I love GOG and buy a lot of games through them, but at the same time one of the things Steam provides is very easy and simple online coop support. So if I ever intend to play with others I go with Steam. I don’t see an easy way around that.
I think this is cause most developers just end up using steam's APIs for these things and since steam will be most of their sales they don't bother.
I have seen games using epic's solution in their steam distribution.
i do wonder how hard it would be to integrate multiple of these APIs so that the end user could invite anyone from any platform, though i imagine you'll still need some sort of middle man / lobby server...
Either way, I'm not a fan of having to generate lobby codes every time I want to play baldurs gate 3 with my friends who have it on steam
The API is pretty straightforward. It's mostly about resolving SteamIDs and talking to the matchmaking server. Last time I used it, once you have all the player and server data, you pretty much just send UPD packets through another Steam API call. Though I think you use SteamIDs instead of IP addresses.
Unless you've gone super deep into the Steam API, it shouldn't be too hard to plug in a different framework.
We need someone to write a compatibility layer for those APIs, so it can be used across various "multiplayer-providers" and distribution platforms. Call it Sroton. Or maybe someone could email Gabe and ask if he could just straight up open source it and let others implement it too.
juliangmp|1 month ago
i do wonder how hard it would be to integrate multiple of these APIs so that the end user could invite anyone from any platform, though i imagine you'll still need some sort of middle man / lobby server...
Either way, I'm not a fan of having to generate lobby codes every time I want to play baldurs gate 3 with my friends who have it on steam
estimator7292|1 month ago
Unless you've gone super deep into the Steam API, it shouldn't be too hard to plug in a different framework.
embedding-shape|1 month ago