A player may start the voting process for travel across biomes at any time. Any. As long as the Orbital Scanner is available. And as long as you're not under attack. And as long as there is no other source of interference. But other than that, any time.
Here's a closer look at the not-yet-finished revamp of the Orbital Scanner screen.
The question we mentioned in the intro of this article is: “Will we be able to be on different maps at the same time during a Campaign run?” Unfortunately, the answer is no. As you know, The Riftbreaker runs on our own engine, The Schmetterling. Over the past few years, the engine has undergone a complete rework, adapting its single-player functionality to handle network play. The goal we set for ourselves was to make sure everything you’ve already seen in the game translates well into the multiplayer context. We expanded the engine with tons of new features and capabilities to meet that goal. However, our resources are limited. Allowing you to play on different maps at the same time would necessitate a total makeover of the campaign structure and the logic behind it. Allowing players to travel to different places independently would essentially turn the game into a small MMO and make you rely on our servers for the game to run. We didn’t want that to happen, so we chose the other option - all players on the same map at all times.
Over 50% of players have to agree to a Rift Jump. You will have to convince others why you want to go somewhere else.
Now, let’s talk about how we are going to handle travelling between maps in the Campaign. We chose to use one of the oldest human inventions still in use today - good old democracy. During a Co-Op Campaign, any player can enter the Orbital Scanner screen and choose a location they would like to visit. However, instead of going there immediately, all players will receive a prompt informing them that one of the players would like to travel to another location. Then, they have one minute to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ The player who started the vote is automatically counted as a ‘Yes.’ This democratic system ensures that every player's voice is heard, and the outcome is decided by the majority. If more than 50% of players participating in the session agree to jump to a different region, the voting ends, and the rift jump commences after a few seconds.
The voting screen slearly states who started the vote and where they want to take you. It also shows you how much time there is left to cast your vote. The popup disappears as soon as you choose one of the options.
We decided to use simple majority because it is a fair and logical way of settling ties for groups of two to four players. Both have to agree to jump in a session with two players. Otherwise, the vote is dismissed. In the case of three players, two of them have to agree to make the jump for the vote to pass. With four players, at least three have to agree. We also considered going with the absolute majority, where all players must vote positively. Still, we ultimately decided against that after a run-in with our in-office trolls, who voted ‘No’ for fun at all times. With this system in place, one vote won’t break the flow of the campaign for everyone.
When all players cast their votes and the result is positive, the game doesn't wait until the timer ends. A save is triggered and off you go!
We are currently conducting a series of parallel Co-Op Campaign tests, with the intent to break the game as much as we can. We purposefully disconnect from the game, connect back, crash on purpose… We’re doing everything possible to ensure the Campaign Mode is an excellent experience for you. As we said earlier, we’re making good progress, and we can see the light at the end of this tunnel, but we’re not quite there yet. We hope to share some good news with you soon - it seems more likely every day. In the meantime, we encourage you to sign up for our Co-Op Beta test and Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios to get the latest updates. Also, remember to join our streams on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3 PM CET at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios - you can get answers to all your questions live!
See you next time!
EXOR Studios
