29 replies to this topic

[dra6o0n]

If people can modify the time scale for slow mo mods, then its possible to have a slow motion effect to use vats, but then moving parts would be harder to aim...

And yes this would require a remake of the engine since VATS targets only seems to be static...

[ryann122]

they managed it in oblivion so why not fallout 3 but i can see how mods could be a problem. youd have to download all the mods your freind has and hed have to download all the mods you have or the game would crash.

[neok182]

Nothing you guys are saying changes the fact that theres only a handful of modders who could pull it off. Even if they did it would be buggy as hell and the game is already buggy enough as it is.

If it was done, FO4 would be coming out around the same time. Honestly it's just not even worth trying to do.

If you want a game that has co-op and is like fallout then go pick up borderlands on the 20th of october.

[Cakester]

The closest anyone has come to multiplayer in Fallout 3 is Cakester


I would love to have multiplayer in Fallout 3, now Bethesda made a great game.
There are three factors that make a great game:
Good story - Fo3 has this
Moddability - And this
Multiplayer - But not this

Hopefully Bethesda will make it, but till then we'll keep modding, and requesting.
Maybe they'll give Fo4 moddability.

Yay someone said my name!!

Ok so how it works is you inject a program into fallout 3 (a dynamic link library) using a loader (another program). the injected program uses winsock to communicate to a server. Based upon what is received from the server the program forces the game to change in that way. The hard part of course is the forcing part.

The chat program i made connected to an IRC (internet relay chat) server. and then received messages from a channel and displayed them onto the game's screen using the game's own directx device. Finally, with a keyboard hook you can record key presses. So when the enter key is hit and a Boolean would be set to true so you could type your message and hit enter again and the message would then be sent using winsock's send .Of course the winsock needs to be connected to the IRC server before you can send or receive.

The reason I don't want to dig into multiplayer at the moment is I don't have the knowledge needed to know how to pull the strings of the game.

[ecksile]

You would definitely have to have it on a server of its own trying to not only run but host the buggy havok engine on a single computer would be very unstable if the host crashes so does the client as well as vice-versa. I'm not sure but probably not, then again FO engine is a buggy male without a father.
Not to mention the mods would have to sync for both saves as well as the load order be perfect (either way it'd have to be perfect).

The reason garrys mod works is because it was designed off a game which already had multiplayer on it. The source engine is the havok engine yes, but it is a heavily and i mean "heavily" modified version of it with real time control of everything. If a multi player version WAS possible (and this was my own idea for a multiplayer version of fallout) you would first need to install the game on its own server period. Thats the only way i can see syncing of all items in the world. You would then have to find a way to setup a lan (i was thinking hamachi) and link you and your companion into the server (how you link to the server i have no clue but i would guess it would be something like oblivion multi-mod).

As for the Oblivion multi-mod it was never finished and last time i checked they had given up on it or it hadn't been updated in like a year and that was about a year ago. It was extra buggy and it wasn't synced to a certain point i don't remember the details anymore but the reason it was never finished was because of all the problems and bugs (correct me if I'm wrong about not being finished).

As for the VATS problem you'd either have to find a real time way of doing it or completely disable it. If you did find a real time way of using it VATS i could think of 2 things.

1) Perhaps by when one person enters vats the other person is either forced into vats and you do a back to back kind of thing like in army of 2 so basically make vats co-op.

2) you could make it so that one person enters VATS and the other would go into a controlled bullet time but when you came out the kills would have to be synced.

Also you'd have to make menus real time. Quick question I've always wondered about why oblivion and fallout didn't use real time menus and if it was possible to use real time in FO3/TES4? I don't think you would want a chat menu as it would be extra resources. You could just use Team Speak/Ventrilo/Xfire. Perhaps if you did implement a chat menu you could do it through dialouge Or cakesters idea.

[Cakester]

You would definitely have to have it on a server of its own trying to not only run but host the buggy havok engine on a single computer would be very unstable if the host crashes so does the client as well as vice-versa. I'm not sure but probably not, then again FO engine is a buggy male without a father.
Not to mention the mods would have to sync for both saves as well as the load order be perfect (either way it'd have to be perfect).

The reason garrys mod works is because it was designed off a game which already had multiplayer on it. The source engine is the havok engine yes, but it is a heavily and i mean "heavily" modified version of it with real time control of everything. If a multi player version WAS possible (and this was my own idea for a multiplayer version of fallout) you would first need to install the game on its own server period. Thats the only way i can see syncing of all items in the world. You would then have to find a way to setup a lan (i was thinking hamachi) and link you and your companion into the server (how you link to the server i have no clue but i would guess it would be something like oblivion multi-mod).

As for the Oblivion multi-mod it was never finished and last time i checked they had given up on it or it hadn't been updated in like a year and that was about a year ago. It was extra buggy and it wasn't synced to a certain point i don't remember the details anymore but the reason it was never finished was because of all the problems and bugs (correct me if I'm wrong about not being finished).

As for the VATS problem you'd either have to find a real time way of doing it or completely disable it. If you did find a real time way of using it VATS i could think of 2 things.

