How Will Multiplayer Work?

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by Ian1991, Mar 6, 2018.

  1. SonicScott91

    SonicScott91 Well-Known Member

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    It hasn’t even entered development so there’s nothing to actually cancel.

    All that’s been said on multiplayer as a whole is that they’ve had a few talks behind the scenes on how it might take form, that’s it. Until anything pops up onto the roadmap, assume it’s not coming.

    I’m not bothered at all about multiplayer myself but hopefully they’ll work something out for the players that do want it. I’m more excited for steam locomotives! :D
     
  2. Commiee

    Commiee Well-Known Member

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    Your post is the only one speculating here. Multiplayer is (1) still listed on the official website as being part of development plans and (2) was confirmed to be so by Sam in response to my question on Discord last month:

    [​IMG]

    Please refrain from spreading misinformation.
     
  3. KiwiLE

    KiwiLE Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure if multi-player railway sessions would be all plain sailing.
    It's not like a flight sim where you can move out of the way of someone having a bad day etc. Nearly every MMO I have played has a fair share of "special characters", whose only mission in life is to ruin others enjoyment.

    SimRail 2021 will have multi-player apparently, so is doable, and will be a great experiment into the simmer psyche.
     
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  4. TheShotte

    TheShotte Well-Known Member

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    When I said Multiplayer was cancelled, I meant at first they said it was coming, then they said it's not as of now nor is it in active development. The fact that it may yet be developed was irrelevant.

    The truth is they've been promising MP for TSW ever since TSW was a thing. The website states (since the beginning I believe):

    "We want to bring Multiplayer to Train Sim World, and we now have a design that we think will give a great social experience. It’s been crucial to design based on the experience of the mode, bringing the right roles and communication to our online experience. Multiplayer is not part of Train Sim World 2, but it’s on our future roadmap."

    Then sometime later they flat out said that they are not doing multiplayer nor are even considering doing multiplayer, and DTG employees went as far as saying:
    Originally posted by DTG_Daniel:
    "Hi guys,
    As far as I am aware multiplayer was never promised. It was noted as something we want to possibly add in the future but it's never been promised and a date has never been confirmed." (Source)

    Also, a little while ago they had a questionnaire, and one of the points on the questionnaire was to rank items in order of how much we want them, and multiplayer was like 6th or 7th on a list of 10 (IIRC). I know it was low.

    Also, in case you misunderstood it, Sam outright told you that yes, they are still considering multiplayer, but it ain't happening for sure until it's on the Roadmap. Is it on the Roadmap? No. So as of right now, it's not happening 100%. Is there a chance that might change in the future? Sure, DTG doesn't want to outright say no. From a game dev's perspective, if a game is designed solely as Singleplayer, editing that code to replicate across a P2P or Client/Server structure is a very difficult and expensive task. How many people that weren't going to buy TSW will buy it because it has multiplayer (that wouldn't have otherwise)? 10? It would literally cost probably in the hundreds of thousands of British Pounds to develop.
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2021
  5. Commiee

    Commiee Well-Known Member

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    There is no need for turning this into subjective semantics when it's clear that the categorical declaration of multiplayer having being "cancelled" - which would mean it was out of development plans completely, as opposed to "delayed", "suspended", "halted", etc - was false, especially when backed by "will likely never happen" when devs themselves say we can expect it to appear on roadmap. The point was not whether it's happening next month or next year. And the rest of the speculation about development costs, etc is even further away from the original point.
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2021
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  6. Inkar

    Inkar Well-Known Member

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    Multiplayer is not coming anytime soon. Just think that many times DTG cant spend the resources to change the timetable in a route at a time...
    That is really much less work than changing all the routes to work with a different dispatcher, and the number of routes is increasing every 1-2 months. If they ever add multiplayer, they will need to start fresh. Think TSW3 or beyond...
     
  7. TheShotte

    TheShotte Well-Known Member

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    You seem to be one of those individuals that gets stuck in his own thoughts and cannot be convinced otherwise, even if it's the truth. If you weren't, you would've bothered reading my whole post.

    It's my last attempt to clarify. At which point and what dev told you to expect it to appear on the roadmap? They said if it appears on the Roadmap, that means it's coming. Is it on the Roadmap? No. I'm gonna close this topic with this statement - if you were here longer than 2 months, you wouldn't have started this topic. I haven't been here that long, and I've already seen this discussed countless times with the same ending - it's not on the Roadmap, it may or may not come, however they don't want to remove it from the list of possibilities.
     
