Selective Multiplayer Online

Selective Multiplayer
Selective Multiplayer allows one environment for all players. Fill your instance favoring friends over strangers (FPO). Allows Ad-Hoc private instances for story telling (SPO).

Selective Multiplayer Modes
On Shroud of the Avatar there are currently 4 modes listed on the Login Screen.


 * Single Player Offline
 * Offline, no way to play with other players, characters created in this mode cannot be transferred to another mode.
 * Single Player Online (SPO)
 * Single Player with all other online players filtered from your view by the server. You can easily change modes to FPO or OPO.
 * Friends Only Online (Friends Play Online or FPO)
 * Co-op play with people in your Guild or Friends lists.
 * Multiplayer Online (Open Play Online or OPO)
 * Standard MMO feeling gameplay with unwanted/extra players being filtered out of your view by the server.

How it works

 * The first thing we need to establish is that the game uses a dual scale map meaning everything in the actual game in the zoomed in map is Instanced when you enter it after everyone leaves the instance disappears but the data is synced across to all the other players to maintain the online persistent world. Each player of the game runs their own instance of the game and connects via ad-hoc to other players based on an algorithm which takes into account your settings, play style, who is closed to you, and who it thinks you want to play with.
 * There are several modes that determine who you want to see in the game that you can set at the login screen Single Player Offline, Single Player Online, Friends Only Online, and Multiplayer Online. There is a main server that everyone connects to that maintains the persistent world by syncing and verifying data between players the server also uses your friend graph to choose which players will appear in your instances. So the server handles things like player housing, items trades, and verifying game save data.
 * The majority of the game itself is running on your computer this is why you can run it offline as opposed to being required to be connected to a server to even play at all. There will be differences with the offline version because you are not synced up with the persistent world that other players interact with this is why you're encouraged to play Single Player Online as opposed to Single Player Offline.
 * When you enter an instance if someone you know has an instance for that hex on the map you'll enter their instance of the hex otherwise your game will create an instance and anyone that enters the hex after you will enter your instance of the hex on the map. Because of this there is only one server that runs the persistent world by syncing data across all the players instead of multiple servers running the entire game like most MMORPGs do.

The Persistent World
While most things in Shroud of the Avatar will be done locally there are a few things that will be done server side such as Housing, Trading, Shops, and Player Venders. Your game save data and the world around you in each instance will be synced through a main server to all the players to maintain a living world around them. For example if you have a house with a vendor even though you may be in a separate instance as someone else they can still see your vendor and make a purchase.

Temporary Offline for your Online Characters

 * Richard Garriott talked about in an interview that he wants to make it so eventually we'll be able to play offline temporarily for short periods of time (48 hours or less). How this would work is if it's enabled when you play your game would automatically put XP, Gold, and other items aside for you to "earn" on the temporary offline mode. This would prevent cheating because you already earned those things previously and can't earn more than you have already saved up. Also things such as buying or selling items will be restricted especially for special items.
 * This is Richard Garriott's idea and not an officially announced feature. It will not be in Episode 1 of the game but may make an appearance in a later Episode.

Shroud of the Avatar Friend Graph
Based on what the developers have said there are resources that may be used to form your Friend Graph:


 * Neither Facebook or Twitter will be supported because of API restrictions on both services..