The future of MS:C?

[rhys8866]

That blasted patch ruined everything, the beta update fixes quite alot, but not enough.

I was just wondering, are you guys currently working on something to fix this mess? Or are you planning on leaving it to Valve to clean up their own poop?

(I'm surprised MS:C hasn't actually gone stand-alone like Cry of Fear did. Would that not give you more control over the way that you could create or re-create certain elements within the mod? I just think it would be an awsome thing to see. It certainly deserves to be on Steam by now.)

It would just be nice to get into rythm of playing again, if it wasn't for needing the playercount for the sort of items I need these days, I'm either not on, or people play on the higher-latency servers to me and I end up barely being able to move for the delay.

I'm seriously hoping on you devs to put that LAN/Singleplayer system in place. Not to sound rude, but I think I would much prefer it that way. I know it takes alot away from the mod, that said, I do like having my character stored on a character server.

It would just be nice to be able to either start fresh in Lan with the XP boosts and the actual ability to earn most of the gear ingame without needing extra players or some sort of risky exploit/fake/afk players. Going from zero to hero, lone wolf.

Maybe bringing in a few friends along the way to share the experience with, take on slightly harder enemies and bosses without needing to level just as much. Or make certain elements slightly harder to balance the fact that there are more people with you (maybe a few extras in the way of rewards, but not having to rely on having more than 1 player at any given time, allowing you to gain the same amount loot and EXP wise from a single player, than you would from four or more.). I can imagine how much time it would take to actually rebalance everything for this though.

Playing games recently such as Morrowind and Arx Fatalis just make me wonder even more about what it would be like to have something like that in place.

Maybe it's just me, I dunno. I'd love to see it done, even if you're trying to make a point of playing on FN servers right now. That's why my one character on the FN server stayed a lower level for so long, I played in LAN with three other friends.

I also understand how we have people out there who would create cheat maps and the like, anything under the sun to cheat. And in Lan/SP it's just more of a possiblity. To be able to play in your own game, but have access to the master server would be nice, if it was as cheat proof as you could get it.

Tell you what, treat the everything I've said here as more of a personal query. I'd like to know what the community and developers think personally about implementing a system like that. Including such things as taking the mod standalone if they could. I really am interested to see what your opinions would be.

I know the MSC community know why this would be a good or a bad idea, for whatever reasons, I'd just like to know what you all think of the idea.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

First of all, a game that steals models from morrowind and world of warcraft does not deserve to be on steam, imo.

I'm seriously hoping on you devs to put that LAN/Singleplayer system in place. Not to sound rude, but I think I would much prefer it that way. I know it takes alot away from the mod, that said, I do like having my character stored on a character server.

As a mapper, I'm doing everything I can to bring you gameplay that is geared specifically towards solo play.

That said, I think making an msc single player is a terrible idea. If we gear this game towards playing alone, you can still play on FN and have no issues. The absolute last thing we need to do is give people an incentive to play off of FN.

 

[zeus9860]

I don't think having models from WoW would be a problem being on greenlight, now morrowind on the other hand...

 

[rhys8866]

First of all, a game that steals models from morrowind and world of warcraft does not deserve to be on steam, imo.

Funny that you should say that, I never actually did play that much of Morrowind and I did notice alot of stuff that I hear in MSC, I had no idea that it used models too.

As a mapper, I'm doing everything I can to bring you gameplay that is geared specifically towards solo play.

That does make sense, I have noticed that.

That said, I think making an msc single player is a terrible idea. If we gear this game towards playing alone, you can still play on FN and have no issues. The absolute last thing we need to do is give people an incentive to play off of FN.

Haha, it probably is a terrible idea in the long run. I just personally prefer to play in LAN, I don't really know why. I've no problem with playing on FN though. It's just preference. I do like the XP buffs on FN at the moment, but again, with enough low hp players in the game, maps like deraliasewers for example; that boss can be killed over and over (restarting the map) to get a few skills to 30 in less than a couple of hours. It's how I ended up getting my swordsmanship from 19 to 29 in about 30 minutes.

Thanks for sharing your opinions though, I learned a couple of things about MSC from it.

 

[Thothie]

With one or two brief exceptions, I don't work on single player games as a matter of principle, and on none that go more or less perpetually, as MSC does. I actually find the production of such games, that are more than casual, and do more than tell a one shot story, morally dubious - even if I've been guilty of wasting my soul playing more than one or two over the years.

However, in the event I abandon the project, I have placed within it flags that adjust the game to be more single player friendly. These flags are rigged to halve the HP and damage of all boss mobs, and cause all treasure chests to dish out loot, that normally requires multiple players, as if there were 4 players present.

