I bought this game somewhat recently as I have been keeping an eye on it for a while now and I am really enjoying it so far.
It would be great however to have working multiplayer without the epic games launcher. I don't like DRM and being forced to use third party launchers such as epic games and steam doesn't feel right. DRM only punishes us, the paying users.
It looks like the game already support multiplayer on it's own without the epic games launcher because of the -epicportal flag and the game seems to start a multiplayer server already but without the direct ip or lan part. Please add a bit of extra functionality to type in an ip address and let the connecting player pick their own user name through the join screen. Nothing fancy is needed, just the ability to host a game on one computer and on another computer to join the game by typing in a user/player name and an ip address.
This would make me very happy.
Also the developer videos from Coffee Stain Studio in the update 3 video mentions that the game is DRM free which is great. It also mentions you can play single player using the -epicportal parameter, however this doesn't fully work as every time you load your game, you get a new player name and lose all your inventory and hot bar. You then have to find your previous player in the world and kill them and equip all your stuff and set up your hot bar again.
Please add direct ip and/or lan multiplayer to this game without the epic game launcher.
Thanks :)