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  8. Commiee

    Commiee Well-Known Member

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    I did and responded to the relevant points. I can't help with the fact that you didn't like the response.
    "Multiplayer plans are still relevant" and "You know it's happening when [Core] Multiplayer appears on the roadmap" means any statement on MP having been "cancelled" and will "likely never happen" is false.

    Again, whether it is on the roadmap now, or is coming in X amount of days, is completely and absolutely irrelevant to the original point. Hope this helps.
     
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  9. TheShotte

    TheShotte Well-Known Member

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    Think what you may, just don't hold your breath.
     
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  10. SHINO BAZ

    SHINO BAZ Well-Known Member

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    If multiplayer does ever she the light of day it should be saved for tsw4,with the difficulties dtg having just dealing with preserved collection and fixing other issuses,multiplayer would just be a headache they don't need right now.Heck we are just lucky if we can get single player to work more then half the time,i don't want to even think about the possible nightmare one would be dealing with multiplayer games.
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2021
  11. finntd#7891

    finntd#7891 Well-Known Member

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    if Multiplayer were to come I think there
    should be 2 gamemodes 1 is what someone said here a service mode but with multiple people and 2 just a sandbox mode​
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2021
  12. Kazick

    Kazick Member

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    Two things. 1. I think you are missing the point here of what multiplayer can bring to train sims. From my experiences in other sims that do have multiplayer, its real fun to work with another player doing switching. Having someone on the ground doing call outs and making cuts is a lot of fun. Its even more fun when working an industry tack and seeing how they solve the problem of spotting cars at that industry, since you might do it differently.
    2. For as much as people tout that TSW is the most realistic train sim on the market, (Its not) this sounds like the must unrealistic way do do the task at hand. Not saying its wrong by any means. I very much enjoy the first person walking around. And I'd love to be able to radio my buddy in the cab and count him back as he ties on to another cut of cars. Save me some virtual walking.


    There are a few ways to work around this. And the 2* other train sims on the market that do have multiplayer each have their own way of dealing with them. In one, player trains have no collision physics, in another, player trains have "super breaks."

    Run8, which has rock solid multiplayer, player trains don't have collisions with other player trains. Not that it should as its a train sim not a crash sim. But what this means is that if two trains hit each other, the trains just phase though one another as though they weren't there. And while this is unrealistic, it does prevent one player trolling or a player mistake from ruining another players day.
    Here is a good example of how that can save the day. I was running a train up the hill on Mojave Sub and another player was running his train down the hill on the same route. I had rolled into a siding and was holding there for him to pass. The dispatcher, who was another player, threw the switch for the siding as the last two cars of the train going down hill passing me was still on them. This meant that one of them was doing a little multi track drifting and the other was straight up on the siding with me. If it had been real life, I would have jumped from the cab as my train was smacked with intermodal containers. But it was Run8, so the cars just passed though me. I did radio the other train to stop, and we sorted it out getting his cars back onto this track. Unrealistic, yes. But it worked to prevent both of us from losing our trains and our day went smoothly from then on.

    The Trainz series has had multiplayer since Trainz 2012. Though you could argue that Trainz 2010 had it as well since multiplayer was beta tested in Trainz 2010. With Trainz, players train can hit one another. But they just cancel out each others speed. This means that if you had I drove a train into each other at 50 mph, we would bump and immediately stop. Though this doesn't always work. And on top of that, no matter how much power your train has, if I have my breaks set your train can't push my train. Again not realistic, but a good way to prevent trolling.

    So there are ways to implement multiplayer, and have safety buffers of sorts to keep other players from ruining your day. Something that if TSW ever got multiplayer I would home DTG will figure out.

    *I haven't played much Open Rails. But I believe it has collision physics, at least basic MSTS derailments, if a player hits your train.
     
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  13. dbrunner#4864

    dbrunner#4864 Well-Known Member

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    When this ever gets implemented the first thing that needs to be implemented is a rule system that kicks/bans offending players and protects the game experience for people that want to play as intended.
    If you don't want children (and not only) going yolo trough red signals at twice the line speed crashing in to other trains because it's fun or people stopping on the mainline creating huge jams because why not!
    If you don't believe me search for ETS2 multiplayer to see what experience is like. Also search for TSW crash/derail videos to see how people think that driving trains should be played.
    More examples Forza Motorsport, Fligh Sims and I'm pretty sure other Sims also have this type of behaviour where people have fun by ruining others experience and I don't want to see this crap in TSW.
     