It has no affect on XP nor generic loot though, and unless and until that dreaded eventuality comes to pass, the flags will remain disabled.

Some functions are (and will likely remain) screwed up by the LAN ID format, however. Though, the easiest way around that, is to simply play single player, on-line, and password your listen server.

Should point out, that the current single player balance, is, nonetheless, how the game is intended to be played. There's only a handful of items that require more than one player. The XP and loot adjustments for multiple players, are bonuses, above and beyond the norm, implemented years after the initial release of MSC.

To put it another way, what you actually have, is an advantage for playing multi player, rather than a penalty for playing single player.

I was just wondering, are you guys currently working on something to fix this mess? Or are you planning on leaving it to Valve to clean up their own poop?

While there's been some evidence that Valve's half-heartedly trying to fix things, seems they more often introduce new problems, then repair the old ones. However, there's a limit to what we can do, and in some ways, we risk much the same result - being considerably less skilled, considerably less manned (really just me here on that end), and, of course, totally blind as to what's actually going on in the closed side of the engine.

(I'm surprised MS:C hasn't actually gone stand-alone like Cry of Fear did. Would that not give you more control over the way that you could create or re-create certain elements within the mod? I just think it would be an awsome thing to see. It certainly deserves to be on Steam by now.)

While I've gotten in touch with someone on the Valve Goldsrc development team, as well as someone on the COF team, I've not really figured out how they pulled that little stunt yet. Getting green lighted is one thing, getting the engine source, especially a dated one, is quite another feat. Stories are mixed and vague atm.

And while I await more clarified and dependable information... One idea, that the CoF head suggested, and I did fiddle with a little... Is to make MSC a COF mod, rather than a Half-Life mod. Not had much luck in that regards, so far. It does also entail copying over the nearly the entire Half-Life media archive into our mod folder, as the CoF mod only contains those bits of Half-Life media already borrowed by CoF. Suffice to say, we use quite a bit more Goldsrc media (and not the same bits).

I don't think having models from WoW would be a problem being on greenlight, now morrowind on the other hand...

TBH, the WoW models are a bigger problem, due to their visual distinctiveness. The Morrowind models don't have much in the way of a distinctive style, all being fairly generic (save for a handful of immediately recognizable Elder Scroll lore symbols and deities, that we do not use). Additionally, unlike WoW, the original creators of Morrowind are no longer making money off the project, nor do they, unlike Blizzard, have a habit of attempting to keep decade plus old games profitable.

Suffice to say, there's only a handful of either, but likewise, there's no effort in sight to replace them.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

I'm just going to leave this quote here just in case Thothie didn't see it.

I do like the XP buffs on FN at the moment, but again, with enough low hp players in the game, maps like deraliasewers for example; that boss can be killed over and over (restarting the map) to get a few skills to 30 in less than a couple of hours. It's how I ended up getting my swordsmanship from 19 to 29 in about 30 minutes.

The Morrowind models don't have much in the way of a distinctive style, all being fairly generic (save for a handful of immediately recognizable Elder Scroll lore symbols and deities, that we do not use).

You mean like the Daedric equipment, which we definitely use?

 

[Thothie]

Saw that... Not an entirely unexpected, nor entirely unintended, result of the bonuses involved.

As for Daedric gear - black and red thorny equipment is hardly unique to Morrowind, and there's no unique symbols or anything else iconic about the designs - they are indistinct from demonic weapons found in any other CRPG. Unlike, say, the Torkie elves, which have a very distinct feature set more or less unique to Warcraft's art style. (Or to put it another way, you aren't going to recognize the weapons from Morrowind, unless you've played a lot of Morrowind... But the elves are so uniquely iconic, you can recognize where those are from, without ever having played any WoW at all.)

 

[ZunWasOkayGuy]

what about a mode where you can 'orsake your kind-hearted adventurer ways and go about killing other players, you lose 1 random item in your inventory for dying (only from another player not an NPC) but you get XP in return for killing somebody.

okay bad idea too much dark souls. i'll shutup.

 

[zeus9860]

okay bad idea too much dark souls. i'll shutup.

Good thing you said this, otherwise i would slap you in the face!

 

[Slash]

what about a mode where you can 'orsake your kind-hearted adventurer ways and go about killing other players, you lose 1 random item in your inventory for dying (only from another player not an NPC) but you get XP in return for killing somebody.

okay bad idea too much dark souls. i'll shutup.

in the old old days you actually could kill someone and steal their stuff before they respawned by hitting x on their corpse. Some unsavory types would then steal your lewt and throw it off the edge of the map. Resulted in lots of rage quits iirc.