Official multiplayer and missed opportunities

I've been playing the game for many years and I've often seen discussions about multiplayer and responses usually end up being along the lines of: the devs don't want to implement it until it's perfect.

If the devs took that approach to the game itself we wouldn't have BeamNG in the first place because I love this game but it's far from perfect. There's bugs, UI issues, performance issues, etc. It's not even out of alpha but that doesn't stop it from being extremely entertaining. It's continuously evolving and changing and most features added to the game tend to improve with time via feedback from players and just naturally with the games continued development.

So it greatly perplexes me why such a sought after feature is pushed back and back when they could have released something similar to the two mods and advertise it as an in game feature, thereby attracting more customers. The mods certainly aren't perfect but who actually cares if it's fun? There's time to improve it with future iterations and in the meantime it's just another great feature to have.

 

They simply don't like half-assed things, and currently the only way to make multiplayer is to half-ass it.

However it's completely in their power to implement VR already, now that's a real missed opportunity.

 

My understanding as to why they've waited, is that they're not ready to take on the effort of moderation, server hosting, etc. and all the liability that comes with that when you're a company.

when you're a programming hobbyist nerd, you can put up a multiplayer mod and there's no expectation that you moderate it, but as a company they'd be held to a much higher standard.

 

In response to the OP. Doubt the team has any genuine interest in bringing multiplayer to fruition. This is an early Access game that's been in Early Access for almost a decade now.. If they wanted to do it it'd be done already, it's unreasonable to expect fans to wait years for a feature. They don't care. They'll say they may make it possible in future officially, but it benefits them to say so.

 

Not more negative than the usual I think a point can stand on its own merit, without the person needing to be questioned for simply holding a controversial or dare I say "unpopular", opinion... regardless of how one or another feels about another the point can stand on it's own. But whether or not it's taken seriously is another matter entirely. Whether that point comes from a place of toxic positivity or negativity is kind of irrelevant to the point being made itself, so it's important to make the point clear and readable, negativity often gets straight to the point as concisely as humanly possible.

If I may speculate further, it's convenient that it's come down to modders, modders who found a way to make multiplayer work so perfectly that the devs don't have to care about that now. You could just take the code and compile it, then pay off the modders cheaply as per usual. None would be the wiser, and I wouldn't mind at this point.

 

i dont know if this will happen but would it be possible to implement multiseat as a split screen single computer multiplayer

 

Diamondback literally said that they didn’t want to do multiplayer the way BeamMP and KissMP did, he just didn’t provide specifics, because he’s written them before.

 

Apparently, their game engine(torque3d) can not handle more than 1 camera on the screen. It may sound really stupid, but their game engine just has this issue for some reason. Would be a great addition to multiseat, but not possible due to game engine issues.

 

Whatever he literally said is literally irrelevant to me. LOL. Doesn't change my view whatsoever so your point is moot

 

Bruh

 

Dude! If you've got something to say, say it already.

 

Keyboard warrior.

I'm sure they'll add some form of multiplayer eventually, but they have to sort out bugs with the game engine first. Since pretty much everything in Beamng depends on the game engine, adding new stuff without getting that thing as polished as possible is only going to create more bugs. Which you won't want, right?

 

ad hominem

 

Hey, maybe me labelling you a keyboard warrior is a bit harsh, but you still gotta look at the fact that the game engine is far from perfect.

 

Of course it's imperfect. It's an Early Access game. They're never completed.

 

There IS another angle to this that you're not seeing. Hypothetically, let's say our rather amateur modders get to a point where they "perfect" this multiplayer mod. There's not many issues left. Fantastic. Said BeamNG gamedevs then officially add multiplayer to the game. Great everyone wins right! Wrong.

It's wrong because in this scenario the developers themselves couldn't be bothered doing the hard work of figuring out how to implement it in game.. they simply waited for someone else to do it, then leech off their results only to supersede them and claim all the credit for a big feature update to their game. Once one a person finds a way to do it, then it's so easy, anyone can do it. It's no longer difficult when everything's been figured out easy-peasy for you. All you do is copy the methodology, using your bigger pool of resources to strike home in a cinch. As is often tradition to profit of another man's labor, especially one that isn't being paid. The devs in this scenario did very little work and relied on their community entirely to make it happen. Which brings me to my final question.

Do you seriously think Modders would know BeamNG source code better than the game devs themselves? Of course not. Then why did the "amateur" modding community make multiplayer first? When the devs had literal years to implement this one feature, almost 10 years in fact, 10... It's pretty obvious isn't it. They (the devs in this hypothetical scenario) just sat comfy on their bums, on the bleachers all day long not a care in the world; of course, till someone else would do it first! only to swoop in right after and profit off the results of another's hard (and free) labor. Indeed they did it with the traffic and they're doing it again with the multiplayer. Can't keep fooling people for long though. they'll catch on soon enough. This "woke trend" of customers churning out content, to make up for incompetencies of professional developers, needs to end.