Multiplayer Tips and Considerations

Being able to have your Age in a Multiplayer Environment has been around for quite a while with all the different Shards that have been around. One of the things that should be considered quite often is more than one player being involved in your Age.

This can range from simply trying to make things look and act right because there is only one instance of your Age, and you want to make sure things look like they are suppose to if someone else has been in there messing around before someone else links in, to setting up a puzzle that will require more than one person to solve it.

You also need to keep in mind other things, such as animated object that can affect other players. You don't want doors trying to cut players in 2 nor do you want an elevator crushing someone. Let's say you have a train. Player One steps off the platform and takes the train for a ride. Not only do you need to think about making sure that Player Two who comes along 15 minutes later does not see the train, but you may not want them to fall off the platform where the train was!

Maintaining the "State" of the Age (IE when doors should appear open or closed, etc), is important, and is normally controlled by the Age's SDL file. However, to have things change in the SDL file (IE a player opened up a door. If it's going to stay open then it needs to have a SDL state, so that when the player links out and back in, or if other players link in after it's been opened, it will still appear opened).

Once you have SDL states set up, you'll use Global Python files to change these states, or have Plasma run certain responders because of what a SDL state is.

Careful planning and thought is needed to make sure that things work this way.

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