Online play

#1 Ya i found some pic too like message of the day and New Message and the lag icon you talked about.......

#2 Could there have been online??? hmmm we should ask the company and stuff

#3 Marble Blast was developed using the Torque Engine. Which at heart is a Client/Server Game. Something that would be very hard to remove. MarbleBlast on the other hand was written as a single player game. And from everything I've heard from the Dev team... will not work as a multi-player game.

#4 Awww they sucks

#5 In another version they should add it in. Then we can have head-to-head games!

#6 To beat the time, you mean? Because two marbles at the same time would not do.

#7 I think it might. The only differences there'd be is that the powerups don't disappear when you collect them so that 2 players can pick it up at the same time.

#8 I disagree. It would be nasty to take "steal" the powerup from the other player! But it wouldn't be fun to push the opponent marble off the stage. You can't prevent that yet. Who knows, might be VERY challenging after all. Hmmm :)

#9 LabRat is right - the client-server model is used in MarbleBlast as part of the Torque engine. The game does construct a pseudo-server to handle all game logic, while the pseudo-client handles user input and output.

It would quite a few code changes, including adding marble-marble collision. I have thought about it alot since the release of MB, and I think it would be a fantastic thing to add. It would take a lot of resources to do it right, so I don't think it will happen in the near future.

#10 Marbles would be unable to collide, they just act like ghosts to each other.

#11 If I'm not mistaken one of the biggest problems would be with the moving platforms. The code for them was never written to be networked (sync'ing them between clients was a pain if I remember right)

#12 Alex,

Why not give MB network capability. It can serve as a model for future games.

Shoot, it sure would be fun!

solo.

#13 Yeah then I could see if marbleman could beat me lol



Bob

#14 It would be a good chance to see each other's skills.

ThinkTanks has it, Orbz has it, so why not Marble Blast?

#15 Hmm, labrat is right about the moving platforms. That would be another major update that would need to be put into the engine.

I would love to see a version of MB with network play, and rest assured that if we release a new MB game or major expansion, it will have it. Unfortunately I don't have the coding skills to implement myself, and those who do are up to their ears in other projects.

We will get back to making games, I just don't want to be spreading any expectations that might not turn out.

#16 Fair 'nuff!

#17 As far as syncing moving platforms -- the way such things are usually done is to just give clients the keyframes for said motion and then let them keep track of the item itself for a while, occasionally checking back with the server to make sure the client didn't somehow get off.

#18 @Dan: Yes, that is basically how torque handles most movement across the netcode. We would still have to change the marble and platform datablocks to use that netcode, though. Not to mention the server browser and other UI/ server backend enhancements that would have to be added.

#19 Alex,

On a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is that to implement?

solo.

#20 Difficulty: Not too hard for someone who already knows Torque networking code and is familiar with the Marble Blast physics code. They would have to rewrite a lot of the core of the game to work properly over the net. Mark is the only person with this kind knowledge, and he has a huge amount of work on his plate at the moment. For him I'd say it would be a 4, if he had time. Of course I would also have to make the art assets, which would take time from my schedule. For me, and most other people out there, it would probably involve multiple "10s" to build up the knowledge to competently implement it.

It will probably never happen for the *current version* of Marble Blast. See my post above.