syncing up player models would be require additions to the game code

Which is technically impossible since nobody has the game code.

[hollowleviathan]

It shouldn't matter what the did to the rendering engine, since that's just the display, and (usually) agnostic to the underpinning game client/server code. On the other hand, I'd be able to theorize a lot more intelligently about this if I was 1. a programmer and 2. had looked at HPL1.

[Apjjm]

(07-23-2011 07:29 AM)hollowleviathan Wrote:  It shouldn't matter what the did to the rendering engine, since that's just the display, and (usually) agnostic to the underpinning game client/server code. On the other hand, I'd be able to theorize a lot more intelligently about this if I was 1. a programmer and 2. had looked at HPL1.

I was not talking about their rendering engine; I was talking about what they would have to render, which in this case would be a model for the player in all his different states. That isn't as easy as just ripping the player position data from memory and distributing it.
Furthermore, they would have to synchronise the physics engine, except the player's bodies, which would require some further awkward changes.
In fact, the only way this could ever work is to de-localise the physics, enemies, etc onto a server. Then connecting to it with clients which took info about physics state changes, enemies and other stuff, then rendered them. You could use a p2p model for player-state comms, but you would still need to most likely extend the game with a dummy player class which rendered a model with the appropriate animations. This server would also need to be able to handle multiple physics worlds and simulations simultaneously. Not going to see that happen unless somebody has the source code. Even then it would most likely be a huge departure from the current game.

[Brennenburg]

(07-23-2011 03:20 AM)ZxBrad Wrote:  They made oblivion multiplayer. Sooooo why not amnesia

Yah, but they abandoned the MP mod sadly.