Last week Metaverse Mode was introduced as an alpha feature. This is a very significant feature and will change the course of AArcade development as it heads towards coming out of Early Access on Steam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFMx2K14MFI
Metaverse Mode Features
- Online persistent arcade save that EVERYBODY shares for EVERY map.
- Every map is a multiplayer server when it's loaded in Metaverse Mode.
- Live multiplayer building & item editing.
- VERY fast map & arcade loading (even faster than singleplayer!)
- Optimized cabinet spawning (stuff doesn't spawn until you get near it!)
- Easy to use (just click Metaverse Mode, no more port forwarding!)
- Griefer-resistant database (all of a banned user's changes can be reverted!)
- Compatible with 99% of singleplayer features.
Metaverse Mode Limitations
- Only 1 player avatar (soon to be fixed.)
- No auto-downloading of workshop content (soon to be fixed.)
- No way to host your own singleplayer saves in metaverse mode (soon to be fixed.)
- No syncing of which video/object people are watching (soon to be fixed.)
- No voice chat.
- No peer-to-peer file transfers of custom models & textures.
- In-map entities such as doors & elevators are not synced.
I expect those top 4 limitations to be fixed within a month.
FAQ
- Q: Can other people see the stuff I spawn? A: Yes. Everything you spawn or change is synced.
- Q: Am I uploading my stuff? A: No. You are only sharing image URLs for textures and meta information about the shortcuts such as its title & description.
- Q: Can other people move or delete the objects I spawn? A: Yes.
- Q: What if I use workshop addon content? A: Workshop content works fine, but people who are not also subscribed to the content will see small tablets as placeholders for the models they are missing.
- Q: Is everybody else forced to watch what ever I click on? A: No. However, soon there will be a way to allow this type of behavior for groups of players who want to stay synced up to each other.
Until the bugs are all worked out, metaverse mode is not as stable as singleplayer yet and it will likely crash more often. Do you have long launch times in AArcade? Then I recommend using Launch w/ Preview Mode when opening AArcade. It uses an alternate aarcade folder with no workshop content and no game mounts so you can get right into the metaverse.
How To Use Metaverse Mode
- Go to Main Menu > Options > Arcade Options and Enable Online Play.
- Notice the players-per-map count that is now shown on the Main Menu.
- Go to Main Menu > Play > Play Custom and choose any map.
- Click the green Metaverse Mode button to load the map in Metaverse Mode.
On a very exciting related note, this new optimized way that the Metaverse Mode spawns objects means we could now potentially have many thousands of objects on a single map without excessive lag because only objects we get close to get loaded in. :)
Coming Next Month...
- Custom metaverse player avatars
- Metaverse Steam workshop support
- Metaverse player groups & group viewing
- Host your own singleplayer arcades in "Personal Metaverse" mode!
Here is one of my arcades that you'll be able to come check out in the metaverse next month once we are able to host our SP arcade saves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-zrxa5BzMY