Should we have multiplayer campaigns in 1.0?

[ryn]

as subject. If the developers agree, I will start working on a patch for this, unless someone is already responsible for it. If the devs think it should be left for later, I'll probably do it as soon as we branch or reach a point in which the game is ready for such a feature.

-Ryn, the guy who really wants to be able to do a cooperative campaign.

(note that I haven't started already because I see no point in making such a patch without it being in the game - even if I do release a different version of my own its not likely that many people will use it and I'll just be diverting attention away from the main project)

[ebo]

I would really like to see cooperative multiplayer in 1.0

[tephlon]

Yes, me too

[Viliam]

Meeee toooo!!!

However, it will be absolutely necessary to write and playtest at least one complete cooperative campaign before getting too close to 1.0 release. Because incomplete campaigns should not be a part of 1.0; and if there will be no complete cooperative campaigns, then code support for them does not belong there too.

I think it is possible to write and even approximately test cooperative campaigns now, with (until the changes in code are made) all units belonging to the same player. The tester will simply pretend that there are two different players, and will neither spend all money on one army, nor recall units where they do not belong. The scenario author can define two constants PLAYER_ONE and PLAYER_TWO, and set them both to same value; after changes in code, the constants will be set to different values. (Could someone please write an example code in WML?)

I think that with good cooperative campaign the changes in code will be accepted. Without good cooperative campaign all this conversation is useless.

[Woodwizzle]

Seems like a big post 1.0 feature to me, But if you could get it working and stable before 1.0 more power to ya! Its definetly a feature I would love to see.

[AT]

If the code is working, finding people to make (or port) a MP campaign should be trivial. There has been alot of intrest in this, and, while I am not a 'coding' dev, I would love to see this sneak in before 1.0. HOWEVER, there kinda has been a feature freeze, and I'd imagine this perhaps would warrent its own branch until it was stable enough to merge (in case it wasn't ready in time for the rest of 1.0.)

So, in conclussion, yes, the devs (or at least one dev, me) would really like to have this working, and even if it doesnt make 1.0, it will get into 1.1, or 1.2, etc.

[pg]

I'd like to see this as I think co-op and maybe even competitive campaigns(with many branches) would be really fun to play. I also have some interest in making such campaigns but I'm going to stick to making multiplayer maps, and running tournaments for the time being.

[joshbosh321]

I think that you should make a patch and post it here, which will get it playtested while getting around the feature freeze. Once it is relatively bug-free and supports many or all of the features in regular campaigns, I think even Miyo would be wiling to add this.

[ryn]

thanks for the quick replies, I'll start working as soon as I find a couple of free hours, probably this Saturday.

[silene]

I was hoping Dave would answer, but he doesn't have Internet access at the moment. So I'm putting on my "coding dev" hat to reply to your post. Otherwise you would get a bit frustrated when your patch got shot down, because nobody has warned you about what follows.

You are not the first forumer who wants to implement multiplayer campaigns. Integral already gave it a try. His idea was nice (creating a "player" record that would contain gold and recall, the two informations needed for multiplayer campaigns), and it would have greatly cleaned Wesnoth code. It's why Dave applied it, and why I didn't complain about it.

Unfortunately, the engine is really intricated, and Integral didn't see all the issues with his patch. And neither did we (the fault is not just Integral's). And consequently a lot of new bugs suddenly appeared. When saving/reloading, you would get back the gold you had at the beginning of the scenario. It was easy to recall your lvl3 units from single player campaigns in a multiplayer game. And so on. The funniest I saw was probably the invasion by Haldric (TROW hero) of my HTTT savefiles.

I hope we now have found them all, and that 0.8.7 will be clean with respect to multiplayer data. But it still isn't sure at all. And we may have broken Wesnoth even more by trying to clean up the mess.

Why did I tell you all that? Because after seeing this fiasco, Dave said something along the lines of: "no more user patch till 1.0 has been released". And since your patch will clearly be big and intrusive, it will necessarily get shot down. Sorry to disappoint you.

[Viliam]

I hope we now have found them all, and that 0.8.7 will be clean with respect to multiplayer data. But it still isn't sure at all.

So, does it mean that there is no need to program a multiplayer patch; only write a campaign and wait for 0.8.7?

[silene]

So, does it mean that there is no need to program a multiplayer patch; only write a campaign and wait for 0.8.7?

Not at all. Why do you think I concluded my rant by "your patch will clearly be big and intrusive" if no code change was necessary?!

[ryn]

Sorry to hear that so late in my development cycle I guess its either 1.0 or a patch only certain players would even know how to apply then.. that or a fork. I think Integral's patch is the most intrusive part here though... It's basically that and some networking code. I'll go ahead and develop, and if we branch it could be added to the development brach, otherwise it will hopefully be stable enough to add in around 1.0 (I hope sooner, but Dave probably won't want that, and I can understand him there) until then I'll probably distribute windows,linux, and possibly Mac OS 10.2 binaries (I have all 3) and multiplatform sources for the patched version.

[Dave]

Whether patches get accepted or rejected also depends heavily on how well you can convince the developers that the patch is well-written and will have little impact on Wesnoth stability.

If it sounds like you decided upon a patch idea, started looking at the code, put together something which 'looked like' it'd work, and then ran two common test cases before submitting, we'll be likely to reject.

If you've been looking at Wesnoth code for the last two months, eager to contribute something, decided that this is what you want to contribute, and carefully considered and planned changes, implemented the changes with a view to minimizing negative impact, and tested your changes thoroughly, sharing the patch with others who have also tested it, then we'd be far more inclined to accept.

And if you consistently submit patches which are problem-free and stable, well, we'll start trusting you alot more in future

David