(First I want to say that I am still learning English, but I hope there won't be any misunderstandings.)

After reading through comments of the Devlog which often say "Online-MP is not possible because...", I wrote a comment (which is still awaiting moderation) about a game called "Clonk Rage" (which is quite similar to CC and has Online-MP).

But I thought it would be better to post something on the Forum too and so I registered mainly for this reason.

I have searched a bit and it seems like some of you already know CR (Clonk Rage).
For those who don't I will compare it with CC:

Main Advantages:
-Online-MP (supports unlimited players)
-quite fast fluid physics
-it is extremely modifiable (-> great support for mods)
-performance drops (compared to CC on my Computer) are rare even on really huge maps
(the FPS only goes down if there is much fluid movement or very much activity of objects)
-CR costs more or less the same as CC, but you can even play online with the shareware version (but you can't host anything)
-it does not crash nearly as often as CC does, but that is maybe just happening on my PC
-it supports Linux (and Windows/Mac) (I only have the Windows version, so I don´t know if there are any differences.)

Main Disadvantages:
-it's physics system is not as complex as in CC (but it probably would be possible to make a mod for this)

(If I forgot anything important please post it.)

The reason I wanted to post this is that I think Online-MP in CC is definitely possible, especially as long as there is no fluid stuff.

(BTW I also think the development of CC is very slow, but that is not what I want to discuss here)

For those who want to try Clonk Rage out (http://www.clonk.de):
-You can only play standard stuff offline, which might be boring because CR is only becomes really good if you use "one" of the many (very different) mods. (but if you join an online game you can play with mods (which are automatically downloaded))
-Unregistered players who join an online game are often not liked and might be kicked (that's because unreg. players are/were often leavers or worse)
-Some of the players might not speak English at all (the game is originally German (but supports English) and so the community is mostly German (and some of them are not very old -> didn't learn English yet)
-The older versions of Clonk are freeware and the mods (for the old versions) can be downloaded for free (AFAIK).

If you try out an older version it might be hard to find someone for Online-MP because old versions don't have a lobby.
And AFAIK the old versions are a lot worse for Online-MP generally. (->only the newest version (CR) is really good for that)

How does this really have anything to do with CC?
Sure, they are a bit similar, but wouldn't this go in the games section of offtopic?

Clonk and CC really aren't the same game.

Comparing Clonk and CC is roughly as flawed as comparing Soldat and CC. Yes, there are similiarities, but they're different games with different focuses and different ways of accomplishing the end goal of entertainment.

CC's primary feature is its more advanced physics engine; Clonk is more focused on the multiplayer and the interaction of different objects/features/etc.

Clonk is about creation; CC is about destruction.

And, believe me, if Clonk had the same engine as CC on the ghetto-ass backend it's got, it would perform at least as poorly as CC currently does.

What I read:
CR is better than CC except it doesn't have guns and you can't do per-pixel physics.

What I reply:
Awesome, but online Cortex is still not feasible.

I just played the latest clonk build and I saw practicly no real similarities...
-it's 2D
-It is kind of pixely
-It has people


that is about it... and stuff takes FOREVER to do in clonk. I played for about 15 minutes and was disgusted.


Just wanted to add my 2 bits worth. :3

As stated above:
Clonk appears to have totally different (and in my humble opinion, not as interesting) physics, buildings, actions, and expandability.
The only similarities are the 2D-world, little men running around, and... explosions?
That's about it.

Given that CC's primary attractions is the awesome terrain physics (to me anyway) and extensive armory, it seems like there is really no possible way to reconcile that with the limits of online play.
Actually, were CC to optimize for online, it might end up looking like that...

OK, obviously you don't like CR, but what I actually wanted to say is that CR is at least as complex as CC.

I think because CC does not use really huge maps it can't be too hard to make an Online-MP mode.

What I mean by a huge map in CR: I have successfully played an 11248x3747 (pixel) map with objects which use 112726 lines of code in total (BTW CR has a special scripting language (->you don't need much lines of code for some things)). And I played this online with more than 5 players without lag (it only lagged when someone used some really strong bomb (which moved many objects around) or if there were much fluid movement).

I also only had an 2000kbps connection (but a quite fast computer).

Do you think the physics stuff is really too complicated to make an online-mp mode possible?

I don't know how CC was programmed, but I just can't believe that an online mode would not be possible (knowing of what is possible in CR).

Online multiplayer in CC IS feasible, it has been done already.
Just not without a lot of lag.

Read the older threads on the matter first. They should prove fairly enlightening.

To put it succinctly: Yes.

In extended form: Hokay, so I can't say I'm all that well versed in how CR does their terrain, but Cortex stores terrain in a big old imagey type thing where each pixel is it's own individual data chunk. When you shoot terrain, each of those pixels is knocked loose, as opposed to CR where sometimes you have some sand but most of the time you just have dirt disappearing. If you were to attempt to slash the bandwith consumption by swapping inputs instead of all these pixel thingies all the time, you would run into problems with desyncs and items disappearing on one screen but not on another and all that jazz. Cortex requires too much in the way of fine pixel-by-pixel interaction to effectively move to online multiplayer without an absolutely huge connection to do one of two things. One, a movie, compressed or not, of the game in real time with a host computer handling all inputs. Two, actual f'real multiplayer with all them pixel thingies being transferred all the time. Both are bandwith intensive, and in the first one if your ping sucks then you'll be forever angry at how slow your commands get to your armies.

Again in short: Yes, I'm very sure that's the exact reason Online MP won't work.

That and a good deal of the physics interactions have some degree of random interaction, meaning you have to actually have that data sent.

Would it not be possible to send the seed for sync.?



First, do you mean that CC stores the terrain (much) different from CR?
For me only the handling of the terrain seems really different(which you already said).
But this input swapping surely is not that hard.
If there would be a constant stream of input information(even if there is no input), could CC not freeze as long as there is not enough information received from all other players?
It might not work for many players, but it should work...or not?

As I've said. Please read the past threads first.

Without access to the source code for CR or a dev explaining it, I can't say for sure, but my guess is that the engine doesn't have pixel-level access. It's not so much the difficulty of having Cortex transfer all of the terrain data (and all the other stuff going on) between clients, but the volume of data that is.
And yes as people have said you're able to play Cortex online through screen sharing applications, but unless you have very good internet access and the server has great specs to compress and send video at a decent framerate, prepare for some serious lag.
Also: What 411570N3 said.

Links:
Closest we've gotten to decent online multiplayer. With discussion
Some discussion
A formerly stickied thread. Contains a statement from Data showing that he does not intend to add multiplayer