IRONHIDE COMMUNITY FORUM

IRONHIDE,

Please tell me that a multiplayer mode is a potential option in the future. Im a big RTS fan and have a hard time staying hooked without any multiplayer modes. Praying for this to happen but doubtful given that none of their games are multiplayer.

thoughts guys?

Unfortunately, MP is unlikely, mainly because servers are expensive.

I really hope so man. Please devs

anyone else have any idea about a multiplayer mode?

Honestly, if players could host servers that would be great and definitely better than nothing.

like our own custom games? yeah that works too. My only worry is that Ironside never makes multiplayer games....I hope this is their first one!

Multiplayer *is* really unlikely to make, as Aeris stated.

First, to make it into, the game should be rebalanced, in some way that every unit couldn't be too OP to use, but practically useful still (play Starcraft for a while, and you get the picture)
Second, as Aeris stated, it needs to have a server, which of course is very expensive. (and for IH, that's too much going for them.)
Third, is maps. Multiplayer would force Devs make more maps, and more likely more time-consuming drawing out the entire layout.
And then everything needs to be tested, so that it could work properly.

I think we put too much pressure on IH themselves. They did made this game like in 2-3 years, and it's very exciting to play. Multiplayer could bring more fun, but then it just doesn't seem to be worth it as this point.

all very true and very unfortunate if thats the case....I wish it weren't the case lol

Even though we would love to make a multiplayer, it is not easy. It can be done but requires skills we don't have yet and a lot of work.

This is a list of some challenges on making a multiplayer game for mobile:

[*] Synchronism. When processing the game logic on different device cpu, same operations could end up in different results, that means the game state + input could lead to different output in different devices. In order to fix that you have to do a lot of work, depending the type of network architecture you try to use, could be hard to achieve. Also, it is something to consider from the beginning of a project. Transforming Iron Marines to be multiplayer could be really hard to do.
[*] Networking on mobile devices. On PC you can rely on good network most of the time but on mobile devices there are a lot of different conditions, so you have to optimize for bad connection cases, that means to reduce data consumption, etc.
[*] Balance, it is really important in a multiplayer to have a great balance between race/faction/etc. The good thing is that it could improve over time (and with a soft launch or open beta)
[*] It needs a lot of players in order to make it interesting to find matches, etc. Some games don't get enought players on soft launch/open beta and the game sucks when you try to find a match.
[*] Scalability, be able to grow in terms of servers, etc, if the game is a success.

I wrote some blog posts about multiplayer some time ago in my personal blog, not sure if it helps on anything but it may be fun to read in case you are devs.

Thanks

arielsan wrote:Even though we would love to make a multiplayer, it is not easy. It can be done but requires skills we don't have yet and a lot of work.

This is a list of some challenges on making a multiplayer game for mobile:

[*] Synchronism. When processing the game logic on different device cpu, same operations could end up in different results, that means the game state + input could lead to different output in different devices. In order to fix that you have to do a lot of work, depending the type of network architecture you try to use, could be hard to achieve. Also, it is something to consider from the beginning of a project. Transforming Iron Marines to be multiplayer could be really hard to do.
[*] Networking on mobile devices. On PC you can rely on good network most of the time but on mobile devices there are a lot of different conditions, so you have to optimize for bad connection cases, that means to reduce data consumption, etc.
[*] Balance, it is really important in a multiplayer to have a great balance between race/faction/etc. The good thing is that it could improve over time (and with a soft launch or open beta)
[*] It needs a lot of players in order to make it interesting to find matches, etc. Some games don't get enought players on soft launch/open beta and the game sucks when you try to find a match.
[*] Scalability, be able to grow in terms of servers, etc, if the game is a success.

I wrote some blog posts about multiplayer some time ago in my personal blog, not sure if it helps on anything but it may be fun to read in case you are devs.

Thanks

OK... But what about skimish mode? Currently the game lacks replay value and enableing customizable battle against AI should greatly improve that.

* Cheating is another multiplayer issue

Yeah, Skirmish is antoher story, something more viable, I would love to do it, not on our current plans.

arielsan wrote:* Cheating is another multiplayer issue

Yeah, Skirmish is antoher story, something more viable, I would love to do it, not on our current plans.

Cheating??? How exactly would one go about cheating in this theoretical multiplayer IM?

What I mean was, in multiplayers, cheating is also something to worry about and depending the solution could be a big or small problem, at least for competitive mode. Never underestimate the power of cheaters.

Maybe you were being sarcastic and I didn't get it.