Multiplayer

Hello all, I was wondering if it was possible to make a multiplayer game using Flash 4 or 5? is it?

-Matt-

Yes, it is possible. But you'll need some kind of backend server script using php or perl to send the variables back and forth. I've already done a simple multiplayer test-game in flash 4 some time ago, and as soon as I get my new computer up and running I'm going to tinker more with multiplayer things.
You can find a great example here at flashkit. I don't know the exact link, but it's called "Experimental Penguins" and it's in the arcade. (games section)

Olorin

Mathew,

The joy of multiplayer games is the servers. Sadly Experimental Penguins is currently offline as we do maintanience on the server. We hope to have it back online in the next couple days. http://www.rocketsnail.com/games/penguins/

Bringing up the topic of multiplayer games. I would really like to know how everyone elses multiplayer projects are coming? Experimental Penguins has now been live for almost 6 months and we are starting to run into various issues. The largest issue is bandwith.

How it works
Allow me to share some of the inner workings. EPenguins uses a polling system of every 2 seconds. If your character has changed (position, location, body, or chat) then the server is updated with the new information. (Here's the secret everyone has been waiting for) The server takes the information (player state) and puts it in memory, this allows the server to quickly update all the other players without read or writing to a database and allows use to maintain minmum cpu usage.

Bandwidth
Currently EPenguins recieves 15,000 - 20,000 penguins a month spending an average of 20 minutes each. This generates approx. 3 Gigs a month. What I would like to know is how your multiplayer games are reducing bandwidth? We believe in our next game we can reduce the bandwith in half by reducing information patterns, and using a command based action system.

We have compared the performance of polling and sockets (xml/java), and bandwidth usage remains the same in a multiplayer enviroment. Primarly because of the constant feed of information. I would like to hear your thoughts.

Perhaps one day Macromedia will release the multiuser server for Flash.

Thanks

Is there anywhere I can get a tutorial on this. And for the server side could I use angelfire or something(I am poor...LoL)?

Mathew,

Server-side I really can't say too much because my programmer did it. I know he used ASP. Can you use Angelfire or something, sorry nope. Multiplayer games will require 2 servers. You will need one with a high speed connection and lots of bandwidth, and another for testing. The testing server can just be a old computer at your home so you can try new things.

Mathew7000, Sorry to bother you but your signature is messing up your posts? I turned your signature off, on your previous replies, to make this thread easer to read.

:) Please close all HTML tags, you use in your signature!

If you are still having problems with you signature, you can email it to me and I will help you troubleshot it!

Thanks!