Blitz3D MMORPG help

i need some help with some networking probs -

1. can i write to a server at like freewebs or brave net or something like for the usernames/passwords of the online players?

2. do i need my own server for things like multiple worlds (think runescape here), signing in, and stuff like that? or can i do it w/out a server? (cuz im on dial-up :( )

thnx for any help

I'd use Java. I was trying to learn it, but got frustrated because the compiler didn't work. Good luck!

1)
- a)You'd need a server
- b) You'd need to keep your own logon, user details system and keep it ultra secure.
2)
- Yup. You need a server


My advice is not to do a MMORPG. Unless you have a sizeable team and cashflow you simply don't have the manpower and will fall short on traffic and many other things.

how would u go about creating a server? cause 1 of my friends, the "devolper" i ges u could call him, has a computer on broadband.

thnx

broadband has a low upload speed so it wouldnt be enough

dang. well, say ive got a world, world 3.14159, and theres no server. say uve got 3 ppl on at once - bob, frank, and joe. say bob here wants to send a msg to the whole community on world 3.14159, which would just be frank and joe.

SendNetMsg 1,"hey y'all whatz goin' down?",1,0

now frank is sending a message to joe:

SendNetMsg 1,"bob & thelizardking are really weird.",2,3

would that work? it doesnt seem like i would need a server for that, and i could just max out the world occupancy at 99 (which is all blitz can handle on the SendNetMsg command).

im thinkin this would work, cause blitz3d uses the blitzbasic.co.uk or blitzbasic.com (or something like that) server for all these commands, right?

No, it doesn't.


To say hello to people? Yes. To run an online RPG? Not hardly. Bob could get a debugger out, change his gold to 5,000,000 and no one knows he cheated. Frank could build a house, and as soon as he quits the game, his house disappears because there's no server to store any data on. You could save the data on his harddrive, but what if Joe burns Frank's house down after Frank turned his PC off and went to bed? Frank still has a save with the house on. But no one else does, so when they play next, they're all playing in a completely different world.

In short, no, it's completely unworkable to have an online RPG ( massively multiplayer or not ) without a server.

ya but if they just log on to like battle, chat, trade, that would work right?

No, it wouldn't work. If Joe traded something with Frank while Bob was not online, it would have happened in Bob's world, so when Bob comes online, there will be no way for him to know that Joe and Frank have traded. You'd be constantly sending huge amounts of data to every player from every player, because the world itself was in no way persistent. It would end up being unplayably slow to even have two people, and it would constantly break and crash.

ya but the trade wouldn't need to be with bob, just frank and joe. bob doesnt even need to know about it.

Bob will need to know about it when he later trades with frank or joe :P according to Bob, frank and joe still have the same equipment as before they traded, which would be wrong.

If your talking about a small mmo, then mmo isnt the right word, if your talking about a small multiplayer game where you and your pals can login muck about and do stuff, then yes. your m8 on his cable connection can host a server.

Although like some one said above the upload / download rates would be poor they should be more than enough for a small group of people, but when you say mmo people think in the thousands. not tens, or twenties.

I would recommend that you make a small server to handle saving all the needed data and sending of all text messages to and from all connected clients and for developing purposes just have your m8 on cable host it. if you get something nice working then you can look at propper hosting later.

Take my advice here and DONT TRY IT. haha... sorry to sound so down to the whole idea, but just trust me. I took my Zelda TP like engine and have spent the last 3 months over hauling it for online only play. I have crap equipment to host a game(especially a mmorpg). My server is a dual 3.8GHZ Dell Precision workstation with 8gb memory. My connection is on a dedicated 8meg connection. I can only support about 200 people I believe. You have no idea the work that is required in taking on a task like this. You must have a server to store info, and even if you do... you will need to have error checking to prevent tampering and cheating. Plus the numbers have to be exact. Ive spent more time beta testing a combat system than anything just trying to make sure the numbers run correctly. The slightest flaw and a level 1 new user with a luck of the draw big stick could walk around and own everyone hehe. Anyways, youre on dialup, and you cant do it man. Start small and work your way up to bigger things.

peace.

Oh, but he does. "Why?" you ask? Simple. Frank trades with Joe and sells his +2 battleaxe to Joe for 120 gold. Bob is not online, and so his saved game has Frank owning a +2 battleaxe. About now, Bob signs in, and sees his old mate Frank. "What have you got to trade?" says Bob. Frank's inventory list comes up on Bob's screen and there's the +2 battleaxe which Frank no longer owns. Bob is intrigued and examines it, Boom, your game just crashed back to Windows because the item Bob examined is no longer in Frank's inventory.

And that's the most simple, basic example of the kind of problems you would get that I can think of. In reality, you would get much bigger, harder to find, more troublesome issues than that. You can't do an online RPG, period, because you can't have a persistent world. What you can do is have a fantasy world where people can meet up and chat, and perhaps have contests, play games, etc, but you have to approach it as a game which starts when the player signs in and finishes when the player signs out. You can't save data at when the player signs off, because anything you've saved could potentially be different when he signs back in again.