I’m wondering how you guys test multiplayer builds of your game. For UDK we used a proprietary tool that allowed us to easily get and run multiplayer builds for the entire team (getting into someones server was just a single click away) and I find that this is again missing for UE4.
The problems we face:
Distributing builds to teammembers & playtesters (that do not have SVN access)
Hosting & joining of team mates.
And as a bonus, allowing some form of iteration during these sessions. Like quick fixes and small modifications to a level.
Unreal Frontend does not seem to have proper multiplayer support, I’m thinking of rebuilding the tool we used for UDK and if all goes well, build a public release of it for the community.
If you want external playtesters to play without having access to the editor and project themselves, I presume you would need to package the game for each different iteration you want them to try.
Team members can just launch standalone mode from the editor.
You can use “open <mapname>?listen” console command to host and “open <ip address>” to join. My team is working to get Steam integration going but we are having some problems there. For now, this works.
If it’s just a server side logic change (modifying damage or something), you can just change it on the host and it won’t matter for anyone else.
For changes that apply to clients too you have some options:
For an internal playtest (team members that have access to version control) you could make a change, commit it, and have everybody else update to it, or have everybody else make the exact same change.
With external playtesters you would likely have to repackage a new version of the game for them.
I’m not sure if there are any easier ways than I described but if there are I would like to hear about them.
