A friend on Steam wanted to play Grim Dawn with me online. We tried to connect a few times different ways with me hosting and also my friend hosting to find failure each and every time. The game refused to connect due to version differences. Steam automatically updates to ensure that we both have compatible clients. My suggestion is to allow all connections to a common area we all have, such as Devil’s Crossing. Everyone is able to access this portion of the game. Allow connections, but do not allow a specific client to travel to a portion of the game a user has not paid for.
This way we may all connect but users would be forced to pay for an upgrade to get to specific areas. They would be more inclined to pay and upgrade then instead of not being able to connect at all. Makes sense? Someone must have requested this in the past, because the game has been out a long time. This seems like a easy enough change to implement.
She can easily check which DLCs she has, in the Steam games library for example. Or just lauch the game and main menu will show it. The only barrier here is being lazy
As Maska said it’s pretty clear which version your friend would have. It’ll either say Grim Dawn when she starts the game or Grim Dawn Ashes of Malmouth or Grim Dawn Forgotten Gods.
Well, GD is mainly a single player focused game with some multiplay added on. Plus it’s not online only and no closed servers so a “common” point just isn’t possible.
Again, check which version your friend has and then use the Switcher tool to match up with what she’s playing.
I understand that the game is limited in regards to this.
This was the point of making this suggestion to fix this deficiency.
This is a game design issue pure and simple. I am seeing posts stating that this is not possible. This is only because the game was designed to make it not possible. This suggestion, therefore, is to fix this design issue. This is very do-able and very possible to implement. It is a matter of doing it.
Suggestion. I am not looking for complicated work-arounds to deal with game design limitations.
However, I don’t think it’s as simple as you think it might be. Still the easiest way to “fix” your problem is to make sure you both have the same versions of the game and that includes making sure you have the same expansions.
Those are some fairly head-scratching words there. There are only 2 DLC that can be purchased that affect such things…
Ashes of Malmouth
Forgotten Gods
The only other exception to this would be if you both wanted to play Crucible together (which is a separate game mode and not part of the Main Campaign). In this case you would both need this DLC in order to play it together.
Forgotten Gods requires Ashes of Malmouth to already be purchased in order for it to work. So, the “work” is quite simple for your friend to determine. And who doesn’t know what they purchased?
making the suggested change is a lot harder than you think it is. It does not only affect what areas you can go to, it affects what items can drop, what masteries are available,…
The easiest thing here is for both of you to figure out which expansions you own (should take about a minute) and for whoever has more, to disable those expansions only he has (or for the other to buy the missing ones).
The hardest part here is learning what switch to use, don’t know that for sure, I hope someone else can fill that in
Yes – I understand that this will take work to fix. I get this 100%.
However, do you realize that things will simply get significantly worse in the future? Imagine when future expansions are released. How about the next five more DLCs get added to the game. Things will get even worse then.
My suggestion is to bite the bullet and refactor code to handle this now instead of continuing as things are. Have one version of code that all users utilize. This single version of code contains all content with checks in place of whether or not the content is playable by users. If it was not purchased, do not allow the content for the parties who did not pay. This can be done with a REST API call based on a license check during startup. This isn’t something the community can or should fix though.
As Maska said development on the game is winding down. And GD is mainly single player focused and offline with no servers. It was designed that way from the start. Believe it or not, not everyone wants to multiplay; it’s actually a very small total of the player base. Most of us prefer the single player aspect of the game.
Have you tried any of the suggestions made to be able to play with your friend? Because, like it or not, the game isn’t going to suddenly become online with closed servers. That would have needed to be done right at the start of game development. So you either work out which version/s she has - which isn’t difficult - and use powbam’s switcher tool or just play the game as individuals in single play.
Okay – I was not aware that new additions were not expected. In that case, I agree that it does not make sense to make large changes to the code base.
To answer your question, we tried for a couple minutes then gave up to play something else. It seems that once people complete the main game, many do not replay. I am the only one on my Steam contact list that actually has done this.
Everyone is different and most “normal” players might not be the type to do such a thing. Alot of us on these forums, however, tend to be the type to enjoy replaying the game. Some of us have done so hundreds or possibly thousands of times even by this point.
To each their own.
My tool that Maska linked above might help you to play the same expansion as your friend has. Very easily actually, a click of a button. The only thing is you might need to create a new character since characters that are made in, lets say Forgotten Gods, cannot go backwards to the Vanilla game or to Ashes of Malmouth.
Your FG character won’t appear in the menu until you switch FG back on so don’t worry, it will still be there.
There are other more manual methods to achieve the same result as my tool enables if you don’t want to use such a program. I’m all for Crate making this more automatic in Grim Dawn itself but until such a time arrives (if ever) this is simply the way it functions and is partially the reason I made my tool.
It’s pretty easy to work out what she has. Just right click on the game in the Steam library, go down to Properties and then over to DLC. That will show what she has installed. It’s also quite clear on the character screen which will say - Grim Dawn, Grim Dawn Ashes of Malmouth or Grim Dawn Forgotten Gods.
