RanceJustice
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2003
- Messages
- 6,624
A few recent posts of mine caused me to reflect to a circumstance can act as an impediment to gaming enjoyment: Local Co-Op exclusivity. There are many great games out there offering an enjoyable co-op experience, but unfortunately for those like myself who's most preferred gaming partner isn't currently residing in the same household, don't include online play as an option. From titles like "Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime" , Overcooked" to the exceptional metroidvania adventure "Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition", limiting multiplayer mode to "couch/local co-op" means no easy way to enjoy these games with the other player I'd most prefer to do so. Judging by the litany of posts in titles' Steam forums requesting online co-op, I'm far from a rare case.
Thus I was wondering, while we wait until the time that more developers add online co-op options, have any of you found workarounds? I've been looking into ways to allow a player over the Internet to take part in a local co-op title and there seem to be a number of approaches. For instance, there are some "streaming/casting" services that could in theory allow for remote play, but I've heard of difficulty getting the full experience (ie audio, or proper latency) for all players involved. Specific use VLAN/VPNs (Hamachi?) are another way to go about it, but I've heard of issues such as enabling both the hosting player and the remote player to use controllers, not to mention the worry of exposing too much of your system/network. I'd prefer to use open source applications whenever possible, but I'm interested in just about all methodologies.
So what have you found/used and how was the overall experience?
Thus I was wondering, while we wait until the time that more developers add online co-op options, have any of you found workarounds? I've been looking into ways to allow a player over the Internet to take part in a local co-op title and there seem to be a number of approaches. For instance, there are some "streaming/casting" services that could in theory allow for remote play, but I've heard of difficulty getting the full experience (ie audio, or proper latency) for all players involved. Specific use VLAN/VPNs (Hamachi?) are another way to go about it, but I've heard of issues such as enabling both the hosting player and the remote player to use controllers, not to mention the worry of exposing too much of your system/network. I'd prefer to use open source applications whenever possible, but I'm interested in just about all methodologies.
So what have you found/used and how was the overall experience?