Any plans for multiplayer improvements?

Maybe I'm wrong here but I have always felt there has been a social element to gaming that makes a more fulfilling experience. What (if any) plans are in store for multiplayer improvement? Personally, I've had trouble understanding the C2 multiplayer documentation and tutorials as they only applied to one specific type of game and movement mechanics leaving me with many questions and confusion about implementing multiplayer elements into my own creative endeavors. Now that the beta is out, is there anything you can tell us about the future of multiplayer in C3?

If you dig into it a bit and take the time to learn it, the multiplayer plugin is actually pretty feature complete as far as Construct goes. If you're looking for a fully featured back end service, there are plenty out there already.

I might be inclined to write some lighter tutorials targeting specific multiplayer uses that aren't clearly covered in the official tutorials.

Edit: how exactly would you like to see the plugin improved? It sounds like a case of just having a hard time understanding the tutorials.

Sure, I admit I am not completely understanding the multiplayer plug-in past a conceptual stand-point. I have had no problems implementing whatever game elements with c2 outside of the multiplayer plug-in. I've gone through the tutorials several times including creating the tutorial examples from scratch following the tutorial to make sure I understand each and every event and the reason behind them but beyond those tutorials, I can't seem to find any useful resources or variety of examples worthy of elaborating on implementation. I'm curious to know how many c2 users use multiplayer. It seems like its rarely discussed in forums and not many .capx examples can be found where-as most everything else you could imagine, has some iteration of an example or even the basic logic required to execute it... I guess I should say I'm requesting more information because I can't seem to fully make use of the plug-in without more insight. If anyone is willing to elaborate more on the plug-in, or has links to anything multi-player related that I may have missed, please chime in.

Also: oosyrag, thanks for your reply!

Feel free to PM me with any specific questions you may have, conceptual or in practice if you have an example you are working on.

The official multiplayer tutorials are excellent and features tons of very concise information. They go into "what is best" and "why" on top of "how", in addition to giving you the background necessary to understand the "why" as well. Unfortunately this much information may discourage newcomers just looking for the "how". For me, it was great since I love reading and understanding the "why" behind the "how".

A more easily accessible tutorial might start with just the basic goal of multiplayer - how to send data from one device to another. Leave the "What should you send, why, and by what method" for another tutorial, or in this case, the official ones. This also describes what you should use the plugin for.

Honestly though, anyone skipping out on understanding all of the concepts behind multiplayer is in for a very very rough time dealing with all the nuances of bandwidth and time-delayed communication and its implications.

As for users - it has been mentioned a few times that the multiplayer plugin gets very little utilization. I think most people are not able or do not realize what it takes to design multiplayer integration, and get discouraged when all the information is presented. Besides understanding how to use the plugin is actually making a game! I wouldn't be surprised if a very small population of users have completed games, regardless of multiplayer. For example in my case - just because I have a very clear picture of the plugin's capabilities and how to put it into practice doesn't mean I can put together a good multiplayer game!

[quote:1pl8saz9]I love reading and understanding the "why" behind the "how".

^ This is me totally. I can't function without the why part. Its how I learn/understand.

I'd say that not completing a game is usually because people get too ambitious, myself included.

[quote:1pl8saz9]I think most people are not able or do not realize what it takes to design multiplayer integration, and get discouraged when all the information is presented.

^I really don't want to fall in to that category. I play very few single-player games, and I hope to create multiplayer games as they have more replayability IMO.

I have been trying to accomplish a specific task in a project I am working on and maybe if you could take a look at what I've been struggling with you could get me through whatever it is I am not understanding. I need a 'eureka' moment and i think if you were to help me work through solving it (its pretty basic) I'd be able to soldier on. Essentially, I am trying to do a multiplayer version of block grid movement rather than 8-direction which I've been able to make work, but I'm definitely missing something which is apparent in previewing host vs client. I'd be happy to send a .capx in the near future if you are willing to take a look. People like yourself are part of what makes construct such a powerful tool because it has such a committed community behind it and I can not thank you enough for your time.

Edit: Also if you have any links you can share with me, I will investigate them thoroughly.

I think the best way to improve it would be to simplify it radically. Multiplayer can be really hard to comprehend. I tried making my game with the multiplayer plugin but gave up quickly too complicated. I started using photon cloud instead. Much more easy to use. I think the only thing wrong with the multiplayer plugin is it's so hard to use and comprehend. They should probably rethink, how can we recreate multiplayer functionality, fool-proof for idiots... Lol. Make behaviours etc for easy setup.

I pretty much just wanna slap a multiplayer behaviour on a character. If he moves, he moves on the other screen as well. If he jumps he jumps on the other screen as well, That's pretty much the level of complexity they should aim for to get it working for a beginner, but but possibility for more advanced user functionality.