1) Perhaps by when one person enters vats the other person is either forced into vats and you do a back to back kind of thing like in army of 2 so basically make vats co-op.

2) you could make it so that one person enters VATS and the other would go into a controlled bullet time but when you came out the kills would have to be synced.

Also you'd have to make menus real time. Quick question I've always wondered about why oblivion and fallout didn't use real time menus and if it was possible to use real time in FO3/TES4?

The game client is not like the server application and so installing a copy of it on the server computer does no good. Maybe you were talking about running a simulation of some sort?

The server computer has its own application that is programmed differently. It is true that to keep everybody in sync the server has to store the data and do a lot of calculations . However the server should not be doing all the calculations.

I know zilch about garry's mod and the oblivion-multiplayer attempt though.

There is no VATS problem in my opinion. VATS was made for a single player game. VATS also won't adapt to multiplayer. What you can do is try to create a new system that is similar. When you are the programmer, you get to choose how things turn out, but programs don't make themselves

[ecksile]

Yes it would be much like the way that the CSS servers work where you would have to load the world and objects on one system that way everything would be in sync and then link up to that server as a client or player in the world space. That way all the mods animations and everything would be loaded into the world space together rather then trying to overlap the worlds through a multiplayer lan mod of joining 2 computers. Im just giving my 2cents on how I've seen counterstrikesource/garrys mod/HL2DM work. But again im basing my ideas off an engine which takes its roots from the same place as the Fallout engine, but is much more advanced/stable and was programmed for multiplayer.

[mitta]

I think that bethesda is working on it, and i don't think it is impossible, rendering could be clientside, (mods would cause a problem though) and since fallout 3 already is able to keep track of NPC's moving through the cells, it could most likely track another player moving through the cells. Actually, now that i think about it, not only would it be possible, it would probably be relatively easy, the PC (player character) would be a controlled NPC, and the game engine would easily keep track of the changing objects and NPC's. Now i said relatively easy, there would be some problems that would need some time to fix, but finding the main problems isn't really a challenge. Since the PC isn't ever referred to my name in fallout 3, quest and NPC dialog would not need to be changed much (a couple things here and there though). Though there would need to be some limits, the fallout 3 engine is much more versatile and powerful than you think, but it DOES have its limits.

Don't take this the wrong; I'd love to see Fallout 3 co-op as much as anyone else, but it wouldn't be relatively easy. It's not a simple matter of syncing the position of an NPC on Player A's client with the position of Player B on his client. You'd still have to sync their animations and inventories, and figure out some way to make the NPC aim and fire exactly like the player character. Furthermore, all of the NPCs, random encounters, and clutter on Player B's client would have to be synced to those on Player A's. Lots and lots of scripts wouldn't function properly for one or both players. There's plenty of other issues, as well.

I think the only way Fallout 3 co-op could ever happen without being a buggy mess would be if you had co-op "missions" of some sort. That is, you'd go to some sort of starting point, you'd connect to another player (or players, ideally) via IP, and you'd do stuff within completely controlled cells (no random spawns, etc.) designed to be played cooperatively. Even then, though, I'm sure there'd be plenty of headaches.

You're probably better off just buying Borderlands to get your cooperative post-apocalyptic fix.

couldntt you just make a custom talored map FOR the multiplayer mod? some could even make seperate quests.. hmm but if anyone does find out whether this mod happens in some way, or becomes possible, let me know

[Cakester]

[/quote]
couldntt you just make a custom talored map FOR the multiplayer mod? some could even make seperate quests.. hmm but if anyone does find out whether this mod happens in some way, or becomes possible, let me know
[/quote]

A fresh world space would make testing much easier. You would just add a piece at a time to it as you convert to multiplayer.

A multiplayer mod is possible but it has to be really worth it, because the maker would have to work their ass off.

[darkjaffar]

Maybe a good starting point is to make multiplayer mini games. For instance, using Cakester's ability to send messages to an IRC channel (or a more fancy server-client system eventually), a game can grab the messages and use them for basic manipulation of a teddy bear's position in a small interior square room. The clients just send an x,y,z to the channel frequently under their username and read x,y,z from the channel until an x,y,z from a different username than their own comes into focus. Each player would simply be a teddy bear on the other person's screen. No equipment or other character model, no vats, nothing.

Not really a mini-game yet, but maybe it could be extended from there. One person plays as the teddy bear and the other player runs at toddler settings and they have to chase the bear around the room. Kinda like tag, with the toddler as "it". The person playing the bear would actually see the other player as a teddy bear, but that's fine as this would be more for a proof of concept.

Maybe even it could be part of a bigger mod to add a still active Vault which was assigned to the social experiment of forcing residents to play crappy games with each other until using a mechanical mechanism to expel them from the Vault after they have become adults to see the effects of prolonged exposure to the games. Kinda like Little Lamplight, crossed with Vault 114.

Of course, you aren't playing the other kids in these proof of concept games, rather, you are playing a specific person on the internet. It would just make the atmosphere for the proof of concept work more complete. =D