Sacred 2 Xbox Official Multi-Player Information

[gogoblender 3,070]

Carolyn Hacker has posted some interesting info regarding MP info for the Sbox over at Team Xbox. The following information is comprised of two threads that have been merged into one thread here at DarkMatters.

 

Enjoy the read.

 

 

gogo

 

From TeamXbox part 1 of 2

 

Official Introductory MP Information, part 1 of 2

 

As promised, here is some preliminary official information about Sacred 2's multiplayer capabilities for the Xbox 360 version. This information comes courtesy of Daniel Dumont, producer, lead designer and heavily involved with the 360 version development. I'll be back with additional information, as well as answers to questions this information raises as soon as possible.

 

* Online and offline MP will be supported, with hot-swapping (jumping into another player's game) capability in both. This will allow players to join or leave a game at any time they like.

 

* Offline MP will support 2 players on 1 console. The users will play in the same screen (no split screen).

 

* Online MP will support a maximum of 4 players in 1 session.

 

* System Link will not be supported, however people can play via LAN if the LAN has access to the internet and all players have an Xbox Live account.

 

* This is because Microsoft does not allow playing on Live if the user doesn’t have a gold account. Imagine the situation where player A plays on Live with a gold account and Player B is connected to A via LAN but has no gold account. This is not allowed. To get rid of all these potential conflicts, we decided to not support pure LAN games.

 

* All players in a session are automatically placed in the same party. The game will automatically recognize when the number of players changes, and adjust itself accordingly.

 

* No separate servers will be needed for online play because each Xbox can be a server and client at the same time.

 

* Characters and savegames will be stored on the Xbox hard-drive or memory card.

 

* Measures will be in place to protect against hacking of character and savegame files.

 

* The hot-swapping capability will make no distinction between singleplayer, offline multiplayer and online multiplayer characters. This means that you don't need to choose where you want to play it at character creation time, and you can take it to a different area at any time.

 

* The separation of character and savegame files makes it possible for you to switch play modes and keep any experience, levels and items you gain in the other play mode, without losing your current position in the campaign.

 

* Example: Imagine you are playing alone in chapter 2 of the campaign with a level 20 character. A friend contacts you and asks if you can him him with a boss in chapter 5. You save your game, then take your character into his game to help.

 

After 2 hours of playing, you're done helping your friend. Your character is now Level 24 and you found lots of nice new items. You leave his game, and now can go back and continue your own story in chapter 2. However, your character is now level 24 and still has the new items.

 

From TeamXbox Part 2 of 2

 

Official Introductory MP Information, part 2 of 2

This is part 2 of the introductory Multiplayer information for Sacred 1 Fallen Angel. If you missed part 1 you can find it here.

 

 

Main Menu

 

We'll begin by giving you a bit more information about the main menu. In addition to being one of the things you'll see most, we believe that Sacred 2 for Xbox360 comes with the most accessible main menu ever seen in an online-capable 360-game.

 

Our hot-swapping capability (jumping into another player's game) means that you don’t have to decide whether you want to play online or offline. You only need to decide what your your join policy is, in case a hot-swapping opportunity arises. Join policy options include public, friends only or private (invitation only). Once you've done this you enter the game and can start playing immediately. If other users join, they just join where you are and the game automatically adjusts itself to make sure it's suitably challenging for the different number of players.

 

The easiest way to start a game is to press “Continue” on the main menu. This will start a private game with your last character. But don’t worry, when you start a game this way you can still invite friends or open it to the public whenever you like later on.

 

There’s no “Xbox-Live” button in the menu. If the user is connected to Xbox-Live, all games are Live-enabled automatically.

 

Multiplayer Types

 

* Coop (Native Multiplayer): Up to 2 players can play on an Xbox 360 console. Players will play in the same screen, there will be no split-screen.

 

* External (Online): If a player starts a game while connected to the internet, this game is automatically created as an online game. For Campaign and Free Mode (described in the following section), the player defines the joining policy (public, friends only or private). The joining policy and number of players can be changed while playing.

 

Multiplayer Modes

 

* Campaign: The players can follow the storyline cooperatively. This mode is available in Coop and External multiplayer games.

 

* Free Mode: A cooperative mode that allows unlimited gameplay without having to follow the storyline, only the side quests are active. This is interesting for players who want to have immediate access to the entire game world, without having to unlock regions or bosses through the storyline. This mode is available in Coop and External multiplayer games.

 

* Multiplayer PvE Arena: Fight in coop-mode against several waves of specific groups of enemies in a limited arena, to get a higher reputation in the Arena Leaderboard.

 

Note: This mode will come for External MP, however it may not be included in the initial release version. Instead it may be added as a feature patch shortly after release.

 

* Multiplayer PvP Arena: Battle against another player in a limited arena to increase your reputation on the PvP Leaderboards.

 

Note: This mode may not ship with the game, but may be added as a feature post-release.

 

General Principles

 

The technical game design doesn’t distinguish between single and multiplayer games, it simply adjusts itself to accommodate the current number of players. This allows several things to be possible:

 

* If a player starts a game alone (as a single player), it is always possible to let other users enter the game. This applies to Campaign and Free Mode game types.

 

* Hot-swapping of players is supported: players can join the campaign or the free mode whenever they like. They can also leave whenever they want. Enemy spawn logic and item loot logic recognizes and respects the current number of players.

 

* When a new game is started, the console acts as a server and client at the same time. No external server is needed.

 

Character Storage

 

Our storage mechanisms allow several things:

 

* Your character can be used in all offline and online modes. Characters are stored on memory cards or hard disks, and can only be used by the player who created the character.

 

* A player can transport his character with a memory card. This way, a character can be used from any location. You can play at your friends house, then continue later with that same character at home.

 

* Created characters can be used in all game modes. For example, a player can start a story campaign, then join a free roaming multiplayer session and then return to continue the story afterwards.

 

* All advances a character makes will be stored in the character save file, no matter which story, game mode or situation the advances were made in.

 

* No closed network is required because characters are stored with powerful encryption. Also, online savegame checksums are saved using online storage to avoid savegame duplication or cheating.

 

* A character will always join the story of the session creator. A character will also always keep his own story, which can be continued if a game is created with this character