Ok, now before i start some serious down hard and durty work and design i have some , well, alot of questions for the community because i want to do what the community wants to do, so here are my questions for ya:
1) Before i start inital work on the networking engine, i would like to know which libary you would like me to use, i have pro's and con's for each libary so here we go:
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DarkBASIC DirectPlay Functions
PROS:
Faster Development of this project.
It uses TCP so more reliablity on knowing that your packet has been sent and recived.
More Stability for the server(s) hence the fact the functions have already been tested.
CONS:
Only 255 people per server. (Well the way to get around this is to have a server for each map/planet/instance and then have multiple servers per map/planet/instance. This will also bring up a PRO because it will create less lag. But also a CON because you have to have multiple applications up.)
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UPD WINSOCK
PROS:
Can have as many people as you want per server and will allow one application for everythang.
Tad faster then DirectPlay.
CONS:
Dont know if your packet will ever make it to its destination.
I would have to write a whole new networking engine from scratch which could take some serious development time and testing.
If you have one application for everythang... If one thang crashes you whole mmo crashes. Having a server per map will allow your players to still play but just not with that particular map.
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Ok, my next question is also about networking. Do you want all the packet structures premade? Or do you want me to allow you to make all the packets for the game using functions such as:
WriteInt_ToBuffer()
WriteByte_ToBuffer()
WriteFloat_toBuffer()
WriteWord_toBuffer()
WriteDWord_toBuffer()
ect....
Ok, now thats all my questions now i will give you an update on my plans.
I plan to start out by writting a MM-MUD (Massivly Multiplayer Multi User Dungeon). What that will allow me to do is see "Hey all my networking and database stuff are good an ready to go, now lets start loading object, sounds, ect... into the game an managing them". Its very smart to start out with this becasue it gets rid of all the hard parts, then just leaves me with loading in the objects and handleing them.
Now, right now at the minute i think what im going to release first is an "MMORPG Maker" for the fact that it will allow alot of testing for everythang that will be in the DLL. About mabe a month after the realease of MMORPG Maker i will most likly realse the DLL.
But before all that I will most definatly build and MMO and put a server up for testing.
Well that was a long post.... Thanks for reading it, hope you enjoyed it,
Lordcorm
DarkLegion Studios - Coming Soon