So you want to make an mmorpg?

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Originally Posted by trogdor458

i just want to know how to send info over the web, as well as saving data.

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That doesn't shorten your list of things to learn much. That's pretty much what an MMORPG is, and sending information over the web isn't hard (hell, I've done it), but doing this quickly is another matter (you need serious equipment if you want even 2 people to play in real-time). And storing information is incredibly simple, too (again, I've done it), storing information securely isn't that hard, either. But storing the information securely, but with a hole in the security for Flash to be able to send and receive the data through? That's probably the toughest bit of making an MMORPG.

For sending information quickly, you're looking at having to write your own socket server, and get a commercial-standard internet connection (getting fast upload speeds costs a lot more than getting a decent download speed. Ever wondered why webcam chatting is so slow, when it's something your computer could quite smoothly stream from Google Video at a high framerate?), and for keeping information secure, you'll have to integrate with PHP and MySQL (the MySQL bit is the part that stumps me. It asks me for information which I don't seem to be able to find... that, and my database is broken).

wow, you replied to an incredibly old post. i figured that holding large multiplayer games would be impossible for a single computer to handle, but i didnt think even a simple 2 player game could go slow (are you sure it would?)

when i first came onto this forum, i thought of a setup something like this would help...

as far as info over the web, simple keystrokes as well as stats and positions would be sent throughout a group of ten players, each computer would then calculate the position of each player and stats and whatnot (based on the keystrokes, not the rest of the data), assuming no one is cheating, the game would run correctly

if someone WAS cheating, then their values would not match up with the values your computer calculated and would then send a message to the server, this would mean that one person would be saying 9 players were cheating, and nine people saying one person cheated, and that player would be booted off for a period of 24 hours

to make it a mmorpg, i figured having the groups of ten based on people in your area, that being decided by others x and y position. even then, only coords of people in the same map would be sending this data to you, with the rooms being linked through exit zones, and streaming whatever

but now you tell me that even a group of ten cant be supported?

Sorry for the reply to the old post, didn't realize that this topic was one that had been revived - I just saw it in the 'recent threads' area of the Games forum so decided to take a gander at it.

About the server limits - I'm as surprised as you are. In theory, my test should've been able to serve hundreds of people smoothly. Here's my thinking:

The average message would be like this: {1,m1}, which means player one moves in direction 1, meaning up, so a movement message would be 4 bytes long. 256 of those to the kilobyte, and I can send 16KB every second, so 4,096 movements can be made per second if the message length is that short (if the player's number is more than one digit long, this would make the message longer, but you could use hexadecimal to replace 10 with A or something). This could let 4,096 people move per second, or 2,048 people move twice per second, or 1,024 people move 4 times per second. Ideal framerate is the speed at which the human eye sees motion, 16 fps, so for smooth movement you'd have 256 people moving 16 times per second. Flash 9's binary sockets could shorten the message even further.

But for some reason, sending one keypress per player every 0.3 seconds ran at an inconsistent speed (especially for slower clients, which I find odd, since there was nothing intensive in the code or graphics, and the clients were on the same network as each other).

I suppose Mr. Grundvig will have to clear things up for us.

perhaps instead of making a tutorial on mmorpg's, like someone had suggested, there could be tutorial's on sending and recieving packets, and later on, hooking up several players for online gaming? unless i missed something, i didnt find things about sending things acroos the web in those help documents that come with flash, something about XML, and how you could use it to update stuff without having to change it in your swf, but that didnt sound like anything (maybe for highscores, but it didnt sound like it was for online gaming)

im sure posting one of these up would answer alot of problems (forgive me if its already in the knowledge database)

You'll want to look into XMLSockets and Socket Servers (ie ElectroServer, SmartFoxServer) if you don't know how to send data quickly in multiplayer Flash games. That's what my experiment used, but it's nowhere near as quick as I expected it to be.

so XML can be used? i found there was something about this topic in the knowledge base, but it led me to believe i would have to stray from flash

perhaps...we should not stray from the topic

Why has this been unstickied?

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Originally Posted by Ray Beez

Why has this been unstickied?

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i think there's still a link to it in the knowledge base

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Originally Posted by Squize

How many mmorpg's are there in Flash ? Let's say 10. What are the odds that even one of the developers of those 10 have written a tutorial ? Writing any sort of tut is quite an undertaking, one for a mmorpg would be huge.

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Do you know any non-Flash MMORPG tutorials? Because the only thing Flash would be good with MMORPG is to show final results to the player, the whole game itself would be still in the server, making the Flash quite irrelevant.

Never even looked to be honest, it's a genre I have no interest in.

In my reply I was just trying to emphasise how slim the chances were of their being any sort of Flash tut on the subject, and how the poster had totally mis-understood the theme of the thread.

My personal take on this whole Flash / mmorpg is, why ? Just 'cause Flash is a web based plug-in it doesn't automatically mean it should be used to do everything web based ( Such as mp games ).
I rate gameplay over technical achievement, that's why I'd rather play a NeonII or HA3 than a Dofus or a faux 3D engine.

Just 'cause something is possible, doesn't always make it a good idea to do. Like lighting farts I guess.

Squize.

You got to love the way Squize's expresses his ideas... "lighting farts"... gee where did that come from...

Just like to conjure up mental pictures to back up my words :)

Squize.

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Originally Posted by trogdor458

i think there's still a link to it in the knowledge base

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And how many of these "I want to make a MMORPG" nooBs read the knowledge base? Probably zero. But if they saw THIS thread up there, they'd be inclined to read it.

to tell you the truth, i dont read the knowledgebase either, i find it easier to understand myself then others

im probably going to have to go deep into the depths of the optimization thread though, i could use some help there

personally, i dont see how anyone would want to make a MAJOR multiplayer online rpg, unless they've got some sort of business set up, mmorpg's are tough! like my leadership teacher says, "it's that elephant you're trying to eat"

I'm trying to make an online rpg, because of pvp, But the online part is probbably a year away if not more, by then who knows, the game may not even be flash anymore =/