World Browser and multiplayer. Need help!

  1. As I understand it with the larger world multiplayer does not work? (WORLD BROWSER)?
  2. How to fix it?
  3. When will it work?
    - YouTube

Hey VasyaCullin,

Just wanted to check and see what kind of large world multiplayer? Kind of like an MMO? Sweeney has addressed the MMO issue is a previous post: Atlas MMO Framework? - Feedback & Requests - Epic Developer Community Forums

I have also just located this video that may help you out with your question as well: World Browser Overview (Open World/ World Streaming experimental tool) - Community & Industry Discussion - Epic Developer Community Forums

Let me know if this is what you are looking for. Thanks and have a great day!

My problem is that the world does not work great with multiplayer.

I’m doing everything like this, but when I want to start with multiplayer I closed the project failed.
Sorry, my English bad :slight_smile:

Try to be as specific as possible VasyaCullin - what part, exactly, failed? Were you unable to connect, did remote clients not get streamed levels…? The more specific about your problem, the easier it will be to help you fix it.

Can’t speak for Vasya but,

I was messing around with tiled heightmap import earlier using the world browser and found that I crashed if I tried to load it with 2 clients. Simple as that. Haven’t had time to test much lately, seems like it’s more difficult to get answers when the features are experimental.

I remember 's answer in that thread, wasn’t exactly thrilling news, just means being limited to only using UE4 to develop a prototype for more advanced projects, and then either waiting or seeking programmers/funding to alter the engine greatly. Was kind of surprising considering other engine’s out of the box MMO support.

UE4 simply can’t be beat when it comes to being artist friendly and easy to use in general, not mention available. Ideally by the time such prototypes are complete, more MMO-ish features will have been added.

Something about the entire streaming process feels very off to me, entire terrain tiles loading at once instead of smaller sections, etc. Wouldn’t mind more control over landscape LOD distance, so that settings are progressively dialed down based on certain distances set by the user. Not to mention defining “Hero” areas like giant mountains in the vast distance. Right now tiled terrains all share the same setting as a proxy of the first tile imported.

Seems like things should be more automated by distance instead of manually setup, like it would be a much shorter list of things to setup if you started with a more global streaming standard and then setup the special cases.
Same goes for networking. Singleplayer = Client + Server packaged together. Everything happens on the server and is replicated by default, then setup special cases where replication isn’t needed or can be run on client for non-essentials/eye candy.

Regards.

Here’s what I said. How to fix it?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ncE7KGWT2Oo

Hey VasyaCullin,

Do you mind posting this on our AnswerHub, if you have not already? This would ensure that a Dev would get a better look into the problem that you are seeing. Here is a link to the AnswerHub: https://answers.unrealengine.com/index.html

Also, if you could follow this bug reporting template as closely as possible, this will better understand and how to setup what you have been experiencing with the World Browser: How do I report a bug? - Programming & Scripting - Unreal Engine Forums

Thanks for your patience!

Tiled worlds are intended for a single player games. So multiplayer support was not really tested.
However in 4.3 tiled worlds created in the World Browser will work in multiplayer (only with dedicated server for now).
Basically dedicated server will have all tiles loaded but each connected client will load tiles depending on streaming distance settings. So clients can travel into different parts of the world and server will correctly replicate state only for actors that is currently visible on a particular client. Multiplayer also adds a restriction that world origin rebasing should be disabled, because currently there is no way for the server to sync between different world origins on each client.

Awesome news, as open world is most interesting to me with co-op.

I think some of the suggestions @Xodoc made would be awesome to put onto the wishlist for the World Browser/streaming support. Being able to more finely tune what stuff streams and how would be great.

@Xodoc, as far as not having the MMO server layer needed to turn the World Browser (with mp support) into an MMO, I think that makes sense, honestly. MMO server architecture is fairly specific to the needs of the game, and it’s also not too amazingly crazy to build, if you work on one component at a time (i.e., work on a login server plugin, then a zone server, then passing off characters from zone to zone… maybe instanced zones… etc. Hook em together).

I think what will happen with UE4 longer term is that some enterprising people will build the server layers as plugins, and let each dev work on hooking them together in a configuration that makes sense for their needs.

It’s not ideal for those working on massive MMO projects in the short term. My suggestion, though, is to build it out with smaller regular multiplayer support, and then start working on doing the multiplayer with 4.3 when World Browser is updated… then work on your server architecture for handling lots more characters last. Doing that, you’ll build out some of what you need anyway (logging in, a zone server, talking to the DB etc.) and when you’re ready you can plug in the rest of the pieces to scale up the amount of players.

@ddvlost: Thanks for the clarifications! Think that answers both our questions.

@n00854180t: Yep, prototyping without world browser is my plan for now. I’ll have to make a proper feature wishlist.
Been planning something that is scalable from singleplayer to MMO. Though it won’t ever be as interesting without other players and their creativity. The design is based around large world sizes regardless of having lots of players, So even if it’s not a massive amount of players it’s still vital for what I have in mind.

That is actually good news!
Tiled worlds doesn’t need to be used for something of scope of MMO, I could actually imagine coop game with big world where world tiling is used as a way for optimization, but you still want to have that small casual multiplayer component.

I hope that it support for this functionality will get more love for multiplayer!

Yep, I feel the same - I think co-op open world is also way more approachable for indies, and big teams have the manpower to make the changes they need for an MMO anyway (plus indie MMOs tend towards co-op with persistence as it is).

Hello,

So if i got this correct, you can use world browser for Multiplayer purposes and the tiles will only load for selected players within the view distance of the tile and will be unloaded for the rest. But this feature can not be tested without a dedicated server?

So with other words, it wouldnt work inside of EU4 for test purposes and you would need to complile a dedi each time you want to test stuff?

this is a question, im also wondering myself… any news since 4.8 ?