The reason i love the Photon Cloud plugin is that there's no Host/Peer thinking behind it. If your character does an action you just broadcast that action to all other players in the room, the same goes for them. Anyone can drop out or drop in at any time, game is still active. There's no situation like if the host get disconnected the whole game session ends.

Why i don't like the Multiplayer is pretty much the peer/host way or working. If your peer wanna move, you send that to the host, host confirms, sends back, then you move. Anyway I think they could have made it a lot more user friendly with some easy setup with multiplayer behaviours, That would handle the Host/Peer functionality and you just choose what action you want to transmit.

We don't have any plans to work on the multiplayer plugin at this time. It's very time-consuming to work on, the services we host for it have on-going costs, and from what we can see relatively few people actually use it.

Ashley

The reason not a lot people are using it is because it's not mature enough.

On top of that, we're still lacking the possibility to run a true dedicated host unless with extremly ugly workarounds which should not even be mentioned.

The majority of successful games, especially in the long run ARE multiplayer games.

Each time someone's asking for multiplayer improvements you're immediately shutting the feedbach, suggestion, requests down.

Please finally consider the fact that multiplayer is a must have for every game creator.

I understand that you can see the activity of people connecting to your signaling server and it might not be too much.

But i'm 100% sure that a lot more people would give it a try if it's actualy being improved and actualy pushed somehow by scirra.

You've released multiplayer, wrote 1~2 guides and then didn't even bother to touch it ever again. It was never properly advertised either.

So what do you expect?

I'm still working on multiplayer games only using construct (i'm hosting my own signaling server)

But the fact that you don't give a **** about your hard worked feature is actually holding me back to develope any much further since i'm fearing that i will never make it using construct. I'm sorry but that's really the truth and i'm kinda sick and tired reading your let-down posts on every multiplayer topic.

Please officialy admit that you drop multiplayer feature for good so i can move along.

There's a reason why this topic comes up over and over and over again.

Please...

The other major issue is that solids can only be set globally rather than -per object.

Has this finally been adressed for C3 ?

That's absoluetly not working for multiplayer game scenarios.

But i guess you also didn't care about that since it's "only" multiplayer related.

More details:

The reason not a lot people are using it is because it's not mature enough.

Actually, I think it's because the nature of networking is just hard. You have to be able to think about multiple clients all running on a slightly different time delay and all interacting with each other. I think the fundamental problem is that asking people who use a non-programming tool to make the jump to such a difficult technical feature is too much to ask for many users.

[quote:3k5hoqpb]I understand that you can see the activity of people connecting to your signaling server and it might not be too much.

But i'm 100% sure that a lot more people would give it a try if it's actualy being improved and actualy pushed somehow by scirra.

People made the same arguments before we made multiplayer. "Just add multiplayer and you'll get thousands more customers!" It never happened. So I'm afraid I'm sceptical. Also if it really is just too difficult for most users, adding more features won't help.

[quote:3k5hoqpb]You've released multiplayer, wrote 1~2 guides and then didn't even bother to touch it ever again.

I wrote a 10-page tutorial covering all the background and theory necessary to get started with multiplayer games. If that's not enough to help people use it, I don't know what is.

[quote:3k5hoqpb]It was never properly advertised either.

It's literally on the front page of our website.

[quote:3k5hoqpb]Please officialy admit that you drop multiplayer feature for good so i can move along.

So... you'd rather we remove a feature you're actively using, than leave it be?

Curious, it works fine and has full functionality as dedicated host, regards if you're running it in nw.js or a browser tab, so wondering what the problem is there. Is not like clients ever see what the host sees, depending on how you approach it.

Also, what is the benefit of running for own signalling server? Honest question, I really don't see it.

The main question I guess would be what exactly you want to see improved and how?

The solids issue you mention is hardly unique to multiplayer projects, and there are logical workarounds. Also it will likely be addressed in a C3 runtime update, which is planned for the future.

Make it work on ios and osx and lot more developers will try harder/longer to make working multiplayer projects.

The fact it only runs on android doesn't cut it for the more serious and devoted developers.

Also, for those interested, I added a topic on the suggestion system to expand the plugin with audio video capabilities.

WebRTC's forte is audio/video/data streaming.

The fact it only runs on android doesn't cut it for the more serious and devoted developers.

Are you talking about the Construct 3 editor, or games made in Construct 2/3, or multiplayer?

> The fact it only runs on android doesn't cut it for the more serious and devoted developers.

>

Are you talking about the Construct 3 editor, or games made in Construct 2/3, or multiplayer?

The multiplayer object used in games.

Specifically webrtc support on Apple devices? Unfortunately that's not something anyone not at Apple can just make it work. On the bright side, I'm pretty sure it will inevitably come.

Make it work on ios and osx and lot more developers will try harder/longer to make working multiplayer projects.

That's entirely in Apple's hands - and they're working on it.