  14. Kazick

    Kazick Member

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    My hope is that it would work on some sort of private session/server system. Similar to how run8 operates its multiplayer. That why people hosting sessions/servers can better regulate who is and who isn't in the session.
     
  15. dbrunner#4864

    dbrunner#4864 Well-Known Member

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    Yes but for private sessions you can only join by invites usually and that limits the amount of people that can find sessions, since there are players that might have a group of active friends playing the game to create and get invitations from the server.
    The ability for people to host open dedicated severs while they also have admin commands might also allow people to join servers easy but also ensure that basic rules are enforced.
    Also an automated system that can penalize or kick players that repeatable brake rules might be used. Minor SPAD (barely passing the signal with part of locomotive) gets a warning, going trough a red signal at 100 km/h + like a monkey gets a kick and train returned to AI control. It should not be to hard to create some basic rules for this.
     
  16. Kazick

    Kazick Member

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    This is exactly what most Run8 servers do. I run one and it peer to peer. Meaning that when I give you the connection information, you are talking directly to my server pc sitting in the corner of my room. And we have a whole set of rules that we ask people to follow when the log in. Rules like "5. Use common sense when operating. (This means following signals and speed limits and standard railroad operations)" And for the most part the rules get followed. We do have to remind people of them from time to time, and we do make changes/additions as needed. But in the time I have been running my server we have only had to ban maybe 6 people. And I have been running my server since like 2012. And 4 of those 6 where clear trolls and the other 2 where people who couldn't follow rules and where detrimental to the community. So as long as the people playing and the people hosting keep things running smooth things should be good.

    Your head is in the right place, and I like what you are thinking. But that is a terrible idea. There are ways that could be exploited, or just not even work properly. People could throw switches or drop signals all at the last moment to trigger a SPAD for another user causing that user to gain penalties. One example I can think of is iRacing. Its an online race simulator that penalizes you for things like crashing or hitting other cars. I was in a Daytona 500 race a few months ago and racked up some incident points because another driver crashed their car. I was driving along when two other drivers made contact, they went into the wall, spun down the track, and clipped my rear bumped. I did nothing wrong, yet the game gave me a penalty for contact.
    The same thing could happen in a train sim. Here are a few examples where that system wouldn't work.
    1. I was running a local on the main line and I had to do a run around move to head back to the yard. All the track I was on was CTC controlled, meaning I had to talk to a dispatcher for them to throw the switches at the north and south end of the siding to get on and off the main. Once I was ready to back up and tie on to my train for the return trip, the dispatch threw the switch but couldn't give me a clear signal as my train was in the block I needed to get into. So he had to "Talk me pass the signal." Meaning, the dispatcher said it was okay for me to run the red light. With a system like what your described, it wouldn't be able to differentiate my proper move from a player screwing up or trolling, and would likely slap me with a penalty.

    2. I was running a manifest down the hill from Summit into Mojave. I had clear signals all the way though Mojave and I was doing track speed of 23 mph riding the dynamics. All was good. Another player was in Mojave yard doing their own thing when they made a mistake and pushed part of their train though a switch that was set wrong. This put part of their train out on the main. Now the part of Mojave yard they did this at, didn't have a signal protecting the main from the yard. However this dropped my clear signal immediately to a red. Unlucky for me, I was less than 200 feet from the signal. This meant that even dumping the air and putting the train into emergency wasn't enough to stop my train in time. So I slid though the signal with my breaks in full emergency. Again, with any sort of automatic penalty system, I would have been penalized for something I didn't do wrong. The system would only see "Train passed signal at read = give player penalty." It wouldn't see the bigger picture of that other player going out on to the main in front of me.

