Factorio Forums

I don't think they actually said they were going to try and do anything specific towards creating an MMO... They're just trying to make it possible for as many people to connect to a single game as possible... which is up in the 400s range right now.

To define an MMO, you'd basically need a single persistent world that EVERYONE playing that MMO would connect to. That requires a world that regenerates itself.... and to do this, they'd basically need methods where the biters will eventually win, and bases decay away over time, forests regrow, oil and ores regenerate... so if a factory isn't being maintained, it will eventually disappear to make room for someone else to move in a few months down the road. The problem is that once you hit robotics, than even with a tiny income of copper and iron to make repair packs... or other resources to rebuild any destroyed entities, a base will pretty much maintain itself. So factorio as it exists currently would make a poor MMO. Sure you can expand and find somewhere else, but without decay and regeneration, the world would have to be short term.

Also, you wouldn't be able to send the entire world to be simulated by everyone like you do right now... You would likely need some "super computer" server, likely made of a cluster of several computer, each controlling their own part of the game world... It would require A LOT more server communication than the current game does, since the player would likely only have the small part of the world they're currently on given to them, so any interactions between that part, and neighbouring parts would need to be transmitted, and time stamped etc to be added to, or removed from the local simulation, which also means transmitting map parts in real time as players join or move around the world, as to not pause the game for everyone else just because a player joins, or travels.

Yeah... a lot of work... somehow I don't think they have any real intention to go down this route, at least not until the base game hits version 1.0, but it is a fun idea to think about.

CrushedIce wrote:

Nilaus wrote: Personally I am not so interested in the massive Multiplayer aspect. It feels very un-Factorio like somehow to have a horde running around stealing materials, redirecting belts and generally griefing. A few friends or a small team collaborating seems totally in tune with the idea. I hope you do not go overboard on focusing on the massive part. As interesting as it is on the short term, then I think this will be a totally different audience on the longer term than the current player base.

Exactly my thoughts when i read this FF. I hope they don't focus too much on this aspect. For me Factorio is a cooperative building game and not some sort of competitive game.

Nevertheless, kovarex did an amazing job at the multiplayer optimisation

As I _DO_ agree with you, a few selected people is probably better then lots of unselected ones, however:
Theese huge worlds give the devs some _GREAT_ insight into how the network-code can be improved and such, and therefor is a very important excersise.

Think of it sort of like Formula1, it is extreme, but the tech that eventually will trickle down to the normal consumer, giveing better cars...

Strongly suggest a admin feature to enable restriction on player blueprint submission(s). (This just prevents trolling and flooding of the blueprint storage space)

Strongly suggest server side limits to a per player blueprint max (at least based on server settings), again prevents trolling and flooding of the blueprint storage space (globally used for players in said game)

Otherwise my prayers have been answered finally, a way to externally and internally import/export blueprints to other games.