Isn't it unusual for the mods to send data to the server? I had assumed most of the networking APIs for mods are p2p
this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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Unusual in the sense that it’s not normally possible. It’s like asking if it’s unusual for the flying dog to do a barrel roll.
Back end servers usually ignore extra data not possible in vanilla clients, or completely deny the connection because of the extra data. I know of literally no other official server that accepts and passes along random mod data.
Definitely an understatement on my part lol.
Make it P2P or player-hosted and then you don't need to pay for server costs.
It's not a AAA GaaS, there's no real reason for them to host the games.
Furthermore, it helps to avoid the game dying if one day they decide to shut the servers down.
One of the reason I can think of is some kind of "match" making. idk I never played with randoms. I especially do not want to play with randoms in a game that "requires" mic input for the monster mechanics.
Also probably P2P or player-hosted is such a foreign concept nowadays, since almost anything online-only is all centralized.
Why are you allowing mods to pass information through your official servers to begin with? That’s private server territory.
They are apparently a small dev team and ... this is their first multiplayer game, ever.
So cutting them some slack is I think warranted.
They say they are considering making matchmaking lobbies as a feature... by which they presumably mean some kind of private servers?
I really don't know, 'matchmaking lobby' is an extremely broad term that could mean basically anything from self hosted servers... to rentable/configurable dedicated servers... ???
Apparently right now it is all centrally piped into their own servers, and is reliant on Steam invites to actually get people together into a session.
They say they are worries that if they add 'matchmaking lobbies', that introduces the problem of hackers... and to solve hackers, they would need an anticheat, which would break mods.
I... do not understand how that makes sense, there have been many multiplayer games with both mods and anticheat.
You could go with a less intrusive AC like VAC... it does work on many non source engine games, though I don't know what the liscensing costs would be... and then just integrate mods into the steam workshop?
Or some other AC solution, and have some other method of basically submitting mods for some kind of review and standardization with the AC... and then just also have an option for AC-off servers, so you could test your wip mods?
I guess we really have gotten to the point where modern devs just actually cannot fathom how mods and AC could work together.
Wouldn't it have been easier to do P2P multiplayer than having it run on, and then also have the need for, your own servers? I've never done a multiplayer thing, myself, but I would have figured direct connections between clients would be easier or at least less tedious to implement.
Not really... Think networking, not gameplay
The easiest to get past all the NAT (or weirder networking) is to just have everyone connect to a server and pass the data through the right connection. It's quick and dirty, but you can do your routing on the application layer
I'm not sure that's what they are doing, but it makes sense based on the details I've seen
What's weird is when you start a multiplayer game it tells you that the player with the best machine and connection should be the host. To me that doesn't scream "runs on our own servers".
I... would also have thought this as well.
Just have a player host their own instance, everyone connects to them, and have some kind of fallback system in place in case the host disconnects.
Then, next step, make it so that once that basic framework is setup, maybe also have a basic host migration thing within an established group of players, basically ping everyone to everyone and pick the person who has the lowest average ping to everyone else as the host.
I do not undertand at all why this game ... needs a central server at all.
It is described as an 'online only' game.
I have not played it, but it seems like the levels are small, the default player count is 6, but a lot of the game is based on physics interactions...
Closest comparison I can think of is fucking about on GMod with 6 people, which you could probably pull off with your own self hosted instance, but a higher player count (which is apparently the main thrust of these mods that they say are anihilating their bandwidth) would need an actual dedicated server to avoid desync and lagging into oblivion.
This is why you externalize server costs to the player whenever possible~
I've seen a couple people play this. Is it one of those games that got way bigger way faster than the devs expected?
It hit the spot that Lethal Company held when that stopped being fun. They were clearly aiming for the same kind of game, but I don't think they expected it to get the attention it got.
I'd say so, very fun but after about a week with friends I decided to wait for more content. Mods help but meh rather wait.