    I posted it up a few replies before yours on how other train sims that do have multiplayer go about avoiding other players trolling. Things like Run8's lack of player collisions meaning that if my train hits yours we pass though one another as though we weren't there. This prevents a troll from ramming your train and ruining your day. To Trainz's super breaks that let you lock your train to the track if another player is trying to push you. Specifically post #62: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/how-will-multiplayer-work.3738/page-2#post-300084
     
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  17. dbrunner#4864

    dbrunner#4864 Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for the detailed post. I really like your ideas and i think they can work. I made a few more mentions bellow based on your comment

    -Run8 is a pretty hardcore simulator since it is ultra realistic. That alone ensures that the sim is not accessible to everyone, but favors people with at least minimal railway knowledge and that pretty much filters the trolls. (I remember how much time it took me just to start a locomotive when i tried the game :D )
    -Both Trainz and Run8 method (ghosting and super brakes) of preventing bad player actions are nice, but they do remove some of the realism just like you also stated. Again even with the realism hit this an easy solution to most problems
    -Regarding to the point of miss interpretation and thus the risk of unfair penalty. The system could be tweaked more to achieve far better results in making a difference between an accident and bad intentions. Also the penalty system could be made more friendly, including a maximum number of mistakes 4-5 until kick so you might make a mistake (but hard to do 4-5) its not end of the session. Also the counter can reset after a time / session and the accumulated penalty is erased. In your example, you did apply emergency brake while going trough a red signal, you might get a penalty but you wont get a kick for going trough a red signal at max speed without intention to stop ever.

    I only hope we will see multiplayer i think we could come up with quite a hefty set of ideas to make the gameplay work and be enjoyable for everyone
     
  18. Kazick

    Kazick Member

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    On one had I want to say this is true, on the other I want to say its not. I feel TSW does a little better job modeling the sub systems and goes a little more in depth with locomotive operations. I find that Run8 is much easier to get a train up and running than in TSW. Run8 goes more in depth with over all railroad operations. Where as TSW holds your hand a lot and doesn't give you much agency when running a train. And I think that's what turns people off of Run8, is the more in depth operations. I have a whole post over here talking about adding more in depth operations to TSW over here: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/throwing-out-the-script.38867/ Which might be a better place to talk operations.


    Again here I cant agree. I still think you are in the right mind set of wanting to ensure there aren't any trolls in sessions. But I think any sort of penalty system just wouldn't work. Like I said with my iRacing example. I got a penalty even though I was 100% not at fault. The system they have in place had no way of looking at it and seeing I wasn't at fault. And realistically, there is no way for the system to tell who is at fault.

    And again, with my two other examples. With the train pulling out in front of me. There's no real way the program would be able to recognize the reason I ran the red. Even if is sees that I applied the breaks was it intentional or not that I ran that. Here's how the logic of the system might see things.
    1. Train A is moving at or below track speed
    2. Block becomes occupied by Train B
    2b. Set signal state to Red
    3. Train A passes signal displaying Red
    4. Apply penalty to Train A for passing Red signal
    5. Train A applies EMG break

    The system wouldn't be able to determine player intent with out being able to read their minds. Like in my other example with the local. The game didn't hear me talking to the dispatcher on Team-speak or Discord to get the okay to run that red light. In that situation yes I intentionally ran the red light into an occupied block. But since the system cant hear and interpret what I say on Team-speak or Discord and it cant read my mind.

    Here is another scenario that could play out.
    A train is stopped at Control Point Bena.
    I dive a set of locomotives to the signal just before the back of that stopped train and I see its red.
    I proceed to pass the red signal.

    Now the algorithm is going to look at that and not know why I did it.
    1. Did I run that red light because I am trying to crash into that train in front of me?
    2. Did I run it on accident?
    3. Or am I trying to add helpers to the rear of that train to help it up the hill?

    The algorithm doesn't know, it cant read my mind, it can hear and understand what I am saying in voice chat on Team-speak or Discord. So all it can do is assume the worse and give me a penalty. And If I am doing #1, then I deserve it. If I am doing #2, then mistakes happen and maybe I deserve it. But if I am doing #3, why should I get penalized for doing nothing wrong.
    And the answer is #3, pulling up to add some helpers to the rear of a train.


    The other thing I want to address is trolling in general. Like I've said, I've been playing multiplayer trains sims since Trainz 2010 had their beta multiplayer. I've literary wrote the book on Trainz multiplayer. And I remember years ago on the Trainz forums having this sort of conversation. We wanted multiplayer, but we where worried about trolls, so we wanted all sorts of ways to prevent them. And then it came out and there where very few trolls. Yes things happened, so your worries are valid. But it is so very rare that it happens. Again, been at this for 11 years on Trainz and Run8, and I've only seen 8 or 9 people who where actively trying to ruin everyone else's day. Unlike games with massive player bases where trolling is more prevalent, it's not so much in train sims. We are all here to drive a train with our friends and have fun. And in the end, when people do troll, they are typically quickly dealt with. Usually banned from discords where invites and passwords are given out.

    This is how most Run8 servers work. Very few just give out the address to join. Most have that and the password behind a membership of some sort. On the extreme end The Depot that requires you to take a test and do a check ride to play with them. On the less extreme end, the CMFR which I run just has a discord. Log into the discord and you find the information to join the server. This way, once on the discord a user can easily find any information about train routeing, rules, and whatever else they need. Keeps everyone on the same page, and keeps the very few trolls out. I know there might be concerns that this would limit the number of people you find your server/session, but I can tell you that's not the case. There are about 250 people on my server's discord, with a good number of them active.

    So I feel that self filtering, and the low numbers of trolls is sufficient enough that any penalty system would be unnecessary. I'm not saying you are wrong with your idea, I'm just saying mostly unnecessary.
     
  19. Irish Train sim

    Irish Train sim Well-Known Member

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    Where have you seen multiplayer is in development? Why would anyone want this as a Train driver is a one person job.
     
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  20. Kazick

    Kazick Member

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    When TSW was first announced Matt said "There will absolutely be multiplayer in Train Sim World." Its also been brought up a few times in some road maps.

    And diving a train is very much not a one person job. You have the engineer, the conductor, the dispatcher, and all the other crews out there. It would add a more co-op experience to the sim. But also it would just be another way to play. It wouldn't be a requirement to play, but another mode to play with.

    From my experiences in other sims that do have multiplayer, its real fun to work with another player doing switching. Having someone on the ground doing call outs and making cuts is a lot of fun. Its even more fun when working an industry tack and seeing how they solve the problem of spotting cars at that industry, since you might do it differently.
     
  21. chieflongshin

    chieflongshin Well-Known Member

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    To be fair I’d use vr or a line local to me far more than multiplayer. Don’t see point of other players online, you’re only ever going to pass them, they’ll never be accidents so what’s it matter as dispatcher is the same

    I wouldn’t care or know if it was multiplayer if a train just drove past me with a random name generator over top, be the same as multiplayer surely.
     
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  22. Kazick

    Kazick Member

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    You'd think that, but once you really experience it, it changes a lot. and its more than just driving trains and passing one another. Its working together with a friend in a yard sorting and building trains. It's working with someone else on a local making set outs and pick ups. It's popping on, having a beer, talking trash, and driving trains with your fiends. And there is a big difference in passing a train knowing its driven by another player.
     
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  23. TheShotte

    TheShotte Well-Known Member

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    I do see some solid ideas, and sure, some games have implemented multiplayer somewhat successfully, but in order for MP to work in TSW, it would have to be:

    A. Server running specific route, everyone is a driver doing a service - million things could go wrong with this because of TSW dispatcher.
    B. There are other positions besides driver, which effectively turns this game from Train Sim World to Railroad Sim World (doubtful).
     
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  24. Irish Train sim

    Irish Train sim Well-Known Member

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    Sounds like you need to make your own game. Having a beer whilst driving a train?
     
  25. FD1003

    FD1003 Well-Known Member

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    Just a little reminder, right now the Dispatcher cannot handle SPADing, there is a reason why your service ends immediately, and if AI trains SPADs you will get thrown back to menu as well...

    So unless "Rush Hour" is not the usual 3 route boundle I think we would have to wait a bit... Bakerloo Extended Timetable was halted because it's waiting for some dispatcher improvements, so MP which involves players driving different trains can't be that close.
     
  26. Kazick

    Kazick Member

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    I mean, its a video game, so its okay to do so.

    Yeah, multiplayer would require DTG to re write how scenarios play and how signals work. Getting rid of the scripted signals and putting in proper working ones. And getting rid of the SPAD boot back to the menu.
     
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  27. FD1003

    FD1003 Well-Known Member

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    Yes, at best a (core) dispatcher upgrade would be enough, at worst if the signals themselves have to change, those should be retrofitted to older routes by Adam's team... one route after the other...

    And the best option seems pretty far away
     
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